-Character Argument Added to the Guild Wars Command Line

aura-of-restorationIf you checked the latest Guild Wars update notes, you might be confused. It said… Added support for “-character” command line argument, allowing players to automatically fill the security question field in the client …but what does that mean? Basically, it’s possible to set Guild Wars to auto-load your login information. You click your Guild Wars shortcut… and boom… you’re sent to the character select screen. You won’t have to type your email, your password or your security question. This can take the tedium out of ArenaNet’s new security measures. But in doing so, you might add a new vulnerability.

I’m familiar with editing the target information. I used the -perf argument to display useful performance information… like Frames Per Second, “Tri” and Bytes per second. I think “Tri” might mean triangles, representing the number of three-sided polygons that make up the on-screen graphics.

To better control the way Guild Wars operates, right-click your gw.exe shortcut, select properties and edit the Target field.
To better control the way Guild Wars operates, right-click your gw.exe shortcut, select properties and edit the Target field.

If you want Guild Wars to log you in automatically, your target line might look something like this…

  • “C:\Program Files (x86)\Guild Wars\Gw.exe” -email ******  -password ***** -character “******”

Just replace the asterisks with your login information. This can be quite convenient, as this is one less step away from playing the game. I like to read the game announcements, so I don’t plan on using this feature regularly. The security risk is just too great. By using the password argument, your password is stored in plain text on your computer. If you’re not worried about that, then this can be a useful feature. It’s especially helpful if you have multiple accounts. You can make separate Windows shortcuts with specific login information. If you share your computer with people you trust, each user’s desktop could have a customized shortcut.

3 thoughts on “-Character Argument Added to the Guild Wars Command Line”

  1. The “-perf” command line argument is interesting. Maybe I will try this one but, as you mentioned, the others are risky.

  2. You always could auto-load with just the -email and -password arguements, but when they added the new field it broke it, so it is good that one can now auto log-in once again.

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