Developers, please, Give us warning when we use trial content

(If this is covered in another thread, excuse me, I did search for it but did not find anything similar.)

Dear developers, Wikipedia tells me you're involved with the community so there is chance one of you might read this. Don't worry too much about the middle of this post if you're pressed for time, it's flavour text, just skip to the bit I've given the bold title to.

I'm a new player. I bought the basic CoH game about a week ago and have spent far too much time playing it since then.

I was forced to create, what I learned much later through a web search, not from any info in the game, was a Going Rogue character. Of course, I noted that the city I entered on the character selection screen was different to Paragon City and the symbol next to the character name wasn't a hero star of a villain spider, but nothing told me this was a GR character and that after a week I would lose access to it. I don't much care about that character.

What I care about is that I have spent, what is for me and possibly others, a large amount of time playing a particular Hero character that I can no longer access.

You see, this character had a power set that is only accessible in GR. When I created the character there was no warning or notice that this power was GR content. I was merrily levelling my way up. Now, nothing. I can't access that character unless I buy GR. I can't, or, more to the point, I won't. It's too much of a stretch of my income for me to consider. (Chances are, games are more expensive in my country than yours.)

A few minutes ago I sent off a support message from my game account and I look forward to seeing the reply. I asked if it was possible to either have my character respecced without this power set (since I can't access it, I don't know how this would happen) or to have XP and influence (including that for the enhancements I bought and the salvage I had acquired, some of which was going for what I thought was really high prices) granted towards creation of a new, equivalent character.

SUGGESTIONS FOR DEVELOPERS
1) Warn players that they are creating a character with content that will only last a week, after which they will need to buy an expansion. I had no idea. It was only a web search that let me know my chosen power was apparently part of Going Rogue and needed a GR code to use. As I signed up with CoH and didn't have a GR code I really should have been warned.
2) I was forced to create what I much late learned was a GR character. Don't force new players to create a character in a game environment which they cannot access after a week unless they buy an expansion without telling them they should not spend a lot of time on it as it will expire.
3) Don't expect new players to know that they are playing in a time limited trial. I gather that both 1) and 2) would have been avoided had I known that this was a time limited access. I might be a bit brain dead but I really don't recall seeing anywhere in my logon or character creation that any content was special.

I can pretty much guess that point 2 is a way of advertising the expansion but had I played that Praetorian character a lot I'd be really upset that I was forced to create it, not told it was a special time limited offer, and then lost access to it. I hear that there is/just was a week long free GR trial and I gather I took part in this, but I had no idea. I feel cheated out of my time, the story arcs and any attachment I had to the character. I am rather put off by this experience.

Definalty feel ya as pretty much the same thing happened to a friend of mine(he has since bought GR but that's beside the point)

Maybe I can help, if your on freedom or virtue I could powerlevel a new toon for ya up to the level you got to and hook ya up with like 50 million to help out.

Anyway let me know and I think your suggestions are good ones.

First off, Greetings and welcome to CoX, PTH.

It sounds like you were having fun while playing your new hero, and of that I'm glad to hear. I am sorry that you had a hard time of it with the Trial and confusion when upgrading to the subscription. It's been a few years since I started with the trial and it was far more lax then. (You can thank the RMT'rs for the far more limited and restricted trial we have today.)

I could swear that a popup when you first logged in on a Trial account warned you of the time limitation as well as other limitations you are subjected to, but I'm not sure if it explicitly warns you about the different versions of the game that are still out there and what they will allow you to access. Basically any City of Heroes or City of Villains box/code will grant you access to both, while CoH: Going Rogue grants you access to Praetoria and Primal Earth.

I assume that you started either a Dual Pistol or Demon Summoner in Praetoria. From what you described I'm not sure if you purchased a standard CoH code and started a new account or if you applied it to the trial account as an upgrade.

If you started a new account then you would will not have access to the previously created character as it will be on the trial account. Since you've already started a Customer Service ticket, I'd recommend that you at least ask if they can apply the code to the the trial account as an upgrade. No telling if they can or not, but if you don't at least ask then the answer is no.

As for you not seeing or not noticing any clear indication that you would need to purchase Going Rogue to maintain access to your Praetorian character, that is all very good information to hear from a newly starting player's perspective. Thanks for listing your comments in a very clear way. Those of us that have been playing for a while tend to forget what it's like starting out.

May I ask what your global name is ingame? You can PM it to me if you like. I'd be more than happy to roll a new character or join you on one of my own to help you out, or front you some starting funds on a new character if you like.

As for the Wikipedia, don't ever go there and I suggest running scans on your computer as it's a host of malware. Paragon Wiki is the place you want to go for all your CoX info.

While you're here, I'd also recommend heading down to the Player Help section and introduce yourself in the Mentor Project thread stickied at the top, or you can just click on the link in my signature.

Once again, welcome to the game and the forums. I hope this gets resolved quickly for you and you can continue to experience the game that I truly love.

Hmm, good point there PTH. That is pretty rough. As VG says above GR is 50% off at the moment so it might fall into your budget? No harm in looking. Bear in mind if you buy the complete collection you get a months free game time and the collection pack which has extra costumes in it.

I'll make a similar offer to Valk above to help you outfit a new character. I'm not sure support will be much help. Powerset respecs aren't available. They may be able to transfer your stuff off though. Send me a global tell in game on @Dave N Smith if you want some help or company.

Oh!

...don't forget to play on Virtue

I'll play up the counter point on this. What the company does with the trial makes sense. You can not find just plain ordinary CoH or CoV in any regular game store any more. They can be found in second hand game stores or places that handle discontinued merchandise but not new on the shelves.

It's kind of like watching the blu ray collectors edition of a movie and then complaining that the vhs tape you bought from the dollar store doesn't have the same quality and special features.

(I started this reply ages ago. So it might be a little out of date since when I started it there were only three replies and now after previewing it I see more have appeared including an answer about Wikipedia.)

Thank you for the replies and kind offers. Nice to have the offers of support and sympathy. To be upfront with people who are passionate about the game--you're paying good money for the privilege of posting on this forum so you must like it--I've been disenfranchised by this. I've cancelled my subscription and while I've got a couple of weeks to run I'm not sure I'll have enough fun grinding levels (yet again) without having yet found out what it's like at the top. If I reconsider my subscription maybe it will be a shame to have not accepted your offers to help me set up a new character but I don't think it would be fair of me to take advantage of you if I'm just going to leave soon after. I'd be no better than the imperfect information situation I am decrying.

Good news is that the support ticket was answered really, really quickly. Very impressed. Naught to be done though. They were sorry that I was unaware that there were four power sets from GR that were available during Registration Week and the same note that it's currently 50% off in the store. I thanked them for their speedy reply and I closed the ticket. It might be only 18 cans of coke (that is how much the expansion costs at 50% over here. Not really the best method of comparison but it might be more concrete than saying it's 2.5% of the median weekly income before income tax) but it's still 18 cans of coke I was never warned I would have to sacrifice for just one power set on one character.

If you read on you'll learn this is not the first time I will have had to restart building a main character. In CoX I've been stymied twice in a row at low levels and it hasn't been my fault. Those low levels aren't that much fun. (30 minutes running around in the area recommended looking for just 10 enemies to defeat? I learned to hate and avoid those missions. And is there more than one gate into Perez Park? Without a travelling power Perez Park is the pits.)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Red Valkyrja First off, Greetings and welcome to CoX, PTH. I could swear that a popup when you first logged in on a Trial account warned you of the time limitation

Thank you very much. It seems that you like the other posters are really knowledgeable and considerate people. (Thanks for the link to Paragon Wiki. Is Wikipedia really that bad? I know of one credible threat on Wikipedia that would be widespread due to volume of use and ease of implementation but I've not seen it implemented. Other than that, no prob detected on any of my malware systems despite extensive visits and edits.)

I wasn't 100% clear about my situation before so I'll attempt to correct that.

You are absolutely right that there is a warning in the time limited trial about the expiration and a need to upgrade. For some reason I couldn't upgrade my trial account and so I lost that main character when the trial expired and the account could not be reactivated with the code I bought from the online store after pressing the upgrade button on my account page.

The problem that prompted me to make this thread arose from special, invisible rules for Registration Week. I have no reason to believe I'm special and every reason to believe they would apply to anyone and everyone with a full CoX code but no GR code. It's the invisible part that made this a kick in the pants. When I made my second full account character--I'll explain a problem with my first below--never once did anything like this appear:

"The Kinetic Melee power set you are adding to your City of Heroes Tanker is normally part of the Going Rogue expansion and is available for free use only during Registration Week. If you wish to continue using this character after Registration Week ends on May 19 either select a different power set or add a valid code for Going Rogue to your account."

If not for me being allowed to choose Kinetic Melee there'd be no problem. Even a warning would have been fine. If there are costume options in GR which aren't in CoX I expect that access could be lost just for wearing the wrong thing.

To expand upon the point you made about it being good to be reminded about things us new guys go through this is what happened with my first character whose loss is unimportant:

New accounts were absolutely forced to make their first character a Praetorian, no choice whatsoever. Any Praetorian, as I understand it, is GR content. It also allowed me to make a Praetorian a couple of days later with NCsoft's full knowledge that I would not be able to use it after a few days.

I emphasis that this was with the full base game CoX code but not a GR code. If it was a trial by all means give me access to everything and then let me cry like a baby when I buy CoX and can't use all the same stuff. But this was a full CoX code direct from NCsoft store that not only let me but forced and compelled me to use content that NCsoft knew would become inaccessible to me in only a few days.

To expect me to know as a new player that it was part of an optional expansion to which I had only one week of access is entirely unreasonable. The GR nature of the Praetorians was in no way explained and the GR only powers were in no way distinguished or identified as expansion content.

To include the GR only powers in my CoH character creation screen is either really bad planning or really good planning. Force all new players who have bought the basic pack to unwittingly create characters they can only play with the expansion and allow existing CoX players to do the same and don't tell anyone this until the special period expires. Maybe that will get a few bucks out of some like Lucky666's friend but it's driven me to leave despite you nice folk.

Thanks again for the added info from all.

I think it must have been EU trial version, as I bought a DVD in England, with a NA full code.

As a foot note to the above, I spent a substantial amount of time over the course a week getting a largely identical new hero character to the same level as the old hero character when I decided to create a new AT.

I have not bought GR. Yet at some time in that week I had suddenly gained access to GR content. I can create Praetorians and I can select GR power sets like kinetic melee. Noticing this I looked at my locked out characters--one Praetorian at low level and one hero with a GR power set--and I can play with them. I don't want to since, as noted, the new and old hero are almost identical.

No one has been in touch with me. If they had I wouldn't have spent that week working on a largely identical character.

If it is a trial period and this available to everyone at the moment, fie on those who have not made it clear since others may end up being stung like I was. If it is a trial period, it's lasted now a week or more.

If someone has granted me access to GR, who and why? I'd like to say it's very nice of them but I received no message. Maybe this is like the shoemaker's elves and I'm not supposed to thank them or they go away.