GUILDWARSINSIDER

Used to seeing that? Well soon, you will see it NO LONGER!

ArenaNet announced tonight that a mandatory password change will be implemented next Thursday, Feb. 7, for all accounts who haven’t changed their password since before password blacklisting measures went into effect.

…One of the ways we protect your account is by creating a blacklist of passwords that have been used in the past by hackers to scan for accounts. As this blacklist has been very successful for protecting newly created accounts, we have asked all our existing customers to change their passwords.

In fact, for those customers with passwords chosen before the introduction of blacklisting, we have displayed a red banner in the launcher for the past three months, encouraging (but not requiring) a password change. Starting on February 7, 2013, we will change it to a requirement.

More details can be found there, but in the meantime, if you’re seeing that annoying red box bossing you around and demanding things out of you every time you log into the game (well, maybe it’s demanding only one thing. Damn is that thing persistent)… You should just go ahead and take care of it already.

In fact, I’m doing it right now. Do it with me!

Aaaaaand…….

Done!

ArenaNet has decided to reset the WvW server ranking at the end of this week’s match-ups.  This determination was a result of the mass server transfers that happened prior to the implementation of the paid server transfer option.  

 In recognition of this fact, and in light of the increased population stability that comes with paid transfers, we feel that this would be a good time to reset the ratings of all the servers.

The current match-ups will continue until Friday.  The final rankings will be posted on February 1st.  These rankings will determine the next week’s match-up   After February 1st, the ranks will be reset along with any behind the scenes calculations.  

Read the entire post here.

Hopefully you have not deleted all that in-game mail you get when you completed a renown heart.  Arenanet has seen fit to grant extra experience for old renown hearts and deliver it through the old emails. Just go back in and collect your experience points!

Thanks to the group over at reddit for the information.

 The Patch Notes for the January 28th were posted on the official forums earlier today. Sometimes patches contain only a few important changes….. 

This is not one of those times.

The massive list of changes touches everything from Fractals to Achievements; Professions to the Gem Store. There even seems to have been a full on revamp of all the content in Orr, with a new emphasis on the Temples and the addition of a greater diversity of exotic rewards being sold at the end of those event chains.  My personal favorite though has to be some of the visual changes that were made, particularly to The Dreamer (Credit to Stealthy Sane of Tarnished Coast and Dulfy. Here is the Reddit Link)

Yep. Unicorns. Follow the Break for the Full Text of the Patch Notes!

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More information was released earlier today about the changes that are being made to address the WvW culling situation. Habib Loew posted a rather in depth look at the improvements that are being made to the system:

In the January update we’ll be making a couple of preliminary changes to WvW.
1. The first of our engine changes will be coming on line to help improve character load times by using fallback models.
2. We’ll be switching over to the culling methodology that we trialed in December.

The basic summary of the solution is that the game will display a generic character in place of the person until the engine is fully able to render the actual player. It may not be the most elegant of solutions, but it should be a massive improvement for WvW. Additional details can be found in the original thread here, as well as some details of the process that has gotten them to this point.

Today, ArenaNet announced an upcoming release, the Flame & Frost prelude update, via the official Guild Wars 2 website.

The details of this update include a new PvP mode as well as a new map for paid and free PvP tournaments – Temple of the Silent storm.

Outside of PvP, there are new achievements to be earned daily, as well as unique ones for each day of the week. Along with these new achievements comes a new achievements tracker as well as redeemable tokens in the form of laurels. The laurels can then be used to obtain rewards like ascended gear and transfusions.

Guesting is also officially in, and while being free the free world, transfers are being replaced by gem-paid world transfers (as they were originally intended to be).

There will also be continuous updates in terms of balance, UI and bug fixes along with some cool new items in the gem store (two words: Quaggan Backpacks).

Quite the start to the new year, and this is only the prelude. Hit the update for the full story and comment below!

“Laughter is the fuel that keep the wheels of life moving” -Rytlock Brimstone

Featuring the comic stylings of Knut Whitebear, Logan Thackery, Zojja and Captain Weyandt, this absolutely amazing collection of short sound bites is sure to have your sides splitting. Honestly, I can’t say anything else that wouldn’t do this a massive injustice. Just go listen to it. 

Indeed. 

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Reddit.com/r/guildwars2 is a superb resource. Sure, sometimes you have to sift through some not-so-useful things,  but it really is a great stop for any Guild Wars 2 player (after Guild Wars Insider of course).  There hilarity, guides, discussion, and anything you could ever want to find…and more. 

Well, right now, there is a Discussion of Thieves going on that I wanted to highlight. There been some pretty superb points made, and I’d like to encourage any Lock & Key Reader to head on over and take a gander. Join a discussion, leave a comment, or simply defend the Thief profession form the legions of haters! I personally would like to highlight a couple of the best comments in my opinion:

- From Timbob3799:  ”I have a guildie who despises thieves. Then I show up with my warrior in WvW with my warrior and yells for me to get my thief. Lol. For those that prefer a support role over dps/glass cannon, I suggest looking into the “Ninja Medic” build. I’ve ran a variation of this for a while now and it’s quite fun. Not to mention I’m damn near unkillable. I’ve surprised many a GC thief by not going down after they snuck up and back stabbed burst me.”

You don’t miss the Thief until we’re gone…

- From skylortrexler  : “Now is my time to shine!    http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/613881507662289675/AEE11DEE040891AB76C5FA163130655A7ADA8AD7/ Self crafted armor with T1 Medium Cultural Sylvari armor transmuted on it.   Running Short bow for multi-enemy encounters and p/p for single target devastation. Skills are Hide in Shadows for the stealth, Shadow Refuge for Team/Self heal and emergency stealth, Signet of Shadows for 25% speed increase, Seed turret for distraction, Thieves Guild for pvp damage increase or Take Root for pve mass distractions.”

First, your thief looks phenomenal. Second, this is almost exactly what my Thief runs with in terms of gear and skills. 

So, head on over to the discussion and make your voice heard!

Many people, myself included, have been limited by the lack of key feature in the game: guesting. This was one of the most totted features before the release of the game as allows players to get together even if they are on different servers. In a post today it was announced that this feature will finally be made available on January 28th!

CITIZENS, I have an important announcement to make.

Previously, we’ve talked about a feature called guesting, which allows you to play with your friends on other worlds. The wait is over! Guesting is coming to a world near you with our update on January 28^th!

The process looks to be very simple and is done from the character select screen. With the implementation of this feature there will no longer be free world transfers as well. If you want to change servers without having to pay for it be sure to do so before the 28th.

The full article with all the details on how the process works can be found here. See you in Tyria!