December 31, 2019

[2019] What happened this year to Rayque?

It's that time of the year again! It's time for another summary!
This marks the 9th summary on this blog. Next year will be our tenth!

As always: the Rayque3 Staff wishes you a great 2020!

2019 to me was a year where the ups were fair but the downs were rough. For instance, this year marked the end of my time as a student as I've graduated from school. However, doing so was not an easy thing to do, and neither was graduating without consequences. From what I'm aware of, I now tick all the necessary boxes to apply for the job I've been working my entire life towards. But that of itself has become a difficult situation of its own.

Basically, I'm stuck in a limbo for the time being until I can apply for the job. Despite that I'm now ready for the job from an objective point of view, working abroad for the remainder of my life on my own requires more than just being a potential candidate for that Product Designer life. How long this "limbo" will take, I don't know. But what I do know is that it'll be time to finish my Hailfire Droid next year and hopefully be done with the Constructor in (early?) 2021!

Let's get to those statistics of 2019.

December 30, 2019

[Lego] So, I just got this Sealed Box of #8924...


Behold, one of the best Bionicle sets of all time! At least, that is the general consensus about this particular model.

Maxilos is one of the very few Bionicle sets to have both shoulder and waist articulation. You'd be surprised to hear that from the hundreds of constraction figures and combiner models that LEGO® has produced in two decades, only a couple of them have shoulder articulation and less than thirty have waist articulation (the majority of these being CCBS, which came out after gen 1 Bionicle).

I had to wait about a year before I could snag a sealed box from Bricklink. Most of these (larger, boxed) Bionicle sets are always in a continuous cycle of ebb and flow on the aftermarket. Sometimes there are plenty of them available, sometimes there can be years of none. That said, the 2007 lineup is truly among my favorite in the line.

That's it for today - I'll see you guys again tomorrow, with our annual tradition of the Year Summary!

December 20, 2019

[EMS] Spider in Mirror - Level 30!


Sup guys, I've managed to max out Spider in Mirror recently! There has been plenty of EXP Nodestones in the past couple of coin shops, so I managed to get my hands on enough of them to max the skill out.

Anyway, I have to bring some less positive news that I can't avoid mentioning here.

Due to a change of circumstances in my personal life, I can no longer publish my Glory's skill wave blogpost any time soon. I have to postpone it until at least February 2020, after the update is over. The first draft of about 7500 words is done, but I just can't do any of the quality checking and image building soon. I really can't do any of that earlier than until after the update. Eh well, on a positive note: we should have more information about the Rise update around that time, which I can then include in the blogpost if necessary. Apologies for the delay.

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

November 21, 2019

[EMS] Maple World Goddess' Blessing - Level 30!


Well, the Glory update is out today and as you could expect I came prepared. As mentioned earlier this year I've been endlessly saving up Nodeshards to spend them in skills that are worth maxing out. The skill that came with today's wave of 5th Job skills is one of those that encourages you to max it out, which I did.

No, I am not going to do the whole skill coverage now. I'm going to need some time to collect my thoughts, as I usually prefer to wait at least two weeks before I write like a madman on this blog. Expect the blogpost either early or mid-December. There is some stuff I need to talk about regarding this skill, and there's also some (positive) changes made to several Hero skills that I need to address as well.

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

November 13, 2019

[EMS] First three-lined %-STR Potential GET!


Sup guys! Earlier this week I managed to roll my first item that has three lines of %-STR!

I was doubting whenever I should make a blogpost out if it or not, due to the possibility of needing to publish a new post for every instance an item gets to three lines of %-STR in the near future. I then decided to just write this one-off celebratory blogpost to focus on the milestone of having rolled my first three-liner instead.

Unlike most players, I actually don't tend to craft Meister Cubes myself. Any Meister Cube materials I find are stored on a mule in case of emergency, i.e. if there is an upcoming Murgoth season and I would need to roll a couple of Item Drop Rate lines in short notice. Instead, I keep doing Commerci dailies (and bosses) and that rewards me with a couple of these Meister Cubes a week. I had to use these cubes to rank up every item to Legendary first, which took me a total of three years. That also meant that getting any progress on Potential was difficult during this period, as all of my cubing efforts could not be invested in damage improvement. But since I achieved that milestone earlier this year, I can now focus all of my cubes into rolling something good, and apparently the first item didn't take that long all things considered.

What item I decide to cube has to do with something I call "ladder cubing", which basically means you first start out with trying to cube a reasonable amount of stats on every item, and then work your way up by raising the bar each time. In example: you start out with trying to roll one 9%-STR on every Legendary item (excluding special items such as gloves, shoes, weapons, secondaries and emblems), and when you're done, you raise the goal to 12%-STR on each. Then, you'll try to roll at least two %-STR lines on each item and you keep raising the bar in small increments until you eventually hit 12/12/12 on every item that needs it. Then you do the same for Additional Potential.

Although as you would probably know by now, Potential is RNG so it all boils down to luck. Usually I end up with the short end of the stick in pretty much anything, but fortunately that has not been the case this time. I'm currently on a ladder of trying to get two lines of %-STR on each item as I still have a couple of items with only a single line. So, my Chaos Pink Bean Mark was one of the items that I was trying to roll from one to two %-STR lines, but I somehow managed to get to 12/9/9 early on by sheer luck. So it seems that I wouldn't have to recube this item until everything else has 12/9/9 and then I'll be aiming for 12/12/9 and 12/12/12 in the distant future.

While I won't expect to write more blogposts regarding 12/9/9 or 12/12/9 rolled items, I would write a post about when I hit any 12/12/12's (since that essentially means that item is "done" with its main Potential stats, unless there will be a future update that would change this) or when all of my items are decked out with three desired Potential lines.

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

October 17, 2019

[Lego] So, I just got these three sealed Bionicle canisters...


Wait, don't I already own a copy of Kalmah and Pridak? Yes, I already own a copy of these two.

In some rare cases I purchase multiple copies of a set I already own. The reasons for which do differ from time to time, but aside from that, the story of how I got my first copy of Kalmah, Pridak and Ehlek is an interesting one. It isn't one of those "I bought the sets when they were sold back then" nor was it that "I bought them on the aftermarket when I got older". It was gifted by a LEGO® employee when I was a teen in 2007.

While I would love to go in-depth about what happened during that event, for privacy sake I won't delve into it much. What I can tell is that I was given the opportunity to present a custom packaging design for the company, which I did take, and in return I received those three Barraki sets together with a handwritten card.

October 12, 2019

[EMS] Level 247!


Alright, another level up!

I've been back at having a daily grind with the currently ongoing "The Story of Pebble and Wind" event, as the event grind seems to be a recurring norm nowadays. Hey, if there's a coin shop, I'll be doing that daily grind. Gotta get those Nodestones somewhere, right?

It seems I'm not strong enough to efficiently grind for EXP in Mysterious Fog 1 yet. This map has been on my mind ever since I got access to Moonbridge earlier this Summer. With level penalties being a thing again, I'm always searching for potential map alternatives once I outgrow my usual spot (Shadowdance Hall 4) at Level 260. That map is probably still among the better maps in the Arcane River in terms of platforming, subdued color palette, mob density and map size, but there will be one day where I can no longer go there for grinding out event stuff.

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

September 30, 2019

[EMS] 12 years of Rayque!


Ohey look it's the 30th of September again! That means I've been playing EMS on my Hero for 12 years daily now.

There hasn't been much in terms of events after the Adventure update ended, but there should be some interesting stuff to do later this year. As there were no specific 5th Job skills introduced for Hero with the Adventure update, there was no dedicated blogpost for the small skill changes made in the past couple of updates. I'll get back to them with the dedicated blogpost for the Glory update, which is probably going to arrive this Winter. Hopefully the Adventure Ring blogpost was a good substitute for the time being.

Speaking of which, have another High-Dex Hero video as the last one was published 4 years and 7 days ago. I really should consider to put more effort in producing more of these, but doing these nowadays is easier said than done.

That's it for today - I'll see you guys again next post! Now, where's my bucket of ice cream...

September 15, 2019

[EMS] Maple Union: 6500 Total Levels!


Hi guys! Today I've hit a total level of 6500 for the Union system! Since these kind of blogposts about Union aren't that often, I thought it might be a good opportunity to write a blogpost about my recent progress on it.

Last year, I've hit a total level of 6000 in July. As I've mentioned a couple of times on my blog, I don't really grind characters all the way to Level 200. Most of my characters were created before the concept of Burning events, and thus a majority of them went to 140, 180 or 200 through the use of level up potions. I rarely use Burning events, as I prefer to grind out my characters clean when I do grind - I don't like using multipliers or spawn modifications.

Thus, my main method of getting my Union to higher ranks is through playing daily. I have the advantage of being diligent with my dailies; it includes working on my Union. By doing so, it allows me to smoothly spread out the required time, effort and resources in building up a proper account on a consistent, well-arranged and (to me) easy way of doing so.

Yes, it does take a lot longer to achieve the necessary Union scores that is expected from the game, but at the same time, this is the most effective (and passively efficient) way for me to do so. I'd rather work on my dailies for several thousands of days than to burn out on an endless void of grind with no end. No matter how much you invest in multipliers and quality of life improvements, if the game demands a grind, it's best to be well prepared for climbing a steep mountain as the grind cannot be avoided. Grind reduction? Yes, but requires a lot of (expensive) resources. Arguably better spent elsewhere. Avoiding the grind completely? Only if you don't want to work on Union at all.

The amount of levels I can purchase every week through Union coins has gone up significantly. Early 2018, I could barely afford purchasing five EXP potions for a character up to Level 160, requiring 550 coins to give 2,5 levels (5x 49%). This week, I've been able to buy twelve of these same potions, allowing me to purchase far more levels. This also means that until all of my characters hit 160, I would be able to crawl up my Total Level score faster than I did last year.

Once everything does hit Level 160, I would need to purchase the more expensive EXP potions that are designed for characters between 160~180. But the thing is, once I actually get there, the amount of Union coins I obtain a day is also much higher, so that more or less equalizes the cost with the rate of coins. After my characters hit Level 180, I can't increase my Total Level score the lazy way. Or can I?

The past several large updates have increasingly become more rewarding for participating Maplers: Storm Growth Potions have become more common and AFK events such as the Adventure EXP Pouch were introduced.

The Adventure update gave me over twenty Storm Growth Potions, allowing me to get one Level 180 character of choice to 200 during the event. In addition, I managed to get one Level 190-ish to 200 through a combination of surplus Storm Growths and the Adventure EXP Pouch, and get another character from 180 to 186 with the remaining EXP from the same pouch.

But what would happen to all of the Union coins once I can't buy any more EXP Potions from the Union coin store? At the time I would hit past a whopping 7500 Total Levels, I would have almost an endless supply of 2x EXP and Droprate coupons... So it seems like I should be fine all the way to 8000 Union.

Anyway, I have yet to purchase the rank up for reaching 6500, as I ran out of coins. I'm expecting to have it later this week.

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

September 05, 2019

[Lego] So, I just got this Sealed Box of #80102...


Geez, this box is quite big for such a small set. For those who don't know about this particular one; it was released earlier this year and it is exclusive to retailers in China. They also released two other substantial sets for this year's Chinese New Year, but this is the only one of the three that interests me.

Usually I tend to get these kind of sets on Bricklink (i.e. a majority of the Bionicle sets I'm after were only available in the US at the time), but in this particular case I was fortunate enough to get my hands on it through a colleague of mine, who went through the effort of getting a copy when he was in China.

That said, it did take half a year before the set arrived here. All things considered, it's a miracle that this box has been kept in such a pristine condition... because it travelled by container on a cargo ship all the way to Europe. Don't ask me about it - stuff just happens in my life. As usual.

Anyway, earlier this year I wanted to do another one of these blogposts for my copy of the four Forma sets, but decided last minute not to. I didn't feel like writing about it, as there wasn't much to write about it other than that I participated in the original kickstarter and that it was easier said than done (the kickstarter was UK/US only, so I had to do the same trick as I did with this one). Although if you're aware of my taste in niches or if you looked through my collection earlier this year, you could've known that I have them.

If you excuse me, it's time for me to build this thing. I didn't get the opportunity earlier this week because I was working on the Hailfire Droid and some other stuff.

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

August 18, 2019

[EMS] Level 246!


Ding! Using a Typhoon Storm Growth Potion at 95% might seem a bit excessive, but hey, I might as well use it now. All things considered, it looks like I'll hit Level 250 somewhere next year...

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

August 03, 2019

[Lego] More parts!


Hi guys! Just a small blogpost regarding the progress on my Hailfire Droid and Constructor.

Since my last blogpost about these projects I haven't really been able to write anything regarding my current progress on either of these. In the past several months I've been actively working on my Constructor, as you probably can tell from the image above. It's been redesigned completely from the ground up, and there is quite a bunch of stuff I want to write about when that time is near. I don't know when that will be, but I am considering to write some in-depth stuff about the development as I've been gathering plenty of images from earlier drafts (between April and today) to complement the writing.

Anyway, it should not be difficult to notice that my Hailfire Droid hasn't had any progress at all during these months. With the previous parts bulk, I wanted to get some substantial progress on my Constructor first. Fortunately, I'm now starting to near that time slot where I can invest some time in the Hailfire Droid.

After taking some serious consideration, thought and planning, I've decided to go bold and brave regarding my approach on it. I've been rather allergic to getting the proportions of the Hailfire Droid right up to this point, due to the fact that I really wanted to keep using those prefab wheels that came with the original Technic model. I just love those wheels, maybe a bit too much. But of course, by doing so, the Hailfire Droid proportions got somewhat out of whack, as the wheel diameter is supposed to be at least four times the size of the head section. The length between the head and the wheels also started to grow rather short on my model...

The out-of-proportion design started to bother me for a couple of years now, and I couldn't really figure out a different approach or solution that could meet my standards. However, while working on my Constructor, I've started to figure out a configuration of parts that is starting to grow on me. I've made several sketches on LDD to see what I could do with it, and the more I've been thinking about it, the more I wanted to give it a try. Thus, a couple of Bricklink orders and two weeks later, I'm now writing this blogpost to tell you about it.

So, what I'm confirming here (in case you didn't catch it by now), is that I'm going to try to get the proportions right. I'm going to give it a serious attempt and see where it goes. I'm still waiting for one particular Bricklink order, but the bulk of gray parts that I have on hand right now is enough to start making some progress.

I'll write a dedicated blogpost about the Hailfire Droid once I've managed to get some substantial progress on the next redesign. It'll be here on my blog when it's there. But until then, I'll get back to work...

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

July 31, 2019

[EMS] Sixth Level 20 Arcane Symbol GET!


Ohey, another blogpost so shortly after the one yesterday! Convenient.

With the Arcane Symbol Selectors from the Adventure update's events for this week, I managed to get that last bump of Symbol EXP to get my Esfera Symbol to Level 20. Screw the discount for selectors this Sunday, I've been waiting long enough. This means I'm done with my Arcane Symbols! For now...

Despite that I've hit 1320 Arcane Force early on in the game's lifespan, I still feel rather late to the party. Keep in mind that hundreds of Symbol Selectors went into my Lacheln Symbol, just so that I could get that one off my to do list as soon as possible. Most players who capped before me were able to throw most of those in their Esfera Symbol or have grinded the Symbol EXP out. Either way, not many people will have that 1320 before they hit Level 250, that's for sure...

Anyway, that's it for today - I'll see you guys again next post!

July 30, 2019

[EMS] Seventeenth Legendary Potential GET!


Alright! About damn time... After seven months of throwing over one hundred cubes, my final item has decided it's time to rank up to Legendary Potential. Thus, after three years of effort, all of my items are now Legendary (except for my Crusader Codex, which remains stuck on Unique as long as we don't get an update for its system).

So, what's next? Throwing all of the Meister/Red/Black Cubes on my items, of course. All those other hundreds of Meister/Red Cubes from the past three years went in trying to rank up my items. That really didn't give me the opportunity to roll something better on most of my items. Thus, I can now sink these cubes in an attempt for better lines.

Doing daily bosses and Commerci is a surprisingly good source for Meister Cubes; I find several of these each week. Fortunately for players like myself, I remain diligent on dailies so it's just a matter of time before I get the Potential lines I need. In the meantime, I'll get back at saving mesos for more Enhancements...

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

July 28, 2019

[EMS, YT] Level 245! Second 2.000.000 viewed video!


Ding! All that daily coin grind this month was definitely worth the effort, given that I've managed to grind out over 60% EXP in total. I might even hit Level 246 somewhere in August, because there should be two Typhoon Storm Growth Potions available towards the end of the Adventure update.

Anyway, I should be done with Arcane Force in less than 10 days...


In other news, our Kirby's Return to Dreamland - All Mini/Main/EX Bosses video has reached two million views! This makes our second video to have hit the two million milestone, the first being our Mario Party 7 video.

The Kirby's Return to Dreamland video is currently our strongest growing video on the Rayque3 channel, as it has dethroned Mario Party 7 last year. The second place belongs to our Subspace Emissary video. Surprisingly, our video for Pokémon Battle Revolution is slowly catching up in growth, being our third highest growing video on the channel (in views per month).

Yes, I know that we haven't uploaded a video at all this year. There is actually one particular video that I want to release as soon as possible... but it still remains in a quality check limbo for the time being.

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

July 21, 2019

[EMS] Adventure Rings 101


Alright, it's time for one of these blogposts again, huh. Today's going to be about the Adventure Rings; an important recurring lineup of rings that is often overlooked or underestimated. These items have been given out sparsely in various events since the Balance Patch from 2010, and their importance to character building have only become more fundamentally significant as the game evolved.

Since not many people talk about this, let alone that basic knowledge regarding these is almost non-existent in terms of guides, I've decided to be "that guy" because I seem to be the only one who has actually spent enough time collecting these like a madman and trying to understand the rulings behind these items.

In this blogpost, I'll try to teach you the basics of why these rings are so important, what they have to offer from a long term perspective and how to identify the different types of Adventure Rings. However, if you can't really give a damn about these items, then I'm afraid this blogpost isn't for you.

Important: due to fundamental differences between regional versions of MapleStory, and because Adventure Rings are included with modern changes made to the game (a.k.a. susceptible to game changes), this blogpost is only there to teach you the basic in's and out's for these items, so that you can apply this knowledge to your own characters in whatever version you're playing.

In example, the rulings behind the types of Adventure Rings vary between versions. This matters a lot because that ultimately decides what Adventure Rings you'll need in order to wear multiple of these at once. Certain combination of rings will only work for EMS, but because these rulings are different for other versions, the same cannot be reproduced in a version such as KMS. However, that also means that in other versions there are combinations we cannot use in EMS.

That is why I've decided to explain in this post how to identify these types (and thus, rulings) yourself. I will explain how the type pools are in EMS as of the Adventure update, and hopefully by doing so, you should be able to understand the fundamental basics that is required in order to equip multiple Adventure Rings simultaneously if you ever decide to do so.

But before we jump into the next chapter of "why", a bit of a history lesson behind these items might not hurt in order to understand how long-term updates to MapleStory shaped how Adventure Rings are today.

July 14, 2019

[EMS] Amaterasu's Epaulet - 20 Enhancements!


Hi guys! With today's Sunny Sunday event, I went ahead and upgraded my next Amaterasu equip to 20 enhancements. Unfortunately, luck left me behind as it took 45 billion mesos in Star Forcing to get today's result...

... But at least I did manage to get my Amaterasu's Epaulet from 17 to 20. It could've been worse, y'know. I still have six items left to enhance to 20 (excluding my Sengoku Hakase Badge), and then I'll get my seven Amaterasu equipment to 22. The stats on these items are starting to look good, but there's still a lot of work left to do...

Time to save up mesos again for the next round! I'm thinking of trying to get my Amaterasu's Belt to 20 next time.

Anyway, I'm planning to write a blogpost regarding the rulings behind equipping different Adventure Rings simultaneously, as I think there is some demand for it. When well that be? Dunno. I still have a bunch of new items to farm in Borderlands 2 with the recent update, and I've also been occupied with my Hailfire and Constructor as of late...

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

June 11, 2019

[EMS] Level 244!


Just in time for the Adventure update, I had a spare Typhoon Storm Growth Potion left as was part of the update's pre-registration event. Plus, the Personal Training event required me to grind close to 60% worth of EXP, just to get one other character of choice on my account to Level 190.

Anyway, I should get to Level 245 somewhere around this Summer. There will be plenty of hours worth of coin grinding during the Adventure update to obtain another Adventure ring, and there should be another Typhoon Storm Growth potion later on during the event.

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

May 27, 2019

[EMS] Union Mayhem-Marathon, part 2!

Part of the joke is that, this isn't even everything that I've worked on today...
Ah shit, here we go again. After almost 8 hours of clicking, burning through 150k Spell Traces and four billion mesos, I've done some major upgrades to all of my Union mules that are now Level 150+.

Last year I've done something similar, when I prepared a lot of Sengoku equipment for a couple of Union mules that were at the required level. Another year has passed, and I've been working diligently on my Union and Mori Ranmaru dailies, so a lot more mules have gotten past Level 150, and it was time to empty my Sengoku equipment mule as it started to become difficult to stuff more items in my bag.

Because I use Amaterasu as my main item set, I tend to farm, craft and find a lot of Sengoku gear. With Equipment Traces requiring a large sum of the same item, I've had to stockpile hundreds of each Clan Shard and Sengoku recipe, thousands of Purple Powders and ten thousands of Superior Item Crystals. I practically have an unlimited supply of Sengoku items at my disposal. I only have to tribute (read: forge) these ingredients at the sacred Zipangu shrine (read: Smithing furnace) in Channel 11 Ardentmill, and they'll appear in my inventory almost instantly.

Unfortunately the Sengoku upgrade for all of my mules is just the beginning. Most of these characters used items that were limited to just 5 or 10 Star Force each, and thus the swap to Sengoku is just to raise this limit for future endeavours. At least, for the time being, all of these items have 11 SF each.

Although not every single mule on my account will use full Sengoku, as there are exceptions. My Beast Tamer will run a +Skill Levels build so it'll stick with Dragontail, my Demon Avenger uses a % HP layout, mages will use their corresponding Elemental Staves and my Dark Knight recycles my old Lionheart equipment together with a Lionheart Fuscina to complete the item set.

Anyway, I still have to work on the accessory part on each mule; mainly being rings and pendants. With my daily Akyrum runs I manage to find plenty of Mechanator Pendants with high-tier Additional Options and the occasional Dominator Pendant every few hundred runs, so I'll use those and transfer them with Platinum SoKs gained from the Maplehood Watch event. I'll go do Hard Van Leon/Blackgate and Hieizan on each mule another day...


So, how much did this resource sink reward me? Actually by quite a lot! My raid power has gone up by eight million!

In context of Union's raid power, it essentially is a damage number that determines how fast you earn a single Union coin. Each second, this damage number is applied to a boss exclusive to the Union system. Every time the accumulated damage on this boss passes a sum of 100b, you'll earn one Union coin. So yeah, an increase by eight million is quite high when you think about it.

But what is probably a comparison that's easier to understand: eight million raid power is about what you'll get from a Level 200 character that is equipped out with a decent number of Star Force. A Level 150 character that is equipped with the same amount of Star Force is worth about three million. Having a good balance of Star Force and levels is important - even if you decked out a low level mule with 11 Star Force items, it only starts to hit hard on the raid power once it's close to Level 200. But it still is always a good thing to increase the Star Force on any mule when you can, though!

That said, at least my Level 150+ mules are now well prepared. With the current speed of Union coin farming, I can manage to gain 2~2,5 levels on two mules a week. But this also means that the more I keep working on it, the faster the coin farming will go, due to the Level-SF scaling that is now prepared ahead of time. There's still a decent number of mules on my account left that aren't past Level 150 yet, although that'll be for another day (and thus, part 3).

Anyway, that's it for this blogpost. It's starting to get late, I'm tired and I should go to sleep now. I still have a couple of days left to work in Norway before I'll head back home. I'll see you guys again next post!

May 19, 2019

[EMS] Level 243!


Here we go again
Thirteen days left in Norway
The grind continues

May 11, 2019

[EMS] The mysterious ID Card Chair


Hi guys! Today I've decided to write a fun trivia blogpost, since I feel I don't do these often enough. Our subject matter is the mysterious "ID Card" chair, which is a rare but recurring lineup of chairs, only available during certain events.

So, we all know MapleStory has a thing for chairs. Chairs have been evolving in terms of what they can do in the course of Maple's lifespan. Nowadays we have chairs that can be sat with multiple players, chairs that allows you to sit next to your own android, chairs that give certain buffs, chairs that changes the background music. But still, there is something about these "ID Card" chairs that make them unique and valuable.

Currently, at the time of writing, these chairs have only appeared during two events so far. The first was during the Dragon Pop event in late 2017, which was an event I participated in on a daily basis, but I didn't purchase the chair with the given event coins. The ID Card Chair from the Dragon Pop event was designed with a Henesys theme, so the ID Card was green and watermarked with a Henesys motif. I wasn't aware of the hidden mechanic that came with this chair until it was too late, so I had to wait until they would reintroduce it in the future.

Fortunately, the ID Card Chair has returned with the current ongoing anniversary events! This time, the chair is designed with a 14th anniversary theme. It is still available until June, by the way.

So, what does the chair do? It shows the creation date of the character that sits on the chair.

How does the chair show the character's creation date? The first six digits shown on the ID card uses a YY-MM-DD format where the first two digits shows the year, the second two shows the month, and the final two shows the day. That means the number 070930 on my card translates to the 30th of September, 2007.

While this doesn't sound like some major game-breaking mechanic, it is perhaps a more subtle and of personal value to players like myself. In most MMORPG's, there is some way of checking the creation date of your character, or to see how many hours you've been playing the game. However, because MapleStory is already close to one-and-a-half decade old, it came out during a time when those things weren't as common in games as they are today.

Maple doesn't tell you when your character was made, and neither does it tell you your total playtime. As such, your "quest log" has been a standard to many as an indication of how old your character is, but that one stopped being waterproof with the Big Bang update in 2010.

Quest logs have been reset in some versions in the past, and quests from older content (that are no longer accessible) have occasionally been removed to make space for newer ones. As such, it became nearly impossible to prove when you've started Maple, unless you are lucky enough like myself to have online footage and saved screenshots of your journey. And even in my case, I didn't start our Youtube channel until the Summer of 2008, which by then, I already had spent ten months in the game. The first MapleStory videos on our channel weren't even out until the 19th of December in that year, and many of these early videos aren't even available anymore to begin with!

How I managed to know about my creation date of 30 September 2007 was based on my quest log from nine years ago, which I recorded for keepsake. However, I lost this footage long ago, as my computer from that time was so unstable it had to be formatted each year. Either way, people trust my word when I tell them about my character's creation date, but like anyone else, I would have no evidence in case one would ask me for it. But that now has changed, with the ID Card Chair in my possession! Plus, it also gives me some closure in a way that I now have an official confirmation from the game itself about it.

So, now that "mystery" is solved, is there any way I could prove my total playtime in MapleStory? Unfortunately, that by itself can never be truly confirmed. I know that I'm close to 20.000 hours on EMS (if not already), but there's no way I can prove that with some statistics or something. My Steam profile is perhaps a good start for keeping track of my playtime after the 22nd of November 2016.

Either way, I hope that at least my expertise, experience and actions in the game would prove to be sufficient to everyone around me. Stuff like my Arcane Force, my never ending crusade for more Guild Contribution, my quest log with over 4500 quests completed on Rayque despite over two-thousand were removed from it in a lifetime, perhaps a bit of Maple Achievements and the tracking numbers of Boss Slayers and Commerci... In the end, it's really up to you if you want to believe it or not. At least most (old) players from EMS do more or less agree with that I've been around for a while. It's a start, I guess?

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

April 13, 2019

[Lego] Oh no...


Paaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarts! I've ordered about a thousand parts (!) from a couple of sellers on Bricklink, and the final pack just arrived this morning. There's a few hundred reddish brown pieces, a lot of Technic parts, and even some teal stuff. But what is probably the most important set of pieces: four Mindstorms NXT/EV3 to 9V converter cables, ten pneumatic brackets, twenty Bionicle G2 gearboxes and a pair of those new pneumatic valves.

Almost every part in this bulk is for my Hailfire and Constructor projects. Yes, of course I haven't forgotten about these guys, and neither have I stopped working on them. I'm more than aware of that I haven't written many blogposts of these in the past five years. But that doesn't mean that there's no progress on them when there's no post about it.

I have been extremely busy in the past few years to a point where I either have no time to order parts that I absolutely need, no time to work on these projects, too much on my to do list with MapleStory, or where there's something else completely different that sucks all of my attention away. However, I'm more than aware that none of these are good excuses, and I don't even want to call them as such - ultimately the biggest contributor (or well, root cause) to long term project delays is simply ordering parts online that I need to resume my work.

Despite that I have done over 15 purchases on Bricklink in the past 7 years, it's still quite a mountain for me to climb each time I want to start an order. The only way for me to overcome that is to simply do more Bricklink orders until it becomes a habit. So essentially, I'm still learning how to fit this procedure in my life. However, I can tell that each time ordering parts becomes easier for me to do - to a point where this was my first attempt at micromanaging multiple orders at once.

So, I expect to have quite some spare time for my projects around the end of this month. In May, I won't have time for anything because I will be in Norway again - but at least I would have the entirety of this Summer ready to do whatever I want. And I want to work on these projects, dammit!


Anyway, these parts weren't just to add stuff to my Hailfire or Constructor. In fact, these parts are to accommodate a complete redesign of both projects, as I have done multiple times before. With the Hailfire Droid I won't change much of the wheel frames but I will have to start over with the head and the connection points to the wheel frames. The Constructor however, will be completely disassembled and built from scratch. It is much needed for it...

I will probably do a few small builds with the parts that I have on hand, but nothing too fancy in the next ten days. Don't expect any major blogposts for these projects this or next month though. I'll keep those for this Summer. But around that time I will write those long blogposts that explain in-depth about what has changed and such, the same way as it has been in the past. And no, I won't write about why my Constructor has teal parts on it. That will be for one of the final blogposts regarding the Constructor, which I'm not quite there yet.

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

April 08, 2019

[EMS] Combo Instinct - Level 30!

 
Alright! Level 30 on Combo Instinct went fast, despite that it has only been available since December. I suppose that shows how much events have been improved with giving more generous amounts of Nodestones. Of course there's also the (recent) increase in base droprate from Nodestones, the amounts of hours I've had to grind for event coins and having more % Item Droprate on my character to contribute for this milestone, but either way: this is going well.

So, what skill is next? I'm actually going to follow my gut feeling on this one. Objectively speaking, from the skills that I have left in my active V Matrix, Body of Steel would be the next logical choice. However, I've decided to save up Nodeshards again for the time being. That might sound as a boring decision, but keep in mind that these remain a rare resource to me since I don't purchase Nodestones from other players. I feel like I should save up shards, regardless what the next skill wave will introduce to the game.

Either way, it's not like I extract everything I find from Nodeshards. Duplicate skills are used to improve the ones I currently use, all others I don't need will be converted into shards - it's just that I don't invest these Nodeshards into getting a skill maxed out sooner. I'd rather keep them until there is something that feels worth my while. It is a luxury issue, at best. I could consider to invest in reinforcing the damage on Raging Blow and start working on my enhancement nodes, but it's not something I currently need. Having more damage is always nice, but it needs purpose. Plus, finding enhancements from opening Nodestones is extremely common. It would be a bit of a waste to pour shards into these because of that. I'll be fine without crafting duplicates once I've decided to start working on enhancements.

So with Sword of Burning Soul and Aura Weapon, the duration increase was way too valuable because the increases for each additional level is significant. So increasing the uptime for these skills became an absolute priority. In context of Combo Instinct, where that priority came from was a bit of a different story: despite that its duration does not increase per level, the damage output on it gains a significant boost. This boost was that large that it does really make a huge difference, so it was definitely worth my while for where I want to utilize it. But if we look at the skills I currently have left... Hmm. At best it's icing on the cake. I just don't have something as big as Sobs, AW or CI left until Nexon introduces something new or increases the appeal of leveling the more underused skills.

I'll be fine with not spending Nodeshards on my remaining skills for the time being - there's plenty of Nodestones to be opened in the future, so maxing out all skills is inevitable. Yes, even Spider in Mirror.

Anyway, hopefully that does clarify some of that dilemma. I'd rather choose to prioritize game changers over "nice to haves". I'm currently at a point where I could always use more damage, but doing so with only Nodeshards is not going to place me higher up in the food chain. If I would want to solo the normal variants of 5th Job bosses or the final 4th Job ones, then I would need more than just working exclusively on my 5th Job skills. Gotta work on that Star Force and Potential first in order to get closer to that goal. But for now, I'm sitting comfortably with my daily stuff - I haven't bumped into many walls yet. And as long as that remains, there is not a lot of need for (small but expensive) power creep. I'll definitely get to that point eventually, but not today or tomorrow. Anyway, another 5th Job skill maxed!

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

March 28, 2019

[EMS] Fifth Level 20 Arcane Symbol GET!

 
Alright! My Arcane Symbol for Morass hit Level 20 today. That means five symbols done; one left to do. This will take a while though, but I'm getting close...

Anyway, for those event dailies I'm most likely going to stick around in Morass maps. I'm nowhere near close to one shotting mobs in Esfera, and some of the map layouts in Morass are much better either way. Not being to able one shot enemies does hinder the grind for event coins and such, so it's best to stay there until the Aranya/Aranea maps become a more desirable option for the sake of EXP/drops or until the level penalty in Morass starts to hit hard.

I can't wait to unlock Moonbridge at Level 245 though. Even if none of the regions in the Tenebris continent give new Arcane Symbols, I really do like the aesthetic design of the Mysterious Fog maps and the first two parts of the Labyrinth of Suffering.

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

March 26, 2019

[EMS] Sixth Level 15 Arcane Symbol GET!


Sup guys! Today my Arcane Symbol from Esfera hit Level 15. This also means I'm just a few months away from maxing out my Arcane Force gained through Arcane Symbols, as long as these remain capped at Level 20.

My Arcane Symbol from Morass reaches Level 20 in a couple of days, so all of my Arcane Symbol Selectors are now dumped into my Esfera symbol. Fortunately these selectors have become more common from events and are also given out in larger numbers, which should ultimately save up a few weeks of daily effort.

With the amount of symbols required to hit 20, I'm expecting my Esfera symbol to be done in August or September - but that completely depends on how often selectors are given out. Without these, it would take 189 days before I'm done.

That's it for today - I'll see you guys again later this week!

March 19, 2019

[EMS] Amaterasu's Gloves - 20 Enhancements!

 
Well, that took me a while - this is my first item that has 20 enhancements! I've been saving up mesos for several months now to have a solid chance of getting an item to a high Star Force count. Being well prepared with a budget of almost 20 billion mesos and a mule stacked with Amaterasu's Gloves for Equipment Traces did pay off, now didn't it?

Unfortunately the budget wasn't enough to get it close to 22 enhancements - but such is RNG. I'd rather keep the 20 enhancements on my Amaterasu's Glove than to boom it and be dropped back at 17, especially since I only have a quarter of my budget left. Perhaps I might have better luck with my next item.

So part of my plan in terms of enhancements is to get at least all of my items from 17 to 20 enhancements, and only then might I consider to get to 22 when that's all set - unless I get lucky with an item hitting 20 early on. But there lies the difficult decision making - of course I want to get my items to 22 as soon as possible, but getting everything to 20 first would be the better call. It would allow me to have a bit more buffer by dividing the efforts, because I'm expecting to boom items between enhancement 20 and 22. That 7% boom rate should not be underestimated with the low success rates.

The reason why I didn't wait for Star Force events is because I don't expect it to change the outcome too much at this point. Sure, it would save some mesos, but at the same time it might end up with a zero sum. The only way to get these improvements is to be well prepared, try your luck and repeat until success anyway.

But for now I'll be back at saving up mesos until I have enough to try another Amaterasu item. One step at a time. That also means I'd rather work on my enhancements first before I'll sink a lot of mesos in Auction House for Chaos Cubic Blades, by the way.

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

March 03, 2019

[EMS] Level 242!


Since I was going to level up through a Storm Growth Potion, I thought might as well try to make it look cool. Plus, there has been over five Shadowdance Hall 4 level up posts in recent memory (in addition to a few posts being disguised as a Bounty Hunter Portal level up that was entered from that map), so changing the location for once might not hurt.

I'm aware that there hasn't been much activity on my blog lately, and that is because I've been occupied with a couple of time demanding things, including a bottleneck in school stuff. I'm trying to take it easy to keep things together for now, and hopefully that pile of work should be dealt with by the end of this month.

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

February 02, 2019

[EMS] Level 241!


Huh, this level up went rather fast. There has been plenty of 2x EXP Coupons lately, on top of another one of those special Storm Growth Potions that gave me close to 50% EXP instantly. But what probably contributed the most was the fact that it took me forever to spawn an Elite Boss for yesterday's Lunar New Year Missions. After forty channels I still couldn't find a single dark map, dammit. It was a good excuse to burn through those coupons, though...

Anyway, there should be another one of those Storm Growth Potions with the upcoming Utah's Farm event, so the time to Level 242 should be significantly shorter than it normally would've been without one. I wonder if I'll hit max Arcane Force or Level 250 first. I suspect it'll be the former because there probably won't be too many EXP-boosting or grindy events throughout the year.

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

January 16, 2019

[EMS] Level 239! Level 240!


Ding! Geez, how long has it been since I was allowed to use a Storm Growth Potion on Rayque? I think the last time I've used one was back when I was between Level 180 and Level 190, which was in 2012.

Anyway, these modern Level Up potions can only be used up to Level 240 for an instant level. These can still be consumed after Level 240, but it only gives EXP equal to the required EXP from 239 to 240. That should give me almost 50% on between 240 and 250, so I suppose that's not too bad either.

I'm going to grab some food and go to bed now. I'm tired and hungry. It's been a long day, and that grind to Level 239 for that final 17% took several hours so...

January 10, 2019

[EMS] Fourth Level 20 Arcane Symbol GET!


Hi guys! Today my Arcane Symbol for Lacheln has reached Level 20, which means it's maxed out! The events during the Black update has saved me from doing an additional two months of daily Dream Breaker...

Lacheln has been my slowest Arcane Symbol to level, because I've always been stuck with a low-to-decent clear score for Dream Breaker. In fact, I've almost been doing Dream Breaker for 1,5 years on a daily basis. It would've been close to 2 years if it weren't for the amount of event perks and a generous sum of Arcane Symbol Selectors...

When Dream Breaker came out in the Summer of 2017, I've been stuck with a maximum clear score of 10 floors. It took several weeks until I managed to get past floor 20, and then I've been benched at floor 30 for several months. It was only until much later in 2018 where I managed to reach floor 50.

With Dream Breaker you're able to obtain up to 500 Dream Coins daily, which then can be exchanged for Lacheln Symbols at an exchange rate of 30 Coins = 1 Symbol. As you may have guessed: you get one coin for each floor you clear. You also get three runs a day.

Lacheln is notoriously known for being the slowest Arcane Symbol to max out. Even if you're capable of defeating high end bosses on your own or max out with Spirit Savior, that doesn't mean you'll do well during Dream Breaker. The HP scaling each floor is significant, and only a handful of people in EMS are able to get the maximum daily score.

That said, even if you do manage to obtain 10 Symbols a day (which is clearing Floor 100 three times a day), you're still stuck with doing these dailies for almost a year. It's common with Lacheln to have only 3~8 symbols a day. And if you don't believe me, just ask around or look at the Dream Breaker rankings yourself.

So it's not like I maxed out my Arcane Symbol for Lacheln because I have a high clear score. I've just been stubborn enough to do Dream Breaker on a daily basis, and diligently work on it without skipping a day. And guess what, I still managed to max it out, regardless on how slow it went.

Four down, two left! For now, that is...

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

January 06, 2019

[EMS] Aura Weapon - Level 30!


Alright! The Black update has really been that generous with Nodestones huh? Aura Weapon went straight from Level 9 to 25 and I still have plenty of Nodestones left for purchase.

I won't reach another Level 25 within the event period, but the combination of having a maxed out Sword of Burning Soul and Aura Weapon is pretty important. Being able to have Aura Weapon out for 140 seconds and with only a cooldown of 40 seconds is great. Let's not forget that the activation of crescents (which currently doesn't always want to happen at the right moments) will be improved later this year...

For now, the next skill in line is Combo Instinct. I'm currently at a position where increasing the rift damage on it could make a huge difference for certain boss runs.

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

January 01, 2019

[EMS] Level 238!

 
Ding! First blogpost of 2019.

I might want to consider to reach Level 239 before the end of the Black update, because of that Level Up potion for 200~239... One additional level in less than a month shouldn't be that difficult, right?

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