This game is really shutting down? Why?

[Rambo McLonewolf]

This game isn't very old, right? I know it was made before 2018, but it only went global less than two years ago.

What happened? How is this game being declared defunct after so little time?

[Rambo McLonewolf]

Originally posted by Blue Blur:

So it released in Korea in 2015 and released here in the west in 2018. Due to pay to win mechanics and it's overall grindy gameplay, the west did not take too kindly to this and so the down spiral began.
After almost 1300 hours in this game, I am finally going to be able to move on and not log in due to guilt of missing a day. The sun sets with you Maplestory 2.

You make it sound like endless grind is a staple of Korean MMO's and what they like to play...

[MAZIN马津]

south america servers are literaly empty, tria ch.1 with a averange of 0~2 players all day
like a damn ghost town

[Chrisme]

It was a good game. Great fun while there was content to explore. The fun just ended after you had seen everything. The only longterm concept was grinding for gear which soon became obsolete again.

The whole game concept was about freedom of choice. Go fishing, do completionist stuff, grind a bit, do dungeons, etc. You could play it with family as much as with your girlfriend. There was cute stuff for everyone. Just not in the endgame.

At that point it turned into an unforgiving gear grind where people would kick you from a dungeon party because you slowed them down in their eternal quest for the next soon-to-be-discarded item. Dungeons stopped being fun, most of the new content was packed behind group activities (effectively guild stuff). There was also solo player stuff like the skyship missions. But for obvious reasons those had to be a pain in the butt and were less rewarding. After a while I was wondering why I even followed this development path. Next week a new item with a new colour would pop up. Effectively a lousy reward for a lot of wasted time. Why even get better gear when there isn't even a need for it? (other than killing world bosses slightly faster - which effectively also didn't matter because heavily invested people would kill them in a few seconds for everyone anyway)

I stopped playing a year ago and seeing how this ended I was probably not the only one who thought that wasn't much fun. There was a lot of good reasoning behind the individual updates but the general direction was just wrong.

Still, I loved the game. Sad to hear that it will soon be gone.

[Skabs]

Originally posted by Blue Blur:

So it released in Korea in 2015 and released here in the west in 2018. Due to pay to win mechanics and it's overall grindy gameplay, the west did not take too kindly to this

the magic words for people who havent an answer are usually "pay to win or grindy"

I would like to know just how this game was "pay to win"?... (ah them mounts and instruments you could buy were that op along with them devastating vanity skin items people would design)?...lord have mercy

Let's not forget that omg the west gave up on this game because of the grind? ...(we best not mention that one mmo that starts with a W...whats it going on 15 years now)? ..damn them westerners hate the grind.. woah there..

-Thank you for the lols

[Skabs]

Originally posted by Chrisme:

It was a good game. Great fun while there was content to explore. The fun just ended after you had seen everything. The only longterm concept was grinding for gear which soon became obsolete again.

The whole game concept was about freedom of choice. Go fishing, do completionist stuff, grind a bit, do dungeons, etc. You could play it with family as much as with your girlfriend. There was cute stuff for everyone. Just not in the endgame.

At that point it turned into an unforgiving gear grind where people would kick you from a dungeon party because you slowed them down in their eternal quest for the next soon-to-be-discarded item. Dungeons stopped being fun, most of the new content was packed behind group activities (effectively guild stuff). There was also solo player stuff like the skyship missions. But for obvious reasons those had to be a pain in the butt and were less rewarding. After a while I was wondering why I even followed this development path. Next week a new item with a new colour would pop up. Effectively a lousy reward for a lot of wasted time. Why even get better gear when there isn't even a need for it? (other than killing world bosses slightly faster - which effectively also didn't matter because heavily invested people would kill them in a few seconds for everyone anyway)

I stopped playing a year ago and seeing how this ended I was probably not the only one who thought that wasn't much fun. There was a lot of good reasoning behind the individual updates but the general direction was just wrong.

Still, I loved the game. Sad to hear that it will soon be gone.

..Ill deff miss the "keyboard smashed named, monorail running goldseller hunting I did in the pvp zones (really did love the classes in this game and especiallly the controller layout) ..also all the many fresh designs people would create when this game was newer =s

However I havent a single argument for your statements.. well done

[Chrisme]

I took a look at the Steam player chart for Maplestory 2.

Giant hype at first with 25 k players online at the same time (on average). At the end of the first year 4 k players remained which then declined towards 2 k (Skyship time - first bigger update). After the big update that followed the Skyship (which I didn't see anymore) some players returned and the playerbase grew towards 3 k again. A short time thereafter it somewhat sharply declined towards 1 k and below with a slow but steady downward trend. When the average online player count went below 800 they probably decided to pull the plug.
Meanwhile Tree of Savior is still at around 3 k stable now (after around 1.3 k for the longest time). Which is weird because I thought Maple had more going for it (ToS is also a nice game though).

(late edit: numbers taken from the graph, numbers listed below are much lower somehow - described development remains the same)

So, who knows. Maybe it wasn't even their development plan that made people seek something else. For me it was the last straw anyway. The player numbers at least indicate that any measures taken didn't last for long, arrived too slowly or weren't much to the liking of a larger part of the playerbase. Maybe it was also just unfortunate timing because other hot titles came out and players left for those, never to be seen again.

[kaval187]

i played it to take a break from trove then went back
was thinking about playing it again some 6 weeks left never mind
oh, well...ill miss my ocarina

[Sugar Show]

CAUSE EVERYTHING WAS ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ PAY2WIN MAH BOI, I CAN'T MAKE DECENT HOUSE WITHOUT SPENDING REAL MONEY FOR MAKE ONE.

THOSE DAMN PEOPLE ARE SO GREEDY THEY RESERVE BANKRUPT.

[kissmyghost]

Originally posted by Sugar Show:

CAUSE EVERYTHING WAS ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ PAY2WIN MAH BOI, I CAN'T MAKE DECENT HOUSE WITHOUT SPENDING REAL MONEY FOR MAKE ONE.

THOSE DAMN PEOPLE ARE SO GREEDY THEY RESERVE BANKRUPT.

that's not pay 2 win, that's pay for cosmetics, unless you win something from having a nice looking house... pay 2 win is when you have to pay to progress or succeed in a game, or have an advantage over other players, with no non-payment alternative.

[SpongeBooz]

those p2w games need to die

[Killance]

And yet Maplestory 1 is still around. Going on 15-16 years for NA.

[Wyrlish]

tl;dr
Bad devs, bad playerbase, bad gameplay loop that punished people who played

Why? Probably because the entire game was designed to be super hardcore grindy and repetitive (which the target playerbase loves) but without the options to alleviate that grind almost at all, making it feel like you were working a job in this game and missing a log-in meant you were permanently behind. and would never fully catch up.

"But... there wasn't a competition, the content was mostly pve/group oriented" I can hear you say.
Yes that is true but the problem was that the playerbase at endgame consisted mostly of elite players wanting gearscore significantly higher than the dungeon needed to complete and heaven help you if you came into an endgame dungeon with gear that was intended for that dungeon. You would be instantly kicked and put on ignore, slowly losing more and more people until finally you had to pay for runs which were extremely expensive.

This meant you spent more time grinding for stones/money to pay for the runs than actually playing at that point and the game felt like a job. Doing all this had the effect of also pushing those run sellers further and further up the progression ladder so they could keep gatekeeping the progress behind what was essentially a paywall. So the status quo really never changed.

None of this would be a problem really if the game had ways to bypass/alleviate the grind with real money. Now I don't condone this practice... but it was obvious the game was made to push you forcefully into buying boosts and safe enchants and gear and progression that when all that was removed (because the global market didn't want it), it left a game that was all grind and little reward which caused the game to constantly bleed players until its current sunset status.

[TetraSky]

This game was such a far cry from the original MapleStory, that it scared away a lot of players from even making the switch. Then there's all the pay 2 win bullcrap there games are known for.
The original nailed it with Reboot. Players don't want to grind for years. I remember in the earlier days of Maple that it took me month to reach lv 60. In Reboot it took like 2 days. Letting you experience the story at a faster pace and without a lot of p2w garbage.

Honestly, they could probably just release this game as Single Player, without all the online crap, paid crap, with faster progression and people would buy it for maybe $15 max just to experience the "story" of it.

[Zimmm]

Originally posted by Gonna Teamkill You:

Originally posted by Blue Blur:

So it released in Korea in 2015 and released here in the west in 2018. Due to pay to win mechanics and it's overall grindy gameplay, the west did not take too kindly to this and so the down spiral began.
After almost 1300 hours in this game, I am finally going to be able to move on and not log in due to guilt of missing a day. The sun sets with you Maplestory 2.

You make it sound like endless grind is a staple of Korean MMO's and what they like to play...

umm it is though, more successful ones tend have fun pvp, why they survive the biggest money maker one is still DFO or DnF they call it in korea

[Zimmm]

Originally posted by Chrisme:

It was a good game. Great fun while there was content to explore. The fun just ended after you had seen everything. The only longterm concept was grinding for gear which soon became obsolete again.

The whole game concept was about freedom of choice. Go fishing, do completionist stuff, grind a bit, do dungeons, etc. You could play it with family as much as with your girlfriend. There was cute stuff for everyone. Just not in the endgame.

At that point it turned into an unforgiving gear grind where people would kick you from a dungeon party because you slowed them down in their eternal quest for the next soon-to-be-discarded item. Dungeons stopped being fun, most of the new content was packed behind group activities (effectively guild stuff). There was also solo player stuff like the skyship missions. But for obvious reasons those had to be a pain in the butt and were less rewarding. After a while I was wondering why I even followed this development path. Next week a new item with a new colour would pop up. Effectively a lousy reward for a lot of wasted time. Why even get better gear when there isn't even a need for it? (other than killing world bosses slightly faster - which effectively also didn't matter because heavily invested people would kill them in a few seconds for everyone anyway)

I stopped playing a year ago and seeing how this ended I was probably not the only one who thought that wasn't much fun. There was a lot of good reasoning behind the individual updates but the general direction was just wrong.

Still, I loved the game. Sad to hear that it will soon be gone.

great job, this sum up my experience with the game, why i quit ages ago, this exactly how i felt, especially end game, the community was to blame as well besides the dev's who pretty much couldn't make the game fun at end game. Leveling aspect was only time i had fun.