Roderick

"Retail" just means that it's a box set code, ie City of Heroes, City of Villains, Good vs Evil, Architect Edition, etc.

As far as how long you'll stay VIP - nobody seems to be sure. You will get at least 30 days - that's what is traditionally included with boxed sets.

However, many people who should have had their time run out after the announcement on Aug 31st are still VIP, leading many to speculate that if you are VIP, you won't drop down to Premium at all.

So the answer to your second question is: Either one month from the date you applied the code, or until the end. We aren't sure.

You cannot purchase VIP time or more points. NCSoft is no longer accepting cash for anything CoH related.

You CAN still spend the points you already have.

There are mixed reports from people trying to use boxed sets to reactivate their accounts - some are succeeding and reattaining VIP status, others are reporting that they're getting an error stating that the code "is valid, but cannot be used to create a new account, and cannot be applied to any of your accounts." It's possible that some of these are due to people trying to use NA codes on EU accounts, or vice-versa. It's also possible that people are trying to use Box Codes that they already have - You can't add a Good vs Evil code to your account if you've already used one.
If you check places like Amazon.com, you might find an unused Box Set Code for cheap. If you consider it worth the gamble, you can buy one and try it. Other than that, there is no way to reattain VIP Status.

Note that Global Slots aren't used to unlock characters, they're used to unlock empty slots on servers. Those empty Server Slots are used to create new characters or unlock existing ones. Check the character slots after your listed characters s any labelled "Create a Character" are available Server Slots. You may unlock one character (on the same server) for each of those.
To unlock a character, just double-click that character, or select it and click "Enter Game". A pop-up asking if you want to unlock the character will appear; agreeing will unlock the character and reduce your available Server Slots by 1.

A couple years ago, I got into marketing. Made my first billion, posted the screenshot, and kept going from there. I never really had a niche; I moved from one thing to another, usually making a few million off each transaction.

Then I realized something: That money didn't do me much good. The enhancements I use rarely exist on the market (I like level 25, and that doesn't have a huge supply), and I don't use a lot of purples and PVP IOs, so I don't need a huge amount of cash - Merits do me more good.

That's when I stopped playing the market. I still do a few things to maximize my income; I have all the memorization badges, and I craft all my common salvage into IOs before selling it. I craft and sell any valuable drops. Anything that's related to valuable drops ("crap" purples, LotG: Def/Rech, etc), I'll craft and hold on to, and I'll convert it as I get converters, and list it when I have something good.
Anything that's left over, I'll list for 1 if there's any bidders, and take to a vendor otherwise.

Most of my play time is spent soloing story arcs or teaming on TFs, so I tend to have plenty of merits for anything I need.

My last attempt at marketeering was done not long after Going Rogue: I made a stalker named The Gold Seller, levelled him up to 10 (so he'd have a decent number of market slots), and parked him at the market. I filled all his slots with bids of 1 inf on Gold and Alchemical Gold. As the bids filled, I claimed them and relisted them for 1. I'd switch between the two when I saw someone else working either niche, but I never worked on anything else. By the end of two weeks, I had 100 million on him.

I've never been sure how beneficial a Panacea proc would be to any of my builds, and I never got around to getting one to test it.

I'll take one of the Panaceas from you. Global name is (big surprise here!) @Roderick

Wait... Is States wearing an actual helmet in that picture in the corner (the comic book button), instead of his faceplate?

1440x900, though not all of that is available for my web browser, since I keep it windowed to leave certain other parts of my desktop visible.

<-- The whole image fits in my browser, but ONLY if I scroll over enough to crop off the info box on that side of the forum.

That's fixed? O_o

It still won't fit on my monitor without scrolling.

Damn all you kids with your eleventy hojillion pixel wide monitors!

I think all the remaining episodes were available on Beta, though IIRC, Episode 5 required a Dev to unlock it for you, similar to getting a level bump.

Someone DID ask this already, and there was a synopsis posted by other players. Not sure where it was.

The logout timer is NOT client-side. Try logging out to desktop and read the pop-up that shows up.

Over the years, there's been a few ways to log out "instantly". In all cases, your character stays online for the full 30 seconds (unless you log back in before those 30 seconds are up, which is going to shave a few seconds off, at best).

You really should edit your login name out of that. You probably don't want someone using it to get your account locked or banned when there may not be anyone there to fix it for you.