rangifer’s diary: pt. cxxxvii
Transcription of the above image
xKush [buddy chat]: str mage op
i used to have one in gms because i was too broke to afford mp pots
so i’d switch to a 1h mace and waited for my mp to recover
Harlez: hell yes tony
xKush: LMFAO
what a core memory u unlocked for me
baby cervid
Back on RevivalStory once again, Shpongle (Taima, Boymoder, Suntory, Kokeshi, Yunchang), lv1000boss (Lvl1Crook, xXCrookXx, Level1Crook, Macer), & myself (as aspiring STR mage cervid) pict up where we left off last time. Specifically, discovering the mysterious properties of Lith Harbour…:
Well, waddayanoe? I guess 2nd job is unnecessary for my Teleport abilities, after all…
And, speaking of 2nd-job mages, we met a level 30ish F/P wizard by the name of FireForFun. He offered us infinite riches out of the goodness of his own heart — or so it seemed. Shpongle was certain that there were strings attached…
Transcription of the chatlog in the above image
FireForFun: Here 3 bags each
cervid: hmm
Shpongle: is this a setup?
FireForFun: 30000
Thirty thousand mesos‽ Each‽‽ I don’t think so.
We had to convince FireForFun that we were, in fact, unable to accept such a generous gift, as much as we’d like to. After thanking the high-level wizard for his time, wisdom, & selfless offer, we set off upon our own path — starting with the path to 1st job.
Ah, excellent. Now I’m just the right level to advance to magician! I’d better stay level 8 until we get to Ellinia. That oughta be easy, I bet.
Along the way, we stopt at Thicket Around the Beach II to hang out & bop some hodmandods, globeknobs, & cobhogs. ’Twas in this fateful map where we bore witness to the first smega… of all time. At least, as far as we knew:
Transcription of the above image
Culosucio [smega]: J>PT GOBYS
cervid [local chat]: omg a SMEGA
Shpongle: GOBYS???
cervid: goby’s party
idk who goby is
Goby, if you’re out there, Culosucio is LF>you.
In any event, after some grinding, Shpongle & lv1000boss finally caught up to me:
Transcription of the above image
cervid: grittled!!
Shpongle: comgrats!
lv1000boss: LETS GO
cervid: great! now we’re all level 8
lv1000boss: uhh actually im level 10
cervid: uhhhhh
Shpongle: lv8+2
lv1000boss: are you still level 8? you didnt get the memo?
cervid: ..
😳 Uhhhhh… Okay, I guess I’m not supposed to be level 8 still…?
Erm. Anyway. Let’s keep going; lv1000boss is advancing first (he’s the boss), so we’ll be going through the L Fores—
Transcription of the above image
LV. 9
Beginner
cervid
cervid: omg
Shpongle: OMG
cervid: LOL
lv1000boss: 63 damage in these streets?
cervid: i forgor
Shpongle: mage no more
lv1000boss: how is that legal
LOL
cervid: hahahaha
lv1000boss: i guess your −3 sp nerd
cervid: ive just been killing stuff that gets in my way
Shpongle: damb
cervid: oop
lv1000boss: who needs 3 sp anyway
no way
Shpongle: deer does
cervid: ):
It’s a compromise, okay?? This way, I’m only one level behind everyone else… 😭
I didn’t witness lv1000boss’s advancement to tongue rongue rogue, because he had to go meet some guy in… a men’s room? Kinda weird, but all right.
Then we headed to Perion, where Shpongle was upgraded to worrier:
Sitting Bull: Do you want to become a warrior?
Shpongle: Yes, [mumbling] so long as I’m allowed to wield daggers exclusively…
Sitting Bull: Hold on. What was that last part?
Eventually, we made it three-quarters of the way round the island, to The Field Up North of Ellinia. Unfortunately for us, there was a minor Slimetastrophe that barred us from going any further…:
Transcription of the chatlog in the above image
cervid: lmfao the slimes
WHY ARE THERE SO MANY
Shpongle: slime dupe
After a while of waiting them out, the Slimes eventually melted & then evaporated into the atmosphere, to be precipitated later on in the Slime cycle. Ah, the wonders of Nature.
With that, it was finally time for me to see Heinz® Hiney Himes Hines for my own promotion:
Transcription of the above image
lv1000boss: i like ketchup
Shpongle: dont do it cervid, its a trick
cervid: ok time to do my EMBARRASSING job advancement for NOOBS
who cant count
Hines: I have ad
Thankfully, Hines had mercy upon my nooby soul, so I got compensated the 3 SP that I was expecting to’ve lost. Phewf!! My maxMP is saved. 😌
Now that we were all 1st-jobbers, we went one map south — The Field South of Ellinia — to flecks our newly-skilled combat prowess. We thus learnt first-hand how much scarier this map was in The Olden Times™:
Transcription of the chatlog in the above image
lv1000boss: hey deer go fight those green mushrooms
cervid: oh shet
NO
In GMS v62, Green Mushrooms take up just 12% of the population here, with 7 spawns. In older versions, it seems that the number of Green Mushroom spawns is 10, plus 1 extra Axe Stump spawn not present in v62. I think that a lot of the scariness that you see in the above image is actually a result of RS’s wacky mob spawn mechanics, especially considering that there’s not one, but two Axe Stumps in this cropped screenshot alone.
Although none of us were beginners any longer, it sure didn’t feel a whole lot different — at least, not yet:
Transcription of the above image
lv1000boss: this gap is so hard to jump
Shpongle: just double jump
cervid: ur a thief
just flash jump it?
lv1000boss: :(
ur a mage why not leech us with deer genesis rn
cervid: ok
ready?
lv1000boss: yert
cervid: nah ut not
ur not
i can tell
if i genesissed rn u’d be shooken
Once we got bored with this map that we couldn’t fight half of anyway, we ventured further ſouþ in search of Slime Tree. This turned out to be more difficult than expected:
Transcription of the chatbubbles in the above image
Shpongle: trapped
cervid: eep
With no downjump at our disposal, this lone Axe Stump stood between us & all forward progress! With lv1000boss being the self-appointed boss-man of our crew, we figured it was his duty to lead the way…:
Phyooph! That was a close one. I almost had to get kinda near it.
O, Slime Tree…
Once again, the hard part is always recovery. Because monsters hit hard, potions are for the moneyed élite, & chairs aren’t real, I was really starting to regret losing my medical licence…:
Transcription of the above image
lv1000boss: u guys are in critical condition
deer ur a nerd why cant u heal us
cervid: ..
i lost my medical licence ;~;
lv1000boss: D:
Shpongle: thats why the boss hired u
need underground heals
illegal Heal
cervid: yeah it wasnt cos of malpractice or anyth
i jus literally lost it
cant find it
Shpongle: damb
Often, healing means leaving Slime Tree & just standing there for minutes on end. It’s a good hoeing opportunity, but regrettably, we generally have to heal at accidental times that only somewhat overlap.
Transcription of the above image
lv1000boss: im actually going to die
they should make it so you can eat crossbow bolts for 1 hp
And, speaking of Heal, let’s talk about skillbuilds for just a sec. As a STR mage, 1st job is pretty simpol. This is my entire skillbook:
See Energy Bolt or Magic Claw anywhere? No? Good.
However, there are some real nuances. This is what I’m going for (maximum (= “master”) skill levels are underlined):
| levels | SP | skill | skill level |
|---|---|---|---|
| 8 | +1 | Improving MP Recovery | 0 → 5 |
| 9 | +3 | ||
| 10 | +1 | ||
| +2 | Improving maxMP Increase | 0 → 10 | |
| 11〜12 | +3 | ||
| 13 | +2 | ||
| +1 | Magic Guard | 0 → 10 | |
| 14〜16 | +3 | ||
| 17〜19 | +3 | Improving MP Recovery | 5 → 16 |
| 20 | +2 | ||
| +1 | Magic Armour | 0 → 10 | |
| 21〜23 | +3 | ||
| 24〜30 | [waste] | ||
| total @ lv 30 |
Improving MP Recovery | 16/16 | |
| Improving maxMP Increase | 10/10 | ||
| Magic Guard | 10/10 | ||
| Magic Armour | 10/10 | ||
| Energy Bolt | [waste] | ||
| Magic Claw | |||
Up to level 14 or so, this is hopefully self-explanatory. The first decision is where to stop levelling up Magic Guard (before coming back to, presumably, max it out later). At level 14 or so, I found my maxMP∶maxHP ratio to be a bit less than 2∶1. In more useful percentage terms, I was looking at maxMP∕(maxHP + maxMP) ≈ 65%. Okay. So maybe stop at level 8 Magic Guard, which redirects 64% of incoming damage to MP?
Wait, what? Level eight‽
You might’ve noticed in the above table that RS has lowered the master level of both Magic Guard & Magic Armour each from 20 to 10. I presume the idea was to allow mages to master both skills without having to go back & add SP later, from higher grades and/or via SPRing out of Magic Claw or something. In any case, the result is that I end up with a lot more wasted SP than expected: 21 instead of 1. I guess I’ll master Energy Bolt, for whatever that’s worth…
The other major change here is that Magic Armour is the mirror image of what it is in every other pre-BB MapleStory implementation: not a WDef buff, but a MDef buff![1] At much later levels, this could potentially come in handy, especially as an INTless[2] priest. But until then, my build is a bit hamstringed! The WDef buff was gonna be the only thing actually decreasing incoming damage for me!!
Anyway, with normal Magic Armour, I’d probably stop Magic Guard at level 3 (the minimum level to unlock Magic Armour) & max out Armour first. So instead, I max Guard right away, because MP always regenerates — as against HP, which only does so whilst I’m standing still — & so I actually benefit from Guard levels higher than would seem warranted by my maxMP∶maxHP ratio. This implies that my ideal Guard multiplier (which is 0.8 when mastered) depends in a weird way (there’s some nonlinearity due to truncating fractional parts & all that…) on my maxMP∶maxHP ratio, my MP recovery rate, how often I get hit, & how much I get hit for. I’m just gonna max Guard, & hope that I don’t get hit that hard. 🙂
The utility of Improving MP Recovery, then, is obvious. And Magic Armour goes last because MDef sucks & is also bad.
On the bright side, not having any WDef means that we can play a challenging, but fun, little game called “protect the 1-HP cervid”:
Transcription of the chatlog in the above image
lv1000boss: protecc the 1 hp deer
Shpongle: escort quest
cervid: hahah
And waddayanoe — I made it back to the town of Ellinia with 7 HP to spare! ✨ Time to turn in “I Need Help On My Homework!”:
Transcription of the above image
lv1000boss: so many pots
cervid: potsssss
lv1000boss: were RICH now
Shpongle: im practically a pothead
cervid: lmao
i feel the same way after listening to an hour of shpongle
We went to Henesys via the scenic route, since I was level ≥10 & could now pick up “The Stump Horror Story” (which lv1000boss & Shpongle had already started), & so that we could stop by the Perion & Keming City armouries.
At the ol’ KC, we came across an unexpected purchasable treat: 고무신! Even I forgor about these excellent footwears!
Strangely enough, it seems that in all GMS versions prior to somewhere between v13 () & v22 (), Gomushin were instead called Korean Rubber Shoes. Not technically inaccurate, but I definitely prefer Gomushin.[3] The RS people must’ve preferred Gomushin too, because that’s what they’re called here. Either way, you get the idea: they’re the littol shoes that make you go a littol fast.
Transcription of the chatlog in the above image
lv1000boss: you can buy goushmin [= Gomushin] for 2 speed
huuge
cervid: oh true. damb
Shpongle: black gomus, i like it
lv1000boss: deer u are only allowed to buy the smelly one
cervid: black gomu gang
lv1000boss: boss orders
cervid: too late hahaha
i alr copied ur uniform
lv1000boss: rip
Shpongle: no deer
Shpongle: this is your hazing
lv1000boss: LOL
Shpongle: cough em up
pwned
lv1000boss: is it just me or does deer kinda… you know
cervid: oh my lord
they are
indeed aromatic
lv1000boss: pleasant smell that makes me lose my lunch
cervid: I LOOKED BETTER IN THE BLAC ONES
lv1000boss: blephgfphpfghpghhpphfh
sorry deer. we dont make the rules
cervid: you do!!!
(the tears are from being bullied & also the stench)
In any case, we skrrted our brrts on over to Henesys 2% faster, which brought us 2% closer to completing “The Reason Behind The Mushroom Studies”. Naturally, this quest is always a solid excuse to party like it’s — that is, at Mushroom Garden:
And the EXP ain’t half bad!
Looks like it’s time to wield the purce that I bought at the local market:
Transcription of the chatlog in the above image
cervid: purse moment.
Shpongle: purce
💪🏽😤
Oh, & that also means that I can fame people now:
Transcription of the above image
[system message]: You have raised ‘lv1000boss’’s level of fame.
cervid: there u go boss
[system message]: ‘lv1000boss’ have dropped ‘cervid’’s level of fame.
cervid: omfg
HE DEFAMED ME
Shpongle: LOL
lv1000boss: lol i had to
timer its your choice
defame deer for riches beyond your wildest dreams
cervid: hahaha naurr
lv1000boss: or fame deer to restore balance to the universe
Shpongle: i already famed you
i can defer my choice a whole 24 hours
😔
And I s’pose it’s RS’s 5th anniversary, because the monsters were — very occasionally — dropping Mapleversary presents:
For better or worse, it seems a bit optimistic to expect that we’ll get… really any raffle pulls this event, considering our clearly subpar KPMs…
That being said, it’s inch resting to see how RS’s approach to seasonal events compares to MapleL5s’s. Whereas MapleL5s for the most part insists on massive & often game-occluding events that are different-but-not-really-different every time, accompanied by the weeks- & frequently months-long delays that any MapleL5ser is well-accustomed to, RS seems to know exactly what seasons there are & how their respective events work — so it can just be automated! Ahh, the wonders of computer programming…
The downsides, presumably, are that the events here are even more predictable than in MapleL5s, & that the events aren’t so massive as to virtually compel a large segment of the game’s latent population to actually log in & play (for some value of “play”…). In my estimation,[4] this is a smol price to pay for events that are dependable, & that — vastly more importantly — occlude neither the main game nor its further development.
And, speaking of random monster drops, I found a very nifty pair of Ice Jeans!!
Transcription of the chatlog in the above image
lv1000boss: nice pantz
cervid: ty hahah
Shpongle: NICE deer
They’re stylish, and they protecc my bum! ✨
With Bruce’s quest done as heck, we were feeling pretty stromnk. So stromg, in facked, that it was time to take on the ultimate boss of the Mapleverse: Mano.
😤😤😤
For sooth, the real reason we were headed Lithward was to hit up our boi John the fisherman. Whilst we were there, we got stucc (a new experience for lv1000boss) in that damb ticket booth:
Since we were permanently stuck, we went ahead & deleted our characters, only to make new ones to the exact same specifications, down to the individual EXP point — it’s like it didn’t even happen.
For John’s quest, we had to venture into the bowels of Vicky Island for the first time. The “safest” way seemed to be via Henesys, but this was mostly because the Krrrning sewers seemed too high-level, & we didn’t want to cross to the opposite dang’d side of the island just to take the Perry On route.
Unfortunately, the Henesys route has its own share of perils. There’s just one (1) sneaky littol Blue Mushroom spawn (I think this was changed to a Slime in later versions) that threatens to throw any passerby overboard, and…
Transcription of the chatbubbles in the above image
cervid: holy shet lMAO
Shpongle: shiet
You’d better believe it. I tanked a solid two or three hits from those stony G’s (as I call ’em) & somehow lived to tell the tale! Three cheers for Magic Guard…!
With my newfound bone trauma or whatever the heq those Gollems gave me, I did some Greenish Mushroomesque grinding with the gang, at our first point of Sleepywood arrival: Swampy Land in a Deep Forest.
Don’t get me wrong; Swampy Land is a high-quality map, generally speaking. But we ran out of grinds to grind within no more than 25 minutes or so, partly on account of the pesky Horned Mushrooms — & don’t forget the Jr. Neckis (at least they’re not Sr. Neckis)!
Transcription of the chat in the above image
Shpongle [from beyond the grave]: omg
lv1000boss: she died
cervid: omG
With that, it was thyme for something a little more lightweight. At least, a little more lightweight on the ol’ potion purce. That’s right: The Deep Forest of Patience (mostly ⟨Step 2⟩).
Mmmm… more bone trauma. But this time, from fall damage! (That would be autumn damage, for readers outside of North America.)
Because Shpongle is a worrier, autumn damage just makes her go faster:
And o boi, did we do it. Pink flower piles for everyone!
I think that’s about enuff babyie cervid for now. I’d better log off before—
Transcription of the chatlog in the above image
lv1000boss: if i have one request, it is to defame deer
Shpongle: granted
[system message]: ‘Shpongle’ have dropped ‘cervid’’s level of fame.
cervid: omg pls
Footnotes for “baby cervid”
-
[↑] Considering that RS’s version of Magic Armour has no precedents, & considering that mages, of all people, really didn’t need any help with MDef, highly INTelligent as they so often are, I can only imagine that this change is a metaphysico-diëgetic reïnterpretation: from “magically enhancing the mage’s armour (to supplement the mage’s lack of real armour)” to “armour that protects against magic”. On this reading, then, the original version of Magic Armour is confused: there’s a dissonance between its name & its function.
Granted, this proposed reading is difficult to arrive at, given that the skill’s description has always (in all pre-BB versions of GMS, including beta ones) read:
Temporarily boosts the weapon def. of the armor by blowing magic into it.
Which (relatively speaking) has unusually clear metaphysico-diëgetic meaning, considering this is MapleStory we’re talking about here.
With that aside, I should at least be a bit more clear about what I mean by metaphysico-diëgetic. Very crudely speaking, we have something like four distinguishable perspectives from which we can interpret the game:
- game-physical
- The perspective of the absolute limits of the game, which circumscribe precisely what exists in the game, & what these game-objects’ causal relationships are to one another; i.e. what can possibly happen in the game, & how these things can happen — including underlying causal elements that may or may not be directly observable (MAcc, FHs, &c.). With videogames, this is typically(!) defined entirely by computer programming; but other games have rules too.
- ludic
- The perspective of people playing the game for itself; that is, playing the game without reference to anything not strictly relevant to it, as if it were separate from “real life”. The perspective might be that of any number of persons, so as to accommodate social games (e.g. MapleStory).
- anthropological
- The perspective of the game’s place in “real life”, & thus how it interacts with people’s lives. This includes anthropological & sociological perspectives, so the double hermeneutic becomes particularly relevant here.
- metaphysico-diëgetic
- The perspective of treating the game-physics as if it conditioned, & were mutually conditioned by, a discernible diëgetic world. This perspective invites us to imagine that the game-physics per sē doesn’t exist in its own right, but rather, is immanent to a broader diëgetic world whose only laws are specifically those which are narratively plausible. (On this perspective, it makes sense to ask what it would be like to be a character in the game, in the most literal sense — i.e. to inhabit the diëgetic world.) If taken to its logical conclusion, this diëgetic world is merely implemented by the game-physics, such that the game-physics is immaterial except insofar as it correctly represents the diëgesis.
Clearly, these mutually interact & overlap quite a bit.
A given metaphysico-diëgetic perspective is inherently post hoc inasmuch as the game reserves the right to furnish its own diëgetic elements by fiat: if these apparently conflict with the game-physics, then so much the worse for our metaphysician. In the specific case of MapleStory, really very little in the way of diëgesis is given at all (even a seemingly self-evident principle like visually indicating FHs is freely violable, as in e.g. certain JQs), leaving our metaphysician with virtually unlimited latitude to invent metaphysico-diëgetic justifications — & unjustifications — ad hoc.
Anyway, that’s all I got for ya. What? You wanted a whole essay? Go write your own essay, ya silly goose. 🪿
-
[↑] Actually, I prefer the term INTelligence-free…
-
[↑] The specific Romanisation *⟨gomushin⟩ is idiosyncratic; more usually, it would be ⟨gomusin⟩. Korean only has two fricative phonemes (three, if you count ㅎ /h/): ㅅ /s/ and ㅆ /s͈/. There’s no place contrast, so /s/ gets (alveolo-)palatalised before /i/ as expected — hence the *⟨sh⟩ — but the difference is actually entirely allophonic. Presumably, they’d write 씬 as *⟨sshin⟩? *⟨shshin⟩?? Oh, I know: *⟨sshhin⟩. Hell ya.
-
[↑] Once again, if, for impenetrable reasons, you care about my estimation, then I oughta mention this essay that I wrote a while ago (I don’t really remember it, but I’m sure I got the main points in there somehow): Fatigue & loathing in MapleLegends events: A savage journey to the heart of the treadmill.
granny cervid
Oh, that’s not all the cervid for this entry, though. You thought you could get off the hook that easy? It’s time for a trip back to MapleL5s, to meet back up with cervid The Elder.
I found myself at Warped Passage once again, for all its colourful chasmata, nebular mists, & psychedelic LEGO® scenery, accompanied by fellow G8keeper h8r Boymoder (Taima, Shpongle, Kokeshi, Suntory).
A grind is a grind, but this one ahead of me isn’t quite so long as before. Unusually for the so-called farm, grind, train, scum, & al., each Gatekeeper is a great keeper of lump sums, leaper of “X.P.”, each a ladder’s rung; not to anywhere in particular, but the light at the end of the tunnel takes the form of a number: one, three, five. Odd.
Transcription of the chatlog in the above image
cervid: guess wart
[system message]: ⟨Party⟩ cervid has reached Lv.135.
Boymoder: O_O
But no number is special (except the ones that are). I’m still the same broom-riding, scythe-wielding, wild-eyed hag. And I love a good party.
Speaking of parties, why not one of the Zaqqūm variety? Not my first Zakkem whack-’em on this character, but certainly my first for which I actually get any measurable amount of EXP!
I wound up doing some two or three pairs of Zaqqy-waqqies hosted by Gock/Harlez (VigiI, Murhata), including this one with SquashOver, Matttyyy, & REGlS:
Naturally, Zaqqūm EXP is extremely substantial at my level, so it wouldn’t be long before I squeezed squoze out another one o’ them levels. But, as it happened, that would be at Warped Passage once again — this time with F/P gish Fabiennes (SwordFurb, Furbs, SwordFurbs, Yoshis) & the full crew!
one is the loneliest colour
Whew, that was a lot of cervid. But you know me: always 🍁📖.
As disgust in previous entries, I’m not very good at solo Maypol. Three’s a crowd, two’s a party, & one’s not even an MMOG anymore. But RS is still ✨new✨ to me, so… fricken… I’m gonna try it anyway. Try to stop me. See what happens. 😤
We’ve already borne witness to the births of (baby) cervid & euprox, so we don’t need to run the whole thing back. Let’s fast-forward a bit.
Meet unicolor, the career courier currier worrier warrior:
Don’t you worry — I’m not just any worrier. I’m perfectly balanced. ⚖️
The basic idea is simpol: 50% STR & 50% LUK. Because LUK gives twice as much AVOID as DEX does, this oughta put me roughly on par with the AVOID of a DEX warrior. On the other hand, for technical reasons,[1] the 50% STR oughta put my damage output above that of the DEX warrior; moreover, it allows me to equip ordinary warrior gear — albeit only at a significantly later level than a STR warrior would — which also contributes to both offence & defence. Cool, right?
There is a catch. But we’ll find out about that later. For now, I’m just stoked to have found some Ice Jeans!!:
Can’t wear ’em quite yet, but that’s pretty yuge.
unicolor was actually my first character to really face off with The Blushroomb Of Doomb™…
But I didn’t even fall to my doomb! I guess there was really nothing to worry about, after all. The route from Henesys to Sleepywood is totally safe — I tested it.
And, speaking of Sleepywood, the first thing that I did there was a truly inadvisable amount of grinding at Swampy Land in a Deep Forest. I got kinda lucky with the spawns at first, which tempted me to finish my 99 Grushroombs without having to go to Ellinia (or really, Henesys even) & back. My brane was also falling apart a little, clearly, because my solution was to spend probably more pots than I really needed to so that I could deal with the Hushroombs via a combination of dodging, luring, & cowardly Hushroomb-slaying.
Anyway. I did it. Now I’m levol 16~! Time for Ice Jeans and Iron Body! I’m basically invincible now.
Approximately two minutes later, I learnt the relativity of invincibility:
Oh, dear. After getting my ass yoten by the Blushroomb Of Doomb, I managed to make it to the rope — only to die to one last Stone Gollem touch-attack. 😔
It’s worth noting that I plausibly could’ve survived had I started with full HP, and/or if RS’s client were more liberal with Use item consumption.[2] I find the difference between the RS & MapleL5s clients to be much more noticeable in this respect than in respect of downjumping. Being able to spam potions in MapleL5s is kind of a huge deal! And this is true not only when desperately trying to survive hits too large for your wimpy Red Potions, but also when trying to use potions whilst attacking (possible in MapleL5s… not so much in RS), & even when concurrently trying to recover (say) both HP & MP from more than one distinct potion-type. RS is, shall we say, a littol more “turn-based”!
In any event, you guest it: it’s time to fork over that pile of flowers to Johnny. Off to Lith!
I might be no match for the real stronkest boss in all of MapleStory (viz. the Stone Gollem), but at least I can flecks on Mano & his goofy snail whiskers. 🥸
Given my experience playing euprox with Suntory (Taima, Shpongle, Boymoder, Kokeshi), I was thinking I could take on Nella’s first quest or two right about now — & that means Bubbolings. Sure, it wouldn’t be easy, but… it workt last time, right…?
Remember how I said there’s a “catch” to this whole STR+LUK hybrid thing? Well, my WAcc is actually… how do I say this… not good. At least, not yet. At lower levels, the difference in WAcc between DEX (↦ 0.8) & LUK (↦ 0.5) is quite noticeable, & the gap is almost twofold wider still, if we compare to a DEX worrier. If unicolor were a MapleL5s character, then the main difference would be in “stretching” (as it were) my WAcc to accomplish things at an abnormally low level (whether for EPH purposes, or just to flecks on the woesome STR warriors extra hard). In RS, however, WAcc ain’t so easy to come by.[3]
Suffice it to say that, at the point where I felt my potions were Bubbling over, losing too much jooce to reasonably continue, I had but a half-dozen paltry Bub’s Huge Bubs:
With no other quests truly available to me, it was time to just do Blackbull’s.
Believe it or not, Axe Stumps don’t really have a good map — at least, not in these O.G. versions. My MapleL5s instincts guide me to ERM III, with its healthy population of 26 Axe Stump spawns making up 65% of the population (the rest being Dark Stumps). But in GMS prior to v49 (, a.k.a. the 4th-job patch), the same map has only half as many Axe Stumps, putting them at a mere 39% of the population (the rest being Dark Stumps, Stumps, & Red Snails). ERM II isn’t much help, with 32% Axe Stumps (reduced to zero by v49); & ERM IV is worse still, at a measly 9% Axe Stumps (improved to 50% by v49).
In the end, I went between ERM II (pictured below) & III for the better part of an hour.
Granted, the Steel Shield has loose enough requirements that I can already wield it, but I’m gonna sticc with my Metal 🤘🏽🔥🤘🏽 Axe for now.
I’ve now positively no choice but to just grind. Time to make HHGI my new home for like three days…
H2ll y2ah, I’m l2v2l 20 n0w! 😎 I didn’t even know that levels go that high!!
That means I can do Shumi’s first quest. LUKily, I know the B1 JQ like the back of my hoof by now.
It is, in a way, gratifying to think that I used to be so pitifully bad at JQs that I avoided them at all costs, until that one time in ish when I had my sights set so firmly on a Zaqqūm Helmet that I spent like two days(!) completing the relevant JQ once.[4] Nowadays, I benefit from the wisdom of the masters that has been generously passed on to me. I mean, I’m still not particularly good at JQing, but… you know. The point is that it’s basically free EXP & items whenever I hit the minimum level for a JQ:
Transcription of the above image
Shumi: Besides, I borrowed this coin for a sec because apparently it brings good luck. Anyway thanks a lot. I can now return it to my friend, all thanks to you…and here, as a small sign of appreciation, this is for you. I collected these from different towns I’ve visited over time.
Reward:
+4000 EXP
+1 Fame
+30 Random Town Scrolls
Now, considering that my only source of EXP for the past while has been bopping Slimes at HHGI, a phat stacc of 4k EXP feels pretty good. Even so, the 30 Return Scrolls to Kerning City might feel even better. I’ve been travelling exclusively by hoof for literally(!) months now, so these 30 gratis warp-me-ups will be expended wisely.
And, speaking of wise expenditure, at long last I made my way to Perion’s armoury — at the level I told myself I would.
Oh, yes. Yr grrl unicolor is a noob no more! I’m a fully-armoured worrier!! Sort of. Check it out:
| slot | item | W |
|---|---|---|
| weapon | Iron Mace | 39 |
| shield | Steel Shield | 15 |
| hat | Bronze Viking Helm | 20 |
| top | Orange Lolica Armor | 15 |
| bottom | Ice Jeans | 13 |
| shoe | we don’t talk about it | |
Wanting to continue questing, I decided to just keep track of which Etc items I needed for any of my quests, considered as a whole — even if they didn’t seem immediately completable. That brought me back to ERM III, but this time for the Leaves:
(Ultimately for Maya’s first questline.)
And I s’pose it was time to try Bubs again with my new gear…
It was still a real strugglefest, but this time, I at least made it to 100 Bub’s Huge Bubs (half for “Mrs. Ming Ming’s First Worry”). Phewf!
I think it might’ve been a mistake to go Power Strike first. Slash Blast is a lot more expensive per use, so I thought I was getting away with something by bringing Power Strike up to — but no higher than — level 10, which is the level immediately before its cossed gets bumpt up. However, Slash Blast is just really good. It costs so much because it’ll save you that much in touch-attacks that you won’t take!
Power Strike did, however, come in plenty useful for collecting ten Stirge Wings:
(Ultimately for “Luke The Security Guy”.)
For Nella’s 3rd request, I needed a ton of Octo Legs. Certainly, the most convenient location at which to farm these was Kerning City Construction Site, so…
Wow. That is — not to put too fine a point on it — a metric frickton of Grushroombs & Orshroombs. You can’t see most of the Orshroombs in the above image, but here’s what the bottom of the scaffolding looks like:
Overall, a considerably higher-level map than what you get in GMS v49+: quite a few Grushroombs, no snayl (just Orshroomb), & Octopodes at even the low levels of the scaffold. I’m not sure how accurate this is to old GMS — especially the density of the spawns — but it’s definitely something.
Oh, yeah. Speaking of mob density, there’s also The Ledge™:
Anyway, I’m really just here for the Octopodes. Some 90ish minutes later, I had cleared the map enough times to get my dambed Octo Pods…
It was worth it, though, because my reward was a Venon! My first glub evar!!
Transcription of the item in the above image
Venon
- Req lev : 20
- Req STR : 60
- [Required archetype:] warrior
- Category : glove
- Weapon def. : 7
- Number of upgrades available : 5
Now I needed some 200 Pig’s Ribbons (for “Mrs. Ming Ming’s First Worry” & “Alex The Runaway Kid”), so I decided to make The Rain-Forest East of Henesys my new home for a while:
And, conveniently, The Blushroomb Forest isn’t far from the rainforest — which explains how Pia got mugged by one of the Blushroombs.
’Twas here where I found my first scrol… sord scrol……
Transcription of the item in the above image
Scroll for Two-handed Sword for ATT
Add option for attack on two-handed sword. Success rate:10%, weapon attack+5, STR+3, weapon def.+1
Basically pocket lint. But maybe I’ll frame it & put it up in the living roomb.
Mrs. Ming Ming wants even moar Slime Bubs, so I think we bolth know where this is going…
Got some free time? Fight some tree Slime!
And yes, I am hacking. How else could I basic-attack that Slime with my one-handed melee weapon from all the way down here?
Now I’m level 23 (✨waow~!✨), a.k.a. the mfing “Camila’s Gem” level. I get the impression that this quest (& indeed, Camila herself) didn’t originally exist in GMS, & in particular, not in whichever version RS started with. As a result, there’s no portal to Utah’s Pig Farm (which would be at The Forest East of Henesys), & instead, starting the quest simply automagically warpt me to the farmb:[5]
Transcription of the NPC chat in the above image
Camila: Really? Thank you, thank you so much!! Here’s the marble. I even carved a message for Utah on it. I sent you to Utah’s Farm through a shortcut. Good luck!
The quessed itself is the same tho, so I fricken naild it.
Transcription of the above image
Utah: Who are you? Whoa, isn’t that the marble that Camila so preciously takes care of? How did you get that??? What? Camila asked you to get me that for my birthday? Wow, that’s just awesome. This is a very precious item, you know. Now that the farming is almost done, I may have to go see Camila to say thanks.
Reward:
30 Cakes or Pig Illustrated
+5500 EXP
I was holding my breath for the reward… And thankfully, I got what every girl dreams of: my very own Pig Bible.
Hell ya. If I can level up twice (big “if”), I can start slapping some freaken’ fungi around with it.
Unfortunately, “Mrs. Ming Ming’s First Worry” is actually the most difficult quest in the entire game. Wherefore, thou askest? It requires one whole Garnet! Darn it!! So far, I’ve accumulated a grand total of zero (0) Garnet Ores, so unless I wanna hunt Dork Stumps for the next month or so (yes, that would actually be my best bet at this level), that one’s gonna halve 2 weight.
That means all my quests are now requiring me to venture into… the Ant Tunnel (so called because it has absolutely no ants whatever). I would have dramatic music playing for this bit, but actually, I’d probably end up training in the Ant Tunnel anyway, even if there were no quests bringing me here. Go figure.
As even meſelfe þͤ fauune youngþly of lang yeſtertide knew, the Ant Tunnel is mostly Hushroombs, Zushroombs, more Hushroombs, & even more Zushroombs.
At least, at first.
This might be unicolor’s first foray into tunnelling, but I go hard.
I had to push past a couple of Evil Eyes to get here, but I made it. Made it to Ant Tunnel Park, home of the “Mobile Store” that never moves & that sells everything except for the things that it doesn’t sell.
There’s one thing in particular, however, that I know to not be one of the things that this store doesn’t have. A questionable pricetag for an otherwise unspecified “Salad” of various leafy greens & yellows, but I’ll take it. It’s… for a friend?
Now, I love me a good salad, so I almost guzzled the thing down immediately. Thankfully, the WBHS entry has my back on this one:
4. Buy 1 Bowl of Salad. (Do not eat it.)
So instead, I let it moulder in my haversack whilst I made my way to CoEEI:
Oh, yes. Sure, the Evil Eyes are a few levels higher than me, but if I just keep flailing my weapon around, eventually some of them will die. Right…?
Emphasis on “some”. I do not phuq around w/ the Jr. Boogers. Not even near them.
I had actually been keeping around a Scroll for Helmet for WDef 100% for a bit, unsure if I wanted to use it on this hat. But, you know. Once I started fighting Evil Eyes, I said “to henmk with it”, & now it’s 21 WDef. Pretty crazy, right?
The thing that really kept me going was, of course, potion management. I was careful to be at least a bit œconomicall with my simoleons, so I bought something like 50 Hot Dog Supremes from the Salad guy. Hot Dog Supremes do indeed have quite the supreme HP∶meso ratio, but that’s still like 26k mesors. Ouch…
As it happened, I had just enough potionage to finish the Hushroomb, Zushroomb, & Evil Eye 99-kill quests — & that’s counting the potions that I was able to get from @rememberer for each quest completed along the way!
And, for my valorous efforts, I was rewarded:
😤😤😤😤
Time for Pig Bible and that pair of Gold Earrings (f.k.a. Gold Rings) that I got from a Zushroomb!!
Powerful!!! 💪🏽💪🏽
Hopefully we’ll see even moar unicolor in the future‽ Mayhap even a 2nd job advancement at some point‽‽ I suspect that, given the name [Rusa] unicolor, she just might take after her nanna rusa by advancing to spearman polearmwoman. But feel more than free to drop your own opinion about how she should actually be a fighter down in “the comments”, as always.
Ok baiiiii…! 🧡
Footnotes for “one is the loneliest colour”
-
[↑] If I ever finish the guide to low-STR warriors that MapleL5s brought me to ragequit at about ≈2 weeks of work in, then you’ll be able to read the gory details.
Also, the astute reader might’ve noticed that gaining 5 AP per levelup is incompatible with maintaining an exactly 50/50 STR/LUK split (unless I save an AP every other level). The actual constraint is STR ≤ LUK ≤ STR+1.
-
[↑] I suspect that this has something to do with “tubi”, but someone with more knowledge of the specifics of Maple client internals (read: literally anyone who’s ever decompiled a Maple client) would know better. Tubi, or not tubi… that is th— ahem.
-
[↑] euprox & Suntory presumably had an easier time on account of their needing ≥25 base DEX to even take the 1st grade advancement, plus their passive skills that serve as suī generis sources of WAcc: Nimble Body & The Blessing of Amazon, respectively.
-
[↑] Yeah, this was, erm, back in MapleRoyals times. You know MapleRoyals is still running at the time of this writing? That’s crazy. Anyway…
-
[↑] It appears that the GMS version that added this content was somewhere between v14 & v19 ( & ), inclusive, making it roughly as old as the 3rd grade. Notable is that Utah’s Pig Farm has map ID 900000000, which would seem to make it the first map in the general “9” category, used for special maps (e.g. event-only maps) that don’t need a geographic association. If Utah’s Pig Farm were part of the Victoria category, then that first digit would be a “1” instead. (Maple Island & the Training Camp use “0”.)
If I had to guess, pre-Camila versions of MapleStory didn’t have programmable portals (“portal scripts”), thus making it technologically impossible to have a portal that would check the PC’s quest status to determine whether to warp them to the relevant map. Because RS backported “Camila’s Gem”, they were forced to use an NPC script for this purpose instead.
püdü & こけし: aspiring minifigs
Waiwait hold up. Knots oaf assed. I still have yet more new characters with which to torment you, my dear reader. Say hellow to pudu & Kokeshi (Taima, Shpongle, Boymoder, Suntory):
pudu & Kokeshi aren’t the first, but are perhaps the first on MapleL5s — & at the very least, the first of Taima or myself — Lūdibrium-locked characters (commonly known as LEGOmen, although I prefer the term minifigs).
Of course, for better or worse, we cannot elect our birthplace, just as much in MapleStory as in real life. Like any other MapleL5s PCs, Kokeshi & pudu were born at the exact same point in space, just above a wooden bridge to nowhere (pictured above), with noöne but Sera — the Maple World’s collective surrogate mother — to welcome them into this life, burdened as she is with the unlimited task of interminable midwifery at a global scale.
Kokeshi & pudu will have therefore no choice but to make their way to the town of toys, whether by means puckish or polite, on their own.
Transcription of the chat in the above image
Kokeshi: here we are, Ludibrium
pudu: legolock is ez
theres only one type of monster
Kokeshi: locked here forever
Oh. Well that was easy.
…
Anyway…
Before we outstrip any further our memories of birth, we oughta have a word on nomenclature.
To the surprise of, to be sure, noöne who’s ever read my diary before, Pudu is a genus of deer. They’re native to the western bits of South America, where they’re split into the northern pudu (= ?Pudu mephistophiles) & the southern pudu (= Pudu puda). Actually, the taxonomy of pudus is — like that of cervids in general, really — controversial, or at least unsettled. In the case of pudus, Pudella carlae was only first described last year(!), making it the first extant cervid species to be described this millennium. If the extremely recent literature is correct, then the northern pudu is actually Pudella mephistophiles (hence the “?” above), cleaving the northern & southern pudus into their own two genera, with Pudella being further split into P. mephistophiles and P. carlae.
In any case, pudus are really smol deer — indeed, the smollest — with cute pokey little unbranched antlers.
It should be noted that the stress in pudu is on the final syllable; in English, that would be /puːˈduː/. This pronunciation is from Castilian pudú. This is, in turn, ultimately from Mapudungun püdü /pɘ.θɘ/. Just be glad I didn’t go with ludeerbrium.
On the other hand, ⟨kokeshi⟩ is the Hepburn Romanisation (⟨kokesi⟩ in Nihonsiki)[1] of こけし, a sort of limbless wooden Japanese doll designed as a children’s toy. They’re pretty cute & I think you can play dress-up with some of them. Clearly, more on-brand than the name I went with.
Anyway, the Maypo Lie Lunned experience is always good fun. Unfortunately, the grand finale was spoiled by an unexpected bug — a serious bug in one of the game’s most longstanding quests, no less:
Transcription of the chatlog in the above image
[system message]: You have gained experience (+30)
You have lost items (5 Blue Snail Shell)
You have lost an item (Orange Mushroom Cap)
You have gained an item (Red Sporty Cap)
Kokeshi: umm
Red Sporty Cap
pudu: wot
Kokeshi: he said he was giving me a fruit knife
pudu: same
its freaking bugged?
Oh, well. Time to say gooby:
Now that we’d sidegraded from being reluctant Maple Island tourists to being reluctant Vicky Island tourists, we had two opposite ends of the island to visit. We began by making our way to the 3-Way Road-Split, past the Kerning City Middle Forest, & through the L Forest:
Surprise, surprise! I paid a visit to the local erm… “Beer Bar” (I dunno, that’s just what it says on the sign) to become a certified thief. Unfortunately, my thievery licence only applies within Kerning city limits. Guess I’ll just have to turn to a life of crime.
Non-alcoholic Beer Shield? I wonder if perhaps Necks0n™ learnt their lesson with the Game Rating and Administration Committee because of this map.I did think a lot about my character-build, as always. But this time, it was more about agonising over which general sort of job to conform to. In a way, I’d already decided on pudu’s job quite early on — but that was my default plan of making her a crossbow forester sans area/metallic restrictions. Although I’m neither strongly opposed to this original idea nor in love with it, it’s perhaps for the best that I don’t expand my MapleL5s-proper (i.e. sans subgames) gameplay beyond cervid.
But actually, scratch that. What honestly matters is that I’ve at least someone(s) to play with; someone(s) who will, in particular, tolerate what it takes for me to keep the Mapling healthy. For now, that’s mostly just making a new character — & in some cases, on a new server (viz. RS), at that.
With that in mind, I moved from one idea of making a DEXdit to… deciding on LUK dit instead. Huh‽ Like, just a bandit that isn’t even odd‽‽ Yerp. The ol’ Banned Dit. I realised that the DEXdit was already not my favourite odd job, & that playing a Lūdi-locked one would only make it worse by giving me no options for clothing — nudity is, after all, frowned upon by the citizens of the perhaps ironically-named Lewd-y.
Hopefully this time it’ll stick. I’ve yet to properly play a CB in my Maple career, & I really ought to.
Anywho, time to hoof it across the island — to Ellinia!
Heinz changed his name to Grendel (weirdly evil choice, but okay); nevertheless, he’s still the old man we know & love, & he’ll still slap a “magician” sticker on any rando who happens to wander by with more INTelligence than they know what to do with:
![[1st Job] Congratulations to Kokeshi on becoming a Magician!](https://deer.codeberg.page/diary/136/kokeshi-becomes-a-magician.webp "[1st Job] Congratulations to Kokeshi on becoming a Magician!")
Little does he know, however, Kokeshi is destined to be a LEGOlocked gish of the ice-&-lightning flavour (a delectable pairing)! ⚔️🧊🗡️⚡⚔️
We haven’t talked about roolz yet. Basically, you can become a fully-fledged minifig — as against a merely aspiring minifig, like we are now — at any character level ≤30. But before that, you can kinda go nuts, because the ascension to fully-fledged LEGOlocker comes with its own roolz that strip you of your items & stuff. Nonetheless, we decided to — ultimately for reasons of æsthetic enjoyment — play it pretty austerely.
This meant, amongst other things, minimising the number of non-LEGOlock-available quests that we did that weren’t categorised as either “Maple Island” or “Job” quests. But that still left available our “Training Session” quests!
Another thing was that we weren’t funding ourselves & weren’t using transport, so we waulkt… a lot. In fact, we did our Training Sessions concurrently, so there was a whole lotta waulking back & forth between Keming City & Ellinia!
It was on these waulks where we found ourselves not once, but twice(!) assailed(!!) by The Red Snails Of Treachery!!!
(Apologies for the crappy screencap. Screencrap?)
It might not look like much at first, but that’s how they get you. If you enter this map from East Domain of Perion, you spawn at the portal pictured at the top of the above image. Because this portal is on a FH that also happens to spawn The Red Snails Of Treachery, there’s nothing stopping — nor even discouraging — said gastropods from just so happening to be on the portal, thus (assuming no “MISS”, &c.) instantly launching your unsuspecting pixels rightward & into the pit of Wild Boar!!
Legitimately, I almost died the first time this happened.
Anyhow, for “Beginner Magician’s Last Training Session”, we finally took on the Dark’s Thumps of The Field Up North of Ellinia (the ol’ Fune, as I call it) in heated battol:
And, for “Beginner Thief’s Last Training Session”, I jus needed two feet’s worth of Oct-toes:
Whilst we were here at the Kemimg City Comstructiom Site, Kokeshi unleasht her newfound magickall powers for the first time:
Soon enough, not only were her moves intimidating, but so was her fashion:
Transcription of the chatlog in the above image
Kokeshi: White Bandana + any of the maces
pudu: hell ya
so much fasion
Kokeshi: pretty hardcore look
’Twas here in our old friend the Slime Tree where we ground out a few levels.
Largely because of our ascetic vows, I found what was at this point my main attack — Double Stab — to be stuck in an awkward, if usable, spot:
Transcription of the above image
pudu: my skill build is all over the place
i stopped at level 4 double stab becuase [sīc]
level 5 costs 1 extra mp
Oh, pls. One extra MP? Yep! Mind you, I’m spending that MP per attack (putting aside when I use the much cheaper basic-attack, of course), so it adds up quickly. Indeed, level 20 (i.e. mastered) Double Stab costs 2⅓ times as much as level 4. Moreover, it only deals about 1⅘ times as much damage. Level 4 is already far more powerful than a basic-attack: not only does it deal a lucky 88% × 2 = 176% damage, but it also effectively lowers my attack speed category by two (actually one, because my Beginner Thief’s short sword is speed 3 clean).[2]
Unlike with some portions of the (rather frequent) Slime Tree action that we’ve been seeing lately, we had no particular reason to be training on Slimes. Our “Training Sessions” were the end of our pre-minifig questational journeys, so we were just tryna get some EXPs. On that note… why not mick sit up?
Pig Beach, a.k.a. 🍑, is a classic training spot in more ways than one. Not only does it exist in every version of pre-BB MapleStory (yes, even beta versions), it also in no way fits the paradigms developed for training-maps added in later pre-BB versions.
At a great distance, the bottom of the map looks vaguely flat. But that’s only because of how longe this dang map is, & the right-hand half is, in actuality, so profuse of large rectilinear steps that it becomes a matter of difficulty to land solid hits with most weapons. The top of the map, then, is more haphazard still, constantly threatening to throw you off its half-dozen or so platforms & into the pig pit below. What really brings it all together is that the map’s structure is actually entirely linear (with the slight exception of falling down from above), because there’s no way to get to any of the upper platforms without climbing the big rope on the right-hand edge of the map & then making your way leftward — without falling, mind you! The map is therefore effectively almost twice as long as it looks, which is saying a lot.
Furthermore, the population itself is (again, by later standards) strange: the Piggos & Ribbon Piggos are the main event, but there are also quite a few Red & Blue Snayles, and — of course — the infamous singular Iron Hogge. The latter proved to be quite a nuisance (or, a nuisance, as they say in French) for the two of us. It wasn’t a few times we found ourselves announcing, with resignation, “I angered the Iron Hogge…”.
None of this is to say that Pig Beach is “bad”, nor anything so silly as that. It has a lot of charm, at least some of which derives from its more spontaneous & unique design. And, even at our level, it’s really a pretty good spot if you have one extra person (i.e. a trio), so that one (presumably slightly weaker) character can take the top whilst the other two split the bottom of the map.
One of the virtues of Pigs, certainly, is that they drop Red-Striped T-Shirts:
Transcription of the items in the above image
Pink Ox Outfit
Available until
- Category : NX overall
Designed by the China MapleStory player pipi.
Red-Striped T-Shirt (Female)
- Req lev : 11
- Category : top
- Weapon def. : 13
- Number of upgrades available : 7
With a few more levels under my belt, I was starting to realise how desperately I’d need to be rescued by Savage Blow:
Transcription of the above image
pudu: im not gonna have enough sp to max double stab
Kokeshi: omg
pudu: even leaving disorder at the lowest level [= 3, to unlock Dark Sight]
no its ok
ill get savage blow
Kokeshi: Savage Bl0w
pudu: le bleaux sauvage
as they say in EMS
Kokeshi: right
Oh, yes. And it gets still worse: if I max Keen Eyes so as to make myself more useful (in a pinch) in LPQ, my Double Stab will cap out at just level ten. Ultimately, all ten of those SP can be reset into Désordre without even mastering it — the latter will require resetting out of KE as well.
Anyway. Remember how I mentioned that the Iron Hogge is a bit of a nuisance?
That’s a quick trip back to 🔥Lit Harbour🔥 for ya gurl pudu, & a not-insignificant trek back to Big Peach… So I took the opportunity to put my mesos (ſoyl’d wͭ þͤ bloode of ſwyne) to good use.
Transcription of the chatlogs in the above image
pudu: ok hi
im back from getting smokes at the corner store
Kokeshi: wb (wet bed)
pudu: tysm
[in the trade window]
Kokeshi: tysm (ty smoke much)
It wouldn’t be long before we had another fatality at the steely hooves of the Ironic Suid…
Transcription of the chatlog in the above image
Kokeshi: sorry, i was so shocked by the pig card that
pudu: omg naurrrrrrr
Kokeshi: i spontaneously combusted
Yeah, I… may have accidentally looted a Pig Card. I swear it was just one! I wouldn’t want to hecking cheat at the Monster Book Ring which we’ll be including in our LEGOman® playthrough!!
Which brings me back to the ruleset. The rule allowing the Monster Book Ring to be (as far as possible) gracefully incorporated into Lūdilock is an optional one that Kokeshi & I agreed to bring into our own gameplay. You can find this rule (viz. rule #i), along with the rest of the ruleset, at rules.md of the LEGOman git repository. Kokeshi & I did quite a bit of refinement work on this ruleset, so I hope that it might be clear enough & general enough for anyone interested to understand it, & even to use it themselves.
Furthermore, there’s a resources directory in the repo where you can browse info about equipment, Etc, & Use item availabilities, because I’m bonkers insane and wrote a bunch of Python & JSON for this specific purpose. As of this writing, the only info missing is crafting info.[4]
If you’ve any desire for a taste of the minifig lyfe, give me (and/or Kokeshi) a holler! We’d love to party unreasonably hard with play alongside, or even merely see, some fellow Loody enjoyers! For now, I’m just hoping to play some more pudu, because if goofing off at Big Peach is this much fun, then positively laying waste to the Ēṓs Tower is gonna be, as they say, ill nasty.
🩷
Footnotes for “püdü & こけし: aspiring minifigs”
- [↑] The only difference in this case is in the presence or absence of ⟨h⟩. For instance, し /si/ and さ /sä/ clearly differ only in their vowel; yet Hepburn stubbornly insists that the former has an “h” in it whereas the latter doesn’t, so as to entirely unnecessarily indicate the expected allophone ([ɕ] vs. [s̻]). This is essentially the same problem as in footnote #3 of the “baby cervid” section above.
- [↑] Recall that 2 is the lowest (= fastest) possible attack speed category. Also note that the Beginner Thief’s short sword is just a Fruit Knife (like the one Biggs neglected to award me) that’s thief-only, untradeable, & OoaK.
- [↑] If there’s a European (or perhaps North American?) candidate, I’d love to know about it. But I suspect that the Korean artist who drew these iconic MapleStory flora was probably much more familiar with Forsythia.
- [↑] And info about how many items are given by some of the LPQ rewards, because BBB doesn’t list quantities.
(…cnvpstdf…)
cnvpstdf
Transcription of the above image
lv1000boss: i cant downjump
cervid: oh
thats weird, both kels and i can
lv1000boss: can you
Shpongle: just put SP in downjump
cervid: yeah you gotta put at least 1 sp in
lv1000boss: oh my bad
my skill book seems to be
empty
Transcription of the above image
Shpongle: i have a theory
in maplestory, mages cant cast magic
its the Magic Guard fairy casting it all
cervid: i believe it
Shpongle: only fiairies can magic
Transcription of the above image
Stabbing: thanks for the input yall. glad to be here.
cervid: np! glad to have ya (:
Gishop: good to see u
pls enjoy
for context
cervid is cervix
Stabbing: o
Gishop: i am mr. handsome
cervid: lmfao
Gishop: lmfao? someone’s cruisin for a knuckle sandwich…
Transcription of the above image
Kokeshi: Ludi should have a toy pig enemy
pudu: real and true
what would it be called tho
Kokeshi: Truffler
pudu: hahah
pigurine
oh
it looks like pig + urine when u spell it
damb
Kokeshi: lmao
perfect name
pudu: i was thinking pig + figurine
ahaha
pudu: action pigure?
Kokeshi: LMAO
