Guild Wars 2

Apparently, there is some bug with changing your password. I changed mine yesterday, 24 hours later and the new password is still not in effect. Logging into game or the forums requires the old password. I do still get the reminder to change my password when logging into game using the old password. I just tried to change it again to the new one I’ve come up with, but get an error message when doing so:

_That password is not available. Either you’ve used it before, someone else has used it before, or it’s known to have been hacked from another game or web site. Please choose a new, unique password for your Guild Wars account. We recommend creating a new password by choosing four random, unrelated words, as shown in this comic strip. _

It seems that the “new” password is being recognised somewhere within the system however is not applying to the account.

I would not go out spending any more money just yet. Have you filed a ticket regarding the issue yet? If not, I would open a ticket with support and ask them to look into the issue for you. You may need to supply them with your original account name and serial key plus the new serial key that you’ve just purchased. They will be able to help you from there.

IP address ranges are generally assigned to an authority within a country, who then passes them out to the various ISP’s in that country. However, if there are spare addresses available, it is not unheard of for a country/ISP to rent out their addresses to another ISP (even in a different country).

While we would all dearly love to block certain IP address ranges for RMT activity, as well as other hack attempts and spam, it is rather difficult to be able to effectivly do. Especially when considering the users in those particular countries use masking proceedures to make their traffic appear to be coming from somewhere else entirely.

There is no way to cancel the notice about changing your password. What Gaile was referring to is the email authentication system. The only way to remove the password reminder is to actually change your password.

Kootz, I just went through your posts on these forums, and I cannot find where you had asked about a name or where anyone gave approval for it. Apparently, someone in game had a problem with the name you had chosen and reported it, and it looks like whoever reviewed the report agreed. If you have filed a ticket about the issue, Gaile will need the ticket number to review the case.

I’m glad to hear that you are back in game, but there really was no reason to get so hot under the collar. ArenaNet DO have customer support, there is just not a phone number you can call to get there. They have a ticketing system, just like most other major games, and it takes time for the humans in Support to work through the queue of tickets. Just because someone did not get back to you in 5 minutes does not mean there was no support.

Icemansrb – bad advice. You should NEVER EVER send your credit card number or bank account number to ANYONE. You can scan a copy of your receipt, though all that shows is that you purchase A copy, not the copy in question. What they should be doing is replying to their ticket with the serial number of the copy they have. They should not be opening a new ticket to do this, as that will just delay the restoration.

Confirmed – I changed my account password about an hour ago, though it appears that it has not yet updated to the authentication server. I have not yet tried to log onto game (still at work, sadly), however I can log onto the forums using the old password. The new one gives me a logon error about the password being incorrect.

My suspicion is that it will take some time for the authentication server to update to the new credentials, and in the mean time we continue using the old.

Unfortunately, yes, that misclick has cost you. As of now, there is no proceedure for ArenaNet to reimburse you the cost and remove the incorrect item. I believe they are working on something for the not-too-distant future, though it is not yet in place.

I believe that if your first account was terminated (closed, not suspended) for some reason, that the account is closed period. Since you’ve bought a new copy of the game, I suspect that you should be creating a new account and not trying to resurrect your old account. I suspect you should consider the old account gone forever, though I’m sure someone from ArenaNet will be able to clarify this better when they have the chance.

First, ensure your computer is clean of viruses, malware, keyloggers, etc. Then file a ticket with support and explain that you had a virus and the account got locked. They will work with you.

To the OP – have you thought about trying to contact the guild leader of that guild and discuss the issue with them? It may be that what has happened is against their guild policy. I most certainly would not be joining any future runs with them, I would also make it known within my guild (on my guild forums, not publically) what happened so that my guildmates knew in advance what the other players did. Word will get around as to what they did and they will find it hard to find others to fill their runs when needed.

Please be aware that if you also use regular desktop speakers and will be switching between them and the USB headset, you will need to change your sound device in the in-game settings (options) whenever you switch them. I bought a new USB headset with built-in mic because my desktop mic cord had gotten chewed to bits by my pet bird and no longer worked. In hindsight, I would have just bought a pair of headphones that can plug into the jack built into the speakers and not have to worry about switching them all the time.

Please give the Accounts folks time to work their way through to your tickets. It is not an automatic process, a human WILL get to you.

I do not believe that this will be possible. You should have crafted the item on the character you wanted the item on.

They have your ticket and will look into it. Though, I have to say, that hanging out with bots in order to farm materials for yourself was a less-than-ideal way to go about it. Other players, seeing the bots, are naturally going to report them. It looks like you got caught up in the reports.

Confirmed – this stage of the story is still buggy as of 16 Oct. I was able to complete it, thankfully from reading the above posts here to get clues, by hopping on top of the second door to open it. Once opened, the servants became active and was able to kill them, and then proceed further.

Best suggestion is for them to keep trying. Check at odd times of the day, during overnight periods if possible, first thing in the morning, etc. As long as the current population reads High or less, they should be able to effect the transfer.

Gaile, what do the devs have to say about players who receive mails like this, how should we deal with them? Should we leave them in our mailbox and open an in-game ticket? Should we leave them in our mailbox and open a support ticket on the forums? Should we just delete the emails?

Fortunately, I have not yet received one of these type of mails, however I would like to know ahead of time how to deal with them so as to not put my account in jeopardy of being associated with the RMT trail.

I’ve just created a new Sylvari character for myself, a male. When at the stage of adjusting his facial features, he tends to look down quite a bit which makes it harder to see the face. Would it be possible that male Sylvari’s will maybe look side-to-side in the creations screens instead of looking down?

Bystander, when you go to the “My Account” link under your login name at the top of the page, does it show any login attempts from countries other than your own? If it does, there is a good chance that your account has been hacked and the hackers actions are what earned you the ban.

You can change your password at any time, so if that makes you feel better, go right ahead and do so. I would make sure, though, that you do that from a machine you know is free of any nasties. If you think you may have a keylogger on your machine and are unsure of how to get rid of it, take the machine in to a reputable repair service and ask them to check for and clean any nasty stuff off of it. After getting the machine back, change your account password and that should help. ArenaNet now also have a beta mobile authenticator app for smartphones that you can start using now to further protect your account.

It is actually quite easy to practice self-control. When there is work to be done, the work gets done first and play comes later. When you know you need to be up by a certain time in the morning, you go to bed by a certain time the night before so you are not dragging the next day.

There are many nights that my guild will be putting together a dungeon run. If it is getting too close to my normal bed time during the week, though I would love to go, I don’t because a) it’s not fair to the rest of the group that I may be getting tired and not performing as well, and b) I may need to end the run sooner than expected because it may go on too long. It’s all about managing your responsibilities with your free time.

skirge.6421:

I wish they had people in game actually policing things real time. Seems like bots run out of control forever before any “banning” happens.

Most are painfully blatent about it, if there were in game GMs, with a ban stick, things could be much easier. Some areas are so thick with them it is impossible to even play the game normally.

How do you know that this is not already occurring? I am quite sure that ArenaNet have people logged into game all the time under accounts not displaying the ArenaNet icon. You wouldn’t even know they were a dev and not just another player looking at them. I am sure they are there, watching the bots and making notes of names and behaviors for further investigation, watching chat channels to see what people are talking about, and just plain old ensuring that things in that particular zone are working as intended.

As far as the bots go – sure, it would be great to just ban them on sight. However, that may not give any information about how the account is botting, what mechanics are being used to not only do what they want but to also avoid detection. A lot of times it makes sense to leave a bot in place for a period of time to see exactly what it is doing, as well as track its behaviors and who its contacts are before shutting it down. This gives valuable information to the devs in countering the bot mechanics in the first place, which then help prevent the bots in the future.

The best thing we players can be doing when we see botting happening is to report it. This brings it to the attention of the devs so they can begin investigating the activity as well as the account. We should also be patient after reporting, knowing that it may take several days, possibly longer, for the devs to do what they need to do in the background to monitor the activity and account, and that the devs WILL take the appropriate action at the right time. ArenaNet don’t want them in game just as much as we players don’t. Sometimes, though, they have to let the bots do their thing for a bit so as to learn the best way to counter them and prevent them in the future. Have a smidgen of patience, it goes a long way. :-)

I believe that they already have plans for this, most likely making town clothes available through the Gem Shop. We’ll just have to be patient and wait. :-)

It really don’t cost a whole lot, even at 80, to repair or waypoint. There needs to be some costs attributable to the player, some way of removing coin from the economy, and this is how it is done here. Full death is avoidable in most situations. It is up to each player to learn their profession’s skills and abilities, using them to their best advantage to prevent death as much as possible in the first place.

I would suggest using an alarm clock for yourself instead. You know you only have X number of hours during the week to play, set the alarm for the time you need to log off.

I, too, would love ranger pets to retain their names once assigned. I’ve simply stopped naming my pets as I swap them around too often, depending on the situation.

It’s all about teamwork and tactics. The group needs to work together as a team – communicating with each other, planning attacks, targeting an enemy and using group focus-fire to maximise damage, managing the use of abilities so that they are not all on cooldown for the entire group.

I play a ranger most of the time, and I always ensure that I have Healing Spring as one of my abilities. I coordinate its use with others in a dungeon run so that we all don’t have healingon cooldown at the same time. When in a zone and fighting a champion, I generally stay at range but will move in closer to drop the Healing Spring on those closer to the champion before heading to the back again. When solo-ing, I will drop the spring and kite the enemy in a circle around it.

It’s all about learning what skills and utilities you have, as well as teamwork. Sure, you can solo your way through, but it’s much more fun in a group of friends, all working together towards the same goal. The Trinity’s demise here is really not a factor once we’re working as a team and not as individuals, which is the entire point.

Fantastic news! At least for those with smartphones. There are still some of us, few in number I know, but we don’t have smartphones. I don’t have the need for one, but I would need to buy a phone just to secure my account?

I applaud ArenaNet’s hard work to get us to this point, and politely request that hopefully a physical unit will be made available that will enable those without smartphones to protect their accounts as well. I am also quite sure that there are some who would prefer a physical unit to a smartphone app even though they have smartphones.

I wouldn’t worry too much. You have a ticket in with support, and once they see that your account was compromised, I’m sure they will restore the account. Most of the time, when this happens, it is because the hacker was doing the botting.

The devs are pretty reasonable about what is said in the different channels. If you had a one-off swear at something (not directed at anyone in particular), that would not have earned you the suspension. From the sound of it, you had an entire litter of kittens happening, which is not acceptable and earned you the vacation.

All you can do at this point is to change the password on your game account – I would be doing it from a known clean machine and not the one you are playing on. It may be possible that you have a keylogger on your machine that could send the new password along to the hackers. The attempts you are seeing are because they know your current password.

As for authenticators, ArenaNet are working on additional security measures. In the mean time, be vigilant about keeping your computer clean and use a strong password that is not used anywhere else.

Someone most likely reported the name as offensive, and the name was changed for you.

Yes, swearing is not acceptable behavior in this game. If you swear in /map, there’s a good chance you will be reported. You can swear in your guild chat or in whispers to your friends, but if someone reports you there you can be banned as well. It’s all in the ToS and EULA agreements that you agreed to before playing – standard agreements found in other games as well, just that the agreements are being upheld here.

I’m not really worried about having a “main”, so to speak. I’m a life-time member of Altoholics Anonymous, and plan to have probably one of every profession. I’ve already rolled a ranger, ele, necro, mesmer, theif and guardian. I stuck on the ranger until it hit 80, mainly because I find it easier to access every zone for farming with the pet. Since then, I’ve been bouncing between the necro, mesmer and thief for now. None of them are 20 yet, but I’m slowly getting a feel for how each plays. Eventually, all will be 80 and can then fill in for whichever role the guild dungeon runs need. I just play what I feel like playing on the day and not worry about who is going to get the most love.

The only “real” way to create a bank alt is to have a second copy of the game. With that, you can then mail items to the bank alt for storage. Be aware, though, that some gear (not sure about crafting materials) may not be retrievable after being mailed to the bank alt. I created a second account for this purpose and found out that the light armor I sent to the elementalist banker for storage until my “real” elementalist levelled a bit could not be mailed back as the banker could potentially use it one day (was the right armor class, therefore useable someday).

I am quite sure that the original person was not suspended purely because he had a macro on his keyboard to swap weapons – mind you, the ~ key does this for you, but he wanted to do something else. I am also quite sure that he/she was not suspended within 1 minute of not answering someone’s whisper. I believe that time-frame was a coinsidence.

I suspect that what happened in reality was that he was either reported for botting by someone else previously, or the game diagnostics detected something running in the background on his/her computer, and that this was the reason for the suspension. It just so happened to occur aproximately 1 minute after receiving a whisper from someone.

Gaile’s response also did not give the ok for people to go writing complex macros to handle functions. It is perfectly ok to use keyboard or mouse features to cast a skill by pressing a certain key on the keyboard or a certain button on your mouse. Personally, I have my heal skill bound secondarily to my middle mouse button (press the wheel and it casts the skill). It is also primarily bound to the #6 key on my keyboard. Doing this kind of thing is ok.

What they are saying is NOT ok is to program complex macros that will target an enemy and run through your abilities so that you can then place your character in one spot and have it just do the work while you duck off for dinner, for work, to sleep, whatever.

Love that use of a Champion, that’s thinking. :-)

When I come across these guys, after the event is over, in /say I will post a quick line to say that anyone current at their computer should move their character as I will reporting those staying as botting. There’s usually a few that do move, the rest get the names reported – I right click each name and report, as well as write them down to include in a ticket along with a screenshot. Double work yes, but it at least shows the issue at hand clearly.

If you have a Hall of Monuments stone, carry it with you in your bags. When you need to go AFK in an area that is not a major city, use the stone. It will take you to the Hall of Monuments. You can safely park there while you go AFK. When you are ready to return, go back through the portal and you are taken back to the same spot you were at before.

I use this all the time myself. Outposts are not necessarily safe as there have been events that will pop while you are gone, you come back to find your dead or something else. Major cities are usually safe enough, but if you don’t want the cost of waypointing out and back again, the HoM stone works a treat.

At this point in time, no there is nothing that can be done.

Yes, if reported, you will be forced to change the name plus given a 72 hour vacation from the game. Your guild mate was right – take this opportunity to delete the character and reroll with a new name.

At this time, I don’t think you can. If I recall correctly, that feature has been disabled because the hackers were changing the email address associated with account. ArenaNet disabled that function so as to make it so the hackers could not do that.

It sure sounds like you have a keylogger on your machine, based on the fact that they have been able to hack into your account after changing your password. I most certainly would not be accessing ANY other accounts on that machine, and if you have your machine networked to any others, not from them either. After submitting another request for help with a hacked account, make sure you have your machines carefully inspected for any potential malware.

While you may not have been botting in the traditional sense, having a program installed on your computer to automate certain functions, you have participated in bot-like behavior. Placing a character in a spot, setting it to automatically attack nearby enemies and then walking away from the computer for a few minutes/few hours is indeed bot-like behavior. You are still automating a process, which is forbidden in the Rules of Conduct that you agreed to. As such, ArenaNet is well within their rights to take action against you as they see fit.

Would it be possible to include the thread location link at the bottom of the screen as well as the top? As example, this thread is located in the Guild Wars 2 > Forums > forum > Form and Website Bugs area. When getting to the bottom of a really long conversation, it would be nice to have that link duplicated so we don’t need to scroll way back up to the top of the page. :-)

I have to agree that there really is no need for it. If you are interested in the look of someones armor, then ask them. This avoids all the harrassment from a certain sub-set of players that like to mock others as not being good enough based solely on appearances.

Agreed. I don’t use them myself and would love to post them on the Trading Post for those that love them.

Could it be possible for players to nominate an IP address that is valid for accessing their account, either through account management, the forums or the game itself? I happen to play on a static IP address, as I am sure there are others that do as well. By allowing me to nominate that IP address alone to have access to my account, the ArenaNet software would then know any attempts to log into the account (or game) from somewhere other than that IP address would be fraudulent.

Kojiden.8405:

I think it’s pretty ridiculous to have rules against swearing when people can just put on the profanity filter. There should be no rules against swearing. Harassing though, is a different story.

I wish there was a filter for real life. I don’t see any need for adding swear words to common, every day speech, but people do. There’s enough of the garbage in our lives as it is, there’s no need to include it in a place that is meant to be fun.

So, I take it that you have not read the Rules of Conduct.

1. - 17.You will not exploit any bug in Guild Wars 2 and you will not communicate the existence of any such exploitable bug (bugs that grant the user unnatural or unintended benefits) either directly or through public posting, to any other user of Guild Wars 2.

1. - 20.You may not use any third-party program (such as a “bot”) in order to automate gameplay functions, including playing, chatting, interacting, or gathering gold or items within Guild Wars 2. You may not assist, relay, or store gold or items for other players who are using these processes.

By setting your character up to automatically target and attack enemies while you are not actively playing the game, that could be considered using a bot-feature and/or exploiting a “bug” or function of the game.

When you set up a character to automatically target and attack enemies while you are not at the computer, you are essentially “farming”. Therefore, ArenaNet could consider this botting behavoir and would be well witin their rights to terminate your account. The function does not need to be fixed, the player behavior does. The game is meant to be played while you are actively at the controls, not but taking advantage on a function or feature within the game to automate something for you.