Account Sharing, or "Care to Join the Banwagon?"

Account Sharing is when two or more people use the same account. This includes even occasional sharing, such as allowing a friend to have your account information for profession emergencies or neutral AH deals. This is against the game's rules.

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First and foremost, it's never okay with Blizzard. Your account will be perma-banned if they find out. If you're okay with that, keep reading.

The only situation I've seen that really works: I had a friend who rolled a character on her boyfriend's account while they leveled to 80. They had different work hours, so they could play while the other was out, and they only logged onto their own characters when they played.

Once they hit 80, they wanted to do endgame stuff together and she got her own account and transferred her character to it. (I advised her to do it and told her how, but they made the decision.)

Tips for Chronic Sharers

Never join a guild without informing them that you share your account and who with. Some guilds will reduce your permissions if your partner in crime isn't a member, and other guilds won't let you in at all. Being upfront about this will keep your guild from kicking you when they find out the hard way. (Guilds -- always ask applicants if an account is shared.)

If you share a single character with someone, always be clear about who you are when you speak. Even if you've already said it in gchat, repeat it if you whisper anyone. This prevents confusion.

Never expect to be made an officer. No guild wants a non-officer to have access to officer capabilities, and for good reason (non-officers on shared accounts can see sensitive info in officer chat, loot gbanks, or gkick people they don't like).

You are always responsible for what someone else does on a shared account -- whether you have to explain yourself to a guild, a friend, a server, or even Blizzard, everyone on the account must face the consequences of mistakes made on that account. "It wasn't me!" is never an excuse.

Don't be surprised if your shared account causes problems, confusion, or drama. In fact, expect it.

If you decide sharing isn't worth it and you want to split an account, you can transfer characters from your current account to a new one if the payment information on both accounts match. Info here. (Having the same payment info does not mean both accounts must have the same user name. My husband and I have the same payment info but I have a different user name than he does.)

Conclusion

Account sharing has many more cons than pros. In the long run, it's better to pay for two accounts than to get banned and lose all the subscription money (and progress) you've spent on the one. Account sharing can be practical in a very few scenarios, but it never stays that way. Eventually, you'll find yourself with more problems than solutions.

Je t'adore, or "Happy Valentines 2010!"

Tons of changes to how things work this year, so let's get right to it and nobody comment on how I didn't notice it'd started already (I overplayed yesterday and took today off until Family Time).

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Changes:

• You can now buy all (most? not seeing bouquets) of the holiday items from vendors, including the Peddlefeet pet.
• Ridable LOVE BOATS in the cities with serious waterways. Woo!
• Third time's the charm -- if you haven't heard of the new mount, look at the image at the top of the post. You can get that pretty pink rocket off the new holiday boss.
• You can get 1 [Love Token], which is currency for all the items, for 1 [Lovely Charm Bracelet], which is 10 [Lovely Charms] that you get from killing mobs that are at least green to you. So you can actually grind currency after doing all the dailies. (Good quests to grind on: Battle Before the Citadel and Power of the Great Ones/Secret Strength of the Frenzyheart.)

(*cough* Not my husband. Husband was doing what he

was supposed to and flying to Shadowfang Keep while

Billy and I stopped to take silly screenshots.)

Quests:

Go to any major city, find the goblins in the bank/AH area. Accept their quests.

• Bonbon Blitz -- Hit 10 other players/NPCs with the chocolate sampler item.
• Perfect Puff of Perfume -- Hit 10 other players/NPCs with the perfume item.
• Cloud of Classy Cologne -- Hit 10 other players/NPCs with the cologne item.

• A Gift For X Faction Leader -- This daily is available in ALL your main cities. Collect ten [Lovely Charms] to make a [Lovely Charm Bracelet]. The bracelets are tradable, so friends can help you out, but you get the charms by having the kit in your bags and killing enemies that are at least green to you (you don't even have to loot, just kill).

Quest Chain

• Uncommon Scents -- Pick this up in Undercity or Ironforge, and report to Snagglebolt in Orgrimmar or Stormwind.
• Something Stinks -- Use the Analyzer on 6 of the guards that glow purple.
• Pilfering Perfume -- Timed run. Funny thing is, you can't stop running. Go outside Org/Storm, make a left along the side of the building, and they'll toss you the package. Run back to Snagglebolt.
• Snivel's Sweetheart -- Horde go talk to this person, on the lower level (passing by, you'll see her in the building). Alliance, go talk to this person upstairs in the inn right next to you.
• Hot On The Trail -- Enter the city's Auction House, Bank, and Barber. If you're having trouble getting the search to happen, run back to the room's entrance and enter again.
• A Friendly Chat -- Head to the zepplin tower or boat dock and question the goblin Snivel by the boxes. Turn it in at Snagglebolt and (s)he'll open up two new quests.

• Crushing the Crown -- Take the bomb (s)he gives you, go to Crystalsong Forest (where Dalaran is), and kill stuff (bomb is for the wagons).
• Man on the Inside -- (Not required for the boss.) Takes you to the boss.

Boss:

Enter Shadowfang Keep in Silverpine Forest, go into the door on your right, up some stairs, keep going, everything is level 19 so just ignore it, and you'll see the quest guy.

Also, because some people are stupid, I'll mention that you're fighting three LEVEL 80 bosses. I really didn't think I had to say it, but there you go. Every time the level cap lifts, these bosses will be re-leveled to the cap, so you'll see them at 85 in Cataclysm.

Strat (See MMO Champion Strat and Video)

• Quest dude inside gives you an item and your summon.
• Talk to him. You get a bag. Open it, get stuff.
• 3 bosses in the encounter: purple, green, other.
• Use [Perfume Neutralizer] for purple tank.
• Use [Cologne Neutralizer] for green tank.
• Everyone else picks a Neutralizer to wear, doesn't matter, but definitely use a Neutralizer.
• Third dude is untanked and throws clouds. Don't stand in his colored puddles of death. If you see a color that isn't floor-colored, move.

This fight is actually pretty hard. We had a group of raid-gear folks and we lost people most of the runs (though we always finished). Of course, I was healing. So.... I'll post a cleaned-up strat once we investigate more.

He'll drop an item that gives "Something is in the Air (and it Ain't Love)." Take it to Snagglebolt in Orgrimmar/Stormwind.

He'll also potentially drop (aside from trinkets) the pink rocket mount, a toxic wasteling pet, a rose head item that shows up between your character's teeth, and a device that makes other people cry. Woot!

Pay-to-Do-Stuff Features, or "The Future of Character Tweaking?"

If you haven't been reading WoW blogs regularly (or closely), you may not have noticed that Blizz is working on a Guild Transfer Service. A practical service meant to support the changes to guilds in Cataclysm, it is presumed to be a way to move a guild bank and members from one server to another without loss.

The next logical step, in my thinking, is a service to move one account from server to server. If you (like most) have more than one character on a server, it seems only sensible that we'll eventually be able to pay a lump sum to move all characters on an account to a new server home -- or even to pick and choose characters from across servers to end up at one single location.

I'm confident that we'll be able to move plural characters around for a flat fee at some point.

A more progressive idea I had, and one I'm not so confident about, is the idea of moving things like pets and mounts from one character to another. I mentioned in a post a while back that I wish our characters could share pets and mounts so we didn't have to re-grind the difficult ones, but what would make more sense is if you could choose to pull pets and mounts off of one character and put them on another (again citing super-rare items like the Riding Turtle, White Raptor, and Black Qiraji Battle Tank) for a flat fee.

Again, my reasoning is that it's a darn shame that some of the rarest items have all but disappeared into the flimsy subspace of stabled characters. In my three years, I've only seen one Black Qiraji mount, which sat in Shattrath for a single fleeting hour before the owner transferred servers or something.

Other people have lost beloved Riding Turtles by putting them on a character they used to play. And don't get me started on dedicated pet collectors who have to re-grind the Hyacinth Macaw.

That one's just cruel.

The truth of the matter is that we're an impatient population, filled with alts, and we don't like to waste time on things we've already done. Blizzard has already acknowledged us with heirlooms, and I feel confident that they'll continue to create and provide services that give us more freedom to revel in the prizes we've slaved for.

On the Devil's Advocate side of things, yes there would be potential hiccups with such a service, specifically surrounding achievement and arena mounts. My reply would be that achievement and arena mounts should be accepted into the service, but that whichever character they're taken from loses them (while keeping the achievement) and can't regain them without transferring them back. This way, if you wanted a red proto drake on a leveling alt, it could happen, but your main wouldn't have it anymore.

Likewise, I cite a friend who got an arena mount on an alliance Death Knight just before he left to roll a horde Death Knight on our server (before we had faction changes). That mount is unused, but he earned it. I say he should have it.

Or what about characters that earn Invincible or other limited raid super-mounts? If those characters get stabled, what does the player have to show for his efforts? Nothing.

I say if the player earns a mount or pet, he should be able to keep it with him and use it. In a perfect world (or another game), I'd suggest all mounts and pets be distributed like the Netherwhelp or Grunty -- you (the player) earn it and all your characters get it, even the brand new characters.

100 Mounts, or "Solo Collection Guide"

This is a guide to 100 mounts pre-Cataclysm. With new races and factions coming out in the expansion, we will get new mounts to make this more attainable, but logic suggests we'll also get a new achievement, because collector achievements need to stay difficult to be worthwhile. Right?

So there's no point neglecting your collection now if you want to stay on top of things in future expansions.

I'll give you a simplified list. It'll be up to you to research details, though I may eventually post some guides for harder grinds. This is just to point you to the mounts that are guaranteed to be yours if you put the time/money/effort in.

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Solo Grinds

• Battleground Mounts [6] - 150 WSG, 150 AB, 200 AV Marks
• Wintergrasp Mount [1] - 300 Stone Keeper's Shards
• Halaa [2] - 170 Battle Tokens, 700 Oshu'gun Powder (makes 35 Research Tokens)
• Kurenai/Mag'har [8] - Exalted
• Netherwing [6] - Exalted
• Cenarion Expedition [1] - Exalted
• Kirin Tor [4] - Gold
• Oracles [1] - Revered
• Wyrmrest Accord [1] - Exalted
• Alliance/Horde [41] - Exalted All Races
• Argent Tournament [13] - Champion, Exalted, 875 Champion Seals
• Winterspring/Venomhide [1] - Exalted
• Motorcycle [1] - Gold
• White Polar Bear [1] - Hodir Pre-Reqs
• Heroic Culling of Stratholme [1] - Timed Run
• Sha'tari Skyguard [5] - Exalted
• Sons of Hodir [2] - Exalted
• Deathcharger [1] - Stratholme Boss Drop
• Time-Lost Proto Drake [1] - Rare Spawn
• LFG Random H-Occulus [1] - Loot Bag Drop
• Violet Proto Drake [1] - Get all holiday achievements.
• Tailoring [2] - Tailoring Level 425
• Engineering [2] - Engineering Level 375
• 50 Mounts [1] - Get 50 mounts.

Total: 104

Partner Recommended (But Not Always Required)

• Qiraji Battle Tanks [4] - Temple of Ahn'Qiraj, Pre-Req, Trash Drops
• Zul'Gurub [2] - Raptor & Tiger Boss Drops
• Raven Lord [1] - Druid & Honored w/ Lower City
• White Hawkstrider [1] - Access to H-Magister's Terrace, Boss Drop
• Fiery Warhorse [1] - Karazhan Boss Drop

Total: 9

If any of my numbers are wrong, say so and I'll fix it. I have intentionally left out mounts that still need 3+ players as well as class-specific mounts. If you wish to keep track of your collection, I recommend the collection feature on Warcraft Mounts.

Outfit of the Month, or "My WoW Model Viewer is Broked"

This month I'm going with something a bit hoochy, but it's the only image I had pre-prepared. Next month, I trust things will be back to normal and I'll find something for cloth-wearers. (I know I've been neglecting y'all. Sorries!)

I'm a big fan of the thigh-plates on the legs and the overall color scheme, though I suggest a green-gold cloak to cover the bare back and... um... scantily clad rear on the females. Somehow the shoulders and shield make the front look more covered than it is, but the back just seems nekkid.

It's also easy to put together, since the items are uncommons and will show up on the Auction House every now and then.

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Requirements to Wear:

• Plate
• Level 57

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Chest, Legs, Bracers, Boots, Shield, Helm, Shoulders, Gloves, Belt:

• Set Listing
• 3D Preview

Valentines Boss, or "Apothecary of LOVE!"

The Valentines holiday starts in two days and I know most of you are (or should be) as excited as I am. I'm particularly anxious because of the new boss, the fact that Birdy doesn't have any level 80 friends yet, and how much I want her (and another alt) to get that pretty new PINK mount.

The mount definitely drops off the Valentines boss, according to Wowhead's data-mined feat of strength "Big Love Rocket."

For those of you who, like me, don't have people to run you through this year (or if your character isn't 80 yet), try to hold your dancing guts down so you don't have a heart-attack. I know every sensible person will want (nay, NEED) the rocket, and that includes you, but do yourself a favor and try to not wake up in the middle of the night stressing that you'll have to grind forever to get one. There are other years to get this puppy, even if it means waiting for everyone else in the world (of Warcraft) to get one so that you can roll uncontested.

Personally, I'm waking up in the night thinking "I want a pink mount nao!" But I have to remind myself: "Self, you has a phoenix. Chill. The Valentines boss is not going anywhere, family group is leveling to 80 on casual alliance alts, and you'll get your pretty pink mount on Birdy and Windwhistler if you're just patient and don't freak out."

Then I pat myself condescendingly on the head and go back to sleep.

Boss: Apothecary Hummel

Where: Shadowfang Keep (Silverpine Forest)

Quest: Man on the Inside --> You've Been Served

I don't have specific details on the fight or where he is in Shadowfang Keep, but you can be sure there will be some info available the very first day, usually on Wowwiki.

In the meantime, please feel free to look over last year's Valentines notes if there is anything you may have forgotten, and as usual I'll have changes and notes up for this year once the holiday starts.

Also, good luck with Peddlefeet this time around, everyone!

Jerk Babies, or "Little Jerks Growing Up to Be Big and Dumb Just Like Daddy"

Because I have nothing better to post about, and because it was so awful it was funny.

I decided to learn how to tank on my little level 27 warrior. My husband has a 25 warlock, so we grouped up and got immediately into an instance.

First minute in, the mage rolls Need on some Moss Agate and the healer goes nuts. Says we aren't continuing if the guy does it again.

Husband makes verbal calming motions toward the party, suggests the mage might not roll Need on Moss Agate, to which the mage replies "But I'm a jewelcrafter."

Mage rolls Need on the next Moss Agate (which of course drops immediately), and husband and I are thinking "Who the hell cares about MOSS AGATE?!"

Healer leaves the instance but not the group and tosses curses and racial slurs at the mage. (Misspelled curses and slurs.)

I decide to report him for his language and say so. The "N" word is never called for.

We have 6 minutes before we can kick him, and I take two of those to fill out my ticket. The hunter continues to trade angry banter with the healer, husband continues to try rational persuasion, and the mage just stands there looking confused with his dumpy draenei squid face.

The hunter mentions you can report people for going afk without dropping group, so I amend my ticket.

At this point, I remember that I'm a jewelcrafter too and should probably roll against the mage from now on except WHO CARES ABOUT MOSS AGATE?!

We finally get to kick the healer, get a new healer, and the new healer drops group immediately without saying a word.

We requeue and guess who our healer is?

And guess how many minutes he has left before we can kick him again?

Yup. Mr. Jerk Baby is back, laughing, and has a 15 minute safety zone. So I say "I guess this group is over," and husband and I drop. We don't really regret leaving the hunter and mage since one spouted insults at the healer for leaving and the other didn't have the sense to pay attention when someone threatened to go postal over a 14-silver-at-the-Auction-House item that I don't even think you use in JC (correct me if I'm wrong).

Husband says "Well that was a waste of time" and I say "Why don't we queue again? We don't have a debuff and I'm a tank!"

I take the precaution of ignoring Mr. Jerk Baby so we don't get him as heals again, and we requeue to a group that is respectful, thoughtful, and pro. We rush through the instance, and even though it's my first time tanking the healer has no problem holding me up through huge overpulls, and I have few problems keeping aggro.

Oh, and in our second group? We didn't get a single Moss Agate.

Maybe that's why we did so well! :D