If you missed the official post, let this be ye warning. Much like winter approaches Westeros, a mandatory password change for Guild Wars 2 players change is coming.
The mandatory change is a part of ArenaNet's effort to keep hackers at bay. According to the blog post, the developer has created a blacklist of passwords commonly used by hackers, and "as this blacklist has been very successful for protecting newly created accounts, we have asked all our existing customers to change their passwords."
Here's the rub: "If you are still using a password that was chosen before the introduction of password blacklisting on September 12, 2012, you will need to choose a new password."
For players that do change their passwords, keep in mind that when you do, "the system won't allow you to pick your previous password, or any password that we've seen tested against any existing or non-existent account." Thus, after changing your password, you'll be confident that your new password is unique within Guild Wars 2. As per usual with password security, it's advisable that your password is unique to the game. If you use "ABC123" as your e-mail password, best not to use it for your Guild Wars player account.
The post offers some help in coming up with a new password "now that millions of possible passwords are blacklisted" - "we advise you to build a password out of four random words...Use a password like 'correct horse battery staple.'"
If one of you actually uses "correct horse battery staple" as your password though, and you then lose access to your account...well, that'd just be plain funny.
Players have until Feb. 7 to change their passwords.
