MapleStory 2 - live to the public, exceptional customization

[Haramburger]

While considered a subpar sequel in its home market that saw much of its playerbase remain on the original MapleStory, there's quite a buzz surrounding the western release of this korean anime grinder. Still in its honeymoon phase of "free and exclusive to people who had the foresight to opt in" it's getting a lot of rave reviews for its minigames, relatively grind-free levelling & most importantly the customization aspect.

By establishing playfields made of cubes in a vaguely Minecraft-like environment, the developers are able to sell or rent spaces in game to decorate if they're savvy enough in image editing and modelling software to import new textures into the game. Typical vanilla spaces and characters may look like:

users are beginning to customize the game to look like this:

Something to keep an eye out for in the future for laughs(and autistic grinding)

 

[PlasticOwls]

Nothing beats the beautifully drawn worlds the original Maplestory has to offer.

Sure, nowadays people can easily mob their way to level 100 in a few hours, and the original challenge of the game is long gone. But nothing can replace that feeling of exploration you had going through the anime aesthetic forests of Ellinia or hustling cactus for soul dew and a single Cygnus Knight skill.

The Minecraft world of Maplestory 2 isnt cutting it for me. Even if the modding potential looks promising

 

[Coconut Gun]

Nothing beats the beautifully drawn worlds the original Maplestory has to offer.

Sure, nowadays people can easily mob their way to level 100 in a few hours, and the original challenge of the game is long gone. But nothing can replace that feeling of exploration you had going through the anime aesthetic forests of Ellinia or hustling cactus for soul dew and a single Cygnus Knight skill.

The Minecraft world of Maplestory 2 isnt cutting it for me. Even if the modding potential looks promising

Good sprite work > any other style

 

[Haramburger]

Sure, nowadays people can easily mob their way to level 100 in a few hours, and the original challenge of the game is long gone.

Cap is 250 now, and the later levels are as hardcore as the launch state of the game imo. just 150-160 is as long as it is from 1-150. With 5th job skills, I think the endgame is still definitely there & challenging, but not obvious to players unless you're willing to look deep.

 

[PlasticOwls]

I know there's 250. And Pink Bean for being so cute can be a bitch.

I dunno. It used to take months to get to just level 50. Nowadays people just want to mob on Romeo and Juliet and bum around in guild party quests from my experience. I'd love to go back and play with friends though

 

[Ted_Breakfast]

The models look like MySims.

 

[Xetzyr]

Well, been playing the second closed beta for a couple days and... meh. The isometric half-ass 3D engine leaves quite a lot to be desired. It's cute and all, but the block style maps and bad jumping just make it feel all clunky, like I'm playing the Legoverse version of Maplestory. The original Maplestory uses old school style sprite designs but isn't lacking when it comes to style and movement mechanics.

When I first saw screenshots and such I thought they were showing stuff from Ludibrium... but, no, apparently the whole game is "box world". They could have put in even a marginal amount more effort and gone from Kingdom Hearts Reoded style to full Kingdom Hearts style.

It's like they took really fluid, well designed 3D models... and then stuck them in this half-ass Minecraft 2: Electric Boogaloo style environment.

On a positive note they got some very good VAs, like the mechanic character is the same person who does Sayaka's voice in Madoka and the person who does the Berserker voice is the same person who does Homura's voice in Madoka.

 

[Monsieur Guillotine]

>Letting the internet have even a small degree of free reign with something

This can only end poorly.

 

[UnKillShredDur]

Wait... you can import your own textures? How is the entire game not porn yet?

 

[Xetzyr]

Wait... you can import your own textures? How is the entire game not porn yet?

In the beta there's warnings and disclaimers that pop up left and right, essentially saying you sign over your firstborn and if you so much as twitch the wrong way your ass is grass from the game.

So my guess is there will be a huge wave of initial trolling followed by a sudden panic ban. In other words if you actually want to play the game I'd just wait on uploading anything, lest you wind up rolled over in a thoughtless ban spree (which Nexon has a fine history of).

 

[Xetzyr]

Right before this part your tit jiggling sprite of an "assistant" is all, "What's that burning smell? The fusion core is burning with your fiery passion, boss!"

I think "furry" would be more accurate...

False reports are SERIOUS fuckin business...

And you thought Ubisoft's one sided contract of adhesion with too few mutual terms was bad.

 

[Haramburger]

This game has ended up being pretty decent. Housing is largely free, and if you're a content creator you can get a lot for cash shop stuff for free if it sells to other players well. Nexon asking for money is pretty out-of-the-way for the vast majority of the game, which makes me want to actually drop $20 here and there on some cosmetics. Also the music & instrument system is great; I've been walking around seeing & hearing people play a lot of This is Halloween from Nightmare before Christmas & Kingdom Hearts tracks on harps, pianos, clarinets, guitars, etc. Also racist memes on billboards and houses everywhere. Big recommend now that it's launched.

 

[BillionBisonBucks]

This game seems like it might be really amusing if I could stay connected for longer than 30 minutes.

 

[Haramburger]

Here comes the outrage from Kotaku: http://archive.md/ehSu8

MapleStory 2 Players Keep Submitting And Selling Bigoted Items To The Shop

Gita Jackson
Wednesday 4:30pm

Players of the kid-friendly MMO MapleStory 2 say that the player-created item shop is rife with racism and anime porn. The Maple Story 2 team told Kotaku that they “actively monitor the Design Shop for offensive material as well as have a reporting system,” but also: “Given the volume of the reports, there has been a delay in the review process.”

MapleStory 2 is an MMO full of bright primary colors and adorable player characters. While MapleStory 2 doesn’t have an age rating, the first MapleStorywas rated 10+ by the ESRB, and the sequel’s rounded corners and cutesy aesthetic make it appear as if it’s intended to appeal to children, at least in part. In the game, players can make items and upload them to a store where other players can buy them, called the Meret Shop. While the game bans certain words, including “trump” and “porn,” some players have found ways to get around the bans and upload items with political slogans or sexual references.

The MapleStory 2 team described the process in its full statement to Kotaku:

“All the items under the ‘Design Shop’ are created by players, not Nexon. Our policy is to let players create, but we review and ban players and content based on ToS and reports of offensive content.

We actively monitor the Design Shop for offensive material as well as have a reporting system so that players can report content they find offensive through built-in tools. Based on the report, we tightly review every single item and remove the item from the shop, and from the inventory of the players who purchased, and ban player accounts. Content containing sexual, racist, hateful or other inappropriate items are flagged higher in priority for removal. Players who post offensive items or images are subject to being banned permanently from the game. We have been acting very quickly and ask that whenever players see those items in the shop to report immediately using the report button.

Given the volume of the reports, there has been a delay in the review process. We are trying our best to continue to reduce the gap and speed up the response time to make a better game and maintain a respectful community.”

At the time of this writing, players have definitely found ways around the ban of the word “trump,” for example. If you search “MAGA” in the Meret Market, you will immediately find a vehicle with President Trump’s face on it, as well as an image of “NPC Wojak,” a reference to the dehumanizing NPC meme.

While some players clearly want to share their political opinions, others just want to get sex-related content in there. Searching “hub,” for example, yields clothing items with a riff on the PornHub logo. Other players are less subtle: wearching “waifu” will show you pornographic images of anime characters.

More worrying are the explicit references to white supremacy. Searching for “pride” in the Meret Market yields gay and trans pride themed items, but you’ll also be able to find a shirt that says “Proud To Be White,” with the tag “WhitePower.”

One player who wished to remain anonymous told Kotaku that they have seen items like this on the Meret Market since the game’s official launch on October 10. “It’s really overt,” they said. “People will advertise in world chat channels to buy their new items, and its often a MAGA hat or something. And the players putting these designs up for sale are rewarded with game currency.” On the MapleStory 2 subreddit, players have shared images of characters wearing Trump masks and MAGA hats as far back as three months ago.

This player told Kotaku that they’d tried reporting the items, but nothing had happened. “The same items are still up for sale. You still see them all over,” they said. “They might have people working on it, but I’ve seen absolutely no change in anything. Items put up for sale don’t have to be approved, so people can put up anything.”

It’s not clear who are making and downloading these items. They might be trolls looking to get a rise of people online. They might also be real white supremacists trying to recruit people, as some have claimed to have done in other online games. No matter what, it’s disturbing than an impressionable kid could find white supremacist content in a chipper-looking game just by searching for the word “proud,” and hopefully MapleStory 2's developers will succeed in their stated efforts to “speed up the response time” to players’ reports.

Also a cow crossover with Jeremy Hambly/The Quartering chiming in about the article and Gita's complaints/shit journalism:

 

[Puukalikka]

Achieved level 60 by only playing piano for hours, got my first epic drop and got 500 trophies to unlock the last skill point, the game has been lot of fun until now and I just want to keep playing.

 

[Haramburger]

Achieved level 60 by only playing piano for hours, got my first epic drop and got 500 trophies to unlock the last skill point, the game has been lot of fun until now and I just want to keep playing.

what kind of music have you been playing, and do you do your own sheet music or other people's?

 

[Puukalikka]

what kind of music have you been playing, and do you do your own sheet music or other people's?

I pretty much spammed my way to 100k mastery with Mabinogi OST #1 that you can just buy from the store. Had to get that Pianist title

 

[Zaragoza]

The models look like MySims.

...Crap now I can't unsee it. Thanks!

 

[Terror Rism]

i have 3 characters at maestro music skills and level 50+
help i can't stop the 4th is on the way

 

[Puukalikka]

Second character level 60 and 130 hours played, few more characters and I have a pretty good amount of dungeon runs in a week