Nothing like getting your ass kicked first thing in the morning. I get home wait for the servers to go up and I get to have my ass kicked by someone 20 levels above me named Pyrrhus! You just can’t understand how excited it makes me feel about the PvP in City of Villains. This roleplaying fuck named Pyrrhus was having himself a field day pounding the shit out of us lower level types. Check his bio and list of powers. His goddamn list of badges goes off the screen.

For an example of some ass kicking in the game be sure to check out Gawain’s video:

(Right Click and Save As)

It also should be mentioned that me and Gawain have joined the Penny Arcade guild Power’s Allegory/Affliction. This being the second guild I’ve been a member of outside of the Acolytes of Destruction. So far they appear to be a nice bunch and I think we will fit in.

So this is the start of my vacation officially as I requested it. Once again the sheriff took it upon himself to give me something other than I asked for. Nice of him, but not what I requested. Makes me wonder if this is his idea of kissing my ass so I’ll be the helpful employee. Because that won’t ever happen without a raise and back pay.

So far I spent the morning of the first day of my vacation playing City of Villains with Gawain. We both made it to level 26 and I have six pets now. Here are some screenshots of the highlight of this morning:

The last two pics show the mission we were on. We happened to both lag out of the goddamn thing as we were trying to kill the arch villain that had just killed us moments before. So close. It was decided that breakfast was in order and we would try again at lunch time. What a vacation!

Getting to level 20 didn’t just get me my cape. It also is the first chance at getting a second costume slot. As seen below with my flying zombies :

It should be noted that the City of Villains branch of the Acolytes of Destruction now are a grand total of three people. Me, Gawain, and good old Kiltorn. As always I miss the old crew. Come play with us damn it!

With help from Gawain I was able to ding 20 and finish the missions to get my cape. I think it looks pretty cool:

I’m still having fun in City of Villains, which surprises me. I sorta figured I would have got bored by now. But it’s still keeping my attention for now. I need to play with the PvP some more. Just to see if its maybe easier than Dark Age of Camelot’s RvR.

City of Villains has captured my attention in a way City of Heroes has failed to do. My villain is just so much more fun to play than my do-gooder. I have found that my favorite missions have been those that take me into Paragon City. Now while I never actually step foot in to the real hero city, it’s more of an instance. It just is tremendous amounts of fun to kick all kinds of ass in these areas that look familiar from my play time with my hero.

The thing is that this part of the game also reminds me of the failings of this super hero/villain game once more. Beating the crap out of those heroic Freedom Corps Longbow agents is one thing. I want to be able to mug the civilians of the city while I’m there doing my evil acts. Yet while in these specific instances I never see any civilians I can attack. For that matter when I go on a bank heist why can’t I hurt/kill the innocents in the bank while I try to get my loot? I’m sure these civilians have money on them. Even a very meager amount would make me feel really villainous.

Yet I just don’t get to be a real comic book villain. It’s the same line of thinking that fuels my criticisms of the Hero part of the game. To really be a comic book villain I have to be able to hurt, maim, and kill the civilians of these areas I’m running around in. Otherwise it’s just so obvious that this is just a very half assed attempt to do a superhero mmorpg correctly.

That being said my Mastermind allows me to forget about these issues as I play. I still am able to beat enemies of higher level. Using game terms Oranges and Reds fall to me and my squad of dead president zombies. I can do away with a good number of opponents at once. Since the last post I also able to pick up my advanced travel power at level 14. Flying around the zones just is so fun. Plus being able to make a beeline right to the place I need to go makes it so much more convenient. At level 15 I was able to pick a title. So to others my name say “the Infamous Deaths Grasp” or something along those lines (I can’t remember now what I picked). I now look forward to hitting level 20 so I can get my cape. It would make my villain look much better while flying.

Since the last post I’ve managed to make it to level 9. I’ve learned a few things since then. First up hover (which is damn slow) , it is really quite awesome. I took combat jumping on my hero and thought that was cool. It’s just totally a different kind of cool to be able to fly up to the tallest building and look at the city under you. Secondly I still kick all kinds of ass on my Mastermind. Jesus I tell you it’s so different from my hero tanker.

My Mastermind can beat some ass. Mobs in City of Heroes and City of Villains are color coded based on their level. It’s follows DAoC’s line of thinking more or less. Grey, Green, Blue, White, Yellow, Orange, Red, and lastly Purple. White is equal to your current level. And anything above or below that is of course above or below your current level. I can destroy any number of mobs, with the sole exception being those damn purples. My guys (Ron and Dick) can just take them all down.

Now the problem is that there is this new feature to CoH and CoV that I had not know about. And it’s been causing me a lot of pain and suffering. Well not to much suffering since xp debt doesn’t kick in until level 10. You see there is this NPC that will offer to raise your reputation with the city. So I figured that this was some kind of reputation deal. Raise my rep with the city faction was my line of thinking. I couldn’t get any missions from this broker guy I was sent to. So naturally I thought raising my rep would help. It didn’t. What it does is adjust the difficulty of the door missions you go on. Which explains why I had been having so much trouble.

Which brings me to the other new feature that’s not really explained in the manual. Newspaper missions. I had heard mention of this in the general chat channel. I had no idea what the exact nature of this newspaper deal entailed. So I had been looking around for newspaper machines. I was way off of course.

Apparently in my contacts list the newspaper thing was there the whole time. I either didn’t see or I guess I just don’t look at my contact list. It could go either way. After getting the mission difficulty settled I was able to do the newspaper mission I was stuck on. And I finally got introduced to my real contact. It looks like these newspaper missions one shot deals you can get over and over so one doesn’t have to grind it out on the streets. Knowing how these two things work makes the game even funner. Now I’m on a personal mission to make it to level 14 and get my advanced travel power. I can’t wait to be able to really fly. To be able to zip along as I go from place to place. And I need a cape on my bad guy. Won’t get that till level 20. It will be fun getting there.

So I’m back to City of Heroes once more. And I also got City of Villains, which I’m enjoying quite a bit. More so than I did when it was in beta for some reason. I’m really enjoying the Mastermind archetype. I made it to level 6 recently and I’m able to control two zombie henchmen (named Nixon and Reagan) to do my biding. It’s the most fun I’ve had playing either CoH or CoV. I’ve soloed the whole so far. There’s been nothing me and my two dead presidents can’t handle:

I doubt I’ll play much with my heroes. The structure of CoV is just more forgiving to new players. Quest givers and Trainers are in one spot. Quests seem shorter for some reason. It’s just fun. And the run down look of the starting areas just make it feel all the more evil as your going about your business. I think the highlight so far with CoV was going on a bank heist. That was a lot of fun.