Trial Accounts
For City of Heroes/City of Villains

City of Heroes and City of Villains can be tried for free for 14 days.  That 14 day period is enough to get one of reach of the 10 basic Archetypes to the Trial Account cap of 13, but 5 or 6 is probably more realistic.  At any time during that trial period, the game can be bought and turned into a full version.  Trial Accounts have some limitations.  This page will go over just what you can and can't do on a trial Account.

You can access the free trial by following this link.

Trial accounts cannot:

  • Send in-game e-mail.

  • Level past 13.  You can keep playing, but will not gain experience.  Since travel powers are not available until level 14, these will not be available.  (But see below)

  • Hold more than 50,000 Influence/Infamy.  Currency used in game in the Hero and Villain sides respectively.

  • Use any in-game chat channels other than /local, /team, and /help.

  • Start a team, or invite others to one if made the leader.

  • Join a Supergroup.

  • Enter any form of PvP.

Some of these are pretty harsh, but there are workarounds.

Most teams in game will be formed by the leader sending a "tell".  This is a private message from the leader to the potential team member.  Usually, if they don't get a tell in reply, they assume the answer was "No", or that the potential member is ignoring them.  This can make it hard to get on a team while on a Trial Account.  Some ways around this might be to:

  • Respond in the HELP channel.  If this is done, it's important to do a few things.  Include the name you need to talk to, and the fact that you have a trial account in the message.  Others that see the message might be able to relay it for you, and mentioning that the account is a Trial will limit the number of people that might yell for not using the broadcast channel (which a trial account can't do).

  • Include in the Team Seek window that you have a trial account and cant respond to tells.

The Team Seek window is a tool that leaders will used to find members for teams.  It's explained here for people doing the looking, but that page doesn't say much about getting noticed.

 

Comments in the Team Seek window are entered by going to the TEAM tab on the top of the chat window.  Once this is open, you can enter a short text to pass on a message.  A suggestion for this might be something like:

"I'm on a trial account and can't reply to tells.  If LFT set, please blind invite or check Help chan."

At the top of the picture is a line that reads "You are not looking for a group"  Clicking the arrow will open a menu of options.  Setting it to the white, open circle will pass on the message that you want to be selected.  A "Blind Invite" is when the leader sends an invitation to a person that has not been contacted and agreed to join a team.  Normally, a blind invite is considered to be rude by many, but there really isn't an option for getting a trial account on a team.

  
 

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