ArenaNet:Developer updates/20071117

[Dev Update] Post-Searing Items in Pre-Searing -- 17 November 2007
Player have requested clarification of our policy on items within the Pre-Searing area of Guild Wars. We're happy to provide that information:

Our policy is that Post-Searing items, skills, and other elements should not have an impact upon Pre-Searing Ascalon. Back in 2006, there was a guild hall glitch that allowed some players to bring Post-Searing items into Pre-Searing. More recently, a few items appeared in Pre-Searing due to a different, short-term bug. Both of these loopholes were closed promptly. In the case of the recent issue, we investigated and dealt with the majority of the items and accounts individually. In the case of the earlier guild hall glitch, we chose not to research accounts individually. This does not mean such items were permitted, only that we were not actively researching individual accounts, but rather dealing with each case as it became known to us.

Whenever a player is discovered to have skills on his character, or items -- such as weapons, tomes, foci, etc. -- from Post-Searing in Pre-Searing, we require that player to move the item and/or character to Post-Searing. That is and has always been our position: No skills, items, runes, tomes, weapons, or anything else that is exclusively available in Post-Searing should be found in Pre-Searing Ascalon, no matter when or how they made their way to Pre-Searing.

If you have a character whose skills were impacted by the use of Post-Searing tomes, you need to move that character to Post-Searing immediately. If you have an item, weapon, rune, tome, or anything else from Post-Searing – no matter when you acquired it or when it appeared in Pre-Searing – that item or weapon needs to be deleted or moved to Post-Searing right away.