Producer Letter: About Heroic Characters...

Well I say that because of this from the letter

2) New Heroic Character: A full Heroic Character can be purchased at Character Select or while playing as a Free Trial character. It includes level 85, 280 AAs, all items included in the Free Trial, and is unrestricted.

And they are saying everyone can make a free heroic character from Oct 1 to Oct 15

Sounds good to me. We've held the position for quite some time that getting rid of levels altogether would be a step in the right direction. So many of us have played for so long that it's just a nuisance to have to go through grinding characters up to speed just because you need a different class for some reason or other. IMHO, I'd rather work on fine tuning my gear and so forth than mindless leveling because I need a certain (meaningless) number.

I have 9 crafters level 95 and most are level 30 or below adventurers and below and the fact that I can make any one lvl 85 and start from there gonna save me a lot of grinding but theirs still plenty to do to get them level 95 adventurers and geared and I hate AA grinding from zero but from 280 wont be that bad although next expansion will have 340AA so I like this a lot. This is at least a chance bypass the slow quest leveling until 85 and be hopefully plenty of people to group with that got new 85 chars. I know it all costs money but its my choice to do it.

If the free one is only one per household, doesn't that kind of screw the people who have multiple legitimate accounts? IE Husband/wife teams or husband/wife/kid teams? I understand it might be to stop people who have a horde of free accounts helping with guilds/farming etc, but having families flip a coin to see whose account gets the free heroic? Can't it be based on something like-Account A has, in the past, paid for 10 months of game time=Free Heroic. Account B has, in the past, paid for 6 months of game time=Free Heroic. Account C has never paid with a credit card and has never been a Gold account *since people can pay with krono now* thus Account C=No Free Heroic. This is, of course, assuming that Accounts A-C are within the same household. So with this example, 2 of the 3 accounts would have the ability to create a Free Heroic Char because those 2 accounts have paid for so many months, either by credit Card or Krono.

I want Heroic Tradeskilling included in this. Pressing 1-2-3 for hours is way worse than leveling could ever be.

Will these "heroic" characters be identified? IOW's a non removable title pinned on them, so ppl will know who is a heroic newb?

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 does than mean I can park my new enchanter in Maulics Stronghold and afk level to 85/280 without getting banned? What's the difference?

ooooo Ainaree, I am in total agreement with this remark for sure!! lvl 85 crafter, all harvesting skills up to that lvl, and tinkering, adorning, and transmute up to that lvl!! OMG, now that would be something to cheer about!!

That's quite a leap of connection. If they did that then every F2P during Hero's Call would have a free raider. Those of us who built up Raiders from scratch would have to keep paying when just because someone got in with Hero's Call would be on a free ride. This game is not built to allow unrestricted F2P. A game has a very specific market build to do that. Usually all "convenience" and "cosmetic" items are by Pay Transaction only. Most of those Convenience items are also very rare in game. Imagine not being able to summon a Druid Portal or Spire Portal, what about the Pocket Ring/Portals from DoV or the Paintings, all of those don't fit that model. That is at least how other MMO's that are fully F2P do it, the Marketplace is what "spices up" the game and makes doing things quicker, you can't buy Armor/Weapons but you can sure buy faster ways to move or ways to look better.

I doubt they are going to be permanently unrestricted for the reason I laid out above. Probably only unrestricted for the time of Oct 1st through till Oct 15th

"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 my dissentions have been answered. It seems that this is an attempt to fully push new players and old back into the game.

Thank you for clearing that up. The one per household seemed to cause a bit of confusion at least on my part.

Thanks so much for clearing that up Holly much appreciated

So as I understand it, There will be one per account and not one per household. Is that right? So my account and my sons account will each be able to do the Hero's Call?

Oh, lordy, that would be so sweet...

On the other hand, I can see the Tradeskillers having the same arguments against it that the Adventurers do... ;->

Or, hey! How about making it a choice: either a free Uber-Grunt, or a free Uber-Crafter?

Uwk

Ok, I like the idea of being able to have a heroic character option. I have played EQ2 for eight years now and I am an
Alt-aholic! I have a total of 26 characters that I plan on leveling. Five of them are already 95 adventurers and 16 of them are level 95 tradeskillers. They are all different classes because I wanted to experiment with them. I would like to have the option to skip from level 50 to level 85 once I have the spells and combat arts figured out so that I can have time for doing other things in game. Thanks for the option SOE!!

Heh, I've got...40 toons and I'm still leery about this. ;->

Uwk
still only 83 and darn near proud of it

This is not the end of the world some seem to think it is and if it helps build the EQ2 population it will be good.
Long time players may not fully grasp how big a barrier soloing your way from 1 to 90 is for new players.
It is a shame that the EQ2 dev team could not come up with a solution to make the 1-85 journey more fun and efficient for newbs. I fear much of the games content will become even more irrelevant, which is regrettable.

The thing I find the most odd is that the try-before-you-buy (TBYB) version has only 100 AA???
So the toon you try will be seriously gimped compared to the one you would actually buy.
That is a very lame trial. Would you test drive a car that was limited to 25 mph?
I would suggest giving them the full amount of AAs that an unlocked Heroic Char gets so they can get a real feel for what they are buying. Given that they are locked to level 86, there is no reason not to let them try out the fully AA enabled character.

Secondly, I would suggest lowering the Heroic Char AA to 260. This gives them 5 levels to gain 20 AA so they will have 280 AA by level 90. This will increase their sense of accomplishment at 90 and is not a difficult task.

Thirdly, many people grind out their last levels and AAs, from 90-95 and 280-320, in Skyshrine. For many new players Skyshrine is their first chance to group and learn how to play in a group. Further, players can feel comfortable there, even if they don't have maxed out stats and gear, because it is understood that it is a place to level. It serves an important function. Please don't nerf SS at least until an increase in the level cap when there will hopefully be a new place for leveling players to group.

Do you have "Heroic Crafters" for sale?

No worries all the "heroic" toons will have the designator ebay flying over their heads.

Oh no , please don't touch crafting in this way!
To level a crafter at this time runs faster than ever, there are so many players who love to craft - and
players who don't like crafting aren't forced to do it.
Yes, it's a lot to do to become a perfect Norrathian crafter, but here our German sentence works:
"Der Weg ist das Ziel" - "the way is the goal" (? I don't know whether the translation says it right).