I am on the 14 day trial for L2 and I went to see about upgrading my account to a full account. I still have about 5 days left on the trial, but I wated it to just continue after the trial was done. Do I need to purchase a CD Key in order to keep playing? I don't recall seeing that mentioned when I started the trial. All I remember seeing was that if I wanted to continue playing, just pay the subscription fee. Does it work differently then?
EDIT: Okay, now I see where it says that I need to purchase a retail key, in order to keep playing. So my question now becomes, once I purchase a key, do I get 30 days free or do I need to pay the monthly subscription rate?
Okay, just let me verify this. Once I buy the account key for $19.99, I will get an extra 30 days free? The reason why I am making sure is because I need to know how much money to put on my pre-paid credit card.
You will get them, and your'c credit card will only be charged after those 30 days will run out. But those 30 days will not start untill you put in your's credit card and chose the metod of payment (monthly, every 3 month or what ever).
I think I am still confused here.. I'm sorry about this.
When I went to upgrade my trial account to a full account, it asked me to put in cd key that I got from a store, or one that I bought from PlayNC itself. Since I have the 14 day trial from MMORPG.com, I didn't purchase the game from a store.
The way your explaining it to me sounds like you think that I bought the game and I haven't set up my account yet so to speak. I know that when you buy the game, you put in your credit card number and you get 30 days free.
Like I said, I want to make sure that all I have to put on my card is $19.99 and nothing more until the 30 days is up and I will have to start paying the monthly fee of $14.99.
Like I said, I want to make sure that all I have to put on my card is $19.99 and nothing more until the 30 days is up and I will have to start paying the monthly fee of $14.99.
It is so. Also you can buy the game code at direct2drive.com, it's cheaper then on this site, or at least it was cheaper. That site is only for US residents, thoe.
If I buy from Directtodrive though, the character that I have leveled up to 20 and have decked out in clan armor and a D grade weapon will be useless, correct? I have to purchase teh key from here as it will be tied to the account?
I think I am still confused here.. I'm sorry about this.
When I went to upgrade my trial account to a full account, it asked me to put in cd key that I got from a store, or one that I bought from PlayNC itself. Since I have the 14 day trial from MMORPG.com, I didn't purchase the game from a store.
The way your explaining it to me sounds like you think that I bought the game and I haven't set up my account yet so to speak. I know that when you buy the game, you put in your credit card number and you get 30 days free.
Like I said, I want to make sure that all I have to put on my card is $19.99 and nothing more until the 30 days is up and I will have to start paying the monthly fee of $14.99.
As I've understood how NC handles the account billing/activation:
1)To continue using the 'Trial' account (Characters) you need to 'upgrade' the Trial key to a 'Retail' key. (So good so far.)
2)To setup the retail key you need a valid payment method. This is either a Time Card (key code) or a valid Credit card.
For the credit card, you are NOT charged any further fees until AFTER the 'free month' is used up. In your case, depending on how your 'prepaid' CC is handled you may need to add as little as $.01 to the card so that the card is 'valid' when setting up the retail account for the first time. (Assuming you intend to use the prepaid CC's in lieu of time cards.)
Thus you would need on the CC: (Assuming you use one for everything.)
1)Enough for the retail key
2)Enough so that the CC registeres as 'valid' for the first time period. Since NC doesn't charge until the renewal date, this doesn't have to be enough for the actual charge at this time. Although it will fail if you try to use it with 'autorenew' checked on the PlayNC master account and don't have enough in it when the renewal date comes around. (I don't believe NC uses the 'backcharge' method to verify CC data, but it's been a long time since I first activated.) [Backcharge being a instant charge then refund of the amount to your card to verify it. In which case you would need the key+1 month's renewal price on the card for this to work. Although this would only be needed for the very first time you setup the account.]
Once you have an 'active retail account', you could use prepaid cards in the exact amount necessary, by manually entering the new CC numbers each time. Not sure if your prepaid CC works like a phone card (new numbers each time) or a debit card (same number each time)
This whole 'first time activation' thing was always a bit of a dance to my mind. But once a retail account has been setup, you can pretty much start and stop 'active' status and pay in any acceptable manner without further issues. NOTE: I've never used their time cards, so I have no idea if you need to enter one 'immediately' if you choose that as your payment method. You could try that and just change the payment method to CC when it comes time to renew, if they don't require an extra card right away.
Otherwise, Mistryl should be able to clarify things further on monday...