Old-School MapleStory Server Official

[pansy]

So today, I tried to play GMS for the first time in years. After seeing how much it changed, it got me really frustrated and lead me to writing a really long Idea Submission on the Nexon website. Heres what I wrote:

Hello, Nexon staff.

My name is Jake Toquigne, and I've been a loyal customer of MapleStory ever since Wizet owned the game. My interest to continue playing MapleStory has been lost over time because the game continues changing... Things such as the Cygnus Knights update, the Big-Bang Update, Ascension, and many more, continue to make MapleStory less interesting for me and plenty of other players. The result of this happening cost the owners MANY business opportunities from players who got uninterested to continue playing MapleStory. To prevent losing more business opprotunities like these, I highly recommend publishing an Old-School MapleStory server based on MapleStory from the early years of development.

I firmly believe that there are two types of MMO gamers; the ones who like a challenge, and the ones who like easy gameplay. During 2005-2006, MapleStory seemed to only focus on the type of gamers who preferred a challenge, but today, MapleStory definately does a better job at attracting both kinds of players. However, there is still plenty room to improve attracting gamers who prefer a challenge, and creating an Old-School MapleStory server would definitely do the trick.

Besides doing a better job at attracting this specific category of gamers, there are several more people who would love to play Old-School MapleStory. Players who have quit MapleStory in the far past are more likely to re-join MapleStory if they see that Nexon is appealing to their era of mapling. Since this is happening, Nexon is gaining MUCH more business from two crowds of people: the gamers who prefer a challenge, and the original MapleStory players. Other than those two types of players, I'm sure many of the new maplers would also love to give Old-School MapleStory a try.

If this suggestion of mine doesn't sound very appealing to you, let me back up my idea with an example of a game that did something similar. There's another MMORPG called Runescape, which was extremely popular when I was a kid during 2005-2007. Like MapleStory, Runescape released many updates that made players less interested in playing. Eventually, this lead me and the rest of my Runescape buddies to quit. Seven years had gone by where none of us played Runescape, then one day, Jagex (the creators of RS), released "Old-School Runescape" which was a server based on Runescape from 2007. Me and all of my other close friends who played RS as kids were desperate to play this server, and Jagex gained easy business from all of us after we purchased memberships in order to play this server. Imagine if MapleStory were to do the same thing, many people (me being one of them) would pay a large amounts of money to play the original MapleStory once again.

To summarize, creating an Old-School server would be very beneficial to Nexon, and to the players as well. Me and plenty of other players genuinely miss what MapleStory used to be, and we'd do anything just to play it once again. I hope this idea of publishing an Old-School MapleStory server will be taken into consideration, and having some changes made.

Thanks for reading.

I guess I'm just posting this on RZ to get some honest feedback on this hour-long suggestion I wrote. Constructive criticism is highly accepted.

 

[maplefreak26]

Everyone keeps suggesting this and that but you also have to look at it from Nexon's side. How would they manage an extra game with proper support? Extra support team, extra work for community management, extra time spent on managing the servers, extra time trying to monetize the game without harming the original intention of old school MS. How would they market it? They need to add a bunch of resources in order to support this and without a large amount of surplus money it is not financially feasible. You are separating and alienating the player base by doing two identical games. Dragon Nest and Vindictus have similarities but thank goodness the art style is different. There is so much to do and it would only have guaranteed short term success. They need long term success.

Nexon America already has a lot of games they need to support in the future.
These are all the confirmed games that Nexon America will support in the future: Dirty Bomb (it's practically Early Access at this point but it's still called Closed Beta), Human Element from Robotoki (though it is not clear which branch of Nexon is doing it, it could be NxA or NxE or even NxK or NxJ), Peria Chronicles from Nexon Korea, MapleStory 2 from Nexon Korea (it was confirmed that it will have a global release soon), a bunch of unannounced publishing deals from new investments into Western companies.
They also need to support Nexon M, the subsidiary of Nexon America that will control mobile games in which Legion of Heroes will go through a Closed Beta soon.
They are also spending some money on Vindictus, they're doing a complete re-branding of the game; new logo and new idea with a new website coming soon.
And how about future possibly successful IPs that Nexon America can get? Black Desert from PA is possible given it's massive amount of hype from the MMO community.
The Nexon CEO said they will put more focus on the western market, even making an analogy that you shouldn't feed people kimchi when they prefer hamburgers.

EDIT: I remember when Runescape announced they were doing an old school server because the community wanted it AND because they were able to find a working version of it. Who's to say Nexon America doesn't have a working copy anymore? Why does Nexon Korea have to work on a dated version of the game and try to support it just because a handful of people in the GMS playerbase want it? It's not a browser game. I'm not saying that browser games are any less complicated but we've seen compatibility issues with MS on newer versions of Windows before. That's a lot of work.

TLDR: Not enough money, risk of being only a short term success, too much on their hands already, small (but vocal!) userbase wants something that would drain resources.

 

[divinesam]

There is this problem with old school servers. Eventually, you run out of contents. There will not be any developments to the server, if Nexon hosted time. It is akin to going back in time and not progressing from then on.

This means after some time, it will no longer be profitable and instead, a losing business for Nexon. Once your character reaches the max level or so, you stop spending on the game.

 

[Liv3]

There have been tons of people wanting an old-school server. They aren't going to do it. They are so absorbed in the money. Humans are greedy. Greed is real in Nexon.

 

[sunnyboy]

There have been tons of people wanting an old-school server. They aren't going to do it.

I'd do it ... if I had funding xD

They are so absorbed in the money. Humans are greedy. Greed is real in Nexon.

You have to take into account they are a multi billion dollar company lol. Profits is what they are after more so over player happiness (still need some happy, but not all to make their $$)

 

[Hilia]

better tell them that your hobby is collecting old setup of MapleStory, tell them that you are googling for hours trying to find a setup, then ask if they could provide a download link,then hope they will and you can make a ps.

 

[Fraysa]

That's a nice letter, but trust me, Nexon isn't losing any "financial opportunities". They're a multi-billion company, they tripled their money (if you take a look at the revenues from 2005-2008 and now). MapleStory is now pay-to-win, which is exactly what they want as a company - to make more money. The new updates excite the players to purchase new things and it's good for Nexon, so why should they maintenance another one with extra workers?

Just create your own if you really want to.

 

[xStarlightx]

@Fraysa Just throwing it out there I rarely spend money on Maplestory and when I do it is for a potion pot or pet equip. Not really a pay to win kind of thing.

You can play without it.

I know a lot of people want an old school server, but I've seen just as many happy with the current status. I love a lot of the new updates, but hate other aspects of it so I am in the gray area. I don't like being forced to play in groups - I want to choose to do this, and that is something I am glad is now optional in the game.

I wouldn't say no to playing an old school, but it wouldn't hold my interest for long since there wouldn't be anything new added to it.

 

[Fraysa]

@Fraysa Just throwing it out there I rarely spend money on Maplestory and when I do it is for a potion pot or pet equip. Not really a pay to win kind of thing.

You can play without it.

I know a lot of people want an old school server, but I've seen just as many happy with the current status. I love a lot of the new updates, but hate other aspects of it so I am in the gray area. I don't like being forced to play in groups - I want to choose to do this, and that is something I am glad is now optional in the game.

I wouldn't say no to playing an old school, but it wouldn't hold my interest for long since there wouldn't be anything new added to it.

Some people misunderstand the big difference between gameplay and context update. Nexon upgraded MapleStory significantly over the years in both aspects. We were not talking about the context, but about the gameplay. I'm not saying changing the context is bad - hell, it's more than welcome. Players want and need the context update (by context I mean the game updates which include new areas, items, etcetera). However, the gameplay changes a lot every now and then. This includes significantly lower experience points required to level up, significantly easier quests, lower standards and more.

This is one of the many things which made old-school players (like me) get bored and quit. The best thing about MapleStory was to compete and spend a lot of time to level up and actually achieve something of your own. Back in the day, if you were above level 60 people actually respected you. Now, you can see level 200+ players everywhere. If you had a 6 ATT Work Glove, you were considered a "pro". Now you can see weird equipment with 160 stars and potential or whatever they're called that adds +5000 to your luck stat. That's screwed up. Nexon are allowing players to gain huge advantage over normal players if they purchase items with real money.

Nonetheless, they're providing us with old gimmicks to cover that up. They're publishing a new job every 2 months to keep the players "interested", as they're getting bored of leveling. The cycle never ends. You open a new character with the new job, you reach a high level and you get bored. There's not much to it. Then, you just wait for the new job, and for the new job, and so on. Meanwhile, you're also upgrading the equipment for every different character (today they have over 10 different weapon types) so you have to purchase cash to upgrade each one of them. This is madness.

I wish Nexon would put thought more into the actual gameplay than context. But again, this will never happen. They're a multi-billion company. They don't give one crap about the players' opinions. This is a thing that happens to a lot of companies, where they forget about the actual gameplay and think about the revenue. League of Legends is an example of a nice game that is still alive and providing nice, competetive fair gameplay without giving advatange (if at all) to players who purchase points with real money.

 

[xStarlightx]

Not sure if that was directed just at me or people will similar views, so I'll reply just in case!

I like most of the changes Although I did not get into much detail, you listed just about everything I prefer on it. I don't want to have to spend cash to get a great weapon and I don't. They offer nice equips for a lot of characters in events and you can always go for the bosses to get better ones. I never once felt I had to buy something to get better. Could I? Sure, but I don't personally feel the need. I am sure others don't agree though and DO spend that optional amount to get better.

I am more of a casual player, I don't want to have to spend 6+ hours on a map to gain a level. I hated that and was beyond happy when Nexon made the EXP changes so we could level faster. I do agree about the level 60 comment, but it doesn't bother me much. Level 200 I am still not there and I've played since beta; however I ONLY play really for event quests and stuff. It is not a personal goal to be number one or reach max level otherwise I am sure I could have obtained it. I have too many other responsibilities though to worry about it. To my knowledge there are only a handful of maxed players on my server.

I do agree people seem to level up a bit then wait it out, get bored...and I believe a lot of that is due to the lack of ability to meet people as easily and make friends whom make those boring moments more exciting. (This is part of the reason I made a maplestory forum for people to meet and plan groups/run events etc - we're very new though). It's a shame the community has gone downhill, but I don't necessarily blame the changes so much as time overall. Even some top (pay to play) games are finding it hard to keep people interested. There is a lot more competition out there and not many people are willing to spend 10+ years hardcore on one game.

I enjoyed reading all your responses, was a nice insight to another POV