My humble opinion on Nexon's path.

[案山子]

Stop playing if you're going to complain.

By shutting up and dealing with it you show the company that they can get away with it, thus they continue to do it.

Seriously, your statement is flawed to the core.

[VerrKol]

@VerrKol;: I'd pay money for more slots if the storyline was good since that's still cheaper than buying a whole new game. Since we don't have anything like clean slates the only ones that really remain are stuff like 15% WA scrolls and that's hard to use unless you have access to Pam's Songs/slates/Innocence scrolls. I don't know, I might end up tossing them because it's nuts trying to do anything with these.

Haha if only Maple quests were as interesting as in SWTOR. The class quests there are basically novels just waiting to be explored. I basically treated it as 8 different RPGs that happened to be set in the same universe. I highly recommend it for anyone with even a passing interest in Star Wars mythos. It's even 100% voice acted (with pretty good actors)!

But I digress. I'm just trying to say $5 for a character slot isn't unreasonable, unless you just want to get to lvl70/120 for the link skills then let it gather dust for eternity. 15% WA scrolls = 15% weapon attack? We never had any 15% versions of those, except armor att/matt. My point is they aren't any less useful because they are on another account, unless it already requires PSOKs.

[KhainiWest]

If cubes either had an increase rate or were 10 cents each, it be more reasonable. But a dollar+ for it, in some instances $4-5?

Now they just think the community is bat sh`it insane, AND APPARENTLY WE ARE.

[EngelRod]

I don't mind spending a lot of money in a game if I enjoy it, my problem with Nexon's scheme is that EVERYTHING in this game is a gamble. From hair coupons to Gachapon tickets. In other games you are guaranteed the features you are paying for, in Maple, it's like a big slot machine that doesn't even reward you with money, just pixels, very expensive pixels.

[AltCtrlDlt]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but back in the day (see: circa 2007), Nexon predominately offered visual enhancements in the Cash Shop, with some non-game-breaking perks (pets, etc.). As far as I know, they made enough money back then to keep the game afloat.

Why the polarized change? It seems as though, as others have said, the Cash Shop is now full of power-enhancing items.

On another nostalgic note: what on Earth happened to GMs who actually build a relationship with the community? I remember back when GMs were almost revered. Gone are the days of monster summoning and GM events. Is it because Nexon is now severely understaffed, or are they just too busy dealing with the influx of hackers?

[Nion]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but back in the day (see: circa 2007), Nexon predominately offered visual enhancements in the Cash Shop, with some non-game-breaking perks (pets, etc.). As far as I know, they made enough money back then to keep the game afloat.

Why the polarized change? It seems as though, as others have said, the Cash Shop is now full of power-enhancing items.

On another nostalgic note: what on Earth happened to GMs who actually build a relationship with the community? I remember back when GMs were almost revered. Gone are the days of monster summoning and GM events. Is it because Nexon is now severely understaffed, or are they just too busy dealing with the influx of hackers?

Probably policy changes and such.

[Rona]

If cubes either had an increase rate or were 10 cents each, it be more reasonable. But a dollar+ for it, in some instances $4-5?

Now they just think the community is bat sh`it insane, AND APPARENTLY WE ARE.

I have to agree with this. I'm not paying 2 bucks per cube just for the off-chance that I'll get something decent when that chance is incredibly low anyway. I've seen people spend upwards of 400 dollars on just a single weapon. +_+ With that kind of money, I'd rather buy myself a PS3. Maybe even an imported one to play games outside the NTSC region, idk. Maple isn't the only thing I'm interested in so shelling out that kind of cash just for one character in one game seems extreme. I've never bought any cubes and I never play long enough to warrant striving for godly gear anyway.

It does seem kind of dumb that they make us pay for more character slots when we already have all these limitations in place to earn them more money when people create new characters. The most obvious being the lack of shared CS inventories, and Sharing Tags + SoKs. For Kanna I suppose they were hoping people would spend money to buff up their mains using her link skill. Still a pretty narrow target demographic, though...unless I'm sorely underestimating the population of hardcore spenders and damage mongers playing, heh.

[IImaplers]

Replies in bold:

Well, I know I don't usually post stuff like this, but... Well, I just wanted to know what the rest of the people thinks about this.

But I'm not sure what is Nexon thinking when do things like these:

1) Make Evan require NX to be decently playable.

This is one of those things that make you wonder "SERIOUSLY!?" at how Nexon decides things. For each person willing to make an Evan main, and possibly take their time and money to improve it, most of them are going to see the NX requirements and go NOPE. Just because it feels like a pan to the face. Imagine how bad people's reactions must have been towards that, that they try to forget it never happened. But can't be undone because people ACTUALLY bought those things. They'd have to find something to make up for their extra NX loss.

It already happened slightly with Dual Blades, but they could be able to acquire those books without requiring NX, even if with 1 less SP... That you end up getting later on at lv 200 when you can max everything. This version just got a more or less bad idea, and made it WORSE.
I don't completely agree with this. If you compare Evans to other mages at this time, they have a lot more benefits: their attack speed is capped and there's no need to cube gloves for decent SI or potentially azwan forever just to try and get 'attack speed +1'. That costs money and costs time. I also think Evans for the past year or so have an insanely easy time hitting caps comparing to AMs at least. Unless I'm incorrect, I think an evan can hit non-crit max at around 150-200k range while it would take explorer mages about 250-300k. It's a huge benefit regardless if the evan skillbooks cost $15 in the cs while AMs' skillbooks cost nothing. Getting an extra 100k costs hundreds of dollars realistically. Now after unlimited comes, and the cap is increased, your point would have more validity imo. But as it stands now, most hero classes are collectively better off than their non-hero counterparts at this point. This can be seen as a slap to the face to explorer mages too in a way. But I guess the issue here is the huge gap in effectiveness between one class and the other overall. I think it's fair for the most part between Evans and other mages, but Evans do have some significant end-game benefits the other mages lack.

2) Punish long time players, reward people who don't play.

Ok, remember that event where they gave maple points? Maybe you don't because you logged on that month, and therefore became unable to get it. Yes, that's simply stupid. It's like telling players "Want NX? just QUIT". No wonder people start to quit this game just like that. what difference would have it done if that was open to everyone? Or if it was related to my next point...
Absolutely agree. Seniority is where it's at. Otherwise, if everything gets constantly replaced by something better, why bother investing effort anymore? I also remember an event (I think it was 2009 or 2010) where Nexon promised some "reward" for long-time players or big-spending players at around halloween time, and we never got that reward.

3) Maple BigWigs.

Remember that? It was from last summer, I believe. Apparently, it was going to give us long time players exclusive stuff and nice things. Apparently that was 2 events and that was it. And by that was it, I mean completely, look my last point. What if that event where you could get maple points was open to both people coming back and this "select" group of loyals? Welp, Nexon logic I guess, but don't expect people playing for a long time to not feel betrayed.
Definitely.

4) Free character slots no more?

The last issue. Wasn't it strange that Kanna didn't give a character slot expansion? Well, some people got one off the attendance check. That they didn't claim. But I did claim it, and apparently, on the compensation, long after it expired, I got a x2 exp coupon. On my lv 200 main. The joy. But the real question arises. Is this a nice scheme to get money (perfectly normal for a bussiness), or just something that will piss off people? Well, consider this: if you are an oldie, you must have filled all your character slots by now for link skills and character cards. When a new character comes and you have to either delete one, or SPEND 7 DOLLARS TO MAKE A NEW ONE, or delete part of your hard work, you still wonder how much will you resist on this game.
I dont think giving the player the ability to pay 7 dollars just to increase a char slot is as crony as something like 1-2 dollars on a cube and probably amounting to 200+ to get the item's potential to legendary. But I think all accounts should have as much free char slots as the amount of different classes existing in the game atm, so I'm ultimately with you on this one.

Paying to play, or deleting character to play. Of course, new people will only come with 3 character slots at the start, but well, the long time players earned it playing. And these players don't have the dilemma of deleting previous work. I can see a lot of people quitting after they have to pay for each new character.

CONCLUSION

So... Is it just me, or Nexon is slowly burying its own grave? Being more benevolent could even earn them more cash in the long run. I mean, the game is announced FREE TO PLAY. What impression do players get instead when they start playing? I can imagine someone starting the first character as an Evan, see they need money to actually survive hits, and simply uninstall the game. No worries, they are fixing that. Soon, you won't be able to create an Evan for a while.

Anyway. Any thoughts on this? I'm mostly sure I'm leaving some stuff, like cubing, because it's slowly being improved like making cubing not only NX required with occult cubes. Still BAD compared to the results, but a step. I'm just listing the poor marketing decisions.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but back in the day (see: circa 2007), Nexon predominately offered visual enhancements in the Cash Shop, with some non-game-breaking perks (pets, etc.). As far as I know, they made enough money back then to keep the game afloat.

Why the polarized change? It seems as though, as others have said, the Cash Shop is now full of power-enhancing items.

On another nostalgic note: what on Earth happened to GMs who actually build a relationship with the community? I remember back when GMs were almost revered. Gone are the days of monster summoning and GM events. Is it because Nexon is now severely understaffed, or are they just too busy dealing with the influx of hackers?

I'm fine with Nexon being as profitable as possible as long as they are responsible, accountable, competent, vigilant, transparent, and fairly reasonable; from top to bottom. So far it's been the exact opposite.

[Alloy]

No one is realistically going to spend $110 on slots. They know that. We know that. But you don't need all the slots. It's there as a convenience/feature. If you really want to play more than 3 characters, you can go out and make another account for free. There's no denying Nexon is money hungry, but that's the F2P model which pretty much describes any MMO.

You can't really compare MS to Valve or steam packs. That's like comparing asparagus and gum balls. Obviously the gum balls are less expensive and taste better, but that doesn't make them a vegetable. My point is the people that want a 2D side scrolling MMO have Maple and that's it. There isn't a realistic competitor in that category. Nexon isn't in any kind of competition with Valve whatsoever.

Well, Maplestory is on Steam. All those games I listed under 5$ are indeed cometition. New players coming from Steam willing to spend 5$ will have to pick, don't you think? As for the new account thing...

people is really feeling like it's nexon's obligation to give us a free coupon everytime a new class is released
when a new character comes and they dont give you a slot... what you do? create a new account that's all(you don't even need the same account to try and like a character it's just for her/his link skill)...

You both seem to forget a pair of things, first, it's not only link skills, even if you want to make a new character, your old link skills can't transfer, and so does your character card deck. That you can't fully fill unless you have at least 6 slots, 9 soon. That's a lot of stats being denied to new players... Unless they dish out 21$ per deck. Yeah, I know who's not coming back. It would be different if they knew they could eventually earn those by playing the new classes, and buy more if they wanted to go ahead. It's almost like setting a level limit that you can only bypass with NX. Because I'm quite sure the deck gives more benefits than leveling past the 200 cap (at the moment at least, this is just an example).

The other thing is mainly personal. See that flag over my lame avatar? Yeah, that means I'm European. It means I can only play accounts made before the regional lock, and therefore, can't create a new one. So my only chances at this are either: Delete character, or pay 5.5/6.9$ just to be able to try it alone. Not even including link skills or not in my case.


I'm not even trying to justify myself, I'm just letting you know about what I think people would do if they get treated like crap... Because with Unlimited it can VERY easily go like this:

(DISCLAIMER: Something tells me these changes have something bigger behind, because it'd make sense to make some change to make people not end like this fatalist scenario)

- First, with the bosses ultra buffed, only the funded can kill them. Therefore, a lot of people knowing they won't reach that level unless they spend copious ammounts of money will leave. Not being able to access all link skills without paying silly ammounts of money won't help either, making the gap even bigger.

-Then, there would only be the ultra funded and the not funded at all, and very few averages. Well, the ultra funded can make nice runs... But there is almost nobody left to sell. Or boast to. Interest declines, most end up leaving, and the biggest income starts going down the drain.

-Without the ultra funded, the game suddenly feels incredibly hard, requiring incredible ammounts of money to start playing. And therefore, new people leave. By this point, population in the game is pretty low.

I don't know, it feels quite like that from my point of view, and the game's main idea is nice by itself, it'd be a shame to see such an original game go down the toilet in such a pityful way.

EDIT: @IImaplers, Evans, good point, but still this flaw: If the class is really like that, remember that then it's pay to win, and on the other hand, that hypers narrow down that difference. Evans get a summon, and mages get HELL FOR EVERYONE. And even then, we have luminous, beating Evan to a pulp.

[mithi9]

If cubes either had an increase rate or were 10 cents each, it be more reasonable. But a dollar+ for it, in some instances $4-5?

Now they just think the community is bat sh`it insane, AND APPARENTLY WE ARE.

here's a crazy idea
if everyone who bought pomegranate tons of cubs stopped, maybe nexon would get it.

[IllegallySane]

Potential pretty much sucked the fun out of the game since it's pretty much confirmed you got to pay to be strong at that point. Want to decimate and solo bosses? Throw ALL your money at Nexon for cubes! Maybe if Nexon can at least greatly cheapen the prices of cubes, or make NX items purchasable with in-game mesos, then maybe Maple will be on a better path. For now, my main beef is just how much money you can give to Nexon and it still won't be enough to be "pro". This is why I stopped bothering with "godly" gear and settled for just Rare~Epic equipment.

There are much better online games that gives better bang for your buck, or at least makes you feel better to give money to the company. Hell, even at this point I'm considering a wine cellar is a better use of your money than giving it to Nexon. >_>;;

here's a crazy idea
if everyone who bought pomegranate tons of cubs stopped, maybe nexon would get it.

That won't really work unless Nexon manages to majorly piss off Maplers that even hardcore players don't want to stick around.

[KhainiWest]

here's a crazy idea
if everyone who bought pomegranate tons of cubs stopped, maybe nexon would get it.

Yeah this hasnt been suggested before

I think Nexon is going in the right direction, sure they ask us to give them money alot, but the game itself has been getting better.. Hackers at LHC and others places getting banned, every person I reported has shown up on the perma ban list.

LOL BS.

Maplereport has been reporting hackers the last 3 months and the ban rate on them is pitiful. @Zelkova; can attest.

[fodjgngf]

Unless there is some serious consensus in the huge spenders (players with over $6k+ over their years of activity) stop spending, I really doubt anything is going to change.

It's still astounding to me that Evan is the only 100% pay to play class in the game.

[VerrKol]

Well, Maplestory is on Steam. All those games I listed under 5$ are indeed cometition. New players coming from Steam willing to spend 5$ will have to pick, don't you think? As for the new account thing...

We're clearly not going to agree about that so I won't bother responding.

You both seem to forget a pair of things, first, it's not only link skills, even if you want to make a new character, your old link skills can't transfer, and so does your character card deck. That you can't fully fill unless you have at least 6 slots, 9 soon. That's a lot of stats being denied to new players... Unless they dish out 21$ per deck. Yeah, I know who's not coming back. It would be different if they knew they could eventually earn those by playing the new classes, and buy more if they wanted to go ahead. It's almost like setting a level limit that you can only bypass with NX. Because I'm quite sure the deck gives more benefits than leveling past the 200 cap (at the moment at least, this is just an example).

Correction, new players are missing a lot of health. With the only currect exceptions of MM and Kanna(bosses only), none of the cards directly contribute to your damage. The only reasonable damage is from Pirate Set bonus which many classes can max PDR without it. So no, new players aren't missing much.

The other thing is mainly personal. See that flag over my lame avatar? Yeah, that means I'm European. It means I can only play accounts made before the regional lock, and therefore, can't create a new one. So my only chances at this are either: Delete character, or pay 5.5/6.9$ just to be able to try it alone. Not even including link skills or not in my case.

Your situation is unfortunate, but you must realize that this does not apply to the vast majority of players. GMS is not trying to cater to the remaining European players and quite frankly, there are so few of you that any profit gained/lost is a drop in the bucket.

I'm not even trying to justify myself, I'm just letting you know about what I think people would do if they get treated like crap... Because with Unlimited it can VERY easily go like this:

(DISCLAIMER: Something tells me these changes have something bigger behind, because it'd make sense to make some change to make people not end like this fatalist scenario)

- First, with the bosses ultra buffed, only the funded can kill them. Therefore, a lot of people knowing they won't reach that level unless they spend copious ammounts of money will leave. Not being able to access all link skills without paying silly ammounts of money won't help either, making the gap even bigger.

-Then, there would only be the ultra funded and the not funded at all, and very few averages. Well, the ultra funded can make nice runs... But there is almost nobody left to sell. Or boast to. Interest declines, most end up leaving, and the biggest income starts going down the drain.

-Without the ultra funded, the game suddenly feels incredibly hard, requiring incredible ammounts of money to start playing. And therefore, new people leave. By this point, population in the game is pretty low.

I don't know, it feels quite like that from my point of view, and the game's main idea is nice by itself, it'd be a shame to see such an original game go down the toilet in such a pityful way.

I'm not going to talk about content that isn't out yet because we have no idea how GMS will choose to implement it. They been branching out from KMS in the last 6 months and there's no point in arguing about something that might not happen at all.

[Alloy]

Correction, new players are missing a lot of health. With the only currect exceptions of MM and Kanna(bosses only), none of the cards directly contribute to your damage. The only reasonable damage is from Pirate Set bonus which many classes can max PDR without it. So no, new players aren't missing much.

3 S cards give 3 attack, 3 magic attack, 700 hp, 700 mp, and 3% boss damage. That's not that bad, actually, considering you just said Kanna's, 3% boss damage was good enough. Hayato is 6% critical damage so on a class with high critical it's almost pure % damage. Then, there's Kanna, Demon avenger, Xenon, the 40 stat trio (Luminous, Kaiser, and Angelic buster), and Mercedes and Mechanic help with cooldown skills.

I just named 9 that could be ideal to boost damage. 7 of them working well when you need it, maybe down to 6. And you have nice efficiency ones, like Evan's, that class that needed NX, with an amazing source of MP. On my NL, I don't even need MP potions at all thanks to that. Warriors could benefit aswell with Aran's, the same but with HP.

But mix that with link skills. You have 2 to pick if you have 3 slots. A card alone is nothing, but refusing all of a sudden 9%boss damage, 6 attack, 1400 hp and mp, several stats, 10% boss damage, 10% critical, 10% ignore defense, 15% hp increase, stance for half the time, and even more to come, yes, it IS a huge gap. And you can't deny that. I'm not even including everything. And these are only lv 1 link skills. At lv 2 this gets even better. And also remember the maplestory live thing is giving stats to the characters in your account too.

Creating a new account just doesn't cut it, most people play for their main. I know I do at least.

[Niernen]

I wonder how different maple would be if they stuck to the motto that the cash shop would offer no game play advantage and only be visual or similar effects. I would thin their profits would be much lower as people could not buy power as easily. I dont mind people paying for power in a game, but maple story is a huge gamble most of the time. their are always new nx events where you have to buy an item opener, or some other special thing, and have a low chance for a good prize (and a high chance to get crappy scrolls/pots). Some loyal fans will pay hundreds for the chance to get an item and never get anything good. Same with cubes. There is no grantee on your "investment" into the game. I much prefer buy able content from other games. Take the New Fire Emblem Awakening for example. The DLC maps cost $2.5 ($2 if you buy the special 3 map bundles). Its about the same as a cube, but you know what you are getting. You can easily judge if its worth it or not. There no feeling you could have done better or worse, you know what you were getting from the start. The nx options also seem expensive when you look at it comparatively to other similar things. And agree they kick loyal players in the balls often. Giving "retuning" players some maple points or items, giving only newly created characters and not old ones exclusive equips and the such. While i get you want to attract new players, you can not forget your current ones.

The gap between the funded and unfunded grows ever wider. While im fine with people that pay getting an advantage, the way maple does it is ridiculous. content is to unbalanced, when we even get it. we occasionally get a new party quest or area, but rarely some thing that is "new". mostly either some boss or the same old kill xx amount of monsters for xx times/hours for the chance to maybe possibly get something good. they dont add new areas or theme dungeons that often, adn most of the new mechanics are just aimed for damage. I wish they had expanded on the theme dungeons, added some more so every level range had one and fleshed them out. When they realized people just wanted to level fast they really simplified the dungeons. the new ninja castle was a real disappointment... I do wish they brought back GM events, or at least the GM presence. I wish GMs were able to do more, but i know they are probably limited. I wish they had enough to catch more hackers, the amount of hacking in this game.... Its not like Nexon doesnt make the money to hire more or pay them better...

I still dont get why they dont remove the nx skill books, just seems silly. Instead of making it mandatory, they could make it optional. Hell, most people would rather buy a nx book than spending hours searching for on or paying for an sok... at 4th job. No one want to have to buy books at these lower levels. If they made all skill books buyable for lets say 2.5-3k (just a tad more than an sok) they would probably still make profit. Also, anyone notice how no new job since big bang has needed a skill book? None of them at all... If we are on the subject of books, i wish mmb would only give books for your class, it would make things so much easier. you could still get repeat/unless books, but the chances of getting a book you want would be much higher.

Characters slot limitations has only recently become a problem with the links skills, character cards, account tradable items, and the sheer number of characters in maple. most other games that have this many characters does not give you bonuses for having multiple high level characters in the same world. most of the new classes are just link skill or some other mule.

sorry for the ideas all over the place, just listed what was on my mind at the time.

[VerrKol]

3 S cards give 3 attack, 3 magic attack, 700 hp, 700 mp, and 3% boss damage. That's not that bad, actually, considering you just said Kanna's, 3% boss damage was good enough.

3att/matt is relatively trivial. 3% boss isn't going to make or break your character either.

Hayato is 6% critical damage so on a class with high critical it's almost pure % damage. Then, there's Kanna, Demon avenger, Xenon, the 40 stat trio (Luminous, Kaiser, and Angelic buster), and Mercedes and Mechanic help with cooldown skills.

Sure Hayato is good too for some classes, you're up to a grand total of 3 good cards. Coincidentally, the number of slots given to new accounts. Demon Avenger and Xenon aren't out yet. I already told you I wasn't going to respond to unreleased content. The +40stat from the tempest classes don't work with potential so the bonus isn't that great. Besides, only one of those slots is needed depending on your main character. But sure, it's something new players don't get without paying for it. %bd and %cdr aren't important for the vast majority of classes and contribute relatively little damage to anything except DBs.

[quote[
I just named 9 that could be ideal to boost damage. 7 of them working well when you need it, maybe down to 6. And you have nice efficiency ones, like Evan's, that class that needed NX, with an amazing source of MP. On my NL, I don't even need MP potions at all thanks to that. Warriors could benefit aswell with Aran's, the same but with HP.[/quote]
You're really going to bring saving MP pots into this? Potions are dirt cheap in this game. Most classes won't even need to buy any until lvl110 regardless of character cards. Clearly you've never had a an Aran card because it does diddly in terms of hp regen.

But mix that with link skills. You have 2 to pick if you have 3 slots. A card alone is nothing, but refusing all of a sudden 9%boss damage, 6 attack, 1400 hp and mp, several stats, 10% boss damage, 10% critical, 10% ignore defense, 15% hp increase, stance for half the time, and even more to come, yes, it IS a huge gap. And you can't deny that. I'm not even including everything. And these are only lv 1 link skills. At lv 2 this gets even better. And also remember the maplestory live thing is giving stats to the characters in your account too.

To rebut point by point:

card decks
First of all, you're only missing 1 card set since there's only 2 out at the moment and you still have enough slots for 1 deck. That's 3att/matt, 3% boss, 700hp/mp. NBD.

10% boss damage
A) Most new players won't be doing any serious bossing
B) This only applies to bosses

10% crit
This one is good. No Argument there.

[i]10% PDR[i]
A) Many classes already reach 100% PDR without Lumi link skill
B) Even if they don't, there are more than enough ways to get PDR if you don't have a slot for Lumi

15% hp
A) Again most classes don't need it
B) Plenty of other ways to get extra hp (Czak, chtp, evo rings, hyper body, hp boost potions, etc.)

stance
A) Again most classes have 90/100% stance
B) Most classes without stance have high avoid so they aren't getting kbed anyway
C) Stance is hardly essential to this game. Even on my BM, arguably one of the best classes to use Knight's Watch on, I usually don't bother with it because I have to interrupt hurricane and usually don't get hit often enough to waste time with the rather long animation.

yes, it IS a huge gap. And you can't deny that.

I can't deny there isn't a gap. I can and do argue that it isn't a huge gap. We agree that:
1. Kanna, Hayato, MM, and a +40 stat character cards are substantially useful for damage output.
2. Phantom, Kanna, Hayato (unless you're a mage), and maybe DS are the only truly irreplaceable link skills.

That gives us a grand total of 6 characters and I'd say you could easily do without DS or MM. So does 8%boss, 3att/matt, 3% crit, and +40 non scaling main stat seem like a game breaking advantage? You're blowing things out of proportion because you're obsessed with having every possible advantage. Don't get me wrong, I do the exact same thing. I look at link skills and think "Free damage!". But for new players just starting out (that's what we're talking about right?), the idea of leveling 4-6 classes to level 70/120 probably isn't appealing anyway. For those that do, paying $5.5-17 isn't that bad of a price.

Again, you asked for old players to be rewarded. Here is a reward. You got free character slots. New players don't. You can't have your cake and eat it too.

Creating a new account just doesn't cut it, most people play for their main. I know I do at least.

I play for my main. I have every possible link skill, still working on Kanna, and the best theoretical character cards. They are a very nice source of free damage for those that got free slots. But they are not the game breaking be all and end all that you make the out to be. New players can still enjoy the game and do reasonable damage with a mere 3 slots.

Again, I'm not saying there is no advantage. Only that it's not nearly as substantial as your overreaction indicates.

PS I have no idea what "maplestory live thing" is.

[LittlePrincess]

I've been thinking about this lately and I've decided there is no longer a feeling of loyalty to a character. It used to be that people had "a main" and they would sometimes play other characters for a break but they would always go back to their main. Usually it was for the main that nx outfits were purchased, nice weapons, and good equips. Now with a new character to make every 4 months or so, there isn't really much motivation to buy it a lot of things because it's not really like you plan to go back to it later, just drop it for the next new character.

I think Nexon could improve the game by making it available in stages and not swamping a new player immediately with all these choices. I assume accounts still start with 3 slots (although I haven't made a new one for a very long time). So allow the player to only choose from the 5 adventurer characters. Once they reach level 100 on a character (which is really nothing) reward them with a character slot and the option to choose from KOC. After a KOC reaches level 100 reward another character slot and allow them to choose a resistance. And so on. This progression will give the player a since of the story line in maple and might allow the new player to develop some loyalty to their characters as well as not feeling the ultimate discouragement of "there's 18 characters to choose from and I have 3 slots."

But no one has the discipline to do that. A significant amount of people tolerate it because it hasn't directly destroyed them in some fashion yet. They'll continue as they have been functioning for the last 6 years, people like maplestory for what it is, and tolerate the ridiculousness that comes with it. Adults have grown up and moved on from it, as will the later generations. Eventually they'll lose this generation, and realize how much thinner its becoming. People who have been with MS since the beginning have left it, people they introduced it too and kept them going to try to surpass them, are goign to leave even quicker. The power creep changes the entire game every 6 months, and they make it more Bot like eveyr passing "generation". People estimated maplestory is going to be here a long time, but I give it 5 years at best. New players are completely overwhelmed by the mountain of equipment they have to keep repeatingly shining up, assuming they can get a base set to begin with. Eventually there won't be many players who heavily invest in maplestory, the new players will never have that "ambition" to get to the top, because you can easily do it spending a large bill, the older players begin to realize how worthless it is. You get strong enough to fight a boss, hackers not only kill it first, but nerf the prices of everything down to scrap. No player is going to see the fun into investing at one point. Most of the less experienced players are finally enjoying the other half of maplestory, and that's a problem. Not because they don't deserve it, but they are speeding through everything, hitting the head and quitting.

Regarding the OP, I wouldn't be at all suprised if the character slot purchase required this time is just for now, and next month there's more free slots so everyone else who didn't buy slots can make the characters too. Since they all have seperate cash shops I feel sure Nexon wants everyone to make them.

[Alloy]

Demon Avenger and Xenon aren't out yet. I already told you I wasn't going to respond to unreleased content.

Well, my post is mostly concerned about Nexon's path. Just look at those unreleased classes' cards and link skills, and you'll notice the trend of making them better slowly. The ones I listed are the ones we have right now, without even the character deck. And in that moment I was commenting on making new characters on new accounts, as the benefits don't carry over. Even if that worked on both ways. Also, telling a player "You have to do THIS class and THIS class to be decent" isn't very satisying either...

Also, as a matter of fact, Ignore defense will soon be multiplicative, so reaching 100% Will be impossible unless you straight ignore it fully, so every bit will help.

This is a rethorical scenario where future patches don't give out slots, so I'm inclined to think on unreleased stuff that will surely be released, and consider this same pattern. And well, it just doesn't seem like a good idea in the good run. Lately, with 5 cygnuses, you can get 25% status resistance. In this case, it may be a bit more acceptable than others, since at least you can still get benefits from classes that can be created at all times, and they stack, and you can slowly earn extra character slots... Or not.

That's the problem, not the present, the future. Most people had a slot reserved for Kanna, but I'm imagining this for the rest of the yet unreleased updates.

Oh yes, and the "maplestory live thing" is that "Sim City Maplestory wannabe" from the latest updates. The monsters can have potential apparently.

[Curtiss]

Haha if only Maple quests were as interesting as in SWTOR. The class quests there are basically novels just waiting to be explored. I basically treated it as 8 different RPGs that happened to be set in the same universe. I highly recommend it for anyone with even a passing interest in Star Wars mythos. It's even 100% voice acted (with pretty good actors)!

But I digress. I'm just trying to say $5 for a character slot isn't unreasonable, unless you just want to get to lvl70/120 for the link skills then let it gather dust for eternity. 15% WA scrolls = 15% weapon attack? We never had any 15% versions of those, except armor att/matt. My point is they aren't any less useful because they are on another account, unless it already requires PSOKs.

Star Wars isn't my cup of tea, sadly.

As for the character slots argument I would have to say I do indeed only make characters for some quests, their card and link skill now that I've settled on one main which is why my argument was geared towards what Nexon is apparently trying to do with its policy of character slots. It's easy for you and me to say that people don't really need these boosts which is true, but it is also true that free extra damage/HP/whatever would be useful for a complete newbie even if it's not obvious at first.

I know you'd rather not discuss things that haven't been implemented yet, but as the PDR formula change is inevitable I think it would be better to bring this up. Now, I do not know just how much of your PDR comes from the Crusader Codex and Nebulites but I would say getting PDR ignore in MapleSEA basically amounts to having Ambition, having the Pirate deck, playing the right class and cubing. That's it; my former guild leader even cubed his bowgun only with %boss before stopping as he relied on Defence Break to sail through Empress runs because getting 100% PDR is really that frustrating in versions of Maple Story that aren't GMS (And probably JMS with the exception of the Nebulites). Then you see bosses like Chaos Vellum having 300% PDR which could easily screw you over.

Going off on this, why in blazes are the versions even becoming so unequal? I know the publishers of each version might still need to submit their ideas to the main branch but the differences between each server is getting ridiculous (Again, looking at you, Asiasoft).

And now, some mentions:

@G-Meister; You know what's even better than a $99 Valve pack? It's Nethack, a game that is completely free (Including its much more difficult variants), lets you become just as broken as a $100k funded character if you put in some effort, can be played online, keeps your records and is still standing strong decades after its creation. Oh, and did I mention it can also be difficult as all hell and even the veterans might still die early in a game session?

My problem with your post is that it is nearly detached from the discussion at hand. You claim that other games are a good alternative if you hate the company, except you too could not come up with a direct alternative to Maple Story and you failed to take into account that there's a substantial amount of Maple players even on SP itself that play both games and as for this:

Unless you're there for other things excluding friends and the community.

I must say I find that to be rather presumptuous. You are correct that I did not play for friends and the community for a long time; however, my own funding increased as I made friends within the segment of the community known for actually staying for more than six months because I wanted to be of help for my new friends and having acquaintances I was guaranteed to see for at least a week gave me the motivation I needed to achieve the rest of my goals, something that I might otherwise give up on as I would be no more than a faceless person on the rankings you claim to care about.

Other reasons, friendship and the community need not be mutually exclusive. I prefer friends who will stay and those who stay often have either emotional, social and monetary investments into the game.

@LittlePrincess; I disagree on this completely. While it is certainly much easier to just quit a character and go for a class that is bigger and better, your method doesn't encourage loyalty either because new players who want to play another class no matter what are just going to blow through the others and as you said level 100 is nothing. I've also played through pretty much every story line available for me save for Demon Slayer (Because mine's only level 70) and Aran (Because I don't have one) and honestly? Not even one story line would be compelling enough for such a restriction at present because the content is painfully limited.

(As a sidenote I like Phantom's and Evan's story the most; however, to implement such a mechanic you would have to first relate every story to each other like chapters instead of making them standalones or it has virtually no appeal).