Answering Questions about Super Hero Squad Online

After my post yesterday I got a few questions about Super Hero Squad Online, so I thought I'd take a few minutes and answer those to the best I can.

First up from a long time reader, Digby Mythweaver:

Hey Friendly a couple Super Hero Squad questions for you.

1. I play occasionally and I am on the Challenge of adding a 6th squad Member. Whats the best way to raise Silver or Gold to be able to purchase another character for my squad.

2. I noticed on the Badges, their is an Badge for collecting all your characters Tokens, twice. How does that work?

Thanks, Digby!

1- The best way to raise silver and gold is to log in everyday. Eventually you'll get to the point where you'll get 5 gold per day for logging in. Also, everyday one spot of gold will repopulate on the gift wheel. Unfortunately, that's about as good as it gets for silver and gold, so you'll be spinning that wheel a lot . . . A LOT. I usually go windowed mode and watch YouTube or something while I click "spin." You'll have to earn tickets to spin the wheel, so destroying trouble bots is probably the easiest way to earn those tickets. Note that you don't have to pick them up and throw troublebots to kill them. You just have to get near them and activate your first power emote. Easy tickets.

2- Badges simply give you goals to work for. That's about all I can see for their purpose at this point. Who knows, perhaps Gazillion will make it so badges will mean something more in the future. I'm unsure. It'd be great if earning a badge would equal squadron levels!

Next, Strong Sorcerer asks this question:

"Hey friendly, I've always loved Marvel and have a subscription for a comic every month. I'm wondering if I should play Super Hero Squad Online. if it helps I have played Wizard101, World of Warcraft, Roblox, and a game called Fusion Fall."

Awesome! Which comic are you collecting?

You list quite a wide variety of games, so that's a good starting point for comparisons to these other games.

Wizard101, WoW, and Fusion Fall vs. SHSO: At this point in SHSO there are no quests and there is no storyline. W101, WoW, and FF all have stories and quests. SHSO is more open ended. Because of this a lot of people really see no point in SHSO. Some people feel online experiences like these are more of a virtual hang out and not a game. Fortunately, shortly before I started playing the game, SHSO introduced a challenge line of "quests" so to speak. The main purpose of this challenge line seems to be raising your squad level while experiencing all that SHSO has to offer, which is this:

- emotes (there's a challenge to perform rude emotes in a pond in three zones)
- Card Game (win 10 card games against other players)
- Arcade Games (score a certain amount of points in a certain mini-game)
- making friends (challenge to add 5 people to your friends list)
- Combat missions (participate in combat mission challenges)
- Collect Tokens
- Destroy troublebots
- visit your player housing
- etc.

SHSO is not a difficult game to play. It's easy and extremely casual. I'd put SHSO less in the ranks of W101, WoW, and FF and more in the ranks of Club Penguin or Moshi Monsters except in a 3D world (More like perhaps Big Little Bang) with all kinds of heroes from the Marvel universe.

If you watch the Super Hero Squad cartoon series, read the comic book, play the Wii game, or collect the toys . . . this is a great online experience for you.

At some point, the hope is that Marvel will release a game similar to DC Universe Online. DCUO would be more like W101, WoW, and FF, and if you like DC comic characters and want to create your own superhero with your own powers, this is the game for you.

Also, if you're into superhero games, you might be interested in checking out either Champions Online or City of Heroes. I played City of Heroes many years ago when it first came out, and I have to say that the character creator in that game is fantastic and just a ton of fun.

Now . . . Roblox vs. SHSO: Roblox is all about creating your own content and visiting player created content while running around with these kind of lego style characters. It's a very different beast all together than SHSO or any of the aforementioned games. It's a builder game, similar to minecraft in a way but completely different.

I would also love to see SHSO delve into letting players construct their own superhero experiences. That would be amazing. In fact, I'd love to see ALL GAMES have a builder component. That's part of what makes a game like Little Big Planet (which on the surface appears to be nothing more than a 2D platformer with fun graphics) a STELLAR game instead of just a great game.

If W101 ever put a builder component into the game, I think it'd just push things over the top for me. If I could build my own street and populate it with my own monsters and bosses, I think I'd be totally lost to the world. LOL. It would be a ton of fun.

So, hopefully that helped clear up a few questions about SHSO. It's casual, it's free, and it's very open ended. SHSO is a game I can play for 20-30 minutes a day and log off OR I can spend a bunch of time playing through missions with my kids, having a great time.

I like playing a lot of different games because I feel it gives me a broader horizon with what I know about games . . . and especially online games. I love 'em.

If you have other questions about SHSO, ask away in the comments. If you play the game and I've misstated something, feel free to correct me. Thanks!

Happy Dueling!