When it's not nice to share
by Dan O'Halloran 
May 29th 2007 at 6:00PM
We're all taught from an early age that it's nice to share. But not when it comes to your WoW account info. And I don't just mean e-mail scammers posing as Blizzard employees asking for your password. What I'm referring to is something that is something much more rampant and just as damaging to your WoW account's continued existence: willingly sharing your account information with a brother/roommate/guild mate/girlfriend, etc.For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, allow me to spell it out:
If you're caught sharing your account, Blizzard will ban that account.
You'd think this fact of WoW life would be well known, and I believe it is, but many players are choosing to ignore this rule at their own peril. Why? A few rationalizations seem to be popping up over and over. Here are a few of my favorites:
- "I won't get caught" - Tell that to the top teams in the recent Arena tournament.
- "I can't make it to the raid and I'm the only [insert class here]" - When you hand your password to one guildmember, is there any guarantee its not going to get passed around the guild?
- "My girlfriend/best friend/alien overlord wanted to play" - Tell them to try a trial account. Its free.
There is one exception to the sharing rule and that is if the player is a minor child, then the parent may access the account. Any situation other than that and you open yourself to logging on and finding all your gear missing or not being able to log on at all. That trial account is looking better all the time, eh?
Filed under: Blizzard, News items
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Blah blah blah May 29th 2007 6:15PM
i'm puzzled, barring any outrageous behavior, how exactly would some get caught?
Blah blah blah May 29th 2007 6:16PM
*someone
jayus May 29th 2007 6:20PM
Well if you don't trust your best friends with your wow account details, frankly you have crappy friends and bigger problems then WoW.
TecnoBrat May 29th 2007 6:23PM
Well, Blizzard has the ability to look up the country/state that your IP is registered to. This allows them to quickly see who is logging into what account. They have some very good programmers there, I wouldn't say it is difficult for them to develop something that records when and where an account is logged into from, and flags it for review. Actually, thats quite a simple thing to do.
Especially when I know people who let people who are in NZ / CA login to their account that is normally logged into only from the US.
Jem May 29th 2007 6:33PM
There is another exception, working in reverse. If you have a child who is a minor or you act as the guardian for one, you can let them play your account no worries. I believe Blizzard doesn't expect them to pay for the monthly subscription or expect you to shell out of an extra one. It's the way my 12 year old brother gets to play. (I'm technically one of his guardians) Not that I haven't come back to my account before to find a warning from Bliz for offensive behaviour.
Needless to say he didn't get to play for a good long while.
Pingmeister May 29th 2007 6:42PM
I would guess that most of the time they find out when some dingbat is suspended for offensive behavior and their excuse is "but it was my friend!!!!!"
Corrodias May 29th 2007 6:47PM
As i recall, they caught the arena team members because getting to the next stage of the tournament required them to register themselves and their names didn't match those recorded on the accounts. To me, this seems as obviously foolish as taking a stolen (or even borrowed) credit card to a car dealership and trying to buy a car with it.
Archaic May 29th 2007 6:49PM
Didn't Blizzard once have it in their terms of service that this wasn't an issue, if the people using the account lived under the same roof? And that you'd be able to transfer characters from that account to a new account owned by someone from in that household? Or was that all just hearsay?
tuxthepenguin May 29th 2007 6:53PM
I believe they are getting better, but they nearly banned my account. Why? I travel, a LOT.
I use my laptop to play. Usually from whatever hotel I stay in. But a few months ago, I was on a big trip to China, Indonesia, Singapore, etc. About halfway through the trip, I could no longer get into my account.
Come to find out, I was banned. They fixed it, even gave me a month of free play, but still...
You'd think they'd use MAC addresses just to be certain.
Sarah May 29th 2007 7:05PM
Mac addresses would solve most of the issues, except for the few of us who have more than one computer (myself included), but even then it'd be a clearer way to keep track of account sharing, as I am one of those people who travel 100% of my working time, I don't think I'd appreciate getting banned because of that..
Duncan Watson May 29th 2007 7:11PM
@10
MAC Addresses would not solve this issue. I copy macs around all the time to get around stupid sw that decides it wants to keep track of layer 2. Additionally my license allows me to log into my account from other computers. It is foolish to break that to impose arbitrary restrictions.
It is all about getting caught right now. If the person you share your account with is not trustworthy then you may have to face consequences when you get caught.
But if I share with my wife and she is trustworthy then ... no one will know.
skuska May 29th 2007 7:21PM
Logging MAC addresses is not a panacea, they can be spoofed just as easily as IPs can change. Unfortunately, the problem cannot be solved purely by technological means; unless, of course, they require that you install video surveillance in your house and they monitor you that way. I'm actually surprised that Blizzard hasn't started implementing this "security solution", as they already think its ok to monitor what you do on your computer in order to "protect" their product.
haust May 29th 2007 7:29PM
@3 : well may be not your best friends. But how about the friends of your best friends ?? Then the friends of the friends of your best friends ?? etc.
How far goes your trust ?? tell me....
Duncan Watson Sep 20th 2014 7:01PM
Technically I could spoof video surveillance as well. This is an old problem, Blizzard is playing the little dutch boy with the dike. The dam will break.
gokufencer May 29th 2007 8:06PM
Funny, my brother and I both share an account. He has a 70 Resto Druid and I have a 70 Fury Warrior. We're both Ally, same server, and yes, the same guild. Makes raiding a little harder for us, doesn't it?
I also let friends that haven't played WoW on the account...but I log them in and they're at my house.
lolwtfstfu May 29th 2007 8:11PM
however millions of ppl do it (me included) and blizzard wont go too far to ban over a million of their customers
This is the stupidest thing ever, and i almost lost all my respect to blizzard for this. This is something people will always do with teh music sharing age.
taintedmage Jun 2nd 2007 4:04PM
I let my friends share my account they have characters on it and everything but I am the only one who knows my password and if I'm around them I'll type it in for em and they can go on there chars so i still control the account
Kim May 29th 2007 8:28PM
And you could get caught as easily if someone wanted to dob you in. I have a friend in the top guild on my server and often when I message him to say hi I get a "sorry, this isn't ". If I was someone else, not a friend or I was a vindictive ex or a competitor from another guild I could easily dob him in and their entire guild would probably get banned since it's apparantly pretty rampant.
Kim May 29th 2007 8:38PM
Woops. that was supposed to say "sorry this isn't =player name=" but I used left and right arrows around it and they didn't show up int he post.
Zuty May 29th 2007 8:58PM
I just got banned from WoW because of this.
Basically, I got up for a few minutes and someone at the gaming center place I was at went on and tried asking someone for there account info to trade.
I had no idea this happened and the person he whispered never replied back when I got back on.