Thread: Account Sharing - Is it Okay?

Without sharing too many details, I've lately been hearing a lot about people sharing accounts. Example, person A lags very bad in Orthranc, so Person B plays their account and gets the toon through the instance.

Sounds fairly altruistic, but my question to the LotRO community at large is - is this allowed? When asking a GM in-game, they merely referred me to the CoC - which is strangely ambiguous. While it does seem to state that asking people for their account information is strictly prohibited, it doesn't explicitly say that Person B may not, under any circumstance, access Person A's account (i.e. Person A willingly offered his username/password to Person B).

Here I'm thinking it might be fun to swap account info with a friend and try out their toons, etc... but I'm not really interested in being suspended/banned from the game.

So LotRO community, and/or Turbine staff, is Account Sharing allowed, and if so, what stipulations are there?

Absolutely not. CoC violation.

No. Definitely not. marketroid explained why, years ago - they've had horrendous customer service issues dealing with shared accounts, things like an angry teen deleting his parent's equipment or characters, one spouse locking another out of an account during a divorce, friends getting a shared account banned for gold-selling/buying activity, etc.

It's a tough one to enforce, but if they can prove people are sharing accounts, those accounts can be banned. It's against the CoC to share login credentials with anyone. Not even family. If you do, the very best thing that can happen to you is that you have to take any consequences that come with that - they aren't going to help you if your ex-friend liquidated your stuff and send the gold to a gold-seller. The worst is that your account can be banned entirely.

Khafar

My question is...

If you and a friend are going to log into each others' accounts just to play each others' toons & try them out, why would anyone even have to know?

I know I access my own account from several different computers at several different locations.

So as far as anyone would know, it could be YOU logging into your own account from another location.

As long as you or your friend never complain about any account issues, I doubt it would even raise a red flag with Turbine. I think you'd be fine.

Originally Posted by Crell_1

Absolutely not. CoC violation.

Is it? My partner and I each have our own accounts,. but we also play each others at times. Most times Turbine cannot know who is playing an account....???

Originally Posted by Ceejay90

Most times Turbine cannot know who is playing an account....???

Doesn't change that its a CoC violation or that they can and will punish you if you're caught.

Seem to be two things in this thread:
1) It's a violation
2) It's okay since Turbine won't know.

If someone you shared the account with deletes something, you are stuck.
Expect no help from Turbine. Expect an account ban if you report it.

Say you've shared login details with someone.
If they are not someone who is close anymore, change your passwords.

Another concern. If your LOTRO login details are the same as any of your other accounts
you need to worry about more than just losing your raid armor

Originally Posted by Ceejay90

Is it? My partner and I each have our own accounts,. but we also play each others at times. Most times Turbine cannot know who is playing an account....???

Unless they post it on a public forum.

As I said before, it's hard to enforce this particular rule unless people are dumb enough to play from wildly different locations within minutes of each other. (Don't know if Turbine looks for that either). The main way it would be enforced is if you go to a GM with a problem and explain that you were sharing accounts:

"My teenage son just got my account temp-banned for gold-selling activity - can you unban me?"

"No, but we can permanently ban you for sharing your account"

The rules here say that you must have your own account, and if you're saving money by sharing an account, you're basically stealing from the game company. It's like buying a ticket to an amusement park, going in, and then passing your ticket through the fence to your friend on the outside so they can use it too. If you want to save money, have your friend/kid/spouse get on their own free account. Otherwise, pay for two.

Khafar

Originally Posted by Terms of Service, via link at bottom of page, section #15

You may not share your username or password with anyone, except that you may be required to disclose your username to Turbine employees to obtain support. Turbine employees will never ask you for your password.

Their remedy and yours is set forth in that agreement.



"Sometimes survival comes down to not being hit. Actually, most times." -the chicken skill, Bob and Weave

I have always allowed my children who live with my to use this acccount. I don't think it is a violation and if it is, that's ridiculous. I'm sure that many families do the same and if they start banning families for this they would lose a lot of paying customers. No it's not stealing at all. Btw, if I were to pay for another account it would still be my account since it would have my payment details... as I am the mother. However despite me being a life time member and founder, etc I still actually spend too much money in the game... but the family entertainment makes it worthwhile. Infact I spent a small fortune recently because my son wanted TP's for his LM as part of his birthday present this year. :-)

PS My children do not know my password because when my son does use the game on the same computer that I use, I already have it logged on. I would never share my password, not even with my children for the obvious reasons of having my payment information exposed. If TP's are purchased, only I can purchase them because once again my children do not know my password to the game nor to my paypal account. LOTRO is a family game and it is to be expected that parents will allow their at home kids to play. This is perfectly natural and not an abuse.

Originally Posted by Norwrei

I have always allowed my children who live with my to use this acccount. I don't think it is a violation and if it is, that's ridiculous.

It is a violation, and no, it's not ridiculous. If you take your kids to the movies, do you expect them to be admitted on your ticket?

The ToS link from RJFerret is clearest, but here's the information from CoC (http://www.lotro.com/support/1033-coc)

10. You may not advertise the intent to, commit the act of, or facilitate the ability of others to commit the act of, unauthorized selling, buying, transferring or sharing access to any Game account.

Of course, according to CoC #2 I may never tell anyone in the world my own name, since that is communicating real-life information about any player. I expect clearer violations of this one occur in kin vent-chats all the time though. I'd tell you I'm not a lawyer, but that would also be communicating real-life information about a player, so I won't.

Originally Posted by Khafar

<snip>

The rules here say that you must have your own account, and if you're saving money by sharing an account, you're basically stealing from the game company. It's like buying a ticket to an amusement park, going in, and then passing your ticket through the fence to your friend on the outside so they can use it too. If you want to save money, have your friend/kid/spouse get on their own free account. Otherwise, pay for two.

Khafar

How do you save money if the game is free to play anyway?

Originally Posted by Mark_J

How do you save money if the game is free to play anyway?

Because for those that buy points instead of say grind them an account wide unlock on 1 account is cheaper than buying point bundles for each account for the same unlock

Originally Posted by Kasich40

If you and a friend are going to log into each others' accounts just to play each others' toons & try them out, why would anyone even have to know?

I know I access my own account from several different computers at several different locations.

So as far as anyone would know, it could be YOU logging into your own account from another location.

As long as you or your friend never complain about any account issues, I doubt it would even raise a red flag with Turbine. I think you'd be fine.

Or if someone comes to the Forums, which are read and moderated by Turbine employess and SAY they've shared their account information, then Turbine would know. (Of course, you haven't actually done that. You just proposed a hypothetical situation, right?)

Originally Posted by Ceejay90

Is it? My partner and I each have our own accounts,. but we also play each others at times. Most times Turbine cannot know who is playing an account....???

And here is someone who has just TOLD Turbine that they are sharing accounts... Oops.

Originally Posted by Khafar

The rules here say that you must have your own account, and if you're saving money by sharing an account, you're basically stealing from the game company. It's like buying a ticket to an amusement park, going in, and then passing your ticket through the fence to your friend on the outside so they can use it too. If you want to save money, have your friend/kid/spouse get on their own free account. Otherwise, pay for two.

In an f2p world, that's a weak argument. The ones concerning problems arising from inter-player disputes are much stronger.

Originally Posted by Norwrei

I have always allowed my children who live with my to use this acccount. I don't think it is a violation and if it is, that's ridiculous.

Another person who has just told Turbine that they violate the ToS/CoC. Said documents aren't "ridiculous". They're a binding contract that YOU agreed to and have now stated--in public--that you routinely violate.

Come on guys, get a clue. If you're going to knowingly violate the the ToS and/or CoC, at least keep quite about it unless you're looking to create a test case to challenge the validity of the documents and have enough money to pay a lawyer to do so.

--W. H. Heydt

Old Used Programmer

my wife and i both bought our lifetime subs with the same CC, with both our names on it.

i dont rememeber ever attaching my name to my account beyond the CC used...


wonder how this would go down in a divorce court with division of property? who really owns each of "our" accounts.

Originally Posted by Sardonyx

It is a violation, and no, it's not ridiculous. If you take your kids to the movies, do you expect them to be admitted on your ticket?

Your analogy might make sense if multiple people could simultaneously log in and play.
Since they can't, it's more like having season tickets and giving a friend my seats for
a night.

Originally Posted by SapienChavez

my wife and i both bought our lifetime subs with the same CC, with both our names on it.

i dont rememeber ever attaching my name to my account beyond the CC used...


wonder how this would go down in a divorce court with division of property? who really owns each of "our" accounts.

From what I've seen in divorces, you'll keep the pants your toon is wearing and maybe a keg. But it will be on the lawn.

Originally Posted by darnd

Your analogy might make sense if multiple people could simultaneously log in and play.
Since they can't, it's more like having season tickets and giving a friend my seats for
a night.

What it's more like is if you went to see a movie, then gave someone else the same ticket afterwards that they could use to see the same movie for free.

If you give someone your season tickets, that means you're unable to experience the content that your friend got to see, which doesn't hold true with LOTRO.

Originally Posted by ThromOS

Seem to be two things in this thread:
1) It's a violation
2) It's okay since Turbine won't know.

It's like any other violation of law or regulation.

You shouldn't. But you don't get punished until you don't get caught.

But the joker in the deck is, young people (teenagers, e.g.), of whom I assume LotRO has its fair share, always think "Well, *I* won't get caught." Whether it's something illegal, or just plain stupid.

Back in the early days of Asheron's Call, when I was an Advocate (on-line volunteer help desk, without even the limited powers of a GM), every now and then I'd get a frantic /tell, "I just got booted from the game for 'CoC violation'! What did I dooooo?"

"Does anyone else besides you use your account?"

"Yeah, my brother and I both play on it."

"Any possibility your brother just logged in?"

"Oh. Yeah."

"The system will not allow two logins to the same account at the same time."

"Oh."

"You two better get another account, and each of you play on his own. Otherwise, this'll happen again."

It's understandable that so many people never READ the CoC, even though they have to click "I Agree" before they can get to character-creation. It's all chock full of legalese. Nonetheless, if you read the thing paragraph-by-paragraph (with your caffeine-delivery system of choice at hand), you will learn some useful things.

Originally Posted by darnd

Your analogy might make sense if multiple people could simultaneously log in and play.
Since they can't, it's more like having season tickets and giving a friend my seats for
a night.

Nope, that analogy doesn't work because when you get season tickets each ticket is a separate entity. It's like having a membership to a health club. They don't let your friends use it when you're not there.

All this analogy stuff is beside the point anyway. The Terms of Service that everyone agreed to says account sharing is not allowed.

If parents are not allowed to share their account with their children it will be very bad PR for lotro since it is a family game and they better start banning lots of families here starting with mine. That would be very sad. They also had better make this game for ages 21+ or only those who can verify their age with a bank account since children do not have credit cards, paypal and bank accounts to pay for this game. It doesn't take a lot of common sense to understand that's not what they meant when they wrote the CoC. Anyone who thinks this needs to get out a little more, unplug, get a life and get some sunshine too. :-) It's obvious to me what they meant.. no sharing with others not in the same household, sharing the same computer, etc.. you know family. That doesn"t mean it's ok to share with sister and her hubby, kids etc who live in ten buck two or wherever. That doesn't mean it's ok to share with your lotro best friend or buddy down the street either. All licenses, contracts and agreements are open to interpretation in any court of law. I think Turbine/WB are able to make intelligent decisions when they see something that they perceive as abuse and violations of their TOS or not. I also think they are quite aware that families do play who share the same household and that means the children of the parents. That's also not the same thing as sharing account info.

Originally Posted by Sardonyx

Nope, that analogy doesn't work because when you get season tickets each ticket is a separate entity. It's like having a membership to a health club. They don't let your friends use it when you're not there.

All this analogy stuff is beside the point anyway. The Terms of Service that everyone agreed to says account sharing is not allowed.

Oh yeah, you're right. Good call! Good analogies are tough Yeah it's definitely a moot point
since the ToS is pretty clear on it.

Originally Posted by Norwrei

If parents are not allowed to share their account with their children it will be very bad PR for lotro since it is a family game

Since only one can be loggd in at a time on the game how is it a family game if your unable to play together and enjoy the game together. That does not seem to be a family game or family entertainment to me but an excuse to violate the no shared account rule.

The game is F2P everyone in the house can have thier own account and play together or seperetly.
A parent can use thier CC Info or by game time cards or TP point Cards or even gift TP and VIP to thier chidrens accounts to give them the same advantages of the Parants account. I would think doing that and creayting a Family Kin makes it much more of a family game family entertainment then playing seperetly on a single account.

If you all have characters on one account and use it individually your in violation of the CoC.
If by doing that you purchase VIP for all characters or Gild cap removal and swift Travel for all characters then in reality your stealing from Turbine as those are meant to be account wide to one persons toons not to everyone living in a household.
Stealing is illegal and punnishable by the law as well as by Turbine banning your account.

Anyone who is trying to justify a shared account is just basicly trying too justify breaking the rule and stealing from Turbine.
I do hope someone from Turbine sees fit to look into this thread and ban the appropriate accounts as that is the result of violations of the CoC and account sharing.

A child can still have their own account and have their parents payment details or when the parent deems it ok to input their CC when needed.

I dont know how exactly Turbine handles it but in WoW a child can now have their own account in their own name (used to need an adult that would xfer to them when they hit legal age). I dont see why not to have each child have their own account (would be nice to have parental controls though to limit time if needed).

The more people that know your account info the more of a chance that i can get stolen, that is why in most cases in most games there are rules against it. Even family or those you trust can hose your account

Originally Posted by NickStern

Since only one can be loggd in at a time on the game how is it a family game if your unable to play together and enjoy the game together. That does not seem to be a family game or family entertainment to me but an excuse to violate the no shared account rule.

The game is F2P everyone in the house can have thier own account and play together or seperetly.
A parent can use thier CC Info or by game time cards or TP point Cards or even gift TP and VIP to thier chidrens accounts to give them the same advantages of the Parants account. I would think doing that and creayting a Family Kin makes it much more of a family game family entertainment then playing seperetly on a single account.

If you all have characters on one account and use it individually your in violation of the CoC.
If by doing that you purchase VIP for all characters or Gild cap removal and swift Travel for all characters then in reality your stealing from Turbine as those are meant to be account wide to one persons toons not to everyone living in a household.
Stealing is illegal and punnishable by the law as well as by Turbine banning your account.

Anyone who is trying to justify a shared account is just basicly trying too justify breaking the rule and stealing from Turbine.
I do hope someone from Turbine sees fit to look into this thread and ban the appropriate accounts as that is the result of violations of the CoC and account sharing.

Yeah, I'd have to say I'm with NickStern on this. If you want to play as a family, why not have multiple accounts? It's pretty easy to set up accounts for your kids and you can all play together (albeit not on the same computer). This is a pretty cut-and-dried customer service issue, from Turbine's perspective. If you're letting your kids log in and use your account, one of them may get mad at you for not taking him/her to his/her favorite oh, say, amusement park and decide that it would be fun to delete one of your alts or sell everything you have on the Auction House. Turbine doesn't want to have to be responsible for "all-in-the-family" hacking.

Originally Posted by whheydt

Or if someone comes to the Forums, which are read and moderated by Turbine employess and SAY they've shared their account information, then Turbine would know. (Of course, you haven't actually done that. You just proposed a hypothetical situation, right?)



And here is someone who has just TOLD Turbine that they are sharing accounts... Oops.



In an f2p world, that's a weak argument. The ones concerning problems arising from inter-player disputes are much stronger.



Another person who has just told Turbine that they violate the ToS/CoC. Said documents aren't "ridiculous". They're a binding contract that YOU agreed to and have now stated--in public--that you routinely violate.

Come on guys, get a clue. If you're going to knowingly violate the the ToS and/or CoC, at least keep quite about it unless you're looking to create a test case to challenge the validity of the documents and have enough money to pay a lawyer to do so.

--W. H. Heydt

Old Used Programmer

There used to be a provision for minor children to play under a pare ts account. I just looked and I do t see in a quick look, so either it's been updated or I'm thinking of another game.

But the key issue is, as you state, it is considered a legal contract, and minors cannot enter into contracts, which why there is a provision usually put in place to allow minors to share the parents.

Even if the teen create an account, it is or should be still considered the adults in the legal sense and would still be in violation of the coc for sharing. Since minors cant enter into contracts or agreements, no one under 17 (16?) can play the game since they can't have their own account.

Of if I'm in error on this, I'd like to learn.

Techically speaking even if a kid has his own account and the parent pays for it, it's really not the kids account.. it's still the parent's payment info. A lot of people have lifetime memberships and paid for them in advance and I for one was under the impression back then that it was ok for my kids to play. We only have this one computer anyway. I'm all for a new sub if they would allow us to transfer characters onto a new sub but they currently do not do that.. also it's still sharing account info regardless if it is a new sub or not. It will always be considered sharing account info to pay for an account or give payment info for someone else other than yourself. No matter how many accounts I create they will all still be my accounts techically speaking because it will always be my payment info. I will never give my payment info to my kids. Any of these kids using f2p in theory it's the same principle.. who is it that pays for their TP's etc? Oh but that's another pandora's box.

[QUOTE=NickStern;6138090]The game is F2P everyone in the house can have thier own account and play together or seperetly.
[QUOTE]

Remember the game has not always been F2P. So when my son comes to me and askes me to creat a toon or two I agree becuse I don't want to start a VIP account for somthing that might be a 6 months and forget fad for him. So he plays on my account and enjoys it. I then proceed to buy him his own VIP account. So now they have two accounts because I let my son play on my account first.

I know the ToS says and I have for the las 3 years tried to request a character transfer from account to account, but don't think this can be done. I am willing to pay for this service as well.

when F2P came around I am sure most people who might have "shared" accounts no long did.

Originally Posted by DATmadild

Remember the game has not always been F2P. So when my son comes to me and askes me to creat a toon or two I agree becuse I don't want to start a VIP account for somthing that might be a 6 months and forget fad for him. So he plays on my account and enjoys it. I then proceed to buy him his own VIP account. So now they have two accounts because I let my son play on my account first.

I know the ToS says and I have for the las 3 years tried to request a character transfer from account to account, but don't think this can be done. I am willing to pay for this service as well.

when F2P came around I am sure most people who might have "shared" accounts no long did.

A lot of people are in similar situations. This doesn't change the fact that it's against the ToS though. Turbine isn't really interested in hunting down people who share accounts and banning them though, it's mainly just to cover them so that they don't have any responsibility for support headaches that arise.

As for transfering characters between accounts, it's extremely unlikely that you will ever see this. It opens up a whole bunch of support headaches (e.g. people selling characters).

Turbine's policy is a logical extension of the standard membership contracts that have existed for hundreds of years for organizations, businesses and services such as professional groups - IEEE, community groups - YMCA, golf courses, alumni associations and so on. None of these allow sharing. Some like the YMCA offer bundles like family deals - each member of my family has their own YMCA picture id and membership file all linked to the family plan.

The biggest issue with online games is the difficulty in authentication. There is no easy way to make sure that it is Yula logging in and not friend of Yula. Even with a family plan for YMCA, there is room for messing with their minds. I could have brought an extra kid or the wrong kid. They might not been able to figure out what is going. In the days before picture ids, it was a lot easier.

As customer(s) you have to decide how much risk you are willing to put up with. You have to decide how comfortable you are with breaking the rules. You have to decide how much of your own honesty and credibility you are willing to give up.

Personally I find modern society is very annoying. Everywhere you look there is a rule, regulation or law against some behavior. The only opt out is to do without the product or service. I end up in the situation of agreeing to something that I have no intention of complying with. If they catch me, I will deal with the consequences.

Note the important part - I am aware of the rules. I am breaking them deliberately.

Once Yula gets forced in this corner and becomes a rule breaker. The whole concept of law bidding citizen goes out the window. Now I am deciding what rules I will comply with. In rebellion against the ones that bug the dung out of me.

Originally Posted by Sardonyx

If you take your kids to the movies, do you expect them to be admitted on your ticket?

So if you buy or rent a movie, do you not let anyone else watch it with you? Do you watch it all by yourself because you are the only one that paid for it? I doubt it.

From what I understand, it is against CoC to share your account info. Which would mean that if you logged on and didn't share your info with anyone else, you can let someone play as long as they do not know your info. So basically someone can use remote desktop software to access someone else's pc and log into the game from their location. Now, your friend can be playing your account at his house without you sharing your info with him.

Account sharing is a violation and there are many reasons for it. Some might not seem like a big deal and might ever seem a bit silly, but you cannot begin to imagine the drama that often ensues from account sharing.

In the past we have had family members delete other members items, housing, and even characters after a disagreement. We have had shared accounts banned for the actions of one party and permanently lost to the other party as a result.

That's without getting into the issue of charages made to your account by someone sharing it (which you are responsible for), or the things they may post to the forums (which has led to several bans).

This is all 'tip of the iceberg' stuff. I'd strongly discourage players from allowing anyone, even family members, from using their accounts.