Discussion: Command Line Option Changes [Merged]

A decision was made today to take away these parameters leaving many of us with alt accounts without means to easily store our log-on information to switch accounts without having to manually type in the email and password for each account. This was a much used feature for years and it being stored unsecured in a string of text was a choice all of us made. The removal of this feature has no recourse for a situation many players were using this for, the easy log in of multiple accounts without having to re-enter log in information. The remember account name and password function is not a sufficient solution since it only remembers a single account.

If you use this feature and would like it restored please let Anet know here. If there is a security issue with this information being stored on private machines, the solution should be to make the feature function in a secure manner before removing the function. (Isn't it stored in local.dat in plain text anyway?) To totally remove it is the lazy fix and deprives players of something that has functioned for years without issue. Removing functionality is never a positive thing for players. Things can be done better than this.

Context:

@"Gaile Gray.6029" wrote:https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/66631/command-line-options-changedWe have disabled the use of –email and –password command-line parameters for the Guild Wars 2 client. These options involved storing account credentials in an unsecure way that could result in security and privacy risks. If you wish to expedite access to your game account, you may use the “Remember Account Name” and/or “Remember Password” options in the login window.

Add a new command line option "-skipLauncher". This way the account information would be stored safely, but the important part of these two arguments, that the game starts directly without you having to do anything, would be restored. This would of course not help with using multiple accounts, but it would help at least partly

I agree, this change was completely unnecessary, and I am not happy about it.

PLEASE RESTORE THIS FEATURE!!

As someone with 20 accounts..please restore it. It takes ages now to login with all of them. And for the risk yes it is a risk but only if you are using it on a puplic pc or on one that it used by different people.

May I recommend that you folks obtain a password management tool like KeePass to store your credentials? It will allow you to have insanely complex passwords that do not need to be remembered because it will type your username and password into the login fields for you when you are ready to switch accounts.

100% agree. This singular change by Arena Net is completely ridiculous. Also, their "work around" for storing your username and password still stores it locally in side of Local.dat so it is just as insecure as before only now we have a bunch of added headache with no real benefit. Please restore these arguments or allow us to at least store our data to multiple different accounts!

@"Malfrador.3615" said:Add a new command line option "-skipLauncher". This way the account information would be stored safely, but the important part of these two arguments, that the game starts directly without you having to do anything, would be restored. This would of course not help with using multiple accounts, but it would help at least partly

I'd use that.

@mtpelion.4562 said:May I recommend that you folks obtain a password management tool like KeePass to store your credentials? It will allow you to have insanely complex passwords that do not need to be remembered because it will type your username and password into the login fields for you when you are ready to switch accounts.

I use something like this, but the problem is copying and pasting for each account, when with LB you could just click multiple accounts and hit launch instead.

So Anet is gonna refund my 20ish accounts now? Or buy me 20ish computers? What a horrible change. Anet. O M F G L O L.

@Vegeta.2563 said:

@mtpelion.4562 said:May I recommend that you folks obtain a password management tool like KeePass to store your credentials? It will allow you to have insanely complex passwords that do not need to be remembered because it will type your username and password into the login fields for you when you are ready to switch accounts.

The one I use has a function where I can right click on the entry and it will then put the username and password into the fields for me, so you don't have to manually copy and paste them separately.

this is one of the worst things they have done for a long time and is of great concern to all of us with several accounts, this is one thing that might make me stop using gw2, for i really don't want to use all my gaming hour to write codes constantly

Seriously?

@Yasi.9065 said:So Anet is gonna refund my 20ish accounts now? Or buy me 20ish computers? What a horrible change. Anet. O M F G L O L.

You can still multibox from the same machine. You have to manually disable the relevant Mutex (although I'm sure people have already written scripts to do that). The main problem is typing in the credentials.

@mtpelion.4562 said:

@Vegeta.2563 said:

@mtpelion.4562 said:May I recommend that you folks obtain a password management tool like KeePass to store your credentials? It will allow you to have insanely complex passwords that do not need to be remembered because it will type your username and password into the login fields for you when you are ready to switch accounts.

Is that what Keepass does? or do you use something else entirely?

I suspect ANet believes that there have been too many cases of "friends" or relatives gaining access to the account. Also, using -password means the password is available to various windows processes and put the account at risk in other ways.

There's no question that it makes things a lot more inconvenient for the technically savvy, but the technically savvy don't typically need additional protections. Changes like this are for the bigger group that doesn't necessarily realize what risk|reward scenario they have chosen.

I'm not in favor of the change, but then I'm not the part of the community that ANet needs to worry about regarding account security. Maybe they know something that we don't. (I would prefer that they have found a way to enable storing of account details, rather than just one, but disabling is obviously less effort than inventing a new feature.)

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:

@Yasi.9065 said:So Anet is gonna refund my 20ish accounts now? Or buy me 20ish computers? What a horrible change. Anet. O M F G L O L.

Yes. I know. But guess what... the credentials are kinda the problem. Not the mutex.

This just exposes how bad and outdated gw2 launcher really is. No multi-account support. No character select. Cheap.

This change was completely unnecessary, and I am not happy about it.

PLEASE RESTORE THIS FEATURE!!

@Mireles Lore.5942 said:(Isn't it stored in local.dat in plain text anyway?)

Your remembered email/password is stored in Local.dat and is encrypted to your user account.

@Healix.5819 said:

@Mireles Lore.5942 said:(Isn't it stored in local.dat in plain text anyway?)

LaunchBuddy encrypts your password as well, but it seems they don't care about that either.

I too would like to have these features back, in some form or another. I have used these commands for well over 4 years without any problems and I was aware of the risks.

ANet's change is understandable on a global scale, however I feel it was a very poor choice to axe it without an alternative solution. A new command line such as the one suggested by @Malfrador.3615 would make a great solution, no sensitive info visible.

@Vegeta.2563 said:

@Healix.5819 said:

@Mireles Lore.5942 said:(Isn't it stored in local.dat in plain text anyway?)

Of course they don't. Launch Buddy encrypting your credentials was a huge boon to using it. Now, you either have to do use a bat file that you need to patch/update everytime there's a patch, login manually or just give up. It's ridiculous. Instead of fixing the issue they just remove the feature. It's lazy and an absolutely poor decision.

are you kidding me with that change ? RIP launchbuddy

@"Vegeta.2563" said:LaunchBuddy encrypts your password as well, but it seems they don't care about that either.

Launching with the -email and -password options briefly puts them into plain-text, which any program could easily read. Fun fact, they used to be included in your crash log and if you google it, you can find people's email and passwords. A few years ago they changed it so your "password" is censored to "****" (though the same length as your "password"), then just recently did the same for your email.

I doubt this change was actually done over security concerns, because if I could access your shortcut, that means you're compromised regardless. This change only protects you against a generic virus that would simply be searching for keywords, like "password".

@"Malfrador.3615" said:Add a new command line option "-skipLauncher". This way the account information would be stored safely, but the important part of these two arguments, that the game starts directly without you having to do anything, would be restored. This would of course not help with using multiple accounts, but it would help at least partly

Isn't that what -nopatchui does already?