[EDITORIAL] An Open Letter to Min Kim: Help Us Save MapleStory

[EDITORIAL] An Open Letter to Min Kim: Help Us Save MapleStory

EXCERPT

Dear Mr. Kim,

Over the past year you have undoubtedly seen a deep-rooted change in the MapleStory community. While Nexon America’s quarterly profits continue to grow, your active player-base continues to decline. One only needs to look to every medium available online to see the rampant discontent: Twitter, Facebook, the official MapleStory forums, Basil Market, Southperry, Maple-News, and so on. The consensus is – you’re doing it wrong.

Like all games and artistic endeavors, change is inevitable and welcomed. MapleStory has changed drastically since 2005 and there have certainly been many positive changes; new and interesting content, a large variety of classes to play, new bosses, maps, quests, events, and so on. Still, these changes are negligible if the fundamental structure that governs the game is broken. Without a strong foundation, even the tallest buildings will crumble.

Many players may not be aware of this…

Why do you think this will succeed where others, including Ramin Shokrizade, have failed?

also, you have a lovely readership

• 2 hours ago

You, OP, are indeed a peach nigga.
You slobber the mighty plantain while I take it up the hill.

oh wow I had expected that to have gotten filtered into some fruits.
give me a moment to think up some censorship

Why do you think this will succeed where others, including Ramin Shokrizade, have failed?

Call it a shot in the dark.

also, you have a lovely readership


oh wow I had expected that to have gotten filtered into some fruits.
give me a moment to think up some censorship

Yes, that would be appreciated. I just deleted a very graphic hand-drawn stick-person image of what the birds and bees do.

Call it a shot in the dark.



Yes, that would be appreciated. I just deleted a very graphic hand-drawn stick-person image of what the birds and bees do.

I see that

MODERATED: Post by Gaiboi222 removed.

Let me give you some advice. Make comments initially invisible and subject to pending moderator approval.
Wait you have moderators other than yourself right?

I see that

Let me give you some advice. Make comments initially invisible and subject to pending moderator approval.
Wait you have moderators other than yourself right?

Still getting used to Disqus...

Oh yes, we have hundreds of volunteers ready to edit our one comment in most articles

Edit: That worked out, thank you.

 Spoiler

Playing Devil's Advocate:

Your call to action sounds as meaningful as Nexon's constant, empty promises of a better Maple. You touch upon the P2W issue and utilize the potential system as an example but fail to substantiate this claim with clear numbers on how large the disparity is (and let's face it, a fair portion of Nexon's top managers don't seem to think P2W is really an issue in Maplestory). Then you call for more interaction without laying out a game plan for how Nexon should interact with the player base - what exactly are you asking for? Player-designed NX costumes? More "Better Maple" Q&As? Concrete player influence on design/content choices? Who should Nexon listen to? If you poll different community forums (Official Forums / Basilmarket / here (SP)) you'll get vastly different opinions on how to improve Maple. You don't have to look far to find a large vocal group of players who honestly think that Maple should be more or less rolled back to before Big Bang and not have any significant change.



Anyways, good luck getting a reply from Min Kim / someone who can make things happen, since similar "petitions" have been made so many times already with no tangible results.

Playing Devil's Advocate:

-cut-

Anyways, good luck getting a reply from Min Kim / someone who can make things happen, since similar "petitions" have been made so many times already with no tangible results.

I'd lay out options except I don't play actively enough and am not a high enough level to feel comfortable laying out solutions. Maybe we'll do that in a future editorial.

I'm happy just getting another discussion going and blood pumping.