If I were to give my friend the 15 day trial serial that came with the epic collection, will he be able to just add time cards to that once it expires? Or will he have to buy a new game and use that serial?
From what I remember, the 15 day Game Time Card adds 15 days to a game account, but can't be used as a free trial code. I believe your friend will still need a new game/serial to begin playing.
Ncsoft should make trial accounts upgradable to normal accounts. A new player gets negative impression about the product becouse he has to start everything all over again if he plans to purshase the game.
And believe me, the first character in the new game, new world is somehow presious and special... well that's how i felt about my first character.
trial's can be upgraded by... clicking the 'upgrade' button on the account management screen. I've had friends trial the game, then we've upgraded their accounts with purchased game keys. No one has to start over. The only real issue is that it's not exactly documented anywhere obvious what to do to that trial account to upgrade it.
I'm proof of that. I started a 15 day trial that I found in one of the City of Villains boxes I had tossed into a closet. When that trial was up, I went out and bought the epic collection (x2, since I used the trial key from my OTHER CoV box to start up a 2nd account) and upgraded my trial account(s). So I didn't have to "start over" or anything like that.