R M's Guide to Getting Cheap Months
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Introduction
At the time I'm writing this, City of Heroes: Freedom has recently been announced, and suddenly everyone who purchases a paid month gets $5 worth of "Paragon Points" along with it, to hold in reserve until Freedom allows people to buy things with them. Needless to say, this is interesting a number of people in the game anew, and bringing back some older players as well (either in preparation for Freedom going live, or planning to come back for free play after it does).
In a game that costs a base rate of $15 per month, there has always been an emphasis on finding ways to get those months inexpensively. A few years back, when NCSoft's car-combat MMO Auto Assault crashed and burned, I was able to snag six $30 "Auto Assault" time cards for $10 each—cards that also worked in City of Heroes. Needless to say, all of those cards have evaporated by now, but there are other opportunities if you look for them—though not necessarily as good, nor can they all be used by all players.
The information that follows is correct to the best of my knowledge at the time I am writing it. Needless to say, as with all guides, this is subject to change in the weeks or months after it is written. If it's been a while, double-check to make sure these offers are still in effect. —Robotech Master 15:03, 21 July 2011 (UTC)
The Official Way: Subscriptions
The main way that NCSoft would probably like you to get discounted months is to buy a larger chunk of time at once. Buying more time for your PlayNC account offers the following rates:
- 1 month: $14.99*
- 3 months: $41.85* (equivalent to $13.95 per month)
- 6 months: $77.70* (equivalent to $12.95 per month)
- 12 months: $143.40* (equivalent to $11.95 per month)
They offer the discount because an axiom of finance is that it's always better to have cash for future services now than to get that same amount of cash later. (See Time value of money.) But the problem with this approach is that getting the cheapest rate requires you to separate yourself from your cash well in advance, when you may not even feel like playing the game anymore in six months. Is saving $36 really worth that?
And, perhaps worse, it's not even the cheapest monthly rate available.
The Smart Way: Discounted Time Cards
If you do a little web searching, you will find that there are a number of businesses selling new 60-day time cards, retail value $29.99, for a considerable markdown. Amazon offers them for $24.99, with free shipping if you're a member of Amazon Prime (or free normal shipping if you order something else to tick your total up over $25). (A number of Marketplace vendors offer them for slightly less, but charge shipping, which makes it more. Weirdly, some Amazon Marketplace vendors are selling them for considerably more. Who would pay $999 for a $30 time card?)
But the very cheapest rate I have found yet is from a company called PC Game Supply, which is offering digital two-month time cards for the unbelievable price of $18.50. There is no shipping involved; the code is delivered in an hour or so (often considerably less) via e-mail. And when you consider that this price effectively includes $10 worth of Paragon Points, the value becomes even better. The first time you order, they will phone you from an Indian call center behind a caller-ID-blocked number to verify your order, so be ready to answer the phone. Then they will make photos of the cards, with numbers intact, available for viewing.
Caveat Emptor
One person reported PC Game Supply sent him time card codes that had already been used (though they did apologize and refund his money afterward), and that NCSoft said that the company was "not an authorized seller" of the time cards. Another person reported a similar experience.
As for my own experiences with the company, the first three card codes I bought from PC Game Supply all applied to my account just fine. I bought another one more recently as a test after some people reported the problem, and found it did not work. I contacted the company and they sent me a replacement code, which also did not work. I contacted them again and they sent me a replacement that did work. They explained that it was a problem with their supplier sending them a bad batch of card numbers.
In short, it seems a number of people have been having this problem lately, but those who've had it happen have reported the company was happy to work with them to provide either a refund or a code that did work (even if it took a couple of tries in my case). It doesn't seem terribly risky to me to buy from them at this point—but if you do, be sure and test the code right away to make sure it works so you can pester them for a replacement if it doesn't.
The New Player's Way: Old Box Sets
And there's one more technique, that only a limited number of players can take advantage of. This has to do with the fact that every new boxed set City of Heroes comes out with includes its own free starter month—and almost every one of those box sets (with a few exceptions) includes a registration code that can be applied to any existing account once per set.
By now, almost every edition of City of Heroes prior to Going Rogue has fallen to $5 or less, plus shipping—and every one of those sets includes a $15 month that is still perfectly good. (And as an added bonus: in addition to that $15-value month, many of them include useful bonus powers, badges, or costume pieces; or little tzotzkes like art books or Heroclix figures.)
If you only just got into the game, want to get a new player into the game, or want to start a second (third? fourth?) account for dual-boxing (which will become a lot more worthwhile when you can run one of those "boxes" for free), then you can buy any game box that has not been applied to your account and apply it to scoop that cheap, cheap game time. Likewise, if you only got into the game a few years in and never went back and applied the earlier sets, you can still do so and save a little money.
And yes, I actually have tested this by ordering several old boxed sets from Amazon and sending them to a friend I was just getting into the game. He was able to apply the codes for all but one, giving him a four-month head start (plus the aforementioned powers, badges, costume pieces, and tzotzkes), and the total price including shipping worked out to about half of what it would have cost to buy the months at full price. (And if I'd been an Amazon Prime member, with free shipping, I'd have saved even more.)
Warning: If you're shopping for these on Amazon, only buy the ones listed as "new", from Amazon or trustworthy marketplace vendors! If it's "used", then chances are the registration code has already been used and it's worthless to you if you're buying it for the month. If you're buying on eBay, caveat emptor.
You can also sometimes find some of these boxes locally in discount and overstocked-goods stores that stock older games, such as the Big Lots chain. This has the advantage of not having to pay Amazon shipping costs that can sometimes end up being more than the cost of the box itself.
City of Heroes CD-ROM
This is the main exception to the above—the one that my friend was unable to apply. Since this is just the basic client, it cannot be applied to an existing account. It can only be used to start a new one. However, since it currently only costs $1.11 plus shipping and includes everything short of "Going Rogue" and a $15 month and associated Paragon points besides, it makes a great way to get a non-player into the game, or to start a second account for dual-boxing. Apply the code, throw the CD away, and download the current client from NCSoft. Once the account is started, you can apply any of the other boxes to it. (And if you use it to get a friend into the game after sending him a trial invitation, and he pays for a month after that, you can get a free month with NCSoft's refer-a-friend program!)
Update: I have since been informed that apparently the original City of Heroes and the City of Heroes Good vs. Evil edition cannot be applied to the same account: if you start an account with the CoH CD, you cannot apply GvE; if you start it with GvE; you cannot apply this CoH CD. That being said, it would probably be the better choice to start the account with the Good vs. Evil edition, below, and skip this one; GvE applies a number of very useful powers to the account whereas this one is simply basic.
City of Heroes Collector's Edition
While this would theoretically add another month, plus an "exclusive in-game item", for some reason it seems to have bypassed the trend of discounting older boxes. The new resellers only list it for $79.99 and up (so I'm not bothering to link it). Unless the price has fallen drastically by the time you read this, probably best to skip this one.
City of Villains
You would think that, like the plain-vanilla City of Heroes CD, this would not add an extra month to an existing account—but it does. At the time, it was made to, since City of Villains was not made available for all players until after NCSoft bought out Cryptic's rights in it. So adding another month to an existing account was one of the "bennies" for players who were persuaded to upgrade. If you never bothered buying it at the time, or weren't around back then, try adding this to your account. At $1.97 (at the time of this writing), it's one of the cheapest months available.
City of Villains Collector's Edition
Unlike the CoH one above, this collector's set is available for under $4 plus shipping. And since it includes bonus items, as a lure to people who'd already bought the "vanilla" (or should that be "devil's food"? :) CoV to upgrade, it can be applied alongside the base set.
City of Heroes: Good vs. Evil Edition
It is unclear why Amazon is still charging $52.69 for this new, because a number of marketplace sellers list it for $5 plus shipping. And since this set includes the insanely useful 30-second Jump Pack and Pocket D VIP Pass Teleporter powers for every character on your account, anybody who doesn't have it yet should snap it right up just for those and count the free month as an added bonus.
This is also the best way to start a new player in the game, since it comes with those extra, useful powers that can help them right off the bat.
City of Heroes: Architect Edition
The most recent box set before Going Rogue, this is another insanely good deal, since it costs $4.25 and in addition to that $15 month also includes the buyer's choice between the Cyborg and Magic Booster Packs sold in NCSoft's on-line store (a $10 value). And…excuse me, I just noticed I never did get this boxed set myself, and I had been thinking about getting that Magic booster for a while now. I'm just going to go one-click order this one for me!
City of Heroes Going Rogue: Complete Collection
And here's another special case. The very latest expansion at the time of this writing, Amazon is offering it for its $29.99 list price. (Though Amazon's price seems to fluctuate from time to time; it's been as "low" as $28.41 at one point.) However, some marketplace vendors are now offering it for $14 plus shipping, which means it probably ends up costing about $20 altogether. (These prices are, of course, subject to change since I wrote this, as they have several times already since I first wrote this guide.) It also comes with two bonus character slots for use with City of Heroes: Freedom, if you apply it before Freedom launches.
However, the best way to get this cheap is actually through Valve's on-line software sale system, Steam. Every so often, NCSoft and Valve will mark the game down to $20, $15, or even $10 (only twice so far, for a single day each time). This involves no shipping fees or (for most people) sales tax, and you don't have to launch the game via Steam to make use of this purchase; you can extract the serial number and take it over to PlayNC.com the same as you would for that from a physical box. To see when it next goes on sale, get in the habit of checking SteamGameSales.com.
The Old Player's Way: Invite a Friend/Invite a Friend Back
Until August 17th, 2011 NCSoft offered a pair of promotional invitation systems whereby you could send a friend a 10-day trial invitation, then earn a free month of gameplay if he buys a month. The program for inviting someone who has never played the game before just earns a free month for you, but the program to invite someone back who has been away from the game for at least 90 days earns one each for you and your friend. These were discontinued as of August 17th, 2011 to prepare for the launch of CoH Freedom, but the devs promised an equivalent system would be offered when it launches. Presumably it will work largely the same way.
An interesting thing about this program is that applying a game expansion to one's account (as mentioned in the section just above) seems to count as a paid month for the purpose of the promotion—I invited a friend back, he applied Going Rogue, and we were both credited the free month. This means that one way to snag yourself a cheap month would be to buy an old expansion pack of CoH, invite a new friend to the game, and then have him apply the code from that pack.
Conclusion
City of Heroes is a great game, as well you know or you probably wouldn't be reading this. But at a base rate of $180 per year, wow is it ever draining on the pocketbook. Just as well it's going free-to-play soon. But if you want to keep playing it with the VIP perks to which you've grown accustomed, or if you're a free player wanting to try out those perks for a while and see "how the other half lives", hopefully some of the above methods will save you a little money. Remember to make sure that you're buying a new item before you buy—as always, caveat emptor!