Guild Wars 2

I have to say I find his justification for not forcing existing accounts to do this plain laughable, the most valuable MMO accounts are LONG STANDING ones with capped characters and lots of in-game resources.

The reason you’re not forcing this on existing players is fear of losing players, like me, who don’t have an need for this extra ‘protection’ and view 2FA simply inconvenient .. having to use it to log into games forums as well as games, as some MMOs do, simply makes it hugely worse.

In my case my mobile has no coverage at my home, that’s not why I have a mobile, so sending me an SMS would simply fail anyway!

I have no problems with people given the OPTION, but if I were forced to I’d simply stop playing, and I suspect you fear many others would do too.

Are you creating an account after Friday at midnight pacific time? No? Then why do you care?

While I can understand trying to establish a firewall between your gaming persona and your real life one, but some of the paranoid ravings people have expressed over two factor authorization is downright silly. Unless you are living a nomadic lifestyle mooching off of free wifi to get online or you shut off your cable/dsl modem every time you power off your computer so it gets a new IP address every day, most will validate their IP once and forget about it.

Kraggy.4169:

I have to say I find his justification for not forcing existing accounts to do this plain laughable, the most valuable MMO accounts are LONG STANDING ones with capped characters and lots of in-game resources.

The reason you’re not forcing this on existing players is fear of losing players, like me, who don’t have an need for this extra ‘protection’ and view 2FA simply inconvenient .. having to use it to log into games forums as well as games, as some MMOs do, simply makes it hugely worse.

In my case my mobile has no coverage at my home, that’s not why I have a mobile, so sending me an SMS would simply fail anyway!

I have no problems with people given the OPTION, but if I were forced to I’d simply stop playing, and I suspect you fear many others would do too.

Gaile Gray.6029:

simply add SMS or an authenticator to your account and the restrictions will be removed.

Oh hey, they make authenticators that use programs on your computer. No cell phone required. So the “I don’t have a cell phone” excuse doesn’t qualify. Many people have posted on the forums they use the computer version, and haven’t had an issue.

I think we will see why new accounts are required to activate this after Saturday.

If you have a smartphone..and it’s getting harder to get one that isn’t…you don’t even need mobile service, since you can just use Google Authenticator which you can setup over wifi. And if that isn’t an option, there is even a Windows application (WinAuth) to handle it.

Sure, it is a minor inconvenience, and it will stop some people. But it’s a good idea for everyone to be using 2-factor, because every hijacked account hurts the game economy as a whole.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

I think we will see why new accounts are required to activate this after Saturday.

Yep. If we needed early confirmation that F2P is going live Saturday afternoon, I think we’ve gotten it.

Gaile Gray.6029:

Posted in New & Announcements, but repeated here to ensure that new players are aware of this news:

As ArenaNet President Mike O’Brien detailed in a recent announcement, ArenaNet is committed to protecting your game account.

Effective at 11:59 pm Pacific Time on August 28, 2015, all newly-created accounts will have SMS restrictions. These restrictions mean that you will not be able to use in-game mail to send items or gold, and you will be unable to access guild vaults. If you wish to eliminate these restrictions, simply add SMS or an authenticator to your account and the restrictions will be removed. Account created prior to August 28 will not experience these restrictions.

I hope your restrictions for F2P accounts are not only this. I’d make 10 verified email in 1 day and get 55 laurels each every 28 days, to make 550g. Imagine people with more time. It would destroy the economy.

So, where’s my mini pet then ?

Kidel.2057:

Gaile Gray.6029:

Posted in New & Announcements, but repeated here to ensure that new players are aware of this news:

As ArenaNet President Mike O’Brien detailed in a recent announcement, ArenaNet is committed to protecting your game account.

Effective at 11:59 pm Pacific Time on August 28, 2015, all newly-created accounts will have SMS restrictions. These restrictions mean that you will not be able to use in-game mail to send items or gold, and you will be unable to access guild vaults. If you wish to eliminate these restrictions, simply add SMS or an authenticator to your account and the restrictions will be removed. Account created prior to August 28 will not experience these restrictions.

I hope your restrictions for F2P accounts are not only this. I’d make 10 verified email in 1 day and get 55 laurels each every 28 days, to make 550g. Imagine people with more time. It would destroy the economy.

So, that means even people that pay have to do this? Interesting. I could understand it for the upcoming Free 2 Play accounts. I have it activated. It only asks when my ip changes – which is hardly ever. And yeah, you can use the authenticator instead of an sms.

As for laurels and such, well you’ll have to pay for all those accounts – like you do right now anyway – and F2P accounts will have no mail or tp and all sorts of other restrictions – their is a post on reddit where someone has data mined all the restrictions they are going to put in place. Even if they get free login stuff, they won’t be able to do anything with it. I suspect free accounts will have no logins or different items maybe. I think they realize a flood of free accounts dumping gold into the economy would be bad.

Huge step in the right direction!

Just out of curiosity, how many account can I link to the same phone number/authenticator ?

MashMash.1645:

Kidel.2057:

Gaile Gray.6029:

Posted in New & Announcements, but repeated here to ensure that new players are aware of this news:

As ArenaNet President Mike O’Brien detailed in a recent announcement, ArenaNet is committed to protecting your game account.

Effective at 11:59 pm Pacific Time on August 28, 2015, all newly-created accounts will have SMS restrictions. These restrictions mean that you will not be able to use in-game mail to send items or gold, and you will be unable to access guild vaults. If you wish to eliminate these restrictions, simply add SMS or an authenticator to your account and the restrictions will be removed. Account created prior to August 28 will not experience these restrictions.

I hope your restrictions for F2P accounts are not only this. I’d make 10 verified email in 1 day and get 55 laurels each every 28 days, to make 550g. Imagine people with more time. It would destroy the economy.

So, that means even people that pay have to do this? Interesting. I could understand it for the upcoming Free 2 Play accounts. I have it activated. It only asks when my ip changes – which is hardly ever. And yeah, you can use the authenticator instead of an sms.

As for laurels and such, well you’ll have to pay for all those accounts – like you do right now anyway – and F2P accounts will have no mail or tp and all sorts of other restrictions – their is a post on reddit where someone has data mined all the restrictions they are going to put in place. Even if they get free login stuff, they won’t be able to do anything with it. I suspect free accounts will have no logins or different items maybe. I think they realize a flood of free accounts dumping gold into the economy would be bad.

The only datamined restrictions I’ve seen are from a datamine that occurred one year ago and seems to be for the trial accounts used during the free trial weekends that happened last year.

I personally would wait to see what ANet says officially on the matter before defending or arguing against the whole F2P issue. For all we know, IGN was lying to generate traffic as they have been caught saying incorrect stuff before.

Behellagh.1468:

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

I think we will see why new accounts are required to activate this after Saturday.

Yep. If we needed early confirmation that F2P is going live Saturday afternoon, I think we’ve gotten it.

I’ll bet what they meant by that inadvertent Tweet by IGN is that the only way to get the core game in the future will be by purchasing the HoT…therefore that makes the core game free to play, in essence…aka the core game itself will no longer be sold, but will be available for anyone to play for free, but that will still lock you out of the expansion(s) additional content in the future. This makes sense since they already stated the core game would be included in all future expansions automatically.

As for requiring SMS on all new accounts, what’s the big deal, you do it once and never again, even if you shut off your modem, almost all IP addresses now are permanent, regardless of power down(if you don’t believe this, try shutting off your modem with Comcast, the IP address stays the same, and make note, I did say almost all).

MashMash.1645:

Kidel.2057:

Gaile Gray.6029:

Posted in New & Announcements, but repeated here to ensure that new players are aware of this news:

As ArenaNet President Mike O’Brien detailed in a recent announcement, ArenaNet is committed to protecting your game account.

Effective at 11:59 pm Pacific Time on August 28, 2015, all newly-created accounts will have SMS restrictions. These restrictions mean that you will not be able to use in-game mail to send items or gold, and you will be unable to access guild vaults. If you wish to eliminate these restrictions, simply add SMS or an authenticator to your account and the restrictions will be removed. Account created prior to August 28 will not experience these restrictions.

I hope your restrictions for F2P accounts are not only this. I’d make 10 verified email in 1 day and get 55 laurels each every 28 days, to make 550g. Imagine people with more time. It would destroy the economy.

So, that means even people that pay have to do this? Interesting. I could understand it for the upcoming Free 2 Play accounts. I have it activated. It only asks when my ip changes – which is hardly ever. And yeah, you can use the authenticator instead of an sms.

As for laurels and such, well you’ll have to pay for all those accounts – like you do right now anyway – and F2P accounts will have no mail or tp and all sorts of other restrictions – their is a post on reddit where someone has data mined all the restrictions they are going to put in place. Even if they get free login stuff, they won’t be able to do anything with it. I suspect free accounts will have no logins or different items maybe. I think they realize a flood of free accounts dumping gold into the economy would be bad.

Yes, every new account F2P or HoT, has to sign up for 2FA to get e-mail transfer and guild bank access.

See this from a month ago.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/a-new-way-to-protect-your-account/

Zaklex.6308:

Behellagh.1468:

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

I think we will see why new accounts are required to activate this after Saturday.

Yep. If we needed early confirmation that F2P is going live Saturday afternoon, I think we’ve gotten it.

I’ll bet what they meant by that inadvertent Tweet by IGN is that the only way to get the core game in the future will be by purchasing the HoT…therefore that makes the core game free to play, in essence…aka the core game itself will no longer be sold, but will be available for anyone to play for free, but that will still lock you out of the expansion(s) additional content in the future. This makes sense since they already stated the core game would be included in all future expansions automatically.

As for requiring SMS on all new accounts, what’s the big deal, you do it once and never again, even if you shut off your modem, almost all IP addresses now are permanent, regardless of power down(if you don’t believe this, try shutting off your modem with Comcast, the IP address stays the same, and make note, I did say almost all).

Except many of us travel quite frequently. I’m not saying two-factor authentication is a ‘big deal’, but some do not keep the same IP address, either through travel, provider changing address, new modems, new service, etc.

I’m not sure what, exactly, was wrong with email verification, except people being lax about their passwords/etc. and getting compromised there, as well.

MashMash.1645:

As for laurels and such, well you’ll have to pay for all those accounts – like you do right now anyway – and F2P accounts will have no mail or tp and all sorts of other restrictions – their is a post on reddit where someone has data mined all the restrictions they are going to put in place. Even if they get free login stuff, they won’t be able to do anything with it. I suspect free accounts will have no logins or different items maybe. I think they realize a flood of free accounts dumping gold into the economy would be bad.

If you meant a post from That_shaman that one is from one year ago and there are controversies if it applies or not, but it most clearly doesn’t.

Kind of a nit picking question but

If you wish to eliminate these restrictions, simply add SMS or an authenticator to your account and the restrictions will be removed

If they then remove the SMS/Authenicator, will the restrictions still be off or will they come back?

And what if we do not want to give you our mobile number or install your app on our smartphones?!

How about finding better ways to protect our account instead of invading more of our privacy!

Orochimaru.4730:

And what if we do not want to give you our mobile number or install your app on our smartphones?!

No need to install any apps. Any web browser can be used to create an authenticator.

Healix.5819:

Orochimaru.4730:

And what if we do not want to give you our mobile number or install your app on our smartphones?!

No need to install any apps. Any web browser can be used to create an authenticator.

And goes GW2 have one? No, they are demanding your mobile number.

Browser based, no but WinAuth is a standalone application, no installation required, you just unzip and run it.

I don’t have it running all the time either, just fired it up to set it up and whenever I get a challenge which for me has been once at my house and once at my parents since I went to the forums (I had the “secret code” written down with no indication what it belongs to).

Those making a fuss over phone number disclosure and privacy really need to take a few more seconds to read what was said. You don’t have to use SMS at all. There are two other options, using WinAuth or Google Authenticator.

I don’t know much about WinAuth, but I can say that anyone throwing a fit about privacy over Google Authenticator is doing so out of ignorance. Just take a look at the permissions it asks for. They are about as benign as they can be.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.apps.authenticator2

I’d guess that most of you worried about privacy with that app likely have much worse installed on your phones right now.

All this really does is increase account security for everyone. Good password or not, having 2-factor is more secure than not having it. And the majority of players won’t even have to bother with re-authenticating very often. Even if you do change networks/IP very often, it’s taking a few extra seconds to type in a code. And those that end up having to go through this “inconvenience” more often, are the ones that need it the most, because they’re probably using hotspots which come with their own inherent security risks.

Kimyrielle.3826

I am sure you will have fun explaining to said 100 online services who you are in case should you ever lose your smartphone or have it stolen.

Write down/copy the time-based code you’re given to setup Win/Google Auth and keep it in a safe place. Lose your device? Just put that same code into your new one. Problem solved. This works with anything using Google Auth.

I’ve not encountered a 2-factor system that didn’t have some quite reasonable way to restore/recover should your phone be lost or reset. They just take some degree of paying attention and being responsible. If you’re given a way to backup that information and choose to ignore it, that is your own fault.

That is also why SMS is their recommended method. Because they know people are careless, do not think of future circumstances, and do not pay attention to easy steps that could prevent future problems.

Orochimaru.4730:

Healix.5819:

Orochimaru.4730:

And what if we do not want to give you our mobile number or install your app on our smartphones?!

No need to install any apps. Any web browser can be used to create an authenticator.

And goes GW2 have one? No, they are demanding your mobile number.

They said that SMS is better, but you can use the Google Authenticator or WinAuth with GW2. I use the google one on my phone, because why not? They aren’t demanding your mobile number. They just know it’s better. Because how often do you change your phone number on your cell phone? And if you do, you can easily update them of the change. Break your phone, get a replacement, it’s still the same number. Oh, break your phone and you don’t have the codes to re-enable the authenicator on your number phone? Guess you need to create a support ticket to have them remove the current one.

Can you see how much better (For both Anet and user) SMS is. But hey, they still let you pick one or the other. And this is on NEW ACCOUNTS. You seem to already have one, why are you so worried?