Did you ever give access to your account to anyone?

Nope, I won't take any risk.

Yes, I have. I have nothing to lose by doing so - and that's saying something when you've got a full set of torm weapons, few sets of FoW, other expensive things, and depending on the occasion, stacks of ecto lying around. If I get screwed by a friend, that's just too damn bad, but I don't imagine them ever doing that to me. Almost 10 people have received my account information and I trust them limitlessly with it. They've never shown malicious intent, so if it can help me or them by having the info, have at it xD. I just don't care if my ectos all disappeared... so what. The cat's out of the bag and they lost my friendship.

I've also let my friends borrow minipets worth 1000+ ecto. Does that mean I'm too trusting? XD.

In a word, 'No'. I got stung by a 'friend' in another online rpg and feel that learning the hard way sucked hard enough the first time to bother again.

the only one I would trust enough with that would never log in as me.. which is prolly why I would trust her with that...

yes...to a friend and my GF.

Just my Guild leader, after a year or so, who I've known since the first week I started playing as I totally trust her, associate on the net outside of GW since meeting there, and we have almost polar opposite tastes in mains hence have fun swapping accounts to try maxed out classes neither of us would usually play.

From reading the posts here so far it seems to boil down to personal definitions of trust combined with how much import you place on your account in terms of a worst case scenario.

Interesting to read others thoughts.

Ok, time to update now, we're at 76 responses (until message #86). Note that numbers are rough estimates, because it's hard to guess the information from natural language descriptions . The average number and motivations are not very accurate due to lack of information. The situation of multiple accounts is not represented correctly here (and I've put girl/boyfriends in family ;P). Take these numbers with at least two teaspoons of salt!

The who?
1) Absolutely not: 28 (36.8%)
2) No but I considered it: 6 (7.9%)
3) I refused access given by to others to their account: 2 (2.6%)
4) To close friends that I trust: 28 (36.8%)
5) To people I know in person: 11 (14.4%)
6) To family members: 15 (19.7%)
7) To someone I met in game: 4 (5.2%)
8) I also have access to other people's account: 14 (18.4%)
9) I don't care who accesses my account: 0 (0%)

Average number of other people that can access acount:
86/76 = 1.13

Motivations (the why?):
1) To check something for me: 1 (1.3%)
2) Shared account: 2 (2.6%)
3) To increase one of my title or play the game for me: 7 (9.2%)
4) For special events: 1 (1.3%)
5) To try the game in order to decide if I should buy it: 4 (5.2%)
6) For storage: 1 (1.3%)
7) Just because I trust them (or they trust me): 10 (13.1%)
8) Someone gave me their account: 1 (1.3%)
9) Only for a particular event or situation: 8 (10.5%)
10) For playing the game with different maxed characters: 1 (1.3%)

I'll let people continue to provide information before discussing the issue at the core of this thread. Thanks to everyone for contributing.

no but a good friend let me lend there account while i got a ban

Nope, never have -- never will.

I've given my info to two people. My girlfriend and another friend I ask to do things for me when I'm not there.

I've known people that give out there info and later get GANKED by having their characters deleted....so, I tend to not just hand out my stuff.

Husband (and he's forgotten the pass) and son. No one else. No one else needs it for any reason, so why chance it? Hell, I don't even use PlayNC for reports anymore because I don't/can't trust them!

Just my lassie, but no one else.

I let my ex boyfriend play on it for a couple of days, to check it out. Then he bought his own account.

No! But, my brother could probably figure it out if he wanted to.

Nope, never.

My best RL friend who'm I've known for some 15 years, so I know I can trust 100%

I have given my stuff to 3 people who I can honestly say I trust.

The reason was for when I was deployed (3 times) to the middle east for such things like the dragon festival and such to get me hats and lucky points and such.

My girlfriend knows mine, I know hers.

Before I answer, isn't it against the EULA to have multiple users on one account?

Already covered but realistically it's impossible to police if your using the same computer or proxy and even then there are valid reasons....unless they have secret ninja spies....

*peeks out window*


I seriously doubt Anet will run in here and ban everyone who has stated that they shared details unless they are complete RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE.

If they did I'd stop playing and such rules are obviously pretty flexible and open to a bit of bending.For example banning every wife/husband or bf/gf shared account would obviously kick up a stink....wouldn't it?

Only to my other personalities

Seriously though, I've never given it out nor will I ever do so.

My bro, and then he bought it shortly afterward.

My bestest internet buddy holds a passcode to my account. When I ship out to basic, I want to know my account will still have its perfect hat record.

Yep, my boyfriend can access my GW account just like I can access his (and steal his dye..bwaahahaaaahaa....).

Other than that though, I can't think of anybody else I would ever let into my account.

I have not shared my login details with anyone yet.
But in case of a guild emergency I have two RL friends who also play the game who I would give the details without any doubt and one, maybe two guildies to whom I would also give them. Just in the unfortunate event that something happens while I would not be able to get online fast enough to solve things myself.

I gave my account password to a friend. Asked him if he could pick me up a Dragon Mask because I was away that weekend. My ex-girlfriend had access to my GW account, as I had access to hers. Also, I had access to a friend's account - I kept excess gold and materials in her storage because she didn't play much.

Only to the (*)#*_ * MALWARE that i can not seem to get rid of D&*) IT

poll.........?

Can't do, as I'm not a GWG subscriber.

I'd like to create a poll now that I've got a better idea of what should be in it, so if one of the GWG subscribers feel generous (though I don't want to break GWG rules ...). And we'll then be able to discuss the issue at heart.

NEVER.......4 k hrs invested no way....


although i have left AFK games on in the university...lcukiyl no one stole account

I have my friends account but i didn't give him mine :P

I guess I won't be getting to many answers to the following question:

did you ever give access to someone so that they can power-level your characters? (i.e., play the game for you so that you don't have to do what you consider boring stuff, for example get to level 20 with all your heroes at level 20, or achieve 1 million+ gold)

Ive never given out my account details to anyone, though i do have a friend (who I got into Guild Wars in the first place) whose details i have so i could get him a mask in last weekends Festival

Never have, never will...under any circumstances.

Well, it seems that there won't be a poll on this topic, or any other discussion. So I'm going to publish the final "rough numbers" here and post a short discussion/links.

Number of answers: 97

The who?
1) Absolutely not: 36 (37.1%)
2) No but I considered it: 7 (7.2%)
3) I refused access given by to others to their account: 2 (2%)
4) To close friends that I trust: 34 (35%)
5) To people I know in person: 12 (12.3%)
6) To family members: 23 (23.7%)
7) To someone I met in game: 4 (4.1%)
8) I also have access to other people's account: 18 (18.5%)

Average number of other people that can access acount:
107/97 = 1.1

Motivations (the why?):
1) To check something for me: 2 (2%)
2) Shared account: 2 (2%)
3) To increase one of my title or play the game for me: 9 (9.3%)
4) For special events (e.g. festivals): 7 (7.2%)
5) To try the game in order to decide if I should buy it: 6 (6.2%)
6) For storage: 2 (2%)
7) Just because I trust them (or they trust me): 14 (14.4%)
8) Someone gave me their account: 1 (1%)
9) Only for a particular event or situation: 13 (13.4%)
10) For playing the game with different maxed characters: 1 (1%)
11) In order to be able to play while I was banned[I]: 1(1%)[/U]

Account sharing: a deliberate risk that should be avoided

What's important to understand with account sharing is that you basically give others your online identity (or they give you theirs). They entirely become you (or you become them), except that they are not. It's exactly like giving your credit card with its pin to someone else. They may not play as safely as you do, or may not know who to trust or not trust in your guild, alliance or friendlist for particular things. This creates a gap that can be exploited by malicious people to discover information about you, and ultimately your account login and password information.

Similarly, people giving you access to their account creates a responsibility on you (that you may or may not not want to assume) that can lead to real problems. It's a matter of trust, and do as you would like others to do for you.

While this is a risk that you can take when you know the person "fully well", it should not remove the need to check that they know what they're doing with the information you provided. Do they know about GW scams? Is the computer they're using secure? Will they themselve share your account information with anyone else? Of course, there's nothing fundalentally wrong with trusting your family members if you genuinely think you know them well, or on the contrary not sharing any personal information with anyone because of the potential risk.

Overall, it's your decision, but do not take it lightly. You can always share your account for a limited time, then change the password. Or share one account but not others if you have several accounts. A policy of never sharing is always a good policy (1/3 of people who answered in this thread), as the Internet generally requires people to be cautious (but not paranoid) in all circumstances. But depending on your life/play-style, this can have some consequences.

The final thought I want to convey with this thread is this: just imagine that people who play the game are connected via multilple links (because they're in the same guild, alliance, friendlist, they know each other outside of the game or in real life, they' know each other on GW Guru, etc.); information go through these links all the time, but imagine the flow of your personal information (real name, login, password, email address) in this network; you may give access to your account to someone who will talk while doing some GW activity, thus propagating information along the link without realising, and this information may be used to get more information about you; may be several pieces of information will end up with a malicious person who will then try to get access to your account, possibly by hacking your computer if he managed to get your IP address (say, if someone installed a pirated software? this is a rare case, but yet it happens).

This is NOT a call for paranoia, for refusing to disclose information to anyone, not even your family and friends, or for having more distrust of GW players in general. But the risk is very real, though you may not see it. Just act according to the information you know, and always ask in order to know more. Play it safe by limiting as much as possible the number of people you give access to your account to (it's never a good idea to share with several people at the same time).

Here's an answer

No, never gave it for that.

Yet.

However, I considered the option of giving the info to a friend so he could do Polymock for me (I HATE POLYMOCK, seriously...). But it feels awkward getting something achieved for me so I haven't bothered with asking him.

I've had someone's account to get an event hat, forgot the info though...

Nope. Not yet at least.

I'm dreading having to do the Remains of Salahajha or whatever for my carto title, and I know a very good friend of mine that's excellent at it, I may ask him to do it for me when he as the time, again, just maybe, if I find I haven't gained any skill after a few tries.

I never did, my friend yes though. He found his account with all characters deleted and his storage emptied next day.

Yes. 2 of my guildies and close friends. I did Polymock for a couple of people, and to show they could trust me, they went on my account and made ugly characters. We then did a run of some instance with each other's whacky interfaces and characters. Was fun Inspired my friend to make a Monk.

Edit: Kusandaa: I'll still do it for yuo sometime if you want ;D

I have never given my account information to others and I don't intend to.