Hello.

The keyword for this post is a word-chain game. The entries are all MapleStory terms, and I added explanations so that even new players can still follow what each one refers to. Whenever there was more than one possible choice, I selected terms that are actually helpful for gameplay.

1) Maple NOW

Maple NOW is a live broadcast hosted directly by the MapleStory director, and it is held on the day the test world opens.

It usually starts almost at the same time that the day’s test world notice is posted, and based on the release notes, it mainly consists of update introductions and related commentary, although topics outside the patch itself, such as previews of upcoming events, sometimes come up as well.

It is not held in months when a showcase is scheduled, and the Maple NOW planned for January is on Thursday, January 8. The exact start time will be announced beforehand through a community post on the official MapleStory YouTube channel.

2) Maple NOW → Ursus

Ursus was a boss that existed from August 20, 2015 to January 25, 2024, and one notable feature was that you entered it through a party matching system within the world.

It could be challenged from a minimum of 1 player up to a maximum of 18 players, with up to 3 entries per day, and its most important feature was that it rewarded mesos. The amount of mesos increased with your level, so at level 260, doing all three runs gave roughly 20 million mesos.

However, for characters level 200 and above, if you joined in a party and met the minimum hit count needed to receive mesos, you could collect mesos across multiple accounts with almost no real effort by simply being carried while the other party members finished the kill, and the image above is one of the well-known memes from that period.

As this increasingly became a problem over time, measures were introduced such as adding level-range monsters to the entry conditions and changing the entry limit to be counted per Maple ID, but in the end it was confirmed that the content itself would be removed and replaced. The content released as that replacement was the current <Azmos Canyon>.

Among the items that used to be obtainable as Ursus rewards, one that can still be seen now is Mashur’s Gift weather effect, commonly called “Uppu,” which has become one of the essential buff items.

Until fairly recently, it could be purchased from the Mileage Shop, but in the most recent update it was moved so that it can now be bought from the Functional - Weather Effects tab. It is a fairly unusual case of a content reward item being folded into the official cash item lineup.

(In the case of the Super Power Buff, it was moved to the Functional - Convenience tab.)

Also, among the items that had been purchasable in the Ursus Shop, the outfit set in particular was well received, and after Ursus had already been gone for quite a long time, it was re-released as a permanent item through the Camila event in the second half of 2025. Back when Ursus was still available, it was a time-limited item with options such as Boss Monster Damage attached, but the version obtainable from the Camila event was permanent, so those options were naturally removed.

It seems the official side also considered it a fairly notable item, because unlike the others, the event page included an enlarged image showing the equipped appearance.

These are the regular Soul illustration and the hidden illustration respectively, and as of now, the Ursus Soul is discontinued.

3) Ursus → Scania

Scania is MapleStory’s very first world, and it is known as one of the original worlds that has existed since the closed beta period.

Since its creation, it has never fallen out of the top tier in population, and there was even a time when character creation restrictions were applied whenever the game entered a growth period. Based on statistics from January 1, 2025, about 79,000 users are active there, and it remains the most populated world by a fairly large margin over Luna at about 60,000 and Elysium at about 48,000. The figures above were referenced from https://meaegi.com/statistics/population.

It is also said to be the world where the once-notorious Pink Bean was first defeated, and this was mentioned in the 8000-day event <In Search of the Record of 8000 Days> as well.

4) Scania → Arcane Force

Arcane Force is a power you can obtain after level 200 and after entering Vanishing Journey, and in the story it is emphasized first and foremost as the essential power needed to endure the Arcane River.

Naturally, it is also extremely important as a gameplay system. After collecting the required number of symbols for each level through daily quests, weekly quests, and Symbol Selectors given out in events, you can spend mesos to level them up, and each level-up increases both your class-appropriate stats and your Arcane Force.

Because your damage against normal monsters and boss monsters in Arcane River areas increases whenever your Arcane Force reaches certain thresholds, maxing it out is effectively mandatory.

The damage ratios against Arcane River area boss monsters according to how much Arcane Force you have are as follows.

Boss: 100% / 110% / 130% / 150%

Lucid: 360 / 400 / 470 / 540

Easy Will: 560 / 620 / 730 / 840

Dusk: 730 / 805 / 950 / 1095

Normal&Hard Will: 760 / 840 / 990 / 1140

Normal Verus Hilla: 820 / 905 / 1070 / 1230

Dunkel: 850 / 935 / 1105 / 1275

Hard Verus Hilla: 900 / 990 / 1170 / 1350

Black Mage: 1320 / 1455

This system and concept later continue into Grandis as Authentic Force.

5) Arcane Force → Suu

Suu is a spirit like Orchid, and a figure who obtained a human form through the power of the White Mage. Later, after the White Mage became the Black Mage, Suu assisted him, served as a commander of the Black Wings, and took part in acts such as killing Empress Aria.

He later went through various ordeals, including having his body modified by the mad scientist Gelimer, then took on a major role in <Black Heaven>, MapleStory’s first blockbuster story content, before ultimately exiting the story.

He later appears again in the battle against Verus Hilla in the form of a soul.

As a boss monster, he was released in November 2014, and about 10 years later, alongside the April 2024 21st anniversary update, he was remade, with slight visual changes and a full replacement of the patterns that had been criticized as especially malicious. Some parts of the remake were criticized as well, but later follow-up A/S patches corrected or removed those issues, so he is now generally regarded as a fair boss without so-called unfair patterns.

6) Suu → Wood Mask

Wood Mask is a monster that appears in Perion’s Excavation Site area, and it does not have any especially notable traits.

It also has a higher-tier counterpart, Stone Mask, which wears stone on its face instead of wood.

Later, it appears once again in a strengthened form in Twilight Perion within Door of the Future.

7) Wood Mask → Critical Rate

Critical Rate is, as the name suggests, the stat that increases your chance of landing critical hits, and once it reaches 100%, all attacks become critical hits, so reaching 100% is considered essential.

Because base Critical Rate differs by class, the best way to build it also varies, and the main sources are as follows.

• Adventure Deep Dark Critical Ring: 15%

• Phantom Link Skill “Deadly Instinct” Level 2: 15%

• Decent Sharp Eyes: 10%

• Sharp Eyes: 20%

• Seyram’s Elixir: 20% (however, if it overlaps with Sharp Eyes-type skills, only the higher value is applied)

• Union Artifact: up to 20%

• Ability: Unique - up to 20% / Legendary - up to 30%

• Marksman/Night Lord Union Member Effect: 1–5% depending on rank

• Union Board Occupation Effect: 1% per square, up to 40%

• Explorer Archer Link Skill “Adventurer Curiosity” 3 Level 2 links: 10%

• Hyper Stat: up to 15%

• Temporary event tonic skills

• Mighty Soul (Bloody Queen or higher): 12%

• In the case of <Challengers World>, 30% is provided as a passive skill

For classes other than archers, you generally only need to reach 100%. For archers as well, other factors have to be considered, so options such as Soul, Ability (Legendary), and Hyper Stat tend to fall behind other priorities and are not really used in practice. In other words, it is usually best to gather the remaining Critical Rate by choosing from alternatives in the same category, such as Link Skills, Decent Sharp Eyes, Ability (Unique), Union Member Effects, and Union Artifact, in whichever way causes the least loss.

Thank you for reading.