Making Mesos From Level 30 to 70 on Victoria Island

Level 30 to 70 in MapleStory Classic is where a character stops being broke, and on the launch build it all happens on Victoria Island, because Orbis and El Nath are held back until a later phase (the roadmap post has the sources). That is actually good news for money. The old island had a handful of maps in that bracket that paid better than their exp suggested, and with no Ludibrium to run off to, every launch character will pass through them. This is the follow-up to our level 1 to 30 farming guide, same habits, bigger numbers.

The rule does not change

Pick up everything. Sell etc items and unwanted equips to an NPC every trip. Never NPC a scroll or an ore. Keep one stack of any etc item a quest wants and sell the rest. The difference from the first thirty levels is that monsters now drop mesos worth picking up on their own, and the equips they drop are things other players will actually pay for.

Zombie Lupins and the banana problem

The Sleepywood side of the island, low 30s. Zombie Lupins drop mesos in decent amounts, drop bananas that a quest wants in quantity, and drop the occasional scroll. The maps are vertical and a ranged class does well on the platforms. The trap is the bananas: half the server collected them for the quest, so their value to other players was low, and the correct move was one stack kept and the rest vendored. This is also the map where Ice/Lightning Wizards started out-earning everyone, which the leeching post explains.

Jr. Wraiths in the Kerning subway

Mid 20s to high 30s, and the best scroll map on the island for the level. Jr. Wraiths in the subway lines under Kerning City dropped scrolls often enough that a session there usually produced one, and the scrolls they dropped were the ones warriors and thieves wanted. Wraiths, the bigger version deeper in, did the same for a slightly higher level. Both were dark, cramped maps that hit a Fighter hard, and both paid for the potions and then some. One of us funded a first Work Glove scroll job entirely from three evenings of Jr. Wraiths in 2006, and still thinks of the subway as a bank.

The Sleepywood dungeon: Evil Eyes, Drakes and Cold Eyes

From the high 30s the Sleepywood dungeon takes over. Evil Eyes and Curse Eyes in the upper maps, then Drakes, Cold Eyes, and the tougher Drake variants as you go deeper. Drakes were the workhorse from about 40 to the low 50s: big HP, generous meso drops, and etc drops that stacked and vendored well. They hit hard, which is why the potions post matters more here than anywhere else on the island, but a character with the right potion and a scrolled weapon came out of a Drake session with a full inventory and a full purse.

The dungeon is also where equipment drops started to matter. Mid-level armour and weapons that dropped here sold to players rather than NPCs if the stats were above average, and a clean drop with good slots was the first item most people ever listed in the Free Market. Our Free Market guide covers how to price it.

Golems near Perion, for the patient

Stone Golems and their variants in the rocky maps beyond Perion were slow, tanky, and a fine spot for a warrior in the 40s and 50s who did not mind a long fight. They dropped ores and scrolls, and the ores were the reason to be there: crafters and merchants bought ores in stacks, and a Golem session could produce a stack or two of something worth listing. Not the best exp on the island. Reliably good money.

The deep tunnel, for the top of the bracket

Below Sleepywood the Ant Tunnel goes deeper than most players ever went at launch. The bottom maps held Tauromacis and Taurospears, the horned warriors that were the island's high-level monsters, and Jr. Balrog at the very end. They were in the 60s and 70s, they dropped well, and on the launch build they are the closest thing to endgame content until El Nath opens. Expect the maps to be crowded with founders characters by the second week and the free launch to find them full.

What sells and to whom

A short table, because the buyers change across the bracket.

Drop	Sell to	Why
Etc items in bulk	NPC, except one quest stack	Fast, no listing needed
Scrolls, any percentage	Players, never NPC	The whole mid-game economy
Ores	Players in stacks	Crafters want fulls, not singles
Above-average equips	Players	A clean drop with slots is a scroll target
Average equips	NPC	Nobody pays for average

Banking the surplus

Somewhere in the 40s a character starts earning more than it spends, and the question becomes what to do with the difference. The old answer was scrolls for gear you will keep, which the scrolling post explains, and a Cleric alt to make the next character cheaper. The bad answer was gear you would replace in ten levels.

If you end up with more than you need, there are people who will buy it. We are some of them, through the sell page, with the standing note that real-money trading breaks Nexon's rules and our honest take is the place we argue that out. The better use for most players is to hold it until Orbis and El Nath open, because the first week of a new region is when a stockpile of mesos buys the most. Whichever you choose, the mesos come from the same place: pick up everything, NPC the junk, and sell the scrolls to people.