Trial Account
This article contains information that no longer applies to the current version of Homecoming: City of Heroes/Villains. It is provided for historical purposes.
Overview
Trial Accounts were an account type prior to the release of City of Heroes Freedom that allowed a player to take City of Heroes and/or City of Villains for a test run. They were free and lasted either 10 or 14 days, depending on the source of the Trial Account code. Up until Issue 12, a Trial Account was not limited in what it could do; after Issue 12, there were several restrictions put in place, largely due to RMT spam.
With the release of City of Heroes Freedom, trial accounts were replaced by Free Player accounts.
Restrictions
Trial accounts had the following restrictions.
- Could not email other players
- Could not level past 14
- Limited to 50,000 inf
- Could not join global channels
- Chatting restricted to /local, /hc (the Help channel), and /team
- Could not invite players to team (but could join other players' teams)
- Could not join SuperGroups
- Could not create Mission Architect arcs
- Could not interact with Architect Entertainment Stations (but could be invited onto a team that was running MA missions)
Sources
Trial Account codes were available from the "Refer a Friend" option in a player's Master Account options. Each player was permitted to give out three of these at a time. They lasted ten days, and if the Trial Account was upgraded to a retail-code account, the person who originated the offer was granted a month of free time added to the end of their subscription.
Trial account codes with a 7-day duration were available anytime at the official free trial website.
Trial account codes were also available from older NCsoft box sets. They came on small pieces of paper with a code on it. These codes lasted 14 days and did not give a free month to the owner of the box set if the account is upgraded to a retail-code account.
Third-party websites sometimes also offered trial account codes. These typically lasted either 14 or 10 days, though vastly more often 14. They did not give a free month to anyone if the account was upgraded to a retail-code account.