City of Heroes Meta’s Verse: Winter
Winter is a special, magical time of year. Snowballs are flung at friends, ski chalets are open for business, and giant snow creatures roam the city terrorising citizens. Well, this would be true if you lived in the City of – universe. Every year brings about new frosty dangers for the citizens of Paragon City, the Rogue Isles and this year Praetoria. But not everything winter has to offer is bad. There are candy canes, skiing slopes and badges galore.
Presents
Across all the major zones in the city are presents, neatly wrapped and blinking just begging for you to click them to receive what awaits inside. Really it comes down to two random choices: Nice, you get a candy cane and the present opens with a shower of confetti. Naughty, you get a group of snow monsters in your face. If you collect enough candy canes you can turn them in for temporary powers and badges. But if you’ve been bad, after a certain (undetermined as of yet) number of presents are opened you can spawn the Winter Lord. A giant monster snowman who can only be defeated with the help of several teams.
Lord Winter’s Realm
If you and your fellow players manage to defeat the Winter Lord he will leave behind a big blue present which has a five minute timer on it. After that timer is up the present can be opened. Doing so teleports you to Lord Winter’s realm where you come face to face with Lord Winter himself. Defeating him is no small task, especially when you’re on a timer. Every time you get his health down 25% he becomes one with winter and you must defeat his guardian before returning to Lord Winter. Any group who finishes this task gets a badge as well as reward merits and candy canes.
Chalet
During this time of year, for only a few short weeks a ski chalet is opened up in Pocket D. There you can find a variety of activities ranging from skiing to missions for Father Time. Many super groups hold parties in this handy space with several bars and a roaring fire. The Candy Keeper hides himself next to the fire on the mail floor of the chalet. It is from him that you can obtain the badges and powers for candy canes.
Father Time
Hidden away in a corner of the chalet stands an old man. That old man is Father Time. He’s always there and always needs help. Baby New Year has been kidnapped by the Red Caps and if you don’t rescue him all of time will come to an end. You have to battle your way through giant hairy beasts, snow creatures who hold the keys to the cave where the baby is being held then finally the Red Caps themselves. Once you rescue the ugliest baby in the world you have to escort him back across the ice and snow to safety. This mission has become somewhat of a tradition with people repeating it almost endlessly to get the many rewards.
A new mission this year has Father time once again asking for your help. But this time a new woman is bringing icy destruction to the Earth. Lady Winter (who may or may not be related to/married Lord Winter) wishes to turn the entire planet to ice to serve as her ice palace. Completing this task gives the same rewards as the Baby New Year, but anyone who has rescued the baby year in and year out can appreciate the change of scenery.
Parties
Not everything in the winter event is work. There are plenty of parties going on. And one of the biggest is held on Virtue and hosted by The Cape radio station. Six straight hours of player hosted music, games and contests. Regular Cape DJs take turns being on air and dancing with anyone who stops by the chalet to join in the festivities. A variety of costume contests are held throughout the night hosted by individuals, super groups and the folks over at Real World Heroes. Trivia questions are asked throughout the night to the party goers and fun is had by all. On top of the bigger, server wide parties many super groups of all sizes choose the chalet as the backdrop for their Christmas parties.
Skiing
If parties aren’t really your thing then you can always go skiing. There are three options for skiing depending on your skill level. Each slop has medals for getting down them within a certain amount of time. Of course this is made harder by having to slalom through checkpoints. And if you miss one you pretty much have to start that race over again. Now no ones ever said you have to do the races. I rarely do, but that has something to do with having a hard time controlling someone sliding around. As with so many other things in the City of universe if you do well on the slopes you are rewarded with badges. But even if you don’t its great fun.
Temporary Powers and Inspiration presents
If you go to the chalet and turn in your candy canes or if you complete a mission from Father Time you have a variety of useful, and some not so useful temporary powers available to you. Here is a quick rundown of each.
Build a Snowbeast – Make your very own snow creature who will fight on your side against enemies. They don’t live for very long but come in very handy and can be kept to use throughout the year.
Golden Rings – This power drops several golden rings around enemies holding them in place and making them unable to fight.
Holiday Spirit – Reduces the amount of debt you receive after dying for 2 days.
Jingle Jet – Perhaps the most annoying sounding travel power available. The Jingle Jet is a festive little rocket you strap to your back and use to fly.
Renewal of Light – You rise from death in a plume of light. This is handy temporary self resurrection power.
Snow Ball – The most useless temporary power in the entire game. Unless of course you want to start snowball fights with your fellow gamers! That’s really all it is, snowballs to throw at one another. Not at all useful in a fight. But always good for a giggle.
During this time of year you can also collect inspiration presents. They’re wrapped up all nicely and unless you know a trick its impossible to tell what sort of reward you’ll get from them.
Gift of Defence – A 33% increase to your defence.
Gift of Energy – A 50% increase in your endurance.
Gift of Life – A 50% increase to your health.
Gift of Power – A 50% bonus to your damage.
Lump of Coal – It is what it says on the tin, a lump of coal. I guess you were bad this year.
Needless to say the Winter Event is one of those events that everyone looks forward to. There is a little bit of something for everyone. It is going on right now and will be around until just after the new year, so if you’re interested get in there and do it now!
Meta’s Verse is written by Meticulous Meta who lives in Atlas Park with her dog Snuflé
