Today my FireTV suggested that I might like a campy B-film on Amazon Prime. It did this because it sensed I had watched a lot of campy B-films in the past and "The Velocipastor" might be right up my alley. I gave it 20 minutes and noped out and said, "Ok, I get it. I'm done."
Having a Velocipastor experience of my own in Champions Online.
Today, I feel the exact same way about Champions Online. Here I am 12 levels from max, and I feel like "Ok, I get it. I'm done."
By all means, I should be happy. So far I've played this game entirely free up to this point and just barely opened up a brand new location called Monster Island, which indeed had a super campy opening cut scene.
Father Elk is my favorite Furry on Monster Island
I also just finished up a romp through Millennium City and partook in a weird quest where I helped escort Bigfoot's girlfriend back to him. Sounds amazing, right? But the truth is that, I'm just bored of it.
As far as escort quests go, this wasn't the worst. Kind of cute actually.
You know what I think it really is? I just don't have anyone playing this MMO with me, and as a solo player game, this experience is so so. Totally doable, but I'd rather grind these world quests at least with the hope that once or twice a week I'd have some friends logging on that I could play the big instances with -- at least I hope that would be the cure for the current boredom I'm feeling when I log on to Champions Online.
It's a Furry convention on Monster Island and Mr. Bear makes sure the party doesn't stop
So, Champions Online, I'm glad I gave you a go! I salute you, and thank you for letting me remake the Friendly Necromancer as a super hero. I was genuinely intrigued by you for the first 26-27 levels, but it's time for me to move on to other games.
I finally figured out how travel back to unfinished Comic Series and Adventure Packs, hurray! I also discovered they were called "Comic Series" and "Adventure Packs."
Adventure Packs . . . got it. What are those again?
Look at me, learning new things! Gotta give it up to this old interview I read where one of the Devs back in 2011 talked about how Comic Series were to replace Adventure Packs, and that happened along with the game transitioning to Free to Play. I feel like a friggin' archeologist over here looking at 10-year-old-interviews.
There's a plane-o-copter you click on in Millennium City and from here you can access your currently underway Comic Series and Adventure Packs. Makes sense I suppose. Either way, Plane-copters are the gateway to fun!
The Gateway to adventure!
After learning this, I was able to finish the Whiteout Comic Series, and it was great. Also found out that it's repeatable content, so I can continue playing it over and over if I'd like, but why would I do that when there's tons of new, umm, "personally unexplored but old", content left in Champions Online for me to discover!?
My journeys took me over to New Orleans's Vibora Bay for a bit where I met up with a hero contact named Black Mask.
Black Mask, hiding out in some illegal weapons den in New Orleans
To be honest, I wasn't entirely thrilled with the content I found here. Unlike Canada or the Desert, here in Vibora Bay, quests were very linear in fashion, which made the exp kind of crawl along. I loved the other open world missions with several quest givers where I could venture out, complete 5 quests, fly back to base and zoom along the exp.
One thing Vibora Bay had going for it was arcades and entertainment spots.
Jazz Room and a Crab Boil sounds fantastic thanks!
Visually, this is one of my favorite zones I've run into in Champions Online. Gameplay wise, this is one of my least favorite spots. Seems more like a weird stop off to be honest.
Soon after heading to New Orleans, I dropped back by the UNTIL boys back in Millennium City and they gave me access to a second Comic Series named "Aftershock."
Wow! My friends, the bosses of the second and third issues of the Aftershock series are some of the most intense solo fights I've had in an MMO for a while. If there was ever a boss designed to drain (literally and figuratively) your sidekicks health and timers, it would be these guys.
This boss's name is Despair Incarnate . . . true, true. I feel that.
This Despair Incarnate boss took me three tries and each attempt took about 20-25 minutes. There's a really strange slow down effect that happens in this fight where the battle turns into a slow motion crawl. You have to block while this guy does his health drain and put out a ton of damage. If there's anything that would keep me from running this Comic Series again, it's this fight.
The boss of the third comic was also a nightmare, but at least she didn't have this slow motion mechanic (or is it a bug?). All the other bosses were kind of a breeze.
North Africa . . . AFTER the Kings of Edom arrived.
I actually captured footage of the final fight of Aftershock 6, and it was amazing. Of the comic series, Aftershock 5 and 6 were the best, and that's because of the introduction of the Elder Gods aka The Kings of Edom.
The game threatened that fighting the Avatar of the Kings of Edom would be a difficult fight, but it wasn't anything compared to bosses 2 and 3 of the Aftershock series -- cake in fact.
So all of that playtime left me off at level 26, and it appears that all the quests are pointing me back to Millennium City, so back to Millennium City I shall go where there are evil succubi and hell hounds waiting to be sent back to the depths!
Back from whence ye' came, Evil one!
I'm definitely having a lot of fun in Champions Online, but man . . . the eye strain! I don't know what it is about this game, but every time after playing an extended session of Champions Online, my eyes sting and burn from eye strain. Maybe it's the dark environments coupled with the bright auras and spell effects? . . . the outlines of the characters? . . . the small text on text boxes? I don't know, but it's a deadly cocktail for eye strain in this game.
Other than that though . . . yup, I'm enjoying playing through the content. Thanks for reading and . . .
I dinged 22 today in Champions Online! Hooray! Now that I'm in my 20's I decided it was time for alternate look for The Friendly Necromancer. The "Season One" look is out and the "Season Two" look is IN!
It's all about the spikes this season!
Spikey mohawk, spikey back, spikey legs, spikey arms . . . The Friendly Necromancer is lookin spikey spicy! I have to be honest, I really didn't even look much past the head area when I was making my first look. I didn't even plan on playing the game this deep! But if there's something that really bothers me about this game, it's the fluttering capes. It looks like an epileptic seizure waiting to happen. Capes are OUT!
Also of note, I finally banked up 100 UNTIL currency which meant I could purchase a super cool sidekick, and I took waaaaay longer than I should picking out my sidekick. At first I thought about going with a fire type because in Wizard101, the Friendly Necromancer can always be found side by side with one Baily Skystaff, a fire wizard. But, in the end, my time spent in Champions Online is a solo endeavor and let's be honest, I'm Bailey's sidekick, not the other way around.
So I landed on a sidekick named the Chaos Imp, and I was thinking that it'd be a cute little imp that follows me around and does a little damage now and then. No, the Chaos Imp is taller than me and absolutely wrecks face.
That's no imp! It's a scary, blue-slashing monster!
The Chaos Imp makes my difficult fights an absolute breeze. The only catch, he's not permanent. He only lasts for one hour of game time and then that's it. He's gone, and I have to buy him again. So, luckily that hour of game time isn't "one hour from the time of purchase." The game time only counts down when you have your sidekick out and actively helping. Because of this, I only call out the Chaos Imp for boss duty and when fights are looking hairy. Gotta conserve until I build up another 100 UNTIL currency so I can buy another.
The other UNTIL purchased option that seemed to blend well with my "necromancer" style was a 1-time use zombie swarm summon, but doing the math I could only get 20 summons for the same price as I get the chaos imp for a TON of summons, as long as I use him conservatively. Maybe at some point I'll have enough currency to do both! That'd be amazing.
Anyway, when I went back to Millennium City to purchase my Chaos Imp sidekick, I of course got side tracked by several new quests and ended up in another totally new zone . . . Canada. I kid you not. The cold North had a super crazy alien mishap, and all of a sudden I found myself working through an epic comic-book style series of quests with cut scenes and comic cutouts, and it was AWESOME!
Aliens invade Canada! What?!
Here's the thing, it made me think, wait . . . did I miss this presentation and quest line in the Burning Sands? It was really really well produced, but I had to leave after playing through the third "issue." That's right, the quest chain played out in issues like a comic where you were the star. It was so well done, y'all.
I had to log out for the day, but when I came back, expecting to do more of the Canada comic book series of quests, now I was in a Canada zone full of quests just like the Burning Sands zone. I really shouldn't be this confused, but there's something in the execution of how these quests present themselves to me that's causing me to get a little lost in where I am and how I get back to the comic quests, because YES PLEASE, I want more of that!
Canada, the zone, has been great so far. I've done everything from helping wolves to unburying people from snow piles. I've fought on ice and gone deep into bunkers. One of my favorite instances I ran pitted the Friendly Necromancer against Mr. Zombie. Well, I think you know how the story goes, the necromancer will always win in that scenario.
The Friendly Necromancer vs. Mr. Zombie
So far I continue to be surprised by how deep Champions Online is. I'm enjoying myself and ready to keep questing further. Thanks for reading, and as always . . .
Y'all, it finally is making sense in Champions Online. All the strugglebus of levels 1-15 is gone, and I've found myself in a zone called Burning Sands where the quest progression is every bit a WoW clone as one would expect. I'm embracing this common sense turn of events and loving this new zone I've been questing in.
The pleasure has been all mine!
I'm also loving how quirky this zone is. Yes, I've been hunting irradiated zombies, but I've also been taking down ghost and robot cowboys. If Champions Online was Pirate101, this would be its Cool Ranch. I love me some Cool Ranch.
They're not regular ghosts -- they're COWBOY ghosts
Anyway, every quest I've completed is worth about one bubble of exp . . . therefore, complete 10 quests and you've pretty much leveled up. Now that I've worked through three of the major quest areas of Burning Sands (Abandoned Research Facility, Project Greenskin, and Burnside) and reached 19th level, I will say that I'm suddenly running into content that's a little bit ahead of me. I feel a bit under-leveled at the moment in Snake Gulch, but it's ok. I'm sure it'll work out.
The Abandoned Research Facility was mostly full of irradiated zombies where you were helping the scientists finish their research and save the poor, unfortunate souls who were infected.
Burnside was a ghost town full of . . . ghosts! You also got to meet a new hero contact named "Witchcraft," whom you end up saving from a battle with her (sister? nemesis?) during an instance.
If there's anyone that can save Witchcraft, it's the Friendly Necromancer!
There was also really fun battle at the end of the Project Greenskin area with animated cutscenes, the fight basically consisted of blowing up 4 generators, blowing up the main supply of fuel, and then taking down an irradiated zombie boss named "Fallout" and his mini-army of undead summons.
LEVEL UP!
My character's powerset is starting to feel pretty good now, but I still seem to struggle with targeting from time to time. I'm a "clicker" by nature (meaning, I like to click on enemies to target them) and probably would be better served using tab to select my targets. The only time I'm really dying out here now is when I swoop in with flight and accidentally aggro 6 enemies instead of the typical 3, but even then, with health drain powers 80% of the time I can still pull it off and win the scrap.
All in all, I'm glad I've stuck with Champions Online to this point. The game is starting to feel a lot more familiar, and I'm rapidly approaching the level 20 mark. It'll be fun to see what's in The Friendly Necromancer's future in this game.
I managed to ding 15 in Champions Online and found my favorite instance in the entire game.
boots n cats n boots n cats
It's a seedy little bar full of lowlifes . . . and that's it. Who cares about any kind of super designed experience with special conditions and hand-crafted boss encounters? I just want to play drums for The Maw . . . you know what I'm saying?
I can autograph that pic for you if you'd like
Basically, yesterday's foray into Champions Online simply consisted of "choose a quest, complete a quest" and that's about it. Of course, I made some horrible choices because once again I ended up doing a duo instance solo, made it all the way to the boss and then got wrecked.
Who knew viruses were actually giant digital spiders
I mean, it was a super cool instance where you digitally were implanted into the mainframe of Socrates, which is (as I understand it) an advanced AI supercomputer found throughout Millennium City. I loved the whole Tron aesthetic, but it was tough and I didn't notice it was 2 player until I was already waist deep. I was still managing ok, so I went all the way to the end, only to get sent home packing.
OH! Another cool thing from yesterday . . . because of the anniversary, the game gave me a free vehicle. Behold the purple dream machine!
Pretty slick ride for the cost of free
As it turns out, Champions Online has a whole vehicle system that seems pretty legit. You can mod your car out, improve it, and even just use it to gun stuff down from above if you're so inclined.
pew pew pew!
It made me start looking around at the types of vehicles they offer and there's some really cool ones in the game. I don't know how, but I must get this kind of evil levitating throne vehicle for The Friendly Necromancer. It's pretty legit.
In other big news, I FOUND THE VENDOR THAT LETS ME SELL STUFF TO HIM!!! I was so happy about it I dropped one of those Anniversary disco balls and had a dance party with him because stumbling into him was legit the most difficult thing in the game so far.
S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y NIGHT! BUY MY STUFF!
I can tell that leveling is really starting to slow down here. Unlike DCUO where they want you to zoom through the content so you can get to the gear grind part of the game, Champions Online has a level cap of 40 . . . and then that's really it. I was reading some stuff about end game in Champions Online and it seems a little to be expected: A small gear grind, some bosses, a lot of miscellaneous, and then the true end game: the fashion show.
I'm enjoying myself, so I'm going to keep playing. As per normal, I love to read your comments!
The other day Nimgimli from DragonChasers was musing about Champions Online and showcased a screenshot where he hadn't logged on to the game for 3,731 days. It got me so curious, I decided to log on and see what I could see as well. He had me solidly beat, I only had a level 2 character (game didn't stick for me at the time) and it had only been around 2,100 days since I had last logged on.
Why is it that "fire" as a super power always seems boring or cliché?
So, since I was logged in, I decided to make a new character. I was instantly drawn to "The Tenebrous" or Darkness powerset. As a class it's labeled as a support character, but I was drawn to it because . . . necromancer, hello!
horns upon horns upon horns
There we go, now that I actually liked my character choice, it was time to give this game a go! Several hours later, I was finally level 12. If I was to sum up my first 10 levels in this game in one word, it would be "strugglebus."
Welcome to the portal that leads to strugglebus central
1- I was getting knocked out left and right by boss types. The game attempts to teach you about the block mechanic, but it's a little vague about just how much you're going to rely on blocking damage when it comes to bosses. It just didn't click for me and timing attacks and blocks is an acquired skill.
2- The game has a "star" system for performing at your best, which is a little strange. The game wants to encourage you to go grind on little feeder mobs until you're powered up to 5 stars, and then take on the bosses when you're powered up. It's super weird, y'all and took me a while to grok what was even going on. I hate this mechanic so much. I hate that if you fail, you become more apt to fail because you've lost stars. I don't get it. Seems like you're just setting people up to fail and fail some more. Of course, you can "buy" stars . . . so . . . seems like a feels-bad-mechanic.
3- Because I was losing to one particular boss and my only quest was to defeat him, I was lost in my quests and felt stuck, so I started wandering . . . and that's exactly what needed to happen. That searching around and exploring finally led to some new things to do. How completely old school, right? Eventually this led me to "UNTIL missions" -- United Nations Tribunal on International Law.
Just wait until I finish this UNTIL mission.
The UNTIL missions at least gave me something to do even if the final boss was super super difficult and I just couldn't beat him . . . it was a frustrating experience that took a long time to not complete, and to be left failing over and over at the final boss was demotivating. You know what it felt like? A multiplayer mission that I was trying to solo -- even though the quest clearly stated that it was cool to solo this quest. *shrug* so I backed out of the mission and went back to the main town.
Now that I had gained a few levels, I was finally able to take down that original level 7 pesky boss I had kept dying on and then I was suddenly drowning in quests, which was great. I'd much rather have a dozen things to do than feel stuck on one thing.
Overall Champions Online is in kind of a weird state right now since the anniversary celebration is in full swing. My inventory was overflowing with Water Balloons, Disco Balls, and pieces of cake, which leads me to the next strange thing about this game . . . where . . . is . . . the . . . vendor . . . to . . . sell . . . stuff . . . to? I found plenty of vendors that wanted me to buy stuff, but none that would actually buy MY stuff. I ended up finding a bank and chucking everything in my inventory in there just to make room until I can actually find the vendor I'm looking for.
It's a slammin' party though in Millennium City
So, overall, it's been a frustrating challenge playing Champions Online so far. I like it though for some strange reason. Maybe it's just because it's a bit different from the usual fare. It's definitely not as sleek and smooth an experience as DC Universe Online. On the other hand, I'm not bound to run into Batman as an NPC.
Imma keep riding the struggle bus here for a while and see where it leads me. If you have any hints or tips for a new player, leave them in the comments below.
