MapleStory/Pets

There are a number of Animals and Monsters that ally themselves with players in MapleStory.

Pets
In MapleStory, players have the option of buying Pets, monsters that follow behind you and respond to commands, from the Cash Shop for either Maple Points, from events, or Nexon Cash, bought with real money. There are numerous different types of pets, and in some versions they have varying abilities or stats. Pets, like their owners, have levels, which are raised by "Closeness" instead of "Experience". Closeness is gained by feeding the pets and talking to them.

Pet Attributes
Like all cash shop items, Pets only last for 90 days. At the end of this time, they become lifeless dolls once again. They can be revived by buying a Water of Life from the cash shop and completing a quest. Pets follow behind the player, trying to keep up. If the player has a relatively high amount of speed, the pets will sometimes have trouble keeping up. This can be remedied by completing special Pet Quests that allow them to match speeds. Pets, like their owners, learn different things at different levels. As it progresses it learns more commands that give greater amounts of closeness. The highest level a pet can reach is level 30, needing a whopping 30,000 closeness. They can be out, following the player, or put up and inside the inventory, so as not to get lonely when the player is away from their computer. When a pet is neglected, its hunger slowly goes down, until it reaches 0, at which point it loses massive amounts of closeness and returns to the inventory on its own. This can get the owner in trouble with other players, if they see it going on. Often the owner will be defamed for allowing this to occur. While starvation is one of the problems with owning a pet, overfeeding it is another. It gains closeness when fed, so sometimes new pet owners will continually feed their pet. This will actually cause the closeness to decrease as well. Other than that, pet raising is fairly simple, and provides an additional level of depth to the game.
 * Closeness can be transferred between pets. By purchasing a special reset scroll from Cloy, the pet master in Henesys park, a pet owner can take the closeness from an old pet that has returned to its doll form, and give it to a newly purchased pet. If the new pet already has some closeness, then it will gain only as much as is needed to catch up to the old pet's level. For example, if a new pet is purchased from the cash shop, and has already reached level 5 before trying to transfer closeness, then it will only gain the closeness needed to get it to level 17, which is the level of the old pet, instead of adding the two together and causing the pet to exceed both levels.

Pet Equipment
Like their owners, pets can wear equipment purchased from the cash shop. Unlike player equipment from the cash shop, however, pet equipment can be scrolled for Speed or Jump. There are pet equipments that are common to all pets, like Bucket Hats, and others that only certain pets can wear, like the Pepe platform for Yeti and Crimson Armor for Balrogs. These common ones only have 5 slots, while the specific pet equipments are 7 slots. Pet scrolls are fairly cheap, because not as many people use pet equipment. Often players who receive these will drop them since they're not worth the trouble. In addition to clothing, pets can also be equipped with the Meso Magnet, which allows the pet to pick up mesos from Monster drops, and Item Pouch, which allows it to pick up the monster's item drops. New to several versions, particularly GlobalMS and MapleSEA, there are also Auto HP and Auto MP pouches. These will automatically use a potion for either HP or MP whenever the player's points reach a certain level, determined in the "game options". These take the place of the pet skills listed below.

Pet Skills
In some versions, pets have different skills. The ways to obtain these skills and their effects vary from version to version. In KoreaMS, certain pets come with these abilities built in, like the Yeti. In TaiwanMS, the skills are purchased from the cash shop, and are permanently installed on the pet. These skills can only be removed with an AP reset scroll that is also bought from the cash shop. A single pet can only have 3 skills at one time. The skills are as follows:

Summons
Starting with the 3rd job advancement, a number of Summons become available to certain jobs. Some of these have elemental Attributes, while others have different effects. Summons require a Summoning Rock to appear and when their timer runs out, they disappear.

Tamable Mobs
In some versions of MapleStory, there are monsters, called mounts, that can be captured and ridden, through use of the skill Monster Rider. There are currently three mounts: one that can be acquired at level 70 upon completion of the 3rd job advancement, another that can be acquired at level 120 upon completion of the 4th job advancement, and the last is received at level 200. Mounts have a number of special abilities, such as bypassing the cap on maximum speed and adding the non-slide effects of snowshoes, regardless of what shoes are currently being worn. Mounts cannot be used inside of Party Quests, even in situations where the benefits of speed do work. They also cannot be ridden while on some ships between areas.