Battle.net Accounts and you: How I merged 7 wow accounts to 1 login.

[Svpernova09]

Please don't go blindly into this, I'm writing this out to explain the benefits of consolidating your multiple accounts into a single login battle.net account. Make sure you read all the FAQs before you get started. At the time of this writing this is only available to US accounts.

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=15864256387&sid=1

Here is the blue post on the official announcement. The thought of being able to log in to all of my accounts with a single log in was the big reason I wanted to do this.


Here is where you create your battle.net account:
http://us.battle.net/account/creation/landing.xml

If you don't already have a battle.net account, go ahead and create one. It will very your email and once you have clicked the link to activate the account you can log in and manage your games. Simply click "Add a world of warcraft account" and you'll be asked for your log in (and authenticator if applicable). It will also verify you are the only user of this account once you have added your first account.

This is what the main battle.net account screen will look like once you've added your accounts.
http://www.halosrealm.com/images/dual-boxing/manage-games_sml.jpg ('http://www.halosrealm.com/images/dual-boxing/manage-games.jpg')
(Click to Enlarge)

From here is where you can start to see the benefits, You can click on Manage Game and it takes you to the WoW Account Admin site and you can edit all your info there. Also there is a new drop down box at the top so you can instantly swap to any account without having to log out and log back in.

http://www.halosrealm.com/images/dual-boxing/account-management.jpg

When you log in game, you'll use your new battle.net log in and you'll be prompted as normal for your authenticator (if you have one) and then you'll be given a box to select which account you want to log in.

http://www.halosrealm.com/images/dual-boxing/login-accounts.jpg

When you log in your battle.net account into the forums, the select character screen will have access to all of your associated accounts:

http://www.halosrealm.com/images/dual-boxing/forum-toons_sml.jpg ('http://www.halosrealm.com/images/dual-boxing/forum-toons.jpg')
(Click to Enlarge)


So I can log in to forums, account admin, and game with 1 log in and then change / play / post from any of my toons on any account? Finally Blizzard, I give you credit for a great functionality change.

[Spatulor]

Looks good, and very convenient, but would it mess with logging in multiple accounts via keyclone by adding the extra step of selecting an account from the list every time? Or can you still log in a lone WOW account instead of your battle.net account?

[Svpernova09]

Looks good, and very convenient, but would it mess with logging in multiple accounts via keyclone by adding the extra step of selecting an account from the list every time? Or can you still log in a lone WOW account instead of your battle.net account?I just tested it, and once you authenticate it kicks you out with an error saying you must login via your battle.net account.

[zanthor]

So I can log in to forums, account admin, and game with 1 log in and then change / play / post from any of my toons on any account? Finally Blizzard, I give you credit for a great functionality change.

The ONLY thing I don't like about this is that I now have to carry my authenticator if I want to post from anywhere but home... of course, I really shouldn't squander my time elsewhere so it's not ALL bad I guess.

[zanthor]

Consider the negatives as well.

An account hacker / keylogger now only has to get one account to access all your accounts. :(One authenticator solves that. I'm honestly surprised that blizzard didn't add them to the retail box and require them for lich king.

[Basilikos]

Somewhere I read about an authenticator APP for iPhones and other "computer phones" coming soon. I'm not sure I'm comfortable with this concept.
I can't put my finger on it, but something about that sound wrong to me, too.

[daviddoran]

This is awesome!! I have 7 accounts and its a little annoying to have to log out of one acct to switch a toon. This should make it very easy!

But how do you log in with keyclone? I normally just enter my password, and authenticator ID, and go, but if you have to select from a dropdown....

[Maxion]

So how does it work to log in multiple times at the same time using keyclone and the battle.net account? will we just have to click which account we want in each window? Will there be an option in the config.wtf file to designate which account we want it to have selected by default on startup? (like how you can have an account name there, and even last character index)

[Svpernova09]

This is awesome!! I have 7 accounts and its a little annoying to have to log out of one acct to switch a toon. This should make it very easy!

But how do you log in with keyclone? I normally just enter my password, and authenticator ID, and go, but if you have to select from a dropdown....I was talking to keyclone about this earlier and if you're using maximizer and saving your account names in the commands, this is going to add an extra step in logging in. So be aware of it before you do it, as it is an unrecoverable change. You type in the SAME user name and password for EACH wow instance you're logging in, hit enter, prompted for Authenticator, then you're shown a screen where you have to click on which account you want to login. This isn't a huge deal for me because I just hit my keyclone swap keys and swap around and select the accounts then swap back to main. Your aggravation / nag level may be lower than mine.


The phone authenticator app: http://us.blizzard.com/support/article.xml?articleId=26109

You can either have a normal authenticator, or use the app. NOT both. But it is only available for Korean providers atm. Not in the US/EU yet.

[zanthor]

The phone authenticator is hot. They release that in the US and I'll be migrating to it ASAP. I hate big keychains, which is why my authenticator sits on my desk at home.

[nomenquis]

One question about it from me:

Does logging into several accounts from different computers still work if all are on the same battle net account?

[Zzc2]

I just hit the WoW limit on this. You can only have a max of 8 world of warcraft accounts. it sucks.

http://img172.imageshack.us/img172/7593/max.png

[zanthor]

Wow weaksauce.

I can only assume they know how many users have 10 accounts... I personally have 7.

[Vyndree]

The problem is that actual programs can be reverse engineered to figure out the algorithm of the phone-authenticator. Let's hope they use a seperate algorithm for the physical authenticator and the phone version.

Granted, given enough data anything can be reverse engineered. I just don't like making it easier to do.

[puppychow]

I thought about enabling all my accounts on this but decided against it. Couple reasons:

1. If you read the FAQ, they mention "future benefits". What if every blizzard.net account gets 1 shot at a SC2/Diablo2/etc beta key, no matter how many sub-wow accounts you have? I'd rather have 5 (or whatever) seperate blizzard.net accounts that each have a shot at a beta key than 1 account that has 1 shot. I'm sure more stuff will pop up too, and its easier merging later down the road than now when the benefits are unclear.

2. As discussed, once you have multiple wow accounts on one blizzard account you have an extra step upon login. Does it remember what wow account you used last, so you can just hit return? If not, its adding an extra step to login, especially if you have to tab through and select on every window (UGH!)

3. Its irreversible. If I could split the account back out then I'd be fine, but its a one way step and the benefits are fairly minor (the number of times I login to web admin pages is maybe once every 4 months).

re: authenticators, I'd guess its basically a algo that streams a series of numbers till the battery dies, and the seed is the serial number. ie if anyone is able to grab your auths serial number they could theoretically 100% clone your authenticator (I'm basing this on the assumption that the only thing the server knows is the serial number, so probably the algorithm essentially takes as input the serial number and current time and returns a generated number -- an iphone app would simply ask for your serial number and be able to keep up exactly always, hell you could probably write a desktop app to do this too... kind of scary actually).

[zanthor]

The problem is that actual programs can be reverse engineered to figure out the algorithm of the phone-authenticator. Let's hope they use a seperate algorithm for the physical authenticator and the phone version.

Granted, given enough data anything can be reverse engineered. I just don't like making it easier to do.It would still be seeded in some fashion, which would require not only knowing the method used to create the number, but the seed as well. This of course is possible if they malware your phone and somehow manage to tie it back to your computer that you play wow on and keylog that machine as well. Of course, I could see this being an issue for any device that actually connects tot he computer to sync - but for phones that don't ever get connected directly to the PC the odds of this happening are very slim at best.

I agree it's not as secure as a physical device, but it's far more than adequate for the seperation of account from physical token for me.

[Xinxo]

Just as a note, once you login and out, you do not need to select what account you use. A box will show up under where you put your password in to which account your logging in to.

[Zzc2]

I thought about enabling all my accounts on this but decided against it. Couple reasons:Thats all good for now,but after reading the FAQ on it...




Q: Is creating a Battle.net Account required to play World of Warcraft?
A: Currently, creating a Battle.net account and merging World of Warcraft accounts is entirely optional. However, as we continue to build additional functionality into the new Battle.net, we will eventually require all active World of Warcraft accounts to migrate over to Battle.net Accounts in order to continue playing. Additionally, all future Blizzard Entertainment games such as StarCraft II and Diablo III will require Battle.net Accounts.

[keghia]

I know I'm sorta jumping the gun on this a bit, but if Blizzard is going to enforce the use of this in the future and the battle.net interface only supports a maximum of 8 accounts, how are the 10 boxers going to play? Are they just not going to allow someone to box more than 8 characters?

[Xinxo]

Make more then one battle.net account.

[warwizard]

Heh this is also to help stop account selling

[Stealthy]

Actually this will be convenient for anyone using the time cards - no more logging in and out to add a card number for each account.

Also I would hope that character transfers between accounts should be turned around faster without the credit card temp blocks you get from moving multiple toons.

Cheers,

S.

[Nitro]

Also I would hope that character transfers between accounts should be turned around faster without the credit card temp blocks you get from moving multiple toons.

Cheers,

S.


Awww I just got my druid team to 80 today so i was gonna transfer some big blizzard bears from my shaman accounts but i am blocked for 30 days because i put everything under battlenet accounts, harsh.

[Tynk]

Also I would hope that character transfers between accounts should be turned around faster without the credit card temp blocks you get from moving multiple toons.

Cheers,

S.I actually just did this, had a druid on one account, but I'll be damned if I could remember my secret question answer. So I could not transfer the druid. (I recently went from 5 accounts to 3)
Well, once I merged all accounts into my battle.net it did not ask for the secret question and transferred the character in about 15 minutes.

[Tutunkommon]

Q: Is creating a Battle.net Account required to play World of Warcraft?
A: Currently, creating a Battle.net account and merging World of Warcraft accounts is entirely optional. However, as we continue to build additional functionality into the new Battle.net, we will eventually require all active World of Warcraft accounts to migrate over to Battle.net Accounts in order to continue playing. Additionally, all future Blizzard Entertainment games such as StarCraft II and Diablo III will require Battle.net Accounts. Does this mean that starcraft II is going to be "pay to play" as well? I use the home lan version of starcraft frequently to play against family members, and never had a battle.net account for SC. Will I still be able to do this, or will I need to pay $XX.95 per month for SCII to work at all?

[Akeldema]

Just a little thing i noticed
adding the accounts changes your name on the accounts.
may prove useful for those who accidentally named them different

[Tutunkommon]

Does this mean that starcraft II is going to be "pay to play" as well?

Its being released as three separate games (one for each race!).

If that's not "pay to play", I don't know what is. (as a long time Starcraft fan, I am not at all happy with this - unless they make each installment around $20, its a pretty obvious attempt to suck more money out of their fans - because they know most of them will pay)Yea, I knew that. I am afraid that after they got $50 x 3, they will want $15 / month on top of it. I am still waiting for Spore to come down in price ('cuz I am a cheap b@$^@rd!)

Really, a subscription model would probably kill SC2 for me.....

[kadaan]

Even if someone were to reverse-engineer the calculations for the phone authenticator, they'd still need your serial number to know the key. From my understanding, you have to log in to account management to generate a key for the app. You enter the key into the phone app and that's what it uses as the basis for the calculation.

[Bigfish]

Does this mean that starcraft II is going to be "pay to play" as well?

Its being released as three separate games (one for each race!).

If that's not "pay to play", I don't know what is. (as a long time Starcraft fan, I am not at all happy with this - unless they make each installment around $20, its a pretty obvious attempt to suck more money out of their fans - because they know most of them will pay)

I have a couple of stipulations about the multiple release thing.

#1. They better be some long ass single player campaigns (40+ missions, fully fleshed out to showcase various units' abilities, and several that behave as intelligent multiplayer AI) that don't end on "Buy the next expansion to find out what happens next!"

#2. Multiplayer better be fully functioning from the get go.

#3. Gameplay better not change significantly between versions. (hated the fact that WC3:TFT screwed so much with dynamic)

If blizz can stick to that, I don't mind shelling out 50$ per installment. Subscription fee though? They better not. Doubt they will. Better be able to justify it if they do.

[ciscokid454]

If you want to transfer a character between accounts that are merged, how is it done now?

Same with a non merged account, going to the merged account?

Considering if you have more than one merged account, obviously

[hendrata]

The problem is that actual programs can be reverse engineered to figure out the algorithm of the phone-authenticator. Let's hope they use a seperate algorithm for the physical authenticator and the phone version.

Granted, given enough data anything can be reverse engineered. I just don't like making it easier to do.I don't know exactly how the Blizzard authenticator works, but from my limited Cryptographic understanding:
1. Yes given enough data anything can be reverse engineered, but we're talking about exponential growth here. They must have designed the program to not be able to be reverse engineered faster than a couple of years with a supercomputer etc. This is just what they use in online banking.
2. The algorithm of the phone-authenticator can be viewable by public and yet the authenticator can still be secure. This is a principle of "no security through obscurity." What they have and everyone else doesn't is a "secret key", but what's in the phone-authenticator is a public key. They use the secret key to verify whether this number is accurate or not, but the public key can be announced and it still won't break the security.

[ilililil]

Everytime I try to download the iPhone authenticator it says my phone isnt compatible. My phone is brand new. anyone else experience this or heard about any workaround? my keychain constantly falls off and separates from my main keychain.

[caldvn]

Everytime I try to download the iPhone authenticator it says my phone isnt compatible. My phone is brand new. anyone else experience this or heard about any workaround? my keychain constantly falls off and separates from my main keychain.Download itunes, plug your phone in, and check for new iphone update. You need firmware 2.2.1 or higher.

[Otlecs]

Shamless bump for awareness since this is now apparently available in Europe.

[Enndo]

But wouldn't this make it easier for hackers to get your toons since all they need to find is your email than crack away at passwords? Instead of making them guess at your username?

[Svpernova09]

But wouldn't this make it easier for hackers to get your toons since all they need to find is your email than crack away at passwords? Instead of making them guess at your username?This is why I have an authenticator :_)

[Tonuss]

If you want to transfer a character between accounts that are merged, how is it done now?

Same with a non merged account, going to the merged account?

Considering if you have more than one merged account, obviouslyYour individual accounts still exist and are identified by the names you used when you created them. They're just under an umbrella account now. So when you want to move a character from one account to another, the account interface for doing so is the same one as before and works the same way. You select the appropriate account names and initiate the transfer.

[Prepared]

I just hit the WoW limit on this. You can only have a max of 8 world of warcraft accounts. it sucks.

http://img172.imageshack.us/img172/7593/max.png

Thanks for letting me know about this. I was considering doing this, but I won't now as I've got way over 8 accounts. :)

Given that associating WoW accounts to a battle.net account makes an extra selection in the login process, it would have been a pain for me to log in all of my accounts anyway. The way it is before associating a battle.net account is easy to log in all accounts as long as the password is the same. Using the blizzard authenticator to login with Octopus is great the way it is before the battle.net account because Octopus populates the logins within all windows started. Entering the same password then the authenticator code allows any number of accounts to login at the same time easily without making any selections. The introduction of the battle.net login once doesn't save anything, but adds a selection of the account which is a royal pain using the mouse for each account. On top of that, only 8 WoW accounts can be associated with a battle.net account and this method is no good for me.

[Moorea]

you don't need to select more than once; as long as you have "remember login" checked, it will stay selected for next time
(ie no extra steps after the first time)

[Svpernova09]

Bumping this to the front page since this will now be necessary for all wow accounts as of November 11th/12th.

[Ridere]

I currently have my five WoW accounts on separate b.net accounts. Anyone have an experience with merging them together after-the-fact? I can't access worldofwarcraft.com or battle.net from work, so I can't really poke around and test.

[Ualaa]

Not sure on that, but I'd imagine if you can prove you're the owner of the accounts, you could at least call Blizzard and have them switch for you.

[Ridere]

Not sure on that, but I'd imagine if you can prove you're the owner of the accounts, you could at least call Blizzard and have them switch for you.

Depending on my laziness, I may do that. Thanks.