Happy Late Anniversary Marvel Heroes!

June marked the 4th anniversary of Marvel Heroes 2016, or as it's now know, Marvel Heroes Omega. So a little information and history for those who may not know what a Marvel Heroes Omega is. MH is an isometric action-rpg just like Path of Exile, Diablo or Titan Quest.

MH was developed by Secret Identity Studios which is owned by a company called Gazillion Entertainment. MH started out as Marvel Universe Online which was being developed by Cryptic Studios for Microsoft. When Microsoft cancelled the project, Cryptic took what they had and turned it into what is now Champions Online. In 2009 Gazillion hired a guy by the name of David Brevik who just happens to have been apart of two games you might have heard of, Diablo and Diablo II, and created Marvel Heroes.

Now I haven't played Marvel Heroes much since the summer of 2015, or just after the second anniversary event. In July 2015 I was honored to be on the MMO Show to discuss the game, and at some point in the podcast the time played topic was brought up. I realized at that point that I had invested nearly 600 hours of my life to the game. I didn't play much of MH when it launched in 2013, it wasn't until the 1st anniversary event in 2014 that I was really sucked into the game. Needless to say, not long after the podcast I decided that it was time for a break.

In January 2017, Marvel Heroes had it's Biggest Update Ever. The fundamental gameplay remained the same, however, most everything else was changed in this update. I won't go into any details in this post, you can read the changes here. I hadn't played MH in almost a year so it was quite overwhelming logging back in and trying to relearn a game that I spent so much time playing in the past.

This years anniversary, just like last year, is a month long with different events and sales that change every 7 days. This year's event wasn't bad, comparing it to last year's event it doesn't seem to be as good, but overall I still had quite a bit of fun.

I took full advantage of the server side XP boost by finishing leveling Warmachine and Wolverine whom I was in the process leveling for a third time. After that I decided to level all the characters I owned that I haven't played. Then, thanks to the large amount of eternity splinters I earned and owned, I purchased and leveled the remaining characters in the game. But that wasn't all; I then decided to prestige many of the heroes because it had been so long since I last played and I wanted to see just how the BUE changes effected their gameplay.

I ended up playing about 120 hours in that 25 day period. So yes, I did enjoy myself. For the most part. The BUE had a positive impact on characters that I thought were lackluster previously, adversely there were some characters I thought were made worse. Warmachine and Taskmaster are two characters that weren't great before, and oddly enough they still are not great now. Not sure how that happened.

I would say that overall I had fun during the month long event and I was reminded why I enjoyed the game for so many hours. At some point I want to do a post that talks about what I like and dislike about the BUE, but my impressions after a month of play is somewhere in the middle. Some changes are good, some are not, and I feel that some of the uniqueness of the characters was taken away due to the update.

It's a Skyforge Thing!

The last few posts have all been about Marvel Heroes, a game that I love quite a bit. However, I have only played a total of three times since the release of Ant-Man. What could cause me to stop playing a game I love so much? Well it's a combination of working a new job and Skyforge. That's right, Skyforge.

Skyforge is a new free-to-play MMO from the Allods Team, the developers who made Allods Online oddly enough. Unlike games such as Everquest 2, Lord of the Rings Online or The Old Republic that started with a subscription model then moved to a f2p model, Skyforge was built from the ground up as f2p.

Why does that matter you might ask? Because those other sub to free games lock content behind a subscription; Skyforge instead goes the premium account route similar to what you find in World of Tanks, meaning players have access to all content all the time. It would be similar to The Secret World or Elder Scrolls Online, just without the initial purchase.

The difference didn't really sink in till I played TOR one afternoon after spending loads of time in Skyforge. The amount of stuff locked behind a sub or the Cartel Market is staggering. Don't get me wrong, I am not against TOR's f2p model, I was just surprised to notice the differences.

Well, that's enough about that. At some point I'll get back into Marvel Heroes, or some of the other games in my backlog. But until then, I am quite enjoying Skyforge.

New A.R.M.O.R. Incursion for Marvel Heroes!

It's another week and another event for Marvel Heroes. This week brings the revamped A.R.M.O.R. Incursion event. 

In the past you would get ARMOR drives as loot from bosses, random enemies and on daily mission. Those drives could then be exchanged for various items from the ARMOR vendor.

Here's a brief overview of what to expect with the new ARMOR Incursion event:

• A.R.M.O.R. Defender Mission - Completing this mission will grant an Ultimate Upgrade Token!
• A.R.M.O.R. Drives - Collect Intel Powerup buffs, defeat the specified boss, and earn A.R.M.O.R. drives
• New Items & Artifacts - Now you can use your A.R.M.O.R. drives to buy more items and artifacts, including Howard the Duck's Big Freaking Gun
• New Enchant Recipes - A.R.M.O.R. drives can get you all-new enchant recipes for slots 1 - 5, featuring the new Alternate Reality Rune
• A.R.M.O.R. Incursion Achievements - 7 new achievements are now available, exclusive to A.R.M.O.R. Incursion!

For even greater detail, click here to read the forum post on the ARMOR Incursion along with other changes in the patch.

What has me excited are the new items and artifacts. For me there wasn't anything useful to purchase with ARMOR drives which means I have quite a few saved up. I have probably about 3k worth of drives saved, but it's an event that I viewed as a time to take a break from the game. It's not that I dislike the event, I had no use for drives. Till now!

Don't forget, this event brings with it a 100% server side boost to XP!!! 

Beware The Power Of The Ant!

That's right, Marvel Heroes newest hero Ant-Man has been released! Hard to believe Marvel Heroes has 49 heroes, so much content. Speaking of content, the Story Revamp also comes with this patch. Before there were three difficulty levels related to the story missions - Normal, Heroic and Super Heroic. If you were willing to play through each difficulty you might make it to level 60, I honestly have no idea as I only finished the story once. With one character.

There no longer are three difficulties, instead a person should be able to level 1-60 by playing through just the story. I am going to test this out with Ant-Man, however, because I have a lot of level 60 heroes I have a permanent 200% XP bonus. But that's not a bad thing. I will be interested to see at what point in the story I reach level 60, that should give me a good indication if the XP is scaled well and if boosts are needed or not.

Also with this patch comes the Odin's Bounty event. For a three hour span, bosses in one of three game modes will drop Chests of Odin's Bounty. Every three hours the game mode rotates. For example, as of this post, all bosses in Red, Green or Cosmic terminals are boosted. Afterwards bosses in Industry City will be boosted, then Midtown, and so on and so forth. You can check out the rotation schedule here.

The Odin't Bounty event is one of my favorites in Marvel Heroes; it's a great way not only to level up but to gear up a hero as well.

Midtown Madness 7/13/15

It's Monday which means it's Midtown Madness in Marvel Heroes! It also means I got an unexpected day off so I need to figure out what I'm going to play.

What is Midtown Madness you say? Glad you asked. All bosses in the Midtown Patrol zone will drop a Midtown Madness chest full of all sorts of goodies and a sizable XP orb. There's also a chance for a rare Midtown Fortune card to drop from all bosses as well. The Midtown Fortune cards are nice but I've never had them give me anything useful that I can remember.

Midtown on Monday's is great for leveling up and gearing heroes due to the nice XP orbs and cosmic and possible unique items from chests. Cosmic Chaos is still going on which means a 42% multiplicative XP boost as well!

Story Mode Revamp

Next week's Ant Man patch for Marvel Heroes is shaping up to be a significant game changer. Announced yesterday at the San Diego Comic Con was the difficulty mode consolidation change to the Marvel Heroes story mode. The complete FAQ can be read here.

There's some really nice information on the changes, but what caught my eye was the following three changes:

• Experience rewards for story mode have been greatly increased.
• Players can level from 1 to 60 in story mode alone, at a brisk pace if they wish.
• Several new optional story missions have been added in various chapters, with experience awards, to aid in leveling. More may be added in the future, as needed.

While I have played through the story once, I haven't touched it in ages since it's the least effective method for leveling a hero. I do love the change for a few reasons - it should help acclimate new players to the game and it gives an alternative to leveling instead of running constant terminals or patrol zones.

With these changes I plan to start leveling Ant Man through the story mode to test the new revamp. However, I have a feeling that I will eventually out level the story content due to my permanent 200% leveling bonus.

A few other changes in the FAQ that were of interest was the removal of the difficulty in the story mode (Normal, Heroic, & Super Heroic) to make grouping easier and a possible Mentor Mode to down scale one's level lower to group with friends to be implemented in the future.

Also announced were a slew of new and updated costumes which is always nice. I particularly like the new Jean Grey costume! All-in-all, the Ant Man patch is shaping up to be a nice one for everyone!

It's Cosmic Time!

It's Friday which means it would have been patch day for Marvel Heroes, but that was done on Tuesday due to Gazillion bringing Marvel Heroes goodness to the San Diego Comic Con this weekend.

However, that does mean a new event starts today, it's Cosmic Chaos time! What is Cosmic Chaos you may ask?  It means more cosmic loot from bosses in Cosmic Terminals, Cosmic Midtown and ICP and double leveling rate for Cosmic Prestige. For us average players it's about the multiplicative bonus to XP, Rare Item Find and Special Item find of 42%.

Cosmic Chaos is one of my least favorite events in Marvel Heroes because I generally don't run cosmic terminals or patrols and the multiplicative XP bonus is kind of meh unless you intend to use lots of boosts to level. You do collect cosmic worldstones from bosses and random enemies that you can use to purchase items from Moondragon in the Avengers Tower.

Moondragon does have a few items that are worthwhile picking up if you have the appropriate hero that can use the item, such as the Doop Ectoplasm artifact and the Power Cosmic legendary. She does sell two recipes which are nice as well, Doop Inspiration and Power Doop. Again, good for a few select heroes, but nice none the less.

I would, however, recommend the first purchase from Moondragon be the Upgrade Epic Insignia to Cosmic recipe first because that will benefit every hero. It requires a level 60 epic insignia and adds a +1 to all powers which all heroes can use. Since you have to use Cosmic Worldstones to buy the Cosmic Upgrade Tokens and most likely the Doop Runes needed for the recipe, I would suggest making sure you have the best insignia for your character because you'll run out of worldstones pretty quickly.

Good insignia's can be hard to come by and if you're leveling say Human Torch, Ghost Rider, Cable or Psylock for example, then purchasing the artifact or legendary isn't a bad idea till you do find a good insignia.

This even should run through next Thursday till the Ant-Man patch that will likely come on Friday morning just in time for the movie.

It's A Cornucopia of Games.

Holy cow, this working full time is kicking the crap out of me. I work all day, go home and play games, then when I have a couple of days off I do whatever chores I need to and try to play as much on the computer as I can before having to go back to work. I really don't know how those of you who have full time jobs have been able to live like this for so long.

But like I said, I have been playing games in the evening when I get home from work. For most of June it has been Marvel Heroes, not only at night but on days off as well. I am really loving that game! I love the combat, I love the loot, and most of all I love how different each hero plays from one another. That is unless you play Taskmaster who plays like four different heroes! Oh yeah, I also love that there are soooooo many different heroes to play.

Before my massive ingestion of Marvel Heroes I decided that I wanted to play Splinter Cell Blacklist, but before I do that I wanted to play Splinter Cell Conviction again, a game that I think is underrated and really quite good.

It's not like I needed to play Conviction again, I had already finished the game twice before. No, it was the fact that Blacklist, a game I bought during the winter holiday on sale for about twenty-five bucks, was now on sale for a mere ten bucks. TEN BUCKS!!!! The game sat on a virtual shelf for nearly seven months. So after a couple more rounds with Conviction I finally moved on to Blacklist.

What a frustrating game for the first couple of hours. I'm pretty sure the A.I. is broke for the first couple of missions. That and the change in controls from one game to another really gave Blacklist this difficulty spike that I was not enjoying. But, once I finally got a grasp on the controls and picked up a few gadgets the game turned out to be really good. Not only does it look good, the story and voice acting are quite good as well. But once I finished that it was back to Marvel Heroes for more one year anniversary goodness.

That is till this past weekend. With Dragon Age Inquisition coming in October I had this crazy thought that maybe I'd play through Dragon Age 1 &2 again, especially DA2 since I love that game! Honestly I didn't think I would actually play DAO again; I find the combat to be tedious, it doesn't look all that great, and it's way too freaking long.

Yet after about an hour of checking out mods I fired up a new Human Noble and now I can't stop playing. I feel that DA2 has better combat, looks better, better characters and interactions, but the story in DAO is really good. Add in a few mods that improves the combat and speeds it up a bit and now I'm hooked!

This weekend will be all Marvel Heroes thanks to an increase in XP event, but I am eager to get back into DAO, because Ferelden needs its Grey Warden hero!