Guild Wars 2

Oh, lawdy. This is going to be a long one.

So, I haven’t played GW1 (yes, I know it technically has no 1 on it, but it’s confusing without it) since I started in GW2.

When I originally created my GW2 account, I used a password common among my other accounts. After the hacking kerfuffle, I changed it to a special, unique, max-length password only used for this game.

I tried to log in to GW1 today, and despite trying every password I could remember ever creating (except the GW2 one, of course), I couldn’t log in, so I had to submit a change request.

I received an email that said
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Hello,

Thank you for providing that information!

I have reset the NCsoft master account password for the “ACCOUNT NAME REDACTED” account. An automatically generated email (containing the password) has been sent to your EMAIL REDACTED email address*. Please use the login details listed below to log into your Guild Wars account.

NCsoft master account (the website) Login Name: ACCOUNT NAME REDACTED
Guild Wars (for the game client) Login Name: EMAIL REDACTED
Guild Wars Character Name: CHARNAME REDACTED

NOTE: You will have to enter the character name in order to log into the game. Please enter that character name exactly as I’ve provided it above (with capitals and spacing).

Once you’ve successfully logged in with the above information, you can update your password to something you’d prefer. The articles below will explain about Guild Wars integration, and should also assist you with resetting the NCsoft master account and Guild Wars game account passwords.

Guild Wars Account Integration into NCsoft Account Management
LINK REDACTED

Changing an NCsoft Password
LINK REDACTED

Changing Guild Wars Password in NCsoft
LINK REDACTED

Thanks,
REDACTED
NCsoft Account Support
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So, I go in, reset my NCsoft account password and then my GW1 password.

The NCsoft account page says

==== Game Account Account Type City of Heroes Freedom™ STILL REDACTED Free Guild Wars® STILL REDACTED Trial Guild Wars® STILL REDACTED Standard ====
Notice how it doesn’t say anything about ArenaNet nor about GW2 in there.

When I click account management for the standard account type, I have the option to change my password, upgrade account, or download pc client.

When I try to change my password, I am limited to 8-13 characters. Furthermore, my password has to begin with a letter, not a number.

I fuss around for a long time trying to come up with one I can remember. I log in and play GW1, yay. I log out and try to log into GW2 and…. my fabulous password for GW2 doesn’t work. Do I have capslock or numlock on? Try it again. Nope.

I begin to be suspicious. I try the new password I just created for GW1. Voila… it works.

I can’t even…. shaking my head sadly.

1. It never indicated that the two accounts/passwords were connected in any way, other than the fact that GW1 is the basis for GW2 and owned by the same company. I have “separate” forum accounts, master accounts, logins… at least, I thought I did.

I had no indication whatsoever that the change I had made to one game would affect the other.

2. My old GW2 password was 15 characters long. I recently read they expanded that to 100 characters. But despite using the same login info… I’m limited to 8-13 characters in GW1? I can’t even use the same system to restore the fancy long password I had; I have to pick a different 13-character one or get someone from GW2 to help me… and I can just GUARANTEE that they’re not going to add a little note “oh by the way, now that I’m changing this, I see you logged in via ncsoft master account, you do realize this will change your password in GW1 to whatever you’re picking now, right?”

This is mindboggling.

It only gets better.

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Hello,

Thank you for the details of your account information.

Since the moment you linked the accounts for GW and GW2 both are attached to the same password, so now on it will be the same password it cannot be changed.

Best regards,

Guild Wars 2 Support Team
====

Are you kidding me? My response:

Yes, I figured that out. Presumably what you’re saying in that grammatically-unclear sentence is that I cannot unlink the two accounts; I hope you are NOT saying that my password cannot be changed in the future.

BECAUSE

What I want is to have a longer, more secure password that begins with a number, the old password that I was using for my Guild Wars 2 account. If I had simply been notified (or, from your perspective, “reminded”, since you assumed I knew how it worked) – if there had been a warning or reminder or “um, real quick let me bring your attention to the fact…” at ANY point in the process, I would have known how to log in to GW1 without changing my password, I would have had the password I wanted, and it would have been a longer, stronger, easier to remember, more secure password.

Unfortunately, the only method of password changing that you have given to me, specifically, changing the password within the NCSoft Master Account settings, does not allow me to use a 15-character password, nor can I choose a password beginning with a number. On the other hand, GW2 allows longer passwords and it DOES allow me to have a password beginning with a number.

Additionally

1. If someone had just said “hey, uh, you logged in to GW2 today using that password, it’s the same one” instead of directing me to the password change, I would still have the old password.
2. At no point was I notified that the password would be the same. It is not clear that the account LOGINS are linked. I realize that the accounts are linked as far as HOM and character naming and so on, but it was NOT CLEAR that the account logins and passwords were linked. Guild Wars 2 does not appear in the Master Account listing.
3. As I have said at least three times in this exchange, it would have been so nice to have a simple notification message, pop-up, email, change of the text from “Your Guild Wars password has been successfully changed.” to say “Your password for Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2 has been successfully changed.” — ANYTHING to bring this fact to the attention of the customer, who doesn’t spend their days helping people with account issues and may not have realized, or may not remember, that the accounts are linked and therefore might have a connection, or a customer who may realize they are linked but who may have other accounts with other companies that are linked but still retain their own logins and passwords and who therefore won’t automatically assume that THESE two accounts share a password.

Or how about a customer who noticed that the two password creation processes are not compatible – one of them allowing long passwords that begin with a number, and the other allowing passwords between 8-13 characters long, that cannot begin with a number – and assumed that they were TWO DIFFERENT databases since they had different allowable criteria….!

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I went on to request help changing my password back somewhere where I can use the GW2 criteria.

I am posting this here in the forums so that hopefully others will realize what’s going on, and maybe chime in.

Submit a support ticket, I’m sure they can help you change your password back via that.

As for not knowing the two were linked… I agree with ya on that. Should be stated somewhere if it isn’t.

Gaile, I would be happy to have the situation reviewed.

When I got home from work this evening, I had received another email response which was much more helpful, and allowed me to change the password “back” via the GW2 account system (which technically can’t ever be changed back to any password I’ve ever used, another frustrating problem) (and which also does not notify the user that it’s changing the password for both games).
So I have a password I can live with, a longer one that is easier for me to remember and type, and I’m content.

I did write back on the ticket explaining that I’m frustrated about the inability to change back to the password I really wanted, and got a response that implied that they may be able to help me with that, but I’m frankly ready to be done with it… I just want whoever’s in charge of the system to review the SYSTEM, not necessarily review my case. My login is in working condition, and I can settle with that.

However, the lack of confirmation/warning/notice/whatever when changing the password, at both ends, needs to be addressed.

Also, the weirdness of the incompatible password creation criteria.

FWIW, then, the Incident number is [121013-003080].

At least when I linked my accounts I was told they shared login information. See the attachment:

Ohh Guild Wars issues…Same here..a bit of help would be great! When I was hacked I changed my password to Guild Wars…also to NCSoft..I can’t log in to GW …I’ve tried and tried…I don’t have Guild Wars listed on my NCSoft games list..so I can’t change the password that way. I have linked my GW2 and it states that my log in and password will now be the same, that doesn’t work…any suggestions?