[EMS] Traits: Level 100 Empathy! Welcome to the Luna server!

Hi guys! Just about two days ago, everybody from MapleStory Europe has migrated to the Luna server. For the ones who don't know, in a long story short: region lock between American and European Nexon games has been removed, GMS and EMS now has the same launcher and you basically choose when you log in if you either want to connect to the American or European servers.

Kradia and Demethos have been merged into one server, called Luna. The amount of Channels has increased from 14 to 20 (!) and the game seems to run so much smoother! I know it's still early to judge if the migration process has been handled well, but as far as the past two days have been, it has been handled quite well and it could've been way below my initial expectations.

However, because of the complexity of said migration, there's been a few things that had to be done. Actually, the migration would literally delete all un-migrated accounts but would keep Kradia and Demethos. They eventually decided to keep all accounts, but merged Kradia and Demethos into Luna. Because all un-migrated account data are stored and will only be migrated once the owners of these accounts would manually accept the migration process, all buddylists and guilds have been reset because otherwise the game would have to connect your accounts with accounts that are not transferred to Nexon America's database (yet).

I know that sounds kinda bad, I mean like, you'll lose a lot of progress on your guild if you did. But well, here's my take on it.

A screenshot of November 2008, just after I joined FallenAngel.

Some of you recurring readers might know I've been part of a guild called FallenAngel ever since in November 2008. When I started my adventure on MapleStory on the 30th of September in 2007, I was looking for an elite guild to join rather soon. Yeah, I know that sounds very controversial compared who I am today. People can change, including some stubborn potato like myself.

But let's talk for a moment about my past in guilds, which is surprisingly not as varied as one could expect from a person who has played more than 11.000 hours on a single character...

A screenshot of early 2008, a few months after I joined AeroBlast.

My first guild I joined was AeroBlast back in early 2008, with that one friend who was responsible for getting me to play EMS. Back then, the game required a party of six people to create a guild. So, AeroBlast was made with a small group of six people. One of which would ultimately guide me to FallenAngel...

A screenshot of the summer of 2008, shortly after I joined LostLove.

The second guild I joined was LostLove, somewhere in the summer of 2008. It was a small and cozy guild created with a few friends I found along the first half year of playing EMS. This guild has been defining to me. It showed me that a guild doesn't have to be some alliance between high level players to get stronger. It showed me a concept of home, people who you could rely on, people who would make the game much more fun.

So back on track, after I left LostLove I joined FallenAngel in November 2008. And well, of course, I stayed in touch with my friends of LostLove as much as I still can do nowadays. Ultimately even some members of LostLove joined the FallenAngel group and I had the delightful opportunity to eventually meet some of them in real life after so many years.

The union Dutchies - consists of PatchedWings, SmexyJunks, SmexyJuniors and Lolsquad.

We moved to a new guild called PatchedWings with the main members because back in 2010, you couldn't give the leadership to another character once the guild was made. This feature that we have today had yet to be invented back then.

Somewhere early in 2009, we became close to another Dutch guild called SmexyJunks. When we made PatchedWings we could finally join forces in the union called Dutchies, because we didn't have the leadership on FallenAngel to join it. As a group, we had a few hundred active members in total, taking the role of one of EMS' largest Dutch-only unions for several years.

The union never dried up from people who got so fed up of power creep or people who got into any major fights within group. The union really has felt like family to me, a strong bond I've never found anywhere else in any other game. Everyone's opinion had value, we had three active leaders who we could always rely on. However, we never considered competition to be a thing. As a group, we wouldn't stand in each other's way to achieve what we wanted to. If somebody wanted to leave, we would support it, stay in touch and they know they would always be welcome back whenever they feel like it.

So eventually the union was heading towards a point where most members would go separate ways, including one of the leaders herself. Because we saw this coming as a group way ahead of time, we had to face the thought that the union might not be immortal, however we all agreed that it is still worth pursuing regardless how many members are left. So before the union went into "hibernation" in 2012, I took the role of union leader to take my home to an unknown possible and distant future where we could rebuild in a different age of MapleStory. Eventually we actually lost the leadership on SmexyJunks, SmexyJuniors and Lolsquad - I was only able to recover the leadership on Lolsquad earlier this year.

While the idea of taking a large union with only a handful of people to an unknown and uncertain future might sound far-fetched to most people on the internet, you might be surprised (or, if you know me by now, perhaps not) that the union still remained strong even if we went separate ways. A lot of members are still in touch with each other (in-game and outside Maple). Ever since I've started meeting Maplers in real life starting in 2009 I have met more than forty of those people I consider family as of today. Our union has proven the test of time and there is definitely still a future for it.

Every year, a handful of old members always come back so they refuge to the union as always. The union has never felt lonely, there has always been a member or two. Sometimes even more. Imagine if you would live on your own, and you'll always have a handful of roommates you know for several years who stay a few weeks until the next time they come back.

The full rebuild of the Dutchies union, and for the first time having both FallenAngel and PatchedWings.
This screenshot was made late during the night, because all of the new content requires my attention during daytime.

So if you would ask how the guild/union/buddylist reset has hit me, it has barely changed anything. We are currently rebuilding the entire union from scratch. In just one day we got to Level 3 already. In fact, we even took the opportunity to name our guild FallenAngel again! On the contrary, the reset has shown to be an afterthought: the union hasn't been this lively in years! We also have the leadership back on all five guilds. Not every member is back yet, given that we just migrated two days ago. We haven't even gotten to expand the capacity of any of the guilds to hold more than 20 members each yet. It's still early. Go figure.

Before you know it, Dutchies is back in business. Or well, it has always been. It's a matter of perspective. An union isn't limited by the game, and neither is an union defined by the name. It's defined by the people that are part of it, not just either in or out.

That aside, let's get back to the initial subject of this blogpost: Level 100 Empathy! This is the last Trait on Rayque that wasn't Level 100 yet until a few hours ago.

Late in 2011, the Chaos Update was released with the Character Trait system. I'm not a big fan of rushing out stuff, so that is why it took that long to get my traits to Level 100. Well, if you'd farm Traits daily for a few hours a day, you would still need half a year to finish all of it...

My first Level 100 Trait was Ambition, back in January 2015. Roughly 5 months after, my Willpower hit the ceiling. It took another 5 months to get to Charm, and just barely three months after for my Insight. My Diligence trait was the "most recent", all the way back in March 2016.

I managed to rush out the last 10 Levels of Empathy through the Secret Stories event! One of the rewards was a bunch of Trait Potions if you picked the right ending for the second chapter. Man, them feels and that fantastic musical score.

While I wouldn't judge Empathy as the most important trait of this game, it is a boost that is surely welcome in my view. I'm sure most people (mages and non-mages) would appreciate the flat 2000 MP boost, and having a passive permanent 10% Buff Duration is always handy. It works with Terms and Conditions so, you won't hear me complain!

On a side note, I've just started the mini-game Monster Life in Maple for the first "real" time. I thought I should give it a try, and it is much more fun than I would expect it to be! Well, I guess that shouldn't be a big surprise, given I've enjoyed Construction on RuneScape a lot, I have played a lot of Animal Crossing on the GameCube and original DS and one of my favorite LEGO® games of all time is Rock Raiders...

While I'm not going to do a lot with the stat bonuses it gives me on Rayque because I don't like temporary boosts, I will definitely enjoy building my confined space of Rayque-centric economics and mushroom buildings. My OCD is going to trash the fun, I tell you...

That's it for today! Because the migration came with lots of new content, be sure to expect some new posts soon in your virtual mailbox! I'll see you guys again next post!