world of warcraft
I have the expansions downloaded from a previous account, but want to use a different account to play the expansions on.
Is this possible to do this without buying them again? If I have to buy it again, and I bought the digital version, could I switch computers sometime and play my account on that computer?
This question gets a bit tricky to answer... Starting from scratch, if you buy just vanilla WoW, you can experience the original world as it has been destroyed by the Cataclysm expansion. You can level up to level 60, but cannot access professions, areas, races, or other such things from any of the other expansions.
In order to access Outland, jewelcrafting profession, and Draenei? / Blood Elf races and starting areas, and level 61-70, you will need vanilla WoW + the Burning Crusade expansion.
In order to access Northrend, Inscription profession, and Death Knight class, and level 71-80, you will need vanilla Wow, Burning Crusade expansion, and Wrath of the Lich King expansion. Oh, and a prior level 55+ character on your account to play as a Death Knight.
In order to access the misc Cataclysm level 80+ areas, Archeology secondary profession, Worgen / Goblin races, and level 81-85, you will need vanilla WoW, Burning Crusade expanion, Wrath of the Lich King expansion, and the Cataclysm expansion.
Those are the restrictions. You can play on whatever realm you want with whoever you wish. You just may not be able to reach all the areas they can.
You can trial every bit of it with the 10 day trial, though I don't quite know how they treat it when your time is up.
Wow and its expansions are registered to your Blizzard Battle.Net account. If you ever lose your disc, you can simply download the WoW downloader from Battle.Net's website, which will in turn download the game and the appropriate expansions.
Best Answer
You need to purchase a key for each account you want to use an expansion on: if you have two accounts, you need four keys: two WotLK keys and two Cataclysm keys. Simply downloading and installing the expansions won't enable those expansions on your account.
However, you don't need to re-download the expansions just to use a different, expansion-enabled account: as long as you've downloaded and installed them once on your computer, you can use any account that has the expansions activated on it.