Is It Possible To Install Guild Wars On Two Computers?

Not that there's any way for them to legally determine this, it's just a scare tactic. They say this because they would (of course!) rather have two people buy two games, but since you can only use an account at one location at any given time, it's not like they can bust you for logging on twice simultaneously.

Don't worry too much about that section of the EULA. I don't think they'd really enforce it even if they DID know - I mean, think about it: They'd LIKE double money, but if they kill your account, they get no money at all. Very counterproductive, especially considering they rely on your satisfaction in order to make their money.

-sam

I was reading this topic and with all the playing here, there and elsewhere a question came to mind.

Where is the file with all the character info, stats and whatnot stored? It seems to me that this kind of information is stored on their servers but I would like to confirm it.

1) Installing the game on two computers is NOT piracy. Guildwars is account-based, you can install it on as many computers as you like, because you'll only be able to play on one computer at a time. In fact the guild wars client is specifically designed to make it easy to move the game installation between computers. Installing on your GF's computer and playing on it when you're there is legal & AFAIK in accordance with Arena Nets intentions.

However, because you only have one account, guildwars will only let you play on one computer at a time. If you try to play on two computers at the same time, Guildwars will simply terminate the connection to the first one when you log in with the second (and tell you it has done so).

2) Your computers IP is completely irrelevant. What's important is your account name and password, because that's what your CD key is tied to, not your computer.

3) Arena Net apparently views the account as personal, ie you can play on it but noone else. That said, I don't think they'd care much if you let your friend play when you didn't, though you had better be very certain that friend will not steal your account or give out your account name and password to other people.

4) All the stats & info about your characters is stored on Arena Nets servers. This is a security precaution to make the game harder to hack.

Can you find that link? I've been trying to buy a key so my brother and i can play together. That would help a lot.

I would install from the cd's. Saves you a large amount of downloading of the game while playing it and when it's done, everytime you go to a new zone, more downloads.

I tried looking for the key to buy directly abd having trouble finding it. It may be throught the client itself but not sure of that either.

Here's the link to the site where you can purchase GW key's online w/o needing to buy another box:

http://www.plaync.com/store/gw_purchase.html

Usually online games won't let you run the programs at the same time anyways. If you don't plan to play them at the same time then why not install them on two different computers? Is there really anything stopping you?

Well I have the game installed on 2 of my machines in my home, one is my copy, and one is my buddy's copy, both purchased separately. However the other machine belongs to my wife, so its rare he gets on that.

Anyway, my point is, you can install the game on as many machines as you want, but like the post right beneath your initial one, you need a copy of the game legally bought per machine. It is called a end-user license. And that means one copy of the game or "software" per machine. I can access my account on GW from his installed copy, but it has to be installed from a legit cd or client grab from the site.

No, you don't. Your account is personal, so as long as it is only you playing it doesn't matter which machine you do it on. You can install it on 100 computers if you want - you can only log in and play with one of them at a time, so as long as it is you playing there's no violation of copyright or EULA.

If you let a friend use your account while you're not playing, then you're breaking the EULA, as your account is personal. As I've said, I doubt ANet cares much about this type of violation.

I have to agree with Numa Pompilius, I mean what happens if you buy a computer or your computer breaks or something... It is idiotic to assume you would have to buy a new copy of Guild Wars just because you want a different machine to run it on.

You CAN install it on another computer, and use the same account, but you CANNOT add new accounts or double-play (using 2 characters from one account on different computers at the same time), as you need an additional CD-key or game to play it on. And yes, SOME people actually use their characters per person on a single account (one person plays this character and another uses his character).

Yes.
Yes.
True, because the game will not allow it. It's not piracy, it's simply impossible.

I'm sure people do share accounts, and that's a breach of the EULA as your account is personal, but it still isn't piracy IMO because they can't play at the same time. The server simply doesn't allow it.

Try it, I did by mistake when I forgot to log out of my own computer and then showed Guildwars to a friend - the game informed me that the account was already in use and that it would disconnect my home computer, and then let me play from my friends computer.

The fact that only one person can be logged on to one account at any given time is why I don't think ANet cares very much about people sharing accounts, even though it is a violation of the EULA. They'd probably slap your fingers if they got told you shared your account, but they got bigger problems in the form of botters, hackers, and people stealing accounts through keyloggers.

Uhhh... no, you cannot have two machines on the same network with the same IP... trying to do that would stop you dead at your router. When any computer talks to a router (i.e. a DSL or Cable modem router) the mac address for that machine is registered in the ARP tables of the router. This registration identifies exactly where your machine is on the network. Trying to bring up another machine with the same IP on the same local network would essentially be ignored by that router. (i.e. the first one up gets the connection).

Now... if you want to talk about spoofing a MAC address, thats a completely different story, but would end in a much similar result. Don't mean to be rude about this reply or anything, but i would hate to see incorrect information get distributed in a technical forum.

Hi everybody,

I've seen some posts in this thread talking about port forwarding and other fun activities.

Well, we had a mini Guild Wars "LAN party" last weekend. Just three of us behind one router, all with our own machines/accounts. Everything worked flawlessly.

I'd hate to see it done as well...which is why you should do some research before you comment.

http://www.leg.uct.ac.za/mirrors/LDP.../IP-Alias.html

the link above will give you a brief introduction on IP Aliasing....or as it's commonly refered to IP Spoofing. Basically it allows you to assign multiple IP addresses to a single NIC...and yes you can Alias an IP address that is already connected to a router, then refer to that IP when making outgoing connections...essentially creating two machines using the same IP address.

Terminalpariah: yes of course you can play when you've all three got different accounts.

Algren Cole: assigning a fake IP to your machine doesn't really help, as you can't assign the _SAME_ IP to different machines and use them all at once, and even if you could, you couldn't play different chars in GW. Spoofing IP wont magically get the server to let you run several instances on one GW account.

wow...even when I link you to the relevant information you still can't even read....

IP Aliasing allows you to assign multiple IPs to a single NIC.. you assign IP1 to the first NIC then you assign IP 1 & IP 2 to the second NIC. You have the outbound go out on the IP1 alias for the second NIC programmed to re-route back to IP2 for the second NIC. You then connect to your router(both machines appear to have the same IP)...this would allow you to log into and run GW on two seperate machines....what side-effects it would have I don't know...though I'm sure whatever you did on one machine would be mimicked on the second. No it wouldnt allow you to "play" on two machines...it would however allow you to log in on two machines and be in-game on two machines(though I'm sure due to server side checking you'd only be able to play on one character and that character would only be instanced once in-game...both machines would be able to control that character). Though that really didn't have anything to do with my original post...as my original post was specific to the poster that said computers on a network can't share an IP address....when in reality they very much can.

i dont know

No, YOU still don't get it. You can't log in more than once to your account, therefore you can't run different chars at the same time!

It doesn't matter what your IP is; even if you trick the server that two computers are the same computer (have the same IP), that only means that both computers can send commands to ONE CHAR. It does not give you access to your other chars.

You can not party with more than one of your chars at the same time by spoofing your IP.

If you don't believe me, feel free to try.

you should probably take up classes on reading comprehension...as that's exactly what I said. My reply was in reference to someone saying "two comptuers on the same LAN can't share an IP"...and they can. That's all I was pointing out.

BTW: if you were splitting an IP via IP-Aliasing and switched it up so that bot the NICs were sending out on seperate IPs but accepting in on the same IP...you'd be able to log into ONE GW account on two machines. As soon as you logged in on one it would force a login on the other as the login packets would be mirrored to the second machine.