Gratz Uber Maelstrom Roamer!

Heya! I got a great message from a reader today, and I wanted to share

Hello This Is Uber Maelstrom Roamer and I was wondering if I could change my pic on the wall of heros?...I just have got future foundation spiderman today and I would like to update my pic on the page.


Thank You,
Uber Maelstrom Roamer

OH YEAH! GRATZ! Well done!

Leave your congratulations in the comments below. :)

Happy dueling!

Meet the boys: Master Crazy Poet & Ectoplasm Mystic Dragon

This morning I found myself two-boxing my sons' accounts because they simply aren't playing as much as dad. ;)


I figured I better log them on and spin the wheel so they can keep getting some daily rewards. I think they both like my account better than their own accounts because I have more heroes to choose from. :) But, by using the two-box method, I was able to spin up enough gold for my son, Master Crazy Poet, to buy himself an angel hero. Here we are hanging out on the rainbow bridge in Asgard:


Synchronized dance for all the newcomers to the zone!


I really wanted to coordinate a three toon salute, but the game crashes out when ever I try to run a second instance of the game on the same computer. I'm thinking the unity player is to blame for that? I'm not sure. Anyway, I logged on my 2-year-old's account (we didn't subscribe him), to take a picture to introduce you all to . . . Ectoplasm Mystic Dragon!


Salute!


When I do get a chance to play SHSO with my kids, it's the best. Now if we can just somehow convince mom and sister to sign up . . .

Happy Dueling!

Elektra drinks the Hero Up Potion! :)

I was skimming the goodies shop and came across this potion that I had failed to notice before.


WOW! LOL! Nice, you can buy a level! Do you know how game changing this would have been back in the old days of Everquest where it would take a few months to level a character? ;) In SHSO, a level can happen quite quickly. The only really challenging levels on a hero would be those post 8th or 9th level when it starts to take 1,500 experience to gain a level.

50 gold for one SHSO level is kind of a steep price, but I had just the character I wanted to try it out on.


Elektra! How about a delicious drink of awesomeness?


Ahhh, refreshing! LOL!

Well that's definitely an easy way to level from 10th to 11th. ;) I wonder if the fine people at The Amazing Society would let me hold a raffle to give away a code for one of those? I'll have to ask them and let you know.

Happy dueling

Max Hero Madness

Since the last time I posted about maxing out Deadpool, Red Hulk, and Ironman, I have maxed an additional six heroes!

Those would be Nick Fury:



Mr. Fantastic:



War Machine:



Thor:



Black Suit Spider-Man:



and finally, the Tuxedo-clad Thing:



Whew! That was a lot of fun . . . a lot of daily missions, a lot of collecting tokens, a lot of chaseables, a handful of card matches, and a lot of troublebot destruction.

Each of those characters played a little differently and felt different as I was playing them . . . except maybe Tuxedo-clad thing. Since that hero is basically a new skin on an old favorite, there really weren't many surprises to him. I kind of hoped that at the end of his power emotes, there would be something just slightly different than the regular thing, but oh well. I liked playing the original thing so much that it wasn't bad playing him again . . . plus . . . well . . . the tux is awesome.

Black Suit Spider-Man also plays pretty much like the other Spider-Man I'm touting around in my bag, but unlike Tuxedo Thing, the final emote was different. It paid homage to the venom suit as Peter Parker tried to peel it off his skin.

I don't know about you guys, but I prefer power emotes with a punch to 'em. I'd much rather use a power emote to kill a troublebot than I would to actually pick them up and throw them (or bat them away in the case of Gambit--there's my exception). It kind of all depends on if the punch part of the power emote comes early or late in the emote. Like Mr. Fantastic . . . you had to wait a bit for him to mix his chemicals before they would explode and then kill the troublebot. When I got my second emote for Mr. Fantastic, it made me wish it had a kick to it like the first power emote. I'd rather spin around and slap a troublebot dead than do the chemistry set emote to kill them.

War Machine has to have one of my favorite emotes in the game. when he readies every gun imaginable on him, and they all do the bang-flag trick instead of going off . . . seriously, it's a classic. LOL. Playing War Machine in missions was fun as well. Ranged attackers seem to have a somewhat slower pace to their missions, but you really get to see them lay the smack down.

Nick Fury is . . . well . . . Nick Fury.

Thor though, Thor was rocking! He'd take these big, meaty swings of his hammer at opponents and just mow through stuff. When it was Hero up time, BOOOM unleash the thunder. Just the fact that he throws the horns when dancing is enough to make me like him. :) The only thing that would have made him more fun to play was if he was riding on a gigantic dog.



I need to do a quick inventory of my heroes, but I still have a number to level. From my estimations, I at least *have* enough heroes now to make Major. It's just grinding out the last few levels.

Happy Dueling!

Create Your Own Hero?

If you look at any other Super Hero MMO out there, you'll see that the main focus of the game is building your hero (your avatar) that you create.

- DC Universe Online
- City of Heroes
- Champions Online
- Fusion Fall
- Hero Smash
- Herotopia

You get the idea. Marvel's Super Hero Squad Online is different because it's all about Marvel's line of Super Heroes and specifically the Super Hero Squad Intellectual Property. To those ends, you never really play as a super hero of your own creation in this game.

To many, that's the clincher for NOT playing the game. People want to create their own superhero.

I remember my first table top super hero RPG back in the 80's, which was, in fact, titled Marvel Super Heroes. Wikipedia has a good way of putting the idea of Character Creation in that game:

"The game was intended to be played using existing Marvel characters as the heroes. The Basic and Advanced Sets both contained fairly simple systems for creating original superheroes, based on random ability rolls (a la Dungeons & Dragons). In addition, the Basic Set Campaign Book also allowed players to create original heroes by simply describing the desired kind of hero, and working together with the GM to assign the appropriate abilities, powers, and talents.

The Ultimate Powers Book, by David Edward Martin, expanded and organized the game's list of powers, making a fairly comprehensive survey of comic book-style super-powers. Players were given a wide variety of body types, secret origins, weaknesses, and powers. The UPB gave a much greater range to characters one could create . . ."

I didn't have the Ultimate Powers Book, but I remember my variation on Spider-Man from this game extremely well. The "Brown Tarantula" was awesome! I made my own comics about him when I was bored at church. :) Although it was my own creation, The Brown Tarantula was my avatar from a game meant to mostly be about Marvel's super heroes.

So, Super Hero Squad Online is also meant to be played using existing Marvel Characters as heroes. I don't think that should change. I think playing and buying these new characters and leveling your squad is the core idea of this game.

However, now approaching the twilight of my squad progression (I'm almost to Major), I'm pining for a bit of my own superhero creativity. Yes, I can go do that in any old super hero game, but now I'm invested in this game.

Here is what I propose: Once you become a "Major" you strive to obtain an even further level of progression . . . "General" perhaps. Once you obtain this level, then you open up a character of your own design who takes on the name of your squad. I want to build THEE "iridescent time hound" if you will.

I want to be able to choose my own "wide variety of body types, secret origins, weaknesses, and powers" and I want those choices to influence my eventual power emotes and combat moves.

It's asking a lot from this game, but if there ever was to be an expansion . . . I think the chance at creating your own character would not only bring the masses in, but would also make a lot of veterans in the game very happy. Being "unique" is important in these worlds and being "special" because you've invested a lot of time in an MMO world is also a key ingredient for the success of so many games out there. SHSO needs something "like" this . . . if not this.

I don't care if I have to grind heroes up to a 900 squad level as long as at the end of the rainbow there is a powerful character created that is all my own. THE IRIDESCENT TIME HOUND! Right?

I don't think it's a new idea, and I definitely don't think it's one that The Amazing Society or Gazillion hasn't heard before. They know their stuff. But you never know, this could be the reason for a six-month subscription to this game.

What do you think?

Happy Dueling

Angel goes live -- New "Civil War" Card Quest!

Heya Squaddies,

I’m actually posting from my phone here with breaking news (never tried this app before . . . Hope it works). In fact, I do believe I am the first news source to bring you this information today! WOOT TIME HOUND TIMES WITH THE SCOOP! With any luck, Super Hero Squad Online will be releasing the Angel hero tomorrow morning (a midnight release from what I understand) for play in the SHSO world and also a brand new card quest series that pits hero against hero.

Angel promises to be a really fun character that is sure to make all X-Men fans happy. You’re going to love his emotes, moves, furniture, and basically everything about him as long as you have the 600 gold it takes to buy him. :) Time to spin the wheel, my friends, and earn some gold! (I was actually thinking this one would be around 1,000. Nice!)

I also have some great first peek screenshots from the new “Civil War” Card Quest. This Civil War involves a duel between heroes as they battle out the pros and cons of (get this) the Superhero Vegetarian Act. LOL! I’m not making this stuff up.

Here’s some screenshots you’re sure to love:

Those look to be like some great rewards for a green-blue deck build, right? Unblockable Human Torch attack, Double block required Black Widow attack, Captain America Block card with attitude . . . nice!

Exciting stuff is afoot in SHSO tomorrow! Be sure to log on and check it out.

Happy Dueling

Super Hero Squad Online Codes

I was stumbling through YouTube and wandered into Tampatec's channel. What drew me in was that he was/is on the hunt for Super Hero Squad Online codes. That sounds like a great place for code sharing and he's even doing things like giving away gift cards for when people give him new codes that work.

I watched all his videos concerning SHSO codes, and it appears most promotional codes are time limited as the following codes DID NOT WORK for me:

MAMAROSAS
3F5D-44B9
SUPERHERO
HEROUP
HOLIDAY2011

However, it was pretty cool to find a code that did work:

Villansfury

redeem it while you can! Tampatec's channel seems like it is definitely one to tune in to if you're on the hunt for the latest SHSO codes.

Happy dueling

More Max Heroes! Red Hulk, Ironman, and Deadpool

Obviously I'm still hot on the quest for Major, and I'm headed there one max hero at a time! Today's Max squaddies are Red Hulk, Ironman, and Deadpool.





Red Hulk was fun to play(like I'm sure all the hulks are). The main reason being I love his jumping ability most of all. High-jumping around as the hulk is possibly the most awesome thing ever, right next to the creation of nachos. You know, it seems The Amazing Society is incredibly fond of re-skinning hulks. It makes me wonder if they'll ever make Kluh.

Ironman is great. It wasn't much different than playing Stealth Armor Iron Man, but anytime I can throw out the speaker system and play I Am Ironman, I'm happy, you know?

Deadpool is an interesting character, mainly because 1- He's canadian, 2- He's buddies with Death, 3- He first appeared in a New Mutants comic, 4- he likes to pogo stick, blow up pinatas, play whack a mole, and smash things with gigantic squeaky green gauntlets. LOL. I may not understand this Deadpool character much in this game (also like I don't understand many Canadians), but I dig him nonetheless (also like I dig many Canadians nonetheless). His double jump ability was super fun. :)

Happy Dueling!

Major, here I come!

That's right! I'm on Challenge #40. The last one of the bunch.


Now to just grind out those last 100 levels or so.

To those ends I added two more heroes to my squad yesterday and this morning.



Reptil is an interesting character in this IP. Before SHSO, Reptil was only really seen in the Avenger Academy mags in the world of Marvel, but in Super Hero Squad Online, he's a total rockstar.


The moment I started running around with him, I had 4 or 5 friend invites in the span of a minute. LOL!

And then there's Beast. He's a pretty good bargain hero (fairly new as well) at 600 gold with a +3 Marvel squad score. Beast is beast. What can I say, everybody who's ever checked out the X-men knows Beast. As opposed to the mere handful of comics that Reptil has been in, Beast has been in over 550 comics, cartoons, and you know . . . the big screen.



Oh Kelsey Grammar!

Happy Dueling

Welcome to the Wall of Heroes!

Welcome to the Wall of Heroes! Below are all the fine readers of the Time Hound Times and all proud players of Super Hero Squad Online!

Thanks readers!

~~~~~~~~~
Uber Maelstrom Roamer:


~~~~~~~~~
Count Plains Librarian:


~~~~~~~~~
Volcanic Artist Hawk:


~~~~~~~~~
Night Commander Guard:


~~~~~~~~~
Phantom Egret Tiger:


~~~~~~~~~
Apocalypse Kraken Fish:


(p.s. click on this one and take a look at his squad level O.O)
~~~~~~~~~
Crumpled Rabbit:


~~~~~~~~~

Let me know if you'd like to be added to the wall. :)

Happy dueling!

Finished with Challenge #34 . . . whew!

WOOT! I finally got that card quest challenge over with . . . whew.


You know what was the hardest part of challenge #34? Just understanding how that quest works! The description is a little confusing, but basically what it means is that you win five card quests in a row without repeating the same card quest. Basically if you just hit "Next Match" after winning a card match instead of selecting "rematch," you'll be well on your way to winning. Of course, you need to have a winning deck for your particular card quest lne though.

Personally I decided to try Wolverine's Easy quest line (but I probably could have saved myself some gold and just done Iron Man's quests--I wanted to try something new). Note that I won easy quests 1-3 and then repeated easy quests 1 and 2. So, basically it doesn't matter if you beat the same quests as long as you don't repeat the same quest right after itself.

Hope that doesn't confuse you. Best of luck!

After that, I made my captain squad rank and selected Street Clothes Wolverine as my next Hero reward!


Sorry, Sentry . . . I'm not saying I don't like you . . . I'm just saying I like everyone else better than you. LOL.

I've got quite a few ranks to put in before that Future Foundation Spider-Man is mine, but I think I can do it in the next week or two.

I'm hoping at least! :)

Happy Dueling!

Introduce Yourself!

Hey! Hi! You!

Let's do something fun!

I've been getting a number of visitors dropping by, and I have no idea who is who . . . so please send me an email with a screenshot of your character posing as your favorite super hero in Super Hero Squad Online, and I'll post it up on this blog.

What I'll do is make a post here with a link off the top and call it the "wall of heroes" so you can proudly immortalize your awesome squad name from Super Hero Squad Online in the annals of this blog.

Don't know how to take a screenshot? Well, the easiest way is to hit the print screen button, open up paint, hit Ctrl+V (to paste it in to paint), and save the picture as a .jpg to your desktop. Then just make an e-mail message to thefriendlynecromancer@gmail.com and drag that picture from your desktop into the email and hit send! (Just one picture per squad please.)

**UPDATE** You may also link me to a screenshot as suggested in one of the comments below -- whatever works best for you! **UPDATE**

There are other ways to take a screenshot, but that should be simple enough for now.

Also, if you ever decide you'd like to make a Super Hero Squad Online blog of your own, let me know the link, and I'll start a blogroll of all the SHSO blogs out on the net. Just let me know. :)

Happy Dueling!

Black Widow vs. Giant Man (Max Level)

Ever since I subscribed to this game for a month a few weeks ago, I have a lot of heroes that are either turning Max level or are right on the cusp of Max level, and as of this morning, you can add two more max level heroes to my squad. WOOT!

Black widow and Giant-Man!



Playing Black Widow was fun, and I liked throwing out grenades AND she does have a very rich history in the pages of Marvel's comics . . . but I really liked being out and about in the world as Giant-Man. There's just something about growing huge and stomping on anything and everything, am I right? Want to stand out in the crowd of people swarming the front area of the Daily Bugle zone? GIANT-MAN!


Want to humiliate the other heroes and make them feel small in your sight? GIANT-MAN!


Want to get smacked in the side of the head with a pigeon? GIANT-MAN!


Ok, maybe that last one isn't as cool as the other two. Still, I'm thinking Giant-man will go down in my list of favorites. Not that ballerina dancing with Black Widow isn't a show-stopper (she is a Jr. S.H.I.E.L.D. agent only hero after all--you don't get to see her around as much as say Falcon or Thing you know . . . I'LL DANCE TO THAT ;)).


Happy dueling!

I Heart Productive Game Mornings!

As if merely owning the awesome Phoenix character wasn't enough to make me giddy beyond belief this morning ...


My Colossus leveled to max!


Always fun to see what that final power emote is. Anyone need a giant diamond made for them? *squeeze* Thanks Collosus! You'd be a huge help for my Wizard101 crafting. ;)

Not that this was too difficult of a challenge, but I also gathered up the 100 tokens I needed to move on to the next challenge!


Thanks Hulkbuster! Now to win a few Power Card quests.

Any luck for you all this morning or last night?

Happy dueling!

The (dreaded?) Prize Wheel

I like to give ideas. Whether the amazing The Amazing Society decides to listen is entirely up to them. I haven't read anywhere about their policies on unsolicited ideas, but that's just kind of what bloggers do, right? We're constantly thinking of ways to improve the game (any game) . . . improve the experience . . . and have fun! As a reader, if you agree with an idea, feel free to voice your support in the comments below. You never know what might happen, they might agree! Also, you may have a much better idea than the one I propose, leave it in the comments below. :)

So, with that introduction to my crazy idea posts, I think I have one that you all might like. At least it's one that I would love to see happen. :)

Every day we spin the prize wheel.


That prize wheel is just a part of life in Super Hero Squad Online. After a while though when you're spinning up 100+ tickets, it can become tedious. If you're like me, I usually open up YouTube or some other website and just bounce back and forth between the other window on my computer and the prize wheel as I spin them all away. It's repetitive, but very rewarding.

I hate to ask for an easy button in a game that may already seem "easy." But if there was a way we could "auto spin" an additional amount of spins, I would gladly use it. Even if I had to pay 1 gold or 200 silver to auto-spin the wheel 30 times in a row (as long as I had the tickets to do so), I would do it.

What do you think? I want an auto-spin button added to the game! :) It'd be so much easier for me to get up and walk away (or use the time to type up a blog post) while the game was auto-spinning for me!

Happy Dueling

Buying More Heroes (1), Villans' Fury pack (0)

Heya Squaddies,

So I was all set this morning to blow all the available gold I had on the new Super villain card booster packs. I figured that the 1200 gold I have burning in my pocket would be just enough to make a deck that was purely villains, right? It may not be a very good deck, but I wanted to try it out and see.


Plus then I could show it off to you all . . .

But then I got thinking. *sigh* I really am still leveling up my squad and I know I'm going to still need a number of heroes to get to that top challenge goal I'm shooting for, so I opted to purchase these two fellas instead.



I've always loved Gambit from the comics anyway. He's a favorite of mine . . . I figure if anyone understands the meaning of "happy dueling," that would be the superhero, right? Gambit is awesome. Check out this awesome information about Gambit from Marvel.com.

Captain Marvel seems to be featured this month, and since I wasn't sure if that also meant he was on sale, I decided to leap at the character and see how he played. :) He's a pretty powerful character as described by his information from Marvel.com. I don't know if I ever picked up a Captain Marvel comic when I was a kid. hmm. I should see if he's currently in the pages of a recent comic book and go buy it! I'll let you know. :)

Also, I picked up my last "Agent Only" super hero from the Agent Only store yesterday. It's the kooky Iron Patriot!


Yeah, if you guys didn't know, Iron Patriot is just the Green Goblin in super hero disguise. He's psychotic like that. You can read all about the antics of Norman Osborn also at Marvel.com. (Marvel.com is awesome)

So, as you can tell, I'm excited about getting closer to my last squad challenge. Just 150 more squad levels to go or so!

What level are you?

Happy dueling!