I personally have no idea where this horrible idea came from.
All of a sudden, like a couple of months ago, I start see people talking about “leveling their HS mules” or “leveling their HB mules” and stuff like that. I didn’t know much about it at the beginning but right off the bat I thought it was a bad idea. The whole issue faded after a while, (not a lot of people on my buddy list use this new technique of training) but talk about it has started to surface again on places like Sleepywood, and now I thought I’d let my stance be known on this whole idea.
First of all, a buff mule is a character that has been trained to max a certain party support skill (Hyper Body, Holy Symbol, etc…) in order to constantly have that skill while training their main. The player would create a new account and train their character until they have that certain skill maxed, then they would use that account on a different computer close by and use it to buff their main character while training.
However, in my eyes, this is a stupid and degrading method of playing the game, and here’s why:
1. Creating a buff mule is time-consuming and takes focus off the main.
You’re trying to level your main, right? Keep on leveling your main. Maybe for some people it would only take a week or two to create a hyper body mule, but for a holy symbol mule it might take at minimum a month just to even obtain priesthood. For me, this is too long to put your main character aside just for having a character to give you one skill that you don’t have. That being said, training up a mule is a waste of time, and if it isn’t, chances are they trained their mule up by something I will point out later.
2. Buff mules replace other players.
This game, is an MMORPG. What does that second M stand for? Multiplayer. This is NOT a single-player game, especially when you get to the higher levels and require a party to effectively train. So… why to people keep trying to treat this game like a single player game? It’s not! Go out there and train with other people; I’m sure it’ll be a hell of a lot more fun than using a buff mule.
3. It seems to me that some buff mules are trained/used in ways deemed ILLEGAL in the game.
Since only one account can be logged in on one machine at any given time, you’d need another computer to utilize a buff mule, but because you can only physically be using one computer at the same time, this is where their illegal tactics come in. Some people may assign their skill to a key, then put a weight on that key. Now, as to what this is, let’s take a look at the gMS user abuse policy:
“Botting: Using a macro, third-party program, or physical method to play the game in a repetitive manner.”
(Source: Mapleglobal Website)
Putting a weight on your key is considered botting, and thus is illegal.
Not only that, but discussion has arisen about people using godmode on their mules to protect them from other hackers. This, once again, is against the rules (obviously) and honestly, if they’re hacking on a mule to protect it from other hackers, they should be considered hackers themselves. I’m sure that if a GM came into a channel and found a godmoding buff mule on a channel, EVERYONE in that mule’s party that is on the map training would be banned. (As according to everything that I’ve read, taking advantage of a hacker is also considered hacking by the game’s ToS.)
So, in conclusion, I think that buff mules are a waste of time, discourages playing with other people, and promotes illegal play. Anyone who uses a buff mule should be considered a disgrace to the gMS community.
So to end this short and flamboyant post, I’ll just say this: Play smart, play with others, and play fair.
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