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.
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.
nice blog
ReplyDelete