[2021] What happened this year to Rayque?

Another year's end, another summary.

This year marks the 11th summary on this blog. I have now been blogging for over a decade!
As always, the Rayque3 Staff wishes you a great 2022!

2021 has been an exceptionally busy year. So busy in fact, that I haven't even been able to finish my main goals for the year: the Definitive Edition article and my Hailfire Droid. Unfortunately, due to my declining health, the amount of work I can do on anything has become limited. Lately, most of my time during the day is spent sleeping... and for the few hours that I am awake though, I seem to have the same working deficiency of when I had a burnout in 2014.

That said, I'll share some information about the work that has been done on these projects, what I had planned for the year and what has been delayed to (hopefully?) next year. While I usually prefer to avoid mentioning my declining health, I do believe that in case of this year it helps to bring some insight, context or explanation to the situation.

At least this year's summary is extra thick. Anyway, let's get to those statistics of 2021.

[Other] Finally, it's here!

"Sometimes before you beat the game, the game first must beat you."

I had to wait two damn years for this, but it was well worth the wait.

This game was announced late 2019, where I pre-ordered it from the official Capcom store. Ordering this from the online store was not the easiest thing to do, since I had to use a VPN to access the website as the pre-order was not available in Europe. Additionally, I had to let this game ship to an address in the United States.

When it comes to importing stuff, I usually do it the old fashioned way where I let the product ship to a colleague from work and then wait until an overseas business trip is scheduled. It's pretty much what I'm most accustomed with, especially when it comes to Nintendo-related products. Although nowadays this hands-on approach can be considered obsolete, but it does get the job done. If you have a network, you only need to be patient. Or in this case, very patient.

Anyway, it's time for another history lesson! In the early days of the internet, indie game development became a common pastime activity with the growing popularity of free game development software. I was involved with a handful small projects as a spriter, since I found making sprites for games to be something I found interesting and fun to do.

Being that much involved with spriting grew my passion and preference for pixel-based graphics. Eventually I came across an old website called The Spriters Resource where it was easy to pluck lots of different sprite sheets. You could use these sheets to make placeholder images, which in return would make developing early builds of games easier.

It was fun to browse the expansive library on the website and I visited it daily to see what was added. Through this I eventually stumbled across sprite sheets of the then-released Mega Man Battle Network and Zero series, which is how I initially became aware of their existence. I even did end up using some of their sprites in a handful of projects.

A few years later, I was visiting my local Free Record Shop to purchase Pokémon Pearl, which then just came out.
On the same shelf, I found a copy of Mega Man ZX. Out of pure curiosity and familiarity with the sprites from its predecessors, I instead decided to buy ZX based on what was shown on the back of the box. Ironically ZX ended up being a better purchase than Pearl, as Pokémon Platinum's announcement wasn't too far away.

So yes, ZX was my entry to the franchise. It was still during a time when I was only interested in playing video games on the easiest difficulty, as I greatly struggled to beat games like these on even the easiest difficulty settings.

It was only until much later that I grew capable of overcoming challenging video games, simply by continuing to play them. By gradually raising the bar, I came to understand and appreciate the game loop of difficult video games. Eventually, I became skilled enough to beat them, to a point where game difficulty became a part of the enjoyment.

In 2016, I decided to pick up a copy of Mega Man ZX Advent, with the intent of beating Expert Mode. After that,
I purchased Zero 3 and 4 on the Wii U's Virtual Console. I also wanted to have ZX and Advent on the Wii U, but unfortunately Nintendo didn't include them with the service. Playing these types of games on a TV with a SNES controller really does bring out the best experience, and with the Zero/ZX Collection, it offers just that.

The collection itself isn't perfect, but it definitely raises the bar within its genre. It almost includes everything and the image quality is almost as good as it'll get. Unfortunately for whatever reason did they not include the Battle Network connectivity for Zero 3 and the pixel ratio for the DS games aren't 1:1. And for the sake of being a purist: the collection doesn't offer the original GBA versions of the Zero games as it only offers the DS editions. Thankfully though, what is included is a steal. Almost every regional release of each game is included (so you can play the uncensored Japanese versions if you want) and they went the extra mile by including the uncompressed audio/video files for the ZX games.

Anyway. I do hope that one day Capcom would hire Inti Creates again to do ZX3. As the most desirable games are not those that are guaranteed to eventually come out... but those that are unlikely to ever exist. Most want Half-Life 3, others wanted Metroid Dread, but to me, Mega Man ZX3 and Sin & Punishment 3 are those games.

[EMS] Maple Union: 8000 Total Levels!

Sweet, I've managed to get my Union to 8000 already. It wasn't part of the plan, as I got way too close to this milestone by accident. I guess that having milestones happen earlier is never a bad thing.

So, what happened? As explained a couple of times before, most of my Union levels are done passively through buying level up pots from the Union coins that are produced. Sometimes I make the mistake of buying the incorrect potions - in this case, I bought level up potions for my Wind Breaker that were too high for his current level to consume. To prevent these potions from going to waste, I decided to grind the necessary levels to make up for it.

Apparently that was enough to get close to 8000, in addition to the Tera and Mega Burninators that were distributed through the Lara pre-creation event. Usually the 8000 score requires players to grind out 38~39 Level 200 characters, but I could do with much less because my three highest characters combined are worth one hundred excess levels that I wouldn't need to grind elsewhere. That said, I will still eventually have all of my characters at least Level 200 because I find owning a copy of each class to be invaluable for research purposes. Plus, there's a bit of fun in having such a collection of characters, I guess. But now it's time for me to get back to work on my Constructor.

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

[EMS] Level 260!

Ding! Back to Cernium it is.

It's been almost two years since I last visited Cernium, back when it was part of the Glory update's event lineup. Now that it is added as permanent content, I've been eagerly waiting until I could visit it again.

The chapter of Cernium is among my favorites in the entire game. I love the presentation of it, as there's so much good stuff about it. The soundtrack is great, the English voice acting has come a long way, the humor is surprising, and the storytelling itself is up there with MapleStory's finest. Additionally, like with Tenebris, the permanent version of Cernium has additional cutscenes and dialogue, which only makes it more intriguing to discover the differences.

It's a damn shame that it's locked behind 260, which means not many players will ever get to experience it. 

Ah shit, here we go again. Why can't we just call these Grandis Symbols and Grandis Force? That would make more sense.

Now that I have access to the permanent version of Cernium, there's a new symbol available for me to work on. It's definitely going to take a while before I'll reach the next milestone, which is Level 265. That unlocks the second half of the Cernium arc, and access to the seventh 5th Job skill wave that I've been wanting to write about...

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

[EMS] The new Blink

Hero takes flight!

Imagine a skill single-handedly trivializing the current landscape of challenging bosses. Usually such a feat is caused by a newly released skill that's exclusively available to one class. A new bandwagon and meta is formed, the class in question becomes over-represented to a fault, and then nerfs follow soon after. This time however, it's different.

Blink was among the very first 5th Job skills, introduced in 2016. It is available to all classes, and it's commonly found when opening Nodestones. Yet it rarely saw any in-game usage and it was hardly a topic to talk about. For good reason, as the original functionality of the skill was lukewarm and unremarkable. It only made sense for Nexon to improve Blink, so that it becomes a worthwhile skill to use. That is what happened... but they overdid it.

In today's blogpost, I will discuss how much of a stupid idea the new Blink is, how exploitable it is, and how much of the game's difficulty was thrown out of the window because of it.

[EMS] 14 years of Rayque!

Sup guys! Today's the 30th of September, which means I've been playing EMS for 14 years!

It's been a comfy year. This year saw my 5000th in-game day milestone, almost all of my remaining 5th Job skills maxed out (the only one left being Erda Nova), and the start of a new equipment layout.

Perhaps more noticeable this year is the abundance of changes made to the game, some of which aren't too far away from reaching EMS. We should see the updated Blink skill soon, which will warrant its own blogpost as there's a lot to cover on that one. Every class is going to get a revamp, with the Adventures being scheduled in KMS for this Winter. I'm very interested to see what Nexon's plans are for Hero, and I'm certain to write about the skill changes when it arrives in EMS next year. Y'know, RED is already eight years ago. The next revamp is long overdue.

Last, but certainly not least, today also marks the last day for our old EMS producer Anna, as she's leaving her position as our producer tomorrow. I know I haven't really talked much about her on my blog, but now is probably the best time to do so. Seeing as I seem to be one of the few left in this community who's more than aware of her involvement in EMS, I'm also somewhat able to have some influence on her legacy. So that is what I will do.

The best way I can describe her contribution to EMS is simple: Anna is EMS. The game is very much her work.

Being a producer for a project means you have a lot of power to make a difference, as you also get to decide who you hire for the team. In Anna's case, she is the one who shaped the team that I often refer as "Nexon Europe" collectively.

I can't imagine a better team to run MapleStory other than Nexon Europe. There's only one way to describe that team: madness. But not the "bad" kind of madness. The good kind. Nexon Europe is pretty much a team that has their own way of doing things, and that is what put EMS on the map. Before the migration, EMS was notorious for being the oddity among all MapleStory versions, as they always seem to get the coolest stuff and avoid the traditions that plagued other versions. In return, that madness has influenced the future of other versions, and still does today.

It would take a very long blogpost to list every single contribution of this team when they were behind the wheel, but I can name a few that I believe is worth mentioning. The behemoth that is Premium Mini Dungeon, which I've talked about here. Releasing classes and job advancements out of traditional order. Releasing almost every World Tour content while also keeping the KMS bootleg versions simultaneously (so yes, we actually had Neo Tokyo and Neo City). Almost always giving us the definitive version of content, with sometimes even better rewards than the original (i.e. Mark of Naricain with slots, and also slots for Liberated Kaiserium). Creating the World Tour for EMS: Veracent (which is paramount to Monad's story events) and the Supreme server (which is LAB's precedessor). Protecting EMS from devastating changes that ruined other versions (i.e. releasing Wild Hunter without mines, releasing Additional Options without any of the drawbacks, Big Bang without a quest reset). Heck, we almost got the JMS Pachinko.

Unfortunately, all of this fun couldn't last forever, as the infamous "hackwave of 2012" changed everything. It was the only reason for why the migration happened, and that was also why Anna had to leave in 2013. Someone else was put in charge of the migration process. Despite that Nexon Europe had plans to upgrade to a larger office, the hackwave left that much of an impact that these plans fell through and ultimately Nexon Europe was silently liquidated.

The migration process took Nexon three years, a lot of time, and a lot of money. All of that was clearly evident in-game. These couple of years became a drag, as we received a small amount of updates spread across a tedious three-year-period full of droughts, with only few updates being actually fun. At least we did receive the best GMs you could ever ask for. Imagine that the Terms of Service and the End User License Agreement actually mattered then.

Only after the migration did we finally start to see some more attention to the game as we're lumped together with the update schedule for GMS, but Nexon US (and its community) kinda forgot we existed as a server. As a friend would describe it: EMS no longer felt like home. The server got flooded with bots, plenty of EMS exclusive bugs that Nexon US didn't bother to fix thoroughly, returning players having no account to return to, and the game state became a wild west where the Terms of Service and EULA no longer meant anything. And worst of all: stale game meta's where everyone becomes complacent, as apparently you don't need to learn the mere fundamental basics of the game.

So, Nexon US made a couple of mistakes in terms of handling the EMS part. Most infamously: deleting about 90% of the EMS characters despite that they promised not to do so. As expected, that upset Nexon Korea. Most of the Nexon US staff got replaced. However, that also brought back some of the old Nexon Europe team, including Anna herself.

Thankfully, this return meant that a lot of things were changed back to its original state, as the EMS team did the usual stuff. Bots were decimated in a single update, plenty new and exciting World Tour updates were released, GM patrol has somewhat returned and the rules started to matter again. Icing on the cake: European players are now eligible for certain (but not all) contests. They made it look that effortless that I almost felt like Anna's predecessor didn't care.

Ironically, looking back at how the old generation of the GMS community always envied EMS - to a point where they wished to be more like EMS - Nexon granted that wish by making them EMS in everything but its name. While people tend to believe that EMS "lost so much" with the migration, dare I say it is the opposite: many of the changes made with the migration have been reverted, overwriting what used to be characteristic of GMS into EMS. These days, the game feels very much like EMS again, and that couldn't make me any more happier.

Unfortunately, with Anna leaving, I do genuinely wonder what the future will hold. I hope that Sally will prove herself to be an adequate successor, and that she will continue the madness that is Nexon Europe's legacy. Yes, I know that Nexon Europe's never been perfect. But dammit, I will miss Anna's work. She was there at the beginning. I would've wanted her to be there at the end too, y'know. Anyway, hopefully my perspective on all of this was worthwhile.

Cheers everyone. May there be many more years to come. I'll see you guys again next post!

[EMS] Erda's Will - Level 30 / 20th Legendary Potential GET!

Sup guys! With the Goo Island event closing up, it was time to claim that loot again. With yet another abundance of Nodestones, I've managed to find the last duplicate of Erda's Will, in order to max it out.

Erda's Will is a skill that not enough players seem to use, although it does see some use in the more high-end bosses. Perhaps I should consider writing a blogpost on how to use Hero's Will/Erda's Will effectively...

Continuing my ongoing plan to improve my equipment layout, I've recently managed to get my hands on the next item: the Commanding Force Earrings.

CFE exclusively drops from Hard Dunkel, which is a bit out-of-reach for my own bossing team, so I had no choice but to purchase one from the aftermarket. Thankfully, the demand for this item is pretty much non-existent, which keeps the prices low. It didn't take long before I could afford one, and it also didn't take long to rank it up to Legendary.

Since it's still relatively new, there hasn't been much work done on it yet. I'll scroll this with the same stuff that I used on my Magic Eyepatch and my Amaterasu's Belt, but for that I'll have to wait until Winter update.

So, the Commanding Force Earrings replaces my good old Rex's Perfect Red Earrings. Even with my Rex earrings having 4% Additional Options and 21%-STR through Potential, my CFE already outperforms it by its Attack alone. Yes, the difference in power is clear, but always keep things in perspective: it's not going to suddenly break the game.

That said, the main reason why I've had to step away from my Rex earrings is a different matter. My Perfect Rex has a long-forgotten attribute: Durability. Perhaps I should write a dedicated blogpost about the Durability mechanic one day, since I assume most players don't even know it exists. But to give you an idea: 5th Job has kinda killed the practicality of using items with Durability, and the problem was further exacerbated when Nexon made several changes to Victoria Island in the past couple of years. It's only going to get worse, so I had to make the hard call of preemptively upgrade to non-Durability items before it's too late. While there's still some (research-specific) uses for items with Durability, it's no longer practical to have them equipped all the time, which is a damn shame.

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

[EMS] Level 259!

Ding! One more level, and I'll have access to Cernium and my first Grandis symbol.

Believe it or not, I might be one of the few who actually wants to have more daily work in this game. Especially in the form of symbols, because they're one of the few fair and reliable items in this game not hindered by the roll of a dice; where hard work is greatly rewarded with a significant and consistent damage boost...

I should reach Level 260 later this year. When? I honestly have no idea, but it can't be soon enough, that's for sure.

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

[EMS] Level 258 / Ribgol Upgrade / CDF - Level 30 / 19th Legendary Potential GET!

Ding! With the Neo event nearing its end, it's been time to claim the rewards I've been working towards for the past two months. Not only did the event give out two (!) Extreme Growth Potions, it also brought plenty of other stuff too...

[EMS] The Enrage 1/3 Split

Released in KMS in 2020 with the Full Moon Party event as part of a major class balancing, the rulings behind all skills that function as or similar to Enrage have been adjusted to soften the noticeable imbalance between classes. Today we'll thoroughly discuss these Enrage changes and how this affects Hero moving forward.

This blogpost was originally planned for the Spring of 2021, but due to the new 5th Job skill "Crest of the Solar" being notoriously difficult to obtain for the time being (explained here), this blogpost takes that vacant July blogpost slot.

[EMS] Level 257!

Ding! The Neo update is here, and so is its coin shop event. With little to no effort, it's easy to gain 10% a week by simply maxing out those coins. The event lasts for almost three months, so that's definitely going to add up.

On top of that, there are also two (!) Extreme Growth Potions to be claimed by the end of this event, which is very close to a full level up, even at Level 257. So I should hit Level 258 around August, and probably 259 later this year.

Anyway, it's nap time. I'll see you guys again next post!

[Lego] Mokarr's claw

Maybe you'll learn something about crustacean terminology after reading this post... Wait what?

If you told me that it would only take four months to obtain the next Mokarr part, I wouldn't believe you.

I didn't write about it in March because of the recent abundance of blogposts - but now there's plenty of time to give this blogpost the attention it deserves. There's a bunch to talk about, so let's get to it.

So, somehow there was another person on Bricklink selling a small lot of Galidor parts, and the listing in particular was found in the bulk of unsorted lots. Ya know, that unorganized dumpster on Bricklink where everyone tosses whatever random stuff they want into it, despite that almost nobody looks at them to begin with. Of course, as it was listed as a pile of Galidor parts, I was obliged to buy the complete bulk just to get this one single piece.

It sometimes be like that. Not that I mind though, as you can never have enough parts.

Just like the grabber arm piece from the Nepol Basic Figure set, the claw has a built-in clothespin function to hold onto various shapes of pieces. As with all Galidor pieces, it's preassembled and its individual components cannot be separated without destroying them. The dactyl piece (in violet) is stuck inside the propodus (in medium voilet), and a hidden spring inside the propodus (connected to the dactyl) keeps the claw clenched.

The source for these parts however, has been somewhat of an eye-opener. You see, from the little information that there is to be found about Mokarr (or any of the cancelled Galidor sets), I assumed that LEGO^® only produced these unreleased parts in their main factory in Billund. Y'know, produce a small batch, archive these parts in the vault for legal purposes, done. Given the nature of these sets being unreleased, it wouldn't make much sense for them to have produced any outside of their nearby research & development facilities. Unless there was something else going on.

Certainly, the tooling for these parts have existed as evidenced by the various unreleased Galidor parts out there - but little did I know or comprehend how deep the Galidor iceberg seems to go. According to the Bricklink seller, the unreleased Galidor parts I bought off him were part of a job lot from the Kladno factory. Yes, Kladno - not Billund.

That is... kind of a big deal.

These claws are huge! Look at that shaping. Notice the claws sharing the same scaly texture with Mokarr's head?

To those unfamiliar with LEGO^®'s manufacturing planning, they tend to manufacture parts in several factories. While their main factory (Kornmarken) is located in Billund, they own several other factories throughout the world. There are three in Europe. One of those is the Kladno factory, located in the Czech Republic.

So, why is this relevant? This gives us some rare insight into the development process of the unreleased Galidor sets. It's not just that LEGO^® produced a small batch of unreleased Galidor pieces in Billund as I initially thought. It seems that they've also produced a bunch of unreleased Galidor parts in Kladno as well. But for what purpose? Without information from the company itself or from those who were involved in the Galidor theme, we can only speculate.

If I had to make an educative guess, it seems that LEGO^® bet big on Galidor and it didn't pay off. Galidor has been mentioned in interviews to have played a large contributor to LEGO^®'s path to near bankruptcy in the early 2000's, so that loss had to come from somewhere. And what better way to build up costs than to invest big before it could even prove itself to be able to return sufficient amounts of profit?

At the time, Bionicle and Star Wars were just released and they've became a huge financial success. It wouldn't surprise me if the company firmly believed that Galidor could become the next big thing. Bionicle initially could hardly meet its first year demand, so if Galidor was expected to be as much of a financial success, LEGO^® must have had to produce a large quantity of sets ahead of time. So when the initial wave was released, the production of the second wave was already on full throttle. By the time the company were confronted with Galidor's disastrous sales, they had to pull the plug even though future sets including Mokarr, Boges, Evil Nick, the second year Jens and Euripides figures, were already in production. Ultimately, only a limited amount Aquart and Tager sets were released, probably because those were already packed on palettes and ready to be shipped to retailers.

And even if this particular speculation does not turn out to be true, it does not take away the fact that these Galidor pieces have been produced in at least two factories. That brings the question... How many of these parts have really been produced... and how many of these are still out there, not lost to time?

Funnily enough, another Mokarr connector block was included with the lot that included the claw.
Now I have two windscreens and two Mokarr connector blocks.

Anyway, I'm one step closer to completing Mokarr. Fourteen parts left to find. It really has become a Do-It-Yourself project where I have to painstakingly track down each individual part against all odds, huh? Unfortunately, a complete Mokarr requires a pair of these claws... so somehow I'll have to find another one of these. Of course, while it's incredibly unlikely to find any other Mokarr part... you'll never know I guess. The hunt for Mokarr continues.

By the way, I initially wanted to include information about other unreleased Galidor parts that I got my hands on, but this blogpost is already packed enough as it is... I suppose I did say that I bought off unreleased Galidor parts, right? Plural. There were more than just Mokarr parts in that lot. But talking about that will be for another time.

[EMS] That 5000 day milestone

Well then, it seems that it's been 5000 days since my character was created. Usually I tend to only write each year on the 30th of September to commemorate my character's birthday. But since five-thousand is such a ridiculous number, I thought it would make for a nice blogpost that also doubles as an informative one.

Two years ago I've written about the elusive ID Card Chair, which is an item that shows your character's creation date. A new item that utilizes this variable came out last December: the "[BTS] Our Time With MapleStory" hat.

Originally designed with the intent to display the time you've spent in-game, it was changed to display the amount of days since your character creation's instead. This is probably done because it's unlikely that anyone's true in-game playtime has been recorded by Nexon themselves, given the nature of the game's engine and its age. However, since they've already implemented the usage of one's creation date for the ID Card Chair, it probably wasn't a difficult task to write a formula that calculates the amount of days that have been passed. That, and I can't imagine how much this hat would strain the server if it had to continuously update a clock for each player owning this hat.

Anyway, as you can probably expect from any community, the existence of this hat became a sausage fest where everyone starts to compete for whoever has the highest number above their head. However, having a high "score" on this hat means little if the player themselves has hardly spent an appropriate amount of days that's in line with the character's creation date. It'd be no different from having an Europe Bandana lying around on an abandoned alt. Sure, it's a fun novelty to own any of those. But in context it wouldn't hold much gravitas, if that makes any sense.

I understand that to many foreign veterans and hardcores a "mere" 5000 wouldn't mean much. But to those who aren't aware and need a refresher: EMS officially released on the 12th of April, 2007 (beta started in late 2006). There aren't that many characters left that have the age over a five thousand days because of the migration. Keep in mind that 2,7 of the 3 million characters didn't migrate, so they were all purged. Gone, deleted. I'm only aware of less than twenty characters that are older than Rayque and have successfully migrated. However, I do believe that it's very likely that there is about one-hundred characters left with an age of 5000+ days (FYI: I'm being generous and optimistic there).

But here's the catch: have any of them experienced almost every single day in-game? As in, have they played almost 5000 days daily on that same character? If you are a frequent reader of my blog or know of my reputation, then I don't need to further explain that one. While I'm not one of those fortunate enough to have experienced EMS beta, and by no means am I among the "the highest level", "the strongest" or the "most loyal and experienced" in EMS, I do know that I've been playing on my Hero daily since EMS 0.30, starting my journey 5000 days ago. Without a break.

Whether if that means or should mean something is entirely up to you, but I can't deny that I find myself often longing for recognition. While I play Maple because of my love for the game regardless what others think, I do have my moments where I can't help but feel that my long-term dedication for it has been rather unrewarding. Unfortunately EMS isn't really the type of game where pouring over 22.000 hours in the course of almost 14 years would get you anywhere in either community recognition or in-game progress. As it stands, it seems I'm destined to remain a myth.

But y'know? Perhaps that is what suits me best.

[Other] And now for something entirely different...

I rarely add new games to my collection. At least, compared to what you could (or would) expect from someone who sinks an ungodly amount of hours in video games.

As I grew up with a Nintendo 64 during my childhood in Japan, console gaming became pretty much my only way of life when it comes to playing video games. As time went on, newer Nintendo consoles came out, and so did my budget to spend in games - in other words, the ability to own (read: buy) more games.

This natural growth in life eventually collapsed upon itself, as my Wii library at the time, grew out of hand. Gaming as a hobby became too expensive - I couldn't necessarily keep up with "the next big release".

Initially my plan was to retire from console gaming, so that I could focus my future efforts towards becoming a LEGO^® Product Designer. However, through the continuous support from the people around me, I was shown by them that it is possible to have both in life. It's not about how many games I own; it's about which ones that matters the most.

That perspective allowed me to pick up console gaming again, without the need to keep up with whatever's the next "big thing". Instead, I followed my own desire on the most fundamental way possible: by asking myself how much a game interests me, and how much I want to play that one.

By simply being sincere and thoughtful, the choices of what games I end up with are more specific and tailored to my preferences, and as a result, they are far more likely to be loved. Yes, my game collection will probably remain small because of that, but at the same time, each individual purchase ends up feeling more worthwhile and/or special. By the end of the day, isn't that kind of fulfillment what should matter the most as a hobbyist?

Anyway, about the actual game itself: Hyper Light Drifter is an indie game that's been brought to my attention when it came out on Steam. While it's been recommended to me several times, I never got to purchase it on PC. I just don't get the same immersion for games when I play it either digitally or behind my computer screen with a keyboard and mouse. Nothing beats that archaic experience of inserting a game into a console, picking up a controller and playing it on a TV. It's that "gamey" feeling that made me love playing video games, and it's a feeling I desire to keep afloat.

Expect a certain shark blogpost next month, or in July. Now, where is that physical release of Cyber Shadow...

[EMS] Level 256!

Ding! The Mitra's 3x EXP Coupon Box that was given out during the compensation event is starting to run out of coupons, so this will be the only level up for a while. Coin grinding will still continue, but the EXP gains will be at a lower rate. Perhaps I might hit 257 somewhere during, or after the Neo update.

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

[EMS] Maple Union: 7500 Total Levels!

Sup guys! My Maple Union has reached the 7500 Total Level milestone today. 

The usual still applies: I don't tend to grind any of my mules after Level 120, 140 or 151 (depending whether a Burning event is applied, or if the goal is to obtain a character's Skill Link or Union card effect). Any of these mules are pretty much exclusively leveled through level up potions:

• Up to Level 180 through Union Growth Potions (this is where my Union coins go)
• Up to Level 200 through Storm Growth Potions (frequently distributed through events)
• Any of the 200~209, 210~219, 220~229 Growth Potions are used on mules in that corresponding level bracket (i.e. 200~209 go to my Beast Tamer, 210~219 to my Hayato, 220~229 to my I/L)

It's pretty straightforward, but it does the job. Of course, each rank up does take a while, given that I've only ranked up my Union about once a year. However, from a long-term perspective, it's definitely been worth making good use of my continuous daily efforts of simply claiming Union coins and participating in events.

Currently, all of my Union attackers (minus the 31st that joined the group with today's rank up) are already Level 180+, and the majority of them are already Level 200. Events have been incredibly generous with giving out Storm Growth Potions. For instance, the currently ongoing Hotel Maple anniversary provides me at least 2 daily level ups (soon 3) on a Level 180+ character of choice, and the event is still available until the start of June.

There's definitely a trend of events becoming gradually more rewarding, as the total amount of levels (or, total EXP) provided by newer events are definitely increasing. Heck, in a few updates, the Fairy Bros' Daily Gift will start to distribute a single Storm Growth Potion each month, which will help to further level mules between event seasons where there aren't any potions given out. And that same update will allow players to use Storm Growth Potions on characters past Level 200, which gives them further use for those who are already decked out on Level 200's (i.e. four Storm Growth Potions is enough EXP to hit 201). Good stuff.

Looking at my current grid set-up, I should be able to max out Boss Damage after five additional mules hit Level 200. I'm still not sure about whether I want more Status Resistance or Buff Duration after that. At least the Union system is flexible enough to allow you to change the grid at any time, so I can always choose whatever I feel like running.

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

[EMS] Blitz Shield - Level 30!

Aaaaand that's Blitz Shield maxed out. Pretty much the same situation as Rope Lift, Erda Shower and Body of Steel: plenty of Nodestones from grinding daily and even more are sourced from a multitude of events. No need to use any of my stockpiled Nodeshards - those are best spent elsewhere. Y'know, like the upcoming Blink changes.

Speaking of daily grind, I still have about two weeks worth of coupons left to burn. Although to my surprise, the total EXP accumulated over the past month has been that significant, that I'm close to Level 256 already. I thought that I would need the upcoming Typhoon Growth Potion for that (the one that is rewarded by the end of this event), but it seems that I might even hit 256 before the item is given out.

While Combo Death Fault is currently Level 24, it would still require about four duplicates before it's maxed out. That is unlikely to happen any time soon, though. Probably towards the end of this year.

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

[EMS] Level 254! Level 255!

Ding! It's been a while since I last had two level ups on my main on the same day. I believe that the last time this happened was all the way back in 2013, where I ran a marathon of Red Leaf High to rush through Levels 197 to 200.

With the currently ongoing compensation event, I kept my three Typhoon and Extreme Growth Potions, which was worth about 112% EXP at Level 254. Thus, I pretty much skipped 254 all-together and it has become one of the shortest lived levels in my Maple career.

I will continue the daily grind for now, as I still have a bunch of EXP coupons left to burn through. However, after those are exhausted, I'll take a bit of a (healthy) break every now and then, so that I can spend more time in other things.

While I would love to go straight for Level 260 as soon as possible, it would be wiser to pay close attention to the next upcoming updates in KMS to see what they're going to do with the 250-259 EXP curve and such. I may opt to do some levels (i.e. 256 or 257) before any changes are implemented here in EMS though, as there's the upcoming anniversary and Neo coin shop to look forward to. I don't feel like halting all of the level ups for eight months just to potentially reduce the required effort by a couple of days or weeks. It's still going to take months to reach 260 anyway.

That and I also just gain a decent amount of EXP on a daily basis. Even if I were to just stop doing any grinds starting tomorrow, I would hit at least 256 before the end of the year by sheer daily efforts alone. Now, where are my weekly Hard Dunkel raids...

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

[EMS] Eighteenth Legendary Potential GET!

For some reason, I feel the need to play Castlevania now. Or to spam Side B in Smash Bros.

Wait a minute, I thought I was done with these blogposts two years ago. What happened?

For quite some time I've been contemplating about my build. The long-term kind of approach. What I currently run will be more than enough to hit cap damage, and any upgrade that I could do would simply not be fulfilling enough or worth the effort. I don't feel like explaining or discussing why I specifically didn't choose for certain equipment all these years, but remember that I'm always being very deliberate and precise with my decisions in life. However, despite that I tend to stick for decisions long-term with little room to include change, I'm always on the look for what's next. 

When I decided to run items such as Ani Pendant, Mark of Naricain, Bunny Disguise III and Rex's Perfect Red Earrings over a decade ago, these items had access to everything in terms of scrolling, Potential and enhancements. That truth did change with time though, as Nexon had different plans with how to move forward with the game as Additional Options and Star Force changed a lot more than it should've done. Suddenly my ability to enhance these items were cut short (i.e. BD3 max 15 enhancements became 5), and thus I was no longer allowed to have a decent amount of enhancements on these items. However, to put it in perspective, Star Force and Additional Options will only contribute towards small part of one's total output, and that's why there is no need to upgrade my gear in particular.

Despite all of that, I still asked myself what I would do if I were to upgrade my gear to something else. Is the upgrade necessary? No, it never is. But let's say I do hit cap, then what? What would be my next step?

So, I've been working towards planning a more effective layout for over a year. Like, the kind where I at least have some "up to date" choice of accessories to go with the rest of my stuff, mainly for the purpose of having extra room for Star Force and Additional Options. Upgrades that are sensible. Truth to be told, I would've preferred if Nexon would release a complimentary accessory set to go with Amaterasu as the entire item set was nerfed to the ground last December, or at least have the decency to stop discouraging a diversity of equipment choices all-together by getting rid of some questionable decisions to reduce and limit growth on certain equipment that aren't even powerful enough to warrant said limitations to begin with. But since neither of those are the reality we live in, I had to come up with a plan to substitute some of my equipment. Yes, I do say that carefully, and I also say that somewhat reluctantly.

If I'm going to do something like that, then I'll at least do it the most Rayque way possible. I don't feel like covering every detail about that right now as long as most of the "replacement" part hasn't even happened yet. Those explanations will be in due time. However, just to be clear: I'm not going to replace my Ribgol, Amaterasu or Adventure Rings. There's really no reason why anyone should substitute items of that caliber to begin with.

Anyway, Reaper's Pendant is really stupid, and it always has been. The perfect type of item I'm after, but surprisingly it is an item I'm more reluctant to use today than I would long ago. The auto-revive skill is way too good of an option that should never be ignored in character building, and that's also why I've been somewhat reluctant to use it in the first place. But since nobody gives a shit about this item, the arguably best pendant in the game becomes both a practical and cheap solution that will prove to be of great value to anyone that sees its potential.

This is not my first Reaper's Pendant, by the way. I bought one a few years ago for the sake of having an auto-revive in case I need it. Heck, I even managed to fully ICOG that one, as is standard on my equipment. Either way, the Reaper's will replace my Mark of Naricain for the time being. It's a shame though, as MoN is one of my favorite pendants in the game. At least my Reaper's provides a ridiculous amount of Attack. The 13 slot thing is stupid.

Before I close, I should probably mention that I have made great use of the ongoing compensation. To my surprise, I've been able to roll 4% All Stats on all of my Amaterasu and accessories that had yet to have it. That'll do the job. Now to figure out how to spend those ten million Honor EXP worth of Honor medals...

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

[EMS] Body of Steel - Level 30!

Hi guys! With the ongoing daily grind and the current Haste event, there's plenty of Nodestones to be found. Thus, it didn't take long to find the last duplicates to max out Body of Steel, since it was so close to Level 25 anyway.

Having Body of Steel going from Level 29 to 30 is quite a difference, as its duration gains one additional second and the max stacks goes from 10 to 11. Although as I mentioned in my in-depth coverage of the skill, it's a challenge to hit 11 stacks within a reasonable amount of time - even at something like the Inferno Wolf you'll only have max stacks near the end of the duration. I still use this skill as often as I can, but even after using the skill for 3 years, it remains one of those "balanced" skills that's certainly useful but not too exciting. The Superstance is still pretty great, though.

Anyway, so that huge Zipangu revamp came out of nowhere a couple of days ago. I'm quite happy to see that Nexon put some effort into it. Heck, this revamp is significant because they made sure to be thorough with the changes as aside from Present Tokyo and Neo Tokyo, no substantial part of Zipangu was left unchecked. World Tours have achievements now, huh? And suddenly, after 14 years, Neo Tokyo's best-in-slot ammunition Armor-Piercing Bullet has been dethroned by Showa's Glass Marble. Although there's still use for APB (and Giant Bullet), seeing as you can only obtain one untradeable Glass Marble per account. They still haven't dethroned MTK's after all this time, though. 

Gee Zipangu, why do you always get to provide all of the best ammunition in the game? Unless we consider (defunct) supplements such as Small Flames and Blaze/Glaze Capsules to be a relevant discussion, as these had no equals.

If there's one thing I *didn't* like about the revamp, is that most of the Showa quests have been reset. I get that they reworked the rewards for most of these quests, but I really did not appreciate the need to sacrifice a third Newspaper Hat and yet another Frying Pan just to have my quests completed again. At least there were plenty of Auction House listings for these Gachapon items, but aside from that, most of the Showa quests have aged poorly in conjunction with the 2016 Mushroom Shrine revamp. Most of these modern maps contain a selection of different enemies, so there are no longer "pure spawn" maps for i.e. Cloud Fox and Water Goblin, which made farming those hundreds (!) of Fox Tails and Cucumbers tedious. Just make sure you don't die from The Boss, because the map is no longer protected and you'll lose way more than 1% if you do.

Either way, new Zipangu stuff is always hype. Having Tonosama soul shards is in line with those Maple M's Auf Haven soul shards I spotted last year, so that's a good prospect for Neo Tokyo's inevitable return... Most people forget that Kaede Castle is part of Neo Tokyo's tutorial, after all.

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

[EMS] Level 253!

Ding! I've been doing daily grinds again for the past couple of weeks, and the goal is Level 255, which unlocks Limen. At the current rate, I should reach that level somewhere in the second half of this year. After that, I'll see if I still feel like continuing the daily grind all the way to 260 or 265. It's too early to make a call on that yet.

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

[EMS] Erda Shower - Level 30!

Did you know that if you stand on this piano roof in Ristonia, the background music changes?

Sup guys! Today I've been able to max out Erda Shower. There's not really much else to talk about, other than it maxed out the same way as Rope Lift did. Combo Death Fault and Body of Steel should follow later this year.

So, about the Neo update. The Neo update introduces us to one new 5th Job skill, but it's locked behind a specialized Nodestone that can be opened only after Level 265. Well dammit, this again.

It's not the first time when a new 5th Job skill was released far beyond my current level. The same happened with the Ark update, which introduced us to the fourth 5th Job skill wave with Spider in Mirror. Although back then, I was only a handful of levels away from Spider in Mirror's required level of 235. As a result, my blogpost covering this skill was only delayed by a couple of months - not the worst that could happen. This time though, the gap between Level 252 and 265 is incredibly steep. Even if I were to start grinding all day for weeks, I'd still not be anywhere close to Level 265. Then there's the other issue: obtaining that new skill.

The new Nodestone (Mitra's Nodestone) provides players the Crest of the Solar skill, and it can only be obtained from Seren. Unlike Spider in Mirror, there is no initial Skill Quest that provides players a single free copy of this new skill, so Crest of the Solar is truly exclusive to Seren's loot table. Undoubtedly, the EMS community will make short work of Seren after release, but for the first couple of months, the demand for these Nodestones will be rough. Even if I were fortunate enough to secure an early copy, I wouldn't be able to obtain the skill until after Level 265 anyway.

Basically, unless Nexon changes some of the rulings regarding opening Mitra's Nodestones, the Crest of the Solar skill will remain exclusive to a small number of players, and I won't be able to release my blogpost for the eight skill wave any time soon. It's a damn shame, because I was personally looking forward to trying out the new skill and having more dailies and content to explore - but all of that is unfortunately, still quite far away.

Anyway, while I may not be able to release the eight skill wave blogpost this Summer, I am probably going to substitute that vacant "time slot" with the dedicated Enrage blogpost, which covers the recent changes made to that skill. Since I have my hands full on the Xenoblade Definitive Edition article and progress on my Hailfire Droid, I don't want to worsen the amount of workload. Truth is, it's been quite difficult to spend time on the DE article lately because I feel somewhat burned out on figuring out how to tackle some parts of it. This is why I mentioned in my year summary that I'm expecting to have it released this Summer, as that provides me some much-needed breathing space.

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

[Lego] So, I just got this Sealed Box of #8002...

Behold, one of the most complicated LEGO^® sets of all time! At least, that is the general consensus about this model.

As with most sets I blog about, this is one of those "wanted it back then" and has been sitting comfortably among my most wanted sets of all time. Had plenty of opportunities to purchase one on Bricklink over the past couple of years, but I decided to go for it "last year". Unfortunately as I mentioned back then, there were no reasonably priced copies for a sealed condition. That changed earlier this week. Yoink!

So, what's so interesting about this set? It basically is a contraption that heavily relies on gravity and rubber bands to deploy several mechanisms in a sequence when it rolls over a hard surface. Long story short: fold up ball, roll it over the floor, it then opens up. It's nothing short of impressive; it's a mechanical wonder. It's over-engineered to hell, and for it's madness and ambition it has gained its reputation. Those kind of pursuits in life will always catch my interest.

I'm very curious to see which production run this is going to be, given that this is one of those exceptional cases where having the early production runs is not beneficial for the model's functionality... I guess I'll know in a moment.

Let's hope that those damn Flex Cables survived the past 21 years, and that I won't break them this time.

EDIT: It seems this one is the original #4132567 release with the #4133085 Amendment sheet. The Flex Cables have survived the build. The set also comes with a lifetime supply of spare rubber bands! Hooray!

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

[EMS] Level 252!

Ding! Another big event, another Typhoon Storm Growth Potion. Having a level up in January has been a thing since 2016, huh? Let's see if I can get to 255 this year.

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