What is the punishment for account sharing ?

[Deleted]

One of Blizzards rules is that you are not allowed to share an account unless it is with a minor.

Has anyone been caught and punished for it ?

There is a MVP chastising someone on the EU forums for not abiding by the rules, but also admits account sharing herself in the past.

On this thread http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/forum/to...1585121?page=2

Is it you can break the rules as long as you don't get caught. ?

Probably the same as buying gold, nobody does it but there are a lot of fat Chinese gold farmers selling it.

[pvrwizard]

I don't think blizzard actively looks for account sharing. I know they have some security in place that will temporarily lock an account if it logs on from different IP addresses. They might not be very helpful if someone you share the account with all of a sudden decides to steal all your gold, bank and delete all your toons if they suspect there has been account sharing.

[Tenjen]

Blizzard swat teams gun down you and all you love.

[BergErr]

I think that rule is there just so you can't blame a friend.
Most if not all games have it, never heard it being enforced.

[The Glitch]

You shall be beaten with 10 thousand whisks!.....and promptly made into an omelette that will then be force fed to the person you shared your account with

Seriously though , it is frowned upon, they have ways of knowing which location you are signing in from etc, and can lock down accounts if they suspect dodgy doings, (a friend logging in from your account from say another country then you log in from your own country, can send a red flag waving)

[Nerraw]

They have the right to close down the account. I highly doubt they do it unless there's a case of abuse going on though. I haven't heard of a single example where someone got banned because they let someone else play for a bit.

I would advice against hiring Asians to farm gold on your account though. Stuff like that is somewhat easy to detect.

[Yimereh]

One of Blizzards rules is that you are not allowed to share an account unless it is with a minor.

Has anyone been caught and punished for it ?

There is a MVP chastising someone on the EU forums for not abiding by the rules, but also admits account sharing herself in the past.

On this thread http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/forum/to...1585121?page=2

Is it you can break the rules as long as you don't get caught. ?

Probably the same as buying gold, nobody does it but there are a lot of fat Chinese gold farmers selling it.

I have no sources to back up my claim but I sincerely believe that Blizzard has a tier system for the rules of engagement in WoW. This rule is simply in place to remove any liability from Blizzard if you do share an account. Imagine you could put 2 names on an account and some altercation occurred which was causing both people to fight for ownership over an account, If blizzard endorsed account sharing they would be partly responsible for handling such things. Making account sharing against the rules I believe is more of a legal defense than an actual rule infraction.

[Deleted]

You shall be beaten with 10 thousand whisks!.....and promptly made into an omelette that will then be force fed to the person you shared your account with

Seriously though , it is frowned upon, they have ways of knowing which location you are signing in from etc, and can lock down accounts if they suspect dodgy doings, (a friend logging in from your account from say another country then you log in from your own country, can send a red flag waving)

I'd make a great omlette.

In fairness, account sharing basically costs you all possible arguments for your cause if you decide to ticket them about lost gear and the likes. And not to mention if you're account sharing, you're at a heightened risk because it means you obviously don't have an authenticator unless you're sharing the authenticator with an actual friend. And even then, still no leg to stand on if you're hacked.

[crakerjack]

I shared an account w/ my brother for the first year and half after release. I couldn't imagine sharing an account w/ a friend, that would be boring as shit. How would you even play with your friends?

[Orcindauh]

If both people are using the same IP then it doesnt even matter because you'll never get caught.

[Illiterate]

They don't care.

[quras]

They don't care.

Pretty much this.

Unless someone starts breaking all kinds of rules and gets on blizzards radar, they don't care.

I've got some army buddies sharing an account, on and off for over 7 years. Nothing has ever happened to them. I'd imagine they stay within the rules to not get noticed.

[RoKPaNda]

It's been my experience that they don't care unless you break some other rules as well. At one point I was in the US and had a friend in Australia that would login to my account and do tradeskill stuff.

I have a friend that couldn't do green fire or Wrathion's little duel when it was "new" - and so I did it for him.

[Windfury]

Not letting other people use your account is in the TOS, so it is a rule, and they can act on it if they choose to do so. Generally people who get caught are also caught selling challenge mode runs (or similar), or using a power leveling service. Those accounts have been closed.

I get the feeling it's something like name changes, they don't actively look for it, but act on reports of it occurring. And they have the IP checker that will lock your account if you log from a different IP address than normal as well (that you can unlock though obviously).

[Edlarel]

They try to discourage it, as you have no recourse if sharing your account and the person with whom you are sharing steals all your stuff. That's the idea anyway. You can (as I do) share your account with your child (my son) as long as that player gets their own account (to which they can transfer characters later) once they're an adult. It's all in the TOS and the general help information on the site if you search for it. There's a Q&A and everything (no, I CBA to look it up for you).

[Basemath]

No harsh punishment. As stated above, you only wouldn't be able to restore your things on the offchance they are stolen. So if you're sharing, do it with very close friends. And try not to share with someone from a different country.

I use my friend's account to abuse his alchemy CDs, mining, and to occasionally leech things here n there. The first few times I used his account, it got the temporarily automatic lock, which can be unlocked immediately through the email you receive. The system Blizzard has in place will 'adapt' to the different IPs logging on that account, assuming they are in the same country/city. Eventually it will stop locking said account.

[Aztrazolo]

It's not something they take action against unless it causes problems. An example being individuals who were sharing an account and now both wanting to claim ownership. When they can not verify whether the account is actually in the proper hands they just nuke it. But they don't get bent out of shape over it otherwise.

[Vargas]

I'd think that whoever was actually paying for the account is the owner in Blizzard's eyes.

I shared my account with my younger siblings for years, namely because we only had one computer that could play the game and there was no way we would shell out $45 a month for three accounts when only one of us could play at a time anyway. Never had an issue with it or them giving out our password.

[endersblade]

A friend of mine and I tried to get his account banned once, by logging into it rapidly from two different locations. He was on his laptop at work on the other side of town, I was at home. He'd log in, as soon as he got in-game, I'd log in, and we rapid fired this for about 30 minutes. Absolutely nothing happened >.>

I've shared my accounts over the years with other people who I trusted enough to do so. And people have shared their accounts with me. I met a guy back during Wrath who said he was taking a hiatus and just gave me his login info, and he lived several states away. I played his account for a while, leveling his main's JC and getting one of his alts to 80, and about 2 months later, he came back and started playing again. Again, nothing ever happened.

[Kuja]

I've never seen anyone get a punishment for account sharing with a friend, even with a different ip address.

But I've heard stories about buying power leveling, and getting suspensions or level reductions for it. So not sure. Maybe it's ok as long as you don't pay for it.