Maple Story DS

[Coinspinner]

First Dragon Quest IX is a multiplayer online action-RPG for DS, now DS has an MMORPG. Awesome.

Commercial
GAF thread

I know Maple Story is crazy popular here in the West, for the same reasons as Runescape I bet, so what are the odds there'll be an English version?

[Arctic_Slicer]

Not awesome. Maple Story is a terrible terrible game that I was unfortunate enough to be invovled with during it's beta testing. I was surprised when the game actually became popular and all of this about it being on the DS has me worried. The game's popularity is most certainally going to influence the development of games for years to come; which most certainally do more harm for the genre than good.

[Pirotess]

What do you feel makes it a bad game Arctic_Slicer? I havent been exposed to the game in any fashion yet so Im curious about what makes it so different as to be dangerous for the genre itself.

[Coinspinner]

I'm curious too. All I know is that it's a Korean style grind fest in 2D platformer format with no monthly fee but a real money shop. I seem to recall that it lacks any real platforming gameplay though; everyone jumps the same so progress through areas is controlled by your ability to kill the enemies, just like most other MMORPGs.

I can't see anything but the business model sticking.

I mainly thought it was awesome because Nintendo's Iwata (I think) gets to wear a triple-size money hat if it takes off like folks think it will.

[Snowman]

Maple story is exelent!

Out of all the free/lowcost MMO's out there Maplestory has to be the best, most polished and most fun.

Seriously, I have tried nearly every single free mmo out there.. (though ive not tried ROSE yet) and Maplestory wins them all hands down.

The only reason why you might not like it is due to its classic "2d platform" style graphics.. but this, for me, was its biggest appeal (that and its strongly anime influenced)

EDIT: Note my avatar is my maplestory character

[Iendan]

i didnt really like it kinda...boring i suppose, the combat system is odd because you get knocked back/take damage if they touch you so its way too easy to get swarmed on and not be able to **** about it :P

and silkroad is the best free mmo,imo, although most of them are grindfests anyway :P (and ive played pretty much all of them aswell) silkroad is the prettiest and tbh the graphics are the main difference in most free-korean mmos...it amazed me, they all operate on the same base set-up except for ONE thing that might or might not make it better than the others...

[Snowman]

ah yes! Silkroad is a most excelent free mmo!.. I even purchased some stuff from their items shop.. The squiral is just the most awesome pet what other game will alow you to stand AFK all night while your pet runs around picking up other peoples gold lol

I know what you mean about Maplestory.. and I understand when people dont like it. Its just because im a crazy anime fan and I was grown up on 2d platform games on the amiga (robocod, magicpockets, turrican, the list is endless).. for them to merge 2d platforming into an MMO AND Anime style.. just hits the right spot for me.

Your right, nearly all the games are very grindy.. usually they get the balance between quests and grinding completly wrong!.. Silkroad unfortunatly didnt have enough quests for me... Maplestory has just about the right amount (so far anyway, im only lvl 25)

I will try Scions of fate as well.. downloading now .. I hear that is just a grind fest as well.. but it is anime style and that may just hook me.

[Arctic_Slicer]

Originally Posted by Pirotess

What do you feel makes it a bad game Arctic_Slicer? I havent been exposed to the game in any fashion yet so Im curious about what makes it so different as to be dangerous for the genre itself.

NPCs have no AI whatsoever. You can easily kill monsters quite a bit higher than your character's level by simply exploiting their bad AI and the terrain around. The only time you ever actually die is when you end up with lots of MOBs at once and get overrun. Seriously the game offered no challenge whatsoever. Further reducing the challege was the over abundance of inexpensive instant use health and mana potions. You would see players literally using a dozen or so of them in a few short minutes while fighting monsters far above their level.

The thing that bothers me most about the game though is how it generates it's money. See the game isn't exactly "free" rather their is a cash shop from which you can use real money to buy "special" items from. Supposedly these items are purely cosmetic and don't have any "real" effect but it wouldn't surprise me if that changed. Honestly I would rather pay a fee to play a game than play a supposedly "free" game that will eventually devolve into a game where the person who makes the most money in real life will have the coolest characters in game.

There are a bunch of other minor things that bother me such as the community and how the whole game is "multi-channeled". I was also annoyed by the fact that your characters sex was determined by the sex listed in your user account and can't be changed.

[Snowman]

Originally Posted by Arctic_Slicer

There are a bunch of other minor things that bother me such as the community and how the whole game is "multi-channeled". I was also annoyed by the fact that your characters sex was determined by the sex listed in your user account and can't be changed.

Hehe, actually all your reasons for not liking it are the same reasons why I do like it!

Its not a challenge your right.. but this what makes it fun, its EASY, light hearted, no pressures.

Its the only game I actually enjoy grinding

Anyway, this is a snippet from the Maplestory Wikipedia.

"As of Feb. 2006, Wizet has generated 200 million USD from the game service in Korea. Wizet received 110 million USD for licensing the games to other parts of the world.

Game Population (as of Feb. 2006):

* Korea since 2002, 200 thousand subscribers (concurrent users), 14 million subscribers (total)
* Japan since November 2003, 9 million subscribers
* China since December 2004, 25 million subscribers
* Taiwan since July 2005, 3.5 million subscribers
* Thailand since August 2005, 550 thousand subscribers
* South East Asia (mostly Singapore and Malaysia) since June 2005, 550 thousand subscribers
* Global since May 2005, 2 million subscribers[23]
"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maple_Story

Thats ALOT of players even for the US.