My humble opinion on Nexon's path.

[G-Meister]

If I wanted that I would have gotten it, thanks. Did you seriously just quote three walls of text only to add a one-liner that basically translates to "Here's what I consider to be a good investment, never mind that a lot of people might already have it, the games there do not play the same way as Maple and is therefore mostly unrelated to the discussion at hand"?

No. It's the absolute absurdity and irony of how numerous well-maintained games can be this cheap in the backdrop of Nexon's shoddy maintenance of the game.

If you're looking for a host of side-scrolling 2D mmorpgs as counter-examples, there are...

[VerrKol]

@Alloy; Well yes it's lame that they didn't expand the max number of slots until after the free expansions expired.

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.

[Polantaris]

While I agree completely on what @KhainiWest; said, I don't think it's even possible for it to happen.

Why?
Well, this isn't just a GMS problem. We have NXWhores in all versions, making all these videos of OP players doing ridiculous crap. Those people obviously have insane disposable income, and they don't care. They're not going to stop unless they quit. Then we have the kids(and some adults) who don't understand the concept of what he said. They don't understand and/or care that buying NX from someone other than Nexon is the same thing as buying it from Nexon. There are some people who don't even realize there's something wrong with the game and think the game should be run like this. Just take a five second look at Basil any time a glitch, exploit, or hack is fixed. They're complaining that they're fixed! They complain when there's NOT hacked gear on the market! With a community like this, there's absolutely no way to fix it, even if Nexon wanted to try, because if they fixed all of these issues, took away Potential, did all of this stuff, they would lose the majority of their playerbase. Why? Because it's very clear that this is what they want. Just scroll through Basil whenever you want and it's not hard to come to this conclusion.

Honestly, I just say get away from Maple while you still can, before you spend too much money on a broken machine. At this point spending money on Maple is like spending money on a 1950's car that has a bad everything. There's a point where you should just throw it away and get a new car.

[Curtiss]

@Alloy; Well yes it's lame that they didn't expand the max number of slots until after the free expansions expired.

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.

That does also depend on how you want to get your revenue though. Correct me if I'm wrong about this since I don't play many MMORPGs, but I would say that Nexon's model counts more on people playing a class enough to fund it which is why a lot more of focus is put towards developing new classes than balancing all of the old ones. In that sense making people pay for more characters hurts their model since the class you delete is now considered a monetary loss instead of being a mere inconvenience so people might not want to take that dive even if one character slot costs much less than building it.

Making another account is also not a real option because of Yet Another Annoying plantainery: Untradeable items. Not everyone can get two computers to transfer the tradeable items back and forth between accounts so things start to pile up quickly and other than some things like circulators it really wouldn't kill Nexon to just make currently untradeable things like event scrolls solely account-tradeable so that you can fill your mules up and it doesn't get manipulated by rich people. But no, like all of the other annoying things they do for more cash they have to implement this!

It's kind of sad that I can't find another 2D MMORPG I like since it even takes cash to make cash thanks to things like SoKs and PSoKs and the people paying for my items still bought cash for it, thus ruining my gloating that I gimped the system. :(

[CarrionCrow]

Honestly, I just say get away from Maple while you still can, before you spend too much money on a broken machine. At this point spending money on Maple is like spending money on a 1950's car that has a bad everything. There's a point where you should just throw it away and get a new car.

To continue your analogy:
The problem with this is that the car runs, and it is the only car in the world. Your other options are bicycles, trains, busses and planes. If you want to drive cars you only really have one option.

[KhainiWest]

To continue your analogy:
The problem with this is that the car runs, and it is the only car in the world. Your other options are bicycles, trains, busses and planes. If you want to drive cars you only really have one option.

Fun fact is that Cars were actually considered a luxery and they didn't sell very well upon their arrival. Then general motors and I believe Ford bought out all the electric trolly's in California and broke them down, which resulted in people having to purchase cars.

[CarrionCrow]

Fun fact is that Cars were actually considered a luxery and they didn't sell very well upon their arrival. Then general motors and I believe Ford bought out all the electric trolly's in California and broke them down, which resulted in people having to purchase cars.

Fun fact indeed, albeit irrelevant.
Unless Nexon starts destroying competitors. Not as unlikely as it seems now that I think about it...

[KhainiWest]

Fun fact indeed, albeit irrelevant.
Unless Nexon starts destroying competitors. Not as unlikely as it seems now that I think about it...

They certaintly are trying though. Didn't they buy out atlantis or whatever that games called? Then they offered on valve, although it was a joke irrc

[Polantaris]

They certaintly are trying though. Didn't they buy out atlantis or whatever that games called? Then they offered on valve, although it was a joke irrc

Didn't the company that had Atlantica Online die? So they kinda just...acquired it from a dead company. I get that you still have to bid on it and everything, but it's much easier to get an IP from a dead/dying company than it is from one still going strong.

I would be surprised if they ever thought they were going to have a chance at Valve, too.

[IImaplers]

In one way, Nexon is like a casino and makes Maplestory like one big slot machine. Most of the time you get very little out of what you put in. So much is a gamble: drops, gachapon, marvel, cubes, chaos scrolls.

[ScottPilgrim]

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.

[danielcatu]

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.

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.

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)...

even so if you like the game for its design ambient or whatever.... the lack of character slot is not a problem at all... I can't even thing about people quitting because they can't make more than 3 characters in 1 account

aside that everything else is right

ps: as someone said lets wait for xenon or demon avenger... the future can only tell us what's going to happen with the free char slot thing

[Curtiss]

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.

So in other words you think the company should get millions it doesn't deserve while the actually competent GMs doing the work get peanuts for pay for doing the work they're supposed to do.

Seriously, what?

[Seanny]

In one way, Nexon is like a casino and makes Maplestory like one big slot machine. Most of the time you get very little out of what you put in. So much is a gamble: drops, gachapon, marvel, cubes, chaos scrolls.

This is my problem with it. Does anyone know a player who seriously got into this game in the past year or two? After being exposed to what other F2Ps of this generation have to offer; and REALLY didn't mind spending the kind of money it takes to be a top-tier endgame?

All the cases i know will play with a few classes and get them to a high level. They either don't spend money, or just enough to scroll something semi decent. None ever bothered with the "endgame".

I honestly think only long time players find the game appealing enough to spend for endgame because they've been invested so long already, People who found the game in a time when the other F2P options were few (runescape,trickster online, gunbound and FlyFF was all i knew of back in 2006) or friends getting into it cause of other friends.

Either that or later generations who found maple first before trying other games and community attachments developed.

[VerrKol]

@Curtiss; You're completely correct that most MMOs do not rely on multiple characters the way MapleStory does. The only one that comes close is SWTOR because the only thing it has going for it is the class storylines. Everything else about the game is rather unimpressive, but I had tons of fun just leveling each class from 1-50 for their story arcs and I know that a lot of other people did the same. Depending on the bundle of "Cartel Coins" you buy, character slots cost as much as $6.66. Now that I think about it, the Legacy system there is very similar to link skills in MS... While SWTOR hasn't released any new character classes yet, I believe there are enough parallels to establish the price in MS as more or less industry standard.

I don't really see untradable items as a problem. With the exception of a few event items (mostly cosmetic), there are very few account tradable only items. Account tradable only scrolls can be used simply by trading the equip to that account temporarily. I do this all the time when farming event items and it's really no big deal. I guess it would become problematic if you aren't able to use access both accounts simultaneously tho...

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.

This hasn't helped prevent the guild full of map crashers in GAZED which do nothing but camp FM1 and dc anyone with a regular permit or someone doing shop maintenance. I still see the same botters and stack hackers that I reported weeks ago.

[Curtiss]

@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.

[ScottPilgrim]

So in other words you think the company should get millions it doesn't deserve while the actually competent GMs doing the work get peanuts for pay for doing the work they're supposed to do.

Seriously, what?

Stop playing if you're going to complain.

[Curtiss]

Stop playing if you're going to complain.

No seriously, what? You're basically saying you're going to enable the company to be money suckers because their workers do a good job, which shows just how poor of a grasp you have on the actual topic at hand.

[KhainiWest]

No seriously, what? You're basically saying you're going to enable the company to be money suckers because their workers do a good job, which shows just how poor of a grasp you have on the actual topic at hand.

You can look at his visitor messages and see why he has little to no credibility. He's 16, his ability to comprehend the reality of the matter is beyond his capability, ey @ScottPilgrim;

[G-Meister]

No seriously, what? You're basically saying you're going to enable the company to be money suckers because their workers do a good job, which shows just how poor of a grasp you have on the actual topic at hand.

I would say that it all boils down to what MapleStory really means to you.

For me, Valve is a better substitute after I realised how dumb I was not to have found such a treasure trove earlier. Sure I'm still in Maple because of the community since 2005, but that's all about it. I'm not going to spend money (on a company that treats their player base like absolute crap) just because I want to stay in a game with my friends. You don't essentially need to spend $$ to eke out an existence there anyway. Unless you're there for other things excluding friends and the community.