Feldon 
So there’s been some confusion on the EQ2 forums about this section of Holly’s initial announcement:
First, for a limited time, players can create a Heroic Character for free. Oct. 1 until Oct. 15 is our “Hero’s Call” event which invites new players to create one free new Heroic Character per household. Existing accounts can create or upgrade to a Heroic Character for free too!
This breaks down into two distinct things:
- Existing accounts, which will each be entitled to create one Heroic character
- New accounts will be entitled to create one Heroic character per household
Clearly, this only restricts new accounts, to prevent players from signing up dozens of accounts to create dozens of freebie characters.
Here’s the clarification from Holly:
To make it very clear…
Hero’s Call is a limited- time “create one free Heroic Character” promotion that will run from Oct. 1 to 15. During this time, the promotion allows the following:
1. New accounts created as of today (Sept. 23, 2013) and later can create 1 free Heroic Character per household, i.e. as of today, don’t expect to create 30 new accounts and expect each one to get a free Heroic Character during the promotion period.
2. All existing accounts created on or before yesterday’s date (Sept. 22, 2013) can create or upgrade to one fully unrestricted Heroic Character for free. For example, if a family has 5 accounts they play with that were created three months ago, each account will have access to one free Heroic Character from Oct. 1 to 15 only.
3.After Oct. 15, the free Hero’s Call promotional offer goes away and both new accounts and existing accounts will not have access to the “One Free Heroic Character Hero’s Call” offer.
4.After the promotion ends on Oct. 15, all new or upgraded free Heroic Characters created from Oct. 1 to 15 will remain fully unlocked and won’t lose any functionality or features.
Hope that helps.
Holly Longdale
Sr. Producer
EverQuest II
So, as an existing account can I make and delete as many of these as I want during the 15 day trail period before I pick the one free one I want to keep after the 15th?
Will the heroic character include a character slot if we do not have one available?
So what is a “household” anyway? Unique email and/or credit card linked to account?
“household” is applicable to New accounts, not Existing accounts.
He meant, “Do they determine “household” by IP address or credit card?”
So, this doesn’t have anything to do with old players in the game? Intended for some new person coming to game having all unlocked?
and this new player will have everything ‘unlocked’ while old players pay for their adventure? interesting..
No.
“Household” is a weird term in this context. When did any SOE game contract ever refer to a “household”? If they meant “per email address” or “per IP address”, couldn’t they have said so?
In our “household” we have two station access accounts and several Silver F2P accounts, all made before the cut-off date. I get that we can add or upgrade a Heroic Character on each of those should we wish (can’t imagine we would bother) but what does “each account will have access to one free Heroic Character from Oct. 1 to 15 only” mean?
I read that to say that on October 16 those characters will either be locked (in which case it would be worse to have upgraded one than to have left it alone) or that they will revert back to their original level. I certainly don’t read it as saying we will be able to continue to play those characters at level 85 after the Promotional Period ends.
As usual it’s as clear as mud.
Bhagg, please read #4 above
“4.After the promotion ends on Oct. 15, all new or upgraded free Heroic Characters created from Oct. 1 to 15 will remain fully unlocked and won’t lose any functionality or features.”
It seems crystal clear.
Seems pretty clear to me.
Quite clear here too. In fact it was probably one of the most clear things Holly has ever posted. The household thing only applies to new accounts created after the 22nd. All the rest of us get a free 85 per existing account as of the 22nd. It is just to prevent people from abusing it is all.
If they said per e-mail address or per IP address, then that makes it dead easy for people to create dozens of new accounts and heroic characters, which is not their intention.
If you are doing these on existing accounts, then you don’t need to worry about the “household” word.
They’re going to need to block known proxies then if it’s determined by IP. Otherwise, people who are more technically-inclined enough to exploit it most are still being enabled.
I guess this was one of those, “we had a meeting and realized that someone could exploit this and make 30 85 characters for free and not pay the $35” revelations.
Guess it’s always about trying to outsmart the clever ones.
That is true . . . but there’s ALWAYS someone, somewhere, more clever than you. Heh, I’m just waiting for the account bans for people who figure out a way to exploit this . . . I’M not THAT clever, and wouldn’t even want to try to be in this instance . . . but I’m sure someone will . . .
Judging from the number of times the word “free” appears in the clarification, I guess we can assume that this will be an available paid service at some point after the promotion.
Look at yesterday’s article. The price is in the Headline.
I dont get it. Says here:
“for a limited time, players can create a Heroic Character for free. Oct. 1 until Oct. 15”
But the original notes say:
“You have the option to create a “Try Before you Buy” character at no cost.”
So its free between Oct 1st and the 15th and free after the 15th also …
My assumption is that between 1st-15th they can level to 95/300 ???? what about after that? They stay “‘Heroic Character”?
There will be two characters available ? a “Try Before You Buy” and a “Heroic Character” ??
“Try before you buy” is a “heroic character” that has all the same features except heavy chat/trade/mailing restrictions that are also felt by “Free To Play” players. IT HAS A CATCH. At level 86 you stop gaining exp and once you log out after hitting 86 you cannot log back into that character unless you pay for it to be a “heroic character”.
I personally think the only flaw is the try before you buy level range. I think they should make it 88, that allows for a lot more play time and fun.
“try before you buy” does have some nice side effects tho, it allows anyone to try out a non-epic version of any class(except the future channeler class for now) and see if they like it without paying.
Wow – some of y’all are making this way too hard – and/or your glass is probably always just about empty (instead of half full).
During Oct 1-15th – you get a character for free – and you can keep it.
After the 15th, you have a few options – you can try before you buy which is limited to one level. You can purchase one for SC or you can upgrade an existing toon for SC.
As for “one per household” – as long as you are not trying to game the system, you probably won’t have anything to worry about. I’m sure they aren’t saying what constitutes a household to prevent people from gaming the system.
Stop trying to find evil intent with SOE – you’ll probably sleep better at night.
I for one am looking forward to my free Heroic character, and will probably buy two more.
For the dishonest assume power household means per credit card billing address, if they ever decided to enforce some obvious abuse cases.
Otherwise, just create one for each existing account you have during the first two weeks in October, have your buddies do the same if they have accounts, and be happy.
Unless I missed something this may be a way for a free player to get a completely unlocked toon on their account for free then have no subscription, but the common sense part of my brain says subscription level restrictions will remain in place.
I’m sure subscription restrictions will be in force. There will be much gnashing of teeth when people realize this – but they just need to get over it.
No where have they said Heroic characters get free Gold access.
How would this work if we made a beastlord? would we have just the one beginning warder?
Doing this with a beastlord would be a terrible idea IMHO because it takes longer to grind out all the different warders to max level that you need to be an effective dps beastlord than it does to get to 95 playing normally. BL is the worst class to do as your Heroic choice as you will still have to spend all the time gaining your warders anyway.
Fair enough. Just was wondering. already have a maxed BL… working on the grandmastered. And thats why I was asking… figured we might either get all the warders at next to journeyman, or get a few at say… adept.
I still haven’t figured out how to create a heroic character or have one of my alts insta level 85 yet.
So confused….
Step 1: Wait until October 1.
Step 2: Don’t forget to breathe.
Love you too, bro.
Whoot! Now my kid can have a lvl 85 and my hubby and i can still upgrade one of our baby toons! I can totally see why they don’t want hundreds of new accounts being created just for the lvl 85, but I’m so glad they aren’t restricting old accounts. ^_^
I expect an instant 85 to give what paying someone to PL you would give. Levels and AA, but little else aside from the mount and gear they throw in.
Thats fair enough. most everything else should be easy to get around then
Wow. Just another desperate move in order to gain new subs to a already broken game. I just feel bad for the folks who “grinded” their way to 85 (and further) just to see that you can now just “push” a button and shazam: instant 85 character. Can this game really get any easier if not dumber?
I “grinded” 2 two toons to 92 over the past couple of weeks with my wife. Not upset at all unless they include all of epic and ER finished; even then I’d only really hate the rangers. 😀
So, if you have a bunch of existing accounts (4) and make an extra account as soon as you see this, would it count? Because it says: One heroic per new account per household.
Therefore, can I get myself a fifth heroic toon? It’s not all just for me though, my brother plays, two of the accounts are his (he has no max level toons)
Two are mine (I have one max level toon and a second in running).
So, would a fifth heroic toon be available to us or is that just wishful thinking?