New Beginnings - An Open Letter to Our Community

Hey Everyone,

As we come upon our 4th anniversary of exploring the Maple World, we'd like to say a few words about our journey together thus far.



First, Thank You.

We do not say this as often as we should. Our game would not and cannot exist without you. From Ossyria to Ariant, from Masteria to Leafre, you have met friends and gone on countless adventures with us, to discover our world. We witnessed you complete your first quest in Maple Island and seen you grow to defeat bosses from Mushmom and Crimson Balrogs to the likes of Zakum and Horntail. There is no game without players, and we are happy you chose us. We can proudly say that our players are the heart and soul of MapleStory.



However, we haven't been the best in communicating with you and making sure you are satisfied in-game, as well as out of game, and we apologize. Even though many of you have felt we've let you down, you have been loyal to us.



Now, it's our turn. We've started to make significant changes to improve the MapleStory experience for everyone.



Let's start with the scourge of our game, hacking. Hackers are making a mess of our game. We are going to use every technical and legal means to fight against those who use them and sell them. It's us against them, and with your help, we will turn the tide. We've hired additional staff to patrol the servers around the clock, and encourage you to stay tuned for details on our Volunteer Deputy program planned for launch in the next few months. Those of you who expressed a desire to help will get your chance. One of our strongest weapons against this corruption is the ability of you, the community, to stand up and speak out.



We also ask you to help us in the fight against private servers. We know that many of you have been curious to try them, but we implore you to boycott them. Private servers infringe upon our intellectual property and greatly diminish our ability to generate funds necessary to keep MapleStory a free service for everyone. Often, they compromise your account security. If you know of a private server, we ask you to 1) boycott it and 2) report it to our customer service. We will do our utmost over the coming months to deliver to you the best service possible which includes even better updates and events.



As for Customer Service, we know that it has not been perfect. We have hired additional staff here as well, and you will see a change for the better. We are doing our best to answer the daily influx of tickets, and ask that you understand that there are thousands of tickets and millions of players. We will do our best to address your issues, and will continue our improvement within the coming months.



Many of you expressed satisfaction with the last few game updates, yet were frustrated about some bugs. In the future, for certain updates, we will bring up Tespia and let some of you girls and guys loose. Those who have a knack for finding and reporting valid bugs will be invited back to help us improve the game. Content-wise, we have the biggest updates coming through the rest of the year. We're talking HUGE. Every level from 1-200 will have new experiences to share, and new challenges to conquer. If you thought the last update was big, wait till you see what's coming.



We know that some of you will doubt our sincerity. Truthfully, we understand, but we will work to show you that our actions speak louder than words. We want to make our game the best in the world, and can only do so with your help. Once again, thank you for choosing your game, MapleStory.



Sincerely,



NxDanimal(CEO), Stoveboy, NxOinkers, NxProse, NxEm0V1a, NxRockstar, NxPepe, NxJoeW, Hime, NxDefender (legal), and the rest of the Nexon family.

What do you guys think about it?

Source :http://maplestory.nexon.net/WZ.ASPX?PART...ageIndex=1

Ariant's in Ossyria, lol. The Volunteer Deputy thing sounds interesting though, and it's good that they've finally figured out how to deal with the Tespia thing.

They say this like every year, but I can't help but be excited for the next patch

"O_O" is the only thing that comes to mind.

If they stick to this... wow lol

Edit: They've said this before and done nothing?

Volunteer Deputy? Oooh! Pick me!

I think they really need to hire a staff of players from around the country and the world, if not as a real GM, then at least with a direct chat-line to the GMs...not everyone lives in California.

Not gonna cream my pants just yet.

Not gonna cream my pants just yet.

Me either, but I've got a change of underwear ready, just in case.

This is very encouraging, even though they have said similar things before.

"Volunteer Deputy" program... several other games have player Moderators and similar positions, and if we get responsible people in there it could be an extremely effective way to point out those who are ruining the experience of others.

Edit: Forget to say I'm hoping they do Tespia the right way this time! Used the way it should be, it could really help their updates go more smoothly for everyone.

@ Volunteer deputy thing: Been suggested many times before, glad they finally put it into action.

Hope it doesn't suck and that jackasses who get their seat of power can be easily stripped of it by the community/nexon if they suck at/abuse their power.

@ tespia: Finally. >_> Hope they don't use their shitty recycling strategy they used last time.

Volunteer Deputy? Oooh! Pick me!

No offense, that sounds a lot like the tone of one of those whiney b4stards that go "Can I be GM?" I can understand if you're just excited xD

But on the same subject of Volunteer Deputies, this could work for the better. What I do expect to see for certain however are a rise in false bannings and a bit more corruption in the GM task force. WoW use to do this until they ran into legal issues with paying minors to police the game (and I know this because I actually met one of them irl). He told me a bunch of crazy stories ranging from a GM letting a h4x0r onto GM Island (the h4x0r got banned, while the GM got uber banned), to a GM making thousands of dollars from policing the opening weeks of some PvP arenas. Just to be clear, I don't think Nexon's going to pay Volunteer Deputies.

And about Tespia, I have high hopes that they will actually be smarter about who they pick next time, and that they build a database of credible users, much like what KMST does.

Lastly, LOL @ NxDanimal. CEO naming himself after a yogurt brand name xD

Tespia going to be opened for those people that fail in the real servers. Yay

ooooooooo I like that deputy thing. Sounds promising

We get to be pretend GM's and finally get Tespia back. Looking good so far but I’ve lost count of the amount of times something like this happens only to fail, so I’ll hold of any excitement for now.

Nexon: Where the F`UCK is the Assassinate30 book for a normal price / normal droprate? I'm f`ucking waiting 15 f`ucking months now... when are you going to put it in your f`ucking game? Ty... -.-

Put in your game normally or GTFO... shiethead failboats... -.-

P.S. Yes I'm getting more angry at them per month... -.-

This is awesome, the change i've been waiting for almost a year now! Everything in this is just perfect!

Really curious about Volunteer Deputies, but i'm pretty sure no one will get banning power, it's just too dangerous.

Some stuff I'd like to see with Deputy Volunteers.
-An enrollment system which requires numerous recommendations from fellow players in good standing, and an impeccable record probably goes without saying. On the other side of that coin, nominations by other players would be good.
-Limited and tiered powers
*Start small, and require solid documentation of any individual event. A basic power might be the option to mute players for an hour or two, ideal for FM advertisers and absurdly derogatory and vulgar players
*Do regular performance reviews on deputies both from the community and Nexon, and those without incidence of responsibility neglect or abuse get further powers.
*Provide a direct line to GMs, as Blaine has mentioned, to which they can send screens and chat logs regarding situations worthy of a ban
*A function that works like the old lie detectors
*Perhaps be able to bar players from entering certain maps (Again, good for FM abusers)

In my opinion, these deputees should never be able to perform bans of any length, but should certainly have a very weighted opinion that can be acted upon by regular GMs. To put it in a sentence, Deputies should exist to streamline the work of GMs

Edit: Would probably also be smart to limit the number per server. Maybe only allow deputies to be "on duty" for 3 or 4 hour blocks, and have maybe 8-10 deputies per time block. Ideally, maybe around 5 of those 8-10 are online during their shift on any given day.

Looks like that new CEO is whipping Nexon into shape. So far I'm liking the results.

As amazing as thsi sounds, Nexon has let us down before. I won't be bringing my hopes up to much. Although, I am impressed with their previous releases this year.

i dont relly expect much from them, well see what comes

Well I'll be. Maybe someone actually does read feedback tickets.

 Spoiler

Things they've started doing since I filed this:

• Listing changes before a patch goes in.
  
• Listing intended fixes for a SC
  
• Focus Groups
  
• Updated monster info on website (altho not by much).
  
• Self policing via deputies now?
  
• Bringing back tespia
  

That's an impressive level of coincidence there.