Difference between revisions of "Game Time Cards"

Revision as of 19:27, 9 September 2010

Overview

Released along with the original copy of City of Heroes, time cards have been around to allow players without credit cards to access the game contents throughout the lifespan of the City of Franchise.

Originally, time cards came only in 60 day increments. Later on, NCsoft merged all of its various franchises time cards into 1 card that came in 15, 30 and 60 day charges.

Time Cards

CoH Original Card

With Statesman on box and a scene from a poster on the card, this was the original time card marketed for City of Heroes on April 28, 2004.

CoH Hero 1 Card

Released a bit after issue 2, this card features Hero 1 on it as he was before the events of the Rikti Invasion.

CoV Original Card

Lord Recluse is found on this card, initial release was actually with the Cov Pre-order, but official release was Oct 31, 2005 with issue 6

CoV Ghost Widow Card

Featuring Ghost Widow and her long hair, this card was released a few months after issue 7 and stayed out until the new unified cards.

NCsoft Unified Time Cards

Released on April 10, 2007 to replace all existing NCsoft game Time Cards, these cards came at a small markup from the old cards but in 3 different time amounts and had 2 different runs in the USA, 3 in the EU (note, the EU seems to still be using these while the US branch has discontinued them).

At $10 a card, these where the 15 day time cards. Featuring yellow highlights to distinguish them, they where the rarest of these the unified cards and appear to not have been printed in the second run in either US or EU.

Bearing red highlights, the 30 day time card retailed at $20 and was the most common card to find at a retailer.

(Depicted here is a first run US and a second run EU)

The 60 day time card was purchasable for $30, or rather, the original price for previous time cards. Highlighted in a deep blue, these cards were printed in both runs, though not in the quantity of their 30 day siblings.

(Depicted here is a second run US and a third run EU)

For the 30 and 60 day cards, multiple runs have been made due to cancellation of several of NCsoft's games. The second run of both US and EU versions swapped out the terminated Auto Assault.

The third run for the EU also takes Tabula Rasa out of the list of games, but keeps the associated figure up at the top. Second and third printings in the EU had vastly different front layouts from the first printing, but between the later ones didn't alter the package other than removal of dead games.

For the US versions, not only was Auto Assault removed, but CoH and CoV where merged into one spot on the card with their second spot going to Dungeon Runners, a free to play game.

Game Card

Main Article: Game Card

In the middle of 2008 NCsoft gave up on the unified time cards and reverted their existing games to single 'game cards' that would function as both a time card and a normal game code. These would be marketed as $5 more than the standard 30 day cards and where available for City of Heroes, and Tabula Rasa, while eXteel and Dungeon Runners would get similar cards that provided currency credits in-game.

See Also

• Official Merchandise
• Disc Releases
• NCsoft