How to play GW through a (corporate) firewall ??

I believe that programs "may" exist to alter the port that a program sends/receives data, in order to get around hardware firewalls that only allow data through a few ports (mainly 80/443/etc)

Does anyone know of a way that I could get my laptop to play GW when it has to either pass through or work around such a firewall ???

Yes, this is possible using a technique known as "tunneling" - this is my understanding how it works:

You have a client on your computer:
the net traffic which would get blocked by your corporate firewall instead "tunnels" through this client, and goes out via port 80 (or maybe some other port which the firewall allows)

On the "outside" somewhere there is a server:
Your client talks to this server, which then forwards the traffic to the relevant place. In this case it would be the Guild Wars servers. It then sends any responses back to your client.

Unless I'm mistaken therefore, there are two parts to it. The "client" on your machine which redirects all traffic to port 80. Then the "server" running on another machine somewhere else on the net, which the client talks to and uses to talk to the final destination.

Something like this

Guildwars.exe -> Tunnel Client (using port 80) -> |||| -> Tunnel Server -> Guild Wars servers

"||||" is the firewall, and the arrows show the direction of traffic

Just reverse the arrows for the reverse traffic.

Edit: I'm not 100% sure on this, but there may be similar techniques where a server isn't required on the other side, maybe some of the more tech savvy network guys here know more

Or you can make friends with your local network admin when I used to have that job I used to hook people up all the time. I swear most admins are gamers too so they usually understand.

hi i am your unemployment counselor.

i am afrisd that your name has been added to an unofficial list of people who weaken company security firewalls. i could find you a nice job in india though you would be closely supervised

Xenrath has the right idea. Look for an HTTP tunneler.

If you're in a moderately sized company with a dedicated Infosec division, DON'T DO THIS. Most corporations now monitor their network traffic activity for anything unusual, and games like GW will definitely cause red flags to pop up on the monitoring side.

My suggestion: go through dialup, GPRS, 3G, or any other wireless broadband connection through a laptop or system that doesn't touch your corporate network. The bottom line is that playing games on the job using your company's equipment is an invitation for disaster. Why risk a good paying job when you can still games on the go without using company resources?

Heh, it would be soo sweet if I could play GW on my high school's comps that way. Most of them are decent enough to handle it I think, and we're getting 5 of what they call "fiberoptic" lines over the summer so it would be a quick download.

I'm no expert with corporate firewall, but a Shunnel sounds like what you need. You'll be accessing the internet through your home connection, so that should be an always-on cable line. And it ecrypts data through the line, so it "shouldn't" pop up any red flags (insert disclaimer here).
You could also try configuring GW to run through port 80. I don't know if its possible because the .dat file is 1.8gigs, and most editors won't be able to open it.
I agree with sh0b0 and lord shar, though. Good luck playing GW at work, cause it'll definetly be frowned upon by managers, co-workers, ect...and can lead to network security issues.