Why do you guys think people stopped contributing here?

[Fraysa]

Is this really hard to understand? Just quickly overview the top MapleStory servers on GTop. You'll soon realize how much easy it is to make money off people who still refuse to get over MapleStory. What's really sad is that they don't even have the decency to say it's for their own gains and they cover it with "server costs". Why would you share stuff online if you can make quick, easy money without doing much?

Here's a quick overview of the top three trashy servers on GTop. They're the most popular because they simply lived long enough but they offer nothing but a plain, boring gameplay (I don't blame them, you can only customize the game to a certain extent but still, they don't put shit effort because it's easier to just make more money):

1. MapleRoyals: Pure money-making machine. Their website says "All money received by MapleRoyals is put towards various expenses related to the running of the server", and also "Our current expenses total approximately 1,500 pounds per month", which both are bullshit. They make much more than 1,500 pounds and I doubt even 5% of that goes into their (relatively laggy) server. Not sure what "RoyalPoints" though, but it sounds like P2W.

What's even funnier is that they only introduced high-resolution client now, and they have different setups for them. Why? Because they literally made the small maps (e.g. Dark Lord's Hideout) bigger on the higher-resolution setups by creating a new map with a new ID, so you literally can't see your friends if they use a different resolution client on some maps. Why? No idea, really dumb. Also, every "patch" is a different setup which is already ~2GB.

2. MapleLegends: Another pure monkey-making machine. Their website says "Donations will be used for server hardware improvements, advertising, and other server-related services", and we all can assume that huge Jacuzzi Kimberly bought is a server-related service. They don't have P2W with the donations so meh.

3. KastiaMS: From a quick look, looks like a huge money-making machine with ultimate P2W packs. It's also pretty dated with current MapleStory so it probably has a lot of players who spend $.

[SharpAceX]

Is this really hard to understand? Just quickly overview the top MapleStory servers on GTop. You'll soon realize how much easy it is to make money off people who still refuse to get over MapleStory. What's really sad is that they don't even have the decency to say it's for their own gains and they cover it with "server costs". Why would you share stuff online if you can make quick, easy money without doing much?

Here's a quick overview of the top three trashy servers on GTop. They're the most popular because they simply lived long enough but they offer nothing but a plain, boring gameplay (I don't blame them, you can only customize the game to a certain extent but still, they don't put shit effort because it's easier to just make more money):

1. MapleRoyals: Pure money-making machine. Their website says "All money received by MapleRoyals is put towards various expenses related to the running of the server", and also "Our current expenses total approximately 1,500 pounds per month", which both are bullshit. They make much more than 1,500 pounds and I doubt even 5% of that goes into their (relatively laggy) server. Not sure what "RoyalPoints" though, but it sounds like P2W.

What's even funnier is that they only introduced high-resolution client now, and they have different setups for them. Why? Because they literally made the small maps (e.g. Dark Lord's Hideout) bigger on the higher-resolution setups by creating a new map with a new ID, so you literally can't see your friends if they use a different resolution client on some maps. Why? No idea, really dumb. Also, every "patch" is a different setup which is already ~2GB.

2. MapleLegends: Another pure monkey-making machine. Their website says "Donations will be used for server hardware improvements, advertising, and other server-related services", and we all can assume that huge Jacuzzi Kimberly bought is a server-related service. They don't have P2W with the donations so meh.

3. KastiaMS: From a quick look, looks like a huge money-making machine with ultimate P2W packs. It's also pretty dated with current MapleStory so it probably has a lot of players who spend $.

You are 100% correct. Most ironic part is that all these servers got their start from Ragezone, yet none of them feel any obligation whatsoever to contribute anything of value back. They are the ultimate cancer to this community.

[JellyIsHawt]

Well of course all the top servers are out for making money, it's come more to the attention of the maplestory private server community with all the re-hashing of ElliniaMS clones which was and always will be a blatant cash grab...

As you can see, the dumb maple community once again fell for a re-iteration of the same schemes from similar if not the same creators (Kastia)...

Release under a new name for a few months and once the income (donations & such) gets stale & the economy is ruined, rinse & repeat, re-release under a new name after disappearing with no information as to why and leaving their community in the dirt.

With just this being said, you can understand why nothing is being released to public...

How else will these people make their money ?

Veracent came out at a time which is very opportunistic indeed, AriesMS was always a trash up-to-date server but their community had finally had enough, more & more people spoke out about wanting a new up-to-date server which offered good content.

Multiple servers sprung out of nowhere to take this place as quickly as possible, because money.
Veracent got there first.

So again, this all ties back to this thread why ?

Nobody releases anything to public anymore because it contradicts their underlying motives which is to make money, you won't make as much money when you have more competition...

However, one thing I have to agree upon is that sharing & helping is not necessarily dead.
Yes people care more about money over sharing & caring, but in the end we are still human in most cases unless you're hell spawn like some people...

But sharing/helping is just not as public as it used to be.

SwordieMS dev's are obviously a god sent and they are the perfect examples of people who will help other dev's from different servers from what I've personally seen (many times)

[AristoCat]

Everyone says it's all about the money, and sure money plays a big role in the adult life but sharing does not necessarily mean that you get less money for what you have. I believe people stopped sharing because they moved on, and now the entry barrier to start developing has become VERY high. New people just don't know how to get into developing anything related to the game so they don't bother trying. The game is dying too which definitely doesn't help.

[gdgd]

Most of the devs now contribute their work with each other and help each other out if the server needs help with one thing or another. People still contribute fine, just not in public. With constant v83 servers popping up lasting for 1 month with the full purpose of cash-grabbing donations and overall downgrading the quality of the servers available I can see why some devs just got tired of contributing in public when they gain nothing much out of it

The magic of sharing is in my opinion not gone. it's just no longer public, but with each other.

When people say "share", they usually mean public sharing.

[SharpAceX]

When people say "share", they usually mean public sharing.

Agreed, they mean public sharing, however, don't forget the people who happily explain that sharing exists but only in private are only in this community to make profit and nothing else. They couldn't give two shits about advancing the community in any way so long as it has an even remote chance at impacting their bottom line.

[Fraysa]

No troll, but gotta love the irony when the owner of one of the top servers which is a pure money-making machine with 0 care to their product lurks around here liking posts, lmfao.

I agree with @AristoCat, it's not only about money. MapleStory is simply dead.

[DSG]

[Tsundere]

I think a lack of contribution here is because a lot of the people in the development scene have moved on to do other things, and are busy with their lives. There are older members who hop on to check out the MS section still, but I don't think many people have the same amount of free time they used to have for doing MS development. Another thing, MapleStory is not as popular as it was years ago, which means less people in the development scene.

However, the game has survived a long time, and I think there is going to be a certain niche of people here on Ragezone who will continue to do MS development for a long time. I think if we can continue to maintain resources readily available for new people getting into MS development and older members who are still visiting, then the MS section can survive a bit longer than many people think. For example, MS setups, and existing localhosts still need to be maintained, and public connection methods for various versions should be compiled into a single thread.

What I miss the most are small releases like Event/PQ/NPC javascript releases. Obviously these are not hard for a developer to make, but it shows the community is actively developing, and sharing even small things. Also, anticipating leaks or localhosts to be posted around Christmas was another fun aspect of the community I remember when I was just starting out.

I think we've also reached a point in the community where almost everything has already been done/released(barring newest MS versions), and it's hard to find a release that will give a WOW factor that will really excite the community.

[Z41N]

My knee-jerk reaction to this post was "because people have moved onto better things". But after seeing more and more posts, particularly from owners of servers, I think its also more of a monopolistic ideal.

It certainly does not excuse those who are actively managing a server, but after recently getting back into the scene and seeing how easy it is to get a v62/v83 up and running, it must be that they simply do not want to share publicly to ensure competition stays at a minimum.

To those interested in getting their servers up, please YouTube Z41N (that's me). I have full tutorials and guides, with links to RZ content, to help you get your servers up. Started with as a side project to build my portfolio, so would love to see more heads pumped back into RZ.

I'm coming for you royals/legends.

[Exodias]

So pretty much it boils down to money. The less up-to-date server available, the more money they'll make.

[Halcyon]

Probably also doesn't help that no one even thanks each other. That goes for basically everything in the MSDev community. Also, I stopped """deving""" and playing MS due to the toxic owners that fill up the gtop100 spots these days. People really love to fucking jerk themselves off here.

[Biesmen]

it must be that they simply do not want to share publicly to ensure competition stays at a minimum.

Is that an issue, though? This absolutely makes sense from a professional perspective. I have released open-source projects on GitHub to help others, make their lives a little bit easier. But I also have many closed-source projects which are only meant to be used by my company. Even though there are "legal" matters when it comes to a private server of MapleStory, for the owner of MapleRoyals and MapleLegends their server could be their main source of income. I don't think these server owners are the cause of or involved in the reason why there's less contribution on RaGEZONE. Top servers didn't release their files for as long as I can remember when it comes to MapleStory. Some were released after a shutdown. Back then when there was a lot of contribution on RaGEZONE, there were many more servers with 1000+ players, instead of the 2-3 servers there are at this moment. Most of these servers didn't release their files.

[Z41N]

Is that an issue, though? This absolutely makes sense from a professional perspective. I have released open-source projects on GitHub to help others, make their lives a little bit easier. But I also have many closed-source projects which are only meant to be used by my company. Even though there are "legal" matters when it comes to a private server of MapleStory, for the owner of MapleRoyals and MapleLegends their server could be their main source of income. I don't think these server owners are the cause of or involved in the reason why there's less contribution on RaGEZONE. Top servers didn't release their files for as long as I can remember when it comes to MapleStory. Some were released after a shutdown. Back then when there was a lot of contribution on RaGEZONE, there were many more servers with 1000+ players, instead of the 2-3 servers there are at this moment. Most of these servers didn't release their files.

Yea that's a good point - perhaps we just need to revive the community. It's been years so another big factor is people just having moved on

[Rudigus]

Hey, so I'm a newcomer when it comes to maple dev and wanted to share my outsider's perspective. RageZone is the go-to place for maple dev info / content, which makes the site appear first on google searches. That's cool and all, but sometimes I feel like I'm scavenging or trying to learn a lost art: a great chunk of posts were made in 2010~~2012, and the activity keeps dwindling as the years go by. Gladly, there are many helpful tutorials out there, however they have dead links / dead images, old versions of dependencies, etc.

In addition, I've found the community's aura not to be beginner friendly. Sometimes I see helpful tutorials get roasted by the first reply saying "nobody needs this". Well, it's trivial for someone in the scene, but it's needed information for someone who wants to start out. I've seen others say "this is not useful, because devs already know this and others just wanna leech". No, that's false. There are devs who don't know the maple dev ecosystem, but still wanna learn.

So, I kinda agree with what the others said regarding the reduction of contribution in RageZone: money is a big factor, it's an old game, people have moved on with their lifes. But also the forum itself doesn't look very inviting. I just take it for a dead forum which helps me a lot. I don't know if there are other lurkers like me who are in a similar situation, but it would be cool to see there are other people alive here. "Why contribute when nobody will read this?". The thing that motivates me to still pursue this is that I love the game, the private scene isn't dead yet (it has many times less players, but it's still 5000+) and there still are a few contributions here and there (RageZone, Z41N's youtube channel, etc). As well, it may be the case that the dev community has transitioned to Discord, but I'm not entirely sure.