Notice The end of 2018...

2017 version: Click here
*This is all wrote in one session, and I am sorry if it's a mess

Hello everyone to this year's year review overview. Don't expect this one to be as much as last years, since honestly I have not much to say this year. Of course I ended up lying here

When it comes to this year I can basically say it was pretty good. There were good things, and there were bad ones. Honestly however I am happy to say that it was more positive than negative.

MapleLegends, while once again more competition arrived this year, stayed high on the top, even though every year during specific periods people are very dramatic about the 'server dying'. No, the server isn't dying, and we have no plans to die anytime soon. Sorry

Like last year I want to thank every single person that stick with us, helped us, provided useful feedback, and stayed calm during 'hard' periods. It's thanks to you why we want keep provide an Old School experience, and its thanks to you why we feel happy doing this as a hobby.

Of course in the end of the day you can't agree with every single change that happens in this server, and unfortunately we cannot please every part of the user base at the same time. It's an impossible task for any server or company. However, what important is, is that we, as staff, are happy with the server ourselves. Of course we can make every single change what the 'majorly' of the user base likes, but that means that it may still not make us happy, me happy, or the different part of the user base happy. Sometimes changes just need to happen you may disagree with. What important is, is staying mature about it. The best way to do this is by making constructive feedback regarding what you don't agree with, and try put every thought you have in the mind of ours, or if you think your idea may contain possible loopholes or flaws.

The website

One thing I am very happy about this year is the evolution of our site! This was in my opinion the worst aspect of our server by far. It was basically unfinished, unchanged since 2014, and just not looking good and polished. When we were hiring for Python developers there were quickly two people that made an application. Drauds and FeroxAnima. Having those two on-board makes me really realize I should have looked for web devs way sooner. They are doing an amazing job. No, really, they are doing an amazing job. They are great to have on our staff, they are great to talk to, and they are just doing the things great we offer them to do. Both of them are amazing to work with and I am extremely happy with having them both around. Thanks for all the changes you two have made so far. It's very, very appreciated.

GunBound

One concern this year was us announcing a new side project. GunBound, a 2d mmo heavily based on worms and other games only released in korea.

When this was announced the first thing that came in people's mind was us ditching Legends for this game. Of course I was quick to debunk this, but people were still concerned.

The biggest negative feedback we got were 'The staff does nothing but play GunBound with each other now'

While I get the concerns (once again), let me provide reasons why playing other games together is good for a staff team.

As you may know when you have work IRL there's times you go out with your coworkers, hang out, having a trip, and so on.

The reason why this is done is because people are more conformable and closer together, where we have fun instead of working all day and communicating with each other only about work.

What helped with us playing GunBound (around that time) is that we had a blast playing together, which did put us a bit closer together. We were having fun playing games instead of only talking about yet another @GM that we don't understand, a character issue that is hard to resolve, or general frustration about problems. You as user may think 'they are wasting time playing GunBound when they could solve x and y' but for us it makes us much more comfortable together, which in returns make the mood in the staff much better.

GunBound is still going to happen, and we hope we can provide a service to play this old gem again in 2019. The good news is that GunBound is much easier to manage, and we have already staff members that will purely focus on GunBound once it's out (not associated with Legends), so we got all of that long covered.

Plans for MapleLegends?

When it comes to MapleLegends we have a lot of things to plan for 2019. What I personally want to do is find ways to remove our current flaws from the game. Example, reduce the chance or ways to permanently break your character. An example to this would be the Horntail necklace quest. Right now, by default, you can only do this quest one time, ever. What this means is that if you screw it up once, you may break your character for good. This is bad game design, and like other similar flaws I want to find ways to resolve it.

We are also visiting feedback we got recently regarding the scroll availability and are happy to let you know we are behind the scene brainstorming what the best way is to handle this. This takes times, and we thank you for your patience.

Besides that there's a lot of other things we hope to do this year. Example, a complete minigames point system re-write so its either using ELO ratings or even 100% GMS-like using the bms-leak as reference, revisiting all the quests so awful quests like the 1000 drummer quest that barely gives anything as reward is improved, and of course release Golden Temple. Speaking of Golden Temple, its the biggest project we have ever had. There's so much that had to be translated, and we hope you guys will enjoy the content once it's out. Major thanks to Siao and some anonymous helpers for helping with this project!

In short, we have no plans to give up, and we will keep providing an Old School experience in 2019 as well.

With that I also want give major thanks to shot Wolf Scroll and NugZeh doing great job with recent changes to the server itself. Likewise for the site changes its very, very appreciated.

I can write forever, but I think it's getting a bit long (as usual with my posts). We hope you've made a lot of friendships in 2018, meetups, or even relationships, and we hope we can help with that as well in 2019. Yes, of course MapleLegends is a game, but MapleStory by itself has an extremely strong social aspect into it, and hearing from so many people they are now together, made friends, or even meetup makes me smile. It's reasons like these why I do not have any thoughts of giving up on the server anytime soon. It's even helping me a lot as well.

We all wish you a happy new year, and we'll see you once again in 2019 as well.

You are all Legends! and amazing

~MapleLegends Staff and Administration.