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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsBattle.net accounts required by November 11th
by Matt Low 
Oct 12th 2009 at 3:25PM
If you haven't merged your World of Warcraft account with a Battle.net account yet, you better do it soon! As a bonus incentive, players who do merge their accounts will receive Oswald the penguin! Those who already have merged their accounts need not worry as they will also get Oswald. Players that were involved with the Wrath beta may remember receiving one of these in the mail except he was known as Mr. Chilly then. I'm sure Oswald will make an excellent companion to Pengu (another penguin pet). Receiving Oswald is going to be a limited time offer. Blizzard hasn't officially announced a date yet, but they do plan on removing the ability to get him at some point.
Of course, not being allowed access into the game might be incentive enough to begin the account merging process!
For additional information, check out the Battle.net account FAQ, Instructions on creating a Battle.net account, a video tutorial on how to convert your account, or just make your account a Battle.net account now (US) (EU).
Note: There is a blue post saying November 12th, and the in-game announcement saying November 11th. If appears that EU players need to convert by the 12th, and NA/US players need to convert by the 11th. But be on the safe side and just convert your account now.
Filed under: Blizzard, News items, Account Security
Reader Comments (Page 4 of 5)
Skrotus Oct 13th 2009 8:26AM
I was an opt-in for the wotlk beta, I received the penguin pet when I created my temporary battlenet account used for the beta.
bendeese Oct 12th 2009 7:03PM
How did you make your UI look like that in the screenshot.
jbodar Oct 12th 2009 10:26PM
There are several mods that alter WOW's fonts. Not sure which is used there though.
Personally, I use tekticles:
http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/tekticles.aspx
Zula Oct 12th 2009 7:09PM
What if my account is not active? Due to school and Football I have no plans to activate my account before november 15th. will i still get the penguin?
FifthDream Oct 12th 2009 9:11PM
That's what i was wondering. I've had a battlenet account for a long while, but my account isn't active, and might not be for a few more weeks. I wonder if i'll be able to get the pet.
Hopefully someone will have an answer for us.
Ferret Oct 12th 2009 7:10PM
Of course this news comes a few days after I went through hell unmerging my account. For whatever reason the network at my university (where I'm currently living) won't connect when I try to log in with a bnet account... I can only hope that something on Blizzard's end changes, or the 30,000 of us at UNM won't be able to connect.
wizeguy Oct 12th 2009 8:11PM
This sucks. I don't trust Battle.net at all, LOADS of people I know who converted their accounts to it got hacked soon after.
I also enjoy having an account name that is DIFFERENT from my email, because that makes sure that hackers cannot find my email from any of the million online things that require me to input my email!
Even on accounts that hadn't been converted to Battle.net, hackers usually hacked the account and then converted it, to make it more difficult for the player to recover their account.
PS- I'm going to transfer my gold to an alt, convert it into titansteel bars, then bury them all in Tanaris. Try and rob me now, hackers! :-P
Also I'm going to ninja lots of stuff, so when the hackers log in they'll have angry GM's whispering them. Anyone for a Tempest Keep run?
jfofla Oct 13th 2009 4:17AM
There is a device called an Authenticator, you might have heard of it?
It is foolproof, absolutely ironclad. You cannot be hacked.
The best part? It is ONLY $6.95
Janaa Oct 13th 2009 5:53AM
Your friends got hacked because they inadvertantly installed a keylogger, or entered their details on a phising site, possibly in an attempt to get bonus pets or mounts, or used the same password for the battle.net account as they use on other websites where they also use the same email address - in all possible scenarios, your friends were at fault.
However, your friends did NOT get hacked because they converted to a battle.net account. There is nothing inherently unsafe about a battle.net account, and to date Blizzard have never had any user data leaks. The correlation you imply between battle.net conversion and account hacking is non-existant.
Kole Oct 12th 2009 8:22PM
What's interesting is that I merged a while back and ever since I have had issues. Everytime I want to change to a different server I have to log out completely and then back in. The only reason I say it had to do with Battle.net is because it had never happened before and only after the merge...
mitch Oct 12th 2009 8:28PM
My girlfriends account is actually a good friends account that he gave to her. Is this going to be a problem?
Now before you get your knickers in a knot about account sharing - he bought 4 (new) wow accounts with plans to multi box. He didn't get as far as making any characters on one of these accounts and it just sat there so to save my gf $30 and a trip to the shops he just her this one.
Obviously all account details are in her name now (apart from the actual name who is an rl mate who lives literally 3 streets from me) but is this going to create any problems with merging it with a battle.net account?
Also, is it worth putting her account and my account under the same battle.net? Or should we keep our seperate ones?
Thanks.
mitch Oct 12th 2009 8:31PM
so to save her* (missed a word lol)
Matticus Oct 12th 2009 9:00PM
For the sake of simplicity and less headaches, your girlfriend should make her own battle.net account and you should have your own battle.net account.
Galaredon Oct 12th 2009 11:53PM
That's what I was trying to say earlier. My account is actually a friend's account which he gave to me because he didn't like the game (he leveled to lv11 then got bored). Now the account details are mine exept for the name and I am wondering if I'm going to have any problems merging this account with my own Bnet account (under my own name).
SithLlenniuq Oct 13th 2009 6:51AM
IN all reality, your GF is safe. Until it comes down to talking to Blizz on the phone, then your going to have to talk to them (I assume your friend who tried to multi-box was male).
They are going to know if said account is under name: John Smith and Jane calls them.
I know this from previous experience. I had a leech called a roommate living with me and my wife. He saw me playing wow and wanted to get in on the fun. (Should have though that one over first, he wasn't working or cleaning the house as it was... now turn him on to wow?). Anyways so I went to [Insert HUGE and powerful shopping center's name here] and bought him the double pack, Vanilla and BC (this was before WOTLK). He never paid me back, never paid for one months subscription.... yeah.
Well my wife wanted to play when I was playing so after we sent the Leech packing we were like, yeah he never paid for this, its ours, lets just make it my wifes.
Then her account was hacked and we had to call Blizz to get it restored. Well my wife made the mistake of calling (I was at work). They kinda picked up right away that wife was female and the account was under a very male name. They asked her about it and she explained the situation.
Her account was perm banned for Account Sharing.
She had a level 70 Mage on it at the time too, she really never came back to wow after that.
So the moral of the story is:
Only use an account with your name on it.
Your safe and have all your bases covered.
Meg Oct 13th 2009 2:43AM
When/how do you redeem the penguin pet? I've had my Battle.net account for months but I don't see any information on when we will get the pet! :(
s_oanamonica Oct 13th 2009 4:18AM
Hey, i've been wondering about this. I've tried to merge and to my surprize i found out that the site required me to enter my WOW password... and I'm not very happy with this. Should I continue? does it do this to everyone? What do you think?
Matticus Oct 13th 2009 4:22AM
Battle.net is a site that's owned by Blizzard. In order for you to merge, you do have to submit your user credentials and your password. Otherwise, it would be easy for hackers to just submit anyone's user name without their passwords and take over accounts. How many accounts would be lost right?
So yes, you can trust Battle.net. Just make sure you got the right URL (us.battle.net).
kudos Oct 13th 2009 8:06AM
I wish I didn't have to use my email address for the account name. I just think that is stupid. That, and annoying to type if you sometimes share your computer with others.
Plaguefiend Oct 13th 2009 7:44AM
Me thinks this is the case as like some other poster said the very day Blizz announced that my wow-account is "merged" to some unknown email...some foul play is at work here, so hopefully support will contact me soon.