7 Responses to “Warcraft Parental Controls”

1. nutz on January 17th, 2007 2:11 pm

   I found out about this the hard way. I’ve been reading through your archives and decided to comment, something I almost never do, hope you find the following mildly amusing.

   My son (14) switched to WoW from SWG with his buddies (they move from one game to the next after a couple of months) and he promptly tried to interest more friends by sharing his account. Maybe he’s trying to make his own guild, who knows? Not me, I’m so out of touch I haven’t even tried online games since I just knew I’d be disappointed and have to pay hundreds to upgrade my hardware…no thanks. So, after he gets tired of WoW and goes back to SWG (somehow playing even after I have canceled the subscription but I’m not asking any questions) I get bored one day and try out WoW on my eMac (yup eMac). What do you know, it’s fun! I start playing my Mage, get into a guild, try a couple of instances, spending more time that I thought I would ever spend in front of a screen outside of work.

   Suddenly, I’m logged off. Must be server problems, it’s 11pm anyway so off to bed.

   Next night, same thing, starts to seem like it’s not a coincidence. Begin troubleshooting network connections and paying attention to the little message on the login denied screen that sends me to the WoW account management page. What do you know, there are parental controls, and somehow my (son’s) account is only able to play till 11pm. That’s a pretty good feature, I think, and even though I don’t remember, I’m sure I must have set up these limits back when homework was an issue and computer time was my hammer. I’ll just remove the limits since I’m the adult here….hm….a password, which I don’t know and can’t guess, is required. Oh, but there’s a recovery link…all I have to do is click and it will send an email to the parental control email address which is … notmyaddress(at)hotmail.com.

   I question my son - do you know anything about this? Do you recognize notmyaddress(at)hotmail.com? Oh yes (reluctantly) that address is one of his bud’s. I’ve discovered an unexploded prank-bomb! Very funny indeed! Well, not so funny actually, since it’s me that is being bombed, but I’ll fix it. I’m the credit card owner after all.

   Can’t guess the password, and the recovery email will go to a 14 year old who I’d rather not alert to the explosion of his prank-bomb. So I call up Blizzard and explain the situation. Surprisingly it’s pretty easy to get someone on the phone, not so easy to gain understanding of my problem. I ask them to reset the parental control password…no can do, but we can update the email address…

   Me: Fine set it to myrealaddress(at)gmail.com please.

   Them: The email address is already set to that sir, what is the problem blah blah.

   Me: No, I need to change the PARENTAL CONTROL email address, which for some inexplicable reason is different from the account owner address.

   Switch to another department that handles parental control issues.

   Them: Of course we can fix that sir, once we confirm your identity… you must FAX us a copy of your driver’s license, credit card associated with the account, and written request to make this change to the email address. Then you can use the recover password link, and change the time limits.

   Well, it did work, though it took a couple days. Makes those people that can’t open child-proof prescription bottles seem a little less like losers.

2. Foton on January 17th, 2007 2:58 pm

   Haha, good story. And maybe a good tip for some of the Warcraft Widows over here. I assumed any parental control email would have to be same as account email, but I can see why it shouldn’t be — to keep the dads off the kids’ accounts.

3. James on April 11th, 2007 4:22 am

   Hey,

   any1 now how to bypass this gay filter!!!!!

   i hate it soo much

4. Trenton on September 11th, 2007 6:01 pm

   OMG!!!!! i need to find out how u get the parental controls off!!!! i hate it i bored to death!!! plzzzzzzz!!!! some 1 tell me how to like hack it or somethin.

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