Dev Blog -- Big Bang Countdown!

http://maplestory.nexon.net/FunStuff/Art...ageIndex=1

Hello again Maplers!

It’s been difficult to find time to write during the past few weeks. Big Bang is actually made of a million little details, and we’re working like crazy to get them all right. As we enter the final week before the launch on December 7, we’re all tired, but we’re also pretty excited for you to get your hands on it. Before the big day arrives though, I’d like to talk a bit about the Global MapleStory team’s favorite parts of Big Bang.

The New Experience Curve

When MapleStory was first released, the biggest fear was that players would run out of content, get bored, and stop playing. At the time, this seemed like a legitimate fear. There wasn’t much content available at launch. In order to slow players down, the leveling curve was made deliberately slow. In fact, the game was originally conceived as having no level cap at all! Each level was supposed to just take longer and longer to achieve until the next level was essentially impossible. This concept was abandoned fairly quickly, but the legacy of that idea remained. The math behind the leveling curve remained very steep.

The difficult leveling curve was something that concerned us greatly while we prepared MapleStory for release in North America. In general, western game players do not like grinding. Of course, there are always players who enjoy the accomplishment of reaching level 200, but most players find it frustrating to work for months to gain a single level. The other thing that happened was that as we added more and more content to the game, the old argument that we had to keep leveling slow or players would get bored didn’t make as much sense.

We tried to improve the leveling situation in 2009 by adjusting the EXP curve for Global MapleStory. The problem was we could only make small surface alterations. We could change the formula that calculated the EXP needed to gain a level, but without the ability to completely rebalance mobs and quests, there was only so much we could do. That’s what made Big Bang so exciting. It has allowed us to rebalance the game completely. This is by far our favorite feature of Big Bang, not just because it’s something we’ve wanted specifically for Global MapleStory for years, but simply because it makes the gameplay much better at all levels. Once Big Bang is live, you’ll notice that gaining a level will take half the time it used to or less. Players above level 75 specifically will feel the difference in a big way.

[video=youtube;ntviH6JkwgA]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntviH6JkwgA&feature=player_embedded[/video]
Skill Rebalancing

Skills are great; they define your class, add variety to hunting, and just look cool. From the beginning, those elements have driven skill design in MapleStory. Unfortunately, what often hasn't been taken into account is balance and consistency. A lot of new skills added to the game since the original launch through job advancements or new classes didn’t get much thought about how these skills would fit together or compare to each other. The result was that some classes were overpowered, other were almost powerless until high levels. Most classes had skills that players never used, and the entire system was too complicated. It had become almost impossible for a new player to understand which skills were good and how best to assign their Skill Points without consulting a guide. This needed to change.

In Big Bang, almost all the skills have been changed and some have been eliminated. Some users will be surprised to see a favorite skill have its power reduced. When you look at the class as a whole though, you’ll find that every class is now playable and fun, even at low levels. We encourage you all to take another look at all your class’s skills and rethink how you spend your SP. Internally, we’ve had a lot of fun playing with less popular jobs, and trying out classes we don’t usually spend a lot of time with.

New Map

One of the really subtle changes in Big Bang is the new world map. The redesign makes the map much more useful. Hovering your mouse over any area on the map for example, will list out the number of quests available, NPCs, and mob types. The map is also much more detailed and up to date. This may seem like a very small thing, and it probably won’t make it into many of the player reviews following the release, but after playing the game for a long time I can tell you it is very useful. With all the changes to maps and mobs, even veteran users will find the expanded information handy and convenient. This change took a long time to make since all the maps had to be redrawn and it was tedious to enter all the NPC, quests, flight paths, and mobs into each map, but it was worth it.

The three features I’ve discussed today are only a few of the changes coming to MapleStory with Big Bang. In only a matter of days though, you’ll be able to decide for yourself what your favorite parts are!

By the way, I happen to know that the GMs are planning something big for the send off of classic Maple World, so be sure to check in regularly or you could miss out!

See you the new world, Maplers!

Eurydice
The MapleStory Team

Better than the last, still too much credit taken for running the game through babelfish.

Glad to hear that they're ending classic Maple with a bang.

>Most classes had skills that players never used, and the entire system was too complicated
>the entire system was too complicated
>too complicated

hahaohwow.jpg

I love the way they write these dev Blogs, they're actually enjoyable to read.

Better than the last, still too much credit taken for running the game through babelfish.

I don't think its hard to believe that all the dev teams sat down together, said their side of the story, then worked on Big Bang together letting Korea be the first. Once that was done Japan and North America started theres around the same time but moving at a much much much slower pace. Once Korea was finished they took a look and copied the data. What was left was their own versions. Thats probably when all the teams(except Korea) sat down and worked out each one of the individual areas. They decided that since their versions were much larger than Koreas they would need more to fit their version. The MSEA dev team worked on their versions, China, Taiwan, and so on. Once they had the set values they wanted and any changes they deemed necessary, they got together and shared the data with each other. Once then they decided any changes they needed to behold from the Koreans version. Japan probably decided many of it's players liked Monster Book so they said "we'll fix ours up". North America and Japan were going to be the first ones to deliever Big Bang so they sat down together. They worked out CWK together and Masteria. They then thought of the simple mini map and other features. Once done they presented their drafts to the rest of the teams. Once they said go it was up for the individual teams to decide what they wanted to keep and toss out. America picked out all of their features and decided for majority of the project work with Japan. Japan said they would release theres first as more or less as a test run. At this point our dev team could easily see what Japan had in store. They didn't like the changes to Mushroom Shrine and decided to keep it as is. Once all done they met up together and decided to share any data files. Now the final time for production began. Each version started working without the other teams and solely on their own versions. From that point on they figured out any events, special items, and cash shop items that would be implemented into their version. They opened Tespia, saw what was happening, and was happy. They closed down Tespia and started working on it on their own personal client. Now it's almost ready and Big Bang is almost here!

Note:This is not at all a true story but a made up one to stimulate what might/could have happened for the production of Big Bang. This story was to show it's not bad for NEXON AM to say parts we're their idea when it very well could have been. Again this story was all made up and may or may not be true.

I don't think its hard to believe that all the dev teams sat down together, said their side of the story, then worked on Big Bang together letting Korea be the first. Once that was done Japan and North America started theres around the same time but moving at a much much much slower pace. Once Korea was finished they took a look and copied the data. What was left was their own versions. Thats probably when all the teams(except Korea) sat down and worked out each one of the individual areas. They decided that since their versions were much larger than Koreas they would need more to fit their version. The MSEA dev team worked on their versions, China, Taiwan, and so on. Once they had the set values they wanted and any changes they deemed necessary, they got together and shared the data with each other. Once then they decided any changes they needed to behold from the Koreans version. Japan probably decided many of it's players liked Monster Book so they said "we'll fix ours up". North America and Japan were going to be the first ones to deliever Big Bang so they sat down together. They worked out CWK together and Masteria. They then thought of the simple mini map and other features. Once done they presented their drafts to the rest of the teams. Once they said go it was up for the individual teams to decide what they wanted to keep and toss out. America picked out all of their features and decided for majority of the project work with Japan. Japan said they would release theres first as more or less as a test run. At this point our dev team could easily see what Japan had in store. They didn't like the changes to Mushroom Shrine and decided to keep it as is. Once all done they met up together and decided to share any data files. Now the final time for production began. Each version started working without the other teams and solely on their own versions. From that point on they figured out any events, special items, and cash shop items that would be implemented into their version. They opened Tespia, saw what was happening, and was happy. They closed down Tespia and started working on it on their own personal client. Now it's almost ready and Big Bang is almost here!

Note:This is not at all a true story but a made up one to stimulate what might/could have happened for the production of Big Bang. This story was to show it's not bad for NEXON AM to say parts we're their idea when it very well could have been. Again this story was all made up and may or may not be true.

I don't see how you could expand on one sentence so much while sticking to one counter-point, so I decided not to read what you typed.

I don't see how you could expand on one sentence so much while sticking to one counter-point, so I decided not to read what you typed.

To be honest. I already forgot what I typed LOL

By the way, I happen to know that the GMs are planning something big for the send off of classic Maple World, so be sure to check in regularly or you could miss out!

Ohh? ^^'

& That was an interesting read.. felt like i've read it 1000x before (because they keep repeating themselves in an attempt to 'hype') but eh, whatever.

Ohh? ^^'

& That was an interesting read.. felt like i've read it 1000x before (because they keep repeating themselves in an attempt to 'hype') but eh, whatever.

"To say farewell to the maple world as we know it, We're having an awesome Big Bang Blowout Sale in the Cash Shop! Every hour something new will be featured in the "Event" section of the Cash Shop and will be sold at a discounted price of 10%! Get some NX today!
Too little Bang for your buck? Help our sponsors!""

Better than the last, still too much credit taken for running the game through babelfish.

Well, it would be a stupid marketing strategy to admit otherwise:

"Yeah, all we had to do was translate data and alter some WT mob data... and it took us 5 months. Hope you guys don't mind."

Can you imagine the rage that would be had from this? Especially after all of the drawn-out patches we have had in the last few months? Nexon doesn't have any better excuse for delaying it, so they came up with this garbage.

My favorite part will be if they actually fixed the compatibility issues so I can go boss hunting again.

Again with the stupid non sequitur about more content leading to exp curve flattening. Fact is, they cut out content because the exp curve dropped (all the Episode 1 quest line is gone, for example). They had to remove the level cap on party quests because otherwise nobody'd get around to them before overleveling.

SwordStaker, you scenario would be more believable if the new-improved world map (with mobs and npc's listed) actually existed in Masteria, for example. Or if other World Tour areas even *got* a world map. Nevermind Singapore, it's just one straight line, but why can't Zipangu have a map? Same with mob stats and everything else. It's quite obvious Korea did Big Bang all by themselves, for themselves, and screw the other versions. In fact, playing post-BB GMS makes it quite obvious which parts are the "real MapleStory" and which are "tacked on".

Sadly, another "dev blog" that looks like it was written by the PR department, not a developer :-(

How about telling Maplers the stuff you took OUT, Nexon?

I seriously think a PR department is all they have at times. There's so much stuff that gets suppressed on their forums all the time it's unreal so I guess the PR department runs that too. I heard all the people who spoke out against the Black Friday sales got banned from the forums when the mods came in Monday, unsure of the number, but I was one of them. Shame Nexon doesn't understand the value of opinion. If they'd listen to their users, GMS would be a lot more fun than it has been. People said the content was drying up, dude, if we had gotten all the content of every version out there from ChinaMS, JapanMS, ThaiMS, etc. mainly all the World Tour areas, we'd have tons to do.

Internally, we’ve had a lot of fun playing with less popular jobs, and trying out classes we don’t usually spend a lot of time with.

lol at Nexon admitting they didn't care about less-popular classes either. This is why it took something like 2 years to fix the pierce DC glitch fully for marksmen.

lol at Nexon admitting they didn't care about less-popular classes either. This is why it took something like 2 years to fix the pierce DC glitch fully for marksmen.

Too bad there are still a bunch of bugs that still dc Marksmen.

Ha! Calling Tony the errand boy PR department! You are far to generous my fellow S-Perricans! He runs to Starbucks, back and forth, back and forth. Once in a blue moon he gets asked to write up some crap like this, because after all he do have a half baked almost done degree in marketing. Problem is, he never took the course that explains that not all of the targets are sheep.

I liked this. I hope they keep posting dev blog stuff like this.

Can't wait.