@japete61: Nope, I said no such thing at all. I'm saying that the cost of programmers, graphic artists, testers, program planners, and servers, bandwidth, backup systems, etc means it costs money to develop and run HeroClix Online. As a programmer myself, who's worked in two internet startup groups, I can say first hand that this stuff ain't cheap to get up and running.

Oh and no one is "punishing" you for buying physical boosters as you suggest. If you prefer to buy physical, then by all means stick with the physical product. HCOnline isn't for everyone, and it is NOT meant to appeal to everyone.

If you have a choice between a physical brick or virtual brick, I will ALWAYS push you buy physical, because that's the core game and is more important to local retailers and the health of the game as a whole.

But if you're in a place that may not have tournaments, or want to play at 2am, or simply prefer digital, then I say that HCOnline is a very very viable option.

Posted by: The Le on 8/4/2011 7:44:19 PM

@Le, so your telling me that it costs them the same amout to make a virtual figure that they can duplicate an unlimited amount of times as it does to get physical figures into stores? I'm not saying that they should not charge people at all if they do not have a code from a card (I thought in the begining that HCO was for people who could not get figures or did not have room to store the physical figures)but I can't see why they would charge the same for a virtual booster as they do for a real booster.
Also, I don't know about everyone else but it feels to me as if with this system you are being penalized for buying the pysical figures because you have to double by if you want the same figures on both platforms. At least give me a reduced price for say every 5 codes I put in or something, don't just make me flat out have to buy extra.
Lastly, if you want to "pull" a complete set or most of a set in my experiance I have to buy four bricks of figures. So now if I want a complete set I now have to either make a choice between buying four bricks of one to get a complete set of that or buying eight bricks (4 virtual and 4 physical) to get the figures on both platforms. That means for every new set that comes out Wizkids/NECA expects me to pay at least $608.00 if I want all or most of the figures in the set on both platforms...BTW Le are you playing in the tournament? Also, I'm not trying to give you a hard time I just wanted to see how some other people felt about this.

Posted by: japete61 on 8/4/2011 6:31:36 PM

@japete61 HCOnline needs to be profitable to survive. If they gave away HCOnline figures for free with each physical figure, then they might as well shut down HCOnline right now. The current price is fine, and will be less of an issue once they get all the bells and whistles done and finally go live.

Posted by: The Le on 8/4/2011 10:27:13 AM

Yeah, I'm not a fan of how they have been doing these either. I broke down and signed up for this because its better than paying over $100.00 a figure on ebay but I think they should be comming up with another way of doing the online thing. Again I'm going to suggest that NECA puts a code on the back of figure stats cards that can be put in so you can get the figure you really already own on HCO for free. I hate the idea of having to "double" buy.

Posted by: japete61 on 8/4/2011 8:21:58 AM

I am not liking that these things are getting ridiculously hard/expensive to get a hold of. they didn't even give me a shot @ getting anything @ comic-con...

Posted by: Logan on 8/2/2011 3:44:15 PM

@dave: You're right, you shouldn't have to pay $30 per round. Fortunately you didn't have to -- since the tournament was SEALED, the cost was $24 for 2 boosters... that's all.

It's an 8-man tournament, using your 2 boosters for all three rounds. So, if you win all three, you get the LE. If you don't, you still have a 1/7 chance to win the door prize LE. If you get in 2nd-4th, you win ClixBux. It's all outlined pretty clearly above with extremely generous prizes.

Make no mistake, $24 gets you a lot with this HCOnline tournament, and I hope Wizkids does more like this in the near future.

For those of you who do not like it, you can still try to win those LE figures at GenCon or via eBay. Good luck with that.

Posted by: The Le on 7/18/2011 3:49:41 PM

I have to agree. The game takes forever to load and has to search for updates everytime it starts. The figures are WAY too expensive and should be cheaper since they are just virtual. Either the preexisting figures should be coded for virtual use, or WizKids should find a way to match upcoming sets with their online counterparts so if you buy a virtual figure, you get a physical figure to go with it. I love clix, but the online version is difficult to follow, doesn't have a great user's guide and takes way too long to get used to once you actually start playing. There's no way I'd pay 30$ per round to play in this tournament, nor should anyone have to. You won't get your money's worth unless you win the LE.

Posted by: dave on 7/18/2011 3:09:35 PM

@Japete61: No word on Moonstone at all, but I suspect we won't see her at all until GENCON itself. After Gencon, I wouldn't be surprised if she pops up in HCOnline tournaments, but not before then -- it would foolish for them to hurt GenCon attendance by offering Moonstoon before that.

As for Wonder Woman, we may not see her for some time yet at all on HCOnline, because there are currently no DC Boosters available for HCOnline (and I highly highly doubt Marvel/DC would allow a DC prize with a Marvel sealed and vice versa).

Posted by: The Le on 7/18/2011 8:01:28 AM

@Le: Thanks for the info, I thought about going to Gen Con but could not get the time off. Any idea what they are going to do about the le ms. Marvel aka moon stone? Would be kind of nice to finish off my dark avengers team.

Posted by: Japete61 on 7/18/2011 7:53:37 AM

@japete61: Yes, they did mention that these figures would be available to mass market at the end of the year -- but like the Fast Forces pack, there is a distinct possibility that it will be new dials, which may or may not be inferior to the Convention versions.

As such, I highly recommend players interested in this piece to try HeroClix Online to win these figures (assuming they do this again in the near future). You only other options are to try GenCon grinders or Ebay.

HeroClix Online is a good system, and it's a shame if players don't at least try it out for the cool $2.99 starter price.

Posted by: The Le on 7/17/2011 12:09:15 PM

Also, has anyone heard or know what wizkids is going to do to make these horsemen figures avalable at the end of the year? I remember them saying something about that when they first put them out but wanted to know if anyone had any details.

Posted by: japete61 on 7/16/2011 8:03:37 PM

The idea of clix online is not bad if there is no place to play by where you live but the cost is WAY to much. I mean you don't even get something you will every hold. They should take a page out of the world of warcraft card game playbook and have codes on the stats cards that you can put in and have the same figure for online play. I would maybe be willing to pay $5.00 real bucks per online booster if they had some sort of online buy it by the brick program where if you bought so many boosters you got a free real figure mailed to your house. The idea of online is not bad its just really poor exicusion on the part of NECA. Oh and on a side note on the wizkids web page it says they are starting a figure replacment program. Thought everyone would like to know.

Posted by: japete61 on 7/16/2011 8:01:08 PM

@Kragnorak... you have to buy their Clix Bux (as The Le states). You can buy 100 Bux for $5 (5 cents a Bux). A booster costs 239 Bux... or $11.95 each. That's $23.90 an event. However, since you have to buy Bux in 100 point increments, it'll actually cost you $25 to get into your first event.

The other downside (as if the cost wasn't big enough) is that they're only using Hammer of Thor and the FF starter. The lack of figs makes it a bit of a stale environment for play.

Posted by: hair10 on 7/16/2011 9:17:47 AM

@Kragnorak: You have to purchase ClixBux first, which is the internal monetary system -- it's like Microsoft points or Wii points. Then, when in game you use your ClixBux to buy boosters, which comes to about $11.95 per booster.

Yes, since it is sealed, you will need to buy 2 new virtual boosters for each tournament you wish to enter.

Playing online isn't for everyone, but it's still a fantastic way to get a hold of these convention exclusives without traveling to GenCon (where you'd need to also buy 2 boosters to enter the grinders, and there's no door prize).

Posted by: The Le on 7/15/2011 7:00:15 AM

How much do the Sealed Virtual Boosters cost?

And I guess that means you would buy 6 if you played each day?

Posted by: Kragnorak on 7/15/2011 6:56:29 AM

@eagletsi: You can always travel to Indianapolis to play in the GENCON grinders to win one of these figures. And if you feel you can get it on eBay cheaper, then I fully support your decision!

Posted by: The Le on 7/15/2011 5:31:54 AM

This sucks! First I couldn't get them at my covention. Now they want me to pay more then I would on ebay to even have a chance to win them. Plus, I have to do it in there online game.

Hopefully, when it flops wizkids will realize people like to play other people face to face and should have to be forced to play online for as much as they charge.

Posted by: eagletsi on 7/14/2011 8:19:22 PM