R-A-F and Account Merging Questions

#0 - Oct. 27, 2010, 8:06 p.m.

I'm not entirely sure if I am posting this in the right place, but, here goes:

A friend of mine wants to get back into WoW again. He had an account previously but lost interest in playing because he didn't know anyone on the game and was struggling to juggle the game and school, blah blah, you know the story. Anyway, he left his account in the "frozen" state and apparently someone hacked him while he was not playing. The account was "closed" and obviously since he wasn't playing anymore, he didn't care.

Luckily, he was able to get his old account back with relative ease after a lengthy email to Blizzard. Now he has his old account, but, has not added any game time to it. He wants to do the Recruit-A-Friend thing with me so we can both level a few characters together. I sent him a trial account invite from my account, and, we've been playing on that only. Right now, his second account (which is in the SAME NAME), is in the "trial account" stage and hasn't been paid for. He went ahead and bought a hard copy of Original WoW, but is waiting for more information before opening it.

What are his options here? What happens when you merge two accounts? Just as the name suggests? Do both accounts become one and instead of having to pay for two accounts, he only has to pay for one? He's trying to avoid paying for all the upgrades (expansions) again if possible, while still having the recruit-a-friend bonus. Should he just make that trial account the vanilla WoW account and then merge after leveling? Does the recruit-a-friend carry over onto the new "combo" account?

I just can't seem to find any information on this subject. If anybody wouldn't mind (especially a blizzard helper) giving me some insight, I would really appreciate it!

Thanks!

Harlsoco

#4 - Oct. 27, 2010, 8:27 p.m.

You have come to the right place, Rokzu. :)

Since your friend was able to recover the first account he has a couple of options. If he wishes to continue playing on the account and the account has been inactive for 90-days, you can send him a Scroll of Resurrection. The Scroll of Resurrection was designed to bring former players back into the World of Warcraft if they have taken a break from the game. If the account in question has accepted a Scroll in the past or has been upgraded to Wrath of the Lich King, the Scroll cannot be accepted. Details about this program can be found here:

Scroll of Resurrection FAQ
http://us.blizzard.com/support/article/SORFAQ

The second option he has is to continue with the Recruit-A-Friend account he has been playing. He will need to eventually upgrade to Wrath of the Lich King if he would like to play that content or if he is planning on transferring a character from one account to the next, assuming his first account already was upgraded to Wrath.

It is not possible to merge two World of Warcraft accounts, which I gathered was what you were inquiring about. He can, however, merge up to 8 World of Warcraft accounts into a single Battle.net account.

I hope this helps answer some of your questions.

Harlsoco

#8 - Oct. 27, 2010, 8:54 p.m.

Q u o t e:
What is the cost of the Burning Crusade expansion if purchased via an "upgrade" on the battle.net site? $20?

The upgrade to the Burning Crusade is currently $29.99. Have your friend shop around. He may be able to find it at a retail store for less.

Q u o t e:
Also, he just told me that he remembered he had an extra copy of WOTLK (unopened) that someone gave him for XMAS right after WOTLK was released. Can he still use this to upgrade his new account to WOTLK?

Provided the key has not been used he should be able to upgrade just fine.