A Window into The Amazing Society!

The Amazing Society sounds like a pretty cool company. Have you ever checked out their website? There's just so much creativity going on there, it's awesome. :)

I was haunting Google Maps the other day wondering what it would be like to visit their studios someday. Looks like they rent a space in this building here. Nice place!


If only we could peer inside those windows, right? Well, thanks to the Amazing Society's Senior Producer, Ellen B., I've got some great pictures to show you all. Here's what she sent over . . .

~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ellen describes this shot as THE TOY PHOTO!


Having toys at the ready is just a part of the job at The Amazing Society. You gotta have some toys, right? Apparently everybody has their own personal collection of toys at their desk.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This next picture shows the driving force behind all that creativity at TAS . . . coffeebot. ;)


I for one, welcome our new evil overlord, coffeebot.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Lore junkies rejoice! The people at The Amazing Society have a bookshelf chock full of Marvel reference material to read through.


Looks like I could spend hours at this thing reading up on all the lore that goes into Super Hero Squad Online.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This is Kaitlin. Everybody say hi to Kaitlin! *wave*


Miss Kaitlin here is one of the animators that works on Super Hero Squad Online. She's showing off one of her latest creations. :) Keep up the good work, Kaitlin! Angel is a blast to play.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
And I saved the best for last. This is Matt, who is the Art Director at The Amazing Society.


Hmmmm. What could this be that Matt is working on today? Looks an awful lot like Punisher, and you know what . . . Punisher has a friend! What the heck?! Awesome! HAHA! Check that out!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Thanks for the great photos, Ellen! Those were awesome.

Hope you all enjoyed this quick peek inside The Amazing Society. From my short time talking with Ellen, I can tell this is a great place to work, and everyone there puts a lot of heart into what they do.

From the Time Hound Times and the readers here, KEEP UP THE GREAT WORK!

Happy Dueling!

Stuff

^^^^
Winner of the best blog post title, ever!

So I have a lot of stuff rolling around in my head today about Super Hero Squad Online. I'll just start typing and let's see where this post goes.

1- Cable. I've been asking about how soon we might see Cable come into the game. In talking a bit with my sources at The Amazing Society, I found out THE REAL story about Cable and a few other super heroes. The fact of the matter is, Cable *is* coming to the game (not just a rumor), and I think anyone that saw the leaked character concept art realizes that. After that point, the question is "when!!" Sadly, concepts take a long time to flesh out and put into production, and the leaked information that some SHSO fans saw was very early in the stages of creation. The answer is that Cable isn't planned to be out for the next few months, but eventually, you'll see Cable. Patience, friends. :/

2- New mission this week! Sources tell me that there is something awesome coming to the game this week to coincide with the release of classic Daredevil! It's suppose to play awesome as well, so here's a little teaser to get you excited about the update coming this week:


RAWR! Load up Elektra or Black Widow, and let's go kick some butt!


3- My month subscription ran out! GASP! Aww well. I'm back to earning a measly 5 gold a day and one spot on the prize wheel. Man that's painful after having the joys of the daily gold rush, isn't it?

unsubbed rewards:

vs.

subbed rewards:

Sigh.

I'll have to contemplate another month subscription here soon. As for now, my family has a ton of catching up to me to do, and I still have a handful of heroes to max out (including Future Foundation Spider-Man).

It's kind of sad to see what happens to your Jr. SHIELD heroes when you cross the unsubscribed barrier. They just kind of fade out with a Jr. SHIELD symbol over the top of them, so you can't select them anymore. At least their levels still count toward your squad level though, right?

. . . and I never finished leveling Iron Patriot too. Well, luckily I got most of those leveled up to max before losing the sub.

When I was subscribed I purposefully avoided buying the 350 gold heroes so that I could save those for a goal when I was unsubscribed. I still have to purchase Nova and Valkyrie. I also am just right around the corner from earning the silver I need to purchase Bucky Cap, so . . . there is that to look forward to, right?

And that's it for today!

Keep me in the loop on all the cool stuff you guys are doing in game!

Happy dueling!

Introducing Super Spy Genie!

Yesterday I talked my wife into making a Super Hero Squad Online account. It was kind of funny. For some reason our two-year-old really just doesn't want mom to play this game with him. He wanted DAD to play the game with him. In fact, he went as far as turning off the computer on her. LOL.

As with all two-year-olds, they are easily distracted and he was off playing on the Wii, and I was able to help my wife get set up and talk her through some of the controls on screen. Before you knew it, Super Spy Genie was on the prowl for bad guys!

She's digging Ms. Marvel.

She actually had a really good suggestion for The Amazing Society. It would be nice to be able to select whether you were a girl or a boy before you selected your squad name (it's reversed right now), and then you would be given your choice of more "girl" sounding squad names. It took us a while to find Super Spy Genie, but when we landed on it, it was perfect.

Before you knew it, she was running through her first mission as Ms. Marvel with a guy who was playing Thing. She liked it, and from the sidelines it was pretty entertaining to watch. :)

I logged on after her mission and we met up to add each other to our friend lists (I really wish I could have more friends on my list--I have that same problem in Wizard101).


I can't wait to see if she gets into it like I did. It'll be fun to run some missions with her or maybe have a card battle. If we ever do that, I'll probably video it and share it. ;)

Happy Dueling

Ding 554!

There it is!




For once I'm actually at kind of a loss for words! I was pretty freaking excited about it last night after it happened. It felt really good for that final challenge to be won. Here's how it played out (hehe, playing my brand new Wasp purchase at the time):



I definitely spent too much time indoors earning that level. ;) The sunlight, it burns!

I just want to thank you all for reading along with me as I worked toward that final challenge. Hopefully I've covered any "advice" I'd give along the way already. Really, it's all about leveling and buying those heroes, working out a good deck for the challenges involving card battles, and having a lot of Marvel super hero fun along the way.

The game's challenges encourage you to discover all that you can do in Super Hero Squad Online. I think the ultimate goal of the challenge quests was to help players answer the question, "what can I do here?" whether that included being rude in a pond, playing through some missions, scoring reasonably well on an arcade mini-game, or just making friends. It's all one can ask for in an MMO like Super Hero Squad Online.

The big question you have to face after completing the final challenge is probably similar to what people were asking when the game didn't have a challenge quest line. What's the point? What I believe the designers are hoping you do is continue doing everything you've done up to this point, just without the golden carrot at the end (but with a promise of something greater coming in the future). What do I do? Go be rude in a pond, play through some missions, score reasonably well on those arcade mini-games, and just make friends! :) There are still 30 (and growing) heroes or so that I've never played before, right? Right.

I'm sure the future will bring more challenges and more changes to the game. It will all continue to grow, and I'm pretty sure the fans of the game will help direct its future. So don't be quiet! Let them know what you want to see in the game. Inspire them to greater programming, finer design, more beautiful art, killer marketing, and streamlined production. That's a fan's job.

That's what I say at least.

Did I say I was at a loss for words?

Happy Dueling

2 Feb 2012 SHSO News! Ghost Rider Contest, Punisher, Luke Cage, and More!

This news announcement just came across email a couple hours ago!


So, definitely go enter the code "GHOST2012" into heroup.com for your chance to win that freaking awesome looking Ghost Rider toon before anyone else. haha! That would be great, wouldn't it? . . . and at the very least you'll get some silver and a few tickets. ;)

Also mentioned there is the appearance of Punisher, Classic Daredevil, and Luke Cage. The White outfit Elektra is also shown in the graphic. Definitely some cool new heroes headed our way. Which one are you most excited for?

Happy Dueling!

Clearing up a Couple Misconceptions

So I backtracked a thread that linked to me from a comic book fan forum that I didn't even know existed. What I found there was a pretty harsh criticism of my blog. Probably deserved since, really, I've only been keeping this site for a few weeks, I've only been subscribed to the game for the same amount of time, and I'm still learning and enjoying the game.

For the most part I'm just getting to "know the heroes," whereas many are way past that and are looking at the "nuts and bolts" of how the game works. I applaud those working so hard for this game. Keep at it! I don't mean anyone any ill will.

There was some misinformation though, which was that one poster on the forum thought I was paid to keep this blog (I'm not--I'm just a regular gaming dad who's blogging for fun) and also that I keep the wikia site linked to up top (I don't--I just happened to find it in my brief search for wikis on this game). Ultimately I'd love to help foster a community for this game that shows respect and fun for all ages. I write clean and don't swear or belittle others, and I won't allow it on my blog. Keep it "E for Everyone."

I wouldn't mind working with someone who wants to produce solid "nuts and bolts" fan information for Super Hero Squad Online. A lot of players would be happy to learn from that information. If you have good links with straight information that would be considered rated "E," please share!

I'm hoping this blog evolves and gets better over time. :)

Happy Dueling

Congratulations Xmenfan!

The post from yesterday announcing the raffle has now been removed, and Random.org has spoken! Xmenfan (aka Crumpled Rabbit) was the winner of the random raffle for one free non-S.H.I.E.L.D superhero of his choice.

The hero he chose? Spider-Man! That's a great one to choose too since he is so high priced. I'll let my contact at The Amazing Society know today and hopefully this will be sitting in your account in the next couple of days (if it isn't let me know).


Congratulations Xmenfan and thanks so much for reading the Time Hound Times blog! thanks to the Amazing Society for offering this prize.

I will continue to try to hold raffles (and maybe even a contest or two in the future to test your creative extents) as The Amazing Society will allow me!

Thanks to all for participating.

Happy Dueling!