Guild Wars 2

Thank you for submitting these questions. We will review the questions from this week’s thread, as well as those from the other language forums. We will chose a group of them to hand over to the various Development Teams. Their replies will be posted in all language forums on Friday, April 11.

Thanks for waiting everybody. We have gathered questions from this thread, other threads on the forum and from our other language forums and passed them along to the teams for answers. Below you can read the great responses we have received from the developers. Namely, Associate Game Director John Corpening, Gameplay Programmer Bill Freist, Server Programmer Samuel Loretan and Game Designers Curtis Johnson and Matt Wuerffel.

Trait Changes

Q: What about PvP-only players who have low-level characters for PvP? Does the new trait system mean we won’t be able to experiment with builds any more unless we start playing PvE?

John Corpening: In PvP players have access to all skills, runes, sigils and traits from the “core” set. The core set is everything the game launched with. New traits and other items that are added to the game will require players to unlock it. So there should be plenty for players to play with. And with all the gold, loot, tomes of knowledge and skill points that players are earning from playing Reward Tracks unlocking the new stuff will be fairly easy.

Q: With the way getting trait points is changing and having to be level 30, does this mean that we can only get 50 trait points?

John Corpening: Trait points will be condensed from a total of 70 points into 14 points. Each one of these new points is essentially worth 5 of the ‘old’ points. This way each time you spend a point you will unlock a minor or major trait slot and 50 points of each stat in the line which will feel much more rewarding as well as prevent build errors when setting up your character. These points will begin to be awarded at level 30 and continue to be obtained every 6 levels. Once you reach level 66 it will continue at a pace of 2 points every 6 levels until 80.

Social Play and LFG Changes

Q: Last login for guilds, does that mean last represented login?

Bill Freist: Last logout time for the account – regardless of what guild they were representing.

Q: So is it only guild leaders who have access to seeing when members last logged on, or can the entire guild roster see it?

Bill Freist: The entire guild can view this information.

Q: Is last login retroactive? Will we see actual last login dates on April 15th or do we start our clocks from April 15th?

Bill Freist: This feature was deployed at midnight PST on Mar 12th. Players that log out after that time will start recording their last online time. So the maximum last online time will be just over a month when this feature ships. Player that haven’t logged in between then and the build will display as “Unknown” for when they were last online.

Megaserver

Q: Will language grouping only work for officially supported languages (EN, FR, DE, ES)? If not, how will players who speak unsupported languages (Polish, Russian, etc.) be grouped?

Samuel Loretan: To determine a player language, MegaServer uses the language of that player’s home world (or the world currently guested to, if any). That means that only official languages are being supported. All servers marked with a specific language are using this language, while servers without an explicit language are using English by default. Players who speak unsupported languages will be grouped using those criteria.

Q: How will this affect the people I’ve blocked? Will they be shuffled to another map unless someone in my guild has them unblocked?

Samuel Loretan: The MegaServer system currently doesn’t use the friends list nor the blocked list information. This might be something that will change in the future: as we’ve stated, the MegaServer system is just the beginning, and we are exploring all sorts of approaches in creating meaningful and solid social units for the system to use.

Q: What is happening with guesting?

Samuel Loretan: On April 15th, the guesting feature will still exist. If you guest to a specific world, this world will be used to sort you, instead of your home world. That doesn’t mean that you will necessarily end up in a different map copy, but you will be counted as a member of your guested world by the MegaServer system.

Universal Timers and Guild Events

Q: Will existing Influence, Merits, Consumables, and Unlocks across all Worlds be merged into the new unified chapter?

Samuel Loretan: We are still working on the details of the guild merging, but the general goal is to avoid losing anything in the process, when feasible, and without going over the currently defined maximal capacities for each of those elements (the 250 Merits limit, for example). Keep in mind that this will evolve, and that we will let you know the specifics of the guild merging as soon as practically feasible.

Q: How will Guild Banks from different Worlds be resolved and merged together? In order to avoid items/gold being destroyed, will guilds have to empty their guild banks in preparation for a merge?

Samuel Loretan: As previously said, the specifics of the merging are still being worked on. Guild banks are a difficult problem to solve, but we’re currently targeting a solution that wouldn’t require any preparation from the players. That being said, nothing is set for sure here, and you will be informed of the details as soon as they’re defined for certain.

Q: Since the megaserver changes will initially affect a few areas, will the World Boss schedule table be true just for the light yellow bosses or are the rest of the World Bosses also going into the new schedule even if their areas are still not part of the megaserver?

Samuel Loretan: No, the World Bosses schedule will be released globally on April 15th. Note that the order of rollout of the MegaServer system may still change, as we’re still conducting tests, and as we will be adjusting the parameters depending on our monitoring. While I know that it isn’t what was in the blog post, we’re adjusting this to ensure the best experience for everyone, and the smoother possible rollout of this feature, which has a very large scope and requires careful operation.

Wardrobe and Dye Changes

Q: Will all the gems armors we have bought or earned be unlocked even if we salvaged some of them?

Curtis Johnson: Only skins you currently have equipped or in inventory will be unlocked automatically. Any piece from a complete gem store armor set will unlock the whole set for your account. So if you salvaged everything but still have the primeval glove skin you will unlock the whole armor set.

Q: Speaking of the gas mask — what about it, or Mask of the Queen, or other items that currently can be applied to any weight of armor but then get locked to that weight? Will they remain free-for-all in terms of armor weight once in the Wardrobe?

Matt Wuerffel: Items that could be applied to any weight of armor (the gas mask, Mask of the Queen, Radiant and Hellfire armor) will unlock their skin for all armor types.

Q: Do racial and weight restrictions still apply to the wardrobe system?

Matt Wuerffel: When you are transmuting looks to a character, racial and armor type restrictions still apply. Any character can unlock those skins to the account (e.g. your Mesmer can acquire heavy armor and unlock the skins to your account, which you could then apply to your Guardian’s appearance).

Q: Does the number of transmutation charges required depend on anything?

Matt Wuerffel: All transmutations cost one charge per item, with the exception of skins from the Hall of Monuments and the achievements system, which are free to apply.

Q: Once I unlock a skin in the wardrobe, am I free to delete the actual item while still using the appearance from the wardrobe in the future?

Matt Wuerffel: Yes. In fact, deleting the item will actually unlock the skin in the wardrobe as a safeguard.

Q: Are we going to be able to use town clothes as armor from now on?

Matt Wuerffel: All outfits will be usable in combat.

Q: Why not simply convert town clothes into armor skins and keep the costume pieces separate?

Curtis Johnson: Some town-clothes are not compatible in tech and art style to mix with all the existing armors and thus were not eligible for conversion.

Q: ‘Outfits’ are all or nothing. What about items that were sold as individual items?

Curtis Johnson: Town clothes sold individually were either converted to individual armor skins available to any weight class or endless tonics.

Q: What happens to the extra items that came with the costumes, like the broom you fly on or the black cat?

Curtis Johnson: All toys will still function from inventory and can be used with armor or outfits. Toys will still un-equip automatically in combat.

Q: Will this be enabled in WvW? What about the various toys that got costumes and such banned from WvW?

Curtis Johnson: WvW equipment and wardrobe will all be usable the same as PvE. Toys that are not allowed in WvW will be individually disabled.

Q: Will a transmutation charge “unlock” the skin already in our locker for unlimited use?

Matt Wuerffel: Skin unlocks are permanent, free, and account wide by account binding the item or salvaging it. Each time you transmute a skin from the wardrobe onto an item, it will cost one transmutation charge with the exception of skins from the Hall of Monuments and the achievements system will remain free to apply to as many items as you like. Once transmuted the item can be equipped and unequipped as often as you like and will keep the skin.

Q: Unidentified dyes are required for the Gift of Color. How are we going to get them now?

Matt Wuerffel: Unidentified dyes will be obtainable from the Mystic Forge, from select in-game rewards, and from the trading post. Also, the number of unidentified dyes required for the Gift of Color will be reduced.

Q: When unlocking a Legendary appearance, will I also unlock the visual effect that comes with it (footsteps and aura). If so, would it take 1 transmutation charge to apply those to the account or will I need to pay gold?

Matt Wuerffel: All visual effects that are associated with a Legendary weapon will apply to any weapon transmuted to an unlocked Legendary skin. The cost of transmutation is always one charge per item, with the exception of skins from the Hall of Monuments and the achievements system, which are free to apply.

Q: If I’ve already reskinned my legendary with something else would I still be getting the legendary skin when we get the wardrobes? Also, what will happen to transmutation splitters?

Matt Wuerffel: Items that have been transmuted will unlock the skin of the base item used for stats and the most recent item applied for appearance. Transmutation splitters will still be available to use on transmuted items to separate the base item used for stats and the most recent item applied for appearance.

Q: What about backpieces (be it the Jetpack, Dwayna, Ascended, etc.): will these be converted into skins too?

Matt Wuerffel: Backpiece skins can be added to your account wardrobe, and backpiece items can be transmuted through the wardrobe in the hero panel, just like other pieces of equipment.

Q: Will there be an opportunity to earn transmutation charges as in game rewards for events, or will access be strictly gem purchases?

Curtis Johnson: Transmutation charges can be earned as part of map completes and will occasionally be included in other rewards. Gold can also be exchanged for gems to purchase anything in the store.

Best Practices

Phishing – If an email links you to a site that asks you to type in your password, don’t type in your password. It could be a fake site. Go to the real account management site by typing “account.guildwars2.com”, or use a bookmark.

Social engineering – If someone claims to work for ArenaNet or NCsoft and asks you for your password, don’t tell them your password. Our customer support team doesn’t need your password.

Trojan horses and Spyware – Don’t download and run software, or open files attached to emails, from a source you aren’t 100% sure about. Malicious software can install a keylogger on your system to record your passwords and transmit them.

Email security – Keep the email address associated with your Guild Wars 2 account secure, just like you keep your Guild Wars 2 account itself secure. Use a strong, unique password there too, which you’ve never used anywhere else.

The Root Cause

Why do hackers work so hard to steal accounts? Because they make money from it.

Real-money trading companies want to sell you gold for cash. To do that, they have to collect the gold, and they have to advertise it. They collect gold by looting it off stolen accounts, and by using stolen accounts for botting. They advertise it by using stolen accounts for spamming.

If people wouldn’t buy gold from these real-money trading companies, the cash incentive to steal accounts would disappear. We’d see almost no account hacking, account looting, organized botting, or spamming ads.

We used to think wistfully about that with the original Guild Wars, and posted challenges to our players to stop supporting the real-money trading companies. But we knew that it was ultimately a lost cause. You can’t stop people from buying something they want to buy.

So with Guild Wars 2, we legitimatized buying gold, but did it in a way that puts the power in the hands of the players, not in the hands of the real-money trading companies. Players who want to buy gold can now do it in the game, in an open market with other players, trading gold for gems, which the receiving players can use to buy any microtransactions they want but can’t convert back to cash. As long as players purchase their gold this way, there isn’t a flow of cash back to the real-money trading companies, and thus there isn’t a profit incentive to hack accounts.

So the roots of our protection go deep into the design of Guild Wars 2, and we’ll leverage that design to keep Guild Wars 2 a safer environment than traditional MMOs.

But nothing is black-or-white. No matter how much we remove profit incentive, the fact remains that Guild Wars 2 is a popular game, and any popular game will attract hackers. So we keep security at the forefront of everything we do. We introduce new features, such as email authentication, two-factor authentication, and password blacklisting, to help keep accounts secure. We maintain an open dialog with our players about what the real threats are, so that players know how to protect themselves. And we have a team of GMs standing by to help those who do get hacked.

Two-Factor Authentication

With email authentication in place, you can further protect your account by setting up two-factor authentication on your email account. Which, honestly, is a good idea anyway. Using email authentication this way protects your account in a very similar way to typical game implementations of two-factor authentication: the game will challenge any login attempt from a new location in a way that you’ll have to use two-factor authentication to approve.

We know customers also want a native implementation of two-factor authentication, and we want it too. This is an area where we should act faster as a company, and we’re going to. We had our own homegrown implementation of smartphone two-factor authenticator in testing, but we’re going to pull it back and instead integrate Guild Wars 2 with Google Authenticator, which already has robust authenticator implementations on most major smartphone platforms. This feature is already rolled out and ready to be used.

You can find all these options under My Account > Security or by visiting https://account.guildwars2.com/account/security

Two-factor authentication is a great tool for security-conscious customers to protect their accounts. But we know it will take time to get a significant portion of our customer base to adopt two-factor authentication, and in the meantime people are getting hacked every day by creating accounts with account names and passwords that hackers already know. So we need a solution that can protect everyone, not just the most security-conscious, and do it quickly. Thus we’ve rolling out our next initiative, password blacklisting.

Email Authentication

We have a feature in place, email authentication, that’s designed to help keep your account secure even if a hacker does know your account name and password.

Here’s how it works. When you first login, we ask you to validate your email address. After that, whenever you attempt to login from a new location, we send email asking you to approve or deny the login attempt.

So keep in mind, if you ever see an unexpected email asking you to validate a login attempt from a location where you’re not playing from, that means a hacker already knows your account name and password! The only thing that’s keeping him from logging in as you is the email authentication system! Change your password immediately.

Unfortunately, even with this system in place, people still get their accounts hacked. Here’s how:

First, about a third of players haven’t verified their email address yet. We can’t require email authentication for players with unverified email addresses.

Second, in many cases hackers have stolen credentials for the player’s email account too, and thus can access the authentication email message and approve their own login attempt. In particular this happens because people use the same password for their email account as they do for their Guild Wars 2 account and other accounts.

So, to be protected, be sure to verify your email address, and be sure to use a different password for your email account than you use for your game account.

Password Blacklisting

Since we’ve been observing hackers constantly scanning accounts that don’t even exist yet, waiting for someone to create those accounts, we obviously want to make sure that if those new customers do join the game, they don’t use the password that the hackers are waiting for. Thus we’re building a blacklist of all the passwords that hackers are scanning for — it’s already at 20 million passwords and growing — and we’re preventing new customers from choosing any of those passwords. (The blacklist contains passwords only, not account names.)

This system has substantially eliminated hackers’ ability to steal new accounts, as all new accounts now cannot possibly match what the hackers have been scanning for. The rate of account hacking was about 1.5% for accounts created before this blacklist was in place, and is about 0.1% for accounts created after.

Because this has been so successful at protecting new accounts, we want to extend it to protect existing accounts too. But it’s harder for us to know whether passwords of existing accounts are known to hackers: it’s difficult to distinguish between a login attempt by the real customer and a login attempt by a hacker.

When you change your password, the system won’t allow you to pick your previous password, or any password that we’ve seen tested against any existing or non-existent account. Thus, after changing your password, you’ll be confident that your new password is unique within Guild Wars 2. (However, your password only stays unique if you then don’t use it for other games and web sites, so please don’t!)

By the way, if you have trouble thinking of a new unique password, now that millions of possible passwords are blacklisted, we advise you to build a password out of four random words, as shown in this comic strip . Use a password like “correct horse battery staple”. As the comic strip calculates, even if everyone selects their words from the same 2,000 most common words, that’s still 16 trillion possible passwords.

Hey everyone,

As of tomorrow, I will no longer be a part of the ArenaNet team. I have accepted a job offer elsewhere, and it will be a big step in my career path.

I’ve been an avid Guild Wars fan since the first one shipped. My life has been intertwined with ArenaNet in many ways. I have learned so much from the team and so much from the community as I’ve progressed through the positions I’ve held here (QA, Alpha Coordinator, PvP Community Coordinator to now covering all of Competitive, Skills and Balance); it’s hard to imagine leaving.

Once I made it onto the Competitive Team, I knew it was the place for me. I have an extremely competitive background, so everything really clicked into place. Needless to say, it’s been a huge pleasure to work here and be on the Competitive Team for the past year.

I’m sad to leave you all behind, but I will still be involved with the team in my own ways. I still hang out with a lot of these guys after work, and will keep an eye on the forums every once in a while to see how things are going. I’m confident that the team can handle things once I’m gone.

I will always love Guild Wars and will continue to work on ranking up in PvP/WvW, and would love to ready up with those of you that are interested!

If you’d like to know what kinds of things I’ll be doing in the future or would like to just stay in touch, here’s some of my info:

Twitch (new): http://www.twitch.tv/allie_hugs
Twitter: @AllieMurdock
IGN: Allie.9268

Much love,

Allie

You will absolutely see a way to create a precursor available in the future. As detailed in our plans for the second half of the year here:

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/looking-ahead-guild-wars-2-in-2013/

As mentioned at the end of the blog, as always things are subject to change as test and prepare various systems. Most of the stuff covered in the blog you’ve already seen implemented, or steps towards being implemented, however the precursor building (and corresponding additional legendary items) is the one highest at risk to not make it this year.

It is still something we absolutely plan to do!