Guild Wars 2

We’ve just posted a more-detailed forum postabout why we’re asking that players reset their passwords.

The “change your password” message on the game launcher represents a precautionary measure that we’re taking to help enhance players’ account security. That message is not a sign that your account is at risk and not an indication that the Guild Wars 2 servers are being attacked. Making the change is optional but strongly encouraged.

Back in mid-September, the developers added a huge list of known, vulnerable passwords to our game security system, in order to prevent the use of those passwords on a Guild Wars 2 account. This “password blacklist” came from sources throughout the Internet, from various sites, games, and forums that were breached, subsequently putting individual passwords in the hands of would-be account thieves.

If you have never changed your password for Guild Wars 2, or if you changed it before the blacklist came into effect, there is a chance that the password you are using is not as secure as it could be. Therefore, we’re asking that players who have not changed their passwords since we instituted the blacklist make a password change. We’ll run a check against the blacklist to prevent you using a password that is known to be vulnerable.

For information about security, and for tips on how to choose a secure password, please read this article about account security. If you have any questions, feel free to post here in the forums.

TheUndefined.1720:

Hello,

I apologize if this question has been asked, but any sort of information on this matter would be very helpful.

Is ANet planning on creating their own Authenticator?

Thank you

There’s nothing in the works at this time, but there’s always a possibility that this will be something we undertake in the future.

Khristophoros.7194:

I would like to get rid of the message without changing my password please.

I have considered your advice and decided against it.

Simply click “cancel” and you’ll be fine.

Cribbage.2056:

Gaile, you may not be aware of this, but unnecessarily changing your password actually marginally REDUCES your account security. I can explain why if you like but it would require quite a detailed step through of risks and mitigations.

I am currently being prompted by the launcher to change my password redundantly. Now, I understand network security well enough not to do so, but thousands of users won’t and will faithfully follow the advice unnecessarily and thus add to the risk to their accounts.

With all due respect, I trust our Security Team implicitly. If they are recommending this, I’ll take their advice, and I’ll encourage our players to do the same.

Please send an email to Exploits@Arena.Net with as much info as possible: map, world, time of day, date, and the character names involved.

Thanks!

I’m sorry, I don’t know what could cause that, so yet again, I’m afraid I need to ask that you contact Support by filing a ticket through the “Ask a Question” tab on that linked page.

Ben Marsh.3795:

Hello, today right after the Haloween update I decided to spend $20 on some Gems, unfortunatly when I clicked the button to finish the process it didnt load. So I closed the client, I still hadent recived and Gems, so I tried again, this time it worked. I pressed the buy black lion keys a bunch of times, and in the middle of that I got extra gems which was odd. A Few minutes later It charged me for another $20. I spent $40 and really didnt mean to. I would really like a refund kinda upset.

No problem with this! Just contact Support by filing a ticket through the “Ask a Question” tab on that linked page and they’ll take care of you.

kazi.6438:

I recently purchased GW2 and created a new account under a new email. Anyhow, I want to link it to my old GW1 account that’s on my old email. Is it possible to do this? I have all of the necessary passwords and can authenticate that both accounts belong to me.

My heart won’t be broken if it doesn’t work out, but it would be nice to see some carryover from the first game.

I really encourage you to contact Support by filing a ticket through the “Ask a Question” tab on that linked page. They may be able to assist you.

I will ask the team to review this for you.

No need for alarm. We’re just asking folks to change their password if they haven’t done it since the big Password Blacklist went into effect in September. This will help increase your account security, so why not?

I’m sorry that you are unhappy. But having people use offensive language or choose crude and unacceptable names is clearly prohibited by the Rules of Conduct and the User Agreement. The results are outlined in the Conduct Breaches and Outcomes document.

Giving warnings is a waste of time and is provably ineffective. Asking for special dispensation because there’s a holiday event isn’t going to be effective, any more than “But I’m driving to a party and I’m late” is going to persuade a police officer that you should be given a pass on the speeding ticket you’ve earned.

Most importantly, having to deal with such appeals takes time away from other players with legitimate concerns. Some of the things that a CS Agent hears are: “[rude name] wasn’t that bad,” “should have gotten a warning,” “should have been caught by the filter,” “wasn’t my fault,” “was blocked because you’re being PC.” Taking time to discuss this — and believe me sometimes it takes days of back and forth because someone gets really angry about why #*(%^&# was blocked, is--quite bluntly—a waste of time. How do we justify that time, while someone else is waiting for us to help him/her with a compromised account?

With all due respect, you made an error of judgment, and you need to face the consequences.

I reviewed the ticket and cannot see where the answers that you have received have been off topic. While some responses were very lengthy to cover several situations, they seem applicable to your case, as well as respectful and informative. If you have received other responses of a less-relevant nature that I somehow cannot see, I apologize for that.

As has been explained several times, we do not have the capacity to replace your tokens. We are working on a system that will allow us to address such situations in the future. We of course will need to be sure that someone completed the run and earned the reward. (You mention disconnects, and the variety of causes for a disconnect — on our end, on the user’s end, somewhere in the middle — will make gathering the full details somewhat challenging but I believe we’ll be able to identify the issues in the majority of cases.) Once we are able to research the incident and establish all the facts of the situation, we then will be able to provide the earned rewards in cases that merit it.

Again, the function to replace items is not currently available. In addition, at this time we cannot look at the history of what took place. Therefore, with regret, we will not be able to replace the tokens, as the team has explained in the past. We greatly appreciate the support you have showed our game, and I wish there was another answer, but unfortunately this is not at this time.

You’ve already posted in the Tickets for Review thread. Please do not post multiple threads on the same subject.

Please don’t make duplicate posts. Please wait three days and if you still need assistance, post in the “Tickets for Review” thread.

We’ll have updates on several of these issues tomorrow. And of course if you have an update to share — a resolved issue or more info to share — please feel free to post here.

Thanks for your patience!

K Smooth.5426:

This is very frustrating. I spent $60 on a game that I have been banned from for doing NOTHING wrong. It has been 3 days and not even a word from support. There are so many people complaining about being wrongfully banned it is ridiculous. I have played countless MMO’s in the past and have NEVER witnessed anything like this… still waiting for an update on my ticket….

What is your incident number?

andrew.1798:

Hey,

I was on this morning and was suddenly disconnected from the game. Ever since then, I’ve been unable to log back into the game.. It’s not client-side (since.. you know, I’m posting this using the same ISP as I logged into the game earlier with)… so what’s up?

By “unable to log back into the game” I mean: I click log in, but the loading symbol just keeps painting a continuous circle like it is not connecting at all..

Was just wondering if others are having this problem.

EDIT Waiting a bit it did give me “Unable to authenticate your playing privileges” or something like that… followed by “Connection Failed”

I’m a bit concerned unless this is just because the servers are packed from a bunch of people logging in for the Halloween event?

You could be running into the holiday traffic, but I am concerned about your account. I suggest you contact Support — support.guildwars2.com — and use “Ask a Question” to submit a ticket.

Please contact Support — support.guildwars2.com — and use “Ask a Question” to submit a ticket.

The accounts you see being used by botters are often stolen. And that is why the account is closed, so that the real owner can reclaim the account and get back to playing.

If an account is “terminated” for use of a third-party program, and if the account provably was hacked, the owner will suffer no repercussions except for the time it takes to reinstate, which is usually running under 48 hours.

I am so sorry that you’re having trouble! You can contact Support by going to support.guildwars2.com — and using “Ask a Question” to submit a ticket. I just sent a note to the team to ask them to watch for your ticket.

This is a standard message that a random 40% of our players are shown on launching the game. This number will rise to 100% soon. This means if you haven’t changed your password since we added a “blacklist” of known/stolen credentials in mid-September, you’ll be asked to change not because you’re necessarily at risk, but because changing is a good thing in case your password was on the blacklist. (To say that a different way, it’s a proactive security measure and not a sign that you’ve been hacked.)

Please read this article about account security for more information and valuable insight into good account security.

Also note that this is not a sign that your account is at risk and not an indication that the Guild Wars 2 servers are being attacked. (Getting emails from us listing suspicious access attempts is of greater concern.)

Thanks for understanding, and I’m glad that all got sorted out.

I am sorry that you are having these difficulties. I suggest that you contact Support — support.guildwars2.com — using “Ask a Question” to submit a ticket. An agent will help you figure this out.

Please contact Support — support.guildwars2.com — and use “Ask a Question” to submit a ticket. An agent will help you.

AV and Keylogger detection systems are sometimes not quite up to date. They’re great, but they don’t catch everything (because they are reactive and hackers can keep ahead of the detection game).

The account is closed pending review of your wife’s support ticket.

No matter what email address, the display name, character name(s), and serial code will not change. So please have your wife provide those in her ticket to Support.

Just as an FYI — the dev team has noticed your concerns about this and they have come up with a way to make world completion clearer for players. They’re planning a modest change to the map that will make it easier for you to see what you’ve done via the World Map. This change will roll out in a build in the near future.

Best of luck — I feel sure the team will be able to help you get back on your account.

We cannot change names upon request. In the future, you will be able to purchase the option of changing a character name. I think that feature is coming pretty soon.

Good bot detection and prevention happen throughout the game. Our team is working on this issue.

Atreyu.3486:

Ok guys its pretty obvious that the guild wars game is having a major hacking issue right now. I am reading these forms and hundreds if not thousands of players are getting banned accounts for "taking part in or assisting in gold or real money trading etc…

Would someone please kindly release some form off statement as soon as possible to let everyone including myself know what the issue is and how you plan on rectifying it…we all love guild wars very much and this experience is begging to tarnish it.

Thank you.

What you are stating is not true.

Accounts are stolen every day. It’s a sad fact of life that players use passwords on multiple locations, use a weak password, share their account, or do something else that results in the account’s theft.

We have not experienced a security issue. These are individual issues. And while you’re seeing perhaps a dozen posts a day about this subject, hundreds of thousands of people are playing without incident. I believe that Mike O’Brien stated that the percentage of people whose accounts were hacked was about one tenth of one percent of all account holders.

Please do not post alarmist comments about “major hacking issues” that do not exist. Each person whose account was compromised should submit a ticket to Support and, for faster service, should provide the information in the “How to submit a ticket” thread above.

HawksClaw.8461:

ticket number is 121022-000090.

Thank you Gaile

Ok, that ticket was filed within the last couple of hours. I am confident you will hear from the team very soon.

Cappz.6973:

About 5 minutes ago I tried to log in to play and I got an error saying that I engaged or assisted in the trade of gold and gems for real world money. I then checked my Email address and saw that I had gotten four messages saying that someone from (see below) was trying to access my account from another area and needed confirmation. I pressed deny and there was an error. Putting 2+2 together I realized that someone from China hacked me and messed with my account, framing me to make a quick buck. I understand that this is in no way NCsoft’s fault and that account is probably trashed by now, is there any way you guys can help a man that had been convicted under false pretenses?

Address: 113.240.223.88
City: Changshahsien
Region: 11
Country: CN

I agree that it sounds very much like your account was compromised. I suggest you contact Support directly for help. Use the “Ask a Question” tab to submit a ticket.

Please immediately contact Support directly for help. Use the “Ask a Question” tab to submit a ticket.

HawksClaw.8461:

My wife’s account was hacked on the 17th of this month. She found out when she check her email and saw an email stating the email address associated with her account has change. “Hope this was you” ….Really…. Hope this was you ….. what is that, a bad joke. Well not laughing… She has opened a ticket with customer service and keeps getting the same automated response asking for information to verify the she is the one who purchased the account, she has give the information each time and still waiting… The major flaw is that Anet allows email changes without verifying the the email holder is doing it. It is a major hole in your security.

Any help from Gaile Gray or any other moderator would be appreciated.

What is the 12-digit ticket number? I can check into this tomorrow, but if the ticket is more than 3 days old — and I suspect it is — I’d appreciate if you post in the “Tickets for Review” sticky thread at the top of this sub-forum. I will do what I can to help!

Felicus.6218:

Some one is on my Account with the IP and Location WA , US (70.32.34.197) please fix this, i have been fighting them and the Chinese players off my account, no one knows my ACC info and this computer is clean k thanks bai!

Please note that while the team is very prompt in answering tickets, they cannot do so instantly. And posting multiple times in the forums about an individual account compromise is the wrong way to get it addressed. You must contact Support directly for help. Use the “Ask a Question” tab to submit a ticket.

For tips on how to expedite the help that you receive, please see this post.

And please not: locator software is not so fool-proof that you can know with certainty about a hacker’s location. Share the information you have with Support, by all means, but I suggest not trying to solve this face-to-face. It’s far, far too risky in the sense of possible error.

ClaviculaNox.8762:

Hi, I’ve been trying to buy a copy of GW2 Digital Edition for a friend and we are getting an error
“Your credit card details are invalid”
Tho it’s correct and i checked with my bank and it’s all fine
Can you help please?

Incident Number: 121021-002851

I cannot help you directly but you did exactly the right thing by submitting a ticket earlier today. An agent should get back to you very soon!

I do understand your frustration! Since you’ve already spoken to Support, could you please continue a discussion with the team via your existing ticket? You may ask to be routed to a team senior agent or lead. Perhaps there is a way to allow you to purchase more easily while still maintaining the security that is an essential part of business.

I am not an expect in purchases and billing, but I hope they can help you out!

And please accept my thanks for your support of our game! (Plus, yes, the Halloween items are amazing!)

I suggest you contact Support directly for help. Use the “Ask a Question” tab to submit a ticket.

I would recommend a full scan of your system to check for keyloggers. In fact, I’d recommend you flatten it and rebuild, but I’m naturally conservative about these things.

Using the email or mobile authenticator is excellent advice, and I hope you take advantage of one or the other.

We’re encouraging everyone to change his/her password. You can read some interesting info in Mike O’Brien’s security article, linked above.

We’ve blocked tens of thousands of bots since the game was released. 3,000 on a single October day, and hundreds upon hundreds on other days around that one.

Our Security Team is hard at work on new initiatives that will help address the bot situation. We know it’s an irritating situation, and we’re committed to correcting the problem through a wide variety of means.

We’re sorry, but we are not in a position to offer the ARS (Account Restoration Service) at this time. I believe it is coming pretty soon. Please keep in mind that the ARS will not be used to replace items, to roll back a mistaken deletion, to undo a erred transaction.

The ARS will be only for compromised accounts. We are working on other means to help players, in addition to the ARS, and we hope to have more to say on that in the next several weeks.

We are not able to replace the tokens. Sorry that this happened. (I’ve done it too, and I do sympathize!)

The dev team is aware of a few issues with the way that the personal story develops in the game. The team has developed or is working on a fix for each of them. Here are the known issues:

1. The first bug involved a change in the personal story that “jumped” the character farther along the path than intended. This was resolved on October 1st. If your account was impacted, your character now should have all the options and quests that it needs in order for you to progress the story as you desire.
2. The second issue involves a split in party paths upon selection of one’s Order. This issue has been reproduced by our QA Team and a fix has been coded. Upon successful testing, this fix will be rolled to the live game. We will not be able to roll back accounts that are experiencing this bug because the details of the bug are different than #1 and we do not have the data needed to do such a rollback. We will, however, be preventing this from happening in the future.
3. The third issue involves a similar kind of split when the party chooses their Greatest Fear (at level 70). This fix is also under review by QA but the details are not yet fully known. The issue will be addressed as soon as we are able to replicate it, develop a fix, test it, and roll it to Live. Again, it does not appear that we can retroactively roll back the issue for those who currently have it, but we will take the steps necessary to prevent it affecting others in the future.

The above comments are official, developer-reviewed details about each of the three bugs. As you can see, there truly is nothing that can be done with the account or the characters — not by Customer Support, not by the dev team. We’re very sorry for the issue that a few players have experienced, and we do apologize for the situation, but as we have posted before, the characters impacted cannot be reset or fixed.

I pray that if you are tempted to start another thread about this subject, you will realize that this truly is the final answer, that you are not being ignored, that no one is willfully choosing to not help you, that the problem cannot be corrected for your character, and that we truly are sorry for this situation.

Influence cannot and should not be replaced every time a guild changes worlds, for that would reduce the value of Influence, causing “inflation” through limitless replacements each time a guild chooses to change worlds. That could even encourage guilds to “hop worlds” and cause an instability of World-versus-World gameplay.

Tomes are intended to have meaning and value. If you decide to move back to the world on which you chose to use the Tome, you will find the Influence is there waiting for you.

If your account was compromised (hacked), please post in this thread. You will find helpful information from Support, the means to contact them, what to tell them when you get in touch, and more.

• Contact Support and file a ticket through the “Ask a Question” tab on that linked page.

• For tips on what information to provide in a ticket, please read this post.

Players can also help other players with information about how they handled their account compromise. I ask only that you keep the thread positive and helpful towards one another and towards those who are or will be doing our best to help you.

kavmac.4371:

I too, like the OP, received the spam version earlier tonight (I also received the legit one when it was first sent out, as well). Is there an e-mail address that we can forward the spam e-mails to, similar to how other places allow users to report spam e-mail being “sent” from them?

I believe we’ve established that the emails received today were legitimate, and not spam or phishing attempts.

Please know that our Support Team is always ready to help you with questions or issues. Go here to get started.

So glad it’s all ok, and thank you for posting to let us know!