Remember back in September when Mike O’Brien addressed the community with a rather long article on account security in Guild Wars 2? He made a recommendation that players should change their GW2 passwords due to all of the account hacking attempts the game was seeing. Since then, a recommendation has appeared every time we log into the game. Well, starting February 7th, that recommendation will be a requirement. If you have not made a new GW2 password since September 12, 2012, you will be forced to do so the next time you log in after February 7th, 2013.

For more information, please see the developer’s blog regarding the announcement. Mike O’Brien’s original article on account security is also a good read, especially if you’d like a few tips on choosing a new password.

ArenaNet hosted a live developer Ask Me Anything (AMA) chat on Reddit yesterday which was headed by Chris Whiteside, Studio Design Director, and President Mike O’Brien. Quite a few issues were tackled, but one of the most interesting was without a doubt Chris Whiteside’s reply regarding the addition of ascended gear, the brand new tier of gear introduced in November’s update.

Ascended gear is a controversial issue within the Guild Wars 2 community because it’s a new tier of stat-influenced gear in a game that was largely promoted as not having tiers of progression-based gear. A large amount of players gave Guild Wars 2 a try because they were tired of the gear treadmill prominent in almost every single MMORPG right now, and with this addition, those same players wondered what exactly was on the developers’ minds. There was little warning when the feature was added, and because of this fact, most players assumed ArenaNet had simply decided to go against their original philosophy.

Yesterday, Mike O’Brien, President of ArenaNet, had a few words to say about account security when it comes to Guild Wars 2 and other MMORPGs like it. He had more than a few words to say, in fact, and delved into some interesting topics, including the methods in which account thefts occur, how to successfully create passwords for games, the implication of gold sellers in a game with a cash shop, and the steps ArenaNet is taking to curb future instances of account theft.

O’Brien also mentioned this bit:

“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. We expect to roll this out in the next two weeks.”

First off, just let me say that the honesty here is refreshing. Secondly, great news on some type of authenticator heading our way in the weeks to come. In the announcement, O’Brien made a recommendation to all players, asking them to change their account passwords, and ensuring those passwords are used uniquely for Guild Wars 2.

Make sure and read the full news article.

Recently published today, Venturebeat discusses the monetization of Guild Wars 2 in an interview with studio president Mike O’Brien. Here are a few things we found interesting:

GB: What are the key features that set Guild Wars 2 apart from free-to-play MMORPGs and simultaneously justify a $60 purchase?

O’Brien: [...]I think Guild Wars 2 is one of the best values in gaming, period. Where else can you get this many hours of enjoyment, of content, of polish, of replayability for $60?

I’ll give a direct comparison. Guild Wars 2 is both a great MMO and a great RPG, so anyone who plays offline RPGs like Skyrim or online RPGs like Diablo III is going to love Guild Wars 2. Those games cost $60. Compared to them, Guild Wars 2 has at least as much content, world exploration, personal storylines, and replayability. And then for no additional charge, Guild Wars 2 gives you a fully persistent world where you can hang out with your friends online, lots of social features, a live team dedicated to introducing lots of new content into the game, and two integrated forms of [player-versus-player].
…
Once you get in that mindset, microtransactions in Guild Wars 2 are pretty straightforward, and it’s not as controversial as you’d think. If players need something to play the game, it’s part of the game. If something is a fun add-on or service, it can be a microtransaction.

Keep reading for more.

Arenanet’s Founder Mike O’Brien published a short blog on his comments on the continued Guild Wars 2 Beta.

At the same time, we’re also working on server capacity to make sure that we’re prepared for the even greater flood of players who will participate in the next Beta. To that end, we’ve announced a Stress Test on Monday May 14th to test some changes we’ve implemented. This 7-hour test event, which runs from 11 AM to 6 PM PDT (-7 GMT) is open to all players who have pre-purchased Guild Wars 2. The good news is that we’re not wiping characters for this test; we’re using the same build that we used in the first Beta Weekend Event, so you’ll be able to pick up right where you left off. For more information about the Stress Test, log in to the Beta Forums. Please join us on May 14 if you can.

Read the rest on Arenanet’s homepage and make sure you get in the game next Monday!

Source: Mike O’Brien on the Guild Wars 2 Beta

Today Mike O’Brien, president of ArenaNet, wrote a blog giving us our first glimpse to what kind of Microtransactions we’ll see in Guild Wars 2.

We think players should have the opportunity to spend money on items that provide visual distinction and offer more ways to express themselves. They should also be able to spend money on account services and on time-saving convenience items. But it’s never OK for players to buy a game and not be able to enjoy what they paid for without additional purchases, and it’s never OK for players who spend money to have an unfair advantage over players who spend time.

One other interesting phrase we saw was Mike O’Brien likening their system to EVE’s; where you can buy in game currency with “gems” or GW2′s pay-for currency.

MMO veterans will note the similarities of our system to EVE Online’s PLEX system. As in that case, our system takes gold trading out of the hands of real-money trading (RMT) companies and puts it directly in the hands of players.

Stay tuned after this weekend’s beta test as they will begin showing what the store will look.