DFO NA is closing.

I'm sorry for your loss, but I've seen too much blind Nexon hate over the years (Or maybe I just view Nexon NA in a more positive light than most since I play Vindictus, which they have handled quite well so far, and no other Nexon NA games at this point.) so I just have to ask:

What really happened here? Did players abandon it due to Nexon's lack of interest in the game? Or did Nexon abandon it due to players' lack of interest in the game?

From the outside looking in, it seemed like DFO, despite being wildly popular in Asia, always had a small yet dedicated fanbase in the west. Much like Mabinogi. (Which is probably next in line.)

Hell, I'm surprised Nexon NA kept DFO up for as long as they did with how dead I heard DFO was. (Someone told be that there was a Halloween event still up in January.)

It's a bit of both ends, but mostly began with Nexon first. Lack of actual GMs patrolling the game should have already been a red flag, but most of us were too ignorant to see that as a bad sign. The game got really bad from a mass hacking and even banning wave about 1-2 years ago, made more people really pissed and leave the game. All that remained were hardcore players or players that still enjoyed the game despite being infested with bots and gold sellers that messed with the economy. Given that the last actual update was back in December, Nexon clearly abandoned the game somewhere at that point. That just ended up pissing off even more people because they felt Nexon didn't care about the game anymore. Boy do I feel like a complete moron for flaunting DFO around the forums like it's the best thing ever, when come a couple years later the game is terminally ill. Them closing the game is simply confirming the final nail in the coffin from December. Overall though, it was just a terrible self-fulfilling cycle. The game didn't even have more than one world, while DnF (Korean DFO) had I think 8-10 worlds.

tl;dr
Not enough people recruited to DFO -> Not enough players to keep Nexon's attention -> Nexon doesn't take as good care of the game -> People leaving due to Nexon's bad management -> Rinse and repeat until it's gotten to where it is now

Isn't that exactly what happens in GMS right now too?

I detect some foreshadowing.

GMs aren't banning hackers/botters in Maple anymore?


Well, in a mean but realistic sense perhaps the money they're saving from not running the DFO servers and department would go to having more GMs in Maplestory again. :f6: