NCsoft taking first visible steps to improve security

Back at the end of November, we talked about the ongoing security issues affecting Guild Wars players. ArenaNet has been assuring players that they are working hard on the problem, and Monday evening the community saw the first fruits of that labor. Players saw a message in their chat windows that most of them have never seen before: "The Guild Wars servers will be taken offline momentarily for required maintenance."

It was a quick change, but once it happened, players logging in saw a surprising addition to the login screen. Besides the usual username and password combination, you now have to correctly enter the name of any character on your account before you are able to log in.

ArenaNet posted a FAQ on their site along with the update and Community Manager Regina Buenaobra interacted heavily with the community immediately afterward, logging in to Guild Wars to discuss the change with players (and presumably be asked a few hundred questions about Guild Wars 2.) She also spent time on the main fan forum sites, addressing concerns, clarifying the reasoning behind some decisions, and passing some well-deserved thanks from players on to the ANet team.

While not everyone is satisfied -- and when are they ever? -- this first step is a very welcome one to most players, and we look forward to seeing more.

Reader Comments (24)

While I see it stopping brute force attempts, I don't see how it does anything for keyloggers.

exactly what i was thinking.

Nice. Pull down menu's with multiple parts of a memorable date might be slightly better, but nice.

As I only log into Guild Wars every few months between other games it took me a little while to actually remember one of my character's names.

It is a clever trick though.

And what happens when you haven't played in forever and can't remember your character's names? Thanks Arenanet...

Read the FAQ

It's a good first step, got me to change my password, and the question is better then nothing.

They just need to offer security hardware tokens to the players and let them decide if they want them or not.

OMG. Once again for the road:
http://www.guildwars.com/support/log-in-security.php

Q: What if I've forgotten the name of the character on my account?
A: Just contact Support and we'd be happy to help you out.

Massively comment system FTL (meant to be reply to the below thread from Jack)

I have no clue what my characters names are in Guild Wars!! I did not play this for years!

Same here :(

did you take any in-game screenshots? Perhaps you can glean a name from those snapshots

Youch. So much for trying to name characters to theme in Guild Wars. I can't remember any of my Factions or Nightfall characters' names because they're all pseudo-Asian or pseudo-Middle Eastern...and they're alts. :)

Fortunately, my main is still memorable, first name surname and all. If not for that character, I would be distinctly clogging up GW's support petitions right about now.

Yep, guess I'll never get to play again. Not a chance I could remember my toons names. So much for Guildwars.

That's got to be one the most moronic and drama-queen-esque comments I think I've ever read on Massively.

From the Arenanet FAQ:
Q: What if I've forgotten the name of the character on my account?
A: Just contact Support and we'd be happy to help you out.

And further, 'so much for GuildWars' yet you haven't played in such a length of time that you've forgotten your toon's name?

./facepalm

Owned, lol

Would you like some water to wash down your foot?

If any of you took screenshots of your avatar, you might be able to see it.

O' I have witnessed the malware attached to WoW, and if this goes to Guild Wars they will not be able to defend themselves like this.

The good malware I saw in WoW and captured with WireShark actually hooked into the game though a DLL that loaded with a registry hook and actually integrated with the WoW client to send the contents of the username and password field to a 3rd party website as well as Blizzard's auth servers!

So if somebody were to reverse engineer GW like that, they could just send the username, password, and character name to their own site and use it to log in as that player, no problem. The only question is, how dedicated are the hackers? :)

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NCsoft taking first visible steps to improve security

Reader Comments (24)

Posted: Dec 23rd 2009 6:25PM Rednights said

Posted: Dec 23rd 2009 8:57PM karnisov said

Posted: Dec 23rd 2009 6:39PM dudes said

Posted: Dec 23rd 2009 7:38PM agitatedandroid said

Posted: Dec 23rd 2009 8:22PM AlamoeJones said

Posted: Dec 24th 2009 4:25AM Dumac said

Posted: Dec 23rd 2009 8:27PM Yoh said

Posted: Dec 23rd 2009 8:30PM MrGutts said

Posted: Dec 24th 2009 1:38AM (Unverified) said

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Posted: Dec 23rd 2009 8:31PM TheJackman said

Posted: Dec 23rd 2009 10:33PM Valdur said

Posted: Dec 23rd 2009 11:40PM cray said

Posted: Dec 23rd 2009 9:04PM Jeromai said

Posted: Dec 23rd 2009 10:49PM Gallaphant said

Posted: Dec 23rd 2009 11:35PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Dec 24th 2009 4:27AM Dumac said

Posted: Dec 25th 2009 11:46AM Duulin said

Posted: Dec 23rd 2009 11:43PM cray said

Posted: Dec 24th 2009 12:34AM (Unverified) said

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