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Also please note that sometimes, those expeditions have level requirements. Sometimes, they also have specific pet requirements (such as needing "inanimate objects" like flying carpets or vehicles, or specifically requiring a penguin) and if the pets don't meet the criteria, they won't show up at all
The following are just my opinions based on my observations and experiences in the game. I don't claim for them to be facts, they are simply my personal thoughts on the matter.
Too Long, Didn't Read Version - "Real Money Trading as well as Multi-Clienting hurts Nexon's business because instead of players buying NX items to sell in the game for gold not knowing how much they'd actually earn from them, they'd rather just buy gold or items directly from others, which is pretty much more guaranteed. The extreme rarity of items in the game, especially when only a handful of people can effectively farm them and thus have control of the market, is also a factor that pushes people to just buy gold or items directly from other people."
It is nice that Nexon and the developers are concerned about the game's economy and how it can ruin the experience for majority of people. I hope that Nexon and the developers will dig deeper and check out the other sources of problems in regards to this. In my personal opinion, I think the problem with the game's economy isn't just solely affected by those gold sellers/farmers, if those websites or people actually deliver what they're selling (according to reviews on google, they're mostly scams that fail to deliver, while the same exact "positive reviews" could be found on multiple gold selling websites on their Mabinogi section which seems very suspicious ). There are multiple contributors that makes a lot of the game's item's ridiculously expensive to the point that it would discourage new players and returning players from even attempting to get those.
The first are third party mods that allow people to multi-client or open several instances of Mabinogi on a single computer. A simple google search would reveal the top two mods used that allows one to multi-client Mabinogi. If I remember correctly, it's ok to have multiple computers/laptops running Mabinogi at once, but what's not allowed or what's against the rules is having multiple instances of Mabinogi running on a single computer that's been made possible by the use of 3rd party tools/mods, correct? When somebody multi-clients, they can create an entire party to farm dungeons or shadow missions (or anything else) and all of the gold and rewards go to the single person who owns all of these character accounts. Take for example the shadow mission called "Defeat the Shadow Wizard" on elite difficulty. On that difficulty while using one of those potent crystals that increases the gold reward by 360%, a single player can earn something around 160,000 gold. Now imagine if that person is multi-clienting Mabinogi and has a full party of 8, all belonging to him. That's 160,000 x 8 = 1,280,000 gold in just one run. For dungeons that spawn multiple end chests, the same applies, the owner can take all of the rewards and probably get one of the very rare items that can be sold for a lot.
Being able to multi-client on a single computer to farm missions and dungeons puts one at an extremely good advantage. Instead of earning gold the normal way (or by buying NX shop items to sell in the game), they are 8 times more efficient in earning gold and rare items than a player who plays by the rules. They can make that 1,280,000 gold in 10 minutes in just 1 run, where a non-rule breaker would have to spend more than 80 minutes across multiple runs in order to earn that much money (you only get one of those vip potent crystals a day if you pay for that service, and Shadow Wizard only rewards you 35,200 gold if you don't use potent crystals). Now imagine if each of the characters in the multi-clienter's party have those tradeable potent crystals. Depending on the potent crystal multiplier they're using, they can either earn more (there's a 400% version of the crystals) or close to the same amount. It would be possible for this multi-clienter to earn more than 12,000,000 in one or two hours. There is a huge gap between the gold earning power of a multi-clienter and someone who plays the game within the rules.
The second problem in my opinion is how extremely rare a lot of the materials used are, in what's currently considered mid to late-game. Although normally in a lot of games, materials used to create whatever's considered the best or near best are understandably rare, they're usually not as bad as Mabinogi's level of rarity for these items. Take for example the Ancient Golden Crystals that are used for making Divine weapons. You need 40 of them to make a Divine Blade. They're so hard to come by that they're understandably very expensive. That's just to make two of the materials used to craft the Divine Blade! Then you have to get a hold of other rare materials as well. Can you imagine what goes through the mind of an average player when they see prices for these materials? "Wow, I can never afford those, I just won't aim for them!" or "There's no way I can afford that, I might as well just buy gold, buy the item with real money from someone on Discord or other social media, or buy NX shop items to sell in the game".
The third problem is that there are parts in the game where, if you don't have the right set of equipment or reforges/upgrades/enchants on your equipment, then you still won't be able to clear them, even if you're in a party or with majority of your skills already at Rank 1, because you won't be dealing a certain amount of damage that would allow you to proceed in the mission or defeat enemies efficiently. If the average player can't afford to buy the equipment they need to deal higher damage, then they're stuck using mid-level equipment despite them already having the experience and skills of what should be considered already late game. They are prevented from succeeding simply because they don't have access to those equipment. This situation is another one that encourages players to buy gold or items with real money from someone.
Another interesting effect of people multi-clienting in order to make millions upon millions of gold upon hour, is that NX shop items are of course being sold at prices in the range of what multi-clienters can afford, because that's what makes sense for those who don't (or won't) multi-client. If you don't multi-client to earn gold, and if you're under-equipped and can't handle late game missions to farm items that late game people who multi-client want to pay for, then there's almost no way for you to make any meaningful money. In short, the normal player will be having a hard time buying the NX items being sold in game because they are being marketed towards those who have hundreds of millions or billions of gold. This is another blow to new players or returnees and you can't really blame the NX item sellers because that's the only way they'll be able to afford the extremely high prices in the game.
Another important negative effect to consider is what happens when NX items drop in price in the game. For example, if you're selling Fine Reforges at 2,000,000 gold each one day and suddenly they dropped in price to just 1,000,000 gold each for whatever reason, it becomes pointless to buy Fine Reforges from the NX shop. Why waste real life dollars if it's not going to really earn you as much in the game anymore? That's $40 for 35 pieces of Fine Reforges. One million gold sounds like a lot, but you have to remember that the prices of crafting materials for a lot of the important items already range in the hundreds of millions or billions even. Selling NX items in the game is definitely a gamble. You never truly know how much you'll make with it because prices constantly change. Your best gold maker for the past few weeks might be a non-seller tomorrow, and you're using real life dollars to buy them. Again, this situation is what encourages people to just buy gold or items from other people with real money. It's the uncertainty of how much your NX items will really earn you on any given day. Some people find this as a reason to just go ahead and multi-client themselves. Why waste real life money when you can just multi-client Mabinogi and earn more gold than what you would have made from buying NX items and selling them in the game?
One more effect of the absurd costs of items in the game is that it can actually discourage people from buying NX items. If you're not a multi-clienter and if you're not someone who can deal with late game content due to lack of proper equipment, the only way for you to make decent money is to sell NX items in the game. This makes you give real life money value to the gold in the game. Let's say for example, you equate 35 pieces of Fine Reforges ($40) to 70,000,000 gold if you sell them for 2,000,000 each in the game. Just like any other player, you want to own some of the best items, like the Perseus Tormented Knuckles. One of the most important materials in creating it is called the "Kraken Heart". Currently, it is being sold for around 1,200,000,000 gold in the game. Yes, 1.2 billion for one Kraken Heart. Even if you consistently sell Fine Reforges at 2,000,000 gold each, you would need to spend around $685.00 to earn 1,200,000,000 gold. You can try selling other NX items in the game, but that doesn't change the fact that prices for NX items constantly change due to many factors (some people selling the same item get impatient, the sell for half the usual price then suddenly everybody wants to only buy at that low price, sometimes the NX item becomes a reward for one of those log-in events like what happened to Fine and Credne Reforging Tools which caused them to go down in price, there are many other ways NX items gain or lose value in the game).
Real Money Trading and Multi-Clienting hurts Nexon's business AND players who play by the rules. Instead of people spending their money buying NX items to sell in the game, they just buy gold or equipment directly from gold farmers or other players because there's less risk that way. People generally don't want to deal with risks. Why risk buying $40 worth of Fine Reforges if you can't constantly sell it at a certain price point? Why risk buying NX items when you don't really know how much gold you'll be able to make out of it that can actually be used to buy anything considered good in the game? Why even spend real money on NX items to sell in the game, when you can just multi-client Mabinogi and earn around 10,000,000 gold an hour? We could say dealing with gold farmers or direct gold/item sellers is risky in itself as you never truly know whether or not you're going to get what you paid for, but the fact that Nexon already sees this as a real problem is a testament that they know this has been going on and the gold/item sellers are succeeding and taking away business from Nexon and causing non-rule breakers the continuous problem of overpriced items at the Auction House.
What are the possible solutions?
I think this is a very complicated problem with no easy solutions. Still, it's important that whatever the solution may be, it shouldn't hurt people who legitimately earned their money, equipment, and anything else. Not everyone who has the top end equipment used "illegal" means of obtaining them.
- Make Multi-Clienting on the same computer a non-bannable activity? Allowing everyone to multi-client to their heart's content is not really going to fix the insane costs of items in the game. Maybe it can even make it worse because more people will have more money, and so just like in real life, the people who hold the products for sale will want to get the most out of their items, so they'll just simply increase the price in relation to what the population can afford. If more people can afford to pay 100,000,000 gold like it's nothing, then that 1.2 billion gold Kraken Heart would simply be raised to 10 billion or more. But still, at least in my suspicion based on what I've read from different places such as reddit, discord, various Mabinogi forums on the net, and even here on the official forum itself, there are lots of people who already multi-client on the same computer anyway and continue to do so now. Of course according to the Terms of Service we shouldn't be using third party programs to change how the game is played, but it's happening anyway and it's benefitting the multi-clienters a lot. Are they getting caught? I don't believe so. Players who refuse to break the TOS for whatever reason, are of course at a disadvantage as we cannot make the same amount of gold as they can in the same time frame. Why not just allow people to multi-client since it seems to be quite a common activity anyway? At least if Nexon allows us to multi-client, we can finally also have fun making gold and be on the same playing field as those who have been multi-clienting for a long time without fear of suddenly getting banned if ever our accounts were reviewed. Honestly, I would use multi-client if Nexon allows us to. Lots of people do it, only thing stopping me is the possibility of getting banned. My character has lots of sentimental value to me, so I can't risk it, even if it means I won't be able to progress to the later parts of the game due to me not having more suitable efficient equipment.
- Make the drop rate for important materials higher? I think this can somewhat help but it needs careful balancing. Make it too common and the item loses value, causing people to just not bother working for them. Retain their current extreme rarity and you instantly discourage people from even attempting to get them. If more of the item exists, then a lot more sellers would lower the price to make purchasing the item more attractive. If prices didn't cost in the billions or hundreds of millions, then the average player would be more inclined to buy NX items to sell in the game because now, whatever crafting materials they need will actually be possible to purchase. That's the important thing, items should be encouraged to be priced in such a way that it doesn't totally lose its high end status (why would anybody bother working hard to get them if they're near worthless?), but not impossible to attain for 90% of the players in the game due to being extremely high priced (why would anybody bother working or spending real dollars on NX items to sell in the game, if whatever gold they earn from that won't even reach a fraction of an item's selling price?). Balance. Rare enough that it still warrants a few million gold and an attractive item for players to do dungeons and missions for, but affordable enough to not instantly kill anybody's desire to work for it or sell NX items to make gold for it.
Anyway, those are some of my thoughts on the matter of the game's super expensive economy and how it affects people's decisions on whether or not to directly buy gold or items from others.
Be careful when buying anything on Ebay, Wish, or even Amazon. They are usually sold by third party sellers and not real legitimate shops, so you never know if you're actually getting the authentic item. If the item comes from China, there's unfortunately a high chance of it being a bootleg. I'm a fellow toy collector (although not that much anymore due to the coronavirus, hard to make money nowadays) and I know from experience and research that there are many bootlegs of both toys and statue-like figures produced in China. Figuarts, Figma, Revoltech, Mafex, those are very popular brands that have a whole bootleg industry.
One way to check if there's a possibility that something is a bootleg is by checking out https://myfigurecollection.net. It's a database of a lot of imported action figures and statue-style figures. In each entry, there's usually information about the bootleg version of that toy.
Signs that something is a bootleg include paint doesn't match what it looks like on pictures of others who have bought the authentic item, parts fall apart way too easily (loose joints, loose connectors due to bootlegging process), there is a weird chemical smell (that's actually a health hazard!), the pictures on the packaging look like they were printed on a dot-matrix printer or the images look smudged or blurred, the plastic that holds the item or the parts inside are very flimsy and not firm, and most of all, the price is way too low especially for items that are already out of production. There are usually a lot of youtube toy/statue reviewers nowadays, so you can always compare what you're trying to buy (or what you've bought) to what they're showing on their videos.
I'll share some online stores that sell both authentic new and used toys/figures that I've been using for years. I hope this helps anyone looking for these awesome stuff! Too bad most of them can't ship out items right now to other countries due to the coronavirus.
amiami.com - my favorite Japanese online toy store. They usually have everything like Figuarts, Figma, Revoltech, Mafex, Nendoroid, and other Bandai and Good Smile Company stuff.
https://order.mandarake.co.jp/order/?lang=en - primarily a huge source of good quality used items. They provide pictures of everything they sell, and if there's an issue, they also show it. Their prices are very good as well. Prices vary, where the best quality used items cost more than items with minor problems. For example, I once bought some Figuarts Dragon Ball stuff from them and there was a little bit of negligible damage on the box, and it brought down the price by around 60%! Even their items with "problems" are pretty much great quality if you're not an extremely mint-condition collector.
https://www.hlj.com - another well known Japanese based online toy store. Prices are higher than AmiAmi usually. Be careful, they will shut down your account if you make a few cancellations on your order!
Speaking of bears, here's my very first pet! I never got to rebirth him. When I came back to the game 6 months ago, I just rewarded my pets for their loyalty by getting them all to 200. My "classic" pets are now retired, living a comfortable life of holding various costumes and money.
I love the Mabinogi that I came back to. No more hp drain on Windmill. Advancement Dan tests are now individual instead of battle royale style. Easier teleportation (no more housing flyers!). Auction House, money has commas now. AP Training for skills with ridiculous random based requirements. It's a huge improvement for sure!
No more battle royale dan tests:
Red gem Albey was my gold farming spot:
Peaca was endgame dungeon:
Leveling up ego/spirit weapon was a nightmare:
DB meant Dragon Blade, NOT Divine Blade:
Robes were the height of fashion:
Tir Na Nog was the place to train awful and boss requirements:
Character creation options were limited, you can often find twins:
The giant worm massacred lots of people:
Some texts weren't properly translated so they showed up as squares:
Ciar basic was where you leveled up to your 60s/70s if you couldn't go to red or silver gem Albey:
People actually worried about exp loss due to how long it took to level up beyond level 50:
You had to bid for your home:
The ad board made you squint your eyes so as to not misread prices:
Broadswords were considered awesome:
Successfully killing a giant boss took a long time and many sacrifices, unlike now where people slay dragons within seconds:
A pet inventory full of red gem Albey scrolls actually earned you decent money in relation to the cost of items back then:
Housing flyers were the best unintentional transportation tools, but they took a lot of space:
I don't want to show the picture here since it's... "risque"
