Friday night marked the end of my first week being evil in the new MMORPG, City of Villains. It's been a wild ride thus far, even though I've only scratched the surface of this game's content. Here are my impressions of the first week, broken down into level ranges.

Level 1-5:

The first 4 levels felt like every other MMORPG I've played in the past. You start out in a beginning area with NPC contacts that will give you the vital information needed to play the game. Taking the villain aspect to heart, in CoV, this area is represented by a prison break. You spawn in a hallway of jail-cells with guards and prisoners running everywhere. There's an overhead siren that helps create a sense of urgency. The first few missions are easy enough; essentially tasking you with simple 'gopher' tasks and reading text how-to's.

After finally leaving the prison, you are sent to a courtyard where you can flex your combat muscles. Before you can enter the full game, you have to prove yourself worthy by killing a few unlucky guards and prisoners (it's up to you to chose--a nice touch). The difficulty level here is very low, allowing the training to go by relatively fast.

Once the training is complete you are sent to the beginning zone named 'Mercy Island.' There you talk to the NPC Kalinda. She will provide you with your starting missions. None of them are particularity difficult, and I had no problems completing them solo. Most involve killing snake-men in caves beneath the city. Once completed, I had reached level 5--time to move on.

Level 5-12

After you complete all of Kalinda's tasks, she refers you to a new contact, Mongoose. He supplies you with more snake killing missions, but first he sends you on a very entertaining bank robbery. There's nothing like killing guards amid panicking civilians to make you feel like a bad guy.

It's at this level range that I needed to reach out to the other players. The missions you are given become increasingly difficult and the experience required to level up continues to grow, so finding a group of fellow villains in order to more quickly complete them is the best bet. It's easy enough to find a group, and in many cases they will seek you out. When in a team, missions increase in difficulty, but with enough teammates, that just means more enemies to kill and gain experience from. Reaching level 10 in this way seemed rather fast.

It was during this time that I also became part of a Super Group. Several players in one of the groups I was invited to banded together to create the 'Scarlet Tears.' The benefits of belonging to a Super Group include a dedicated chat-line between members and a more willing pool from which to create mission teams, but most importantly, it gives you some people to talk to. Games like these can get pretty boring if you try to go solo, and with so many start-up Super Groups actively seeking membership, there's really no excuse not to join one.

Level 13+

At last login, I was half-way to level 14. As far as first weeks go (and considering my other obligations) I feel the level pace was just about right. It wasn't too fast to zoom through all the content (of which there is a great deal), but it was speedy enough to keep me interested and eager.

To gain experience, teams are now essential. My character (the evil alien named 'The Spaceman') is able enough to solo most of the available missions, but the time required prevents any kind of efficiency.

My Super Group has also built a base--another perk of joining a group. It is an instanced server made just for members where we can meet up and talk strategy. We've decorated it a few evil touches so far, including gargoyles, lanterns, and a long board room table. And although we haven't reached that point yet, eventually we will need to be ready to defend our base against raiding hero and villain teams. I can't wait for that to happen, because the PvP (player vs player) opportunities are just endless.

Final Thoughts

7 days and 13 levels later, I'm hooked. This game is so light-heartedly fun and enjoyable, it's fun to just pick up and play when I have a free hour. Unlike other MMORPG's I've played, it is very fast and easy to find a team, run a few missions, and call it a night. What I'm looking forward to now is bring the hurt to heroes in the dedicated PvP zones and learning the ability to fly.

Paragon City beware, The Spaceman cometh!