Blizzard Sets Deadline for Battle.net / WoW Account Merger

[John Funk]

Blizzard Sets Deadline for Battle.net / WoW Account Merger

If you play World of Warcraft and haven't yet merged your WoW account with a Blizzard Battle.net account, you're running out of time - all WoW accounts will become Battle.net ones on November 11th.

Blizzard is all over its shiny new Battle.net that the company will be rolling out either when StarCraft II ships or when the apocalypse rolls around in 2012, whichever happens first. While WoW players have been able to manually merge their WoW account with a Battle.net one for quite some time now, the switch will be mandatory as of November 11th [http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/index.xml].

The new Battle.net is a lot of things to Blizzard:

[blockquote][Our] new way for players to log in to World of Warcraft and future Blizzard games, sign up for upcoming beta tests, shop the online Blizzard Store, and more with just one username and password. This was just the first step in the rollout of the brand-new Battle.net; in the future, players will be able to use Battle.net to participate in cross-realm chat in World of Warcraft, create real-life friends lists, communicate across different games, and a whole lot more [http://us.blizzard.com/blizzcon/recaps/battlenet-panel.xml].[/blockquote]

If you haven't changed your account over yet, you won't be able to log into the game until you do. On the bright side, as a reward for your trouble, everyone who merges their WoW account with their B.net one (which should be, uh, everybody) will get a little baby penguin in-game pet. That sounds adorable, and I'm all over the adorable.

In practical terms, this... doesn't change much, actually. It just means that you sign into the game with a different username (in this case, your email address) than you usually do. So... it might be a bit annoying, but it's a minor hassle at worst.

Come on. Think of the baby penguins!

(Via VG247 [http://www.vg247.com/2009/10/13/blizzard-sets-wow-battle-net-account-merge-deadline/])


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[Ophiuchus]

That's annoying. On my first 10-day free trial I made my WoW account, then a couple of days later made a battle.net account and merged the two. I was never able to log in and play WoW again.

I eventually made another free trial and didn't merge it, but I'd imagine the same thing will happen again if they force a merger so I'm glad I didn't bother paying for a subscription.

 

[Rhayn]

Did this when it first came out, since I had problems with logging in. People told me merging would fix it, and it did. Took less than 5 minutes to do. No hassle, really.

I'm not one for mini-pets other than Amanda (my Sinister Squashling) and Jeff (Comptetitor's Spirit) though, but I know someone who's all over the fact that he'll get another pet to add to his collection of 80+ non-combatant minions.

 

[Vierran]

I personally would like to hear more about what they are going to do about security concerns, more specifically the fact that all of their games will use the same Username and password which invites more opportunity to be hacked.

 

[Swaki]

hmm maybe i can access my old diablo account then ^^, been years since i laid eyes on that 91 amazon.

uh and a penguin sounds nice, maybe ill renew my subscription, but its just so hard, i mean ive made it 6 months and it was so hard to uninstall

 

[Skiftnycklar]

WoW players!? In Battle.net!?
My common sense is tingling...quick! To the automobile!

Spoiler: Ze Automobile

Hm...well, onward to plan B.
OT:
I think nothing much will change, except that the forums on battle.net may become slightly more crowded.

 

[Pigeon_Grenade]

so.. sounds like Ads and

WoW players!? In Battle.net!?
My common sense is tingling...quick! To the automobile!

Spoiler: Ze Automobile

Hm...well, onward to plan B.
OT:
I think nothing much will change, except that the forums on battle.net may become slightly more crowded.

aww man thats one messed up car

 

[Rathy]

Can only be a good thing, as not merging is starting to become a big liability. Not only do they need more login servers, hacked people can have their accounts merged with an email belonging to whoever stole it, and then you've gt a fun uphill battle.

And it also just makes sense to have all of your games on the same platform from the Blizzard perspective. Kind of like their own version of Steam.

 

[SaintWaldo]

I think the whole thing sucks.

I don't like my email address being my username. After I unify, everyone knows my username, and can happily sit and attempt brute force to their hearts content, knowing that the username is correct. They can also potentially lock out my account with failed attempts (accounts _do_ lock after repeated failed attempts, right Blizzard?). Open door to DoS, anyone?

All that, and cross-faction chat. Yeah, that's gonna work great. /sarcasm

 

[hidden walls]

I would like to warn players in the eu, there appears to be issues with players merging thier accounts being unable to long in for a long period of time not sure if this is a known issue but just a heads up.

 

[Skizle]

doing this just in time for Starcraft 2...just so that they charge us for not playing WoW. this is only a rumor, but it seems very believable seeing as how Activision is milking this cash cow.

 

[Frizzle]

doing this just in time for Starcraft 2...just so that they charge us for not playing WoW. this is only a rumor, but it seems very believable seeing as how Activision is milking this cash cow.

Battle.net is free.... unless you're talking about something else.

 

[stonethered]

The QQing on the WoW forums has been immense. You'd think people were cutting heads off.

 

[John Funk]

doing this just in time for Starcraft 2...just so that they charge us for not playing WoW. this is only a rumor, but it seems very believable seeing as how Activision is milking this cash cow.

If anything, it's still Vivendi who would be theoretically calling any shots. And SC2 will be free to play on Battle.net.

 

[samsonguy920]

hmm maybe i can access my old diablo account then ^^, been years since i laid eyes on that 91 amazon.

uh and a penguin sounds nice, maybe ill renew my subscription, but its just so hard, i mean ive made it 6 months and it was so hard to uninstall

You can never leave the World of Warcraft. MWAHAHAHAHAHA!!
I tried getting into Battle.Net and I am not seeing anything direct for merging, but that might be because B.net had amnesia considering my recent account I had just set up. Will be trying again, but I'm betting the system is going to be lagtastic. Good luck Blizz friends!

 

[Teh_Doomage]

Oh well, took care of this a while ago....when it was a non-issue.....

Still don't play WoW anymore though.

 

[Flos]

Blizzard's trying to make its own little Steam. It's cute.

I don't really feel the need to make a Battle.net account just to play WoW. What if I had no interest in other Blizzard games? Ugh.

Stop hasslin' mah times, Bliz.

 

[Contun]

I went through a lot of unnecessary trouble trying to merge my World of Warcraft and Battle.net account, but that's a long story...

 

[obisean]

All you need is the blizz authenticator and ALL of your blizzard accounts are safe.

 

[TsunamiWombat]

Great! ...Now how about some friggin Diablo 3 news Blizz...