maplestory
News
Nexon Shutters Vancouver Development Studio
7:40AM Mike Fahey | Thanks to numerous tips, Kotaku has now confirmed with staff at Nexon America that the company’s Vancouver-based development studio has shuttered its doors today, leaving upwards of 90 employees looking for jobs. More »
AsiaSoft Cracking Down On Home-Run MapleStory Servers
1:40AM Mike Fahey | MapleStory’s Singapore distributor looks to cut down on a rash of home-run pirate servers, as a plucky teen takes the world of big-headed platform battles into his own bedroom. More »
MapleStory Arrives Late To The Pirate Party
1:20AM Mike Fahey | Welcome to the pirate party, MapleStory? Where you been? We already ate all the finger food and drank all the rum, but you’re welcome to the super-powered martial arts moves we set aside for the ninja, as none of them showed up. At least we assume they didn’t. Nexon America has just added a new character class to their adorable free-to-play platformer MMO, and while they’re called pirates and look like pirates, the fact that they can transform into not one but two glowing super forms with magical powers makes me think that someone’s concept of nautical raiders could use a little work. More »
Whither the Rest of the World?
3:00AM Maggie Greene | A few months ago, Chris Plante had a thought provoking suggestion for the gaming industry: what we need is more global games. I thought it was an interesting position, and one that I more or less agree with — but the problem isn’t simply lack of ‘global’ games. On the whole, mainstream gaming press is seriously cut off from anything outside the typical mainstream purview. It would probably do all of us some good if we started looking seriously at game development and industry news coming from elsewhere. More »
Japanese Woman Jailed For Virtual ‘Murder’
8:30AM Maggie Greene | And you thought MapleStory was all fun and games. A Japanese woman has found herself in jail, potentially facing charges of illegally accessing a computer and manipulating data, after deleting the character of her in-game ‘husband’ who divorced her rather suddenly. “I was suddenly divorced, without a word of warning. That made me so angry!” she is quoted as saying: More »
Japanese Woman Jailed After Killing Virtual Husband
2:40AM Mike Fahey | A 43-year-old Japanese piano teacher found herself in jail after viciously murdering her ex-husband…in MapleStory. According to reports, the woman’s virtual, big-headed anime husband suddenly divorced her in mid-May, which lead to her logging on with the 33-year-old man’s username and password and deleting his character. When the man discovered the death of his character, he called the police. The alleged virtual murderer has now been jailed for suspicion of illegally accessing a computer and manipulating electronic data, which could carry a five-year prison sentence or a fine of up to $US5,000. “I was suddenly divorced, without a word of warning. That made me so angry,” the official quoted her as telling investigators and admitting the allegations. More »
MapleStory Expands With Crimsonwood Keep
5:00AM Mike Fahey | Nexon America has unveiled a massive expansion to the world of MapleStory in the Crimsonwood Keep expansion, which allows players to venture through the newly expanded Phantom Forest on the continent of Masteria, into the new areas found around the Crimsonwood Mountain. The update adds 31 new maps, 11 new enemies, and 12 new story-focused quests, while also adding a new skill for pets and improving the language filters so younger players can keep their exposure to dirty words contained to TV, movies, and what they overhear their parents saying. MapleStory will be updated with the new content tonight at 9PM Pacific, with the whole process taking about 9 hours, which means getting the kids to bed tonight will be that much easier. The adult players will just have to suffer. Hit the jump for more info! More »
Understanding Free to Play
7:30AM Maggie Greene | Min Kim, Nexon America’s director of game operations, sat down with Gamasutra to talk about the free to play model, Nexon’s expansion to the 360 and the DS. On the issue of people dismissing the business model: I don’t want to discount people, but I don’t think they’re doing all the right research, because I see all the misconceptions that people have about what our business is. If they’re going to ask the right questions, we could probably tell them. Or if they would just go in and experience our games. A lot of people talk about it like, “Hey, this can’t work,” or “It doesn’t have the right balance,” and then when I ask them questions like, “Have you played it or seen it?” they’re like, “No, but it’s like this!” and I’m like… (laughs) More »
7-Eleven To Appear In MapleStory, Vice Versa
4:20AM Mike Fahey | Any slight itching I may have had to try out Nexon’s MapleStory just went completely down the toilet. Today the company announces that prepaid Nexon cards will be available for purchase at 7-Eleven stores around the country, offering teens and ‘tweens’ a more convenient way to spend all of their parent’s money on virtual frippery in any of Nexon’s online games. Pretty nifty, until I read this: An animated version of a 7-Eleven store and an employee will appear in the popular MapleStory MMOG. This type of integration is cutting-edge, according to Nexon. It brings relevant content to consumers and provides 7-Eleven with a new way to use virtual worlds to expand its marketing. First off, calling a 7-Eleven employee ‘animated’ is being far too generous with the definition of the word. Secondly, this is not cutting-edge. This is cutting-stupid. It’s one thing to run a 7-Eleven ad on the splash page. It is something completely different to create a virtual 7-Eleven store in a fantasy-themed MMO. Gah. More »
