Re: License sharing and related account sanctionin
By
Catwhoorg,
Posted on: 2009-07-17 22:39 in Player Questions
Technically, letting anyone but you use your account is considered sharing. However, I doubt anyone but the most hardassed of folk would care if someone in your immediate family was using your account.
That said, the only way you're going to get 'caught' letting family use it is if you/they go out of their way to flaunt it somewhere the CMs monitor.
Yes, all kinds of sharing are against the rules. The main risk you take is being held responsible for the actions of the person you let use the account; that is, if they get you banned, you are banned; if they delete your characters, you have no more characters. In both cases, it's your fault for giving out your password. The GMs have no knowledge of any other people you share with, so they have no responsibility to "right their wrongs".
If you must share your account, then any time you give out your password, end the exchange by saying "and feel free delete all my characters and get me banned permanently from the game". If you're sure they still won't do it, you probably have little to worry about [but are still responsible if something goes unexpectedly wrong]. If you get that uneasy feeling in the pit of your stomach, follow up with "just kidding... let's get you a trial account!", then change your password and do, indeed, get them that trial account.
Edit: I know it's a bad idea to directly contradict posted rules... like, for instance, I did above by suggesting that it is ever okay to share accounts. I'm going to assume that the popularity of threads like the one about Sister Flame, the little girl who played on her parents' account, shows that even the developers/moderators know there are exceptions. The no-exceptions nature of the rule doesn't mean no one ever shares... just that everyone who does is taking their own, completely unsupported, risk. (And should Sister Flame ever throw a temper tantrum and delete daddy's characters... bye-bye, daddy's characters!)
I team with the Repeat Offenders.
Account sharing is generally discouraged on all MMOs, both as a safety feature (pissed-off SO deleting your characters anyone?) and for money reasons (more accounts=more monthly fees).
Basically, the point of the message is to let you know that if your account gets suspended, banned, or has other acton taken against it, "It wasn't me, it was my friend/brother/kid on my account" isn't an excuse.
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and that those being shared with (not the account holders), are breaking rules or exploiting certain aspects of the game, resulting in account suspension
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Agree with IronYeti. This is the real problem. If you share your account and the other person does bad things and gets the account banned, then you have no recourse.
I'm sure Customer Service was hearing a lot of, "But it wasn't me... it was my SuperGroupMate (or brother, or significant other, or child)!" To which CS will respond, "Sharing your account is also against the rules. Case closed."
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Hmm...while I laud the warning posted here, I wonder why not doing so in game, as by all accounts only a fraction of patrons actually visit here.
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Avatea:
(see article 3 of the City of Heroes User Agreement and City of Villains User Agreement)
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3. LICENSE TO USE
Subject to the terms of this Agreement, the Publisher grants the Customer, for his personal use only, a non-exclusive, non-transferable license to use the Service, and a non-exclusive, non-transferable license to use the Game in connection with the Service, for a duration as defined in Section 5 for so long as he maintains an authorized and fully-paid Account. He may not (a) sublicense, rent, lease, loan or otherwise transfer the Game or the Service (or any part thereof), including but not limited to serial codes; (b) modify, adapt, reverse engineer or decompile the Game, or otherwise attempt to derive source code from the Game; (c) create any derivative works in respect of the Game or the Service; or (d) otherwise use the Game or the Service except as expressly provided in this Agreement. Title to the Game, and all rights with respect to the Game and Service not specifically granted under this Agreement, including without limitation all rights of reproduction, modification, distribution, display, disassembly and decompilation and all copyright, patent, trademark, trade secret and other proprietary rights and interests are reserved to the Publisher.
[/ QUOTE ] 4. ACCOUNT
(a) Eligibility. By clicking the I Accept button, the Customer represents that he is an adult 18 years of age or older or, if under 18 years of age, that he has the consent of a parent or guardian and will provide their details where requested. Only one person may use an Account. The Customer is liable for all activities conducted through his Account, and parents or guardians are liable for all activities of their minor child conducted through the Account.
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This policy exists to protect our players. Account sharing often leads to unauthorized or unwanted activity on an account. Intentional abuse of this rule can lead to the temporary suspension of an account. Repeated abuse can result in the permanent termination of an account.
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Hmm...while I laud the warning posted here, I wonder why not doing so in game, as by all accounts only a fraction of patrons actually visit here.
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You read the user agreement that you click "I Agree" to when you launch the game, don't you? You've already been warned. Posting an additional warnings in the forums is a COURTESY.
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Originally Posted by eltonio
This is over the top mental slavery.
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First off, your Avatar is extremely irritating.
Maybe that's the point.
It is so annoying that I had to cover it up in order to read your post. I won't be doing this again if I come across this same Avatar again.
The key point seems to be :
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Avatea:
It has been brought to our attention that some of our players have been sharing their game accounts with [u]others[u] (by this we mean sharing the license to access the game servers for City of Heroes and/or City of Villains) and that [u]those being shared with[u] (not the account holders), are breaking rules or exploiting certain aspects of the game, resulting in account suspension.
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I don't think the sentence is constructed appropriately.
My translation is this ::
"It has been brought to our attention that some players have been sharing their game accounts with [u]other players[u] (by this we mean allowing other players to use their City of Heroes and/or City of Villains accounts), and [u]those other players[u] (not the account holders) are breaking rules or exploiting certain aspects of the game and causing the account suspension of user that shared their account."
Player A let's Player B use their account for whatever reason. Player B causes the account to get suspensed. Player A has no recourse in regards to their account as the EULA says that Player A should not have shared their account with Player B to begin with.
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A question, how do you define sharing? Is it against the rules for a father and son to use one account? Is it against the rules for a husband to log his wife's toon to help transfer money or invite to an sg?
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Letting anyone else other than yourself to have access to your account is technically sharing.
Technically, it is against the rules for a father and son to use the same account.
It is technically against the rules for a husband to log into his wife's account. It has nothing to do with character. It is all about the account.
The main point that the post seems to be making is ::
If someone else uses your account and gets your account suspended, it is suspended just as if you were using it and caused the suspension yourself. You can't say, "I didn't do the thing that cause me to be suspended - someone else did that" - in order, to get out an account suspension. That does not fly. If your account did it, and it gets suspended, then your account is suspended
So if your son logs into their fathers account and gets the account suspended, then the father can't say that the account shouldn't be suspended because they weren't responsible for the actions of their son that was using their account.
If a wife allows her husband to log into her account, and he does something to get her account suspended. Then she can't complain about her account being suspended.
This is a way to keep players from trying to "snake" being suspended - aka "saying someone else did something with their account and they weren't responsible for whatever it was". It is also to make it clear that if you "give access to your account" to someone else - say a PL'ing service, then you can't complain about being suspended.
Really, the same applies to your account being banned.
The reasons for warnings (e-mail telling you not to do what you did again), suspensions (account can not access the game for a certain time period), and banning (your account is closed) are listed in the EULA and Codes of Conduct.
If you haven't read them, you already should have done so.
Each time you log into the game you are confirming that you agree to abide by them.
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First off, your Avatar is extremely irritating.
Maybe that's the point.
It is so annoying that I had to cover it up in order to read your post. I won't be doing this again if I come across this same Avatar again.
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Well a comment like this annoyed me, so I didn't read the rest of your post. Have a nice day 
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First off, your Avatar is extremely irritating.
Maybe that's the point.
It is so annoying that I had to cover it up in order to read your post. I won't be doing this again if I come across this same Avatar again.
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Mozilla add on - "Adblock Plus." Right click image, add to filter - no more avatar. 
Something similar probably exists for IE. Far more fine-grained than the built in "block entire site." You can block a specific image, specific directory (which would be the specific user in this case, as well,) etc.
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First off, your Avatar is extremely irritating.
Maybe that's the point.
It is so annoying that I had to cover it up in order to read your post. I won't be doing this again if I come across this same Avatar again.
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Mozilla add on - "Adblock Plus." Right click image, add to filter - no more avatar. Something similar probably exists for IE. Far more fine-grained than the built in "block entire site." You can block a specific image, specific directory (which would be the specific user in this case, as well,) etc.
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I have a few webpages blocked because their backgrounds flash roughly 20 colors a second. Thanks for pointing this out Bill.
Edit: For the record, the Avatar is there because I like it. I will change it when I find another avatar I like. It's not there to affect or annoy anyone.
Pressing ESC will stop all animations on a web page. Works for Firefox at least. Not sure if Internet Excreter has this feature as well.
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First off, your Avatar is extremely irritating.
Maybe that's the point.
It is so annoying that I had to cover it up in order to read your post. I won't be doing this again if I come across this same Avatar again.
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Mozilla add on - "Adblock Plus." Right click image, add to filter - no more avatar. Something similar probably exists for IE. Far more fine-grained than the built in "block entire site." You can block a specific image, specific directory (which would be the specific user in this case, as well,) etc.
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Why is he complaining about that avatar anyway? It's mine that everyone seems to complain about.
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the Avatar is there because I like it
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You may not care but I have your avatar adblocked too. FYI.
Avatars with excessive movement or flashing make the forums too hard to read so I have to block them.
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the Avatar is there because I like it
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You may not care but I have your avatar adblocked too. FYI.
Avatars with excessive movement or flashing make the forums too hard to read so I have to block them.
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That's fine, I'm not offended in the least bit. It's a matter of preference, and if flash avatars prevent your from reading by all means block away.
What I was annoyed with was The_Alt_oholic rude comment to my avatar. Acting as if I put it there just to irritate people, which is untrue.
I think it's a cool icon!
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Basically, the point of the message is to let you know that if your account gets suspended, banned, or has other acton taken against it, "It wasn't me, it was my friend/brother/kid on my account" isn't an excuse.
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This is pretty much the best summary of the post.
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Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU
Dispari has more than enough credability, and certainly doesn't need to borrow any from you.
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Hmm...while I laud the warning posted here, I wonder why not doing so in game, as by all accounts only a fraction of patrons actually visit here.
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Notice of this rule pops up every time you log into the game. It's right there in the EULA that you click "I Agree" on.
Virtue Server
Avatar art by Daggerpoint
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Hmm...while I laud the warning posted here, I wonder why not doing so in game, as by all accounts only a fraction of patrons actually visit here.
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Notice of this rule pops up every time you log into the game. It's right there in the EULA that you click "I Agree" on.
[/ QUOTE ]Even people who bypass the loader (as I've read some people do) agree to it just by playing.
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Hmm...while I laud the warning posted here, I wonder why not doing so in game, as by all accounts only a fraction of patrons actually visit here.
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Notice of this rule pops up every time you log into the game. It's right there in the EULA that you click "I Agree" on.
[/ QUOTE ]Even people who bypass the loader (as I've read some people do) agree to it just by playing.
[/ QUOTE ].. and creating their account to begin with.
WRT Avatars:
The funny thing is that I already have Prof_Backfire's and Gypsy_of_Paradox's avatars adblocked, so I was wondering what all the commotion was about.
Speeding Through New DA Repeatables || Spreadsheet o' Enhancements || Zombie Skins: better skins for these forums || Guide to Guides
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I think it's a cool icon!
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I agree, I sat there for 5 minutes watching it. I love it!
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First off, your Avatar is extremely irritating.
Maybe that's the point.
It is so annoying that I had to cover it up in order to read your post. I won't be doing this again if I come across this same Avatar again.
[/ QUOTE ]
Mozilla add on - "Adblock Plus." Right click image, add to filter - no more avatar. Something similar probably exists for IE. Far more fine-grained than the built in "block entire site." You can block a specific image, specific directory (which would be the specific user in this case, as well,) etc.
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Why is he complaining about that avatar anyway? It's mine that everyone seems to complain about.
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Heh, I'm afraid that yours is one of the avatar's I have to hit escape to stop the animation from playing. Thankfully IE and Firefox both will suspend playing animated gif's when you hit the escape key.
Oh by the way it isn't that your avatar is horrible or anything but something about the movement just bothers me and so I wind up using the escape key.
But it's MY sadistic mechanical monster and I'm here to make sure it knows it. - Girl Genius
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Avatea:
It has been brought to our attention that some of our players have been sharing their game accounts with others (by this we mean sharing the license to access the game servers for City of Heroes and/or City of Villains) and that those being shared with (not the account holders), are breaking rules or exploiting certain aspects of the game, resulting in account suspension.
We would like to remind you that not only is license sharing in direct violation of our User Agreement (see article 3 of the City of Heroes User Agreement and City of Villains User Agreement), but it also means that, should your account be suspended as a result of the actions of the person you have lent your account to, we will not be able to lift the suspension or any other sanction applied to your account as a consequence of the loan.
You are all aware of the limitations imposed by the User Agreement. However, we wanted to give you all a chance to realize that an act of generosity or a simple account loan could have dire consequences! Please protect yourself and DO NOT share your game account with anyone!
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A question, how do you define sharing? Is it against the rules for a father and son to use one account? Is it against the rules for a husband to log his wife's toon to help transfer money or invite to an sg?