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rangifer’s diary: pt. cxxxvi

You must be a new traveller!

Transcription of the chat in the above image

Heena: Whoa…you look awkward there.

Sera: Why isn’t Heena helping me hang this load of laundry up?

cervid: no downjump

Shpongle: beautiful

cervid: rofl

Huh?? What’s this???

Welcome to RevivalStory. If you’d like context for why this is RevivalStory, & not the only other MapleStory implementation that has ever featured in this diary, see the previous entry. Don’t worry; there’ll be more MapleL5s “content” to come, but not right now.

The immediately detectable difference between RevivalStory & its peers is that it’s based on a fairly old version of GMS.^[1] In fact, as it stands now — after five years of updates since 2020 — it’s just barely advanced enough to have the 3^rd grade, but not enough to have guilds, thus making it roughly equivalent to GMS v14 (2005-12-21). At the time of v14’s release, GMS had been running for a little over a year, of which a little over seven months were out of beta (i.e. fully released).

Examples of some features beyond GMS v14 that RevivalStory has

• Lūdibrium (but neither Omega Sector nor KFT). Includes LPQ & Papulatus.
• Aqua Road, including Deep Aqua & its boss (= Pianus).
• Level 80〜100 equipment.
• New scroll drops, e.g. dark scrolls dropping from ordinary monsters.

Personally, I had been playing GMS since roughly its nonbeta release; but I was too much of a n00b for the release of the 3^rd grade to affect me in any way, & I was so young that I straight up don’t remember almost any of it (I wish I remembered the IGN of my old STRginner…). So this is all new again to me! Here are some interesting details partially illustrated by the above screenshot:

• The minimap icons are rectangles with semicircles on top, kinda like a pill shape that’s been cut off widthwise. The portal markers are still blue, but they slowly blink (& so do the NPC markers)! That’s why you can’t see any portal/NPC markers above.
• Ah, the nostalgia of the old pointer, before they decided to rip off TTO’s pointer style. 🙂
• No big green MTS button. My eyes are pleased.
• Your own class name is written in all small caps, instead of in English title case.
• No downjumping!
• NPCs don’t have icons above their heads for quest status. Your pointer also doesn’t change when hovering over clickables, & the NPC chat button doesn’t exist (I’m redeveloping an RSI as we speak).

But we’ll encounter some more of these later. For now, it’s time to begin my adventure as the rereborn (JLMS, ML, & now RS) version of cervid, my STR cleric! I emerged from the womb as one of a triplet: myself, Shpongle (Taima, Suntory, Boymoder), & lv1000boss (Lvl1Crook, Level1Crook, xXCrookXx)! Let’s go!!

Transcription of the above image

Heena: You must be a new traveler! If you want to become an Ironman, please select the Ironman dialogue option down below!! In order to jump, press Alt. Come on~ Try! You can climb ladders or ropes by pressing the up arrow.

Quest available

• Borrowing Sera’s Mirror

Ironman mode

• I want to become an Ironman moving forward!

I’ve never played a camper, so I haven’t any real stake in it, but I personally like that this version doesn’t have a camp at all. I was expecting to get the classic Training Camp (the one that was regrettably replaced by the green apple suit indoor camp 🤮), but this works too.

As we made our way through the Snail Hunting Grounds, we were intercepted by Peter (or, as I call him, Peter the Cheater):

Transcription of the above image

Shpongle: frig off Peter

lv1000boss: oh im an ironman now

cervid: peter tryna make me ironic

lv1000boss: rip

You might think that þͤ olde Snail Hunting Grounds would be substantially the same as the new. Snayl is snayl. Timeless. But a common theme of the O.G. Maple Island is big-ass maps:

You can only see like half of the map in the minimap at any given time! Sheesh!!

Another common theme is that Maple Island is not fuccing around — call it “tutorial island” all you want, but it will still kill you:

Transcription of the above image

Shpongle: im about to be murdered by snails

lv1000boss: ur not gaming

Shpongle: i am attempting to game

cervid: the spawn rate is unhinged
i cant even go down here
ill die

The Field West of Amherst is also jumbo, but for good reason:

In particular, it’s basically on double duty: The Field East of Amherst plays very little role in this version of the game (even for islanders), & doesn’t lead to any further maps besides Tomato Field (an underrated map to be sure, but not of much practical import). Thus, the Field West plays the combined role of both Fields found in later versions.

Likewise, Mai doesn’t do shiet in this version, & she’s found in the town of Amherst, rather than out East:

The Maple Island questing is scanty, but some things never change. Thanx for the hats, Maria.

Transcription of the chatbubbles in the above image

Shpongle: interesting

lv1000boss: dude 5⁢ wdef

Oh, & did I mention that we haven’t any skills?

Yep! Zeroth-grade skills weren’t added to GMS until v26 (2006-07-26). Best I can do is make Three Snails noises with my mouth.

Worse still, the quest UI is… how do I say this… primitive.

Transcription of the above image

Quest

Maple		Victoria	Ossyria
🔄	Bigg’s Collection of Items
→	Sera’s Mirror
→	Roger’s Apple
→	Nina and Sen’s Dinner Menu
→	Letter for Lucas
→	Rain’s Maple Quiz
→	Dr. Robin’s Quiz

---

Bigg’s Collection of Items

None

I met this crewmember named Biggs at Southperry. He asked me if I can get him 10 orange mushroom caps and 30 blue snail shells and that he’ll reward me with a nice item if I do so. He doesn’t look too convinced that I can do this, but… it looks like a piece of cake to me.

Importantly, there’s no indication of what quests are available! Combined with the lack of icons above NPCs’ heads, questing here borders on the occult. Thankfully, there are useful resources on the WWW. But we’ll later see that the questing UX gets still worse.

In any case, “Bigg’s [= Biggs’s] Collection of Items” is, as always, Maple Island’s big test. By now, we certainly have more than 30 Blue Snail Shells each, but 10 Orange Mushroom Caps is a big ask!!

We headed to Dangerous Forest, chugged many of our ✨⁠precious⁠✨ Red Potions, almost died a few times, & came back to Biggs for our heard-earned Froot Nighves!

Maple Island was good fun, & we’d already a little taste of the pain of troglodyte MapleStory. But we ran out of kwests real fassed, & so it was time to scoot our level 7〜8 boots over to the big island.

As you can see above, this version of GMS wasn’t yet fully localised, retaining some Konglishisms^[2] even beyond those that were never fully ironed out of GMS. The main exception is Sitting Bull: this isn’t a translation — as that would result in something like *Stands with Open Fists — but presumably an earlier localisation that was scrapped for the perhaps obvious reason of being somehow even more on the nose than the rest of Perion (you can read the relevant Wikipedia article yourself).

That’s all the Mapling for this trio for now. But we were relieved to find that Maple messenger still works the same as ever — designed specifically for trios such as ourselves!

Transcription of the above chatlog

Invite : /invite character-name
End : /q

---

• ‘Shpongle’ has entered.
• ‘cervid’ has entered.
• ‘lv1000boss’ has entered.

cervid: welcome

lv1000boss: meipolstory

Shpongle: welcome to Oddjobs

lv1000boss: this is guild chat

cervid: ahaha

Footnotes for “You must be a new traveller!”

1. [↑] In truth, the most immediate was that it was so easy to get running under Wine. All I needed was winetricks -q dotnet48 — not even a janky 32-bit wineprefix was necessary! (See also: MapleStory in the year 2999.)
2. [↑] Not in the usual sense of Konglish, but rather, by analogy with Chinglish.

evprox & サントリー

Unfortunately for the success of RevivalStory, lv1000boss had to take a break for a week to, like, touch grass or something. Whatever! Shpongle & I made new characters so that we could continue touching the delicious pixel-grass of RS as Suntory & euprox, respectively:

This time around, I found a Wooden Sword on Maple Island!

Transcription of the item in the above image

Wooden Sword

• Req lev : 10
• [Required archetype:] warrior, bowman, or thief
• Category : two-handed sword
• Attack speed : normal [6]
• Weapon attack : 31
• Number of upgrades available : 7

O, sweet delicious warrior–archer–thief weaponry. I’ll soon be making very good use of you…

There’s this one weird ledge at A Split Road that I found useful for healing, & for cowardlily hoping that I get a good swing animation as I attack the wee dodmen above:

Healing is a big deal here in RS! Them snayls hit hard, potions are expensive, & chairs aren’t real. I mean, literally, chairs don’t exist — not even The Relaxer! Imagine that: Improving HP Recovery! Endure! Improving MP Recovery! Et cētera! All actually useful skills!!

And, speaking of not dying…

Transcription of the above image

Suntory: i think this map is particularly dangerous since the bottom is such a
trap

euprox: yea

Suntory: this is what i like a lot about some maps on vic island
and that concept is mostly abandoned later i feel

euprox: where it gets treacherous as you go down?

Suntory: yuss
Vic Island, especially between Henesys and the dungeon

euprox: right

Suntory: i like those little trenches with warning signs a lot

euprox: same!

It ain’t called Dangerous Forest for no reason, that’s for sure! It’s nice to see that DF — the islander’s training spot — never changed. It’s always been the same dang’d map, if you ignore the Stump spawns that were added later…

Unfortunately, I was not rewarded for my efforts this time! Biggs ripped me tf off by giving me a Razor instead of a Fruit Knife!!

Honestly, I didn’t even remember that that was possible. But sure enough, the relevant WBHS entry^[1] indicates that either one is awarded at random — although it refers to the Razor as “Razorheaded Dagger”.

In any event, it was time to take whatever dagger we got and skedaddle our li’l paddles over to the best island.^[2]

Neither of us will be going the ’ginner route; but that means we gotta job-advance! If Maple Island was dangerous enough, then walking on the strength of our own four pixel-feet across the breadth of Vicky Island was gonna be even more perilous.

So we decided to make matters still worse by looking out for Mano at Thicket Around the Beach III. To my surprise, Mano had indeed been backported to RS from GMS v49 (2008-01-23; the same version that introduced the 4^th grade & the Minar Forest)! Holy heck!!

And holy heck, indeed. Mano is not fuqqing around! He scawwy!!

RS seems to’ve added a custom “big HP bar at the top of the screen” feature to their client, too.

We did not succeed. In fact, I think we did a grand total of zero (0) damage to this olde ſnayle.

Welp. It’s time to keep going, emerging at the 3-Way Road-Split.

Getting to Keming City from here means passing through everyone’s favourite forest: L Forest (a.k.a. Lorest). Unfortunately for us, L is the deadliest letter of the Latin alphabet (don’t even get me started on the Greek alphabet…), & it was the L Forest II where our first death occurred:

Whilst Suntory’s spirit was finding someone in the city to resurrect her, I was on my own. We each independently made our ways to the Dark Road (known for his love of jazz fusion & of being a literal road), where I became rouge rogue:

Hell yeah, I’m a STRigand now. I got my sticky-sticc & everything. Bonk.

On an unrelated — but still Keming City — note, why Dr. Faymus selling 100% scrollz doe?

I guess we’ll never know.

I mean, it’s true: Tulcus^[3] existed in GMS v22 but not v12, making him old enough to be represented by WBHS, but not enough to be present in whatever RS was originally based upon. But surely, adding these 100% scrolls to another random NPC’s shoppe wasn’t that much less work than just putting in the authentic NPCs…?

Note that Tulcus never sold shoe SPEED 100%; it’s presumably added here because it would be sold by Vega. But Vega was unavailable until the release of Lūdi, thus leaving “Shumi’s Lost Sack Of Money” as the only source of this scroll (& randomly, at that).

All that being said, we can’t be 100.0% sure that Dr. Faymus never sold any 100% scrolls in an old retail Maple implementation, because the contents of NPC shops are all server-sided (basically, the same database where monster droptables, PC data, &c. are stored)! However, that also means that the RS developers very likely don’t have access to any info about it that can’t be found publicly on the WWW — the writing of the first relevant MSPS code (OdinMS) presumably postdated the addition of Tulcus to GMS.

If this esoteric info was recorded anywhere, it would’ve been on Hidden Street. The oldest relevant archive goes back to 2005-07-02, when GMS v4 was current — which seems to’ve not been meaningfully different from the original nonbeta release of GMS, excepting some bugfixes. The archival of the page on Kerning City NPCs can be found here. This version of HS differs from the current WBHS solely in that it doesn’t list Dr. Faymus as selling Subis, nor as selling Pizzas — so, no scrolls here. Moreover, it seems unlikely (if technically possible) that Dr. Faymus sold shoe SPEED 100%, & that Wizet simply didn’t copy-&-paste that particular entry over to Tulcus.

Of course, the possibility of discrepancies between GMS & MapleSEA (to say nothing of KMS &c.) complicates things, especially considering that this old HS info was probably(?) MapleSEA-based. But it seems overwhelmingly unlikely that Dr. Faymus ever sold any scrolls (excepting return scrolls, of course) in any pre-BB retail Maple implementations.

So anyway, the thug life was not for Suntory. That meant we had to head over to a town with 100% less jazz fusion (by volume): Henesys. But as it happened, A Hill West of Henesys was one hill too many for Suntory:

Transcription of the chatlog in the above image

Suntory: my spirit will rest easy
knowing you will live a life of crime

euprox: rest in power

When I made it to Henesys, I was greeted by none other than the man himself, Cody (depicted in this version as sitting on a raised ledge):

I then went to see Athena initiate Suntory into the cult of the arrow:

Transcription of the chat in the above image

Athena: Do you want to become a bowman?

Suntory: elven maiden
please allow me to be a bowwoman, without the bows

I’m relieved that Athena is so accepting. Suntory is a real lumberjill now!

So, uhhhhhh… now what?

Well, Maple Island was skimpy on the quests, so unsurprisingly, Vicky kinda is too. But there are still quests! Like “The Reason Behind the Mushroom Studies” — a real classic!^[4] For that, we did some grinding at the Mushroom Garden:

Regrettably, Suntory didn’t make it all the way back to Henesys with the quest items. A Hill West of Henesys strikes again!!

😅

All right, Bruce. Fork over the delectable rewards.

Transcription of the above image

Bruce: Here’s a small gift to you. This should help you on your journey. I will see you around.

Reward:
500⁢ EXP
20⁢ Red Potion
20⁢ Blue Potion

Mmkay… I like it. Consider it your protection fee.

We wanted to continue with I Need to Find My Daughter & other Ayan shenanigans (Ayanigans?), so we headed to Perion by way of Ellinia. That way, we could pick up any quests that might be lurking in Ellinia, as well.

When we arrived at the town of Ellinia, I noticed that it was, apparently, the only connexion between this Maple world & the perpetually umbral, perhaps ironically-named, world of Happyville:

In any case, with the assistance of a hidden teleporter or two, we climbed our way up from Ellinia to Perion. Ayan asked for Stumps, & we made the slight mistake of going to Perion Street Corner for that purpose:

We do need Firewoods for Blackbull, but this map is kinda just bad & has too many Dark Stumps anyway (we don’t really need those yet). R.I.P. half of my red pots.

On the bright side, Perion has a really cool weapon shoppe.

With 50 Stumps freakin’ deleted, we backtract ever so slightly. In search of Slimeage, Suntory asct me where we oughta head — the “Slime tree” is in Ellinia, right? Well… yes. For better or worse (better, IMO, given the mythic status of Slime Tree™), the term “Slime tree” has never been well-defined in general. But I was pretty sure it was in the Southern Forest, so we headed there.

I admit I got a little lost 🤭; but after checking three or so trees, we found Southern Forest I, which is as good a Slime tree as any:

We were still too weak to fight Axe Stumps with any kind of measurable efficiency, so it was time to just farm some EXPs. Rise & grind, hit the gym, grindset, buy a ticket to my self-help seminars, &c.. We needa get stronker.

Transcription of the above image

euprox: this shit is hard

Suntory: lol

euprox: no wonder i barely made it to level 30
as a kid hahaha

Suntory: yeah
this version of Mapoo asks a lot of you
i really feel like
i’ve got to sit when i can

euprox: LOL

Suntory: with no Relaxer

You know what that means: HHGII time. Granted, HHGI is probably(?) more nostalgic for most people, but HHGII is als—

Transcription of the chatbubbles in the above image

Suntory [from beyond the grave]: lol

euprox: zerking 2 hard ;~;

Oh, dear. This Maple implementation might not have the Berserk skill, but I’ll tell ya, there’s more ’zerking here than there is on an implementation that does have it. I’m not using a potion! That’s expensive. I can just stand still later, or maybe I can level up before my next potion usage. Now I’m dead! And that’s how it happens.

Oh phewf! That time, I did level up before my next potion usage. And a fine levelup indeed! Now we can do level 15 kwests.

On an unrelated note, we have more Omok Tables than Omok pieces…:

Level 15 is basically the highest level in the game (as far as we know), so we’re probably strong enough to fight Mano, right?

So anyway, that settles it. We beat MapleStory. No need to thank us.

As it turns out, the real end-boss of MapleStory isn’t Mano — it’s the ticket booth at Lith Harbour.

Now it’s time to do Blackbull’s quest frfr. Back to Perion, by way of Keming this time…

Transcription of the chatlog in the above image

Suntory: kernng city super unfriendly to disabled travelers

euprox: they really
put a ton of little fhs
instead of one big ramp fh

As a sidenote, the “Maple user list & guild” UI is, in older versions like this one, simply the “user list”:

Just a friends list and a party listing. No guilds, no alliances, no blocklists. And the window is tiny!

Anyway, this first Blackbull quest never changes. It’s nontrivially difficult (at this level, at least), & inevitably disappoints you by giving you the shittier shield:

Transcription of the above image

Blackbull: Incredible! You must be someone special to get that many. Hmm … alright, the shield is yours. It’s my favorite one. Please take good care of it.

Reward:
+750⁢ EXP
+1⁢ Random Warrior Shield (Lv. 15 or Lv. 25)

Does the Red Triangular Shield even exist?? I don’t think I’ve even once held one in my inventory.

In search of further questification, we ventured from Blackbull’s residence directly toward The Dungeon™:

Heyy! There’s the G. Mushroom we Wanted!

Believe it or not, these “Wanted” NPCs, The Rememberer, & their associated quests had to be backported! They didn’t exist even in GMS v23! And remember how there’s no way to check quest progress, even by using the “Quests” window itself (much less the “Quest Helper”…)? That’s a bit of a problem for these quests!! For this reason, The Rememberer has been given custom logic to report quest progress when you talk to him, & a custom command @rememberer so that you can do so from anywhere in the game:

Transcription of the above image

The Rememberer: Phew… I’ve been quietly meditating here, and you almost ended it. Please talk in whispers. Ah, so you’re having a hard time understanding the notice I put up on the notice board.

Your current progress is: 9 / 99 Green Mushrooms.

Please eliminate 90 more Green Mushrooms, then come back here.

Well, the Green Mushrooms are gonna have to wait, ’cause we’ve got some in tents JQing to do at The Deep Forest of Patience ⟨Steps 1 & 2⟩:

“a pile of pink flowers”? Suntory commented on the awkwardness of this name, & I have to agree. The word pile implies that the flowers have been heaped together, having no particular structure other than being in the same general spot & being under the influence of gravity. It might also imply that the heap was put there intentionally, by some agent. The idiomatic phrasing here would be a bunch of pink flowers, which implies that the flowers grow this way naturally: all bunched up.

This NPC’s name is, of course, 분홍색 꽃 무더기 ⟨bunhongsaek kkot mudeogi⟩ /⁠pun.hoŋ.se̞k k͈ot mu.tʌ̹.ki⁠/. 무더기 means “pile, heap”, whereas the idiomatic word would be 송이 ⟨song’i⟩ /⁠soŋ.i⁠/ “bunch [of flowers, grapes, …]”. So I think it’s weird in the original KMS, too.

Anywho, time to have a bunch of fun picking on monsters at Swampy Land in a Deep Forest:

In the process, we found out something very strange about Jr. Neckis in RS:

Transcription of the chatlog in the above image

Suntory: how are we not missing the Neckis

euprox: no clu

Hmmm. Just to make sure we weren’t crazy, I lookt up the stats of Jr. Neckis in GMS v8, GMS v62, & a few versions in between. Always the same: level 21; 25⁢ AVOID. Why would RS change either of those stats, much less lower them‽ Isn’t the whole point of Jr. Neckis that they’re slippery li’l danger noodles‽‽ 🐍 Whatever…

With a hundred or so more Green Mushrooms in the compost bin, we got our first sweet, sweet Rememberer reward:

Transcription of the above image

The Rememberer: I can tell you’re noble enough to do this without expecting anything return, but this is just my way of saying thank you for helping us out. Please take it.

Reward:
50⁢ White Potions
+2500⁢ EXP

Phewf!! Time for a relaxing visit to the Sleepywood Hotel’s sauna…

Transcription of the chatlog in the above image

Suntory: shoes off

euprox: sorry

Suntory: respec Sweatbottom

All right, that’s enuff slaccin’! Time to hit the streets!! Of Keming City once again, or rather below it, abandoned heavy rail, Line 1, Area 1. For the glory of Nella & the citizens of Keming. 🫡

We are stromnk!! ’Twas a strugglefest, sure, but we did it. Bubblings ain’t got shit on me. 😤

K, that’s enuff 4 now. Bai bai~ <3

Footnotes for “evprox & サントリー”

1. [↑] “Best viewed with Mozilla Firefox.” Ahh, the unmistakable aroma of 2005.
2. [↑] You heard me.
3. [↑] Toolcas, according to WBHS; perhaps this was the original GMS, or even MapleSEA localisation (of 툴카스). Presumably named for The Silmarillion character Tulkas, pronounced in Quenya as /⁠ˈtul.käs⁠/. This wouldn’t be the only Quenyan name in MapleStory. The ultimate GMS localisation (which is significantly less accurate with the final syllable’s vowel) was perhaps influenced by this genus of beetle, or else just pseudo-Latin.
4. [↑] Sorry, I mean clbuttic. Wouldn’t wanna trip the wordfilter!

(…cnvpstdf…)

cnvpstdf

Transcription of the above image

Shpongle: i actually cant get my cursor that low on the screen
no cs for me

cervid: wait fr?

Shpongle: yeah it like
hang on i can get it if i wiggle LOL

cervid: ahahaha

lv1000boss: lmao

Shpongle: ok i cant
i can touch the menu button