Now that I’ve managed to flunk my way through my exams, I have 3 main things on my mind: Granado Espada, Maple, and….Puzzle Quest. It’s caught my interest ever since the Penny Arcade guys plugged the demo on their website, but what with ratings office delays and bad organisation from the publishers, I only managed to get my copy in Australia last week. If it has never caught your notice before, it’s because, well, it’s Bejeweled (the RPG), and is selling only at Toys’R’Us for $50 (at least it is down here) instead of some “hardcore” games store where any self-respecting gamer would shop when they’re not buccaneering for their games out on the interweb.
It’s annoyingly addictive, and the fact that it’s a handheld title is not helping. X_X

For some strange reason, I’ve been entertaining the thought of raising my xbow FM mule to lvl 35. The last time I seriously thought about raising alternate characters, I went and npced all the eq I had saved up in preparation to quash all temptation. But this time, it’s because I had gone and splurged some mesos on a set of above average and rather cheap maple crow/xbow. Actually, I got 2 crows, mostly because I failed to see that 250k is not that cheap, and is, in fact, a whole quarter of a million mesos.
This is a picture of Saredis, the xbowgirl in question. Pets really aren’t useful at that level, because I take forever to kill things, and have all the time in the world to saunter over and pick stuff up. But that tiger needs levelling, so whatever.

I think that those people who proudly proclaim themselves to be first time archers (and therefore, non-bandwagoners, free from the influence of forum opinions. Hah.) should stop patting themselves on the back and acting so smugly, because it’s not the archer class that’s inexplicably 10 times as boring and slow to level. It’s actually the fact that the other so-called bandwagoners have been through it all before. Twice. Three times. Maybe for the umpteenth-million time. Who knows. Maple may be fun the first time around, but it really does suck the 2nd time through. Especially after you stop levelling madly for the first 20 levels or so. My guild leader has 3 third-job characters, and I really don’t know how he did it. No, he doesn’t hack, so put down those fingers of accusation.

By the way, I think my Maple days may be numbered. I mostly have GE on my mind now, and the usual thought that comes up when I think of Maple is: “Ugh, I’m broke, I don’t wanna kick my ranger up another level at zombies, the only place I can train at and still make money.”

I’m not quitting any time soon though. I still have enough NX left over for at least half a year’s worth of pets, and I never get the clothes, because they’re mostly crap, temporary, and….not useful. Plus, I’ve got most of my lvl 90 equips (which is why I’m broke), I’m one level away from max strafe, and, and……..

Ok, I’m just not a good quitter. I only realised I had truly quit Runescape early this year, when I finally stopped going back for the events. It took that long for the obsession to fade away. I’m guessing it’ll be the same for Maple too, a slow fade out.
I wonder when they’ll kick me out of the guild.

I’ve actually been in a slump lately – or at least the RotesKreuz family has. Their recent bout of levelling had left the family armoury rather outdated, and I just didn’t want to buy anything, considering how it’s actually feasible to hunt for your next armour in this game. Seeing my main team (fighter/elementalist/scout) get wiped across the Tetra Catacomb floor several times has cured me of the Miser’s disease, though, at the time I didn’t know they were actually 3 levels below the recommended minimum. So I guess they were doing quite well, all things considered.

I’ve come to love the market system on GE, you can open a shop in town and afk, or you can use their market manager to sell stuff while you play/live life or search for things to buy. For free. I will never forgive Wizet for making the FM search function an NX item. 700 NX for one search? They’re out of their minds; they’ve thrown away a perfectly good method for controlling inflation. Together with registration fees that depend on how much you’re selling your wares for, and a market search, most of the stuff on sale are fairly priced and affordable. About 12k of vis netted me a nice sword and bracelet, both +5 with modest options, as well as a good shield. You’ll never see this sort of deal on Maple, and even if you did, it’d take way longer than 2 minutes to find.

Granado Espada is pretty enough to make photo albums with, so I’m going to let the screenies tell the story. I’ve got 5 this time, so that’s 5000 words in the bank. As if this blog ain’t long enough already.
Random Exhibit 1: I found this one rather amusing. I had left the group in patrol mode, and came back to find two of them….tangled up. That metal contraption behind the cuddly pair is the Ferrucio Forge; every half hour on channel 1, one person gets to shovel 200 bits of coal in and it spits stuff back out. I got a Birdfall ring that time, but you usually get spell components instead. Sort of like a PQ on Maple, minus the fun and the idiocy.
Random Exhibit 2: I still use the private shops sometimes. Not having to pay non-refundable registration fees means that you can set outrageous prices without losing money if nobody buys. My prices aren’t particuarly bad, if I may say so….I’ve seen people try to sell the same stuff for thousands more. And I don’t know why those fighters are squatting around. I suppose they saw me posing for the screenie and decided to join the fun.
Random Exhibit 3: A screenie from older times, back when I still trained at the stone pit, which had loads of boars, overgrown insects, and…crocodiles jumping around on 2 legs.
Random Exhibit 4: This guy’s called Gracielo, who you first see on the same ship your family arrives on. And while you’ve been busy training up and making money, he’s just been bumming around the port and demanding food from strangers. You get to beat him and get his card, which didn’t take very long, after I learnt to use my fighter’s Back Guard skills back with Claude and Diego.
Random Exhibit 5: I was voucher camping in the Catacombs during a bout of lag when I ran into this rare Treasure Phobitan, the only monsters that actually run away from you in this game. The lag was really bad; everything would just freeze for about 20 seconds before going on fast forward and freezing again. I took this screenie in between one of the lag spikes, by the next one it had disappeared along with the mob, and all that was left were some coconuts and a clean sword on the ground. To this day, I don’t know if I had managed to kill it or not.

This game has done something that Nintendogs, Animal Crossing, and various MUDs have failed to do – make me think about quitting Maple. But I have a feeling that despite all the dreams and “fantasizes” (lol @ Andre) of the rabble at IAH’s forums, GE will end up going pay to play. IAH’s being suspiciously tight-lipped about the whole topic, and then there’s the whole conspiracy theory with those 180 free hours vouchers they’ve included in the limited edition GE boxsets. So when the beta ends, there’s a very good chance that I’ll fall back on Maple again. Or look for a new home.