NCsoft responds to City of Heroes CD key confusion

NCsoft Europe has warned buyers of its City of Heroes Deluxe Edition not to mix up the bundled serial code - worth 30 days of free play and in-game bonuses - with the "Sidekick code" included on a separate disc in the same set.

The Sidekick disc is a fully-fledged copy of City of Heroes, complete with a serial key worth 15 days of free play, which was included as a last-minute bonus in the European Deluxe Edition. The idea is that if you like CoH you can give one of your friends a perfectly legitimate copy of the game with a minimum of faffing. Good idea, that.

However confusion apparently arose due to unclear instructions on the packaging of the two codes, one of which is much more prominent than the other. The idea is that your actual, proper Deluxe code is located in a small white tear-open envelope.

The other code, on the back of what initially appears to be a third City of Heroes disc, is the code which is good for 15 days of play on a new account. The idea is to hand the paper sleeve-clad disc and accompanying code to a friend and "Recruit A Sidekick". Sidekicks, as Kieron outlines in this week's instalment of his City of Heroes diary here, can be brought along on high-level sorties with their chums no matter their actual level.

NCsoft is keen to stress that people should only use the white-clad code for their primary account, however, as accounts created with the 15-day trial code cannot be upgraded using the Deluxe edition serial code.

The publisher also advised last week that there can be no Deluxe upgrades from serial codes bought online from PlayNC, and has advised anybody caught out by this quirk to contact customer support.

City of Heroes, which launched in Europe last Friday, is, er, great. Read Kieron's review here.