It used to be that when there was a door, a signpost, or an item glowing behind your avatar, the UP and W keys would work like the ENTER key to activate it. As that behavior seems have to caused an unnatural level of grief among a certain population of users, we have removed it. And we have added a preference so that anyone caused an unnatural level of grief by the change can get the old behavior back (hit the COMMA key, or open the player menu in the top left of the game client and choose "Preferences" to open your preferences).
You may have to reload to see the change.