Mabinogi (network game)
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| Mabinogi | |
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| Developer(s) | devCat |
| Publisher(s) | Nexon |
| Engine | Pleione Engine |
| Release date(s) | 2004-06-22 |
| Genre(s) | Fantasy MMORPG |
| Mode(s) | MMO |
| Platform(s) | Windows(98/ME/2K/XP) |
| System requirements | Intel Pentium III 800 Mhz, 256 MB RAM, GeForce 2 MX/ATI Radeon 7000/Matrox G550/i82865, Broadband connection |
| Input | Keyboard,mouse |
Mabinogi (Hangul:마비노기) is an online role-playing game released by South Korean Game Distributing Company Nexon, developed by South Korean Game Company DevCat inspired by Celtic mythology. The Welsh word mabinogi is found in the original manuscripts of the Mabinogion.
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[edit] Summary
This fantasy role-playing game pits a player's character against the entire world of Mabinogi, Erinn, where he or she can choose to pursue monsters, quests and money, or just develop the ability to make amazing items.
Characters are created by using Character Cards (additional cards must be purchased from the game service store). There are two kinds of cards, basic and premium (a newly created account has one free basic card). Premium cards give the player a wider variety of hairstyles, eye and mouth shapes and also come with more elaborate clothes than the basic type. When creating a character, one may choose an age between 10 years and 17 years-old. The character will advance one year in age every (real) Saturday. Different ages yield different initial stats and affect the amount of stats raised in a Level-Up.
Rebirthing is one important factor of the game. One can choose to use a Character Card for rebirthing one of their characters instead of creating new one. Rebirthing allows the player to change the character's gender/age/appearance and reset the character's level back to 1 while keeping character's previously gained skills. As it gets gradually harder to gain more levels as a character's level becomes higher, and since all skills require a great amount of Ability Points (see below) at a higher rank, there's a limit to character improvement if he or she doesn't take advantage of rebirthing.
Performing different tasks and eating different kinds of foods changes the appearance of the characters. It may change their body shape and may also raise/lower some of their stats.
Players may play music composed by other players using musical instruments.
Each (real world) day of the week grants players specific bonuses, such as getting a higher experience rate for certain skills, higher item creation success, aging, gaining AP, etc.
[edit] Gameplay
Mabinogi's gameplay doesn't differ much from the usual MMORPG, it does, however, offer some interesting options uncommon to most games. The player is not limited by any class (except the character's race), but is instead free to level up any of the different skills available. The combination of skill choice, age, items and other variables such as user title and physical constitution is what indeed makes up the character. Characters are highly customizable and this is enhanced by the ability to craft items such as clothes. Users can also use amusing facial expressions as emotes. The player can thus build a character that focuses, for instance, on melee/magic combat or focus on item crafting or similar life skills instead.
NPC interaction is very important in the game. As the player talks to different non-player characters, keywords will become available to use in dialog with other NPC's. These conversations will reveal plot points and NPC backgrounds, unlock quests or skills, etc. NPC's also offer a variety of services such as shops, item repair and upgrade, skill apprenticeships and more. Players can also request arbeits from some of the NPC's, which can be useful to get items or quickly earn some gold (in-game currency). NPC's will usually remember who a player's character is if they've met him or her.
The player must keep an eye on the three major status bars: health, mana and stamina. When health reaches zero the player dies (if fatally wounded, the player may still recover health or get healed), while mana is used for magic skills. Stamina is important because without it tasks cannot be performed. The player may use the rest skill, use stamina potions or eat food items to recover stamina. The player's eating habits will affect the character's build, that is, eating certain foods in large quantities will increase their weight. Eating berries has a slimming effect, gradually reducing the character's weight. These transformations happen over time, so the player may also watch how the character's body starts to change.
The combat system has a tactical side to it. Predicting the enemy's next move and making use of different offensive and defensive skills is crucial. However, the game features an automatic combat mode if the player wishes to choose this option. Enemies have different ranks and come in all sorts of species, some of them being very large in size. The player can see the strength of the enemy before attacking it by pressing the Alt key. Some monsters are aggressive and will attack and pursuit on sight. This also sharply reduces the number of bots because of the high artificial intelligence (AI) of monsters.
Dying implies a loss of experience points (depending on whether the player respawns in a town or on the same spot the death occurred) and sometimes the loss of equipment (these lost items can be retrieved at a lost and found NPC, but at a cost, usually, half of the item's actual price). Fallen players can be revived if another player uses a Phoenix Feather on them. If the player has purchased the Nao Support package, then Nao can be summoned to revive the player. If the player has zero experience points and suffers a death penalty, negative experience points will accumulate and the experience bar will turn red on the Character panel.
The life skills on the other hand, give the player the chance to experience a different side of the "fantasy life". Players can perform tasks such as tending to the wheat and potato fields, making flour, gathering wool from sheep and eggs from hens, weaving and making garments, mining for minerals and crafting weapons, playing and composing music, cooking dishes, etc.
One especially unique implementation of skill is composing, which uses Music Markup Language and actually lets a player compose music if he or she can edit MML. Naturally, there are legal implications of playing copyrighted music, and while Nexon officially discourages such actions, there are many players who choose to do so.
A pet system is also available. Players may purchase a pet (using Nexon points), which can help in combat or, in some cases, even be used as transportation, allowing the player to travel at a greater speed than on foot.
Players can also set up stores to sell their items. Incidentally, items cannot be "looted", as it frequently happens in other games, since any item dropped from a monster cannot, as a rule, be picked up by another player for a short time. Items can be safely traded through the trading panels.
Other features worth mentioning are the friend, party and guild systems. Guild creation requires the purchase of an extended play package at the store (using Nexon points). Guilds can expand/level up by meeting an increasing quota of points (called Guild Points, or GP), which are earned by the guild's members by staying in-game.
[edit] Skills
Within Mabinogi, each character can develop a large number of skills, though it is recommended that one should focus on a few particular skills at the beginning. By practicing certain skills, such as cooking, fighting or playing instruments, the experience for these skills (and also for character level) will go up.
However, Ability Points (obtained when the player levels up, ages or has completed important quests) are required to take each skill up a level, and this system runs so that rank F is the most inexperienced, and increases to rank A, then from rank 9 to 1, i.e. 1 is the strongest it is possible to be in a certain field. Skill levels cannot be lowered once they are advanced, unless a Skill Untrain Capsule is used (only available to subscribers who have purchased the Advanced Play or the Fantasy Life Club packages).
Additionally, the AP required for gaining rank may differ between Humans and Elves in certain skills.
Some trade skills (e.g. fishing) are also mini-games.
Below is a partial list of skills in Mabinogi.
[edit] Life Skills
This group contains trade skills and all other skills that don't fit the two categories below.
- Fishing
- Cooking
- Handicraft
- First Aid
- Smithing
- Tailoring
- Weaving
- Herbalism
- Campfire
- Rest
- Refine
- Potion Making
- Making Mastery (raises the success rate for all trade skills and increases character's maximum amount of stamina)
- Playing instrument
- Composing (through use of Music Markup Language)
- Musical Knowledge
[edit] Battle Skills
This group includes melee and ranged combat skills and their more advanced form.
- Melee Combat Mastery
- Defense
- Smash (can break the Defense skill)
- Melee Counter Attack
- Windmill (a kind of emergency-move; a player can attack all enemies nearby with cost of losing 10% of their life)
- Critical Hit
- Ranged Combat Mastery
- Magnum Shot
- Support Shot
- Sharp Mind (allowing the player to directly know the enemies' next move - not available in the JP version due to game balance reasons)
- Arrow Revolver
- Final Hit
- Mirage Bomb
[edit] Magic Skills
This group contains 3 lines of elemental magic that each perform differently, other non-elemental magic and their more advanced forms.
- Magic Mastery (Increases character's maximum amount of mana)
- Ice Bolt
- Fire Bolt
- Lightning Bolt
- Healing
- Enchant
- Meditation (Increases character's mana regain rate when used)
- Fireball
- Thunder
- Party Healing
- Ice Spear
[edit] Special Paladin Skills
Player will acquire Paladin Skills after solving the mainstream plots of Generation 2.
- Spirit of Order (Player can transform into a Paladin using this skill, can only be used once in a day (game time). Increase the health points, mana points, stamina points, defense points and protection rate)
- Power of Order (Increase the strength and will of player while he/she transformed into a Paladin)
- Eye of Order (Increase the dexterity and balance rate of player while he/she transformed into a Paladin)
- Sword of Order (Increase the max. and min. damage and wounding rate of player towards enemy while he/she transformed into a Paladin)
To acquire the 3 Paladin skills (the Real Power of Paladin) below, players are required to fill pages in the Book of Paladin Quest. (Quests avaliable in G3S3).
- Paladin Mana Refractor
- Paladin Heavy Stander
- Paladin Natural Shield
[edit] Special Dark Knight Skills
If the player has already solved the mainstream plots of Generation 2 (meaning that he/she is a Paladin), he/she can convert him/herself into Dark Knight by solving quests (Quests avaliable in G3S4). Dark Knight and Paladin strongly opposes each other.
- Spirit of Order converted into Soul Of Chaos (Player can transform into a Dark Knight using this skill, can only be used once in a day (game time). Increase the health points, mana points, stamina points and the player can passively defense)
- Power of Order converted into Body Of Chaos (Increase the strength and balance rate of player while he/she transformed into a Dark Knight)
- Eye of Order converted into Hands Of Chaos (Increase the dexterity and wounding rate of player while he/she transformed into Dark Knight)
- Sword of Order converted into Brain Of Chaos (Increase the intelligence and critical hit rate of player towards enemy while he/she transformed into Dark Knight)
- Control Of Darkness (Can control monsters. Possibility is affected by the strongness of the player and monsters)
- Paladin Mana Refractor converted into Dark Mana Refractor
- Paladin Heavy Stander converted into Dark Heavy Stander
- Paladin Natural Shield converted into Dark Natural Shield
[edit] Titles
Achieving certain conditions will reward the character with a title. Titles, when equipped, can change the character's stats, with the potential to be positive or detrimental. Some titles include "Lucky Guy/Girl", "Defeated a bear with bare hands", "Defeated by a fox when 17 years old", and "Elementary Elemental Master" (awarded when the character has learned all 3 kinds of elementary elemental magic - fire bolt, ice bolt, and lightning bolt).
Unique titles are unique in the realm and only one character in a realm can be awarded with the title.
[edit] The Mabinogi World
In the Mabinogi world, there are three beginning towns in Generation 1, named in English:
- Tir Chonaill (often called "Newbie Town")
- Dunbarton
- Bangor
Generation 2 added a new town to the world of Erinn:
- Emain Macha
There is also a wide variety of other maps, those which connect the towns, those which are dungeons and quest maps, including the place where Nao lives and "the Gate".
Generation 4 added a new region, Rano, which belongs to a whole new continent, Iria, which when fully implemented would easily triple the size of Urla mainland (where Generations 1 to 3 took place).
Generation 5 revealed another region of Iria called Connus and allowed players to play a new breed, the Desert Elves.
"Moon gates" in Urla connect remote areas and allow players to teleport through them to other moon gates. The destination of moon gates change every day (in-game). At a particular night, all moon gates teleport characters to one place. "Mana tunnels" in Iria connect across the continent. These, however, work differently from Moon gates. Mana tunnels can only teleport players to a mana tunnel that the character has used before. Moon gates only open at night; mana tunnels only open during the day. Players can also move from one continent to another by boat or by selecting "Continent move" from the main menu.
[edit] Dungeons
Several dungeons exist throughout the game world. When a player enters a dungeon, they will find a lobby with a statue of a goddess. An item must be dropped on the platform before this statue to gain entrance to the dungeon proper. A separate dungeon instance is created for every unique type of item thrown on the platform (this way, the dungeon maps are randomized). Dungeons in one region share similar interior appearance, however each dungeon spawns different kinds of enemies. Incidentally, depending on what the player drops, he or she might end up in a dungeon instance with players already in it. However, that does not affect the use of Evil Passes, which will create a harder dungeon compared to other items. Evil Passes are available as drops from normal dungeons. Beginner passes, which create easier versions of dungeons, are only available to select dungeons.
Dungeons maps consist of rooms and corridors of the same size connected to each other. Along the way, the player will encounter chests or other devices which will, if opened or activated, summon monsters that must be defeated in order to progress in the dungeon path (keys that unlock dungeon doors must also be found this way). At the end of each dungeon, there is a room four times as large as the regular ones dubbed the "boss room", which will usually have the boss enemy of the dungeon (sometimes escorted by a number of other enemies). Once the boss is defeated, the next room, a treasury, will be opened, inside of which there will be several treasure chests and a statue of the goddess to allow players to warp back to the entrance. The number of treasure chests inside the treasury will be equal to the number of characters in the dungeon (at the time of opening the door). Players can thus explore the dungeons in party mode.
When a player is killed inside a dungeon and if they cannot wait for rescue, they can choose to be revived at one of three possible locations: in a town, at the previous dungeon statue or at the dungeon lobby. If the player revives at the previous statue, they might pick up their dungeon progress where they left off, that is, the chests they have opened and the monsters they have already killed will not be reset. However, there is a big penalty for this and their status (health, mana and stamina) will not be reset either. If the player decides to revive at the dungeon lobby there is a lesser penalty and a new item must be dropped to enter the dungeon again (in which case, a new dungeon instance will be created).
[edit] Mainstream plots
Mabinogi has mainstream story campaigns which are playable only when a person is a subscriber. These quests have connected story lines that reveal the background story of Erinn and several important characters.
- There are 3 stories in sequential order, each implemented at their corresponding Generation updates.
- Generation 1: Advent of the Goddess
- Generation 2: Paladin
- Generation 3: Dark Knight
Generations 4 and later focus on exploration and don't have any story campaign, which is reason of complaint among part of the player base.
[edit] Quests, exploration and arbeits
There are many different quests that players can complete throughout the game. Some of them are received by the player at specific points or after certain quests are completed, others are given by the NPC's, some can be purchased as quest scrolls and, finally, there are also exploration quests that the player can enroll in through the Quest Boards. Quest rewards may consist of experience points, Ability Points, gold, items or a combination of these rewards. Different types of quests exist, some are party quests, others involve monster hunting, item collecting or other tasks, for instance, skill-based quests like cooking or tailoring. Quests help the player to discover the game's regions and to find out about the many available NPC's, as they require travelling to different parts of the game world and talking to all the different non-player characters.
Exploration quests typically involve finding certain hidden objects using a pair of L-shaped rods or by finding landmarks and making a sketch of these. Different exploration quests are available according to the player's exploration level. Sometimes, when a player is using the L-rods, they may encounter chests with rewards (some of these chests are guarded by enemies which characters must defeat to open the chests). There is also a player rank for the completion of each quest, which can be viewed on the Exploration Chronicle panel. When a character completes exploration quests or simply come across these hidden landmarks, a character's exploration level will increase and as they level up the character will gain Ability Points and access to new exploration quests.
Another type of special quests are arbeits, which are part-time jobs given by the NPC's that the players can complete. Arbeits are only available at a specific time of the day for each NPC and have a time limit to be completed. The player must complete the requested tasks (i.e.: delivering an item to another NPC, crafting a certain number of items, collecting objects, farming chores, etc.) and report back to the NPC to choose their reward. If the player completes the task only partially, the reward will be smaller. Repeating these arbeits helps to raise the intimacy level between the player and the NPC (giving certain items to the NPC may also help). When a friendship has been established between them, certain merchant NPC's will reveal a secret store to the player with special items to purchase.
[edit] Game time and real time
The game has its own internal clock (36 minutes of the real time is 1 day of the game), as day gradually turns into night (a dynamic weather system is also in place). However, each real time day of the week offers players the opportunity to take advantage of specific gameplay bonuses. Weekday names used in-game reflect the Celtic mythology that the game evokes. The day of the week bonuses are:
- Imbolic (Sunday)
- Critical hit rate increases.
- Probability of getting a lucky finish increases.
- Battle skill rank up bonus increases by 110%.
- Music skill rank up bonus increases by 110%.
- Alban Eiler (Monday)
- Production skill success rate becomes high.
- Life skills rank up bonus increases.
- Dresses are made of beautiful colors.
- Beltane (Tuesday)
- Arbeit rewards become higher.
- Dungeon maps change, even if the same item is dropped.
- Dungeon item drop rate increases.
- Alban Heruin (Wednesday)
- Experience penalty decreases.
- Magic skill rank up bonus increases.
- Potion effects become high.
- Lughnasadh (Thursday)
- Enchant scroll success rate becomes high.
- Item drop rate from monsters and structures becomes high.
- Chance of learning a skill from a seal book becomes high.
- Alban Elved (Friday)
- NPC store prices are lowered by 5%.
- Storage comission is lowered by 5%.
- Cooking skill success rate becomes high.
- Cooking skill rank up bonus increases.
- Samhain (Saturday)
- Characters age one year.
- Bonus Ability Points are earned from aging.
- Food effects increase.
- Perfect skill training bonus increases.
[edit] Footnotes
- These features do not have clear analogies in the original mythology.
- The icon for the game program is a Celtic knot. The knot pattern also appears in other parts of the game.
- The game is available in South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, and Mainland China.
- According to this article published on Gamespot Korea, an English version of Mabinogi is under development for global market. Estimated release is scheduled for 2007.
- It is confirmed that X-Box 360 version is currently in development. Detailed info will be out sometimes in 2007. "Korea game-show report", Gameshot.
