Morning Ramble 342: SMITE, Fantastic Four #8, and Darkfall: Rise of Agon

Today’s ramble catches me playing some more SMITE but this time with a Hindu god. I read through the next Fantastic Four where Alicia, the Thing’s girlfriend is introduced, and I get started as a human in Darkfall: Rise of Agon.

SMITE – The Sleeping Giant

Each week in SMITE you are able to gain bonuses by completing quests and this week I was tasked with playing a few games as a Hindu god which I hadn’t tried so far. So I hunted for a Hindu god I knew something about…actually, one that played well against me, and I found Kumbhakarna The Sleeping Giant. He has some interesting abilities and one that really wiped me out when I played against him. His Ultimate is called Epic Uppercut and it throws the target high up in the air and causes a bunch of damage. I’ve been against him as Kukulkan and he seemed to kill me with this every time it was off cooldown. I learned to stay far away from this guy, so I figure he’d be easy to play and fulfill my Hindu god quest. He’s not as easy to play as to get killed by, unfortunately, but I was at least able to contribute in Arena even without getting kills.

Fantastic Four #8: Prisoners of the Puppet Master!

The Puppet Master proves to be a formidable foe for the Fantastic Four, but in my view, more important in this issue is the introduction of Alicia Masters who becomes significant in Thing’s life. But before we meet her, as seemed to be the usual case in these early issues, there’s strife within the team. This time, Ben is pissed off that Reed is keeping secrets and while the team deals with the destruction that results, the Puppet Master nearly compels an innocent to jump off a bridge tower. Johnny saves the jumper but the Puppet Master compels Ben to walk into his trap, and Sue, following him, is gassed to sleep. With Sue captured, Alicia is dressed up by the Puppet Master, her step father, to look like her and sent with the mind controlled Ben to get the rest of the team. Fortunately, as Ben tries to catch Reed he breaks the secret vial Richards was working on and Thing turns back human. This breaks the spell of the Puppet Master and Ben is freed. With Alicia expressing a preference for the rocky Thing, the Fantastic Three head out to find and rescue Sue. They’re confronted by a giant mind-controlled puppet and as the villain escapes on a flying horse, Reed manages to save Sue. Meanwhile, the Puppet Master sets up a prison break that the Fantastic Four needs to attend to. Reed, Ben, and Johnny each do some superpowered stuff and Sue invisibly corrals the last prisoner, but the Puppet Master is no where to be found. Instead, he’s gone back home to play with his dolls but in describing his master plan, Alicia decides she’s heard enough and tries to stop him. She trips and he stumbles over her and out the window…never to be seen again…or maybe not.

This is a pretty good introduction to Alicia and I think Stan and Jack do a nice job of fleshing out her character quickly. She obviously is attracted to Ben but seems to prefer the rocky Thing to the flesh of Ben’s human form. She also wants to do good as shown by her takedown of the Puppet Master when she figures out that he’s evil. I think it’ll be interesting to see how she develops (I can see from the order that she’s actually in the next issue as well) and how Ben’s new ‘love’ interest changes him – he’s been pretty hot headed and grumpy for 8 issues so far.

I give this issue a B. I think the both the art and story are moving in a positive direction and seem to be starting to mesh after almost a year of the title.

Darkfall: Rise of Agon – Humans

Being new to Darkfall, I felt I needed to go slowly into the learning curve and the first part of that curve deals with race. Each race not only looks different, they also have different attributes, some of which are important. Apparently how far your character can reach is significant to melee combat in this game. But I didn’t know that when I started, nor what it might mean for someone who prefers ranged combat like myself. What I did see was that Humans had increased duration for Buffs and Debuffs. Knowing this was a heavily PvP focused game, I figured I would be trying to group up and people usually like healers and buffers…so I went with a human for my first character. Along with the buff and defuff bonuses, nourishment is also enhanced for humans. These may not be the best racial benefits but they at least don’t seem to be negatives and humans usually are accepted in lots of places other races might be discriminated against. In any case with the learning curve, I’m going slowly and staying near my starting city for the time being.