MapleStory 2, welcome.

A few people are reporting you can sign up with a Gmail address and that you don't have to verify your account via phone.
They managed to start the game by launching it from the main website.
It appears there's no IP block too.

It's simple. You need an authenticated account to play NexonKR games. I just heard that this was a mistake on Nexon's part, probably because of the early character creation process. But they have fixed this issue now. Unauthenticated accounts cannot get past the character creation screen.