Wednesday, January 6, 2010

On Sharing Passwords and Evil Sisters

**UPDATE** the names of the innocent have been changed to protect their identities **UPDATE**

The other day a good friend of mine in game (we'll call her Betty) was talking about a friend of hers (we'll call him Barney) who was pretending to be an imaginary evil sister of his (who we'll call Wilma). In this portrayal Barney said with much evilness that he (while pretending to be Wilma) was going to delete Barney's main character forever MUHAHAHAHA! Then Barney removed himself from Betty's friends list . . . pretending that Wilma had just deleted Barney's character FOREVER. GASP! Alas, he was just teasing my poor friend, Betty, with a cruel joke.

During this "evil sister is deleting my character" debacle, I was given a play by play as it unfolded . . . what came to my mind first was not shock, gasping, or even sympathy (simply because I didn't know who it was). No, what came to my mind was "why'd Barney give his password to Wilma if she's that evil?"

. . .

In the end, password sharing between family members seems perfectly fine in my mind . . . unless they're evil of course, but what isn't ok is password sharing between others.

Back when this game was new and I had posted up a few videos, I had a couple of people who sent me e-mails and just outright GAVE me their passwords upfront without me ever even asking. Their request? They wanted me to level their characters for them. /boggle

Never do this my friends. Never.

Let me give you a very important sentence from an e-mail I got from my acquaintance in the KI customer support department:

". . . it NEVER ends well and we really do PERMA-BAN when caught (both parties!)."

She went on to explain that apparently password sharing is rampant in this game even though in really big red letters on the login it says, Do NOT give out your password to anyone. Violations will result in a permanent account ban."

People will try to fool you my friends. They definitely are not always who they say they are. Never gift anyone a mount in exchange for a password. This kind of stuff is not going to end well and could end in you being banned from the game.

I also speak from experience here: I shared a password back in my Everquest days over a guild message board private message. The board got hacked and my password was stolen. I fully trusted the person I was sending my password to, but it didn't matter . . . a third party stole it simply because of my password sharing mistake. You never know what's going to happen out there on the Internet, so just don't do it. Be safe with your passwords.

Don't share them over e-mail, don't share them over youtube, don't share them over Central, don't share them with the friendly necromancer, and definitely don't share them with Wilma. If you have, you'd best go change your password and please don't do it again.

Happy Dueling!

5 comments:

Jessica said...

I hate when that happens. I know it will get them banned, and I go on message boards involving Wizard101, and I tell them not to tell their password, and the consequences. Yet, many people still do. It's sad that they must get banned, but I think that it's the only way Kingsisle can get them to stop.

Sierra Starsong said...

Also, if you're a parent, don't give your parental control password to your kids - or leave it written down where they or their friends can find it. Children who don't realize Crowns cost real money could quickly rack up a big bill on mom's credit card that way.

Al Fonzo said...

I share a password with my best friend, her older sister, her cousin, and neighbor. Her cousin, and neighbor don't go on that much, and I trust Van, and her sister rarely gets on. I don't share ANYTHING, with my bro though. I fully trust Van like I said, and no she won't do anything to my charectar. The only problem I've had is that her neighbor deleted my level 12 alt, to make a level 7 person. It was only once, so i made a new account, with an alt on it.

-Amber StarGem

confused wizard said...

wait, i'm confused. the first part was hard to follow. did he delete the character or did she? or was he/she just planning to? or was it all a BIG practical joke & you just had a few typos w/ the he and/or she words. my brain is melting.

Stingite said...

There you go, Mr. Confused Wizard . . . re-read the story. Hopefully it will be more understandable now. sorry! In my attempt to keep identities secret, I pretty much made a mess of the background story. Hope that's better.