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rangifer’s diary: pt. cxxiv

Gee whiz, golly gosh! rangifer’s diary is bacc‽‽

Yes! Just in time (almost…) for the new year!! Happy demisemicentury, y’all. So far, this century has been differentiated from the previous one mostly by the existence of MeipeulSeutori, really. Last century, they didn’t even have MapleStory, so instead they just had like… world wars or whatever. Terrible.

More seriously, the main reason why I haven’t been posting here is because I’ve been posting somewhere else. I decided that, if I’m writing talking-words now (& not just music, or whatever), then I may as well write about things other than videogaem.

Here, though? Here, we’re all about the bidiogeym. I’m splitting this up into multiple entries, so let’s get started with…

And Oh Lord, The Events Jus’ Keep A-Comin’

…The summer event? Has it really been that long?

Not quite. In usual MapleLegends fashion, this event is ✨⁠fashionably⁠✨ late. But… it’s just the same ol’ summer event. That means BRPQ (a homophone of burpy queue), per usual:

And, of course, Hinamatsuri.

Transcription of the above image

[system message]: You completed the jump quest in [01:06.634].
You completed the jump quest in [01:06.074].
You completed the jump quest in [01:05.141].

Whoa! My JQing skillz are returning!! And by “JQing skillz”, I mean specifically Hinamatsuri skillz, becoz I am just dreadful at any other JQ.

Heck, that was even enough to — just barely — land me on the leaderboard…!:

Transcription of the above image

⌛ Our top 10 fastest Huge Pearl finders! ⏳

1. 🥇 starss: [00:01:01.588]
2. 🥈 OmokTeacher: [00:01:01.682]
3. 🥉 Interp: [00:01:03.802]
4. Fabienne: [00:01:04.075]
5. CowSmiley: [00:01:04.207]
6. BrokeFP: [00:01:04.301]
7. Icing: [00:01:04.356]
8. PoultryWoman: [00:01:04.420]
9. Arsia: [00:01:04.487]
10. capreolina: [00:01:05.141]

Pretty freakin’ kewl, right?? But it gets even better.

Transcription of the above image

[system message]: You completed the jump quest in [01:03.914].
You have gained an item (Huge Pearl)

d33r: holy

OmokTeacher: ??
YOU GOT IT

What the fucc‽ I got under the 1:04 mark‽‽ That’s a new best time for me!!

Transcription of the above image

⌛ Our top 10 fastest Huge Pearl finders! ⏳

1. 🥇 Nousgalia: [00:00:17.825]
2. 🥈 OmokTeacher: [00:01:01.401]
3. 🥉 starss: [00:01:01.588]
4. Interp: [00:01:03.802]
5. Kargo: [00:01:03.878]
6. d33r: [00:01:03.914]
7. Fabienne: [00:01:04.075]
8. CowSmiley: [00:01:04.207]
9. BrokeFP: [00:01:04.301]
10. Icing: [00:01:04.356]

My goodness, 5^th place is a whole lot more impressive than 10^th! Well… it says I’m 6^th, but that Nousgalia person was obviously just a skid — & indeed, they were swiftly b&. Even purely in principle, I don’t think it’s possible to get below 59⁢ seconds — much less below 18…

Transcription of the above image

OmokTeacher: omggggg

d33r: :D

OmokTeacher: if we [ignore] the hacker
at #1

d33r: oh ya

OmokTeacher: that’s 3/5 of the top​5
from subopt

That’s right!! Here at Suboptimal, we’re Mapol-gayming professionals. 😤

But I didn’t stop there! With what time was left on the event, I kept grindin’ the ol’ Hinamatsuri from time to time… and ✨⁠technically⁠✨ got an even better time for myself:

That’s only 5⁢ ms of improvement, which is easily accounted for (& then some… or a lot) by even the smollest bit of networking delay, which is a major factor here. Plus, I’m not particularly good at clicking the NPC at the end, because any precious little IRL DEX that I might have is instantaneously dissipated as soon as I try to use a pointing device in any way.

That being said, I’m proud of my time! 1:03.909 is hyoodge for me!! I seriously doubt that I’ll be able to beat it next year, but hey — I probably thought the same thing about my best time last year! 😉

Once in a handful of Saturdays, the sambar makes herself known

Now, I’ve been playing a lot of “tar & us”, so my other way-too-high-level-oh-my-lord-how-did-I-even-get-here character — my darksterity knight rusa — has been, shall we say, less than active. But I was call’d vpon to play a littol game of Protecc The Littol Ones™!

The little ones? Aren’t all MapleStory PCs the exact same height? Well, yez…… But some of them are a little “squishy” and go POP! when the big bad guy attacks them.

This particular game of Protecc The Littol Ones™ is going to be fairly easy, since we’re just fighting the scar lion. Adding Targa into the mix changes things considerably, but we’re not here to punish ourselves.

In any case, someone needs their prequests done…:

And whaddayaknow? I got to Scar wif Harlez/Gock (VigiI, Murhata) and Lvl1Crook (Level1Crook, xXCrookXx, Macer)!!:

😎

Dragged out of retirement

Speaking of littol ones, I was quite sure I’d already retired my woodswoman capreolina, but… Well, I guess SE is SE…

Yeah, yeah, I get it. I’m a woodswoman, Crecsel is a big tree, haw haw, har har, h—💤💤💤

…

m,,nHuh? Wut? No way was I asleep just now! I was just… er… Concentrating really hard. It’s a… powerful woodswoman technique. You wouldn’t understand.

The great thing about the right eye is that I can do effectively a dummy @dpm 5 test, but claim that it’s “realistic” because it’s A Real Boss™!:

Transcription of the chatlog in the above image

[system message]: capreolina — Lv.150 Bowmaster — Total Damage: 11,440,494
Damage Per Hour: 137,285,880 — Damage Per Minute: 2,288,098

To be fair, it does have more than +500⁢ WDef over that of a dummy, and it does interrupt my attacks with its own. But, well, what did you expect? With a wee bit o’ magick (read: Maple Worrier level 20, Echo of Hero, and +22⁢ WAtk from a Hot ’n’ Ready Dumpling), I do like 2.3M⁢ DPM or something. Good to see that hasn’t changed, I guess…

†porcinus? What?

Wayyy back in pt. cxiii of this here diary, I introduced a new character: IGN porcinus. But I didn’t really explain what was going on, and although that’s definitely a deer IGN, the character looks slightly different from some of my others. Then the character kinda mysteriously disappeared after only briefly appearing in that one entry!

Long story short, I had a few things in front of me:

1. At the time, I didn’t really have anyone to play MapolStori with.
2. Although I never quite understood the appeal of metallic playstyles^[1] on a personal level, I definitely understood their appeal from a more general gameplay standpoint. If I could craft a metallic ruleset — or just a gameplay restriction ruleset in general — that was carefully designed for my own tastes, then I could perhaps have some fun with it!
3. I wanted to use cosmetic junk from that event (CNY 2024) to make a male character. If I was gonna be metallic in some way anyway, then I didn’t have to worry about not being able to use gender-locked equipment from my other characters!

I think that I did a passable job at (3.) — see this image in particular, for the full look — but my ability to make really effective masculine looks^[2] is not comparable to how much experience I have with, if not feminine looks, then at least notionally female characters. Is he cute?? Maybe handsome… 😅 Do email me your critiques & advice — I love to hear it.

With that in mind, it bears repeating that no smol part of my motivation to play a given character is tied to how fashionable I think they look! Then, when I got down to it, I had to come face-to-face with exactly how much metallic playstyles really appealed to me. The result was more-or-less what I suspected all along: if (1.) is really true, then I don’t truly want to play MapleStory — I can just do something else, anyway.

Needless to say, any motivation that I had to bother logging in as IGN porcinus had a pretty high vapour pressure.

The ruleset

But what about (2.)? As you’d likely expect, I had drafted a ruleset, written various notes to myself, & settled on a solid final (hopefully) draft before I ever hit the character creation screen.

Although I currently have no plans to play this ruleset, I think that — for those interested in MapleStory gameplay — it’s worth picking apart for a couple of reasons:

• Part of the intent of this ruleset was to expunge, to the extent possible, obviously undesirable game mechanics that the long-time MapleLegends player is all too accustomed to. Of course, the key phrase is “to the extent possible”. Such a ruleset is of two minds: “gameplay restriction” as innovating new gameplay styles (metallic, area-locked, odd-jobbed, &c.); but also “gameplay restriction” as game repair.

  This produces a palpable tension that exists in some capacity within any ruleset designed for a less-than-commendable MapleStory implementation (e.g. MapleLegends); but in this case, I’m allowed to freely micromanage the “game repair” aspect, because this is designed for an individual player (rather than a group).

• Even putting aside questions of what rules are “best”, the question of how to articulate a ruleset is nontrivial in & of itself. Ideally, alternative rulesets are encoded into the game itself, and there are very reasonable & parsimonious ways of doing this^[3]. But this is obviously not what I’m doing here, so the question is slightly more abstract.

• The rules that I come up with for my own personal ruleset clearly say a lot about my personal (dis)tastes & gameplay style — including what activities I’m interested in that are compatible with solo play.

Legend

We begin with some useful definitions:

🛠️

Game-mechanical. Consists exclusively in well-defined terms corresponding directly to the way in which the game is programmed.

👻

Spiritual. The counterpart of game-mechanical, whereby some notions are not strictly those programmed into the software, & so require some judicious interpretation.

?[…]?

I’m not too sure about this one.

PC

Player character.

iff

If & only if.

OoaK

One-of-a-kind.

(to) white

A verb meaning “(to) get the white-coloured EXP notification from a monster’s death”. A PC who whites a monster (the whiter of that monster) has dealt a plurality (a.k.a. relative majority) of the damage that the monster took from PCs over its lifetime.

Greater rules

The ruleset is in two halves: greater rules are more important & define the core gameplay, whereas lesser rules are still important to follow, but have a lesser overall impact. Here, we begin with the former.

🛠️ [G1. Tradeless]

Inflow of items and/or mesos from other PCs is disallowed. This includes, for example:

• Trading with, selling to, and/or buying from other PCs.
• Accepting gifts from other PCs, including via e.g. Duey.
• Looting items/mesos dropped by other PCs, or by monsters that I didn’t white.
• Accepting items/mesos transferred through storage NPCs or through the Cash Shop.
• ⋮

⛔ Exceptions:

• [G1e1. Cosmetic] This rule does not apply to items that are purely cosmetic in nature.
• [G1e2. Partyquestgegenstand] This rule does not apply to items that were generated inside of a PQ or expedition, so long as that PQ/expedition’s instance is still active & has not yet dispensed any end-rewards to any of its participants.
• [G1e3. Lootshare] This rule does not apply to looting items/mesos dropped by a monster that was whited by a PC who was in my party and/or my expedition at the time of its death, nor does it apply to looting items/mesos dropped by a reactor.

🛠️ [G2. Partyless]

Being a member of a party of size strictly greater than 1 is disallowed.

⛔ Exceptions:

• [G2e1. One-off] Multi-PC parties are allowed for the express & sole purpose of completing an instance of game content that absolutely requires the multi-PC party. This exception must be used successfully (meaning that the instance’s rewards were obtained) at most once per distinct piece of game content.

🔒 Restrictions:

• [G2r1. Antiscum] 👻 Exception G2e1 mustn’t be abused. The relevant instance must be successfully completed as expediently as possible, to reduce “PQ scumming” to the extent possible.

💎 Clarifications:

• [G2c1. Expedition] 🛠️ Expeditions & parties are totally distinct from one another. This rule imposes no restrictions on expeditions.

👻 [G3. Questzwang]

I must, in general, pursue — to the best of my abilities — any missions, tasks, errands, requests, orders, assignments, duties, & quests (henceforth collectively “quests”) assigned, offered, and/or delegated to me by the people of the Maple World.

The intent of this rule is that — apart from perfunctory tasks like accepting quests, repotting, &c. — everything that I do should be motivated, as proximally as possible, by a quest that I’ve begun.

🔒 Restrictions:

• [G3r1. Repeat] Repeatable quests that have already been completed at least once take strictly lower priority than all other quests.

💎 Clarifications:

• [G3c1. GUI] 🛠️ Although relatively rare, some quests do not have corresponding entries in the in-game “QUESTS” GUI.

• [G3c2. Exchange] So-called exchange quests are, in spite of their common name, not considered “quest” content for the purpose of this rule. Note that this does not generally prohibit me from making use of exchange quests.

• [G3c3. Quest] 👻 What exactly a “quest” is is left somewhat ill-defined here. Any game content implemented using the internally-defined Quest system is definitely quest content. Intentionally quest-like game content that counts as quest content for the purpose of this rule, but that is not obviously & unambiguously quest content includes — but is not necessarily limited to:

  • Processes necessary for job advancement.
  • The wedding/marriage process.
  • The process of reviving a pet.
  • The Zakum questline, including the so-called “prequests” (i.e. first missions), & the Last Mission.
  • The process of turning in a Scroll of Secrets, in exchange for a random prize.
  • ⋮

👻 [G4. Wanderpflicht]

🛠️ Moreover, all inter-map movement to maps which I have not previously visited 👻 must be for the express purpose of carrying out rule G3, & specifically only to fulfil quests, not (except incidentally) to initiate/acquire quests.

⛔ Exceptions:

• [G4e1. Lockbreak] 🛠️⁠👻 Inter-map movement that would otherwise be in violation of this rule is allowed, only in the minimal amount absolutely necessary, for the express & sole purpose of breaking free from a lock. A lock occurs when the set of maps to which I have access cannot possibly be expanded without violating this rule.

🔒 Restrictions:

• [G4r1. Zielspezifizität] 👻 This rule does not apply to components of quests that are insufficiently specific. For example, a quest that requires monster kills of any species is nonspecific, whereas a quest that requires Etc items dropped by only a handful of species is specific.

🛠️ [G5. Eventless]

Items and/or mesos acquired from limited-time events are considered illicit, & must be discarded as soon as possible.

⛔ Exceptions:

• [G5e1. Veranstaltungsmöbel] Items of the following kinds are exempt from this rule:

  • 🛠️ Cash items.
  • 🛠️ Set-Up items.
  • 👻  Equip items that are “just for fun” & are otherwise useless (excepting possibly being useful for odd-jobbed PCs). This especially includes claws equippable by non-thieves, but may include other equipment like the Torch, the Maple Flag, &c..
  • 🛠️ Items that are purely cosmetic.

• ?[G5e2. Nondisplacement]? This rule does not apply to Equip items that occupy an equipment spot that cannot otherwise be filled by a noncosmetic item without violating this rule. In MapleLegends specifically, these slots are:

  • The eye accessory slot.
  • The face accessory slot.
  • 1 ring slot.
  • All NX equipment slots.

💎 Clarifications:

• [G5c1. Event] A limited-time event may be a serverwide multi-day event (e.g. Mapleversary, summer event, &c.), may be an ad hoc GM event, or may be any combination thereof.

🛠️ [G6. Gachless]

The use of Gachapons is disallowed.

Commentary

🛠️ [G1. Tradeless]

This rule is mostly just one half of the usual ironman ruleset. I define it fairly carefully here, because informal definitions (e.g. simply “no trading”) have both obvious & nonobvious loopholes in them.

The slight twist here is exceptions G1e2 & G1e3. These exceptions are mostly necessary for exception G2e1 (see below), but also allow me to loot in an expedition context. This implies that, for example, in an expedition boss like Zakum, I could “split” drops with my party, so long as all items/mesos in my split were generated within specifically that expedition instance. G1e3 is mostly there for certain cases where the “…so long as that PQ/expedition’s instance is still active & has not yet dispensed any end-rewards to any of its participants” clause of G1e2 isn’t strictly satisfied, but where I should still be able to loot monster drops.

🛠️ [G2. Partyless]

This is the other half of the usual ironman ruleset — but again, there are complications.

Exception G2e1 is a happy middle ground for me, allowing PQing without making PQs a large chunk of the game. This is more-or-less (depending on how you define “ironman”) the single exception that makes the ruleset not strictly ironman; but because PQs cannot be repeated, & because they’re the only content that allows partying, the ruleset is still extremely strict to the point that I would feel comfortable claiming (in a casual context) to be ironman — unless pressed for details.

G2e1 essentially levels the distinction between quests & party quests in some ways. Most quests are nonrepeatable (& those that aren’t are generally not scummed in the way that PQs are), so when you complete one, you simply move on; you’ve surmounted the challenge, & this is a kind of progress in itself (in addition to any rewards that you may’ve also gained). With G2e1, PQs become straightforward in this way, & the only distinction from ordinary quests is that partying is made nonoptional for the purpose of the quest: you proceed through the PQ’s stages, beat the big bad boss at the end, & that’s it — you’ve saved Lūdibrium! Or Órbis, or whatever!

Restriction G2r1 is an attempt to close a loophole whereby a PQ is intentionally repeated, but each run is aborted before the PQ’s conclusion, thus exploiting G2e1’s permission to retry failed runs.

An alternative formulation of G2e1 was as follows:

• *[G2e1. Abenteuerparty] Multi-PC parties are allowed for the express & sole purpose of carrying out rule G3, iff the multi-PC party is absolutely necessary to do so.

This would basically mean that PQing is allowed, so long as it’s the only way to complete some quest(s) that I have active. I decided against this version of the rule because, unfortunately, some quests are well & truly heinous (“Eliminating the Pirates” & “The Record of Goddess Minerva”, I’m looking at you…), & would essentially ensnare me into PQ scumming. This would also happen with, for example, MPQ, where crafting pendants/rocks is slightly less of a brutally-punishing masochismfest, but nevertheless accounts for two or so quests that require PQ scumming.

👻 [G3. Questzwang]

This is where we break away from metallic restrictions into something more unique.

If I’m basically ironman, then what in the flying fock am I even gonna do? The answer, according to this ruleset, is: quests. The basic idea here is that I accept quests more-or-less indiscriminately, & then when I have an active quest that’s doäble, I just do it. No muss, no fuss, no quest optimisation where I try to figure out the best way to maximise my QPM. Just do the godforsaken quest.

Naturally, this is a spiritual rule, because the game does not decide when I am or am not “questing”. Moreover, there are some weird cases where it’s unclear whether certain pieces of game content are quests. Hopefully, should I ever be in doubt, the way this rule is written would make for a good reference.

👻 [G4. Wanderpflicht]

This rule essentially incorporates aspects of “clearing”-style restrictions into G3. The result is that I would have to spend some extra time carefully tracking which maps I’ve unlocked, as well as figuring out which maps I’m reasonably allowed to unlock next.

Depending on what quests I end up with, this rule can — at least, in principle — degenerate fairly swiftly. If an NPC instructs me to go somewhere quite specific — to speak with another NPC, kill a particular monster species, or whatever — & that “somewhere” is far away, then that can suddenly unlock a set of maps that is, in principle, arbitrarily large.

Still, this rule tries to put some limits on my ability to start new quests, complete quests in certain ways, &c.. Plus, it adds an extra dimension to the gameplay.

🛠️ [G5. Eventless]

This rule attempts to prevent events from interfering with the core gameplay. For the most part, any event goodies not disallowed by this rule are likely obtainable without event scumming, thus effectively eliminating the problem of EventStory^®.

Because part of the intent of this rule is to prevent eventstuffs from displacing ordinary items, exception G5e2 allows some equipment that doesn’t violate this intent. I’m honestly not really a fan of G5e2, because it potentially pressures me to play an event so that I can fill an equipment slot that I otherwise couldn’t. Then, in other cases, playing the event in such a way would require event scumming that violates G3 (especially G3r1). At the end of the day, allowing events any opportunities to offer noncosmetic advantages is just bad news — especially when events are poorly-designed gimmicks to boost server population numbers.

For consistency, GM events are considered “events” for this purpose. This notably implies that I can never acquire a Scroll of Secrets. See: G6.

🛠️ [G6. Gachless]

Like in many other implementations, in MapleLegends, Gachapons are mostly there to taint the pool of items available to PCs. This availability is then gated behind a lottery system. Because my ruleset is quest-based rather than lottery-based, Gachapons are a no-go.

Although I believe this rule to be absolutely necessary, it does have some drawbacks. In particular, some odd jobs exhibit varying degrees of dependence upon Gachapon-only equipment items.

Lesser rules

🛠️ [L1. Hoof-travel]

Using Cash items (e.g. (VIP) Teleport Rocks, Teleport Cokes, &c.) for travel is prohibited in all cases.

Using non-Cash non-gratis transport (e.g. taxis, Magic Seeds, Warp Cards, Lūdibrium Warp Capsules, Órbis Rock Scrolls, &c.) is prohibited unless the destination has previously been visited at least once.

⛔ Exceptions:

• [L1e1. Island] Transport from Maple Island to Victoria Island is considered “gratis” for the purpose of this rule.
• [L1e2. Spinel] Transport via Spinel is considered “gratis” for the purpose of this rule.
• [L1e3. Malaya] Transport from Kerning City to Singapore is considered “gratis” for the purpose of this rule.
• [L1e4. Masteria] Transport from Kerning City to Masteria is considered “gratis” for the purpose of this rule.

💎 Clarifications:

• [L1c1. Costlessness] In MapleLegends, transport that departs from, or arrives at, Órbis Station is gratis. Other notable gratis transport includes transport between Henesys & Amoria, transport between the Helios Tower & Ellin Forest, the Helios Tower elevator, &c..

🛠️ [L2. Maturity]

Exception G2e1 may only be exercised if my level is $𝑥-5$ or greater, where $𝑥$ is the level of the highest-level vincible monster that could possibly be encountered within the PQ/expedition. Monsters whose levels are 200 or greater, or whose levels would make the PQ/expedition impossible to enter at any character level, do not count towards the calculation of $𝑥$’s value. If there are no monsters applicable to the calculation of $𝑥$’s value, then $𝑥≔1$.

Moreover, this rule also applies to any expedition whose set of participants has cardinality strictly greater than 1.

💎 Clarifications:

• [L3c1. Invincible] Monsters that are clearly intended to be invincible, but that can technically be slain via exotic methods like e.g. Power Guard, are considered “invincible” for the purpose of this rule. Moreover, monsters that have info/invincible attributes set to anything other than 0 are considered “invincible” for the purpose of this rule.
• [L3c2. Tötungsskript] A monster’s vincibility only relates to whether it can be slain via ordinary attacks (i.e. basic-attacks or skills) that are dispensed by PCs. Monsters that are slain programmatically, e.g. via a script, are not necessarily vincible.

👻 [L3. Participation]

When benefiting from a group activity (i.e. a PQ, an expedition, &c.) — regardless of whether or not my membership in a multi-PC party is involved — I must meaningfully participate in that group activity; & furthermore, I must do so to the best of my abilities.

👻 [L4. Nonreëntrancy]

Map reëntrance mustn’t be abused for ulterior purposes such as intra-map travel.

💎 Clarifications:

• [L2c1. Reëntrance] 🛠️ Map reëntrance is any of the following: changing channels, entering/exiting the Cash Shop, entering/exiting the Free Market Entrance via the MTS button.

🛠️ [L5. Cashtrashless]

The following kinds of Cash items — regardless of whether or not they’re purchased from the Cash Shop — are prohibited:

• Teleportation-/transport-related items (see rule L1).
• Myo Myo the Traveling Salesman.
• Weather items.

Moreover, receiving the benefit of weather effects from other PCs is prohibited.

Set-Up items that are purchased from the Cash Shop are also prohibited.

Commentary

🛠️ [L1. Hoof-travel]

G4 doesn’t truly make sense without the addition of this rule. Moreover, the gameplay enforced by this rule is much more to my taste: the world actually has to be explored, & although various teleportations are important (& often unlocked by quests), completely arbitrary teleportation with VIP Teleport Rocks & the like ruins the true interconnectedness of the world.

The exceptions & clarifications to this rule are specific to MapleLegends, so a hypothetical adaptation of this ruleset to another implementation (e.g. a future version of MapleLegends) may need somewhat different details.

🛠️ [L2. Maturity]

This is one of two rules (the other being L3) that attempts to ensure that my group activities (in parties and/or expeditions) are within reason & adhere to the metallic spirit. This one is just a level check, which has the advantage that it can be (almost) purely game-mechanical, with no real room for interpretation. Nonetheless, the details are a bit hairy.

👻 [L3. Participation]

This is the spiritual counterpart to L2. Naturally, the weight of this rule rests upon the interpretation of the word “meaningfully”. This makes it perhaps the most spiritual rule in the entire ruleset.

👻 [L4. Nonreëntrancy]

This is a minor rule that serves as a companion to L1.

🛠️ [L5. Cashtrashless]

This rule eliminates Cash Shop garbage that interferes with gameplay. Almost all MapleStory implementations with a working Cash Shop have at least some Cash Shop garbage, & MapleLegends is certainly no exception. Like with L1, however, the details here are specific to the particular MapleStory implementation.

Rules, rules, rules…

The proof of the pudding is in the eating, & I haven’t demonstrated any eating here. Nonetheless, if you’re a weird MapleStory gameplay nerd, I hope that this might’ve given you some ideas, or inspiration, or insight, or… comedic material. Or something.

By the way, if you’re wondering what’s with the random High German names, it’s because I wanted to make each rule (& each subrule) have a one-word name. I don’t know. I just… did. Fight me about it?^[4]

Footnotes for “†porcinus? What?”

1. [↑] Metallic meaning ironman or similar, i.e. playing with trading and/or partying restrictions. See also: “Gameplay restriction”.
2. [↑] Putting aside how many times old cervid and tarandus looks have been mistaken for male characters…
3. [↑] I’ve personally played at least three implementations that do (or did) exactly this, although MapleLegends is not amongst them.
4. [↑] No. Don’t.

The brief, but brilliant, adventures of Toileter & enormous

So, sure, I tried to make yet another stinky pp pupu garbo MapolStoary character, & I failed. But you know what? I ain’t no quitter. Chances are not entirely nil that I will shuffle off this mortal coil with my face planted on a keyboard in front of the character creation screen. You think I’m embarrassed by that? Have you read this diary before??

I think you know where this is going.

I was joined by none other than Toiletta — by which I mean Taima (Yunchang, Boymoder, Tacgnol, Nyanners, Gambolpuddy, &c.) — as I was birthed (as it were) by the clear blue Maple skies, directly onto the familiar but inexplicable series of wooden planks leading to the Training Camp.

Maple Island is a littol bit like your favourite song, but set as your alarm clock noise. It really is one of the most beautiful songs of all time, but maybe hearing it every day at the same time is a bit overkill.

This time, though, we found a strange new portal at The Field West of Amherst:

Transcription of the chatlog in the above image

Toiletta: hi

inermis: ked…
my love…………

It’s time for me to look that good, too. By which I mean I pulled out all the event NX slop from my Cash Shop inventory & equipped it all at once — after getting a haircut that magically quadrupled my hair volume, of course.

Transcription of the chatbubbles in the above image

Toiletta: wew

inermis: ahahaha

With my eye accessory being an eyepatch covering my entire left eye, & my face accessory somehow being another eyepatch covering my entire right eye, I can’t actually see myself in a mirror, so I’m just gonna assume that I look stunning.

Sleep-deprivation-wise, things were not looking too great for Toiletta. But we still mustered the energy for a photo op at Amherst’s premier tourist destination:

Transcription of the chatlog in the above image

Toiletta: i hope i can make it to level 15 before falling asleep on the keyboat [sīc]

Toiletta’s sleep deprivation got the best of her, & she soon found herself in an eternal slumber…

Transcription of the chatlog in the above image

inermis: shoulda put more str so u can be stronger. duh

Toiletta: i need luk for better dorps [sīc]

inermis: o true

Toiletta [from beyond the grave]: i failed…

inermis: naurrrrrrrrrr

Thankfully, randomly dying to Orange Mushrooms is a pretty common activity for tourists in Amherst, so the locals knew just what to do. With Toiletta brought back as a zombie, we thanked the Amherstonians for their grace, & decided to leave before we could cause any more trouble.

After locating the nearest man wearing clothing at least three sizes too large for his body, we paid our fares & sail’d off to newer lands.

Transcription of the chatlog in the above image

Toiletta: Goodbye, MapleStory Island

inermis: gubi

We got the idea that if we randomly dyed to an Orange Mushroom here, we might be in more dire straits. Victoria is a big place! But we had places to go, people to meet, & fake public lavatories to wander into.

I’m not really one for public restrooms, so at the fateful 3-Way Road-Split, I parted ways with Toiletta:

Transcription of the chatlog in the above image

inermis: gubi…

Toiletta: good luck, enormous

inermis: good luck, toileter
bless u

Toiletta: i didnt sneeze

inermis: ok
sorry

Toiletta: im an atheist
bye

inermis: cya

But we swapped phone numbers before we parted, so that we could send each other extremely, painfully green text messages whenever we wanted. Like to congratulate ourselves on getting jobs:

Transcription of the chatlog in the above image

Toiletta [whisper]: Gauss wart [= guess what]

inermis [whisper]: TEEF? [= thief]

[serverwide announcement]: [1^st Job] Congratulations to Toiletta on becoming a Thief!

inermis: GRAPHED [= grats]
graft on teef

Toiletta: fank yoo

inermis: i had to waulk a little furter [sīc]

inermis [allchat]: hail

inermis [whisper]: ok i said hail to that guy again
hes still ignoring me

Toiletta: to become a teef you only need walk into the nearest alcohol licensed joint

inermis: factual
gess hwut

Toiletta: o.o

[serverwide announcement]: [1^st Job] Congratulations to inermis on becoming a Pirate!

Toiletta: CONGRUSAS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :D

inermis: TQTQTQ c:

Wow! A job! I never thought I’d get one of those. I just hope Kyrin is okay with me randomly not showing up to work one day & then mysteriously disappearing. I’m sure she’ll understand.

And with my first paycheck, I put together a real look that you can actually look at!:

Waddayathinc? Pale, pink… Befitting of a 🧛🏻‍♀️⁠vampire deer⁠🧛🏻‍♀️, wouldn’t you agree? And never mind that inermis is from Latin meaning “unarmed” — I’m a pew-pew pirate! But also the stabby-stab kicky-kick kind, if you know what I mean…

🤍

Lavendeer

But you know what’s even better than hauntingly-pale pink? Lavender! Welcome to Bossin’ Wif tara™, where I plunge my pixel fists into the big bad guy a truly exhausting number of times until one of us dies (whichever comes first)!

No warmups this time. We’re going straight into a Diggy HT run!:

These are, at least notionally, “drunk HT runs”, so the usual choice of intoxicant is good ol’ grain. But THC seems to be even more popular amongst Mapollers anyway.

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Tranquilize [from beyond the grave]: smoked 2 much weed…
r

And, speaking of left head, I can do that too:

No tragedies occurred, but we did accidentally trigger early mass sed once or twice…

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[system message]: You have been seduced, which disables you from moving.

Tranquilize: oop
lol

“WOWIE”, indeed! Mapol Worrier Twinny!!

And I friccing levelled up‽:

Level 168~! I’m sure that’s a completely arbitrary number with no implications nor game-mechanical milestones whatsoever. Still, pretty cool.

Speaking of friccing levelling up, the summer event was handing out Fishin’ Hole Premium Dishes like hotcakes. For those following along at home, those are portable GM buffs, so it was time to completely zone out to a variety of half-interesting YouTube™ videos whilst half-fighting metallic monks at the 7^th floor of the Dutra Suppository:

Well, it would be time for that, if it weren’t for the ongoing DDoS attacks rendering MapleLegends almost entirely unplayable:

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[serverwide banner announcement]: […] (DDoS). These are not data related attacks, so nothing happens to your account or security. We are working on it.

tarandus: lOL
honestly unplayable

I know that the term unplayable is typically used sarcastically, but sometimes it is very real. Between single round-trip times pushing the one-minute mark, & d/cs galore (you gotta timeout at some point, right?), our dish was quite swiftly completely ruined.

But surely, Neo Tōkyō would never betray me like that… right? So I duoed the notorious Burger Moth alongside Harlez (Gock, VigiI, Murhata):

So anyway, remember how, long ago, I said this?:

Level 168~! I’m sure that’s a completely arbitrary number with no implications nor game-mechanical milestones whatsoever.

Well… actually, I was right. 168 is the level of NT bosses like Burger Moth & Nibble Lung, but the threshold to get EXP in MapleLegends isn’t the monster’s level — it’s the monster’s level minus five! I mean, sure, I guess this is the first level where I’m not penalised for being under the bosses’ levels, so that counts for something.

But wait… now I’m in level range of D’una…? Nope! D’una is level 174, so I’m still one (1) level too low. But we didn’t realise that, so we tried D’una anyway. Numbers are hard, & NT has way too many thresholds to keep track of.

As disgust in previous entries, D’una was somewhat recently changed, presumably due to his reputation as the one boss that literally noöne wants to endure. Now he’s been nerft into a littol baby boi whom’st cannot even defen heself from attackers on the roof right on he head. Easy EXP, right?

Sort of. Honestly, he’s still pretty annoying, but just in a less exhausting way. Like Ephenia, or something like that: dreadfully boring, but reasonably accessible, & enough little gimmicks to maintain a moderate annoyance level for nearly the entire fight.

And yes, he still has his trademark 10k DR:

O boi. Still not realising that I was underlevelled, I spent another 30 or 40 minutes whittling down MapleLegends’s cutest anime character:

To be fair, with Harlez not even in the map, there was noöne to soak up whatever remaining EXP was left for me^[1] — so there’s your silver lining.

Well, that’s certainly enough Dunas for now. How about just a littol bit of light Nibbing?:

Muahahahaha… EXP! EXP!! Chewn inn necst thyme four e’en moar taraxperience!! 💜

Footnotes for “Lavendeer”

1. [↑] When EXP sharing within a set of PCs such that at least one PC meets the monster’s level threshold & at least one PC doesn’t, almost all the EXP goes to the PCs who meet the threshold, thus effectively stealing EXP from those who simply happen to be lower in level. Does that make a lot of sense? I’m not so sure, but that’s just how it be in MapolLegen.

(…cnvpstdf…)

cnvpstdf

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Toiletta: L Forest
i prefer to call it Lorest

inermis: whr is W Forest