Giving Back to the Community

As promised in my last post, I'm proud to unveil Warrensworth's Pet AI v1.1, a custom Mabinogi pet AI I've written entirely by hand. Writing this AI was far more trouble than it should have been (due to zero official documentation about it from Nexon), but the result is oh-so worth it.

To summarize this AI:
1. It's meant to be a standalone melee AI. Your pet should be able to handle itself versus reasonable mobs when taken 1-on-1.
2. Locked in a room with 10 Gray Town Rats? Not a problem, the AI auto-targets and wipes out rooms of mobs (nearly) automatically.
3. This AI is somewhat a hybrid of melee and ranged attack pet strategies. If you whip out a bow and let the arrows fly, your pet will melee your target to keep it off your back.
4. Do not expect bodyguard behavior from this AI; if you get hit, tough cookies. Cancelling pets' skills as they fight their own battle will get you both killed, so make sure you know how to handle yourself first.

To use this AI, you can either save it to Notepad as a .xml file and stick it in the My Documents/Mabinogi/Pet AI folder, or you can copy and paste it directly into Mabinogi's AI editor
(New AI-->View Source-->Paste) and save.

The code can be found on the MabinogiWorld forums here.

With the Generation 7 update, a new video recording feature was added to the game. It allows users to quickly and easily capture gameplay footage and upload it directly to YouTube. Probably to promote this, Nexon has announced a contest calling on Mabinogi players to upload tips, tricks, and strategy how-to's in an effort to claim one of seven Adventure Nao figurines being given away:
I want that Nao...
I happen to enjoy some video editing here and there, I have a unique tip to share with the Mabinogi community that I think will get me noticed, and I am not above oogling plastic fantasy characters. So naturally I created and submitted this video:

Wow, two great freebies in one great post! It pays to read Warren's MMO Adventures!

Ancient Secrets of Irinid Released

Generation 7, Ancient Secrets of Irinid, was released last week so quickly that I didn't even notice my client was downloading the update. I blame the Pioneers of Iria release, which took over a month of teasing us players before devCat got their act together and handed it over.

Irinid's biggest addition to Mabinogi is the unveiling of the Courcle region to the map, which sits between the Giants' land of Physis and the Elves' land of Connous. As far as new dungeons go, Courcle is a bust. There are zero new dungeons. However, in terms of other new stuff, Courcle (and the G7 update) is a definite success. To my knowledge, the new stuff includes:

A) River rafting. Suytu River runs through the middle of Courcle, so players can hop onto a log raft and travel down it to reach a number of downriver docking locations. More mini-game than practical travel option, the aggressive Hobgoblin tribes that line the banks of the river can be killed for rewards from the natives (who apparently don't like the Hobgoblins).

B) Magic Shields. The Hobgoblins use a variety of magical shields to defend against melee, ranged, fire, ice, or lightning attacks. These shields do not allow the caster to move while it's activated, so it is definitely a support spell. Players can obtain these shields by attacking into the shield to learn about it. Shields can be overlapped to multiply their defensive effect.

C) Flying Mounts. The premium shop now offers mountable pets that can fly their owners around the Iria continent. The Thunderbird was a limited-time-only offering available during the week that Irinid was released. Now the only available flying mounts in the premium shop are Pelicans and Eagles. My main qualm with these fliers is that they cannot be used on the Uladh continent, which is essentially half the world. I'll take another horse before I buy one of these birds.

D) Charge. This melee skill is the answer to the archer menace, especially in the PvP realm. Charge allows a melee fighter (who has a shield equipped) to dash into an enemy's face while reducing arrow damage and ignoring arrow stun or knockdown effects. The melee fighters of Mabinogi let out a collective "finally!" with this one.

E) Metallurgy. Ugh. As a player who has spent the majority of his Mabinogi career mining ore out of Barri Dungeon, Metallurgy has ruined the good thing I had going. This skill allows players to sift ore fragments out of beach sands with a sieve. Since there are beaches all over Iria, Barri no longer holds the monopoly on ore production.

Sifting through sands with the Metallurgy skill
There are several things that make me unhappy about Metallurgy, all of them being selfish reasons. For starters, ore production is far more accessible to players who are too lazy for (or not interested in) endless runs of Barri. This means that I am no longer that special minority who actually has ore to sell to blacksmiths. There are always 3 or 4 player shops open in Dunbarton exclusively selling ore fragments now.

Second, ore fragments are a quarter of the size (1x1 inventory space) of traditional ore mined out of Barri. This would be OK if 10 or 20 framents refined down to a single ingot, but instead 5 ore fragments refine into an ingot just like a full-sized ore, which makes Barri's 2x2 ore strictly inferior to these fragments! Now players have no reason to mess around with the bloated ores I have reserved for sale :(

Finally, as I've feared since the first day I'd heard about it, Metallurgy has crashed the price of ore. As of this writing, players are buying iron fragments at 250g (down from 300-400g), silver fragments at 800g (down from 1k to 1.5k), and gold fragments at 1k (down from 2k to 2.5k). Ore mining is no longer as lucrative as when I first got into the business. Now, instead of seeking profit from ore, my only logical option is to shift into a buyer's role and take advantage of the lower prices.

On an unrelated note, I have been working on my own custom pet AI this week. It's nearly done, and I'll post it here when I'm satisfied with it.

See you in Courcle!

Smithing Ain't Easy

On one lucky run through the Rabbie Basic dungeon, Kazukikun took out a Lycanthrope. His prize was a rare blacksmith manual to make a Bird Face Cap--he isn't a blacksmith, so he handed it to me under the agreement that I would make him one. Since I needed training making helmets, I was very happy to get this manual!

The Bird Face Cap
I only managed to make two helmets before the manual ran out of uses, so naturally I wanted another. It's just a trip into Rabbie Basic to fight the Lycanthropes and harvest more, right? Not so fast. The manual is only dropped by Lycanthropes, and they only appear as bosses in Rabbie Basic, so I needed a basic pass. Venezzia, Kazukikun, Mistresraven, and I ran about five or six Rabbie Normal dungeons looking for it with no luck. On a determined tilt to succeed, I ran alone back into the dungeon one last time to try again, and I was rewarded with a Rabbie Basic pass!

The next day, Kazukikun, Perk, Takashi, and I ventured back into Rabbie Basic to grab that manual. Neither of the Lycanthropes in the boss room dropped it. That was far too much work for nothing D:

Venezzia and I did some research and discovered that Lycanthropes also spawn as bosses in the Albey Blue Gem dungeon. Albey Blue Gem is A) far easier to run over and over than Rabbie Basic (we just need blue gems to get into it, which basically rain from the sky), B) far easier to slash our way through the dungeon than Rabbie Basic, and C) far quicker to reach the boss room. It should be a given that that manual would be in my hands now, right? Nope. We did probably ten runs of Albey Blue Gem in one night, and did not get any of the 30 Lycanthropes we killed to drop it.

Instinctively, I returned to Barri dungeon to mine iron ore while I contemplated what the hell I had to do to get manual. On a whim, I decided that I would finally solo the entire Barri normal dungeon, and kill all five of the Ogre Warriors in the boss room (they are terrifyingly powerful when fought head-to-head, so I've always left the dungeon before I completed it). As a cruel joke and consolation prize wrapped up in one, the Mabinogi gods decided that the 5th Ogre Warrior would drop a Twin Horned Helm blacksmith manual, which is a rough equivalent to the Bird Face Cap I'd been seeking for 2 weeks straight. I rate this a 1/2 fist pump, 1/2 facepalm.

I should also mention that three refugees of the late Famous guild, Mistresraven, Freaky555, and Taranee, have decided to join up with Artifex. This is great news since I can officially talk to everyone I need to via guild chat now. Welcome to the guild guys =)