Notice [Game preservation] Looking for old MapleStory installations

Hello Legends and Lurkers!

Those around on MMO development forums such as RaGEZONE are probably aware I am holding for quite a long time now a big archive for both MapleStory as well as GunBound client and installations.

They were gathered by the community for the community and have the purpose to preserve as much history as possible from MapleStory.

Why is preservation important?

MapleLegends as an example runs on the base MapleStory v0.62 client. This is possible because the installation of v0.62 was preserved and kept. Since the official servers are now obviously on a way later version, the availability of the old versions is officially destroyed.

That means if it wasn't for someone keeping the installation, running on the v0.62 base version would be impossible.

Another example is if let's say v0.62 has exclusive assets in the version, which then in v0.64 or later were removed, the assets are gone forever.

A good example is the early Maple Island. In early versions, Maple Island was much bigger but also harder to navigate.

If it wasn't for some old installations being preserved, those different Maple Island versions would be lost media for good.

Examples of old setups being found...

A good example is a story that happened yesterday, as well as cases in past. The old user used to burn their installation on a CD because downloading back in the day cost a lot of time. A cd would help install the game quickly to friends.

Thanks to the above GMS version v0.07 was found yesterday, and other versions were found this way in past. It's NOT about the CD, it's about the contents. The installer was authentic, thus a genuine lost version was found this way.

Asking for help from the MapleLegends community for the first time

MapleLegends is a big community, and a lot of users played in the old days from regions all over the world.

My request would be if there's anyone out there that still got promo CDs, old hard disks, old burned CDs, USBs, or anything still from back in the day. An already installed MapleStory with all files still intact is STILL GOOD as well, but DO NOT open anything if you have such thing, since the game may try to patch the game, and the files are lost.

It's extremely easy for me to verify versions, so immediately as soon you provide me anything you've got left I can verify from which version it is, as well as which region.

I am looking for all regions (MapleSEA, MapleEurope, etc) and all versions (but focused on pre-big bang).

Do you have anything or need a version check on something you still got?

Please let me know and I'll look into it.

Here's a list (but not a full list since it is pending an update) of everything preserved so far:
https://forum.ragezone.com/f425/maplestory-client-localhost-archive-1101897/

Please do not link me to anything on the internet because we've already gone through everything so many times unless you are really sure this is something new. This is focused on things our community may still get on CD or installed.

Thanks!

 

You can always check, but since iTCG came in v0.5x range and we have every single client starting v0.37 GMS it's probably a version we already have. Always curious though!

 

Thanks for contacting me! I can confirm as I told you in Private Messages that the CD thus far was version 8 MapleSEA which is not a version we had yet. Thanks to ManualPatchers that I already had (I guess I forgot to explain about manual patchers and how they too are extremely useful) I have managed to also obtain version 9, version 10, version 11, and version 12 of MapleSEA.

That's 5 new versions of MapleSEA on the first day this post was live. Thank you very much for your contribution!

 

MSEA version v25 and v31 have been successfully preserved (newly) as well, from an official CD distributed by AsiaSoft. v31 is from a manual patcher I still had.

 

Bumping this because why not