Producer Letter: About Heroic Characters...

3 accounts, 30 actual toons, 4 more placeholders for some old guilds. Level ranges for the live toons are 20-95, with a fair smattering all across the spectrum.

6 of 7 tradeskills max, and nine 95/320's. And I'm definitely not a hardcore player.

But it's just not that uncommon anymore. My co-guildleader and one of my officers have more toons than I do...I know quite a few people in fact that have multiple gold subs full of max'd toons.

Well that's going to happen anyways, Estred.


Consider:

They're giving them super-spiffy armor that looks really keen. (uniqueness will be a dead giveaway)
The equipment likely will be named something that will easily give them away.
The pegasus likely will look different compared to other mounts.
They'll most likely end up in Skyshrine at 90 because the levelling curve gets so steep there.
A L90 with highly suspicious stats and a general cluelessness about game mechanics, in Skyshrine.

We won't need a 'distinguishing mark' on their character name, their character will give off an 'aura of noobieness' that even the most dense veteran will see.

I don't know how these folks are going to integrate into the mainstream, especially with the ugly 90-95 levelling mountain they're going to have to climb.

Yeah, you are correct about that Wire, hopefully they didn't wreck the XP in Skyshrine, one of the good reasons to still walk the city of Dracur. They will lose that "newbie" aura as they get out of that Heroic Armor.

I think the revamped Velious content that they hinted at *might* help them bridge the gap from 85 to 90 gear to where they can solo in Skyshrine...but man, unless they up the XP a great deal or smooth the levelling curve, that's going to be some boring work trying to do the three SS solo instances to get from 90 to 95.

And boredom is probably the leading killer of drive & desire in gamers.

I suspect that the heroic character players will integrate just fine at the upper end. Guilds will probably be competing heavily to sort through the trash and pull out the diamonds. That's because the number of new players reaching endgame is in decline and as always attrition is removing raiders at a constant rate.

Prior to Heroic Characters the alternative for guilds was to find people at lower levels and then PL them up fast, a process which would tell them almost nothing about the actual skills of the player. Now the level 35 to 85 PL grind is removed and guilds can make a much quicker PL from 89 to 95 and then go from there. It's a win-win for both guilds and new players.

You still need 280 aa's to level past 90, so no worries there

Any account, regardless of subscription level may create for free, a level 85 heroic or upgrade a current character during the posted period of "Hero's Call" which is running October 1 - 15, as long as the account was created on or before September 21, 2013. If its a Free-to-Play account, the character will come with unlocked gear and spells of appropriate level and access to content through DoV (level 92). If they replace the items and spells along the way to level 92 then they will undoubtedly need to purchase un-lockers for upgrades or go gold?*

New players that make accounts since the announcement (September 22, 2013) may also create a free Heroic character during that same time-frame (October 1- 15) but it will be limited to ONE per-household rather than per account.

After the promotion, you may create and try out a heroic character, but rather than the 280 AA's, they will start with 100 and cannot be leveled past 86 and are locked out entirely upon camping. You may unlock them via the marketplace of course and as their predecessors their gear and abilities will be unlocked but it you upgrade as you level, non-gold subscribers will possibly have to buy un-lockers.*

* I am assuming replaced gear / spells will need un-lockers if the account isn't a gold subscription or downgrades from gold to free-to-play.

The only other thing I see needing to be addressed, is character slots. Will the heroic characters include a slot or will the account need to have a free character slot available to create each heroic character? I think to create any character, you'd need the ability to do so with an available slot, I am assuming it is based on having one available. Can this be clarified?

what i want clarified is what constitutes a household in soe's opinion? for instance. i live with my sister and her husband, I however an considered a separate household by the government. my nephew, who lives with my niece, his mother, has an account with my name on it- but my niece pays for it and it is his. to me, these are 3 separate households - so what does soe consider a household???

Nothing slippery about it. I want any new / returning player to be able to start the game at 85 and only look forward. As such I would give them ER starter, draconic, drusaic, and other languages that were focused on previous tier's lore.

Again, the household thing only applies to NEW accounts created after Sept 22nd. Your accounts are fine and will all receive it's one free Heroic character between Oct 1 - 15th.

There won't be any 90/100's, as the Try it character only can get to 86, then must be purchased. Once purchased, they get 280 AA.

Aye, that was before I found the hard-to-find FAQ that doesn't contrast well to the background.

SOE usually has great customer support. I imagine if you were to call and they were to look at the two very active accounts, they would issue two.

There's no reason to call customer support, ALL existing accounts that were made before Sept 22nd will be granted 1 free Heroic character during the Oct 1-15th time period. The "household" restriction is only for newly created accounts.

but what if i want to start a new one? of if my grand-niece decides to play? or if my sister wants to start a new one?

it still doesn't answer my question- what does soe consider a household? i can understand if it is your child's account or your spouse's account- but what is a household outside of that? people who happen to live at the same address? or people who create an account to be used by a grandchild who doesn't live with them?

This thread just confirms the adage: If John Smedley personally mailed $100 to every SOE customer, people would complain about the denomination or that it should have been $1,000.

I'm trying to imagine this sudden rush of NEW players in the "same household" on October 1-15th.

Apparently established EQ2 players who have been waiting until NOW tell their roommates, brothers, sisters, cousins, nephews, aunts, dogs, and cats about EQ2? If only SOE had added Insta-85's sooner, think of the avalanche of customers we'd have!

Thank you Mae, the funny thing I knew it was that way, and a friend challenged me on it and I looked at the FAQ & first post and did not see it so I a was like "oh you are right." I see the SOE post again now:

"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."

They should update the OP with that. hint hint



On another note: TERA just gave level s 58 character for players. I like how they have a "what to do at level 58" guide for these players. It suggests that they go get their spells, what dungeons and zones they can do etc. I think something like that might be helpful especially considering this is a deeper game.

I managed to get an old friend interested in trying it last week. He's played WoW before. He has a SOE account from trying EQ1 ten years ago, so fortunately doesn't have to make a PSS1 account as he's in the UK. Now I've just emailed him telling him to hurry up and download the game before Oct 14th so he can get his free heroic toon, even if he decides to start from scratch when he gets round to trying the game properly.

I'd be interested to see how many "noobs" really want to start off at level 85. I've been playing since a year after the game launched (I had to buy a new computer to play the game) and I'm planning to use the opportunity to level up one of my existing characters.

From what I've seen, the day open Beta starts is the day the free Heroic thing ends.

Well, I'm one of the players who've never managed to get a character above 55, even though I've collected my 8 year vet reward (actually, I've I collected mistmore crags, I don't know if I've claimed the next one yet). You'll probably see me exuding "noobieness" but I'll try very hard not to ruin your gameplay.

I'm actually very excited about the opportunity to see parts of the game I haven't seen yet. I'll probably play more. I might even look for a guild (one that's tolerant of noobiness)