I’ve given Marvel Heroes it’s own category now as I suspect I might wind up talking about it a fair bit. I went to login to it this morning and it was down for maintenance, a fairly big patch, mostly of bug fixes had been put in place.

It wasn’t all bug fixes though and a forum thread caught my eye, and my interest. I finished the story and got my first hero – Storm – to endgame. In this patch they’d fixed the need to find a group yourself unless you wanted to, and much like with all the little ‘dungeon’ type things in the world, you got auto grouped if you have that option enabled. I liked this change as I don’t really know anyone in Marvel Heroes yet and so it’s nice to be able to run them, I had thought that I might not be able too.

So I had a plan worked out. I got my two free extra heroes through doing the quests on Storm (Hawkeye and Scarlet Witch). I thought that I would level those through the story. In the meantime I would run Storm through the terminals. Then I would run these new heroes through the terminals when they got there. The advantage to having multiple heroes that could do the terminals was the Cube Shards. Per account, per day there was a quest where you could hand in Cube Shards and get a Fortune Card. I think in my previous post I said that you could get a hero, but I now believe that not to be the case. You can get good stuff, mostly boosts, but costumes have a chance to drop too. Over and above this daily quest, Cube Shards were really useful for levelling up the crafter as they give good XP. I want to level my crafter up to access the costume core, so that I can put an extra chance for special items (heroes, costumes etc.)

That was the plan. I did hope that maybe in the course of getting the three heroes to the endgame that another hero would drop. If one didn’t then no matter I’m fairly certain I’ll be buying a hero at some point. I still feel that they are overpriced, but as I mentioned in the other post, if I view it as like “buying the game” then it feels ok. I’m also getting into the game and so my conscience is starting to prickle. I feel like I should buy something to support this game.

However, in the patch they made it so the Cube Shards only drop once per day, per account. Run that past me again? How does that make sense? Up until that change the whole ethos of Marvel Heroes seemed to be about multiple heroes, about building a roster, there was no need for a main as everything was shared. Considering that their income comes from people purchasing heroes that seemed to be a very good model to support. There are those with lots of heroes already unlocked as they bought founders packs, and ultimate packs etc. that were available pre-launch. They still have to level them all to max, they still have to run the terminals. Maybe it was a change to try and make it more equal for the f2p people, those that don’t have lots of heroes. However, I do find this incredibly counter-intuitive, surely they want everyone to spend money. Why would people spend money if there is no point to playing multiple heroes?

It remains to be seen whether the bonus to finding special items, which is the first kill of each boss a day, is per hero or whether it has changed like the Cube Shards to per account. I just don’t understand this change. It might seem like a small thing but it isn’t. I suppose in time when I’ve unlocked the crafter, then there would be less use for multiple Cube Shards so it won’t matter so much. Time will perhaps cure this. However, I repeat that it does seem like an odd move for a company to make, when it’s income is reliant on alts. Surely they should make more benefits to having multiple heroes, not less.

On another note I started levelling Hawkeye today. It’s different from playing Storm, plus I have got used to the higher level abilities. Hawkeye doesn’t have much aoe in his skill tree either. Still I’m learning new things like I can hold my mouse button rather than click it like crazy, hopefully that won’t destroy my mouse (I was getting worried) as it’s a Razer Naga and I want it to last. Perhaps I should plug in a different mouse for Marvel Heroes sessions? You can also teleport to other players, which means no corpse run if you die during a boss fight. That feature is very cool. I also like the bodyslide, it’s like a hearthstone but you return to where you were before – no vendoring issues.

Regardless of this … strange choice I’m going to continue to play and enjoy Marvel Heroes.

I like Marvel Heroes, or rather I want to like it a lot. It’s a bit like Iron Man 3. I’m a big Marvel fan, I want to love it but I can’t.

Marvel Heroes has something amazing going for it, it’s set in the Marvel universe. It’s a bit like playing inside my favourite movie and that’s fun – for a while. Swtor is the same, it’s great to swing a lightsaber about, visit the Jedi temple and all that good stuff. However, if it doesn’t have a solid game underneath the IP, then you wind up disappointed. Now I’m not saying that Swtor isn’t solid, my criticisms of that are very different to the criticisms I have of Marvel Heroes. I’m just linking that it has the hook of the IP, but it needs more than the IP to survive.

I’ve written this post over the last three days. I’ve added a lot to it and I’ve changed some of what I wrote originally. I’ve gone through it and I hope it makes sense, if it doesn’t you now know why.

I’ve logged twenty hours with Marvel Heroes and I finished the story. I’m level twenty-four with the free hero I chose – Storm – which is still a long way from level sixty which is where the endgame would be. I want to put a proviso here that some of what I may say could be wrong. To the best of my knowledge I’m not saying anything incorrect, but I only have my experience to draw on, so if I’ve missed something, or failed to understand something, then I could be wrong. However, I still think that whatever I say is legitimate, as if I don’t know it’s incorrect, then it obviously hasn’t been explained sufficiently. I’m not a gaming novice, so if I can’t work it out, then those new to gaming couldn’t except by chance. Although that is a bit egotistical to say that, I don’t think it’s completely unfair.

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I’m a big marvel fan so when I heard there was going to be a game, well I had to try it. I downloaded it through Steam yesterday and booted it up this morning. I think I might have played it for about an hour so lets get some impressions down. Just a brief post, I would need to play it longer to be able to write a proper review I think. However, thoughts change over time so I might as well write what I’m thinking now, so that I can compare that with how I feel later. It’s like with swtor, I loved it at first, and it was only after playing for a while that the gloss started to come off.

I had read a couple of really negative reviews beforehand so I wasn’t expecting much. I booted it up, watched the opening cinematic and then was faced with a choice of which hero I wanted to start with. There were six options I think, I wondered if I should pick Daredevil or The Thing as they were listed as melee, and well I am a melee player. In the end though I picked Storm as she is my favorite or joint favorite x-men. I then started to play and was immediately struck by how similar it was to Diablo 3. One quick google later and I discovered why, the man behind Marvel Heroes was the man behind Diablo. I’m surprised blizzard haven’t sued to be honest, everything works so similarly to that.

Now I wasn’t a big Diablo fan, I got bored, even playing with friends couldn’t keep me interested. I may get bored of Marvel Heroes but after an hour of play, currently level 5, I’m enjoying it quite a bit. As I said I read some very negative reviews so I’m pleasantly surprised that I like it so much, I definitely am having more fun than Diablo, but that’s the setting. I do love Marvel and all the cinematic, and the plot lines, and the familiar faces, are bringing out the fangirl in me.

It’s not all rainbow and sunshine. I can appreciate the criticism from people that seeing the same heroes running about is a bit strange. As I write this I’m afk at The Avengers tower and I can see two The Thing’s, two Daredevils, another Storm and that running about. On one hand this is odd as they are the same people so do you really want to see them? On the other hand there is only so many customization options so it’s easy to run into NPC’s or other players, in other games, that look just like you. Also seeing other players does make the game feel more alive than in Diablo, where it’s just endless streams of mobs.

Another criticism is the points system for the talents. There’s sort of three specs listed and I don’t really understand whether they are specs, where I should put my points, whether I can change my points later, what each ‘spec’ is good for, or anything. There’s also stats on gear and I don’t know what is good for my character. These criticisms come from someone that has played games like this before, I know that there is a right choice, someone new to the genre will equip whatever has the highest numbers and pick what they like best and not worry about it. Thinking about it now I’m not sure blizz explains in game about stats, they have a brief description on specs, but the old talent trees came with no explanation as to what was good and bad. You need to go outside game for that and right now I can’t find any resources, hopefully they will appear when the game isn’t so brand new.

I can’t find a friends list, I didn’t choose a server or anything, so if I wanted to play with a specific friend I’m not sure how I would do that. Oh and having just typed that I found the friends tab which looks spookily like some of the menus in swtor, though I guess there’s only so many ways they can dress the interface. It’s billed as an MMO but really it plays just like Diablo which isn’t? So I’m not sure where the MMO aspect really comes into it. In terms of how the interface looks it’s like Diablo and swtor melted together and you get something that reminds you of both. I’m not really sure of much with how it works, here is where knowledge of the genre kind of lets you down, you know there are things you should know, so it makes it harder to just go with it and play.

Anyway I’m having fun right now which is the main criteria of a game. I do occasionally feel the itch to play something other than Warcraft. It’ll be interesting to see how this game develops. As it’s f2p some things are locked off for the shop, like hero choice. I’m happy enough with Storm though I can’t deny that I wouldn’t have liked to have played as Iron Man, or Wolverine, or Black Widow etc. etc. Apparently you have a chance of hero’s dropping from mobs, I got Hawkeye earlier and I’m only level 5. You also have this in game currency, called credits which is the name for currency in swtor (you know I should google and see if swtor people worked on this), and it remains to be seen whether you can buy store stuff with in game gold. In some f2p games you can, and in others you can’t. I’m not sure what the max level is for hero’s or where the story takes you. You know it’s nice, sometimes I miss the early days of Warcraft where everything was new and exciting, so being back at level one, with the unknown stretching in front of me, yeah it’s pretty cool.