Inazo와의 환상의 삶은 무엇입니까?

Mabinogi is a game where Milletians can become the greatest hero, save Erinn from constant destruction, but fail gathering water. Milletians are what make Mabinogi great and we want to hear your story. We have one simple question for each and every one of you: What's Your Fantasy Life? Submit your story via this form.

For this month's edition of What's Your Fantasy Life, we spoke to Inazo! 

 

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When did you first begin playing Mabinogi?

Hiya, I'm Inazo. I've been playing Mabinogi for about 8 years I'd say. When I was younger I had a period of trying out various MMORPGs because I wanted to find one I really enjoyed. I'd spent a fair chunk of my time reading webcomics, manga, literally anything I could get my hands on and a lot of it was stories based in that genre of game so it gave me a very strong want to find one that could let me experience something similar. I'd probably tried maybe 30 different games on my old terrible laptop that couldn't run anything and I either didn't feel interested in the games I'd tried or they couldn't run. Then I think I literally googled "Games like Sword Art Online" thinking that'd for some reason give me results. Mabinogi happened to be doing a Sword Art Online crossover just prior so it was like the first thing that came up and I got very invested in the game from watching trailers. 

What stood out to you about Mabinogi?

At the time the motto for the game that the trailer tried to present was basically "Be anything you want!" and man, the trailer presented that concept so well. I think at some level every MMO tries to claim they offer this until you download the game and get stuck to a single limited class with a very set path in store for you. The way those games felt was that every player is doing the same grind because grinding is all the game is. If you don't enjoy the journey along the way then it all feels a bit meaningless.

This trailer though.. You have every aspect of the character you can think of be changed in front of your eyes while they flip between various weapons and skills and jobs. The thought of "You can do all this!?" was constantly flickering in my mind. The game wanted to show you that you truly can be anything and the choice is yours alone. You have no tied in a knot path, you have no set journey. You can spend 10 hours chopping wood if you really want to and tell people you're a lumberjack, and you know what; you are because carpentry is its own existing talent. This is a game that lets you mix and mash the skills of any class willy-nilly and create something completely unique to yourself. It's a game where you actually can be anything, and that was just my impression from the trailer.

Upon actually launching the game I discovered a second more personal aspect to the game that I think is what lead to me staying. Place names were written in my language. I'm Irish. These words were familiar. I could read them. Hell, I've been to villages with the same names in real life. It all felt so close to home. Especially the lore and the mobs which took so much from the culture that I've grown up with. As someone who can't leave home much due to health issues and can't go traveling very far, I think when I played Mabinogi I felt home. The people may not have had the same upbringing or felt the same personal ties, but they were experiencing it with me and we all chose to be here for one reason or another. It just really gave me the opportunity to experience a little of what I had hoped for in the stories I'd read about games like this. I felt like this was the game those authors were picturing and I got to really explore it.

What is your favorite talent?

My favorite talent is close combat because it has the most variety of any class. Every other talent is something in particular. They have a set identity: you know what kind of weapon you'll be using and the skills revolve around that weapon.

Close combat, however, can be anything. Many of the skills aren't bound to a specific weapon. As a result of that some of these skills form the fundamentals of combat and can be applied to your fighting style regardless of the talent you're choosing to play as. No matter if you're a mage, gunner or whatever else, close combat finds its way into your skill bar. Depending on the weapon you choose (and how many you choose to wield at the same time) you unlock new skill choices. This talent essentially has sub-talents that are open to you if you wish to go all in on them and that's awesome. 

As for a talents identity, if you choose to main close combat you still have a world of options to you. Your path still has many branches and nothing is set in stone. You can go with one sword, two swords, lance, blunt weapon.. which means suitcase, bubble blower, sticks, toy rabbits, giant chicken legs.. two chicken legs at once.. literally whatever you want. 

Close combat gives you choices to make in every direction and you're left to get creative. It is a window into freedom of choice. For that, I love it.

What is a favorite memory you have of Mabinogi?

My favorite memory of Mabinogi- I would say building my first homestead racetrack. After the release of cars in the KartRider sale, I was left seriously wanting to race people and drift around. That desire turned into a massive creative undertaking for me. 

I created a big grid of squares the same size as the biggest homestead at the time which was only phase 3 expansion and I pixel by pixel drew out a circular racetrack that'd fit exactly perfectly inside that square. That was hard and yet it was the easiest part. Without gold I ended up having to make hundreds of the same 1x1 item from materials I had to gather myself to build the walls of this track block by block. I also had to get the homestead stones to even make them at all. It was a long long process that I luckily had help with thanks to a friend who used some of their homestead stones to make items for me. 

After that I built different areas inside the track like a farm and a park so you could view the races from the inside of the homestead with the track surrounding you. Then I painted the track block by block until the whole thing looked like a rainbow. 

It was really hard to plan it all out but actually doing it was something I'm proud of. I also got to host a race with random players in the form of a player fair event, thanks to my guild leader who frankly did more than me to get it all together. I'm very thankful to them for that. I was just happy to see people race on an actual racetrack.

In retrospect, the track was small and there was room to improve but I'm fond of it. It's left me with some wonderful memories and I hope as I continue to improve my homestead it can be of use to people as a fun place.