Snow is falling in Millennium City and that can only mean one thing,
it’s time for the Winter Event for Champions Online! During
this event, you can visit Santa, open presents, and duel the evil Black
Harlequin and his nefarious toys. What better way to celebrate the
yuletide season in CO than to fight evil and secure peace for the
holidays? The Winter Event has been going strong for over a week now,
and your pals at Ten Ton Hammer are here to give their impressions of
this seasonal event.



To begin our impressions, we’ll complete a quick overview of
the Winter Event itself. There are a number of things that can be done
during this special event, and we’ll examine each of them in
turn.


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Presents

The first thing you’ll notice traveling around the various
zones is that you’ll come across wrapped presents just
sitting there on a street, rooftop, cliff, or ground. You can open
these gifts which will lead to one of two things happening. The first
possibility is that you receive a gift. This gift can be part of an
action figure, a lump of coal, a gingerbread man (that provides
healing), an item that transforms you into a toy (teddy bear, toy
soldier), or some useless item such as a music cd or pen and pencil
set. The useless items you can sell off, as well as the lump of coal.
The other items have a use, and in the case of the transforming items,
a good deal of fun. The second possibility when you open a present is
that you’ll be attacked by toy minions of the Black
Harlequin. You’ll find yourself being assaulted by tiny evil
toys. They’re pretty easy to defeat, and sometimes
you’ll receive an item by defeating them.



Action
Figures


There are five action figures that you can collect during the Winter
Event. You gain the action figure pieces by random drops from presents
and by fighting the Black Harlequin. If you’re in a pinch,
you can check the auction house. Each action figure requires three
parts (head, torso, legs) to allow you to assemble them. To assemble
the action figures, go to the Toymaster in the Renaissance Center in
Millennium City, where he’ll give you the mission to assemble
all five figures. Successfully completing the mission grants you a
little over a 1000 experience, but you get the action figure to keep.
If you turn in all five action figures, then you get an additional
Foxbat figure for free!



Black
Harlequin and Clarence


This is the main attraction in the Winter Event, the epic fight against
the evil Black Harlequin and his homicidal toys. Every hour per
instance, the Black Harlequin spawns in Millennium City. The location
of his spawn is around one of the charity workers, who can easily be
seen by standing in front of a huge pile of presents and holding a
clipboard. Just before he spawns, the Black Harlequin gives a clue to
his location of where he’ll spawn. If you happen to be in the
wrong spot, chances are that he’ll be down before you can get
to him unless you have an incredibly fast power. When the Black
Harlequin appears, he summons a horde of his evil toys to do battle as
well. After he is defeated, then his giant killer teddy-bear, Clarence,
makes an appearance. Clarence goes down pretty quickly, but he can dish
out a ton of damage. There’s no worry about your
superhero’s level. The damage you do and take is scaled to
your level, so don’t be afraid to have your level 20 guy in
there slinging lightning bolts alongside the 40th level heroes. After
the fight, you’ll gain an item (located next to the charity
worker) with the top players getting a better chance at better loot
such as costume pieces or action figure pieces.



While it is true that the Black Harlequin spawns once per hour, you can
jump from instance to instance to fight him. The best thing to do is to
join the CLARENCE channel using your chat window. Just right click on
the chat tab and then join this channel. Usually, somebody is posting
the server times that the Black Harlequin and Clarence will appear on
specific instances. It’ll save you a great deal of time and
frustration.

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Impressions

Overall, my impression of the Winter Event in CO is a positive one.
While there
isn’t the sheer volume of things to do, such as
in the Blood Moon event, there is enough going on to make it
interesting. The only real fights in this event are the Black
Harlequin/Clarence fights and the fights you’ll have when
you’re attacked by toys when you open a present, but
that’s ok. I’m not asking for a world-shattering
event; just something that adds some spice to the normal gaming
environment.



Millennium City serves as the hub for the event, which is great in that
most of the action is concentrated in one zone. However, you can find
presents scattered throughout all the zones. While they
haven’t redecorated all of Millennium City, they have made it
snow all the time there. In addition, they’ve added a nice
Santa setting with kids eagerly waiting in line at the Renaissance
Center. Having the charity workers surrounded by a huge wall of
presents made for a pleasing scene. Overall, I would have preferred
some more decorations around the city, but I believe Cryptic is making
strides in adding to the atmosphere from the Blood Moon event.



There is no special pvp action in the Winter Event, which I
don’t mind at all. It’s supposed to be Christmas in
CO, not a free-for-all bash, you dunderheads! The lack of pvp fits in
with the yuletide theme. Besides, if you want to fight other heroes,
Santa will leave a lump of coal in your stocking!



To sum up, the Winter Event is a nice little seasonal event.
It’s not spectacular, but it’s solid in that it
adds some welcome diversion to the normal gameplay. In the future, it
would be nice if they were to add some more flourishes, such as more
holiday decorations, and perhaps a few more missions, such as helping
Santa deliver toys or stop evil-doers from stealing them. I think it
would be cool to have a little North Pole zone to adventure in for a
bit, but I know that’s asking for a lot. Well, make sure
you’re good as the big man is checking his list twice! Have a
merry Christmas!


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Last Updated: Mar 29, 2016

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