NA Mabinogi: First Impressions

Well, when I had my closed beta application rejected on Monday I thought I was out of luck.  I was willing to sit the closed beta out, but then when I got home this afternoon I heard about FilePlanet giving out activation keys I acted fast and was able to grab one for my account.  Once I was in, I downloaded the client and proceeded to play almost immediately.

The first thing I had to do was get my bearings around this game.  In recent days the only 3-D RPG that I’ve played with an environment as complex to move around is Final Fantasy XII and even so I haven’t played that in a bit.   (Not to mention the heavy mouse control.)  Getting used to the game is fairly easy, though.  You are given a bit of a tutorial to go through that goes over the basics of getting around including a tutorial dungeon to get used to fighting. (Including the introduction of the game’s rock-paper-scissors format where a counterattack beats a smash attack, a smash attack beats defense, and defense beats a counterattack.  It’s kind of like Fire Emblem’s Weapon Triangle.)

Unlike MapleStory, the game isn’t so focused on grinding.  As noted, the game’s subtitle is “Fantasy Life.”  In fact, most people so far have compared this more to a Harvest Moon like game rather than another MMORPG.  Fighting will still be the easiest way to earn EXP. points, but there are other ways as well, such as taking on jobs and quests, some that don’t usually have to do with fighting, among other things.

Character’s aren’t all that customizable as well; when you level up, your stats will be raised according to your age.  Also, as long as you are under 25, you will gain ability points (AP) with each level up that you can use to advance your skills.  (You gain five AP when you level up, and you also earn one AP every time you complete a quest.)  Learning skills is another innovative concept; it isn’t so much learned by just clicking buttons and putting points into them.  There are things you have to accomplish in order to better advance your skills.  You will gain combat points every time you successfully achieve the objective needed to learn that skill, and when you’ve done it enough times you can learn or advance that skill.  It’s really an innovative system and is the primary way to become stronger in this game.

Mabinogi also runs fine on some not-so-old low-end machines.  Don’t get discouraged if the game says that your graphics card doesn’t meet the recommended requirements; Keep going until you know it doesn’t work.  Although the game can be a bit sluggish in loading new maps, Mabinogi works fine on my non-gaming-class laptop even with the random slowdowns that seem to plague me on MapleStory and KartRider, too. (I’m starting to think the problem is GameGuard here.  Can’t do much about it.)

That wraps up my initial thoughts about Mabinogi.  If you’re not in on the closed beta yet, I would suggest obtaining a beta key from one of the sites mentioned in my previous post before they run out.  Open Beta probably won’t come soon enough for most.

Rejected By Nexon? You’re Not Out Of Luck Yet.

-Hime- definitely wasn’t lying when she said there would be other opportunities for rejected Mabinogi closed beta testers to get in, and it shows.

If you looked at the schedule for closed beta, you might have noticed that members of other sites can get in on the action.

At exactly closed beta opening time, GameSpy’s FilePlanet started giving away beta keys at no cost to all GameSpy/IGN members.  People who obtain a key from FilePlanet will be able to play right away up until the end of beta during scheduled beta times. (Which I will get to in a moment.)

Also, mmorpg.com, mmosite.com, and mpogd.com are giving out beta activation keys, although people who get their key through these sites won’t be able to join in until 2:00 PM Pacific time on Friday.

ALL accounts, whether their closed beta applications were accepted, rejected, or didn’t apply at all, can get into the beta with an activation key from any of these sites.  However, they are limited and I would assume that at the time I am publishing this that FilePlanet is probably running low on keys if they haven’t run out already.  I myself was rejected by Nexon but was able to get in with a FilePlanet key.

Now as far as the schedule goes, this is how it seems to be interpreted in Pacific time:

Jan. 30th: 2:00 PM onwards, Fileplanet users only.
Jan. 31st: All day, Nexon testers can start at 2:00 PM
Feb. 1st: Until 9:00 PM.  All other testers can start at 2:00 PM
Feb. 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th: 2:00 – 9:00 PM

Open Beta will come sometime after that, although most of us will probably hope the gap between closed and open beta will not be as long as it was for KartRider.

And Now For Something Completely Different.

So… what am I doing when I’m usually slacking off on MapleStory?  Well, usually I’m enjoying a game on another system; Usually my DS.  As for my favourite games on that particular system, one series that stands out would have to be the Phoenix Wright/Ace Attorney series, and the fourth game is coming out for that, soon.

As set out by an Ace Attorney fansite, I’ve decided to start replaying the whole Phoenix Wright story, from the first case of the first game to the last case of the third game, between now and the current release date for Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney.  As part of this “project”, I have set up another blog to record my thoughts on every case as I finish, which can be found here.

So, for all you people looking through my blog that like shouting “OBJECTION!” at your DSes, feel free to join me.

And now just so I’m not going off on a completely different tangent: Patch 0.50 to (hopefully) fix a bunch of the glitches that popped up in MapleStory’s previous patch is tomorrow night, KartRider now has the Marathon E2, and Mabinogi’s closed beta starts tomorrow for the 5000 testers that were selected.

Mabinogi: Closed Beta Applications Closed.

If you haven’t gotten your closed beta application in for Mabinogi, you’re too late.  Applications closed just a little over twelve hours ago now.

Nexon will be selecting 5000 applicants on Monday for participation in the closed beta, and everyone will be able to check if they were selected on that day as well.  For now I would be unsure if Nexon’s beta plans would expand on the original 5000 selected testers at a later date.

From my take, I don’t see myself getting into the beta if they’re only choosing 5000 over an “overwhelmingly large number of applications.”  Although the minimum specs are the same as KartRider’s for the most part, NxJoe once said that he thought an onboard video card would have trouble with the game, and no doubt they’re probably thinking the same about Mabinogi, and since I did select “Onboard” as my video card (since it is) I somewhat doubt I’ll be getting into this beta.

However, I will be looking forward to what the selected beta testers will have to say about this game.

gMS Patch 0.49 – It’s Finally Here

Almost three years after its opening, the job cycle on MSGlobal is finally complete.

Patch 0.49 not just saw the addition of Leafre to this version of the game, but also brought in the fourth and final job advance of the game.  This job advance take place at level 120 and plays much differently then the past advances, but I’ll get to that in a second.

First off, for those that might not be as knowledge-savvy as most veteran Maplers are, the same requirements for the fourth job advance apply to the second and third job advances:

• Level requirement: 120
• Must have used all SP earned between levels 70 and 120

To start your fourth job advance, you need to talk to your third job instructor in El Nath, who will then instruct you to head to Leafre.  When you arrive, head down to the map called the “Valley of the Antelope” (check your world map, which I’ll get to in a second) then climb up to the top to a hidden portal that will take you to the map where you will find your fourth job instructor.  Once there, talk to your fourth job instructor to start the next part of the quest.

You will be instructed to bring back two items, the Heroic Star and the Heroic Pentagon. Both of these drop from two boss monsters located in Leafre named Manon (A fire dragon of sorts.) and Griffey. (An ice dragon of sorts.)  Both of these monsters will drop their respective item when completed.

As an alternative, you can head to the scroll vendor on the 44th floor of Eos tower and buy a scroll for 10 million mesos that will act as both of these items.  Take this or the Heroic Star and Pentagon back to your fourth job instructor, and you will advance.

As a refresher, this is how the job tree looks like now: (Note that some job names are different than what was expected.)

Warrior Branch

1st job: Swordman

2nd job	Fighter	Spearman	Page
3rd job	Crusader	Dragon Knight	White Knight
4th job	Hero	Dark Knight	Paladin

 

Thief Branch

1st job: Rogue

2nd job	Assassin	Bandit
3rd job	Hermit	Chief Bandit
4th job	Night Lord	Shadower

 

Bowman Branch

1st job: Archer

2nd job	Hunter	Crossbow Man
3rd job	Ranger	Sniper
4th job	Bow Master	Marksman

 

Magician Branch

1st job: Magician

2nd job	F/P Wizard	I/L Wizard	Cleric
3rd job	F/P Mage	I/L Mage	Priest
4th job	F/P Archmage	I/L Archmage	Bishop

 

As I said earlier, 4th job plays a bit different from the previous two jobs.  Instead of giving you all your skills, and making them capable of their max level right off the bat, you get three skills with a max level of 10.  For the rest you would have to go out and find your remaining skills, which either drop from monsters or are earned by completing quests. (Look under the “Job” section of your quest window.)  New skills will also start out with a max level of 10 as well and to raise the maximum level on any skill, you would need to find its level 20 and 30 upgrades, which work a lot like scrolls.  (Level 20 upgrades have a 70% chance of working, and level 30 has a 50% chance.  Both also require you to already have a certain level in that skill as well.)

I’m guessing when this was developed last year, Nexon was thinking of trying to give people reasons to continue playing the game past the long and arduous grind to level 120.  Having to search for your skills was the answer to this it seems.

Throughout third job, the classes that seemed to stick out the most were priests (for their party support), dragon knights, and chief bandits.  Fourth job seems to finally rewards the toughest jobs for there persistence into making it this far, such as Archmages and Bow Masters.  In addition, all magician fourth job classes have an attack that affects the whole screen, (You don’t know how many people have called the Bishops’ Genesis “cheap”, such as myself.)  Shadowers have an attack that works from Dark Sight, Bow Masters and Marksmen FINALLY have a party skill, (gives the whole party the ability to critical), and Heroes have a skill that will no doubt be mistaken as a hack for a while. (Monster Magnet)

Also, new skills and new UI features were included with this patch:

First off is the long-awaited Monster Rider skill.  If you have your third job advance, you can now obtain both the skill and mount in order to move around faster than 140 speed would usually give you.  (Three mounts are available now, one for level 70, one for 120, and one for 200.) The only downside is that getting the skill can be difficult and the item needed to obtain the mount is VERY expensive. (Not to mention you can miss with it and have to buy another one)  I have the skill, but there’s no way in hell I can afford said item anytime soon.

Legendary Spirit is another skill that can prove useful and could end up changing the economy.  This skill allows you to scroll any item that you aren’t able to equip due to not meeting the requirements for it.  That being said, with this skill you can either scroll a piece of equipment to try to sell it at a higher price, or upgrade your next set of equipment before reaching that level.  There’s no bonus or penalty for using Legendary Spirit rather than equipping the item, just that it could change just how things work in the game for a while.

 

 

  One long-awaited UI-enhancement has to be the addition of HP meters appearing over monsters.  When you attack a monster it will automatically appear over their head and conveniently show how much HP they have left, and will also show the name of the monster under them.  This can be turned on and off on the system options menu.

 

Another long-awaited enhancement would be Skill timers.  In the past, your skills would display in the upper right corner of the screen, flash when they were about to expire, and disappear when they expired.  Now each skill and stat-boosting item you use will slowly start to shade in as time progresses, giving you a general idea on how much time is left on that skill before its benefit expires and the skill has to be recast.

  Another welcome addition to the gMS UI are the brand new world maps that have been used on other versions for quite some time now.  Ever since its launch, the only areas that had maps were Maple Island and Victoria Island.  Now there’s a map for every general area of the game, and the only maps that you should get the dreaded “The world map is unavailable at this location” alert on would be on board ships.

 

Ossyria has also been broken up into different regions, which is reflected in both the World Map and the quest window:

• Maple Island
• Victoria Island
• Orbis and El Nath Mountains
• Ludus Lake (Ludibrium, Korean Folk Town, and Omega Sector)
• Aqua Road
• Minar Forest (Leafre)
• Mu Lung and Herb Town
• Nihal Desert (Ariant and Magatia, which currently arent’ in gMS)

Here’s just a couple of other minor UI enhancements that were made:

• Quests divided up into their respective regions (Including “Job” quests for monster rider, 4th job skills, etc…)
• Quest helper now has an auto alarm function that automatically registers a quest when an item relating to a quest is picked up, then takes it off when that quest is no longer being pursued
• Character info windows show marital status – Married people have a heart in the upper-right corner of their avatar, those not married either have a hollow heart or no heart.
• Party leaders can now assign a new leader to take their place in a party.
• Guild chat can now be turned off
• When the MP meter flashes, its outline turns red. Don’t know if this was a glitch or not.

 

A few new security and anti-cheat measures also seem to be in place.  The zombie maps no longer have a timer and “traps” have been placed on each map.  What seems to be the deal here is that these traps are not hittable under normal circumstances, or are placed in areas where people would not usually attack, and if the trap is damaged it will teleport, kick, or even ban the offending user.  I’m guessing that at this point Nexon will be testing this out for the time being, as there would be quite a few false positives to this method, but it should be an interesting turn for the continuing fight against hackers.

Now all I can hope for is they fix the problem that’s booting bowmen every time they attack close range.  Other than that, this patch was a great start to the new year.