Hi guys! Today, after over seven years of daily Commerci runs, I've hit my 10.000th Lith Harbor Commerci Voyage!
From what I understand, I should be one of the first (if not, the first) in EMS to have reached this milestone. While there are players from other versions to have already achieved this milestone, keep in mind that EMS received Commerci three years later compared to GMS. In case of EMS, the first 10.000th Lith Harbor run would've been legally possible since last month, although that's also highly unlikely to have happened for several reasons.
You see, Commerci is one of the most unstable content in the game, as it's effortless to let the game crash mid-run. There are so many things that can cause this, such as events working with Commerci, having an unstable connection or lag(spikes), opening almost any interface (i.e. whisper, stats, skill tab), using too many skills simultaneously, or any skill that causes heavy strain on the client. Even starting a Commerci run itself can cause the game to crash. And your run count will only go up after you've cleared it, so crashing or disconnecting before that means you lost a run forever.
If you're a frequent reader of my blog, you know I'm diligent with my daily efforts. Weren't it for the dozens of lost runs and the infamous "15 minute day", I would've had this milestone on the earliest date possible. As far as technicalities go, I've entered my 10.000th run several weeks ago. But as far as the game is concerned, it only counts starting today. Honestly, I'm surprised that Commerci is still in the game, or that Nexon has rarely updated it, because this spaghetti coding is far worse than the likes of Jett, Captain Vaga or Monad. Even Veracent and Supreme were better than this.
Anyway, if you ask me, I believe that Commerci has been on the chopping block for several years now, because of how unstable the content is. The lack of updates to Commerci is a red flag. When they reduced all the daily boss and Party Quest entry counts many years ago, there was none for Commerci. The recent removal of early 2010s content, such as Evolving System Lab, Cross Hunter, Aswan and Dimensional Invasion doesn't bode well for Commerci either.
And then there's the gradual decline of Commerci's appeal: Cube Fragments were removed from the loot table, then they removed all Master/Meister Cube drops, and then there's the missed opportunity to add Undying Flames to the drop table when they were added in late to EMS. Nowadays it's far more lucrative and rewarding to do fifteen minutes of Elite Monster surfing, than it is to do the daily four Lith Harbor Commerci runs of three-and-a-half minutes each.
Even so, I still do Commerci for the same reason as anything else: because it's fun. Sure, even by today's standards the content sits at the bottom of quality control, and there's not much incentive even if you're selling the rewards, but as long as the boat hasn't sunk, my run count will continue to go up. Captain (or, Hero?) goes down with the ship.
That's it for today - I'll see you guys again next post!