[Lego] Work in Progress: Hailfire Droid (August 27, 2020)

It's been about five months since my previous blogpost regarding progress on my Hailfire Droid. Back then I wrote that I would probably not do another one of these before the actual model is finished - although my stance on that has changed after seeing how much it has evolved in the past couple of months.

In addition, I think it is also interesting to just discuss the recent improvements, especially considering it's been a year since I've "officially" confirmed in a blogpost to do a complete redesign on the project.

The Hailfire Droid is currently about 70% done, I think. I should be able to finish it before the end of the year, but I have to admit that I've lost a considerable amount of time working on that Xenoblade Definitive Edition article, which is not close to done any time soon. Somewhere it's been far more work than I initially anticipated, but I find the quality of the upcoming article to be of utmost importance. In worst case, the Hailfire Droid is going to be very close to done by the end of this year. 

No big deal, in my opinion.

[EMS] Maple Union: 7000 Total Levels!

Sup guys! With the release of Adele last week, I've hit a total level of 7000 on the Union system - partially unexpected.

I was close to the 7000 milestone, but in reality that was a few events away. As I've explained in my previous Union-related blogpost, I tend to accumulate levels through the (weekly) Union EXP potions and participate in events where they give out Storm Growth Potions. Y'know, slow but steady.

From what I recall, before the Rise update was launched in EMS, my total level score was around 6940-ish. If I were to get three Level 180 mules to Level 200 through Storm Growth Potions, that would've sufficed. That would've been my usual plan of approach. Although I'm clearly ahead of schedule - what's that about?

Usually when a class comes out, there's a small celebratory grinding event where a handful of rewards are given to players who reach certain milestones on this new character. What these milestones are and what rewards are given out are always different, but it's been a staple of an event for over a decade. But in most cases I don't really care that much for these type of events, unless there's a valuable resource or item to be gained from it (i.e. Adventure Rings, Maple Points). Although I certainly do always create the next-in-line class, out of pure curiosity and enjoyment. I can always use some more storage space...

So, because I had way too many Reward Points gained from the currently ongoing Maple Relay, I had decided to casually grind an Adele to Level 200 for the sake of getting the permanent outfit from that celebratory grinding event.

Yay, I guess. Not that I'm planning to use that outfit... Although those weekly Nodestones and the Level 200 STR card are kinda useful. While those STR cards are currently not my priority in terms of choosing what mule goes to Level 200 first, I'll tackle them eventually. Either way, doing that casual grind was enough to go past 7000 total levels.

I have no idea how long it'll take to reach that 7500 milestone, though - Nexon's been making events far more rewarding than last year with those "bonk Storm Growth Potions" where you get multiple levels per potion. Heck, there's another stack of those coming up next week. Should give my old Mechanic a boost in levels.

Anyway, that's it for today. I have plenty of work left on that Definitive Edition thing... I'll see you guys again next post!

[EMS] Level 251!

Ding! That went faster than expected... Although that's because Typhoon Storm Growth Potions are often included with each major event. If this keeps up I might even hit 255 next year.

While I rarely discuss 5th Job stuff ahead of time, I am interested in our next skill that was just released in Tespia ("Sword Illusion"). Of course, it being Tespia and early at that, it's likely to undergo some adjustments down the line before we have it here in EMS. But from what I can tell based on sufficient research... it's really good and versatile. Let's hope it stays like that.

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

[EMS] Soul Collector - Level 2 Mu Gong GET!

After about six years and plenty of teamwork, I finally managed to achieve this landslide of a milestone. This was by no means an easy task - as there are not enough Mu Gong Souls in the EMS economy to begin with. Everything that has to go right, had to go right, and it was not something I could do alone. And well, apparently it did go right this time.

I assume that most people who (will) read this particular blogpost are either new to this whole process or aren't particularly aware of the ins and outs in what happened here. So, I'll do a quick run-through on it.

Mu Gong Soul is basically one of the most difficult souls to get in EMS. Not many players own one. It's one of those resources that has always been hard-to-obtain, and it's only gotten worse as time passed.

• First introduced to EMS in 2014, you had to do daily Mu Lung Dojo runs and be lucky to find any shards. That Mu Lung Dojo didn't last long, as shortly after it was replaced with the Ranked Dojo we know today.
• Then, EMS had a short lived Cash Shop box called "Effie Boxes", which gave us the tradeable Mu Gong Souls at a decent-to-low rate. These souls were difficult to get your hands on because of the limited supply, let alone expensive in the Free Market. These were retired with the migration of 2016, and because the migration purged about 90% of the characters, a bunch of the already-limited supply got cut and only few remained.
• There were several Murgoth events that could give you a chance for Mu Gong shards, but the last one was in 2017. Getting the shards on the other hand, was another problem by itself.
• The Soul Extractor is probably not worth the time or money. Sure, it might be your best shot at obtaining shards, but you sure as hell are going to need to do a lot of them.

Let alone if you want to get a Level 2... it may no longer be possible. Chances are that there are no longer enough tradeable souls left in the game to complete a full page. And that's why it took me six years to begin with: it is not easy to find any player who still owns one, let alone is willing to part with it. 

I also should mention that the Level 2 collection for Mu Gong was introduced here after Effie Boxes retired, which was also after they replaced Mu Lung Dojo. So when the original Soul Collector didn't include Mu Gong in 2013 (KMS), I had to carefully plan years ahead of time, assuming that Nexon would add Mu Gong later.

Thus, 

• If the community didn't buy such a mass of Effie Boxes back then,
• If the community didn't find every single Mu Gong Soul variant from these boxes,
• If the community didn't migrate to maintain this small supply with the exact ones I still needed,
• If my friends didn't help me out with searching for them in those years, 
• If my friends didn't help me out with the Murgoth events back then, 

Then I would certainly have not been able to complete it. It could've easily not gone this direction because certain Mu Gong Soul prefixes are less common than others. Heck, I couldn't even finish this collection through Effie Boxes alone. I've had to use both tradeable "Effie Box Mu Gong Souls" and Mu Gong shards obtained through the Murgoth events.

How did I get my hands on the last Mu Gong soul, the "Hearty" prefix? The solution to that was a long shot: I had to get the word out. With the most recent Maple Relay event, we got a free Super Megaphone on a daily basis. So, 

I used that to get public awareness. Y'know, it was worth trying as I could only potentially gain from it.

And it paid off. 

Because of the recent upgrades to the security of EMS and the continuous efforts of Nexon, a lot of botters have been banned and thus mesos have become valuable again. As a result, players are hungry for cash... and that was the perfect opportunity to strike. I suppose that's how I managed to convince someone in the game to list that Hearty Mu Gong Soul in the Auction House. The same event as last time: right place, right moment.

All of that excessive effort, just to maximize the duration by 10 seconds. But somewhere, I wouldn't want to have it any other way. If you're a frequent reader on my blog, you should know by now that I'm kinda used to this. Did I tell you that the Soul Collector is character bound, so that I can only have the +1 effect on Rayque?

Now, let's see how long it'll take another player in EMS to reach Level 2 on Mu Gong as well. I'll be waiting.

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

[Other] Well... shit 3.0

I'm a tad upset that the delivery of this thing got delayed and that I didn't get it yesterday. At least I managed to get some Bricklink orders done for my Hailfire Droid in the extra time that I suddenly had.

That said, I have a lot to dive into with this Definitive Edition - in fact, I'm planning to write a dedicated blogpost to determine how much "definitive" this actually is compared to the original. I have no idea when that'll be, since I want to sink somewhere between 100~200 hours into this game so that I have a fair judgement on the overall product.

Anyway, time for me to unpack this thing and get going.