One person's opinion about Nexon -

Here's another Basil topic. As always, I'm posting this here just in case the original one disappears.

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Originally posted by:

junkboy45
JunkBoy45
76 Scania I/L Mage

link

Tired of apologizing for Nexon

I started playing this game in the fall of 2006. I didn't know what to expect, and after making some noob mistakes and learning on my own, I began to enjoy the game. I had no idea what a hacker was, didn't know that someone could use scripts to modify the game and cheat. Wizet had majority stock so they were in control of the game (so what if Nexon was their parent company or whatever, Wizet was still in control). They didn't have NX only areas, or give people with NX major advantages over others (double experience, AP reset, among others). The game survived off of NX clothes, megaphones, and other things that didn't give players a big advantage or any advantage at all. NX was just fun. Nearly all the areas I went to had good training areas and interesting platform arrangements that mad the map unique and could give the player spots to snipe from or gather a mob.

Nexon decided they could make more money off the game (I found some articles online that back up that statement; go ahead and look for them, it's not that hard), so I started seeing the Nexon name rather than just Wizet. At this time I started seeing hackers. First it was just one or two here and there, then they took up every channel at the places I trained at or tried to do quests at. Nexon told us not to worry, the problem would be resolved soon. The hacker problem got worse; there were more and more every day and reporting them didn't seem to have any affect. The prices for everything started going through the roof because the value of the meso went down. I attributed the slow reaction by Nexon to them taking over the game. I gave them the benefit of the doubt.

Months went by and finally a lot of the hacks didn't work any more. Nexon was making good on their promise! We'd be getting new NX, new areas, and the anniversary was coming up. The NX that came out gave people huge advantages over those who didn't have any (their web site used to say that NX items didn't give people advantages like that, but who cares about the values a game is built on when you can make money off of 13 year olds?). One of the reasons I liked Maple Story is because the things you paid for with real cash didn't make you any better than anyone else. The new areas were a let down for the most part. Quest area after quest area, with the occasional map that people could actually train on. And the designs for a lot of the newer maps had a lot to be desired. Sure, they looked nice, but the platform placement didn't seem to have any purpose.

The anniversary was also a let down. The Maple equips were great, the double experience and drop events were also good. But the GM events were lies. Many times the GMs showed up late or not at all. A GM would whisper things to everyone and tell us to go to events that never happened because a GM never showed up. And then the next day the same thing would happen. Around this time I was getting upset with Nexon. Hackers were on the rise again (oops, thought they said they fixed that), NX now gave people advantages and there was new NX on the way that gave advantages and NX only areas like Amoria pq or the Mansion during Halloween (oops, this game was founded on the idea that NX would never do that), and lying to our faces about something as simple as being there for a GM event.

New Leaf City did bring some areas that people could actually train at. They were even catering to higher level people. Unfortunately the best training area at NLC (Wolf Spiders) showcases an annoying problem which has yet to be fixed. Attacks will sometimes go right through the spiders. I've had 2 spiders in front of me and my attacks only hit the one in the back. Or I'd be mobbing a group of them and one would walk around in the mobbing area and wouldn't be hit until maybe the third or fourth attack. You would think that after programming dozens and dozens of monsters, including ones that jumped, that you wouldn't have to worry about your attacks going through a monster. Oh well, only "pro" people train there, who cares?

Herb Town is yet another perfect example of an area that offers lame quests and very few training areas. Now Showa has come out and I don't care that the backgrounds are different. Do you think I care that some swords are missing in a map that's full of Bains? Why should I care that they don't use guns when one of them (I think it's Extra B) has even worse programming than Wolf Spiders? In case you don't know, if you freeze one, you have to wait for them to unfreeze before you can hit them again. My assassin friend also problems with them. There's also that mini boss at the bottom of one of the maps that you don't realize is level 95 until it's too late and you're dead. I died there and so did some of my friends. Great thinking: put a boss at the bottom of an open area where anyone can fall victim to it. And make sure that unless you know that it's there, it won't stand out.

There are also unfinished quests like the one with Bob the Snail. They gave us that one so that we could...umm...wonder how the quest ends because they didn't put the rest of it in there for no good reason. Or the new one at Showa where you give someone 5 million mesos and after gathering 400 alien foods, you get the chance to win...100 squids...or a level 50 sai...or a lot of other stuff that isn't even close to being worth 5 million mesos. That's the quest: 5 million mesos in exchange for maybe 100 watermelon. Or the one that takes place on Maple Island that I shouldn't even have on my quest thingy because I can never go there! And don't bother going to the mansion place there either; it just leads to a dead end with Bains everywhere and no platforms as far as I could tell. There's an NPC at the end that says he'll take you somewhere...and then nothing happens as you get assaulted by Bains and waste pots trying to get out of there. Thanks for the NPC that gives me hope that I can escape death but will probably end up making me die because I get killed by a Bain while the dialog screen is up. Oh, and there are still hackers around.

So once again, Nexon delivers us a new patch with a new area. I was excited. I shouldn't have been. It's another quest area that offers MAYBE a map that ice wizards can train at. Other classes are screwed (especially bowmen; like the goblin quest were all other classes get a class-specific item and bowmen get to use a cape that was made for warriors, or the quest in NLC where wizards can get the cool Nocturnal Staff, other classes get something else, and bowmen get a Nocturnal Bow! No, wait everyone else gets an equip, bowmen get arrows that run out). Unless fighting that boss on the first Showa map or a long room with Bains sounds like a good training area, Nexon forgot to address your wants and needs again.

I've apologized for Nexon long enough. They've finished replacing Wizet. They've had a long time to develop good maps. They should know how to make monsters actually get hit when you attack them. They should stick to their word when they say how long a patch takes (to their credit this last patch actually lasted about as long as they said it would...except it was a week late). The hacker problem should be resolved like they said it would. If hacking can't totally be done away with, don't promise it and lie to us again! I don't think they should have changed the nature of this game by giving people with NX huge advantages (this game is a lot more competitive and a lot less friendly and plain fun than it used to be when NX was just for fun).

"Oooh, if you don't like it why don't you quit?" Sorry, that's a pretty lame argument that doesn't require any thinking to make. There are still a lot of good things about this game and plenty of ways to have fun. Nexon, in my opinion, has lied to us so many times, built up excitement over new places and new patches and then failed to deliver on the hype, and the quality of new training maps (the few new good ones since I started playing a year and a half ago) has been declining in general.

If you read all that, agree or disagree, but please make a logical point to your argument.