Guild Wars 2

Hey. So I have a friend who owns gw2, tried it and didn’t like the game that much. I tried for months to convince him to try again and finally I was able to make a deal with him: he’ll come back to the game if I level up his char to lvl 80. My question is: is it against the rules to play with his account on my computer? I mean, I want get my friend to play guild wars 2 but I would much rather not have him than getting banned or something xD

Yes, it is against the rules.

Similar question: There’s a big holiday in Korea so my friend won’t be able to log into the game for daily log-in rewards. He wants me to log-in for him. Is this allowed?

Ayrilana.1396:

Yes, it is against the rules.

Could you kindly show exactly where in the rules?

Pretty much against the rules in every online game, but like, if you’re just doing it for the one friend, you couldn’t really get caught unless you went around broadcasting that you were doing it.

VladeKR.9851:

Ayrilana.1396:

Yes, it is against the rules.

Could you kindly show exactly where in the rules?

It was that thing every player had to accept upon playing the game.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/legal/guild-wars-2-user-agreement/

Andred.1087:

Pretty much against the rules in every online game, but like, if you’re just doing it for the one friend, you couldn’t really get caught unless you went around broadcasting that you were doing it.

I wouldn’t even trade anything to other accounts, so I wouldn’t profit. I would just lose some time to try and get a friend to join the game x)

I really dont know of anyone getting banned because letting someone else log in with his account, BUT:

9. (b) Each Account may only be used by one person. (…)

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/legal/guild-wars-2-user-agreement/

Germans get the caveat that people living in the same household are allowed to get access to same account. Dunno about other countries.

Sort of… But you won’t get (or get him) banned for it as long as you don’t make it a habbit. (The rules are mostly for account sellers or people that used to sell levels)

The question would be, how could they possibly find out you played his account to level him up. Sure they can see IP, but I’ve played GW2 at a friend’s house before, so it’s plausible that’s what took place.

The fact we discussed this on the forums may put you on some kind of list, however.

Andred.1087:

Pretty much against the rules in every online game, but like, if you’re just doing it for the one friend, you couldn’t really get caught unless you went around broadcasting that you were doing it.

Yah. On one hand it’s against the rules. On the other hand, I know of some family members who play on each other’s accounts. One guy I know leveled up his wife’s chars.

One of their big objections is the potential for one person to do something to someone else’s account that support will not reverse. For that reason they have it against TOS.

It is a gray area in the ToA.

Technically the TOA under 9(b) states:

Each Account may only be used by one person. If a minor has been allowed access to an Account under Section 9© below, only that minor may use the Account thereafter. Except as provided in Section 9© below, You may not make any assignment or transfer of rights, obligations or liabilities related to this agreement and any attempt by You to do so is null and void.

Now the first sentence is the gray part. What NCSoft intended for that to mean is up for interpretation.
Does it mean you can’t share an account between 2 people, IE you both play the account, therefore circumventing the need to buy 2 boxes?

Or does it mean you can’t share an account with anyone, ie the scenario of the OP?

Honestly, my interpretation is that NCSoft wants to make money, and therefore they do not want people to circumvent the having to buy the initial account.

I highly doubt NCSoft really cares about the OP’s question.

The only time they would care is if the account becomes compromised, and when you share your credentials you always open yourself up to this.

You probably wouldn’t be caught and penalized, but…

Leveling (esp the first char) is actually fun in this game. This isn’t WoW where leveling is a grind and THEN the fun starts. If your friend isn’t interested in map exploration and whatnot (even if its only as a 2 person team), they probably won’t keep their interest much AT level 80 either. Instead, I would suggest you offer to go through zones as a team so its more fun!

You could even look up some of the fun mini-dungeons and jumping puzzles to complete as a challenge throughout leveling to get him kinda hooked.

Draknar.5748:

The question would be, how could they possibly find out you played his account to level him up. Sure they can see IP, but I’ve played GW2 at a friend’s house before, so it’s plausible that’s what took place.

The fact we discussed this on the forums may put you on some kind of list, however.

I think a big clue is the post in forums.
Whether they waste time and resources on it is another question. Still do at own risk knowing it is against the ToS.

You would think it should not be against the rules as long as you already own an account, it not like you are trying to get a free account you already have one, you are just doing a friend a favor. I do understand why Anet makes it against the rules because of security reasons, if you give out your account info that’s a risk that they may do something to that account or have a key logger on there system and the said account gets hacked. Also there have been issues in game accounts where even the best of friends have had a falling out and one friend gets on the other’s account and does bad things to it then Anet will have to get involved and they don’t want to deal with these types of issues so they make it against the rules.

You technically do not own the account as it’s property of Anet. It is also not a grey area as there’s nothing ambiguous about each account being used by only one person.

BlackBeard.2873:

You probably wouldn’t be caught and penalized, but…

Leveling (esp the first char) is actually fun in this game. This isn’t WoW where leveling is a grind and THEN the fun starts. If your friend isn’t interested in map exploration and whatnot (even if its only as a 2 person team), they probably won’t keep their interest much AT level 80 either. Instead, I would suggest you offer to go through zones as a team so its more fun!

There is also the whole learning to play the character/class thing.

shrugs it’s like letting someone play you character for a while. I don’t see anything wrong with it, and hell, how would Anet even catch you? And I doubt anet’s intention is to soup kitten style take away control from anyone other than the one intended user.

But yeah, there are obvious reasons this is on the TOS. Just know the potential risks of letting someone else use an account. If you know them and trust them, I see no problem at all.

BlackBeard.2873:

You probably wouldn’t be caught and penalized, but…

Leveling (esp the first char) is actually fun in this game. This isn’t WoW where leveling is a grind and THEN the fun starts. If your friend isn’t interested in map exploration and whatnot (even if its only as a 2 person team), they probably won’t keep their interest much AT level 80 either. Instead, I would suggest you offer to go through zones as a team so its more fun!

You could even look up some of the fun mini-dungeons and jumping puzzles to complete as a challenge throughout leveling to get him kinda hooked.

I completely agree with you, but my friend doesn’t xD He only likes “endgame”. Thinks leveling up is boring even though this is not WoW. (and yep he’s a WoW player)

I’m going to have a LAN this week with him and some other gw2 players. We’ll just try to convince him to level up with us. Maybe it’ll work. Thanks for your help guys!

Andred.1087:

Pretty much against the rules in every online game, but like, if you’re just doing it for the one friend, you couldn’t really get caught unless you went around broadcasting that you were doing it.

Andred.1087:

you couldn’t really get caught unless you went around broadcasting that you were doing it.

Andred.1087:

unless you went around broadcasting that you were doing it.

Andred.1087:

broadcasting that you were doing it….

Kind of how you are doing it right now, posting this question on the GW2 official forums. Either way, its not a big deal, and I don’t think anyone at A-Net will take interest in your situation. But, once I read this previously mentioned response, I couldn’t help myself.

It’s technically not allowed, but you should be fine unless you tell everyone you’re doing it, like posting it on the official forums or something.

is against the rule but yet again, how they gonna find out anyway…..
but u have told us all…ermm…

Yasi.9065:

I really dont know of anyone getting banned because letting someone else log in with his account, BUT:

9. (b) Each Account may only be used by one person. (…)

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/legal/guild-wars-2-user-agreement/

Germans get the caveat that people living in the same household are allowed to get access to same account. Dunno about other countries.

Imho this section means that there has to be one “main” user of the account. You can not buy and use an account together with some friends. Like friend a may play from 8-12, friend b from 12-4, friend c from 4-8 etc.
Also you are not allowed to make an account publicly available.
And – and this is the most important part I believe – you are not allowed to transfer the account to someone else, like on ebay etc. Because then the account would be used by more than one person. It’s bound to the one person who bought it.

I think ANet won’t ban people for helping friends or logging in to get daily rewards or anything for them. I can not guarantee nor will I encourage people to do this, but I see this realistic mixed with some idealism.
Why would ANet have a problem with this? There are so many bots, cheaters, spammers, scammers and other bad guys out there worth being banned. Why should they ban someone for actually helping a friend?
If they ban both, one for using another person’s account and the other one for sharing the account they will lose 2 people caring about the game so much they wanna pull people in (by leveling their characters) or helping them (by doing dailies while friends are unable (hospital etc.)). That would be a really bad idea for a publisher banning those people enjoying the game most.

As stated before, this is my opinion, I can not guarantee for your safety. All I do is hoping that ArenaNet feels the same way as I do and loves their fans as much as their fans love them!

An official statement would be nice though….

Schumi.4285:

Like friend A may play from 8-12, friend B from 12-4, friend C from 4-8 etc.

Also called shared accounts.
Which were quite common for a lot of things not to long ago. We even had a steam account waaaay back then, where 3 guys would purchase games on it so everyone can play em :s
Not to forget If it was allowed I always shared all my MMO accounts with my close friends. We’d play different roles/accounts every other day and had loads of fun.

Nowadays, often it is forbidden. Sad actually.
Though I am almost 100% sure that there have been shared accounts on halloween that had a 24/7 uptime.

Schumi.4285:

An official statement would be nice though….

Indeed.

He wants to play at level 80 but not level his toon. Sounds like a WoW player. What is the point of playing max level if you missed the journey to get there.

Not so sure about it being against the rules, who says I can’t play on my account at my friend’s house on his pc? Respectively who’s to say your friend is not playing on his account on your pc? There’s no way to tell

Account Sharing, has ALWAYS been against every single rule that a developers has enforced, where the games need to be played online.

Account Sharing is pretty much one of the biggest reasons why some people get hacked. You give your account information to your “friend” whom you have no clue what their computer security is like.

Also you can never trust your friends unfortunately. You could end up with a banned account because your “friend” wanted to test out some 3rd party software (bots) and it results in your account being banned.

Finally for people who say “show me this in the rules” are basically people who are already account sharing.

“I think ANet won’t ban people for helping friends or logging in to get daily rewards or anything for them. "

“An official statement would be nice though….”

/facepalm

The official state is in the kitten link that you were given. Seeing as you are too lazy to find the right section I will provide it below.

2. LIMITED LICENSE — SERVICE, CONTENT AND SOFTWARE LICENSED NOT SOLD

Additional License Restrictions — You acknowledge You will not directly or indirectly:

sell, sub-license, rent, lease, grant a security interest in, borrow, lend, loan, network or engage in any activity that could in any way transfer or provide others access to any Service, Content, Software, or parts thereof, including but not limited to any serial code number, access key or the like.

The above means YOU CAN NOT SHARE/SELL/TRADE/BUY ACCOUNTS!

Now moving onto the next section:

3. DURATION OF AGREEMENT, ACCOUNT TERMINATION, REFUND REQUESTS

Account Suspension and/or Termination for Cause — NCSOFT may suspend and/or delete Your Account for cause (e.g., You breach, violate, or otherwise fail to comply with each and every provision of, this agreement) as well as any other Account ID, Account Display Name, NCSOFT Message Board ID, Character ID, Team, and/or characteristics related to an Account ID. Any suspension and/or termination under this Section 3©, as well as the timing thereof, shall be conclusively determined in the sole and absolute discretion of NCSOFT. Suspension and/or termination of an Account under this provision also suspends and/or terminates (as applicable) any license granted by NCSOFT under this agreement but does not affect any other provisions of this agreement.

So the above means … You can have your account banned, if you are caught trading/sharing/buying/selling accounts.

Just have some common sense and avoid getting your account banned. if your friend really wants to play Guild Wars 2, then tell them to buy it themselves. I’m sure they can afford the cost, even if they get a paper delivery job or ask their parents to use their credit card.

zDicerXz.8567:

Not so sure about it being against the rules, who says I can’t play on my account at my friend’s house on his pc? Respectively who’s to say your friend is not playing on his account on your pc? There’s no way to tell

Actually this is the beauty of IP tracking and behaviour/language. Also Arena.net holds the right to ban your account for ANY reason, WITHOUT warning.

If your friend was to be an kitten and delete your items/characters/gold and you contacted Arena.net, most of you account sharers will say “Oh noes I’ve been hacked please help!”

They would look at your account acccess history and see that no one hacked you, but you were logging in from your normal location(s) and thus you won’t get any help, apart from the reasons of “don’t share your account and you won’t have this kind of problem.”

But again common sense. People who think they can get away with something, normally end up, the ones crying the most, when they’ve been banned.

I really can’t believe this question’s had to been asked and even sparked a little discussion and debate. It’s not a grey area – it’s a big, fat no. Even if no monetary or in-game transaction has taken place, it’s still an unfair advantage since one person has essentially gained another person’s time. That account is now better off than if the owner had been using it as they otherwise would have. Not to mention potential security issues (I know family and close friends aren’t going to steal your account (I’d hope, at least…), but where do you draw the line for trustworthiness?).

Besides, as much as I’d love to drag some more friends into this game, having them play only if you level them up to 80? That’s a terrible deal. They’d have no idea how to play, plus a ton of the game would already be done for them – so they’d just get bored about having nothing to do.

Oh and last but not least for those who still want confirmation.

9. ACCOUNT ACCESS AND PERMISSIBLE ASSIGNMENT

By clicking “I ACCEPT” You warrant and represent that you: 1) are at least 18 years of age and otherwise legally competent to read, understand and accept the provisions of this agreement on behalf of yourself; 2) are at least 18 years of age and otherwise legally competent to read, understand and accept the provisions of this agreement on behalf of yourself and a minor age 13-17 for whom you are legally permitted to allow access to the Game; or 3) are a minor age 13-17 who has been authorized to click “I ACCEPT” under the provisions of Section 9© below. YOU ARE HEREBY FOREWARNED THAT NCSOFT MAY, IN ITS SOLE AND ABSOLUTE DISCRETION, EXERCISE ITS SECTION 3© RIGHT TO TERMINATE BASED ON FAILURE TO COMPLY WITH THE CRITERIA ABOVE.

Each Account may only be used by one person. If a minor has been allowed access to an Account under Section 9© below, only that minor may use the Account thereafter. Except as provided in Section 9© below, You may not make any assignment or transfer of rights, obligations or liabilities related to this agreement and any attempt by You to do so is null and void.

So there you go boys and girls. You are NOT allowed to share your account. Unless you happen to be a father/mother and your son/daughter wishes to play. If you do get banned and you say “Oh it was my son/daughter”, you will need to provide photo ID (yours and your son/daughter — passport/drivers license or national ID card for example) along with a birth certificate

I was kindly warned by tech support a while back that allowing someone else to access my account is a bannable offense.

That said, there is no way for them to know unless a problem arises that gets customer service involved. Or if your account is constantly logging in from different IP’s, as that is probably a red flag for gold sellers or something.

My advice… make him log in himself… and walk through maps, events, wvw with him together. If he’s not interested in discovering the game himself… leveling him a toon wont make him stay for long. My experience

Overall Triatt.9154, you will just get your account either:

Suspended/Banned/Hacked.

So personally I would really recommend you just tell your friend to buy the game. It has no monthly fee and it’s cheaper then most games out there, with a monthly sub or 5 hours worth of gameplay.

But putting your account at risk, just isn’t the smartest idea. People in this thread who said it’s fine or that we should get an official statement are probably people who are sharing or who have sold/bought the account they are currently playing on.

If your friend can’t afford the game and you really want him to play, then help him out with the cost.

Just use common sense. We can’t force you to not share your login details, but if you do get hacked because your friend was stupid, then you only have yourself to blame.