Happy Dead Turkey Day!

Alright, it's finally Dead Turkey Day! So I hope everyone enjoys that one outside of the game too. :P

Also, the week is going to be finished out with 2x Exp, because of all the technical errors caused to many users lately, such as people being wiped clean of all their items or something. So hurray for that, it's already jumped me to level 29, perhaps during the twelve hour period tomorrow, I'll reach Pagehood... ^_^

It also seems like there's an event that they're throwing out just to make people buy the NX gift cards to win prizes. There are only about 112 people that are going to win anything assuming people don't win multiple prizes, so I think those are pretty bad odds to make people think they'll win something. I'd definitely buy a ten dollar card if the odds were a bit better for something at least, I mean what is one person going to do with 500,000 maple points anyway? The laptop grand prize I understand though, but why are they giving something of that value away for spending, at the minimum, ten dollars? I don't see this backfiring for the company though, because they've already got an established consumer loyalty with those game cards, so I doubt someone is going to buy just one and end up winning something. Meh, I'll probably only end up buying one for a custom hairstyle or something so I can start looking a bit more unique--the default hairstyles are kinda lame, I mean, they don't even have a bald option...

Enjoy your Turkey, your 2x Exp, and five day weekend from school if you've got one!

Dead Turkey Day Approaches!

So Nexon has already begun their Thanksgiving event goodness, and unlike the Halloween fiasco, it is available to all players--if you're tough enough that is... There are now Turkey commandos running around, and they cause a bit of sting when they're FIRIN'THE LAZER!!!. They do give a decent coin and 41 Exp, and only at about 3xx hit points from what I gather. Everyone wants to tag as many as they can because they drop some decent food items that can be redeemed daily for a quest to get Maple Points (which is basically going to be at a rate of 100pts a day if you're devoted to it) from one of the store vendors in the game. I personally like training on them, because they have much lower avoid ability than the wooden masks in the Excavation Site maps.

I jumped on the game Friday and totally found myself shocked by the fact that there was a CVS and a Target in Henesys... I guess they put them in there during the last patch to make the Thanks giving quest to get Maple points a bit more "articulate"... Personally I was a bit weirded out by it. It just seemed like a rather unnecessary advert in the game that I was hoping didn't end up happening to Maple Story, however it starts to make me wonder a bit. What if they begun to incorporate billboards around random spots that advertised things in real life that were market specific? Something like banner ads on a website. I definitely know this wouldn't be the first video game to pull that off, but I wonder if that would actually be a good idea or not. Hell, I found out about Maple through a banner ad on some website (it was either 8bit theater or VG Cats... I can't remember). The bad side to this happening is that it'l basically generate more revenue and that means Nexon is going to want to exploit that, so a flood of adverts can be a possibility. Either way, I'm interested in seeing what occurs next.

I still haven't gone into the Phantom Mansion! I've been meaning to check it out, because I hear it's a rad maz full of monsters to train on. But the train ticket is much too expensive (I'm a cheap bastard) to visit New Leaf City again, so I've been putting it off. This is why I've never actually taken my high level characters to Orbis, so I've never really been there either. I'll be sure to jump right on that as soon as I get done training on these turkeys and redeeming Maple points (which is going painfully slow, I might add).

I've already made level 26 on my sparse playing schedule, so maybe a realistic plan would be to make level 30 by next weekend--or sooner since I've got time off pretty much the entire week! I'll be sure to post a current screen shot by the end of today, because the one I've got up there now is totally out of date--I haven't worn that helm in ages... So I'll get on that. Be sure to hit me up in game with your opinions on this Holiday's events and whether you approve of advertising affiliates in your towns of choice? Until later! (which might be today, since I've got to update the snap shot)

Oh, I kinda forgot something...

Head on over to Aqua Road Radio for some entertaining perspective on Maple Story and the companies at fault, as your hosts Shravan and Warez give you their two cents and insider tricks to aid in your enjoyment of the game. Definitely give them a listen if you're tired of the in game music, because I'll tell you from experience that it helps... :P

20 Days Later...

Alright, it looks like I didn't reach the level I had anticipated that weekend. I blame myself...myself and responsibilities... I had to take a prologued break in order to pick up the slack that had been dropped on me from school and the regular life issues that pop up, which is fine by me seeing how I was about to stab myself in the eyes with how frustrated I was becoming with all the grinding. The game seems to feel pretty fresh now that I've taken half a month off from it, so now I can get back to trudging onto my job advancement. However, I'm pretty stuck where I am right now, because it's about that time where I'm debating whether to pump my dexterity so I won't run into inaccurate strikes, or create a low dexterity character. I've thought about going the "low dex" route, because the damage is oh so appealing, but I don't think I have the patience for it let alone the Mesos... I'm going to sit on training my dexterity for a while (at least until the next level up anyway), because I really want to start killing some bigger critters.

I get fairly fatigued when I game for prolonged amounts of time, and I believe I have had an instance where I've fallen asleep while the game was still running, however I've noticed that this isn't a freak occurrence in the game. I constantly see people standing in towns, AFK (away from keyboard) or merely just "sleeping" as their away message says. It doesn't occur so extreme in the lower populated channels, but within the first two I found hoards of colorful characters scattered around town sleeping at around 0300 hours. This gave me the overwhelming feeling that there are people who actually live in the game and wake up to play in the morning, which was somewhat frightening in some respects. I can see how people would enjoy being "Famed" or recognized in game, but the power used to run the all of those computers for no reason at all is just mind boggling. Don't even get me started on the server lag that's the result of it... I've been guilty of taking quick naps while I wait for my character to rest and recharge his health, but I wouldn't just leave it be like that, that's just such a waste for everyone else who would like to have a smooth experience in a popular channel without the lag and tackiness of a bunch of people snoozing and asking for fame in the middle of a high traffic area.

Another thing I've noticed is that the Halloween candies are still dropping from enemies... I wonder whether that's because they planned on having more people able to actually have candies in time for next year, or merely because they were too lazy to write them out of the game until October... Whatever the case, I imagine people stockpiling them and eliminating the need for the kill-stealing that occurred so much during the recent Halloween event, which means someone's going to make lots of Mesos if people are still event hungry to get pumpkin baskets. Personally, I actually got turned on to Malady's Candy because they seem to heal quite a bit: 100% HP/MP, 50% HP/MP, and 300 HP MP for blue, green and red respectively. I cashed in about fifty candies right on Halloween because I thought they'd be useless and vanish on November first (silly me), but I only came out with one Green candy... I'd suggest lower level characters selling their candy to higher level characters so that they can buy potions that wouldn't be wasted on a low amount of HP--at least it'd be more profitable than the silly pumpkin basket.

Speaking of Halloween, I still haven't gone into the Haunted Mansion in Masteria yet, despite the fact that it's open to the public. I hear that it wasn't at all worth buying a costume package for five bucks and running around a confusing maze Just for a couple of Event tied quests (which are unavailable now that Halloween is over I believe). As soon as I find enough time to make my way over to New Leaf City, I'll check it out and write up what I think about it, because it sounded very tempting to buy the akaranger outfit just to go in there during Halloween.

What do you think? I'd like to hear your thoughts on the homeless bums in the towns, the continuation of the candy drops, and about the Haunted Mansion. Hit me up in game or leave a comment, and I'll be sure to reply on a timely basis ^_^;;. Until next time! (which shouldn't be too long unless I get caught up writing papers again)