When it's not nice to share

We're all taught from an early age that it's nice to share. But not when it comes to your WoW account info. And I don't just mean e-mail scammers posing as Blizzard employees asking for your password. What I'm referring to is something that is something much more rampant and just as damaging to your WoW account's continued existence: willingly sharing your account information with a brother/roommate/guild mate/girlfriend, etc.

For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, allow me to spell it out:

If you're caught sharing your account, Blizzard will ban that account.

You'd think this fact of WoW life would be well known, and I believe it is, but many players are choosing to ignore this rule at their own peril. Why? A few rationalizations seem to be popping up over and over.

Here are a few of my favorites:

• "I won't get caught" - Tell that to the top teams in the recent Arena tournament.

• "I can't make it to the raid and I'm the only [insert class here]" - When you hand your password to one guildmember, is there any guarantee its not going to get passed around the guild?

• "My girlfriend/best friend/alien overlord wanted to play" - Tell them to try a trial account. Its free.

Just the other night I was in Shattrath running the Children's Week event and a player was being very offensive in the general channel. More likely than not, it was a "friend" of the player who had access to the account. Next time the actual player tries to log on, he's going to reconsider that friendship.

There is one exception to the sharing rule and that is if the player is a minor child, then the parent may access the account. Any situation other than that and you open yourself to logging on and finding all your gear missing or not being able to log on at all. That trial account is looking better all the time, eh?