Big Bang Tour

Well as you know the Big Bang Update changed a lot of things, including map layouts. A lot of maps are changed or gone and some new ones added to. It’s pretty much like experiencing maple all over again, since everything is different and all the mobs are changed too. Nexon incorporated a lot of what the players asked for. One was to make it easier to travel around places. So that is how we end up with the Victoria Island you see here. Sure for some things are easier but it’s also quite nonsensical and a bit weird. I was planning on doing this a while ago now (like a month..) But I just never found the time. Since it’s the Big Bang update it would seem crazy not to use music from the group Big Bang wouldn’t it? I mean it would almost be against the law not to. So I will. The background music and sound effects haven’t changed so you’re not missing anything, If the music isn’t to your taste then you can always mute it. Oh and since people weren’t too keen last time I didn’t stretch the video for this. The quality should be good enough to watch it fullscreen as well.

The video starts at the top of a new area called Portal Road. Basically this is the central hub of Victoria and everything branches of it like a star. Whereas before it was much like a circle. Which I preferred because it made it seem like an actual island, not just places all branched off and separated.

The top of the tree is where all the ships are that used to be in Ellinia. When Resistance is added you will see the new portal up top that leads to Eldestien. I would have preferred if they were all flat on the ground though. Climbing to the top is kind of tedious. Below is the main area that leads to the towns. I always try to jump down there but you can’t you have to take the ladder to get down so annoying.

The 6 main towns are separated, three  at each side sort of corresponding to where they are on the world map. At the base of the tree is the entrance to Sleepywood.

I will start with Henesys and will work clockwise around the island. As you can see from the get go it’s really all change. You are greeted by two large suspicious shaped mushroom structures, hmm lets quickly move on. Not many maps have stayed. Some have like the Cynical Mushroom map etc. It’s basically just a couple of maps then you get into the town and then that branches of further into other areas. Right before Henesys is the portal to the Pig Farm and a connection the Nautilus maps (which I will show later). Henesys itself is more condensed but it’s quite similar to how it was before. The middle of the town is basically the same it is just the entrance and exit of town that are a bit different. A few NPC’s have also been moved into houses. I guess that’s to give the impression that it is actually a town and people just don’t live on the streets. The Market and the mushroom Park have stayed intact. Sadly the Mushroom kingdom has been moved and that’s certainly not that convenient to get to anymore.

Mobs have been moved around to give them a bit more of a structure. You won’t find things so mixed up now. For example as you can see the Heneseys are contains all the different Mushroom mobs. Yu won’t find pigs here anymore for example. The first map right of town has the training instructor and a map sort of similar to the old HHG. In this area you will find 3 bosses. Mushmom/Blue Mushmom and Zombie Mushmom. I’m sure you will be able to recognise the “Someone Else’s House” map where Mushmom is. Blue Mushmom is next followed by Zombie Mushmom. They both have new maps. Their portals have a little danger sign on them so you can tell what’s in there. They have taken a huge nerf though and are about as hard to kill as a snail so not much danger after all. You also won’t get kicked out the maps when you CC. One thing Henesys still has is Golems, which again have taken a huge nerf but are a nice training spot. The mini dungeon in particular is pretty good. There is also a Zombie Mushroom mini dungeon which doesn’t look as good as the old one in the Ant Tunnel. A lot of the new mini dungeons seem rather large and empty. The 2nd job instructor is also right outside the Golem mini dungeon entrance. Right at the end of all this you finally get to the Mushroom Castle. Thanks goodness you get an invite there when you advance at 30.

So next up is Lith Harbour. Pretty short and simple. Just a straight line there and back. I guess they don’t want to confuse new players. On the first map in from Portal Road you will find where Mano spawns, pretty similar to how it was before. So he is easy to get to. Not that it matters really. He spawned on my trip back so I just recorded for the sake of showing it and stuck it in at the end .As you probably noticed Lith is the area where all the snails are found (and Shrooms). I do like how the maps use the Lith tiles more and not just grass. As you can see I did get a Red Bandana from a Blue Snail. Never knew they dropped them, I was surprised. So there’s a little FYI for you. I suppose if that is a post Big Bang addition then you might want to sell your Red Bandana if you have one. Unless of course they always dropped them or something. I also went back there and got another Red Bandana after killing my second Blue Snail so I guess they will be really common, Now I need to find out is what drops a Yellow Bandana. The town  is really condensed down. I noticed towns are a lot more vertical now. I can’t say I really like it at all but it’s not like you would spend much time there anyway. The only thing I do like is the ship in the bottom left. I like how they have positioned that, makes the place seem a lot more like a proper Harbour now.

Kerning City is next, it has some bizarre design choices. Not much to the city sections really, more focus on the subway and the swamp. The abandoned subway station is still pretty much where it was before, not that it matters since you can just take a portal too it. Kerning City itself still has pretty much the same feeling to it, just things have moved around a bit. I’m not going to go into every shop etc since they haven’t changed inside. I do miss the pipes into the swamp though. If you enter Kerning PQ you get taken to a little holding area now. This means it can be included on the list with other PQ’s so you can teleport to it. It is of course now open up to level 200.

At the very left of town is the entrance into the Subway. You’ll notice a lack of Bubblings. At the end are two portals. The bottom one continues on into the subway. The top one leads to the Swamp. Wait what? The swamp…? Uh okay whatever let’s just go with it. It’s again very similar to the old one. But you may notice there is a new monster here. They added a few new mobs here and there. They look pretty cool but sort of out of place with the older design of the swamp. Right at the end of the swamp is the 2nd job instructor which again is a bit of a bizarre choice. Now back to the subway.

As before it splits into two paths (upper/lower) but I’ll just show one since they are the same anyway. I’m quite disappointed, Wraiths are now level 15. Pretty weak sauce. I don’t really know why you would train on them anyway. Since there would be better alternatives, so seems a bit of a waste.

We are off to Perion now. I do like the big stone at the entrance. But what’s the first thing you are greeted with? A map full of Jr. Boogies! Ah turn back now! No wait don’t worry they are a breeze to kill now. I’m sure newbs will be slaughtering them in masses and getting revenge for all the trouble they caused for so many years at Wild Boars. Just a short trip into town, you will notice Francis’ hideout has moved here. Since Sleepywood is not what it once was he had to find a new home. Initially when you enter town if you look at the mini map it seems pretty much the same. But it’s not. Everything has been moved around. It’s like walking into an alternate dimension or something.

The only other exit from town  is now at the top. The path splits into two routes, keeping the whole East and West Perion thing from before. To the West is all the pig and boar maps all nicely put together, as well as the sign posts for the Evan quest. To the East are all the stumps and the Excavation site. Right before the Excavation site is a separate portal that leads to a map of Ghost Stumps and those pots which are an Aran’s arch nemesis. The monsters in the Excavation Site are for early 2nd Job. So again really weak. Are you getting the overall theme of the mob changes in Victoria yet?  It Feels kind of weird killing them so easily. You can still go inside the castles etc for more mobs in there. You’ll find the 2nd Job Instructor for warriors in the excavation site also.

Next on the list of places to check out is Ellinia. The entrance graphics for Ellinia are pretty boring… Just a couple of bland trees, that don’t really make an impact. You will see pretty big change the moment you walk through the portal. They have changed the graphics to that found in the Lupin area. There are invisible walls everywhere so you can’t just walk of the edge and fall into Maple oblivion. They have also put an ugly pipe graphic on the tree. I know it’s old and been used before but when it’s just by itself it sort of sticks out and looks really out of place. Another thing I noticed about Ellinia is that you generally enter a map at the bottom and exit at the top. It gives you the impression that you are always climbing upwards higher into the trees which is pretty cool. I know it was like that before but I think they have done a better job of conveying it this time.

As usual just a couple of maps and you are into town. Wow Ellinia looks terrible now. It’s so squished looking. Grendal is now in the middle of town. The exit portal is at the top right of town. It takes you to the tree that grew maps. Rather than just being an extra place to explore there is no portal to the left so the only place to go is up! And what do we find Bubblings. So this is where they ended up. It makes sense to keep them together with slimes.

The map splits again into right and left paths. We’ll go through the bottom left portal later. Going up you find Fairys, lots of them. Getting their tentacles won’t be hard now. You will also find a new kind that drops wings instead of its tentacles. The exit at the top leads to Zombie/Lupins and  Malady’s. All have taken a nice little nerf. Maladay’s are now level 30 for example whereas they used to be level  55. The Magician 2nd Job instructor is also found here.

Now back to the bottom portal we never took before. This leads to an area full of the all ‘Eyes’ you know Evil/Curse/Cold etc. Two maps in you find a similar map that used to contain slimes before. It still even has the portal to Leafre at the top. There is also a tree that has Curse Eyes in it as well as the child NPC at the top that used to be in North Ellinia. The next map has another little tree dungeon with Cold Eyes in it. I didn’t bother climbing up to the top of this one as there isn’t anything there. You’ll notice another new monster in Ellinia a Black Evil Eye. There is also a Cold Eye Mini Dungeon, which seems a bit pointless since there was that other tree that had Cold Eyes in it. But at least this one has flat platforms which are a big bonus. Though it just doesn’t compare to the Cold Eye map that used to be in Sleepywood.

The last map just has just the new mobs in it though it’s one of the worst map designs I’ve seen. It just has annoying slanted platforms and lead nowhere. It’s the main thing I don’t like about this update. Instead of leading to Perion as it would before it just stops dead. I liked how everything was more connected before.

A shorter Tour This time for the Nautilus. But it’s still a lot bigger than it used to be. The first map is the one I showed earlier in the first part of the tour. It connects to Henesys. Nautilus is where you will find the pig mobs. I just fly through the Nautilus Port map as there isn’t anything worthwhile seeing, it’s the same as always. There is a new portal at the end that leads on to more maps though. I quite like the new Nautilus maps with the water at the bottom and the decking. Although I notice they used the Nautilus ground tiles on the floor but Henesys ones for the floating platforms. It would have been nicer if they just stuck to Nautilus styled tiles but I’m a real stickler for that sort of thing so I’m sure most don’t care.

You will still find a Pig Mini Dungeon in the game and it’s located here. It only has Ribbon Pigs in it. But I don’t think it seemed that great. It reminded me of the new Zombie Mushroom Mini Dungeon just too big and empty. That being said I’ve never trained properly in either so perhaps I am being  a bit harsh. I’m sorry for the bit of lag also at the end but my hard drive was getting full so it wasn’t able to record well anymore. For this tour it takes well let’s just say a whole lot of GB’s

On the next map you will find another new mob. I’m not even going to make a crude joke about these I’m sure someone else will. But I do quite like these mobs, they are the best of all the others added I think.

As you will notice when you look at the Mini Map Florina Beach has moved a bit and is linked to the Nautilus. It even has the same map icon now.

I was hoping you could just walk over a bridge or something but no sadly you still have to pay. As for Florina Beach itself there isn’t much to comment on. The mobs have changed of course but the place itself is very similar It would have been nice to see a new mob here. I did notice however that the Hidden Streets seem to have gone. But one has been added on the map before King Clang. Talking about king Clang I noticed the blue text in the chat box that he spawned so decided to kill him. Maybe that was a bad idea since I have no idea what level it is now. But he is still as easy as ever. Though I don’t remember it ever taking so many hits to get it out of its shell before. It has been a long time since I killed one perhaps I am remembering wrong.

Anyway that’s it for Nautilus. I’m happy about the changes here since you have everything you already did but more. Also I think it was a good idea including Florina Beach in the Naultilus area since they do match well and they obviously were never going to do anything to it. I was hoping for an expansion one day but I guess not.

And we come to Sleepywood, our last stop in the Victoria Island Tour. You access it through the portal at the base of the tree. You are lead straight to the town which hasn’t changed. All the surrounding maps are now gone, well a couple has survived in spirit it guess. The portal to the Ant Tunnel is still in the same place. There is a block on the portal though. You have to have reached a certain level before you can go inside. The Ant Tunnel is now a level 5X-6X area. Like I said earlier you will recognise the first few maps that used to contain Evil/Curse Eyes though the second map has been modified slightly. They contain Copper Drakes now. Don’t mind me as I just get enough combos for Combo Drain before I continue.

Onwards now into the proper Ant Tunnel. This is a really great map the spawn is very good. It has Drakes which are level 52. There aren’t many of these ant tunnel styled maps now so it doesn’t take long before you get into the deeper parts of the Ant Tunnel. The whole place has been condensed down which seems to be a general theme of the update. All the Drakes are located here so you will lasso see Fire Ice and Dark Drakes. Though I will start to miss more now since they out level me. A lot of people dislike the new accuracy system but I think it’s a good mechanic for restricting lower levelled players training on high levelled mobs.

The Snack Bar Boss is still down here but I can’t hit it. All I ended up doing was angering the Drakes and getting trapped yay. The Dark Drake Mini Dungeon also still exists. But I’ll be honest I have no idea if the layout has changed. I’ve never been in there. (has anyone?)

Next up are the Sanctuary maps. The route below leads to Balrog as before so I didn’t spend long there since there isn’t anything new to see. The Store has now moved here as well as you can see.

Wild Kargos are the first map in the Sanctuary. I’m too low level but it doesn’t look all that bad a spot. Flat map with a decent spawn. Then on to a more familiar sight of Tauromacis, with a similar if not the same map layout. Then a few maps of the usual mix of Tauromacis and Spears. I decided it would be a good idea to jump down and give them a good whack with my stick. But they didn’t seem to like that too much, so I had to run.

And what lies at the end of all of this? Jr. Balrog of course. But he was predictably camera shy. There are a bunch of Taurospears on the map now. I’m going on memory here so don’t quote me on this but I think Jr. Balrog is level 66 now.

So that’s it, the Brand new (and improved?) Victoria Island. The only question now I guess is what one is better the old/current Victoria or the new one? Perhaps that question is better left asked until the update gets releases in your version.

Victoria Island wasn’t the only place to get changed, other maps all over got little changes here and there. I’ll Begin with Orbis.

It’s a bit less all over the place now; it’s basically on 3 levels. At the top are the Station and the entrance to the Guild Hall area. The guild system got revamped but that isn’t specifically part of the Big Bang Update. The Guild Hall area has remained unchanged really, I think Orbis has even more portals scattered around the place than it did before, teleporting you here there and everywhere so you won’t have to do much climbing around.

The map left of town with the Hair Salon etc also remains unaltered really. The weapons/Armour shop has been moved over beside the Potion shop, as well as the FM entrance. The entrance to Orbis Tower and the mob maps remains fundamentally where it was.

If you have been paying attention you will have probably noticed the big spring like objects that I have been ignoring until now. Well they do what you would expect, they bounce (or spring…) you to the top of the map. They first appeared in various event PQ’s but have now been added as a permanent addition to the game. They are pretty cool I guess, practical and fun. Well not so practical but quicker than ladders.

The springs also appear on the mob maps too. But instead of a platform at the top of the spring it’s a cloud, since you know a cloud attached to a spring makes perfect sense. I haven’t seen these anywhere else so they appear to be exclusive to Orbis.

First I’ll explore the area with the cats then the area with the pixies. I don’t think much if anything has changed map wise in the mob maps only little bits here and there, the altered mob levels probably stick out most. Everything is pretty much where you would expect to find it. But thanks to the springs getting up to the top of the map sure is a lot quicker. I’ll just go the Jr. Celion route I’m not going through all the Grupin and Lioner Maps. As I said things are the same really just a couple of minor changes. You can always look yourselves one day. Oh hey a Flaming Feather, well they still drop them after the update. It’s too bad those quest items aren’t really wanted by people these days. Jr. Celions have gone up from Level 33 to 36.

Again with the Celion map nothing that will blow your mind just the platforms got flatter. Celions have dropped in level 53 down to 46 now. So has everything else onwards. The portals to the Gardens of Darkness (Lucidia maps) have been moved to the ground rather than being on the two raised platforms. On to Garden of Darkness I. Something is a bit out of place here. I’m not talking about the subtle map changes. It didn’t hit me at first but then I noticed. Those are Jr. lucidia’s! They now have their own map. It used to just contain Lucidia’s, Garden of Darkness II has the best spawn of Lucidia’s now. Talking about Lucidia’s they are 54 now as opposed to 73. Luckily Elliza also spawned. I’m not sure what level it is now. But it was 83 and I comfortably beat it at 56. It does help that skills now work on bosses so My Body Pressure let me take no touch damage.

Now on to the last maps. Star Pixies Got buffed up ever so slightly and all the other maps got nerfed a few levels, go figure. The Disposed Flower Garden map which used to be a Hidden Street now has a clear portal. It’s a trend I have noticed while exploring, the removal of Hidden Streets. Everythinh else is pretty much same old same old.

So that’s pretty much it for Orbis. Not as exciting as Victoria but there is a lot of little changes that you can’t really appreciate by just watching. When you compare the new Mini Maps with the old (or current for most of you) ones the little changes start to stand out.

Orbis Tower now, how is it looking on the higher resolution? Not many changes to it. No it didn’t get smaller I edited a lot out of course. The only real new things are the shortcuts they have added. It lets you get to the top/bottom of the map quicker. But sadly it’s only on a few select maps with something significant on them. The other maps have no portals. The mobs haven’t changed much either they have just been given a modest little boost from late 1st job to early 2nd job level.

At the bottom of the Tower is of course Aqua Road, which is rather different. Not map wise (I had a look around it) but Mob wise. It is now a late 2nd, early 3rd job location. Quite a departure from before. I believe the mobs in Aqua Dungeon are around the same level as before so not much change there.

Onwards to El Nath now. It’s the most changed location out of these areas. On the first map out of the tower you will notice the changes right away. The town also has a pole with a couple of Lanterns hanging from it to denote the entrance now, rather than just being bland and unmarked. The map is a little shorter too as a lot of maps are now.

Like most towns in Victoria El Nath has been condensed down, it is about half the size and a lot less vertical in places. The second Market Map like Henesys has remained but it is also condensed.

Now on to the mob maps. Things start of pretty much as you would expect. The first couple of maps only have a few subtle changes to them. The biggest change you will notice straight away is that the mobs have been shuffled around again. The second map now contains Dark Jr. Yeti’s which along with the regular Yeti’s have been reduced in level. On the third map from town, Cold Field I you’ll now find Pepe’s instead of White Pangs and Hectors. The next map also now contains Dark Pepe’s which again is a change from before. Both have also been reduced in level. Another thing is that on this map there is a portal to the Crown Flyer Map which used to be a hidden street but is now visible which again goes back to what I have been saying about the removal of hidden streets. As you would expect the map branches of here. The upper level as before leads to the Dungeon/Mine area and the bottom just contains the Portal for Aran’s mount quest as before but with a couple of more NPC’s moved to the map. It’s the first time Hectors make an appearance too and they again have been nerfed in level slightly.

Like I said before the upper map leads to the dungeon area it has both Hectors and White Pangs which as you might have guess have been nerfed down slightly as well. You will also notice a brown sign post. These are on all the maps here now. They are great, they teleport you to the top of the map. This makes which was once a fairly bad training place a pretty great one combined with the jump down skill. It’s hard to remember the days before that skill was introduced. All the maps here have a similar layout so you have a good few training maps for various levels here.

Ice Valley II contains just white pangs and is a pretty nice (and fun if you are an Aran/Mechanic) training spot. The other mob here is part of an event that was going on while I was filming. They are nothing to do with the Area. You will also notice the Snow Witch Spawns on this map it used to be a bot Catching Monster. That’s right I said used to be. The whole Bot Catching Monster thing has been removed from the game, but the mobs still exist as basically new Area Bosses. It isn’t normally that quick to kill one at my level.

You still have to talk to the NPC to enter the Dungeon area. This is where things take a turn again. All the previous mobs have been nerfed slightly but everything in here has been increased. In some cases by a lot. Level 130 Zombies for example. Right at the beginning you will find the now obvious entrance to the map where you answer questions for your 3rd job Advance. There are Yetis on this map which as you can see I can’t even touch. So I suppose the tour has to end here. I could have come with someone with Dark Sight but since the big things to note would have been the new mobs I didn’t see much point since I still couldn’t attack them. I decided just to Change Channels Quickly and kill another Snow Witch to show they aren’t as easily to kill. The entrance to the Lionheart Castle is also up here but it wasn’t introduced at the time of filming.

Now finally in to Ludibrium. I won’t be going into all the mob maps here jus sticking to the Town/Towers. Ludi has changed quite a lot. There isn’t much at the right side of town anymore it’s pretty much been removed. As you can see the Map to Helios Tower has shrunk. It’s a lot smaller now which is a good thing as the map was a bit long before.

Although I didn’t use it the portal that takes you to the top of the clock tower is still there. All the shops have been moved into the middle of town now. All the cosmetic shops have been grouped together too. The Ludibrium Village map has been changed quite a bit. It’s basically been cut in two and stacked on top of itself. I think I preferred it on one level. It made it seem more like a Village too rather than having house float in the air. But it’s not like anyone spends any time here.

The entrance to Eos tower has been made smaller as well. The first thing I noticed was the Screws. They are now flat! It makes jumping up to the PQ easy now. No more falling town and embarrassing yourself in front of complete strangers, or was that just me.

As you would Expect Eos tower has had little tweaks made all through it. But I’m not going to explore it all or Omega Sector. You might notice that the Ratz have been increased in level as have the mobs in these area and in Ludibrium itself. They have also been increased in Omega Sector too as well as Korean Folk Town. There is lots I am sure to have missed out but you can find them all yourself when the patch arrives.

Music:

Part 1.

Tell Me Goodbye (Big Bang)

My Heaven (Big Bang)

ガラガラ (Gara Gara) GO!! (Big Bang)

Part 2.

Haru Haru (Big Bang)

Baby Baby (Big Bang)

Hands Up (Big Bang)

Part 3.

Lollipop Pt. 2 (Big Bang)

Lies [Hitchiker Remix] (Big Bang)

Emotion (Big Bang)

Part 4.

Superstar (Taeyang)

Korean Dream [Feat. Taeyang] (G-Dragon)

Break Down (Taeyang)

Part 5.

없는 번호 Wrong/Unavailable Number (Big Bang)

Top Of The World (Big Bang)

Part 6.

Crazy Dog (Big Bang)

Oh My Friend [Feat. No Brain] (Big Bang)

She’s Gone [Feat. KUSH] (G-Dragon)

Part 7.

Just a Feeling (Taeyang)

Somebody to Luv (Big Bang)

Sunset Glow 뷹은 노을 (Big Bang)

Gossip Man [Feat. Kim Gunmo] (G-Dragon)

Part 8.

Halleluyah (Big Bang)

Remember (Big Bang)

I’ll be There (Taeyang)

Beautiful Hangover (Big Bang)

Good Bye Baby (Big Bang)