Filed under: MapleStory

MapleStory releases videos for new content

by Rubi Bayer Jan 21st 2010 at 4:00PM

Filed under: Video, MapleStory, Free-to-play, Browser

Earlier this month, we told you about some fun new content for MapleStory fans -- Nett's Pyramid and the Abandoned Subway. While they were both designed for mid-level players, they are worlds apart in style and content, offering up two very different challenges. Venture into the Abandoned Subway to battle hordes of Ribbon Pigs and Horny Mushrooms (no, really). For a change of pace, visit Nett's Pyramid to take on Pharaoh Snakes, Skeletons, and Mummies while being told "The curse of the pyramids will be upon you!" by a very large and annoyed guardian of the pyramid.

Want to see for yourself? Nexon has given us a closer look at the two new areas with some short combat videos of both the Subway and Pyramid. We've included both of them here for you to enjoy. Follow along after the jump to take a look, and good luck with the pigs, mushrooms, snakes, and skeletons!

MapleStory introduces new quest areas

by Rubi Bayer Jan 12th 2010 at 8:00PM

Filed under: MapleStory, Free-to-play, Browser, Kids

Nexon America's long-running MMO MapleStory is introducing two new areas to their players, less than two months after an extensive content update with a brand new class and storyline.

Players can now explore Nett's Pyramid and the Abandoned Subway, party quest areas available soon to all mid-level players. Nett's Pyramid is an ancient-Egyptian themed area full of pyramids and hieroglyphics, along with plenty of creatures such as mummies and skeletons to battle. The Abandoned Subway is a gloomy underground map full of creatures waiting to attack those brave enough to venture in.

The new areas are great for hunting and leveling, and will allow players to experience the "Monster Survival" feature, as well as some nice extras. Players who manage to clear all stages in one of the new maps will be rewarded with bonus maps, medals, and buffs.

The content will be introduced to MapleStory soon.

MapleStory releases television promotion

by Rubi Bayer Dec 22nd 2009 at 6:00PM

Filed under: Fantasy, Video, MapleStory, News items, Free-to-play, Browser

If you're pondering some last minute holiday gifts for the younger set, a gift of Nexon cash may be a welcome pre-emptive strike. MapleStory is hitting the television airwaves this season with a new holiday promotional commercial.

The commercial -- which is oh-so-conveniently included here -- showcases MapleStory's brand new update. The Aran update added a fair amount of new content, introducing a new and storyline and namesake warrior class, the Aran. The new content also added a brand new start-up tutorial intended to give players "an easier and immersive entry into the world of MapleStory," so Nexon seems to be planning on an inrush of new players for their long-running game. The commercial is scheduled to run on Disney XD, Cartoon Network, Adult Swim, Nickelodeon, and Teen Nick. It began yesterday and will continue showing until January 3rd.

Follow along after the jump for a firsthand look at the new MapleStory commercial.

Massively's 2009 Winter Holiday Event Guide

by Rubi Bayer Dec 16th 2009 at 4:00PM

Filed under: Fantasy, Sci-fi, Super-hero, Aion, City of Heroes, Dark Age of Camelot, Dungeons and Dragons Online, EVE Online, EverQuest II, Fallen Earth, Final Fantasy XI, Guild Wars, Lineage, Lineage 2, Lord of the Rings Online, MapleStory, Culture, Events, in-game, Warhammer Online, Star Wars Galaxies, Ultima Online, MetaPlace, Free-to-play, Runes of Magic, Dragonica Online, Cities XL

It's that time of year again -- whatever holiday you are celebrating, the denizens of your favorite MMO are sure to be celebrating it too. Whether it's Festivult in Dungeons and Dragons Online, Wintersday in Guild Wars, or the Starlight Celebration in Final Fantasy XI, the theme is the same. There are presents, some sort of sugary treats, and tons of fun. Follow along with us as we check out who's partying in your favorite MMO and what you need to do to get in on the fun.

New Aran class fights gigantic beast in this MapleStory trailer

by Kyle Horner Dec 16th 2009 at 10:00AM

Filed under: Video, MapleStory, Classes, News items

Nexon has released a video featuring their new Aran characters in MapleStory. In the video they fight a Balrog, although this isn't the exact beast most of you will remember from Tolkien's books, it's a close proximity... Okay, who are we kidding? This Balrog looks like a giant hairy beast with armor. At least it's more frightening than that cute kitty in the image above.

Nexon says, "The Balrog Party Quest is available for players with characters level 50, up to 120, and rewards the victors with formidable prizes like the Chaos Scrolls and White Scrolls." which to us, says you've basically got to put a hefty amount of time into playing before you'll even see this guy. However, the real focus of the video -- at least in our minds -- is new polearm wielding Aran characters whooping butt, so to speak. So if you're curious to see what this is all about, take a gander at the video below the cut.

Nexon plans new content for MapleStory

by Rubi Bayer Nov 23rd 2009 at 12:00PM

Filed under: Fantasy, MapleStory, Expansions, News items, Free-to-play

Nexon America is planning a new content expansion for MapleStory, scheduled to launch in December. The story of Aran represents a new class of players for MapleStory, and tells of five legendary heroes who fought the Black Mage years ago. One of those heroes was Aran: "After being cursed by the Black Mage and spending hundreds of years trapped inside ice, Aran woke up one day as an average man -- no powers and no memory of his past."

The story is rounded out by Lilin and Tru. Lilin is a young girl, the lone member of her clan who still believes in the prophecy that says the five heroes will be revived someday. She remained behind, waiting for their return after the rest of her clan had moved on. Tru is an information dealer and member of Lilin's clan who helps her as much as he can, even though he moved on with the rest of the clan.

More information on the new content can be found here, and a teaser video of the new content can be seen after the jump.

Nexon announces MapleStory news and events

by Rubi Bayer Nov 18th 2009 at 3:00PM

Filed under: Fantasy, MapleStory, Events, in-game, News items, Free-to-play

Nexon is bringing plenty of news from the land of MapleStory lately, from new player perks to holiday events to pets.

For starters, those venturing into MapleStory for the first time will enjoy the First Job event. Players now have five classes to choose from (Thief, Pirate, Magician, Bowman, and Warrior), each with its own quest line and boss.

New players and experienced players alike will enjoy the cash back event, running from now until November 29th. Players will earn 10-15% back, depending on what they spend. Looking for something to spend all this cash on? If you're a pet lover, permanent pets will be available in the shop for a limited time -- you can choose from a Kino, a White Tiger, or a Mini Yeti.

Finally, Thanksgiving is approaching in MapleStory and the turkeys there aren't the kind that are served with stuffing and cranberry sauce. These turkeys come in the form of invading "turkey commandos" that you will attack in the hopes that they will drop their eyes. Turkey Commando Eyes can be given to Professor Foxwit in exchange for mesos, so happy hunting!

Check out the official site for all the information on the upcoming events.

Nexon America's financials continue to impress in Q3

by William Dobson Oct 16th 2009 at 6:00PM

Filed under: MapleStory, Business models, Economy, MMO industry, News items, Mabinogi, Dungeon Fighter Online

We reported back in August that Nexon America had begun the third Quarter of 2009 with a very solid July; their revenue for the month grew 35% over the numbers for July 2008. Now that Q3 is over, they are happily touting some additional (and still impressive) figures. August 2009 beat out last year's August revenues by 32%, and September hit a lofty 44% growth in revenues compared to the same time in 2008. Overall, Nexon America's third quarter revenue grew 36% compared to Q3 2008.

Nexon America's CEO David Kim pointed out that this success comes without the bump that releasing a new game often brings: "Increasing our revenues without having added any new games to the company's portfolio for more than a year tells me that we are on the right track. Dungeon Fighter Online is just ramping up, so no revenues generated by that game are reflected in the outstanding third quarter we've had.

Dungeon Fighter Online is still in open beta, but an item mall has just been launched for the game. We can only imagine that Nexon's growth will continue when these revenues begin to show up on future financial reports.

Europe gets a MapleStory Oktoberfest

by Seraphina Brennan Sep 19th 2009 at 12:00PM

Filed under: At a glance, Fantasy, MapleStory, Events, in-game, Patches, News items, Free-to-play

North Americans, we've been had. MapleStory Europe is getting a crazy drunken Oktoberfest with monsters, parties, and beer.... wait a minute, non-alcoholic beer?! Oh, right, it's MapleStory...

In any case, European MapleStory players can look forward to a giant beer tent filled with "drunk" monsters (unless non-alcoholic beer sends them into a woozy state -- they are monsters after all, so who knows) and a brand new map featuring a new PvP play mode. The Ariant map, home of the Ariant Coliseum challenge, pits players against one another in capturing monsters "alive" before the other player does the same.

Lastly, one final event will have monsters dropping special boxes filled with rare items for the duration of its run in October. These boxes, however, can only be opened with keys bought from the item shop, which means you're going to have to spend a little coin to enjoy this final event.

The MapleStory European only Oktoberfest (curse you Europe, we like Oktoberfest too) will be running from now until October 7th. (*Hears the sound of the Europe crowd rejoicing at NA's lack of Oktoberfest.*)

Nexon revenues are up, largely driven by MapleStory

by James Egan Aug 23rd 2009 at 4:00PM

Filed under: Fantasy, MapleStory, MMO industry, Free-to-play, Kids

One of the most successful companies operating in the free-to-play games arena is Nexon, which reported their July revenues are up 35 percent year-on-year, according to Worlds In Motion. Much of this good fortune can be attributed to MapleStory, which set a new max concurrent user record of over 70,000 users last month. While the number of registered users in a free-to-play MMO doesn't tell the whole story, Nexon recently announced MapleStory has 92 million registered users worldwide, six million of which are in North America.

Nexon America VP of Marketing Min Kim was quoted by Worlds in Motion about the company's plans for North America. Kim said, "We're heavily investing on all fronts -- in our games, our publishing platform, aggressive marketing efforts as well as customer service. The best news for Nexon America is that our success isn't just reflected in registered users, but in actual, dramatic revenue growth."

Nexon permanently increases the rate of experience gain in MapleStory

by William Dobson Aug 4th 2009 at 9:30AM

Filed under: Fantasy, MapleStory, Game mechanics, Patches, Leveling, News items, PvE, Free-to-play

One of the downsides of an ever-expanding game is the time it takes a new player to "catch up" to the majority of the player-base. Most people are kicking it in some groovy expansion while others might be stuck on old long-abandoned content. Nexon has identified the need to speed their players through certain areas of MapleStory and has taken one of the more common routes to do so: they have announced that the game's experience curve has been boosted. Players from level 11-30 will get experience 50% faster than before. From 31-200 the bonus is decreased slightly, down to a still-significant 25%.

The temporary experience boosts that were granted for recent events were apparently received very well by MapleStory players, and this approval is what led to the permanent increase. Nexon America's VP of Marketing Min Kim helped to make the announcement: "The world of MapleStory is considerably larger than when it was first released. Accelerating the EXP rates empowers old and new users alike to better explore the MapleWorld." The new exp curve is already in effect, so what are you waiting for? Go level a Cygnus Knight!

MapleStory's Cygnus Knights are almost here

by William Dobson Jul 28th 2009 at 9:00AM

Filed under: MapleStory, Classes, Guides, Patches, Free-to-play

MapleStory will receive an update by the end of this month which will introduce a brand new set of character classes called Cygnus Knights. These knights have already been available in MapleStory Korea and MapleSEA (the South East Asian version) for a while but players of the global version of the game will soon get their turn to try them. A Cygnus Knight starts without a specialization, and after ten levels a new sub-class must be chosen; either the Dawn Warrior, Wind Archer, Blaze Wizard, Night Walker or the Thunder Breaker. Here's a fun fact: the Wind Archer was called "Wind Breaker" in the MapleSEA version. Well played, localization team.

To prepare for the launch of the patch, Nexon has put out a guide to creating Cygnus Knights, as it seems to involve just a few more steps than simply pressing the create button. We've put the guide into a gallery which can be viewed below. There's also a trailer introducing the Cygnus Knights and the various sub-classes; head past the break to check it out.

Gallery: MapleStory: Cygnus Knights Creation Guide

AT&T mobile users to get MapleStory on their phones

by Seraphina Brennan Jul 14th 2009 at 8:00PM

Filed under: At a glance, MapleStory, Mobile

Normally we'd be somewhat cynical when talking about an MMO going to a phone. World of Warcraft on an iPhone just seems complicated, while Second Life on a phone just seems unusual. But for MapleStory going to a phone, well, we just can't see much wrong with that. It just seems to make sense, with the 2-D side scrolling action being perfectly at home on a mobile device.

However, don't jump for joy just yet, it's only a version of that's making it to the MapleStoryAT&T media mall. MapleStory: Warrior is the same MapleStory gameplay, just condensed down for your phone. It's sadly not online, but it does connect to your MapleStory account to give you a brand new in-game item. So if you ever need that MapleStory fix and you're just not anywhere near a PC or internet connection, now you have options. Downside, those options are all warrior-based options.

MapleStory joins the wild world of Twitter

by Seraphina Brennan May 29th 2009 at 4:30PM

Filed under: At a glance, Fantasy, MapleStory, Culture, MMO industry, Free-to-play, Casual, Humor

Twitter needs to be classified as an addictive drug, we think. We seem to be using it, and we just can't stop ourselves anymore. We keep telling ourselves that it's just a simple RSS feed where we're limited in what we can type out to others, yet we keep going back to that internet street corner, begging for just one more tweet...

But hey, we've gotten company recently! MapleStory has created their own Twitter page as well, joining the rest of the world in answering the question "what are you doing right now?" If you're interested in the 2D MMO, just drop by their page and sign up for their tweets to stay atop of in-game news. Right now, they seem to be flaunting their recent gold farmer bannings (remind us to never get on MapleStory's badside), as well as talking to some of their fans regarding their MapleStory achievements.

Now, if you could excuse us, we feel we need to tweet again.

MapleStory announces over 92 million users worldwide, 4 year anniversary

by James Egan May 9th 2009 at 6:00PM

Filed under: MapleStory, Business models, Events, in-game, MMO industry, News items, Free-to-play, Casual

We often marvel at the sheer numbers of subscribers and users some MMOs and virtual worlds are able to reach. You can look at a title like World of Warcraft, with over 11 million subscribers and just picture a massive green tidal wave made of dollar bills sweeping over Blizzard HQ. Every month. But WoW's millions of customers, while impressive, pales in comparison with what Nexon announced this week with MapleStory: 92 million users worldwide, with 6 million users in North America alone.

Sure, comparing success stories of a subscription title with a free-to-play game is a bit like comparing apples and oranges. Each of those 92 million "Maplers" probably isn't dropping $15 each month to play, but the fact remains that many of those users are paying real money for their virtual goods. The numbers we ran for MapleStory's virtual items sales in the US, roughly one year ago, had 5.9 million US users spending USD 29.3 million on these goods.