Questions about WoW accounts

[Ariamus]

First and foremost, I appreciate the assistance of anyone that can provide it. I am new to WoW (as are my sons) and I have some questions about account setup. My oldest son got WoW as a birthday gift. He's been playing the game for a couple of days now and his younger brother also really likes it. I want to be able to let them both play but I am unsure on how I should proceed. I know that the standard WoW account is as much as $15 / month but I was wondering if that was the only option.

First and foremost, I want to set up some parental controls to limit their game time. Second, I feel that I may have an interest in playing the game myself. Finally, that being the case, its possible that all three of us might want to play at the same time. Which leads me to my question.

Under ordinary circumstances, I would have to pay for three separate monthly accounts to allow all three of us to play the game at the same time. This is how things appear to be. Does Blizzard have any mechanism in place for family plans on WoW? Furthermore, if I set up a single WoW account, does that mean that only one computer can access that given account at any one time?

I appreciate any help I can get on these matters; thanks.

Rui, aka Ariamus

[Mallstrop]

You're going to have to go with the 3 sepperate accounts for the 3 of you to play together, each account can only be online for one instance of the game at any one time.

As for parental control, blizzard offer a very nice set of parental controls available from their website where you can set times and stuff.

[Bigairbrucey]

Get 3 accounts ...its cheaper then most other family activities like Skiing Bowling Hanggliding ...etc

[Chunderpants]

Im not sure if its passworded, but theres a programme called Timed Shutdown (free) you can search for and download. Although its excellent for those overnight downloads you can set it so it basically tells the PC to shutdown after a certain period of time. So if you dont want your (lucky) sons to play into the wee small hours, you can preset it to switch off their PC at a certain time.

Of course they may well resent you for the rest of their lives for this.

Basically you can all play WoW on your own machines and have your own characters, however you cant all play at once if you only have one copy of the game. i.e we have 2 copies and I have 2 sons and myself who play. My eldest son and I share our copy with my youngest son - so he plays on whichever of our accounts isnt being used at the time. Sadly as I am a sweet nice generous father, its usually my account being used. However it gives me the time to read my new book "How To Get Rid Of Your Sons Without Leaving Any Evidence"

[Stigg]

Originally Posted by Chunderpants

Im not sure if its passworded, but theres a programme called Timed Shutdown (free) you can search for and download. Although its excellent for those overnight downloads you can set it so it basically tells the PC to shutdown after a certain period of time. So if you dont want your (lucky) sons to play into the wee small hours, you can preset it to switch off their PC at a certain time.

The Blizz parental controls for WoW also has similar programs in place...whether it be a set amount of time per day or a designated "end" time....where the game will log itself out.

As far as the three accounts...yes....you will need to buy each child their own game account. On top of that....strictly speaking....Blizzards rules state that each account can only be played by ONE parent and ONE child.....of course they really can't tell one way or the other....but just a heads up for the "technical" side.

[RabidWookie]

You don't just need 3 separate accounts, but don't you also need 3 separate copies of the game in order to get those 3 separate accounts?

[Valas Azuviir]

Originally Posted by RabidWookie

You don't just need 3 separate accounts, but don't you also need 3 separate copies of the game in order to get those 3 separate accounts?

Not quite. What you need is three seperate CD-Keys to make accounts with, and they come with the retail boxes.

However, in this case, he could purchase cd-keys directly from Blizzard, by way of two trial accounts and then upgrading them online. There's an option for that in account management iirc.

Mind you, he can also go for the timecard route, if he wishes to save money on the monthly fee. I've seen them as low as roughly 20.00$ US for the 60 day versions (course that was several months ago). Just takes some time shopping around online.