Getting Around Victoria Island in Classic, Cabs and Ships

Victoria Island is the whole of MapleStory Classic at launch, and it is bigger on foot than anyone remembers. Nexon's launch build is Maple Island and Victoria Island, with Orbis and El Nath held back until later (the roadmap post has the sources), so for the first phase every trip you make is between six towns on one island, and the difference between a player who knows the routes and one who does not is about an hour a day. Here is how travel worked in the old game, what it cost, and where the shortcuts were.

Leaving Maple Island

Maple Island is the tutorial island, and there is one way off it: the ship from Southperry, run by an NPC called Shanks, for a small fee. It is one way. Once you sail, you cannot return, which is fine, because nothing on Maple Island matters after level 8. The fastest route to 30 says leave at 8, and it means it.

The ship lands you at Lith Harbor on the west coast of Victoria Island. Lith is a real town with shops, a storage NPC, and a taxi rank, and it is the first place you will make a decision that matters: which way to walk.

The six towns and where they sit

Roughly, with Lith Harbor as the starting point:

• Henesys, south and a bit east. The Bowman town, the busiest market, the hunting grounds next door.
• Ellinia, north-east, up in the trees. The Magician town, and the first Magicians go there at level 8.
• Perion, north, on the rocks. The Warrior town.
• Kerning City, west and near Lith. The Thief town, the subway, the party quest.
• Sleepywood, in the middle of the island and down. The dungeon town, the Ant Tunnel below it, the level 30 to 50 maps.
• Lith Harbor itself, which most people saw once and then only when returning from a mistake.

Nautilus, the Pirate harbour, arrived with Pirates in the original game and is not in Classic's launch roster, so the old map's seventh town is missing for now.

The Regular Cab, and why it was worth it

Every town had a Regular Cab NPC who would drive you to any of the other main towns for a flat fee, around a thousand mesos in the versions we played, with a heavy discount for characters under level ten. The cab was the fastest way across the island by a wide margin, and the only reason not to use it was money.

At level 15, a thousand mesos was real money and you walked. At level 30, it was the price of three potions and you took the cab. The transition point was somewhere in the low 20s for most classes, and our farming post argues for walking a little longer than feels comfortable, because a thousand mesos at level 15 buys a slot of Orange Potions.

One of us walked from Henesys to Perion for a job advancement in 2005 because we thought the cab was a scam. It took forty minutes and we died twice to Wild Boars. The cab was not a scam.

Return scrolls and the nearest town

General stores sold return scrolls: one for each town, plus a Nearest Town scroll that dropped you at whichever town was closest to the map you were standing in. They were cheap, they stacked, and they were the difference between a good training session and a long walk after it. The rule from our guild days: never leave town without one. The Nearest Town scroll was the useful one for grinding, because the nearest town was usually the one with the shop you needed. The specific town scrolls were for planned trips, like an Ellinia scroll before you went to see the Magician instructor.

Later in the old game, Priests got Mystic Door, which opened a portal from a map straight to town, and it made a Priest in the party worth more than the exp share. That is 3rd job, so it is a post-launch thing.

Walking routes that were faster than they looked

Henesys to Kerning City is an overland walk through the hunting grounds, west past the Perion side, and it is the one route everyone learns because KPQ is in Kerning and the money is in Henesys. Twenty minutes at level 20, less with a faster class.

Henesys to Sleepywood was the walk people got wrong, because the maps between them are hunting maps and you end up fighting through them. Take the cab to Sleepywood the first time and learn the route from the other end.

Ellinia to Henesys was short and pleasant. Perion to anywhere was long and rocky.

What is not on the island at launch

The ship from Ellinia to Orbis was the original game's gateway to everything past Victoria Island, a fifteen-minute crossing with a Balrog risk on the way and a whole guild's worth of memories on the deck. Orbis is held back until after launch, per Nexon's 21 August report, so for now the Ellinia dock is a place to stand and look at the sea. The Ludibrium train and the El Nath cable car belong to the same later phase.

Nexon has said the launch build also includes Forgotten Hollow, a new area reached at level 15, and where it sits and how you get there is something we will add here once we have stood in it. Until then, the island is six towns, one cab, and a lot of walking. Keep a return scroll in slot one and a thousand mesos for the day the walk is not worth it.