2014-03-17, 08:49 PM
This will be my 200th and last post on Southperry.
I have decided that I will no longer be playing MS, not even leisurely. I began having thoughts of discontinuing play since last December/January, when two waves of item/meso duplication exploits were unleashed. Not only did it pomegranate on the progress of "legit" players by creating enormous downtime and inducing an irreversible exposure effect (items being perceived to be valued lower because they had reached a nadir at some point), but it also revealed quite a lot about the people neighboring me in-game. Quite frankly, I felt alienated by certain individuals who had lost their items by partaking in the exploit, starting threads and submitting tickets for a seemingly "misguided" item deletion spree (although this is true for a minority, I'm not talking about those who were genuinely victimized), expecting a compensation for losing the gamble. By the same token, if those individuals had in turn won the gamble, then they would not have expressed the same remorse. It's a lost cause. Then soon arrived the individual drop fix for bosses earlier this year, which not only shattered the already-deteriorating economy for bosses due to hackers, but also crushed the concept of "teaming up". From my perspective, it did not encourage joining forces and partying, but rather, it encouraged people to become "looting mules" for others, greatly accelerating the rate of items entering the market, indefinitely flooding the supply. Another impetus was this "MapleStory Second Chance 2.0" (are you pineappleing kidding me), which has led to a substantial amount of old Scanian hackers returning on their unbanned accounts. The time that I spent writing reports and SUCCEEDING to slowly eradicate hackers/exploiters from my server has now gone completely to waste. But more importantly, I just can't seem to find the time to play actively anymore. I begin my first year of university this fall, and I think now is a good time to put this game to rest and shift my priorities for the better.
Equipment video:
[video=youtube;y09SlKCahWc]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y09SlKCahWc[/video]
This character is the result of roughly $7,400 worth of NX purchased exclusively with mesos over the last year and a half; this figure doesn't even take into account the purchases of essential items in the FM. In retrospect, I find it stupidly ridiculous how much money, regardless of it being in-game currency transposed into real-life currency, was needed to finance a character in an ONLINE GAME. Keeping it up-to-date is a demanding task, and it often feels like working a part-time job that has no merits. And as of now, given that Nexon still does not cease to demonstrate its incompetence as a company, I cannot help but view the sustainability of this game with immense skepticism. Not worth writing home about.
Nevertheless, the time and effort spent was not in the least regrettable. It offered a challenge as to the amount of time toward the game I could partition each day, and I felt that the gradual upgrading process was rewarding.
But above all, researching to learn and understand the game mechanics was the most exciting and meaningful to me, and I owe many Southperry users who were experts in that area for their many contributions and helpful answers along the way.
The result of this is my summary of all useful stat conversion formulas and damage calculations for Xenon compiled into one large Excel file that I have made available for public scrutiny and usage. It can be viewed/downloaded here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_IMYal...sp=sharing (Google Docs fails to translate a section of data validation on Sheet #2 and distorts two drop-down lists, so I recommend referring to the original copy for best results).
Although it is based on my own character, the information can be easily extrapolated with a brief analysis and then re-applied to one's own character. I found it exceptionally useful for comparing items, potential lines, etc., as the data inputted can be used to predict an outcome without it actually occurring in-game.
This idea of producing theoretical models on paper was one of the few driving forces that kept me playing, as I was always curious and motivated to test the expected values in a real scenario.
Which would explain this incomplete video:
[video=youtube;bryQQ_SMaDg]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bryQQ_SMaDg[/video]
In closing, I think this website, Southperry, and its community is amazing. There's so many useful resources available and threads of meaningful discussion stored in archive, so I urge people to take advantage of all the information that's floating around.
Thank you all for the wonderful time.
I have decided that I will no longer be playing MS, not even leisurely. I began having thoughts of discontinuing play since last December/January, when two waves of item/meso duplication exploits were unleashed. Not only did it pomegranate on the progress of "legit" players by creating enormous downtime and inducing an irreversible exposure effect (items being perceived to be valued lower because they had reached a nadir at some point), but it also revealed quite a lot about the people neighboring me in-game. Quite frankly, I felt alienated by certain individuals who had lost their items by partaking in the exploit, starting threads and submitting tickets for a seemingly "misguided" item deletion spree (although this is true for a minority, I'm not talking about those who were genuinely victimized), expecting a compensation for losing the gamble. By the same token, if those individuals had in turn won the gamble, then they would not have expressed the same remorse. It's a lost cause. Then soon arrived the individual drop fix for bosses earlier this year, which not only shattered the already-deteriorating economy for bosses due to hackers, but also crushed the concept of "teaming up". From my perspective, it did not encourage joining forces and partying, but rather, it encouraged people to become "looting mules" for others, greatly accelerating the rate of items entering the market, indefinitely flooding the supply. Another impetus was this "MapleStory Second Chance 2.0" (are you pineappleing kidding me), which has led to a substantial amount of old Scanian hackers returning on their unbanned accounts. The time that I spent writing reports and SUCCEEDING to slowly eradicate hackers/exploiters from my server has now gone completely to waste. But more importantly, I just can't seem to find the time to play actively anymore. I begin my first year of university this fall, and I think now is a good time to put this game to rest and shift my priorities for the better.
Equipment video:
[video=youtube;y09SlKCahWc]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y09SlKCahWc[/video]
This character is the result of roughly $7,400 worth of NX purchased exclusively with mesos over the last year and a half; this figure doesn't even take into account the purchases of essential items in the FM. In retrospect, I find it stupidly ridiculous how much money, regardless of it being in-game currency transposed into real-life currency, was needed to finance a character in an ONLINE GAME. Keeping it up-to-date is a demanding task, and it often feels like working a part-time job that has no merits. And as of now, given that Nexon still does not cease to demonstrate its incompetence as a company, I cannot help but view the sustainability of this game with immense skepticism. Not worth writing home about.
Nevertheless, the time and effort spent was not in the least regrettable. It offered a challenge as to the amount of time toward the game I could partition each day, and I felt that the gradual upgrading process was rewarding.
But above all, researching to learn and understand the game mechanics was the most exciting and meaningful to me, and I owe many Southperry users who were experts in that area for their many contributions and helpful answers along the way.
The result of this is my summary of all useful stat conversion formulas and damage calculations for Xenon compiled into one large Excel file that I have made available for public scrutiny and usage. It can be viewed/downloaded here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_IMYal...sp=sharing (Google Docs fails to translate a section of data validation on Sheet #2 and distorts two drop-down lists, so I recommend referring to the original copy for best results).
Although it is based on my own character, the information can be easily extrapolated with a brief analysis and then re-applied to one's own character. I found it exceptionally useful for comparing items, potential lines, etc., as the data inputted can be used to predict an outcome without it actually occurring in-game.
This idea of producing theoretical models on paper was one of the few driving forces that kept me playing, as I was always curious and motivated to test the expected values in a real scenario.
Which would explain this incomplete video:
[video=youtube;bryQQ_SMaDg]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bryQQ_SMaDg[/video]
Spoiler
![[Image: 25717q8.jpg]](http://oi58.tinypic.com/25717q8.jpg)
![[Image: 2q809oh.jpg]](http://oi57.tinypic.com/2q809oh.jpg)
In closing, I think this website, Southperry, and its community is amazing. There's so many useful resources available and threads of meaningful discussion stored in archive, so I urge people to take advantage of all the information that's floating around.
Thank you all for the wonderful time.