I was immediately disappointed by the fact that MapleStory Thief Edition only allows you to create male characters. I enjoy creating female characters; I identify with my gender. Still, I gave it a go and was soon making a throwing-star wielding assassin, similar to one of my characters in the MMO.

The iOS game uses the same graphics that I’ve come to love. There’s an adorable Asian flair and it’s simple enough to work on the iPod Touch in a smaller version. The graphics could perhaps be a bit smoother but my second generation iTouch probably renders them a little more poorly than newer iOS devices. However, the screen of my iPod Touch is small enough that I found the touch controls to be awkward and too small for my fingers. There’s an on-screen D-pay on the lower left but I find myself wishing I had the deal D-pay of my DS. On the bottom right are permanent jump and regular attack buttons and there are 4 quick-slots along the right edge.

The D-pad is small enough to be awkward but it’s the jumping that kills me, literally. You can set up the game so the side arrows keep you moving until you press another button or so that you have to hold a side arrow to keep moving. Either way, it’s incredibly difficult to line up the side arrow and jump button action required to jump up onto the impossibly tiny platforms, especially with your hands covering half the screen. I think that’s an obvious failure that could have been avoided had the developer given more time to how this game would work on a portable device, rather than a computer screen.

I also wish that I could change the jump and attack buttons, or perhaps just the attack button. As a thief, I stop using the single attack as soon as I get Lucky 7, a skill that allows me to throw multiple stars at once so this is a waste of space. Right now, I have that skill, another attack and health potions in my quick-slots and there’s just not enough room in every sense. I often wind up hitting the wrong button because they are so close together and, because the game offers more skills by default, you either have to be damned good to avoid dying so that you can use those spaces for skills and not potions or essentially only rely on two skills — assuming you leave two slots for potions. It’s frustrating.

The plot is a scaled down version of MapleStory so there’s a lot of running around and doing quests, to collect 15 of this or kill 20 of that. It’s grinding at its best but grinding isn’t bad for an iOS game, which I’m likely playing to cure boredom or waste a few moments anyway. Because of its limitations, I wouldn’t want to play more than that anyway.

There is a shift in terms of power, attack and monster levels so it’s not quite the same as MapleStory. For example, the world consists of just three continents: Orbis/El Nath, Magatia and Victoria Island, which have been moved so as to fit against one another in the world map. The mini map is a ridiculous disaster which simple consists of colored pixels to shows platforms, NPCs, portals and your own character. Of course, you can’t hover or touch any of the blocks for more information so it’s pretty much useless.

In fact, this game lacks intuitiveness overall. Aside from the quick slots and the on-screen health and magic scales, you have to press a little suitcase icon to view any other settings or information. This includes character info, items, equipment, skills, quests and options. The options are pretty lame: you can choose to use sound effects, background music, both or none, automatic movement — that I mentioned before and speed of your character.

The quest list is frustrating because there’s no room for a quest helper on the main screen; however, the game does divide it into main quests and sub quests so you know where to focus. You have to tap to open every single quest, though. The list doesn’t even give an overview, which would be nice.

There is no option to sell items or equipment but a trash can to simply discard them from your inventory. To learn more about what you’re carrying, you must tap the individual item, which quickly becomes old. The same is said for the skills. However, there’s an additional frustrating measure because you have to tap the quick-slots then choose a skill to add and the game doesn’t tell you this anywhere.

Perhaps the biggest software flaw is the lack of auto-save. You have to manually save your game after every achievement and that’s just unacceptable.

While this won’t be the case for everyone, this game drains my battery like none other. It also causes my iPod Touch to become noticeably warmer but not hot. There’s some lag as well. All in all, I’m sure it will perform better on a newer and more powerful device.

MapleStory Thief Edition isn’t the worst game I’ve ever downloaded and I have more fun playing it than the version on Facebook but it’s also more frustrating.

So I added the MapleStory Adventures app and I’ve been playing. At first, I was kind of annoyed at its limitations but also intrigued at how they had made the MMO into a casual social-networking game.

MapleStory Adventures

Character design, for example, is limited. You can choose to either be a warrior or wizard. I went with magic. Gender aligns with your Facebook account and there are limited options for equipment and appearance, unless you pay for them.

The world map is a very scaled down version of the full game and you begin in Henesys, fighting stumps and slimes and the like. Most of the monsters are in appropriate areas; however, their levels are much lower than in the actual game. Fighting is based on a clicking mode; although, there are skills you can obtain as you level up. As you level, more maps open up. Each map has three quests for you to complete and it’s reasonable that you can wind up finishing all the quests on all the open maps and waiting to level to open a new map with new monsters.

Leveling uses the traditional EXP format but, rather than health or magic, you have “Energy.” Energy is used as you attack the monsters so it’s akin to MP. Monsters don’t really hurt you. Energy is re-gained over time or obtained through items, which you can get from completing quests or monsters drops. Friends can also help you out.

In fact, with MapleStory Adventures, you want to have a lot of friends who play — or a lot of cash to spend. You see, you will run out of energy and your option is to buy more with real cash, ask friends for items or wait. That’s right, every five minutes you’ll get five more energy. Doesn’t sound like a lot? It’s not. However, if you have lots of friends who play, you can get more energy and keep your wallet happy.

You can also invite your friends to come play with you. They’ll fight monsters and, for every friend you summon, you get a bit more energy. There is a skill, however, that you must learn in order to summon friends. Plus, if your friends are a much lower level, they won’t be much help at all. So I usually sign on once a day, use up all my energy and then invite my friends before using up all their energy. Then I’m done.

You’ll also want friends to give you skill permits, which are required to level up skills in addition to mesos that you collect from monsters. Friends are also beneficial because you can ask them for keys, which you need to unlock boxes that monsters drop. These boxes contain energy, money,  equipment or consumable items. Some boxes require no keys at all but you’ll quickly find your inventory filling up with chests if you do not have friends to give you keys.

The running theme here is the more friends, the better. In fact, I wouldn’t play this at all if you don’t have any friends who play it. A couple groups exist on Facebook that allow you to find more friends, luckily.

MapleStory Adventures includes this heart scale thing that you get when you help out friends or invite them to help you. It’s separate from the experience and energy guages and, as you play, you’ll level it up. Its effect is indirect, however. I’m not quite sure what it does.

Another difference from the actual MMO is the homes. When you’re out in the world, fighting or visiting towns, you can click the button to go to your home. Here, you can learn spells to create items, such as potions or scrolls. Talk to the enchanter to use scrolls to improve your equipment and customize your home with different items. You can visit others’ homes and help them to harvest items there and speed up their item crafting. This helps your heart rating and earns you five energy. You can also access special areas, like holiday maps, from your home.

Nexon has just added a couple of dungeons to the MapleStory Adventures world. These are like obstacle courses, where you must move through the maps, collecting treasure and killing monsters, before the time runs out. This feature is only a couple of days old, however, but it adds some excitement to the grind. You see, MapleStory Adventures is much more mindless than Maplestory. This makes it a good game to play if you’re just trying to waste some time as you don’t need to be very involved.  It also makes it frustrating because there’s no one else to talk to and the limited game play means nothing will ever come as a surprise. It’s all programmed into the game.

Speaking of programming: the Flash interface can use up a lot of memory and cause your browser or computer to run sluggishly, especially if you’re doing a lot more in the background.

The bottom line: MapleStory Adventures is cute and reminiscent of the actual game but is no replacement. Unless you have many friends that play or don’t mind spending your money, you’ll find yourself grinding — when you have the energy — just trying to reach that next level. It’s good to waste time and addictive to certain personality types while others will eventually stop playing.

Using auctions is pretty easy. If I want to sell, I usually use the search feature to find an item’s database listing then click “Sell it.” Doing so directs me to a page which allows me to specify stats, auction length and gives helpful information like the Average Asking Price and, with some items, this page will also tell you the Average Auto Win and
Average Reserve prices. I could have sworn some pages show the in-game NPC price but, if this is the case, it only shows for certain, standard items but I may simply be mistaken. Regardless, it’s easy to see how much you can expect to get and where to start the bidding. If you’d like to see more averages, Basil Market also has a price list page which lists selling prices for popular items.

It’s important to note that users have to set their server preference on the settings page so their auction and price searches are relevant to the servers they play on. As I use mostly Scania, this is handy but if you play across multiple servers frequently, this could be a hassle (unless you have multiple accounts which might just be easier).

Something else to keep in mind is that the price curves on Basil do tend to differ from the prices in game. In my experience, Basil is usually a better deal than buying something from the free market or a user randomly in game but not always.

Buying is also easy as I can simply search the auctions with the search bar. Auctions are also listed on specific items pages and I can navigate to those pages via a number of methods. What I really like is the wishlist; I can add items and all the active listings will show up on this page. However, I cannot view just a list of my wishlisted items because items no available do not automatically show up.

Either way, sellers and buyers have some nice options after items are put up (either can delete bids, sellers can end auctions early) but there are a few perks. The settings on Basil do not allow for e-mails when an auction has ended, whether you’re buying or selling. The only options are to receive and e-mail and/or Basil PM when you are outbid which is pretty weak IMO. You pretty much have to sign on every day to see when an auction has ended and I hope this is rectified soon.

The biggest downfall of Basil is that it only facilitates the agreement between users. It’s up to users to sign on, meet up and exchange goods which is frequently easier said than done, especially when you consider that many people have multiple characters or live in different time zones. I’ve had more than one auction fail to be completed because of this and more than a few headaches when I tried to track multiple characters for one seller.

This wouldn’t be a problem if users could view the auctions after a week (7 days) so they could attempt to complete the auction. However, after this point, the auctions simply disappear from one’s list and users are no longer able to provide feedback. I have completed some auctions after they expired but was not able to give or receive feedback for it which just plain sucks. It would be nice if users had a little more time or if auctions were somehow archived, even if the ability to give feedback was unavailable because the only way you can even know what the auction terms are is if you write them down or save them elsewhere.

Still, I’ve completed many auctions through Basil Market. It’s helped me get some items I never would have found in and for decent prices as well as empty inventory and make more money than I would if I simply tossed or sold an item to an NPC.

Basil’s other features are equally as impressive but a bit harder to get a hang off. I frequently visit the forums and use the guides posted there but the set up is confusing. Topics which are not pinned quickly slip to the end of the list. They may be found via search but just glancing through the list often proves futile. In general, I have come to view the forums as something which lacks permanence and make new topics instead of spending a bunch of time looking for them.

One of the features I do not use but many do is the ability to add friends to a friends list and chat with them via Basil IM, a bar which shows up on the bottom of the screen. (Settings can be changed for this as well). I think it’s a generic script that I’ve seen used on other sites but it does seem to work well with the other aspects of Basil Market.

I’ll admit, I rarely use anything under the “Classes” tab. There are links to information about class specific skills, guides and items but I just search the forums or item database for that information instead. The items database is grouped by class and common items with a page for new items and a guide to making items with the item maker skill. I frequently use this section to get a feel for the items I will want for my characters depending on their class and levels.

The monsters database I use less frequently, simply because I prefer the listing on MapleTip (if only they were updated!) but groups monsters by level, event or boss. Individual monster pages show information like HP, MP, speed and mesos along with item drops but Basil Market lacks a list of locations, sadly.

The general Maplestory tab includes listings (ads for parties, friends et cetera), guides (which users can post to the forums), videos and screenshots which players can contribute, a Gachapon List (I couldn’t even begin to tell you the purpose of this) and a search feature to find friends by server, job and/or level. This miscellaneous items are helpful but I frequently find myself not realizing Basil has feature X or just forgetting about it.

In fact, although many of Basil’s features are displayed on the main page, there is simply so much content there that I never look at it. This means I miss the newest items, listings, forum posts, screen shots and videos. I’m not even sure what the “Maple blog” is but it seems to be updates from Mr Basil (the site admin, I guess. The profile pages need work to include an “About Me” blurb) about game and site topics. Frankly, the tiny text and cramped layouts often hinder my usage of Basil Market. There’s just so much to take in at all times that it’s easy to miss stuff.

I know there’s a whole team of people who work to ensure Basil runs smoothly and I appreciate that. It’s an insanely popular site (when MapleStory goes down unexpectedly, Basil’s servers slow to a snail’s pace!) and not every preference can be addressed but there are many good suggestions in this thread that have never been addressed and definitely should be. Nevertheless, it’s still the best alternative to buy and sell items in Maplestory, gets answers to questions and connect with other players that I cannot imagine not using it (and only grumble minimally when the ads ignore my pop up blocker).

Unlike actual Nexon cash cards, the $20 Ultimate Game Card can be used with games such as Runescape, Silkroad and Trickster Online. It’s also pretty ugly but that’s pretty inconsequential. ;) And, unlike a regular cash card, one does not simply go to the regular page to add a card to one’s account. Instead, I had to go through the process of selecting NX (Nexon’s currency) and then use the Ultimate Game Card as payment by selecting PayByCash. I was then taken to the PayByCash site which allows me to choose a payment method, including the Ultimate Game Card as well as these other methods:

• Cash (through the mail) – US Dollars
• Money Order or Cashiers Check by Mail
• Moneybookers
• BOKU – Pay by Mobile (Mobillcash)
• Western Union QuickPay
• WebMoney Transfer
• TravelersExpress MoneyGram

After entering my information and card number, the process was complete and I was directed back to the Maplestory site. The amount loaded into the cash shop immediately and easily. However, I had to go through the process twice because I bought a $20 card and the Maplestory site only has options for $5, $10, or $30 increments. This meant I got 4 e-mails (2 for each transaction, one from Nexon and one from PayByCash). Regardless, I now have a cute white tiger to pick up my Mesos and help me get rich.

I was surprised at the extra steps it took to redeem the card and this might be confusing for some if they don’t take the time to read the instructions on the back (I didn’t at first) but I’d probably buy the Ultimate Game Card again in the future.