Heroic Characters Level Up to 90!

Hidey-Ho Norrathians!

We’re excited to announce that we will soon be updating our Heroic Characters to start at level 90! We feel this change will help players keep up with our growth in free content and with the pace of the game due to our new level increase included in the Altar of Malice expansion. The price for the upgraded characters remains at 3500SC per Heroic Character, but we’ve made some improvements!

What’s the difference?

Purchased Level 90 Heroic Characters will come with Level 90 (Adventure only), 320AAs, a full set of gear, food/drink, ammo, potions (as appropriate) and a mount with stats! New Heroic Characters will also start in Eidolon Jungle with content in our Chains of Eternity expansion.

Level 90 Trial characters will come with Level 90, 280AAs, gear, food/drink, ammo, potions (as appropriate) and a mount and be restricted to leveling up to level 91 (Adventure) with restrictions on trading, etc. These characters will also start in Eidolon Jungle.

Here are a few answers for some questions we expect you’ll have:

1. WTFudge? I just bought a Heroic Character last week and it’s level 85!

All players who purchased a level 85 Heroic Character will not be changed at all, but will receive a no-trade level 90 Heroic Character bauble they can choose to use. It will update your character’s level to 90, AAs to 320, and give you a set of gear, food/drink, ammo, potions (as appropriate), and retain their existing flying mount. We wanted to provide this as an option for those who are enjoying whatever content they are playing now.

2. What happens if I have an unused level 85 Heroic Character bauble in my inventory when this change happens?

The bauble will be upgraded to the 90 version automatically.

3. What happens to my level 85 trial character?

The character will remain at level 85, but can be leveled up to 91 (the new trial level cap) if the player prefers. Players could also choose to simply make a new Level 90 trial character!
When reaching level 90, trial characters will receive a quest reward with level 90 gear for Heroic Characters, but they will retain their existing flying mount.

4. What happens to my trial character that is capped at level 86?

The character will remain level-locked unless you purchase the Heroic Character upgrade option.

If you choose to “unlock” or upgrade a trial Heroic Character that is level-locked at level 86, it will be upgraded with the new level 90 gear and features.

We anticipate this update to go live by the end of next week and wanted everyone to be aware of the upcoming changes. We’re looking forward to the updated Heroic Characters and hope that you are as well!

Will this be a claimable item or put into the bags of an existing heroic character?

It will be a No-Trade bauble given directly to the Heroic Character.

How far back will the purchase go? I bought one the week of Christmas.

Wonder if the bauble will still increase aa regardless of level, say if character was 85 and 280aa, and is now lvl 92 with 300 aa

will the bauble increase the character to 92 with 320aa?

Is there an approximate date that we can expect to see these baubles in our characters bags?

Will this apply to the free heroic we received when they launched?

As Holly stated above, "All players who purchased a level 85 Heroic Character will not be changed at all, but will receive a no-trade level 90 Heroic Character bauble they can choose to use." : )

The new upgraded Heroic Character upgrade baubles are level 90 and 320 AAs.

We hope to launch the upgraded Heroic Characters next Thursday, but that date might change if necessary. The baubles should be available at that time.

I am not going to make any comments about this at this time - I've left an abundant amount on previous topics, and will probably have some later - but thank you for putting this announcement out BEFORE the bonus XP weekend. I cannot even describe the feeling that would be experienced if I had just spent the upcoming weekend grinding on characters that are about to receive a clicky for 5 free levels and 40 free AA.

Now I have to figure out exactly what to do with my fine self though - because EVERY character I have left is heroic. I guess it's tradeskill weekend, plus the Berserker gets to hit 100!

What about the people that just bought one that has already leveled that heroic character past 90 and 320aa. Should make those baubles heirloom so at least can be traded to use on another character

Very interested in the answer to this question:

Will this apply to the free heroic we received when they launched?
Farietail,

Me as well. This is also something that would be good to know before the end of this weekend, as both of my subbed accounts have heroics that have not reached 90 yet.

Greetings,
Well it's been quite a while since the Heroic Toons were given out and the ones I received are all over lvl 90. seems like this just should apply to newly aquired Heroic toons.I am wondering what the point is to start Heroic toons out at 90? If you really want a solid, well rounded Heroic a lot of things need to be worked on and adding 5 more levels to it seems kinda counter-productive. May as well make them 95 Heroic so you could jump right into the AoM xpac,

I think what they're trying to do is give people a little leeway level-wise to acclimate to the game if they're new (and trying to catch up to friends/family), or to grow accustomed to the increased difficulty level if they're just players without a high-level toon. Barreling right into AoM would not only make the expansion purchase feel immediately forced upon people instead of being a decision, but it would also be jarring to anyone without previous high-level experience playing EQ2.

Alternatively, the upgrading of Heroic characters from 85 to 90 ensures that the players who buy these actually make it to the new expansion sooner rather than later, money-wise for SOE.

I'm glad to see they raised the AA amount of the Heroic characters as well as the SC AA baubles, though. The AA grind is what will really get you most in this game. Now if only everybody who bought AA baubles at 280 could get free bauble increasers to 320 too!

Yes. As with the other heroics, if the existing heroic character is both level 90 and has 320 AA, they won't receive the bauble since the character is already over the heroic starting stats. But if they are less than 90 or less than 320AA, they will receive it and have the option to upgrade to the new starting stats of lvl 90/320AA.

The free granted characters from Oct. 2013 (as long as they are below 90 or 320AA or both) will get the bauble also.

Er, what Afista said...

I know this is going to seem like a silly question, but this will be for each heroic character we have (if we have more than one on our account)?

Yes, it is for each Heroic Character

*happy dances*

Next (possibly?) silly question.

When using the bauble to upgrade - will the character receive only level 90 and 320 AA, or will they receive all of the new level 90 gear and other appropriate items as well? I skimmed back through the original post and the follow-up responses and didn't see that addressed - but might have glossed over it.