Relatively Recent News

And now for something - slightly - different.

Ok - first off - MapleStory. I'm doing fairly well at just keeping a steady progress. I'm now most of the way to level 82, training mostly at Water Goblins. I have spent some amount of time (~12%) at ghost pirates and some time (~10%) at wolf spiders and determined the exp rate is nice but that the money is still too high to justify - especially with my savings plan... For the most part though - water goblins, at ~8% per hour, is still my steady income and exp place to train. Last night I had to get more potions, so I am contemplating heading down to Cold Cradle for a little while for a change of pace.

I am steadily growing money in order to afford my zakum helm. I am sitting on about 42 mil in pure mesos, with another 6+mil in items being bid on. I probably could get another couple by just NPCing the rest... In other words - progress is steady but not fast enough to get me a helm yet.

In other news, for D&D, I entered the Master DM Competition (#37) and finished 3rd out of 10 entries. Satisfying to place bronze, but I do see a few areas to improve upon. I do like the fact that I placed highest of all the entries in the "Creativity" entry.

Additionally, I'm gearing up a new campaign for table-top. The party so far is a little weak on the front line - but it should be an interesting group. There's a potential for up to 6 players and of the four that I have gotten information from - I am looking at the following:

1. Goblin Bard - this one is almost certain. He's already sent off a quick background for the character and is very well developed already - I certainly like the concept.
2. Elf Sorceress - some possibility for variation here, but most likely elf in any case.
3. Dwarven Necromancer
4. Druid - this player has been tossing Ranger and Sorcerer as other possibilities as well.

The other two players have not confirmed if they are even interested in joining in, and if they aren't - I'll probably look around for 1 or 2 more people to make the group a little more stable (in the case where one player can't make it).

Recent Events

Well - its been a while since I last posted, but it doesn't mean I haven't been playing or just doing other things.

Anyway - my main character is up to level 78, and is only 12% away from 79. I have been training mostly at Water Goblins (Kappas) in the Vanished Village. Training there is very fast for me and very profitable, so I really can't complain.

In terms of drops, I have been well blessed in recent days:

2x 60% scroll for Overall Luk - sold 1 for 3.15mil
4x 10% scroll for Bottomwear Def - keeping
1x 60% scroll for Shoes Speed - sold (not traded yet) for 230k
2x 60% scroll for Wand - sold both for 525k each
1x 60% scroll for Staff - sold (not traded yet) for 1mil

4x shinings (2x 79, 2x 83) - NPCed the lower ones, sold one of the 83's for 250k
1x serpents coil - sold for 800k
1x Gold Crow (78atk) - trying to sell on Basil.

and 4+ blue oriental helms (all NPCed), 4+ white polyfeathers (trying to sell one on basil - but NPCed the others), 2 Green Ice Queen tops (NPCed), 2 Two-handed sword Stimulators and probably more that I'm forgetting.

Other than that - it is more of the same. I've decided I'm going to save for a Zakum helm - and my target is around level 90. I'm doing well enough right now, but most of the creatures I "should" be training on in my 80s will probably result in a money loss - so I'm not sure how well I'll be able to work towards my goal. Right now - I'm sitting on about 24mil and with recent sales and drops - I should be getting close to 30mil.

Tim's reached level 91 with his main and started another character to try out an assassin with a bit of funding (heh - 2 sets of Ilbis he found at Wolf Spiders...). That character is already up to level 47 - but he still has 2x Exp, so there's good reason to be moving along that quickly.

Level 74 and NLC

Been a busy couple of days, so I've just been training when I can and trading what I can.

I managed to finish off Level 73 at Camp 2. Once I did, I decided to head over to New Leaf City. I like some of the new things, but for the most part it isn't that impressive to me. I managed to finish a couple of the quests though, so some progress was made, even if I only managed 5% in a couple of hours.

After that - I returned to Victoria and headed down to the Sanctuary with Tim, hoping to train for a bit on Macis and Spears. We found the rate of exp and spawn was actually quite bad though (we expected it to be suboptimal - we found it atrocious...), so we settled in on Cold Cradle for Ice and Dark Drakes.

That screen has improved with just a couple of levels, and I'm glad I went. Though clearly slower exp than say FoG or even Camp, it is a place that we can both train well together (Camp is much too slow for Tim at level 80 and FoG is busy enough that training together is tough unless we force someone out of a map. Earned probably 12-15% there before Tim was done for a while, so I headed back to Sleepywood to restock and sell Etc items and then down to FoG to see if I could find a spot.

I found a spot pretty quickly and kept it without issue for probably 15 minutes when a low 7x 2-handed sword crusader with a doombringer and a better speed tried to evict me. Let's do the math - he has a faster speed, but a slower weapon. We both kill Mixed and Dark golems in two hits... who gets to kill more?

Me. I got about 75% of the kills on that floor as I was constantly able to kill things faster with my faster weapon. Anyway - I didn't stay much longer even though the guy wouldn't leave himself, I just needed some sleep.

In terms of trades, I've been getting a few done here and there to help keep funds coming in and funds going out. Nothing really notable lately, though I did start scrolling my Goblin Cape - it is up to +7 str with 3 slots left. I've also been picking up reasonably priced 30% cape str scrolls to try to improve on the goblin later.

A buddy of mine sold me a bronze kalkan for level 90, plus I'm bidding on some more Kahns and watching the prices on accuracy boots. I'm planning on heading to Ghost Pirates around level 80, but with a little more accuracy, I might be able to manage as early as level 78-79. I'm a little concerned about being able to consistently knock them back, but we'll worry about that when I get there.

In other news, MegaMek has just entered the test phase for the new cycle. This means I might head over there every once in a while to help them test - taking away some time from Maple Story. With Tim already 6 levels ahead of me and with a double exp card to boot, he's entering the "sweet spot" for crusaders, so I pretty much have no hope of catching up to him to train with - leaving me the option to train solo or to find a few more people in game to train with who are not morons...

I'll probably just play Mega Mek again though. There's nothing like blowing up some oversized robots in a strategy war game...

Well - that's enough for now.

Busy Weekend

Well - not much time to post right now, but I figured I'd at least post the latest snapshots of my characters. Telin has been busy in the Camp 2 and hasn't had much of interest there; Illithik has been stuck electrifying stirges (which is good clean fun!), but also hasn't had much of interest there.

Anyway - I'll try to post something more meaningful tomorrow if I get the chance...

More Progress

After a couple of days break, I got back into Maple with 14 trades to get through with various individuals from Basil Market. I spent most of my first hour on looking for the people and actually managed to get through 5 trades - all for things I was buying. I hope in the near future, I'll be able to resolve some of my selling trades so that I can recoup the costs of those items.

Other than that - it was back to training at Camp 2. New Leaf City came out yesterday, but I didn't see much sense in heading over there and fighting with others over training territories that are all unknown to everyone.

Instead, I'll stick to the camp for a few more days - possibly until I hit level 74 and then maybe go exploring. I might just do it with my Lizard though - since he likes to explore more these days...

At the camp, I was able to train undisturbed for about a net of 2 hours to the tune of 16% or so. I wasn't really focused on running as fast as I could through the screen, so I'm not too worried about the overall speed in that time. When I need to go repot - I might see if someone is in Ludi to pick up some speed pills for me though (just to help a bit).

I'm still working through the 500 mana elixirs given to me by a buddy of mine. I think I went through ~150 of them last night (which, when combined with the ones I already had - leaves me with 500), but only 20 ice cream pops or so - maybe even less.

I didn't get a single drop last night though, which is almost nice since the Independance Day hats don't drop anymore. Still - if I am able to get some items to sell - that would help my finances some.

For the trades I did finish last night, they include a pair of level 80 boots, a pair of level 90 pants, and a few more scrolls. I've decided to pick up a few cape str scrolls (60% and 30%) to scroll up my Goblin Cape (with 60%s) and to see if I can't make a "godly" Gaia cape with 30%s. The 30% cape str scrolls are all over the place for price - so I'll just pick them up when they are cheap. Who knows - I could end up with a +15 str cape and keep it in lieu of my goblin cape if that doesn't scroll so well.

Level 73 and Camp

Made some more solid progress this weekend - spending the entire time at Camp 2 near Perion. Pressured to find out how good it was, I timed it out at 9% per hour with my 105% speed and picking up everything manually. In other words - very decent.

I've gotten a few drops there and even sold a few of them - so that's always a good sign. With 500 mana elixirs given to me from a friend - I will have extremely low potion costs for a while and have only been using ice cream pops sparingly while there (one pop lasts me about 40-50 hits from my opponents...). I advanced late on Saturday night and boosted my Combo attack up to 9. Last night, I trained part of the time with Tim and we split the screen with him on the top portion and me on the bottom. At the end, I had about 2:1 on the ETC drops of the two types of skeletons (with more of the weaker ones) - which shows well about the proportion of opponents on the bottom section. I think the top has more of the tougher skeletons - so it'd be nice to test that out later. I'm at about 19% into level 73 - so progress is steady.

For trades, I got a few more done this weekend, including selling two brown lorin gloves (500k, 600k) and purchasing a few more 1-handed sword scrolls. I'm trying to keep up a number of auctions on Basil to help keep the flow of money coming in. That said, my profit at Camp 2 is so great with just meso drops that I wouldn't need the items, but I'm not turning them away... I will need to boost my attack glove at some point after all...

I finished off the night by playing my wizard for a little bit at stirges and quickly earned 10% there. With how well my warrior has been going, it is more difficult to justify playing the wizard, but it is a refreshing change.

I'm also working on changing around my crusader build. Originally, I planned for Combo -> Coma -> Panic -> Shield Mastery -> Relax (to 10) -> Shout -> Armor Crush (1). Now I'm planning on putting Shield matery between coma and panic. Shield mastery only takes 7 levels to get through - and I'd like to benefit from it earlier rather than later.

Getting there - slowly but surely...

Just a quick update - but I managed to earn about 20% yesterday and got a whole bunch of trades done. Most of the time training was spent at Yetis with Thrythwig, but later on I moved on to solo at Camp 2 again. I'm still impressed with the rate there and for profit, well I guess this is the most telling:

Less than 1 hour: +130k mesos, used 10 ice cream pops (22000 mesos), 5 mana elixirs (3000 mesos), 30 salads (12000 mesos). In other words, I netted about a 100k profit after a short time there. I also got a Brown Lorin drop (lvl 70 mage glove), put it up on Basil and someone auto-won it by the morning.

That's pretty much it for now. Only 20% to go to level up, so I'm hoping to finish it off this weekend.

Yetis and Camp

Haven't done much over the last couple of days, but trained a little at Icy Cold Field with Tim. The exp rate there improves with a second player, and improves even more when both of us are using our speed equipment. I think I need to improve my damage capacity a little more to make training there just a little better as I have just a few too many times when I have to use 5 hits to kill one.

Other than that - I'm just making solid progress on training and am up to 60% to level 73.

I'm also working on some trades and won a few scroll auctions at Basil (1 10%, 2 30%, 1 60% scrolls for 1-handed swords) and selling a bunch of the junk I'm still holding onto. Not 2 minutes after I put them up - I already have a bid on a Bronze Platine top I still have...

There's also been a very tasty 106atk, +9 str Kahn up for sale on Basil, but has yet to earn even one bid. If I see the price drop, I might just jump on it and save the 10% and 30% scrolls for a level 90 sword later on... maybe even a level 100 sword...

I'm still sitting on about 30 million cash, and probably have a few more million in readily sellable items. I'm hoping to get a few decent drops to improve my cash flow soon.

I was also comparing my damage capacity to a few posters on SW the other day and found that I was being outdamaged a fair amount - even by other 1-handers. Then of course, I found out that many of them had Zakum helms... which isn't exactly a fair comparison (since I don't have 150+ million to shell out to buy one even if I was inclined to do so...

Anyway - I probably have from 4-8 sessions left before I finally level up to 73. Hopefully the damage increase from the raised combo attack will be enough to make training a little easier.

More updates from the front

Well, haven't posted in a while and I am actually playing maple story again. I have gone to training both my wizard and my crusader now - just to keep things interesting. This weekend though - I got interested in running my crusader more and actually managed to boost up ~30-40% on him - so he is well on his way.

I've been reading some of the posts and having conversations about training locations for a crusader and everyone pretty much just says "Dude, go to FoG..." with some variation or another. Since the last time I went to FoG I found all 20 channels to have 4+ people in them, it seems to me there might be a place that is better for me. Let me stress that - for me.

I trained at Icy Cold Field (Yetis, Transformed Yeti and Jr. Yetis) for about 17% on Saturday and found it to be enjoyable. It too about 2 hours (give or take) to earn that much, but I wasn't training heavily. With a 107% speed - I don't think that's too bad. With a sin to party with - I suspect I would have done a spot better.

Last night, I moved back to Victoria and trained at Camp 2 (Skeletons and Officer Skeletons). This screen could use to be split by a party member whom you never care to see (so - someone you don't need to buff and who doesn't need your own buffs). Without it - I still managed 9% per hour or so (again - I'm not precisely sure because I don't often watch the time or my exp). If it weren't for the flipping independance day hats that drop - I think it would be a very good screen to train on.

Both of these places have very few people coming through - which, to me, is a big plus. If you cite the drops from FoG - you can take a look at the drops of the creatures above and I think you'll find an equivalent selection of valuable drops.

On another note - I noticed a thread about money-making ability at various screens and at various levels. One consistent item in most of the areas was that many people rely on drops in order to turn a profit. I can't think of a single area that I've trained in recently that didn't turn a profit - including the Cave of Trial I that I tried out the other day... If this is because of my superior play - I would be surprised. If this has to do with my focus on defense, well - I guess that's telling. The other day, while at Yetis, I was partied with another warrior. We both had power guard on, but he was taking 150-200 or so with it on, while I was taking from 50-80 or so. Over the course of training - that difference is quite significant.

For money, my warrior is sitting on around 30 million in cash, and has a fair amount in sellable items (+4 luk Dark Identity, 60% scroll for Spear Attack, 125+ elixirs, ~100 power elixirs, 600+ cure alls, etc)

On my wizard - I've been stuck at stirges for a bit - but its good exp - so I can't very well complain. As his thunderbolt gets stronger, I'm sure he'll be more and more fun to play... I'm still not sure what build I will use for him though. He's still autonomous from my warrior, and already has a mystic shield, a scrolled fairy wand (gift from a former lizard - can't use it for a few more levels though), and a few other nice items. He's boasting about 1 million mesos in cash on hand though - so he's not hurting for money and at stirges he is actually gaining potions rather than using them.

Moving on

Well, not much has gone in the past few days - though I should probably mention that the 2nd anniversary event has started. Level 70 came and went and I'm now about half-way through level 71. Combo is still very early and I did pick up a level of Coma just to see what it did. Now I'll finish off Combo before adding more to it.

In addition, I managed to get my wizard up to 30 as well - he's level 31 now as well and a lightning mage. I don't play him often - but he does provide a nice change from training as a warrior.

Other than that - things are just continuing on. I've been busy with work and my family - so I don't play all that much. I'm also still waiting for MegaMek.Net to come out with the new campaign so I can start up on that.

Level 70

Well, I finally made it. A fair bit longer to do than I had originally planned, but at least I made it.

I haven't actually done the 3rd Job test yet, as it was already late when I finally reached my level, but I should be able to bang it out tonight - I'm already in Victoria to do it.

Scrolling had its ups and downs. My glove ended up as a +6 atk (1 scroll worked, the other failed). My red katanas were wondrous failures (2 87s, 1 86 - no scrolls worked in the first 3 slots on each). I kept the 84 katana clean to hopefully resell it with a bit of profit and the others I'll just try to unload for whatever I can get.

My bottom failed all 10%s in the first 5 slots and only 1 60% worked in the last 2. My top succeeded in 2 10%s in the first 6 slots, and still has one slot left. Scrolling tops and bottoms is not a huge deal, but I might try to find a second bottom and see if I can scroll it a little better. I have an extra top with average stats - so I'll resell that one as well. I haven't scrolled my level 70 shoes yet - but that will be just 100%s for speed - so there's no chance of failure there anyway.

I do find it funny that despite my continued playing, I am losing ground on the global rankings fairly quickly. The last time I posted, I was in the 59xxx range. Now I'm sitting at 61xxx. Its not surprising really - my whopping 3% gains on nights that I play is really nothing special - and since I don't play every day it is even less impressive.

Well, congrats to me. Time to get back to work :)

One more to go

Well, I finally reached level 69. Now I'm on the home stretch to reach 3rd job.

I'm fully prepared to advance. I've got 1 set of pants, 2 sets of tops (1 with an extra point in dex), a pair of boots, and several red katanas (84atk, 86atk, 2x 87atk and a scrolled 96atk +5 str). I've got a 4atk, 2 slot Dark Husk to finish scrolling and 2 more glove attack scrolls to burn on it.

I'm keeping my shield and crusader helm for the 70s and I'll see what to do when I hit 80. I've been training mostly around FoG, with some Red Drakes, Zombie Mushmom sprinkled in. With the addition of Korean Folk Town last night - I decided to head over there and run through the quests. So far that's earned me just under 10%, so that's not too bad. The monsters over there are tougher than they are worth for me (especially since I don't 100% hit the tigers...), but it is a nice change.

One thing I have noticed is that my ranking overall seems to continue to dip down. I don't know if this is just a fact that there's too many people above me to actually maintain a steady increase or if its evidence that there's too many hackers - but I really don't care.

Hitting level 70 is still probably a week or 10 days away, but it will be nice to move onto some of the really nice moves that a crusader has access to.

In guild news - my guild is now 8th overall in Guild Points - mostly because they are almost always running a guild party quest at any given time. Reaching 1st is still a long ways off - but we should be able to reach 7th in another couple of days - weather permitting.

Well, that's about it for now.

Long time no see...

Well, I have finally returned to playing Maple Story after a few months off. In the last 2 weeks, I've been getting re-acquainted with the game and to my pleasant surprise found that most of the people who had also taken breaks have returned! So - I finally have some people to party up with again.

In other news, I've reached level 67, and I'm just over half-way to level 68. My money is hovering around 13mil - thanks to some timely selling of items with the help of a friend. Other than that - I've started training at Forest of Golem, as well as trying out a variety of other creatures.

I've taken down a few Zombie Mushmoms - which was a nice trial to work at. I've even been involved in a few failed Guild Party Quests.

The image above is recent - but not the current state of my character.