[EMS] 10 years of Rayque!

Hi guys! Today's the 30th of September, year 2017. This means that I have been playing 10 consecutive years on my Hero! Of course; without quits, without playing any other main.

As it's my 10th anniversary, let's take a look back at several facts about my MapleStory progress that might be of interest! Although, if you've been following my blog or in-game, most of these shouldn't be new to you.

• On the 30th of September in 2007, EMS was only at version 0.30!
• I've played on my Hero for more than 14.000 hours in the past 10 years! By "past 10 years" I literally refer to the fact that I've been playing on this Hero on a daily basis for that long. Sometimes we can't always be online at every day - but for every day that I can and want to, I would play it. A significant amount of these hours have accumulated between 2007 and 2012. I had a drop in hours a day between 2013 and 2014. In 2015, my playtime has been back to its usual shape - if you look at my Steam profile (since I play EMS pretty much exclusively through Steam since November 2016), it's clear to see how much I enjoy to play this game!
• I use more than sixty other characters to support this main, even though my inventory on my main has been maxed out for quite a while and I also run over 100 additional slots on Rayque by the use of various bags! I have a (bad) habit of picking up pretty much anything I think that might be of use later on... which in most cases, actually helps me a lot and the people around me in the end. Did you know that because my bank is at 125/128 slots, I cannot upgrade it anymore because the game can only expand with either 4 or 8 slots? Yeah, the inventory event that automatically expanded my bank slots to an odd number (or at least any integer not dividable by four) screwed me over. This probably will get fixed along the way - it only hurts my OCD/inner completionist for now.
• I've been part of the FallenAngel guild since November 2008, even though we also went under the name "PatchedWings" between 2010 and until the migration of EMS in 2016, as explained here. I've already met a substantial amount of my guild members in real life, as they've been around me for almost nine years already. My contribution for the guild is already way over 1.500.000 Guild Points! (as with the migration, every guild had to start again from zero)
• I've completed over 5000 quests exclusively on my Hero - although about 1500 of them have been removed throughout the years by Nexon (i.e. original Maple Island, a lot of retired event content, the original Victoria Island quests, Neo Tokyo, Veracent) in order to make space for new content. There is still a significant amount of quests that I can complete (approx 30). Most of these are narrowed down to "kill this boss", fairly minor post-completion daily quests, most of the Fishing Lagoon and some quests that have been reset that I've completed several years ago. But I've done pretty much all the main quests (at least once), except for the ones that require me to kill a boss I usually do not face (i.e. Normal Cygnus, not kidding). I've also maxed out my Dreadnought in Commerci, Evolving World and Soul Driver skill.
• I've defeated several thousands of Horntail and Zakum, a few hundred Pink Bean, seven hundred Shaolin Monk, and more than 1300 Commerci Lith Harbor Voyages. I'm not sure on how much I've defeated other bosses such as Hilla and Mori Ranmaru, but I know that in example I've been doing daily Hilla as long as I have been doing daily Horntail and Zakum, while Mori Ranmaru and Pink Bean were added much later to my dailies list.
• I've completed over 800 Hob King PQ's, over 250 Dragon Rider PQ's, over 150 Kenta PQ's, over 100 Escape PQ's - these numbers are only just for my main as I've also done plenty of Kenta PQ's and such on my mules for EXP. I've leaded plenty Crimsonwood Keep PQ's, Cave of Life PQ's and Neo Tokyo raids. For all the other mainstream Party Quests, I've also had a fair share of leading - it doesn't take me long to pick up something I haven't done in years again as I have a solid memory. Also: because Dimension Invasion has been OP for years (and well, on a hiatus right now until they remove the level scaling limit in PQs), I've also done over 500 of these.
• In 2007, I almost got to Level 30 in just three months. In 2008, I almost got to Level 50. In 2009, I've reached past Level 100. In 2010, I've reached my 4th Job and before the Big Bang update in 2011, I've reached Level 154. It took until the end of 2013 for me to reach Level 200, as after Big Bang I decided to slow down my progress speed on purpose. In 2016, I've reached 5th Job when the update arrived. My 5th Job Advancement was the only job advancement where I was already past the required level when it was released.
• I collect a lot of swords (both one handed and two handed) in MapleStory. I don't want all of them, but I have more than most people can imagine. Fun fact: I do own a Liberated Kaiserium, which has twice the attack of my Ribgol Sword. I was once asked for an interview if I would replace my Ribgol if I got a sword that is twice as powerful. But as we all know, I've been using my Ribgol since the 4th of January, 2012 - nothing will replace it.

There's plenty of other interesting facts about my progress on MapleStory that doesn't have to be mentioned here in my opinion. I mean, you can look at my other EMS blogposts in my blog's archive for that.

Do I ever get bored of MapleStory? That's pretty hard for me to achieve. When do I expect to reach Level 250? When I reach Level 250, it's that simple. Will I ever quit this game? Probably the day when the game shuts down for good. MapleStory is an essential part of my life, I can't imagine a day without and I can't imagine how much it would hurt to see the game go. Logging in and playing the game is a daily habit of mine - a daily habit like how we (or at least, I assume most of us) all eat and sleep.

Anyway, that's it for this blogpost. I'll munch down my bucket of chocolate ice cream to celebrate my secondary birthday - cheers, to eleven years and beyond!