Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Vision Live in Game + This Week's Specials!

Here's a quick screenshot of this week's specials:


HEY! It's everybody's favorite android, Vision! Any android that can go against his programming is a friend of mine. :)

There's also a couple new card quests in there and a couple 300 gold hero specials going on too! I still need to pick up Thor. :) I've been extremely busy lately, but it looks like I need to find enough time to farm up a few tickets and take advantage of these specials. O.O

What have you all been up to? Anyone purchased Vision yet and have some comments to share on his playstyle? Wikispaces seems to indicate that he has an interesting armor boost skill as his second power. Interesting!

Happy dueling!

Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Iron Man MK I and New Sale Items

Oh, this is awesome news for Jr. SHIELD Agents (not so much for those who aren't). Check out the new sale items this week!


For those who subscribe, it's so nice that they added Iron Man MK I to their list of silver purchasable heroes. A mere 2,000 silver buys this awesome guy! (I'm also happy I was able to snag Red She Hulk for 300 gold as well . . . bargain!)

I had a blast lumbering around as Iron Man this morning. :) And that's exactly how it feels.


HAHA! He's awesome. He's a double jumper hero with no ability to fly. You can almost feel the stiffness of his armor as you bound around town.


Yay! My first token with MK I! I'll have to wait to take him on a test drive out in a mission since I have to go to work now. Looks like there's already a page for him over on Wikispaces.

Happy dueling!

Thursday, March 22, 2012

A Need for Community Management

So, you all may have noticed my posting dropping to a crawl the past weeks. This is due to a couple of reasons. One, I just simply got busy. I've been playing the game, I just haven't had the time to write about it. Two, I lost my contact on the inside at The Amazing Society. She left for a mobile phone game company.

This is not an uncommon thing in the game industry. People come and go all the time, and sometimes a majority of a game's work force will be laid off after a game launches. I don't think there were layoffs involved here and SHSO is well past launch, but in general a lot of time is spent up front on a game, and then after it publishes, the developer (The Amazing Society in this case) usually scales back the crew a bit.

MMOs are a bit different, however, because there is supposed to be an "eternal" (I put that in quotes because eternal really just means however long the MMO can hold out) release cycle. For us in SHSO that seems to mostly come in the form of new heroes, missions, and card packs. (I'd love to see a new zone or two besides the four we have to roam around in currently.)

Usually MMOs of any grandeur will have a community manager in charge of taking people like me (and wherever the fans may be located--Facebook, Twitter, forums, podcasts, etc.) along for the ride while the game continues its life cycle.

My old contact did a great job of that. She actually tracked me down on another blog of mine where I had talked a bit about Super Hero Squad Online, and she supplied me with a few codes to give away in a raffle. I loved that, and I loved that she was willing to work with me on providing an upper hand on news about the game. To me that's exactly how a Community Manager should interface with a game blogger like myself. It was fun! Fun enough that I started up this blog separate from my other blog. My time spent writing about SHSO deserved a home of its own. Thus, the Time Hound Times was born.

Unfortunately my old contact was doing two jobs (if not three). Her real job was to be the Senior Producer for the game, not solely the Community Manager. The previous "dedicated" Community Manager for Super Hero Squad Online jetted to go work for Pokemon (. . . at least that's what her LinkedIn page seemed to say).

With my contact's departure back in the first part of March, she told me she passed the mantle on to someone else remaining at The Amazing Society, who probably also is working the weight of a couple jobs (Looks like they've been keeping Facebook up to date pretty good though). I honestly don't know since no one has reached out to me from TAS to say hello. (*wave* if you're reading this TAS. Please say hello!)

So, long story short, I'm sorry I'm not able to provide you all with a quick scoop on info or hold a contest with company sponsored gifts (loved giving away a free hero--that was awesome). Until someone says hello and I get back in the loop, I'll do my best to keep up with news, but it probably won't be like it was around here a couple months ago.

I don't know what the relationship is like between Gazillion and TAS, but I am guessing most of the Marketing for the game is done by Gazillion and the brunt work is done by TAS. It'd be nice to get some community management again . . . whether that comes from Gaz or TAS, right? right.

Happy dueling

Monday, March 19, 2012

Catching up with the Time Hound -- Avengers oh my!

Hello! *wave*

It's been a while since I've posted anything here. How have you all been? I've been busy, but I'm still finding time to collect and level heroes in Super Hero Squad Online. Here's the recent additions of mine to the max hero club:

1- Valkyrie -- Tea time anyone?

2- Luke Cage -- Tiara and a fro go together like chocolate and peanut butter, yo.


3- Spider Woman -- Always reading up on the latest top secret stuffs.


You might have received the notice in the mail about all the Avengers excitement buzzing in SHSO these days.


To those ends, I'm sure you know by now that Captain America in his Super Soldier getup is now on sale in the gold shop:


And as a special bonus, looks like Gazillion/The Amazing Society put American Dream on special as well!


With all this Captain America pride going on here lately, you know the best thing to do is hold a Captain America power emote party whenever the mood strikes you. :)



I've been noticing a lot of that happening lately, and yup, I've definitely been joining in whenever one of those emote throwdown parties happen. :)

Hope you all are still enjoying these reduced hero costs as much as I am. I think I'll go update my price guide.

One last thing, Uber wife and I recorded another episode of Happy Dueling Hour a couple weeks ago, and we once again mention Super Hero Squad Online among all the other stuff we talk about. Take a listen if you'd like. Hop to the 42:49 minute mark to hear what we have to say about SHSO. :)

Happy Dueling!

Friday, March 9, 2012

Pure Elecktra and New Splash Screen Shows New Heroes

A new build of Super Hero Squad Online went into the game today and with it came the new Pure Elecktra hero.


I actually thought she would have come into the game earlier since this was one of the heroes I reviewed for my Beckett's Game Strategyst article I wrote. Good to see her coming in at 300 gold. She's marked as a sale, so I'm not exactly sure what her final resting price will be.

Also, we got a couple new loading screens that show off what will most likely be five upcoming heroes.

Check it out!


That looks to be Captain Steve Rogers, Hawkeye, Vision, Original Iron Man, and Ant Man? Nice!

Also, this loading screen suggests a new Mole Man mission.


Can't wait to see those super heroes in action!

Happy Dueling

Monday, March 5, 2012

Max level Ghost rider, Bucky Cap, and Bunnisher! Make your own goals past FF Spidey?

Last week was super fun as I kept on playing with these new heroes, finished off three max levels with them, and added a few more levels to my overall squad level:





BOOM! With all that leveling, my total squad level is approaching 700 now! I have to say, I love Ghost Rider and Punisher's Max Level emotes! LOL!



Bunnisher . . . just Bunnisher. Come on, that's amazing. HAHAHA! Now we know what Matt was working on there at the Amazing Society back in February. ;)

And Ghost Rider on a tricycle!


I think that should be my new expression of shock at work when someone tells me something crazy.

HOLY GHOST RIDER ON A TRICYCLE!

Speaking of crazy. I don't know if you guys feel this way, but after you finish out the challenge quest line, you kind of have to make your own goals and find a way to reward yourself, right? What do you guys do to keep it up?

Also, I'd love to see some player-created challenges past FF Spiderman . . . just to see what we could come up with!

- What would be the dividing points for squad level rewards?
- What five accomplishments would you have to do for each major challenge level?
- What hero would you award for completing the challenge?

Let me know what you think.

Happy dueling!

Thursday, March 1, 2012

Goodies Code!

Just got this email a couple hours ago, and I thought I'd put up here and pass it along in case you hadn't seen it yet. Check it out!


Yup! A free level and some fun stuff in your bags if you type in the super hero squad free code "GOODIES"! WOOT!

After redeeming the code, log in and head to your backpack to use it.


Just don't waste the heroup potion on the early levels of your hero! ;)

Happy dueling