[2015] What happened this year to Rayque?

As the always recurring tradition on my blog, it's the 31st of December - that means it's time for another summary! This is the fifth annual summary on this blog, which also means I've been blogging for quite a while by now.

While it's relatively still early today - but at least "with a few hours left", I (and the rest of the Rayque3 Staff) wish you
a great 2016. 2015 has been a very interesting year for me - I dare to say it had one of the largest ups and downs in my life, with a lot of game changing events. This year has been a very important foundation for the next two years.

[Lego] My LEGO® Collection has been archived at Brickset

Hi guys! About 7 hours later, a lot of digging through parts and about 30 kilograms of paper, I've managed to archive about 80 to 90 percent of my LEGO® collection on Brickset.
You can find it here!

The reason why my LEGO® collection archive will never be fully complete, is because a lot of LEGO® sets I own have been donated or purchased in bulk. About 25%. While I know more or less what I have in my supply, it's sometimes a bit too hard to find out what smaller sets were included with said donation/bulk.
Some of them are also incomplete, especially on the baseplates.
At least the larger ones are archived!

I've also only archived sets I know for 100% that I own them. So for a few particular ones I may have doubts which one I actually own - but those might probably be corrected in the future.
There's a lot of small(er) sets that aren't listed yet.

You can also find the URL to the Brickset archive on the right menu of my blog, under "My LEGO® Projects".
It's named [Archive] My LEGO® Collection, similar to how I've archived the Sets under Black light blogposts that
I've made in the past.

By the way, between the pile of LEGO® manuals, I've also managed to find a Nintendo 64 catalogue.
Not a Japanese one to my surprise, consider about everything of the N64 was purchased when I used to live
in Tokyo. It was a Dutch one. It mentions the upcoming release of games like Conker, Donkey Kong World,
Ghouls 'n Ghosts 64, Kirby's Air Ride, Tales of Phantasia 2, Mega Man 64, Superman: The Animated Series, and some others. Well, we all know how some of them ended up. There's no time to waste!

That's it for today guys - I'll see you again next post!

[YT] About damn time.

Took you long enough. If you want to do things properly, try to get it right the first time.
Some other small orders are still on the way, especially two Amiibo's (imported Famicon R.O.B. and a back ordered Meta Knight). Next year I'm going for LEGO® City Undercover and Dimensions, together with a fourth GameCube controller.

Image was taken at the start of this month, in case you wonder - the Wii U bundle was pre-ordered somewhere between September and November.

That's it for today! I'll see you guys agai-

"Wait a second. Didn't you mention you wouldn't go for a Wii U, mentioned in this post?"
Well, you're right. But if you read carefully; I used the word "probably". At first, there were no plans for getting this console - but that was about two years ago. Having no plans to get something doesn't equal actually wanting one -
the Wii U is pretty awesome and that has been my opinion for a long while. It's such a shame that most people rate it as trash just because it sold poorly.

Despite I've been wanting to play LEGO® City Undercover since its release, just getting a console for a single game wouldn't justify the price for just the sake of playing the game - even though I'd love to try that game out. After a while that "single game" has expanded to a total of four - Xenoblade Chronicles X, Super Smash Bros for Wii U,
LEGO® City Undercover and LEGO® Dimensions, and that did feel like a lot of (replay) value to offer.

Happy holidays from the Rayque3 Staff!

[EMS] First Pink Bean solo!

Woah, I didn't expect me to *actually* be able to solo Pink Bean! I thought I was nowhere near the required damage... but apparently I was. A few friends encouraged me to try Pink Bean for a few months by now, so I bit the bullet and gave it a try. But man, that first try was tense!

I might have not been to Pink Bean before, but with my general knowledge about the boss I had since before the
Big Bang update, I didn't go entirely blind. I already knew about the invisible border that would activate Damage Reflect, and that I could survive one if I'd ever messed up my response time.

So yeah, this was pretty much my first attempt without doing any runs in the past (solo or party), despite you'd expect me to have tried it due to the fact that I haven't quitted or substituted my Hero in the past 8 years. There's a lot of bosses I have never faced before in this game, surprisingly.

The largest surprise to me for the run is that I've been able to defeat it without dying at all. Perhaps it was a lucky shot,
and I'm pretty sure there was a high risk to do Pink Bean as a Hero (consider my class is relatively frail).

Earlier this year I've also faced Chaos Zakum for the first time, similar to Pink Bean - without any experience prior,
only certain knowledge and research when it was initially released before Big Bang. Actually I did die twice before I managed to successfully solo one (there's no respawning at Chaos Zakum), because the flame pillars dish out 36k damage on me, despite having 85% Damage Reduction active at the time. Well, Heroes do play different than most classes, after all. Unless those pillars are 50% HP and thus fixed, which I actually genuinely hope that's the case (please correct me in the comments if that's true) because in context, 36k damage with 85% reduction sucks.

I haven't tried Chaos Horntail yet, but I know I already have enough damage output to beat it. It's more that
I'm careful and I feel not ready for it yet. Which is kind of ironic because I've spend over 11.000 hours on this Hero and have achieved a lot of other things that most Heroes wouldn't. Then again, success at first try. But damn, Pink Bean is surely a milestone to many players - so I'm happy that I can check this one off the list to my (probably) never-ending career on EMS.

In case you wonder, I'm still at 33%-STR and 120 DEX Base. The latter won't change, but it's still impressive if
you think about it... Having only 39% Boss Damage, relatively low %-STR, certain Skill Links at Level 1 and a character that's just barely halfway scrolled. Proves that my custom build does work, I guess.

That's it for today! I'll see you guys again next post!

[YT] 8.000.000 total upload views!

Man, it's raining blogposts at the end of November, isn't it? We've hit 8.000.000 total upload views earlier today! Whoohoo!

PS. Kirby's Return to Dreamland - All Mini/Main/EX Bosses has hit 600.000 views earlier this week.

[EMS] Lv 100 Charm & Level 6 Spirit of Freedom GET!

Hi guys! Very recently the Maple Ice & Burn update hit EMS! No wait... it's the Creation 12 update... Hold on -
wasn't the Pink Bean event class released after the Creation 12 update? Uhm...

Pretty much, EMS has received an update called Leap. The Leap update contains all three of these relatively large updates (Maple Ice & Burn, Creation 12 and the Pink Bean event class) at once. That means there's a lot to do!

You guys might remember I was working on my Mechanic during the Black Heaven update back in August.
The Spirit of Freedom Skill Link is a specialized link that consists of six levels combined through multiple different classes, similar to the Cygnus Blessing.

Spirit of Freedom gives 6 seconds of invincibility after respawning on maximum level (1 second per SP). Which is
very useful for bosses where I tend to respawn as a Hero often (such as Magnus, Lotus, Hekaton, Urus, Cygnus)
due to the frailty of my class - especially because when you respawn, you'll have to rebuff everything (and thus
6 seconds gives me time to breath, rebuff and plan my next attack). In combination with the Eunwol Level 2 link,
it does help me go through bosses a lot.

In order to get a Level 6 Spirit of Freedom, you'll need a Level 120 Mechanic, a Level 120 Wild Hunter and a
Level 120 Battle Mage. Level 70 gives a single point, Level 120 gives two. The reason why I haven't worked on a
Wild Hunter or Battle Mage was due to the maximum characters you can have on a single account. I only had three spots left, which all three were reserved for the Pink Bean event class, Beast Tamer and Kinesis. This blocked the opportunity to work on those... But the Leap update raised the maximum character limit by a large number - which gave me the opportunity to finally start these two characters.

I've intended to work on a Wild Hunter and Battle Mage eventually, due to the character card deck bonus of having three Archers (Final Attack's damage gets a slight boost) and the damage reduction from the Battle Mage card. Because the character limit has been raised, I also found the opportunity to work on a Marksman for extra
Critical Rate boost (which is part of the three Archer deck together with my Mercedes). Having that extra Critical Rate is in preparation for the Reboot and Heroes of Maple updates, so I can reduce the amount of Hyper SP investment required for Critical Rate and spend it somewhere else more useful.

Skill Links aside, I've reached Level 100 Charm! Man, I didn't expect Charm to be my next Level 100 Trait - I initially expected Insight to take that spot. Because I've been doing a lot of bosses such as Horntail and Zakum on a
daily basis since Black Heaven, I've gathered quite a lot equips that gave me Charm EXP.

Probably Insight will become my next Level 100 Trait somewhere in 2016, but keep in mind as I often mention,
I don't like to rush (those) things.

That's it for today everyone! I'll see you guys again next post!

[YT] 8000 Subs!

Hi guys! Today we have finally reached 8000 Subs - thank you all for the great support!
Hopefully we'll reach the 10.000 mark next year!

Early next month, there's going to be a game changer (behind the scenes) that will open new opportunities for the
Rayque3 Staff in 2016 and beyond. I can honestly tell you that Lux does *not* know what it's about - but I'm sure
he'll look forward to it when he hears about it halfway December. That said, I can't wait for it!

You'll read more about it on this blog in the second half of December.
That's it for today! I'll see you guys again next post!

[Drawing] When two worlds collide

Perhaps you can also call this the "Rayque vs Rayque" drawing, because both my MapleStory character and my Rayquaza are named Rayque. If you haven't figured it out by now, my name Rayque is based on Rayquaza himself.

For a change, this drawing actually took five hours. Which is way more than my usual drawings (often below 3 hours). While I can draw my MapleStory character by memory, I still base all of my Rayquaza drawings on the official art
from Nintendo - I look closely to the proportions, and convert it into different poses than the source material (because the poses I seek to draw are rarely used on those).

I've tried to go back to black and white for this drawing, but I'm not really fond of the way I've written Rayque on
the top left - I'm still trying to figure out how to write it with just using markers, instead of pen/pencil or brushes.

It's drawn on A3 paper. I've only used a black pen and a few drawing markers.

By the way, I'm sorry for the inactivity on my blog. I only share things when there's something to share.
Not everything feels to be share-worthy - but I'm expecting at least two or three blogposts for December.
At least one huge game changing blogpost, so I hope you are as excited as I am!

That's it for today guys. I see you again next post!

[EMS] Gratz on Carthager reaching Level 200!

Hi guys! I know these kind of blogposts rarely appear, but I want to congratz my friend Carthager on
reaching Level 200!

Most friends and some viewers might know that I've been part of the FallenAngel group of friends since 2008.
It's now called PatchedWings since 2010; but the group itself has a lot of value to me. I've almost met all of them several times by now and such, and we've grown up together as a family to call it like that.

I knew Carthager since 2008, so to me he deserves a blogpost like this. Thanks for staying around with us for such
a long time! Cheers on the years to come~

Yes, I know you're reading Mr. Wazaa (cuz RSS feeds are OP), and be damn sure that you'll get a blogpost like this when you hit Level 200 in a few years!

That's it for today - I'll see you guys again next post!

[YT] Behind the scenes - "Xenoblade Chronicles - Main Story [New Game+]"

It started as a joke back in 2013. After finishing the Super Smash Bros Brawl video of 6 hours, I said to Lux:
"Never again. But I know I'll probably go nuts one day and surpass this video once more."

A Single-Part-Video that would pass my limits. A Single-Part-Video that would break Sony Vegas and
couldn't be rendered. A Single-Part-Video that would go way over Youtube's upload limit.

In our second issue of Behind the Scenes, we're going to evaluate a Single-Part-Video that took almost
an entire year to finish... to be cancelled for a permanent appointment until Youtube is going to raise their
upload limit once again.

The video is cancelled temporary.
Don't think this video got cancelled for good. Everything's already here. We got the final video that we would upload, we got that custom thumbnail, we got a full index, the video has been quality checked... Just that uploading.
It's still going to happen, one day...

[Lego] ArcFire MOC

Hi guys! Another quick doodle I've made earlier this month.

I wanted to create a MOC out of a combination of Bionicle and CCBS parts, and after one afternoon I managed
to come up with this. I think that both Bionicle and CCBS pulls out the best of its system when you combine them together.

The inspiration came from the character ArcBeetle, if you guys might know the late nineties anime Medabots.
I really love the way how ArcBeetle has the two horns directing forward in a dramatic proportion - which is
used for his signature move called The Prominence.

There's plenty of articulation around the model. The legs and arms use the standard CCBS combination to allow
to form knees. While the legs are covered with your basic CCBS panels, the upper arms are connected to one double cannon each, that are fixated in a 90 degrees angle.

The head can also tilt up. In case you didn't notice yet, the visor of this model is made from a default socket connector in Trans-Medium Blue.

In the stomach of the model, there's two smaller cannons which can be rotated up and down.
The two similar sized cannons below the shoulders that extend all the way to the back are fixated and can't rotate,
by the way.

I wanted to have the model as sturdy as I could build it - and it's hard to accidentally break the model because
I've managed to use some friction techniques I've been using in my Hailfire Droid to keep it from falling apart when
it's driving. The Pridak foot piece that is mounted on the head won't budge easy, to prevent the head from falling apart when you pose it (because you would often grab that foot piece to turn around the head).

One thing that I wanted to do right in this model was having the Hero Factory hand piece in combination with
an arm cannon. First I've tried to have cannon arms without hands, but I didn't feel satisfied with the looks in combination with the rest of the model. Eventually I found a way to use those older Bionicle feet to build
those cannons - a method I've actually done in the past a lot as well!

Fun fact: this isn't the first version of this particular design. A few weeks earlier during September, I tried to shape something similar with the use of a small CCBS standard body. However, I had some issues with scaling the character's proportion, so I ended up redesigning it from scratch.

That's it for today! I'll see you guys next post.

[Lego] #8939 Lesovikk GET!

Whoohoo! Just got this goody from the mail. It's a sealed box of one of the more rare Bionicle sets from LEGO®; Lesovikk from 2007. Another one to tick off my never-ending Wanted List!

Man, this is actually a tough one to get, especially in a sealed box. Not "tough" as in "overpriced", because that wouldn't be an issue for me. But "tough" as in: it's a tough one to find for sale compared to the usual amounts of a set when you browse the internet for one.

Some people may ask why I get sealed boxes... it's especially because of the condition I want a set to be in.
Bionicle sets starting from the Mahri Nui series until the end of the original Bionicle line (approx. between 2007 to 2010) are infamous for having issues with lime-based ball joint pieces and other uncommon colours to crack.
Next to that, sets starting from Metru Nui (approx. 2004) are known to get bite marks on specific parts easy.

So yeah, purely just to get a mint set (or close to new), I have to base on the set's inventory if I either go sealed box or used - which often ends up in going sealed. For me the box doesn't have to be in crisp condition.
I'm totally fine with shelf wear, as long as the box itself is sealed so the bagged parts inside get minimal wear from different environments.

Word of advice: getting an used set from an "adult collector" doesn't have to say everything by the way...
It's a mistake I've made several times before. Ah well, you pay for the condition isn't it?

That's it for today! I'll see you guys again next post.

[YT] 5.000, 500.000, 5.000.000!

Sup guys! Just another recurring milestone update for the ones who are interested.

 

Straight off the bat, Mario Party 7 - All Mini-Games, has hit 5.000.000 views
a few days ago. This video has been published on the 26st of March, 2013.

It was the third Single-Part-Video to be released that was longer than an hour,
and as many recurring readers know - the most viewed video on our channel to date.

 

The second video in our milestone update is the Kirby's Return to Dreamland - All Mini/Main/EX Bosses. This video has been published on the 28th of November, 2014. It's the second video of our channel to have reached 500.000 views within a year, next to Mario Party 7.

It was also the third Single-Part-Video to be near to three hours or longer.

 

Perhaps a bit of underwhelming achievement compared to the previous two

in this post, but Pokémon Battle Revolution - All Masters Battles [HeartGold]
has reached 5.000 views.

One of the main reasons to share this milestone is because this video is actually one of the top 10 videos who gains the most views a month; standing close to [Walkthrough] - Croc 2 - Part #1 -- CROC TO THE RESCUE.

And the fact that I still can be proud of a total of 5.000 and a growth for this fellow of 2.000 views a month! Speaking of another fellow with a similar growth...

 

Luxatus Patella's first part of his Croc 2 Walkthrough is close to hitting 50.000 views at the end of this year! It would be great to see it reaching that number - I'm looking forward to it!

Lux's Croc 2 Walkthrough is one of the most important walkthroughs on our channel - not only was this part of his major comeback, but the game itself has a lot of value to him. It's also the second most viewed walkthrough from Lux, only being surpassed by his original Tarzan Action Game Walkthrough.

 

That's it for now. I'll see you guys again next post!

[YT] Second uploading maintenance (1st of October, 2015)

Pretty much, by just reading the title - you've guessed it right. After three weeks of processing,
Youtube's programming decided to automatically reject our previous attempt to upload.

This actually happened yesterday, but I decided to keep that day for only publishing my 8th anniversary of playing MapleStory Europe - and because I've had to contact Youtube Support through e-mail (so I had to wait for a reply first), I couldn't make a "final" decision of my next move yet.

I've shared the issue of this upload with Youtube Support formally - giving examples that the past few Single-Part-Videos have gone pretty much with barely any issues - and that processing for this situation took over 3 weeks,
which seems odd - which eventually resulted this video failing to process.
I've received a reply from Youtube earlier this morning.

Their reply described what may happen during processing, and that in this case, it could've been either
an issue of a processing delay from their side (and that delay went banana's in length so their automatic server-cleaning-up kicked in without them actually wanting it to happen) or just a transient issue - either of which,
they're sorry for the inconvenience and request me to try reuploading.

Which I of course will, because the last thing I want to do now is to give up on this project after all the effort I've done. Well, for my frequent readers, that's not a surprise isn't it? I'm pretty sure some of you also want to see this video online as much as I do!

I'll start a new upload much later tonight - I'll keep you guys up to date. I'll probably avoid writing another blogpost to avoid spamming on my own blog (and your subscription feeds, 'cuz RSS is OP). Instead, I'll edit this post somewhere later. Just check tomorrow or something I'd say.

EDIT: We've started uploading again since the evening of October 1st, 2015. If there's any change to the upload, we'll mention it here.

See you guys again next post!

[EMS] 8 Years!

 

Today is the 30th of September once again. This means I've played another year of EMS on Rayque;
a total of eight years!

As mentioned on various locations where I share about my EMS "career", I've been playing on my Hero
since the 30th of September in 2007. I have yet to quit, I haven't made another main.
It's really the first character I've started with and the very one I still play today.

I'm glad to see that every year there's still plenty of things to look forward, and that there's always something
where I can improve on, or some ongoing chapter that has yet to be closed.
Eight years non-stop is nothing to sneeze at... To 9 years and beyond I'd say!

That's it for today. I'll see you guys again next post!

[YT] Processing takes forever...

Hi guys! Sorry that I haven't blogged much about our next Single-Part-Video, which we previously have been talking about for quite a while now.

Some of you might remember I've mentioned we've started uploading that video at the 6th of September. You might expect the video should've been done and set to Private by now, until we are going to publish it. Well, we did expect that as well... But it seems our expectations were wrong.

We've been used to uploading many large videos in the past, where most of these are lengthy videos. Our largest video before the next Single-Part-Video was the Subspace Emissary Playthrough, which was near 40 GB. It took four and a half days to upload this video.

The next SPV is over 17 hours long, which is close to 90 GB in size. But nope, uploading this video is not in linear proportions compared to the Subspace video... As of now, the video is still pending as Processing:

The actual upload of data took about 3 days... so it has been processing for almost 3 (!) weeks by now. We haven't experienced this before, and we can understand the upload/processing could take long - but a total of 3 weeks without it finishing is quite tedious.

At least the video hasn't been rejected by Youtube, because if that would be the case, we would have received this message much earlier. So please, bear with us: because 3 weeks to upload this thing isn't fun for us either.

I'll keep you guys to date if anything else changes. I'll see you guys again next post!

[EMS] Level 210!

[EMS] Ribgol Sword III

Hi guys! You might remember from last June that I would write more about my Ribgol Sword once I managed to change some progress. Well, it eventually turned out to take all that time before I felt to write something about it.
In the words of Lux: "Let's get to it".

W-wait? Ribgol III? What is going on? Why is it numbered three?

"Ribgol I"


"Ribgol I"

Frequent readers that have been supporting this blog for a while might remember that moment I managed to obtain my Ribgol Sword after three years back in 2012. The Ribgol I purchased had 147 attack, as shown in this image. Later on I managed to upgrade that sword through Equip Enhancement Scrolls (EE for short) - I prefer to refer this as "Ribgol I" (aka the first method of upgrading) - which increased the total attack to 174. Ribgol I was also the most important progress of the ones I've went through, because this was also the moment when I upgraded it with my Mu Gong Soul and Additional Potential.

This Ribgol was upgraded through Miracle Scrolls (100% chance to add 5 attack) - which is basically a 100% success rate for the older 10% weapon upgrade scrolls. Adding 7 Enhancements to it, was the way to reach 174 attack.

The way how I've enhanced my Ribgol Sword was through Protection Scrolls that were given during an event. Back then, we had this Event Shop which had an infamous list of pretty impressive items - including +10 Attack with 50% Chance (if I remember correctly, if the scroll fails - the equip will be destroyed), Protection Scrolls, Clean Slates, Miracle Positive Chaos Scrolls (aka Incredible Chaos Scroll of Goodness) and many more.

So, you could scroll weapons with +10 Attack back then - which most people end up doing, but I refused to spend those event coins in those - you'll need a high amount of coins for a combination of Protection Scroll with the actual scroll itself - and if you failed a slot, you would need to compensate it with Clean Slates - which required even more coins...

So I chose to use the Miracle Positive Chaos Scrolls instead, which I still not regret today because that event shop gave a huge progress on my character upgrading.

"Ribgol II"

"Ribgol II"

Ribgol II is probably the shortest progress that I've went through, but I think it was an important attempt of upgrading it.

As MapleStory develops over the years, so does their upgrading system... With the introduction of things like Innocence Scrolls (which reset the upgrades you've done and reverts the equip to its "clean" state) and more specialized event scrolls - we had a new event which added pink 90% scrolls. These 90% scrolls would add 9 attack and 3 All Stats (STR/DEX/INT/LUK), which is incredibly high!

It may not be those 10 Attack Scrolls, but near the time of the pink 90% scrolls, there hasn't been any new event that reintroduced them. So I took the opportunity, just in case - and reset the scrolls and enhancements from Ribgol I to rescroll it with 90%.

This upgraded the Ribgol Sword to "Ribgol II", using all nine available upgrade slots with 90% scrolls to give it a total attack of 182. This high amount was without any enhancement upgrades, so that would also mean the result would be much better in the end.

Comparing this one with the previous Ribgol Sword was already quite a step in the right direction.

Shortly after, Nexon Europe reintroduced Flame of Reincarnations (aka Rebirth Flames in several other versions), which was temporary closed for a few years in EMS. Our Flames system works different compared to other versions - I won't explain it thoroughly in this blogpost, though.

In order to get the maximum out of the enhancement system, I've used about thirty Eternal Flames of Reincarnation that were given through various events, trying to get an attack boost high as possible. However, that ended without success - and this part caused the delay on writing about my Ribgol progress, because it was not really what I wanted.

"Ribgol III"

"Ribgol III"

So, you probably might have guessed by now if you read the first two chapters carefully.

I managed to rescroll my Ribgol Sword again - but with 10 Attack Scrolls.

In a recent event, they reintroduced 10 Attack Scrolls in the game - however, comparing it to last year, these were actually more in my favour than those 50% ones did (with a ridiculous destruction upon failure).

These scrolls had a 100% chance to add 10 Attack and 3 All Stats to a weapon. However, in trade for that 100%, the scrolls were fully untradeable. Well, since my Ribgol Sword has no trading restriction if you look at the current mainstream equipment - that "in trade for" is non-existent in my case.

However, because I was working on that same Single-Part-Video I've been doing since June, I had little time to spend in obtaining nine of those scrolls - plus I had a lot of bad luck (as usual) consider these scrolls was random loot for that event... But a good friend of mine aided me so we could gather nine of them (words can't express how grateful I am for his help). Having a weapon without trading restriction really bought me that opportunity...

Doing daily bosses for months to gain those Honor EXP, I've managed to obtain a few hundred Lv 110 and Lv 120 flames; so as a temporary boost, I've managed to get another 11 Attack on my Ribgol Sword. Yay!

So for now, Ribgol III will be my current Ribgol for a long while hopefully. I'm glad that I'm able to rescroll my Ribgol to keep it up to date. A bonus of 101 Attack on a 101 Attack is nothing to sneeze at, especially when it has zero enhancement upgrades...

That's it for today - I'll see you guys again next post!

[Lego] Black light - 6991 Monorail Transport Base

I like how my kitchen plant is affected by the light as well.

[Lego] Black light - UFO (1997~1998) Complete collection

These sets just scream to be captured like this.

[YT] Uploading maintenance

*Takes a deep breath* FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF- nah we're used to it. It's not our first monstrosity nor our last. Related to this blogpost, by the way.

The question however, is Youtube able to hold such video? We'll see it soon enough I guess.
After it's being published (not directly after the upload finishes, it will take a few days I think), I'll be writing some backstory about the process. There's some interesting things to write about it!

Whenever the upload works or not, I'll keep you guys up to date.
That's it for today! I'll see you guys again next post.

[YT, Lego] Just a small reminder: Introducing Project Overviews

Hi guys! Perhaps some of my frequent readers might have found out: I've created Project Overviews for each of my MK Project.

Starting from some advice from a friend of mine a few months ago, he mentioned as a frequent reader he lacked some sort of archive between blogposts of the same project. Acknowledging the fact that it has been an issue for me as well - and thinking wrong that "Search This Blog" would suffice enough - I took an effective method I've been using outside of this blog in order to clean things up.

Every MK has its own Project Overview; which gives short-but-hopefully-to-the-point information about every project, including a blog archive. This also makes it much easier for me, as hopefully for the reader as well, to keep things organized.

I tried to keep things to-the-point to avoid these overviews to become too expansive. Perhaps in case I would ever want to add more information, it would be wise to make a separate blogpost for that, and refer it in the archive.

In addition to this update, every individual blogpost has a "return button" in the shape of a Hyperlink at the top of each post - which makes it also easier to get back to the archive and information.

That's it for this small blogpost. I'll see you guys again next time!

[EMS] 100% Critical Rate with Enrage!

Hi guys! The Black Heaven update has just hit EMS with plenty of new things to do.
With the Boss Honor Medals being available at the bosses I defeat daily, there'll be finally some more proper progress for getting those last two Ability lines. Stay tuned for that, I'm pretty curious when I'll hit the next desired line!

So, in preparation for the Maple Ice & Burn update that usually comes after the Black Heaven update, I planned to level my (before Black Heaven created) Mechanic class for the new Skill Link that would come later. Having plenty of event coupons from the "Level-Milestone" based events (in example, obtain some rewards for Level 30, Level 90, Level 110, ect), I managed to get my Mechanic to Level 130 for the event gift - which was a "Grand Adventure Ring".

So, practically, the Grand Adventure Ring gives identical stats to the Pivotal Adventure Ring. At first I thought it was another Pivotal Ring and I expected all of them to have their name changed from Pivotal to Grand with this update. But when I looked further, it seemed to be a different item with just identical stats.

I knew from testing out the Zero Gratias Ring (which is another identical ring as for stats), it couldn't be equipped simultaneously with the Pivotal Adventure Ring. But as most Critical Rings from events, I just transfer them to my Hero - in case that feature that blocks simultaneous equipping would be removed in the future. So, as usual, I did that with the Grand Adventure Ring - transfered it from my Mechanic to my Hero. But man, I was kind of surprised.

Long story short: I've been able to wear the Critical Adventure Ring, the Pivotal Adventure Ring and the Grand Adventure Ring simultaneously. This means I have 100% Critical Rate on my Hero when applying Enrage (which locks my attacks from multiple enemies to focusing towards a single target).

In total, I've been using Decent Sharp Eyes, Phantom Skill Link (Level 2), Hyper Critical together with those three Adventure Rings in order to gain 80% Critical Rate without Enrage. Enrage gives 20% Critical Rate and 15% Minimum Critical Damage. I'm using the Eunwol and Hayato character cards for increasing my Critical Damage. Next to all of that, when I apply Puncture on an enemy, I'll gain another 20% Minimum AND Maximum Critical Damage.

Am I going to aim for 100% Critical Rate without Enrage? I'll see what I can manage, but it's something I'm interested to achieve. For the people who read my blog more often, I mentioned I won't use Critical Rate through Inner Ability because there's plenty of more useful lines to me than that.

That's it for today. I'll see you guys again next post!

[Lego] Borderlands 2 in Lego® - Constructor - Take 7! [Work In Progress]

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Sup guys! Another post about the Constructor's progress, but it'll be a small one for now. There has been two major changes to the model's functionality, next to a few small changes.

The small changes has been related to the folding feature themselves. I found a way to largely reduce the required torque for the Mindstorms EV3 servo for pushing the pneumatic pumps by changing a few pieces that were mounted between both. The legs of the Constructor have also been adjusted to improve the folding and the stability of the Constructor when it's entirely folded out.

An image taken from a previous blogpost about the Constructor, you can clearly see that having those pumps being exposed like that can cause some issues.

One of the major issues with the Constructor that wasn't solved was how to avoid fingers getting stuck between the two outer pneumatic pumps on both sides.

For quite a while, I've been looking how to avoid fingers to get stuck between the pumps. First, I thought having some panels around it might solve the issue, but when I was looking at how little space I had left without affecting the body or final shape too much, I thought having something flexible might work better.

After a handful of attempts, I found a way to use those LEGO® net pieces to create a flexible shape around the body. I had to make sure those pieces were tight around the surface, because I had to make sure that you can't get a finger stuck somewhere. There's a handful of parts sticking out the locations where the net is mounted on, but those parts are for connecting structures to the main body in the future.

The second major change is just a part of convenience. Previously, in order to start the Constructor program, you had to open the entire back section to reach out the large center button on the Mindstorms EV3 programmable brick. When I've added the safety button on the outside of the Constructor that stopped the program instant when needed, you had to reopen the back once again.

At first, you wouldn't think of it being such an issue - but later after doing that process plenty of times, I thought I might add a little button on the back that can start the program with ease. It's nothing more than just a small little Technic beam that hinges and pushes the center piece when you push on the back (as shown on the image).

That's it for this post. I'll see you guys again next time!

[Lego] Work in Progress: STAR WARS™ Hailfire Droid - Take 6

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Hi guys! Just a small but important change has made on the Hailfire Droid. I'll also be posting a short update post about the Constructor soon, for the ones who wonder.

In my previous post, I mentioned I was working on covering specific parts on the Hailfire itself. A few days ago I started working on the "tail" of the droid (the back of the Hailfire Droid). As mentioned a few times on this blog, specific "odd colours" are temporary placeholders before I can get them in the right variant.

So far as of this post, this is the current tail. I know it's not entirely finished (this includes the bottom, the top and the colours), but I wanted to share it with you guys anyways. Because I've been adding weight on the back, the Hailfire Droid now slightly tilts backward - it's something I have to rebalance on a later stage when I work on the front again.

In previous versions of this model, I was trying to work with hinges in order to get the back angled. It didn't really work out as I hope it would be, so I had to change that with some semi-flexible tube pieces. I managed to get the angles I wanted a bit better with those parts, however there's still some work left for me to do.

The mixture of gray, white and black pieces on the top of the Hailfire is just a structural spine. It will be covered after the top is finished. It's required in order to keep the head sturdy; you can actually lift the entire model from the spine!

I might also have to redesign the bottom of the Hailfire Droid, but that will be for a later moment. That's it for now - I'll see you guys again next post!

[Other] Two wild Giovanni appeared!

Remember that one guy from that one blogpost? Yeah, it's Giovanni!
If only both characters of him were Level 7 Mii for Streetpass Quest...

[Lego] Black light - 70794 + 70795 Combination Model

The combination model for two Bionicle Summer 2015 sets, the #70794 Skull Scorpio and the #70795 Mask Maker vs. Skull Grinder under UV Black light.

At the moment of this blogpost, this combination model doesn't go by an unique name unlike most previous Bionicle combinations (in example, Takutanuva,  Ultimate Dume, Voporak, Vezon & Kardas). This seems to be common for the new series of Bionicle sets, together with the fact that none of these have appeared in the story (unlike those older examples above).

However, the LEGO® Shop at Home refers it as a "Powered-up Skull Grinder" in the product description. Makes sense, because in the character biography of Kulta (the Skull Grinder), he equips the Mask of Creation and beats the Toa without any issues. Although the character biography doesn't show him growing in size when he equips the mask (similar to most Bionicle characters in the original story), it would make sense that a Mask of Creation would suffice the possibility of creating power.

When looking at the initial images before building it, the model itself looks to be sized similar to the original Warriors subthemes of Bionicle - a favoured line of larger (and sometimes exclusive) Bionicle characters than the regular Toa-sized sets. I know that not all of the Warriors are huge compared to regular Toa, in some cases they were on the same height, in example Lesovikk, Takanuva and Toa Ignika - but came with their plot-related vehicles to justify a respectable set size.

More information (size comparison with the new Tahu, spare parts and quite some subjective evaluation) below the jump break!

[EMS] So I just found this out earlier today...

Back before Big Bang update hit, doing Crimsonwood Keep Party Quest (CWKPQ) was still popular in EMS before the PQ tended to be broken a few years later. In example, Sigil puzzles (a puzzle feature that requires a certain class skill to be used to complete it) wouldn't activate because a lot of Skill IDs that complete them have changed or have been removed - making it impossible to complete certain stages that heavily relied on Sigils. Yes I'm aware of the revamped CWKPQ that has hit GMS recently and has fixed the Sigils, however keep in mind that our CWKPQ is different as for rewards, even compared to the one from MSEA.

At the Boss stage, every Grandmaster would drop a Mark of Naricain (also known as MoN in the Maple glossary).

Our original Mark of Naricain were Untradeable, not limited to One-of-a-kind (currently known as "Original" items) - creating the possibility to have multiple ones of them. Back then, not particularly broken but just a form of luxury, because Second Pendant slot had yet to be released even in KMS. I'm aware of the Required Level of this equip has reduced from 100 to 96 at a certain point.

This Mark of Naricain used to have only 3 slots. This means that it could be scrolled with (Miracle) Positive Chaos Scrolls (also known as Chaos Scrolls of Goodness) and that it can be applied to Potential, Additional Potential and Enhancements. Because it can have all of these useful upgrades, Mark of Naricain is still considered in EMS a valid option to use if you don't run Gollux/Alien Visitor/Dominator/Darkness or (Chaos) Horntail Pendants. The main issue would be obtaining one though...

The MSEA one that got introduced had 4 slots, but it is (or currently was?) an One-of-a-kind item upon release. This hinders users from having two in their inventory at the same time.

However, after the Big Bang update hit EMS, the drops from the CWKPQ bosses have changed. The 3 slotted Mark of Naricains stopped dropping and have been replaced by the MSEA ones (4-slotted).

Technically speaking, an upgrade for most because of the extra slot, but perhaps an issue if you want to run two of them at the same time, similar to (Chaos) Horntail Pendants, Darkness Rings, etc. You would require the one before the Big Bang hit and one after. Running two MoNs would mean you would end up with at least one with 3 slots and one with 4 slots (in case you don't run two before-Big-Bang-MoNs but one before and one after).

Having recently obtained an Innocence Scroll that would expire in a few days, and not having that many equips left to reset, I knew that I screwed over the scrolling of my original Mark of Naricain so I used that Innocence Scroll on it. However, the interesting thing is, that the 3-slotted pendant has received a bit of an upgrade: it can now have 4 slots.

If this information is for huge (gamebreaking) importance? That's up to you to decide. I thought perhaps this would be interesting to share, who knows who still build with Mark of Naricains nowadays?

That's it for today. I'll see you guys again next post!

[Lego] Black light - 70794 Skull Scorpio & 70795 Mask Maker vs. Skull Grinder

On the left: Ekimu the Mask Maker. On the right: Kulta the Skull Grinder.

Set #70795 Mask Maker vs. Skull Grinder, under UV Black light.
This is one of the larger (rebooted-universe) Bionicle sets to date. It consists of two characters, Ekimu the Mask Maker himself, fighting for the Mask of Creation against Kulta the Skull Grinder, leader of the Skull Creatures.

From the entire set, only Ekimu's brain stock and Kulta's main transparent accent colour glows under Black light. Unfortunately, Ekimu's main transparent accent colour is Transparent Light Blue, a frequent colour to be used for transparent blue parts since 1985 (which is the second oldest trans. blue in LEGO®'s colour palette) - it sure looks nice on his design, but isn't affected by Black light at all. Which is a shame because Ekimu's design, with the use of transparent parts, is great in my opinion. Ah well, back to appreciation during day time it is.

One of the few more "common" blue colours that is affected by Black light, is Transparent Medium Blue - which is still rare to see being used in large quantities or in CCBS models. I might want to rebuild my #8732 Matoro, just to see how it looks under UV... (yes, I am aware of #8916 Takadox, and I might search for one in the future)

Kulta is more of the main focus when using Black light, which uses the infamous Transparent Neon Orange. I'm glad to see this colour is being used more frequently, consider I was afraid it would slowly fade away after the introduction of Mars Mission. I didn't really fear about it when it was released with Clikits and being used for the Deep Freeze Alpha Team sets, but after Mars Mission the amount of Transparent Orange felt increasing (to me, subjectively). I have no problems with Transparent Orange, but the less bright(er) neon tone to it on smaller pieces makes it feel less exiting to myself. Both my inner child and young adult being.

As mentioned before on this blog, some of the (CCBS) parts make clever use of wall thickness to give it more glow on a few points. Especially the new rib cage piece, which is used several times this year (including most Bionicle Skull Creatures and the CCBS General Grievous), has quite some reinforcement and various wall thicknesses to it.

On the left, Pohatu with the infected Mask of Stone equipped from the Skull Scorpio set.
On the right, the Skull Scorpio itself.

Set #70794 Skull Scorpio, under UV Black light.
A design that most Adult Fans of LEGO® seem to hate, because of the various different colours that is being used or its shape. Its design seemed to be (heavily?) based on the Nui-Jaga from the original Bionicle wave, using the new "mask grabbing feature" on its tail, which is also a reference to what the Nui-Jaga could do as a toy (they would knock the masks off with a similar motion in ther tail, instead of grabbing - this is because the original Bionicle masks weren't that well secured on the figures, because most Rahi would have a corresponding play feature to knock them off).

As a toy, I think that the model is very sturdy (a wise decision to make the legs fixed, trust me on that) and the grabbing feature is well designed (as you might know, I love play features in sets, but also I love to design them as well). While most people would not like the colour scheme, I actually think it was a clever one to use. Not just for the combination model for with the Skull Grinder model (Yes, I know about it! I have both sets! We'll get back to that later this post ok?), but the use of colours as indications themselves. The body colour scheme is mainly Trans. Neon Green (which is, biased, my favorite LEGO® colour by the way), but the Mask-related-features are using Trans Neon Orange. So the claws up front to grab masks have the Trans. Neon Orange colour - only the movable pincers of it use that colour. The gray pincer is fixated. The brain stock of the figure is also Trans. Neon Orange (brain stocks can be pushed on the back to knock off the mask) and the large blades on its tail (which are the blades that enable the "mask grabbing feature" quite effectively) have some Bohrok eye pieces to help indicate the direction where these are heading to.

I really like the infected Mask of Stone. First of all I'm glad that LEGO® decided to bring back that feature from the original Bionicle line. Second of all, although I do like the solid coloured style of infected masks from the original line (in example, I have the Limited Edition of Ultimate Dume which includes Set #8612 with the infected Kiril mask), I can't deny I like these new combinations of transparent colour with a solid colour more! They feel more qualitative to me, presumably because I know how it's manufactured in the mould and that it uses two different plastic types instead of only ABS... But my inner child prefers the new combination because it looks cooler to have a mask being half transparent.

=================================

OK, back to the combination model. Yes I do have both the Skull Scorpio and Skull Grinder sets. I was aware of it before I purchased it. Of course I want to build the combination model. However, consider the instructions of the combination model are currently not available as of now, I can't build it yet. I know some people have reversed engineered the pictures, I know I can as well, but I prefer to follow the instructions instead of making a proper guess.

That said, you have to bear with me and wait until they'll be available online.
The instructions have been published recently. You can see the combination model under Black light here.

That's it for this post! I'll see you guys next time!

[EMS] Level 209!

Yay!

[YT] Third 300.000 viewed video!

Hi guys! Recently the Kirby's Return to Dreamland - All Mini/Main/EX Bosses has reached 300.000 views. This makes our third video to have reached 300.000 views.

Presumably this video will become our second most viewed video to date in a short while, consider the growth of it is four times the size of Donkey Kong 64 - All main bosses and both are near to the exact amount of views.

That's it for today. I'll see you guys again next post!

[YT] 7 Years of Rayque3 Staff!

Whoohoo! Today is our seventh anniversary of the Rayque3 Staff!

To this date...

- We have created 416 videos in total.
- We have reached almost 7200 subscribers.
- We have accumulated 6,8 million views in total.
- We have finished four complete 100% walkthroughs, with soon our fifth to be completed.
- We have 7 videos over 100.000 views.
- We have 8 videos that are longer than an hour .
(whereas four are almost at or longer than 3 hours each)
- Our longest published video is 5 hours, 53 minutes and 9 seconds long.
- Our shortest published video was 7 seconds long.
- We have accumulated almost 9300 likes.

But wait, there's more!

- 35% of our viewers are female.
- Most views come from the United States, followed by Japan, United Kingdom, Canada and Brazil in that particular order.
- 94% of our views are on the Youtube homepage through a personal computer, 3,8% of them are from mobile devices and 1,5% watches our videos through external websites.

We're still working on our next Single-Part-Video. We currently struggle with the render of this video for the past few weeks; we won't give up so soon yet! It's just a matter of trial and error to find out what is going wrong. There's a good reason why the render has crashed multiple times before... it's almost three times the length of our current longest video we have published so far.

Keep an eye on that, we're not giving up the months of preparation for this one particular video!

Thank you for all the amazing support - today is another milestone in the Rayque3 history!
More is always on the way, so stay tuned!

Rayque & Luxatus Patella

[YT] 7000 Subs - Second 300.000 viewed video - Seventh 100.000 viewed video!

Hi guys! Three major Rayque3 milestones in the past two weeks: 7000 subscribers, our second 300.000 viewed video and our seventh 100.000 viewed video!

We've gained a thousand subscribers in just three months, which is incredible for our standards! Our subscriber growth has been increasing a lot in the past few years...

Our second 300.000 viewed video is the Donkey Kong 64 - All main bosses video. In a few weeks however, Kirby's Return to Dreamland - All Mini/Main/EX Bosses will be the third...

Last but not least, the Kirby 64 The Crystal Shards - All main bosses video has finally reached his well-earned 100.000 viewed title. Interestingly, this video has started with a significant growth in the first two years - its growth decreased a lot over time until it took a few months to gain that last 10.000 views.

What about the eighth 100.000 viewed video? So far there isn't really a video to name to reach it soon. Unless some certain video will skyrocket soon. If that particular one is based on Pokémon, Lux will throw a cake in my face (see bottom paragraph). If not, it will probably be our next Single-Part-Video that will be...

That's it for now. I'll see you guys again next post!

[Lego] Borderlands 2 in Lego® - Constructor - Take 6! [Work In Progress]

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As promised, together with my update about the Hailfire Droid earlier today, here's the update post about the Constructor! There has been a handful of changes, especially in the form of consistency...

First of all, I would like to show an interesting fact that only recurring readers might know about my projects. I actually mention this in order to explain something about the consistency of several functions of the Constructor.

I do redesign the model several times. This also includes for my Hailfire Droid. This means that the current one you see is far from the original model I've built. A redesign of the model can either be the entire body, or just a part of it. Redesigns can also be a simple structure, mechanism or piece substitute. So the design process of my Constructor can be split in two "design cycles"; the first being the "original body" while the second is the "redesign body". Which basically means I've entirely disassembled the original body and created the redesigned one in about half a day. As you can see on the image above, there's a lot of the Constructor I actually don't show on my blog... I won't go there anymore consider I've explained it here (bottom paragraph) already.

Building a model like this is pure trial and error to me. I know how to build it when I just look at several images. How I have to build it exactly is just a matter of trying out things. I don't draw how to build something, I don't use notes at all or any digital software (in example, LDD). It all just comes naturally and spontaneous whenever I start with a pile of pieces. Basically I start with having something in mind and after a short while I have a proof of concept to present. After that I start perfecting the model consider I'm highly aware of all the flaws my model would have at that point.
A model is finished whenever it feels finished to me.

I would only use notes or digital software for projects that I would make in the future (in example, MK. 4 and MK. 5) purely to give my (often restless) mind some rest.

Back to the actual changes, shall we?