Battle.net conversion to become mandatory soon
by Adam Holisky 
Aug 24th 2009 at 8:05PM
We have optional Battle.net conversion right now, but that will be mandatory at some point in the not-too-distant future.Many people have done the conversion already, and many speculated and inferred from past Blizzard comments that the conversion would eventually become mandatory. But now it looks like it's going to be, and that date is in the "not-too-distant future."
The conversion process is relatively straight forward, and can be started by visiting your account management page. There have been times when Battle.net enabled accounts were not able to get into the game due to authentication issues, but those seem to be diminishing.
We'll be sure to keep you updated on any additional announcements concerning the upcoming mandatory conversion
Filed under: Realm News, Realm Status, News items, BlizzCon
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 5)
Jeffdavis Aug 24th 2009 8:06PM
Should make account hacking a bit harder (or maybe recovery easier) as the hackers convert your account asap .
Nathanyel Aug 24th 2009 8:22PM
Though *if* you get hacked (and this method doesn't make that any harder, if you give out your info or get a keylogger) the hackers can destroy not only your WoW characters, but also of any other game you have linked to this account (D2/3 maxlevel char? gone!)
Mr. Tastix Aug 24th 2009 10:25PM
The WoW account or online persona's is the the biggest bitch of Battle.net if it's hacked. Because they could delete your WoW characters, StarCraft account, WarCraft account, Diablo characters etc.
If you only play singleplayer of all those games (minus WoW) you have nothing to worry about since character info (at least for D2, doubt they'd change it for D3) is saved locally.
mibluvr13 Aug 24th 2009 11:17PM
Restoring a character is rather easy. I had all gear, professions, items in my banks, etc. deleted AND then the characters deleted. Took two days to get everything back. The last day was just because I had a low leveled alt with 100 tailoring that wasn't restored with everything else and I didn't feel like leveling it again.
Charlie Aug 24th 2009 8:06PM
Really not a big deal. I find that most people who are having connection issues now are people who are not merged. They have fixed the fair amount of issues from awhile ago.
Chukie Aug 24th 2009 8:10PM
/concur with charlie I've had zero problems with my battle.net account in recent months. If the authentication zeros have acted up its been my non battle.net guildies who cant get on. And alot of them have fixed it by updating to a battle.net account. As a long time blizzard gamer it's nice to have all my assorted titles in once place.
Jhestor Aug 25th 2009 7:03AM
Ever since I updated to a battle.net account, my connection to WoW has been incredibly spotty, and I'm at a loss as to why. I generally suffer from 2-3 server kicks from their side (my internet remains intact) per evening of game play.
Tweeder Aug 24th 2009 8:07PM
Prepare for the onslaught of comment pewpew.
Even though there's no reason for it...
THE WICKER MAN (BWF) (GT: Dalek Prime) Aug 24th 2009 11:38PM
PEW PEW PEW!
Lycanther Aug 24th 2009 8:14PM
I have no interest in battle.net and am really unhappy at the thought of being forced to use it.
Chilblain Aug 24th 2009 11:32PM
This is why the US had to force people to drop their analog TV antenna for digital. Battle.net is the future, so disconnect your rabbit ears and live in the now.
Quit holding the rest of us back. And while you're at it, update your video card.
Myria Aug 25th 2009 1:31AM
I don't know a single person that's happy with DTV, I do know lots of people who can only get a fraction of the channels, if any, with the new system that they could with the old. Pretty much the only ones who benefited from that disaster was government, who will sell the bandwidth and spend the money before the check has cleared, and cable and satellite providers who are making a mint providing people with signals they used to be able to get for free.
While Battle.net is not nearly on the same level of idiocy as the DTV conversion, it has had more then it's fair share of problems and, frankly, for most people there is no advantage nor reason -- for them -- that they should convert. This is all being done for Blizzard's convenience, not the customer's, and while that's all well and good, it's idiotic to suggest that people should be forced to for their own good.
All in all I'd say the comparison to DTV apt enough, just not in the sense that you seem to think.
Arathanar Aug 25th 2009 10:35AM
Meh. While I can understand not seeing a point in merging, it takes five minutes to do, resolves authentication issues, and lets your link your games together.
It doesn't give you MUCH, but it takes literally no effort to do.
joeschmoe Aug 24th 2009 8:17PM
Normally, I would have no problem with converting to battle.net. The
conversion is almost seamless and there usually arn't any problems. I
converted a couple of months ago and had no problems. Until, of
course, last week. Got an email claiming that my wow account was
linked to a battle.net account that wasn't mine. I've been sending
emails back and forth for about a week, and I haven't been able to
play WoW the whole time. Hopefully this problem isn't widespread,
because then there would be an awful lot of angry WoW players.
artifex Aug 25th 2009 2:39PM
Uh... you sure it was a legitimate email? How would they have known the right email to send it to if the account had the wrong info?
Doorbasher Aug 24th 2009 8:18PM
I haven't bothered to do it yet since there really isn't any benefit that I can see. From what I heard it's gonna integrate with other battle.net games (which I don't play) and.... what else?
Karilyn Aug 24th 2009 9:29PM
You'll be able to talk to people on other servers who are your mutual friend, as well as talk to mutual friends no matter what character they are on, without having to manually add each character.
Tori Aug 24th 2009 9:52PM
I like the ability of being able to download your game. You never have to worry about your discs getting scratched, you can download the legal copy on any computer.
This came in handy last summer when I was on vacation. I had WoW cravings and realized I could just download it onto my parent's computer. xD It was great!
Janaa Aug 24th 2009 10:48PM
Hopefully they'll bring in either in-game or overlay community support akin to that in Steam. At first I hated the idea of it, but after using the Steam overlay for a while (with built-in chat rooms, friends lists, web browser, etc) I've come to find it very useful.
As for the account unification - it does make life easier, especially with the download links for all your games (plus you can put in the keys for your previously purchased copies of Warcraft 3, Diablo 2, etc and it adds the full game as a downloadable installer). If users are not net-confident enough to know how to avoid keyloggers, etc, they really should be using an authenticator on their account, Battle.Net or not.
Managing multiple accounts in-game becomes easier as it adds a drop-down list of your different WoW accounts to the login screen. Just select the appropriate one and enter your password (and then the authenticator code ;)). While I don't see multiple accounts being as necessary with D3 and SC2, it will likely come in handy with the next Blizz MMO.
In short - I've experienced no down-side with a battle.net account. It doesn't interfere with your normal gameplay (you don't need to use a battle.net launcher or anything silly like that - you fire up the game and play as normal). I've had no problems logging in at any time (although I understand at times there have been issues with bnet logins, i've never run into them).
About the only negative thing with a bnet merge are the idiotic haters online who'll see someone with their battlebot out and make some stupid ignorant comment like "Lol. bnet merge = fail". There's no real reason not to get a battle.net account (and it'll be mandatory soon anyway) and plenty of reason to have one. Elitist jerks just like to think that they're somehow a more successful human being because they're behind the curve. Oh well.
The Claw Aug 25th 2009 3:47AM
Benefit is that there seems to be a lot fewer technical problems with b-net accounts nowadays than with unconverted ones.