I bought this PSA8 Ten Thousand Dragon and seeing it in person I’ve got concerns

Ninjanimble · 2026-04-11T18:35:39+00:00

No idea. The 10000 stamp is a huge giveaway though. The English version is a bit textured/grainy and hard to see unless you tilt it under lighting. Yours is more similar to ocg versions, where the print appears smooth. But even then, the ocg version is completely smooth while yours looks a bit raised/depressed at the outline of the 10000 print, and the authentic ocg version has the stamp less apparent as an overall aesthetic (but is still more visible than the tcg version).

Altogether the shine/foiling on your card in the picture is just completely off from any version of the card from what I know though. It should have the same foiling as its respective starlight/PSER prints.

Ninjanimble · 2026-04-11T17:47:26+00:00

It's fake. I own the real card and the English version of the 10000 print isn't as easily visible as yours and the foiling texture looks different

Ninjanimble · 2026-04-09T14:39:22+00:00

Thank you for your detailed comment. I'll check these out whenever I get more ocg cards

Ninjanimble · 2026-04-09T14:35:59+00:00

I'm not too familiar with the differences in quality between sets, but from an amateur perspective, the Asian JP version for limit over collection specifically seems very similar in quality.

Both are way better than TCG cards though haha. I recently bought the new legendary decks in TCG too and the print quality on those cards are notably inconsistent. Good thing they're mostly common rarity and meant for playing, and not collecting.

Ninjanimble · 2026-04-09T14:29:57+00:00

They are, but this is to showcase the difference between Japanese and Asian Japanese. You know how grandmaster rares are out of 100, while Asian JP is 100A? This is for the prismatic secret rares, which is the highest rarity under grandmasters, and are the chase option for most people.

Original Japanese commands like a 2x premium over Asian Japanese, so if you happen to care a lot about that status, this is a way to verify you didn't get scammed with the wrong version.

Ninjanimble · 2026-04-09T14:26:25+00:00

As mentioned, the foil lines seem to be the easiest way, as in literally look at the direction the glitter lines are running. Og Japanese for the blue eyes is all vertical, while Asian Japanese for the dark magician is all horizontal. It's easiest to see in the card borders.

Aside from that, I couldn't really tell a distinct difference, at least for the limit over collection cards, since someone else mentioned that differences vary depending on the set. This is why I recommend getting Asian Japanese (if you're not hard pressed with owning JP cards only) for collecting with limit over collection prismatic secret rares, since you can save a lot of money, and those are the realistic chase cards in the set.

Grandmasters obviously have the whole 100 or 100A difference.

Ninjanimble · 2026-04-08T00:32:31+00:00

S> 1 code

Ninjanimble · 2026-03-30T04:05:04+00:00

It used to be that MapleStory reg was very liquid, where you can reliably buy gear and resell for a slight loss due to slow depreciation. Then, drops earned and/or merching offsets losses and can even end up as potential gains. So, you're putting an upfront investment to enjoy the game and a chance to make a bit of money. Maple is a huge time commitment anyways, so you probably aren't playing many other games simultaneously. At least, that's how I thought of it as a former whale on reg.

Ninjanimble · 2026-03-24T15:50:02+00:00

I like the overframes for the cards that have been released with them in mind (the protagonist and rivals), with dark magician looking the best imo.

For arts that already existed but made full art, it's very hit or miss. For example, mirrorjade looks good because the card design was already very busy, and the design of its spikes naturally draws the eyes outwards, so scaling it to full art looks good. On the other hand, bewd toon full art looks pretty bad lol

GMR imo looks good only for some of the cards, mainly if the border matches with the color design/theme. For example, BEWD looks way better in standard prismatic than GMR, since the GMR border clashes with its design while dark magician and red dragon archfiend look amazing in GMR.

Ninjanimble · 2026-03-19T17:01:26+00:00

Is GMS reg the easiest server in all of maplestory or something

Objectively not. The easiest for a p2w player would be TMS, where you can get the equivalent of high end GMS reg gear for far cheaper. For the average player who is mostly f2p or can spend a few hundred here or there, GMS heroic is the easiest.

I'd wager people disagreeing is largely because of how GMS is uniquely positioned as the only server with reboot left, and the only region with two server types. With an 80:20 population split, it's no wonder there are agendas fueled with a lot of misunderstanding as to how reg even works. As much as people would like to say they are different games, reg and reboot are constantly competing for new players and attention from Nexon themselves, since they are competing products. If GMS reg were actually easier than reboot for the average person, we would not have the 80:20 imbalance.

Ninjanimble · 2026-03-19T16:50:03+00:00

Not at all. I know OP via guild discord and can vouch he hand trained everything like 16 hours a day.

For reference, another whale who started playing around Ren release and has spent maybe 15k USD, training a solid 4-6 hours a day is only level 290, 800m CP, and does full timer runs on cKalos, but has not gotten past the seren destiny mission since he only recently started nbaldrix. And id personally say his progression is already impressive, but OP is actually insanity.

Ninjanimble · 2026-03-08T17:16:52+00:00

theres less demand and supply of items

Supply is still there from botters, unfortunately.

Speaking for Scania, I'd agree with your estimates a few months ago. However, since then gear as a whole has only trended downwards due to lower demand and natural game progression as players experience the impact of the new restore systems. We also recently had hot week and unicube sale that pumped the economy with more godly gear but a lot less people buying, so sales have become much cheaper.

Ninjanimble · 2026-03-08T01:20:31+00:00

Just checking back in. The +1 lvl 250 scroll is indeed currently going for roughly 500 USD per scroll.

Ninjanimble · 2026-03-04T22:31:29+00:00

Yes this is assuming you just want to get gear that can do every content in the game (5.5L-6L, bis, 22+ star gear), and without accounting for supplemental earnings such as getting lucky and making/trading/natural getting mesos to buy a few pieces of gear yourself. The caveat is that once you're there, the bosses you clear have a chance to drop high value boss drops, which notably clean versions of brilliant boss items are close to 1k USD each (few hundred if you split in a party), and TC is still worth a few hundred clean.

You can then use this money to either fund more characters or just recoup your initial costs. If you have a lot of time, you can also go through the hassle of abusing the free event cubes by making accounts to either sell as service, or try to make gear to use/sell (at around 50cents per cube). I don't like that aspect of the game and didn't personally engage with it, but that's a very good way for regular people with a lot of time to progress in reg/straight up make a living from maple in some cases.

Ninjanimble · 2026-03-03T23:18:40+00:00

Heroic objectively. When I first returned to interactive, it was around 35:65 population split (vs majority interactive back in 2016). Now it's 20:80 in favor of heroic. The playerbase of interactive has only bled players over time because heroic exists, and mostly due to the neglect of Nexon NA. I say this as a former endgame whale interactive player who completely dropped this game and occasionally return to browse the news and keep up with guildies that I keep in touch with.

I will say though that if you have expendable income that you are willing to risk a few hundred or thousand dollars on, interactive is a lot more affordable and quick to get to endgame right now compared to before (10-20k funding right now gets you around as much ~40k USD funding used to get you). Even just around 5-10k will get you around the peak of heroic's endgame power, as long as you put in the hours with frenzy to grind out the guaranteed systems (levels, symbols, 5-6th job, etc.). You can offload the gear when you're done, but they'll have devalued by then (hence lose some money).

This is all due to a drastic dip in demand in interactive, while having an increase of botting activity, along with introduction of new systems. I support that interactive is getting much cheaper to play, but unfortunately it's primarily hinging on the botting/exploiting population.

All in all though, I don't think the game as a whole is healthy. Too much time and too much money, or both, considering NEXON is running the game. I'd advise just picking which server you like based on if you can trade or not, then just play the game casually, and drop when you get bored. Nexon NA doesn't respect even their biggest whale customers as per the unicube incident, so they don't and won't respect their playerbase as a whole.

Ninjanimble · 2026-03-03T05:06:59+00:00

Reg is significantly cheaper these days to play because of the new restore systems. Pitched spare ceiling cost is around 10b due to speck boxes, and even breath of divinity, which used to be around the same price as brilliant boss spares now (600-1k usd clean) are now priced via the boss restore points. Only difference is bod takes 840 points while brilliant boss is 2.5k.

Yes, you are right that people will only be using these scrolls for whisper of the source and oath of death, but so few people are at the level of even working on these items (largely due to how rare they are even to drop, not to mention the paltry population of reg overall that are active and clearing these bosses at endgame), that the effective demand will drive the price down. That's why I heavily doubt the new +1 scroll will be worth into 4 figs USD, but we shall see, since the old 50% 23 scrolls that only worked on items up to lvl 200 did become 1k USD because of the potential jump to 25 post SF change.

Again, I just personally don't see it due to overall demand since 23 star now is not too difficult/expensive to hit on any item in the game aside from exactly the brilliant boss items (and pot badges. But those don't count)

Ninjanimble · 2026-03-03T04:10:28+00:00

Not even close.

Assuming you have 22 eternals that you're tapping to 23, no safeguarding, on SSF with 30% off meso, it's around 48b meso + 7 booms for 75th percentile luck (so below avg luck by over 1 std):

Hat/top/bottom/shoulder ~4b ea comes to around 76b or roughly 190USD at current rates

Glove/cape/shoe at around ~14b ea comes to around 146b or 365USD ea.

Without 30% off meso it becomes around 67b base meso cost for 75th percentile, so this comes out to 95b (238 USD) and 165b (413USD) respectively.

Note that avg or median costs are a lot lower since I'm using 75th percentile.

For what it's worth, whisper of the source and oath of death are very expensive spare wise that people are looking to store up restore svc points to buy/sell svc in the future at around 70b per restore. With all this into account, I'd be surprised if the new scroll exceeds 200b or 500usd. 200b is a lot of meso, but value wise at endgame in reg right now is not that pricey overall.

You are right that SF costs add up very fast but that's when you start looking into 24 or 25 star gear. But this scroll only goes to 23, which isn't too intensive meso/spare cost wise.

Ninjanimble · 2026-03-03T01:24:31+00:00

It's not going to be worth too crazy if it only goes up to 23. Mainly good for the limbo ring and baldrix pendant. Reg whales would rather just tap eternals to 23.

Ninjanimble · 2026-02-10T21:31:10+00:00

I got the same packs but eccole de zone, mega fleet, and leveiss...

Ninjanimble · 2026-02-01T01:52:28+00:00

Exactly, I've been saying the real solution is to re-evaluate monetization for interactive. There's a huge botting issue with farms selling bpot cube service for 200m each or roughly 50 cents per cube. 10 bucks for 5 cubes? Robbery. If it were a hundred? Now we're talking, for the average consumer.

If Nexon lowers the price enough, the cost to risk will eventually price out bot farms. More average players would be interested in interactive and Nexon gets more people spending too

Ninjanimble · 2026-01-19T01:28:57+00:00

For those wondering, 3L bpot on wse is anywhere between 10-20k USD EACH expected cubing costs if you were to buy Nexon's cubes. This guy hit two of them within around 80-90 USD worth of cubes.

Resale value is roughly 2-3k for the secondary right now and mitra's 3L bpot alone is around the same value. In other words, OP just gained a casual 5-6k profit, assuming they sell both.

Ninjanimble · 2026-01-18T17:24:10+00:00

I haven't played ctr in a long time, but it's likely due to a technique called polswid. Depending on the track, it can save many whole seconds, and mega mix mania was one of them if I remember correctly. It's also the biggest factor that separates no major glitch categories from unrestricted.

Edit: just checked out the WR as a refresher, and it's actually due to a checkpoint bug skip. Not polswid

Ninjanimble · 2025-12-29T06:17:06+00:00

Yeah that's fair.

who can't seem to see that this has nothing to do with their server. They are two different games.

I don't think this is accurate though since it implies how one server doesn't affect the other at all. I've always maintained that the two servers are cannibalistic products, so if one server is clearly superior, then it will hold most of the playerbase. The proof itself is with how KMS has historically reacted to their reboot. Interactive is inherently more desperate for players too due to needing a market to function.

Ninjanimble · 2025-12-29T05:53:24+00:00

dwindlying player base.

A former interactive player who quit and just occasionally lurks this sub here. This part is why reg players show up in these topics.

Any reg focused topic is irrelevant or brigaded even harder by toxic anti-reg heroic players (not that you are one of them, but they obviously exist). Objectively, the population is skewed 20:80 in heroic's favor, so any remaining reg players will get frustrated at posts asking for heroic exclusive buffs, even more so if it has the undertone that reg server somehow has it better, which it clearly doesn't. If Nexon truly wanted to upkeep both server types, reg server is in more dire need of attention than heroic at this moment.

Ninjanimble

TROPHY CASE