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Alts and Account Sharing
Jimmy_Scythe
Member CommonPosts: 3,586
Under the EULA of most MMOs, it's verboten to share your account. Question: Why allow a player to have multiple characters if he / she is going to be the only person playing on said account? Why do I feel like the banning of shared accounts is a somewhat sleazy way of keeping consumers from stretching their gaming dollars.
Here's a hypothetical:
You have two kids that want to play WoW and you have a strict two hours of game time a day rule. Would you A) buy them each an account, or 
Buy one account and have them each make one character for that account that they would play during their time to play the game? Question: What right does Blizzard have to stop me from saving money?
Another problem I have with forbidding account sharing is for traveling players that have their games installed on their laptops. If you're logging on from a different Wi-Fi hotspot couple of nights, they'll ban you for Account sharing since your IP will be different each time. WTF?!
While I realize that a lot of this is to stop people from selling accounts, I think this is a more than a little bit heavy handed and affects legitimate users just as often as gold farmers and account sellers.
Discuss....
Comments
It is more or less one of the hardly enforced rules.
Companies just legally make sure that there are no 'official' account sharing websites.
Imagine a website offering to play a wow lvl 70 character for $1 a day by sharing the accounts.
No company will ban you for sharing your account in your family or close friends, basically as they cannot even find out it is shared.
I'm pretty much in the same boat in that I connect from multiple sites, but I've been doing that for a while now and havn't experienced a problem. I understand Blizzards efforts to thwart powerleveling services and such but I fall back to who really cares about what a person does with their account after all they are the ones paying to play the game. TOS/EULA aren't legally binding agreements they are more akin to mutual agreed upon standards of conduct and it seems the player is the only one that is being held to that standard. I'm applying this to all MMO/MMORPG etc... on the market.
Game play changes without regard to previous standards, content created that negates earlier content, nerf bats swung with abandon etc... and who pays the price for some changes that aren't wanted? Everything that gaming companies do is centered around getting players to keep paying to play and the integrity to remain to true to the original concepts are thrown out the window when subscription fees are down. Account sharing is something people in certain situations do that and what you've described shouldn't raise any flags at Blizzard since it would be the same IP address. I however work at multiple sites within a tri-state area staying at one hotel for three to four days then move on to another filling in where needed. I spend 90% of my time at my home location and have been playing like this for a couple of years and have never had a problem.
I'm left to wonder what you're doing that has caused Blizzard to take notice that somethign is amiss since what you origianlly described wouldn't be a problem.... Unless of course you are using a PL service of gold farming company which would raise a big flag for Blizzard since the IP address wouldn't even be from the same country, and even I don't travel that much.
It's about trying to maintain a fair level playing field. MMOGs are often accomplishment centric, either by pursuit of items and wealth, or notoriety of deeds and abilities. Since many MMOGs are competitive on some level, most players desire equal access and rewards based on merit and expect developers to foster such an environment. Each character is supposed to represent one real live individual person, unless the game is designed for you to operate multiple characters on a single account like minions or henchmen. Each characters successes and failures should reflect the efforts of one individual, not multiple people playing the same character around the clock, or guildmembers playing each others accounts as buffbots or to powerlevel each other.
The example that was given about the two kids sharing the same account but playing individual characters is the least likely scenario. Most kids won't be able to maintain separate schedules. When school is out or it's the weekend, they will both want to play at the same times. They might also like to play together, it's a MMOG after all.
Obviously the reaon why multiple character slots are available, is so you can create different avatars and experiment with different classes or skillsets. As long as they are each played individually, there is no disruption to the fair level playing field.
As far as banning someone for logging into their account from a different IP/location, that is not against the rules and if you were to be banned for such a reason, you should raise hell with the game company responsible.
Yeah i don't think that the intention is to stop say a family from sharing an account and i don't think they'd ban the account if they found out... although as mentioned they wouldn't know as they'd all be playing from the same IP.
I mean friends wouldn't share accounts as they'd want to play at the same time, so its obviously to stop selling accounts and to reduce the transfer of money to third partys for ingame services such as levelling and grinding.
Its a shame that you can't travel and play but if you are that desparate to play, then having to cut back will probably be healthy for you
I actually considered what it would be like if you could only have one char per account... if they did do that then it would be anti-family sharing but they'd be screamed at from people wanting to try different classes. I quite like the idea myself though, people would play less as there is only so much you can do with one char per day and they'd get more into character, might even become more skilled at that class.
Not all games are like EVE Jimmy. In most MMOs, creating an alt is tantamount to playing the game again from a different perspective. Each class (ideally at any rate) provides for a different style of play. I'm a bit of an altoholic myself, I have a tendancy to fill my account up with characters that I played for only a few days before moving on untill I find one I like for a main.
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
Hemingway