Notice The end of 2020!

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2020 almost over already?

If I had to give my personal thoughts on 2020, it would be that it was one of the fastest years yet, for the wrong reasons.

It almost feels like yesterday that I've created this topic, which was the end of 2019, as well as the decade.

2020 was a really... really strange year. Obviously, for the real world, it was one of the worst years in a really, really long time. I won't mention the obvious for too long, but please stay strong while the pandemics are still going, and hold on tight. Take care of your loved ones, and please follow the rules given by your country. Don't do it for me or them, but yourself, your beloved ones, as well as the people around you.

MapleLegends was always created to escape from the real world, and the problems found in the real world. Therefore the remainder of this topic will not be about the current pandemics.

It has not gone by no notice that this year we had the biggest population increase yet, in a very similar way as summer of 2017.

This huge popularity increase caught us by surprise. We were in a not so comfortable period with our current dedicated server, as well as some server-side code. As we've got a massive increase in users, we've also received some load and performance quirks on our server. Fortunately, after some changes, we've successfully resolved that.

We've peaked at over 3,000 users concurrent online during the Summer of 2020. That's an insane number, especially if the previous all-time-peak was a little over 1,000.

MapleLegends is evolving more and more...

We've started doing more and more client editing. Back in the day, we made very minor hardcoded .exe changes which changed the speed of a skill, or something like NOPing 'unused' features and replacing it with something else.

Years later and now we are doing full-on edits. For example, v0.62 does not have the /alliance command, so we added it in. v0.62 also does not originally have Monster Book, so we enabled bits in the code to enable it. Higher-resolution was of course definitely not in v0.62 vanilla, but it is in ML. Dark Chat mode, quest completion showing minutes, faster screen transitions, alliances showing on user profile cards, multiple language support, 'GFX' issues fixed, etc...

We only somewhat started with client editing. We have a lot of things in the planning for 2021, which we cannot wait to release!

On top of that, we've been making more and more changes to refactor our old code, to make the game feel more authentic to the original game. By referencing binaries known in the community as the 'BMS-leak', we are able to replicate many of the game's features as they were back then. Back in 2014 when MapleLegends was in development, while references were also made already from those leaks, it was not as common yet, so a lot of things felt custom or wrong.

We completely understand MapleLegends is its own server, so there are some things we feel are not a good fit that are not implemented. Example, we know people really like summons having a buff icon, so we keep it, instead of removing it because it's 'authentic'. The same goes for a few other skills that are not meant to have a buff icon. Likewise, we know 'Dragon Roar' is meant to stun yourself but decided not to implement it due to similar reasons. Did you know in the official game you could only buy pots in 1 stack at a time? Or if you go too far away from someone in a map the person completely disappear because of field splits? Things like these are horrible additions which we rather keep out of here!

While we refactor a lot of our code, we do want to keep the unique identity of MapleLegends.

Unique events every year

We always try each year to bring new and unique events into the game. The downside compared to constantly releasing the very same events every year is that our schedule could go behind since we need to code new content and features each time. We said that this year we would rehash some events to go back to schedule, but we just can't do that. We feel we need to put effort into our events, since just rehashing the same already coded events over and over just feel really lazy to us. Each thing has its up and downs, and sometimes our events going off-schedule is the exchange to give something new to our current and old users. We hope that also this year you had a lot of fun participating in our events, as much we had fun making them.

No cheaters/hackers

While we evolved a lot with things people see in-game, we also evolved a lot with things people can't see. We are proud to display on GTOP for a few months now 'No hackers', and we mean it. We will try our hardest to keep an economy that is not run by hackers. That way, we are not forced to add bandaid meso sinks in the server due to the said hackers, affecting every person playing legit, while not solving the core problem of hackers inflating the economy.

We are not even done yet when it comes to making sure MapleLegends remains a clean server, and still implement things over time. We do not promise month after month to improve our anti-cheat in fancy blog posts or hopeless 'Soon™' posts; we just do it.

This way we are making sure YOU are extra comfortable your effort and progress in-game is like everyone else's when playing MapleLegends.

Not only one of the biggest but also the best community

When MapleLegends was in development in 2014 there were quite a few aims I had in particular. Back then there was one dominant v0.62 server. A big discourage I've had from joining that server as a player back in 2014 was the state of the community. People reported each other (reports were public back then there), people ban-baited each other, and basically, people did their very best to be as nasty as they can be to others, creating a very negative vibe, as well as a chain reaction of people reporting each other constantly. For me, it was very discouraging and unhealthy, and the community was one of the most important aspects for me.

This is why with MapleLegends, we introduced a lot of rules and features that were not done in servers back then, and honestly are still not done. Example rules are the absolute disallowance of public callouts on people (witch-hunting), no such thing as community blocklists which is essentially a 'hate list' created by the community, we have a rule in the Terms of Service that protect people's privacy outside the game, which includes public social media pages and doxing (see rule 3.7), no summoning sacks (besides past events), as well as options to disable defaming (@fame in-game).

All of these things were done with the goal of keeping the community closer. Summoning sacks were only used to kill people, defaming was only used to 'downvote' people which are usually followed by mass defames. Instead, we strongly suggest people report offenders. We do take care of scammers and do not ignore them by leaving them scamming people over and over, which then causes an unhealthy 'blocklist' to be made by the community instead.

We've been protective against our members since the beginning, and that isn't going to stop in 2021. We want to make sure you feel comfortable playing MapleLegends, and every member is as important to us.

If you feel any user is violating a game rule then report it to us and we'll take care of it. Don't put the matter in your own hands, to prevent you from getting in a problem bigger than it needed to be.

MapleLegends couldn't be as friendly and tight as it is without your help, so thank you. Together we'll make it even better in 2021.

We work as a team, and make decisions as a team.

We make internally all changes and discussions in a team. We discuss as a team and bring up any side of the argument when we discuss changes.

All of us understand we all think differently. Some may argue that if different people in staff share different opinions it's bad. No, it's not bad at all! The benefit of having multiple staff thinking differently is that you have each member looking at things from a different angle and counter-argument why something could be a bad idea. Either in the short run, the long run, or because there are exploits/loopholes in the idea.

When you have everyone thinking the very same way you will just have people echoing each other and thinking all the ideas are the greatest and the best for the server. This is not good for the longevity of the server, as well as the relationship with your community if they disagree with the decision you all agreed on. With many eyes looking at things differently, you can implement something as smooth as possible, which we try to improve at Maplelegends every year.

The Balance Team, as well as the current staff team, does a really nice job at trying to pin-point each thing that gets bought up, and as a leader, you should be open-minded and listening to the feedback of your staff members. You are just a human like the rest of the team, and your opinion can be as flawed as everyone else's.

In end, however, we still have a chance to have a flaw in a balance change or different changes. As always we are very open ear to listen to the community as well after changes if done constructive, and then we discuss even further if any points bought up are valid points. This year we've reverted some changes we've made. We care about your opinion as much we care about our own, and together we want the best for MapleLegends.

We really, really are a team.

We support each other through hard times. We communicate together when one staff member feels a bit down due to personal reasons, which then we tell that person to take a short break however long they need, so they can recover. I've had my period this year too where I needed a break for about 3 months because I was facing a nasty burnout. The staff completely supported each other during this period, which made it very easy for me to recover and get back on the action later on, instead of forcing myself to work more and more with the chance to have a permanent burnout instead of a temporary burnout. I openly told the staff I'll be playing different games to recover, while still doing emergency tasks when need.

We are there for each other because this is a hobby and not a job. We love the game, but at the same time, we do it during our free time. We do not FORCE ourselves to help, because it will cause burnout. We are honest towards each other when we need a break, to prevent ourselves from suddenly having a burnout.

Of course, I was not perfect either. I am still not perfect, I can't be perfect, since I am a human, and I make mistakes too. I try my best, but being perfect is impossible. What's important is that you understand your mistakes, and learn from them, and not being stubborn about them. If you acknowledge that you made a mistake, or understand in yourself that you did make a mistake, you can improve yourself, and do better the next time. If you do not acknowledge your mistakes and think that everything you do or did is right, even after receiving criticism, you will never improve and keep making those mistakes. On top of that, if you do repeatedly make such mistakes, people will slowly lose trust in your way of management. Again, I've been guilty of mistakes too, and there are definitely people around that really do not like the way I manage or have managed MapleLegends. I am sorry to those that I have disappointed either at the present day, or in the past, and hopefully, I can improve myself further as well in 2021.

At the end of the day our staff, as well as myself, does this in their spare time because they love this game. A game, that unfortunately cannot be offered anymore the way it used to be. A game, we all grew up with and played. A game, we would deeply miss if it was ever fully gone. A game, we try our hardest to preserve, for free, for you.

The plans for MapleLegends not in order of priority

Quality of life

Something you may have noticed the past client teases are Quality of Life (QOL) changes. When playing Old School MapleStory, a lot won't deny that the game sometimes feels a huge chore to play. One example is screen transitions that are much slower compared to modern MapleStory these days, as well as some other changes that we may implement in the future as well. For example, the modern way of showing skill buff timers in the top right corner like in the current MapleStory.

In 2021 we will also focus on more Quality of Life changes, as well as overhauling maps so they feel smoother to play, such as the Deep Ludibrium patch this Christmas, and the current Work in Progress Temple of Time overhaul. On top of that, I am overhauling some other maps as well, with the goal of making much more areas a nice place to grind, or overall smoother to navigate.

New ways to gain HP

Much requested in 2020 was new ways to get HP. This shot up further as we released Pink Bean into the game. The truth is that we had things planned for this year, but as a tradition, we try to do it as nicely and polished as possible.

Unfortunately, with so much going on, the plannings for different ways to get HP was tossed into the backburner, and plans for it was halted for a while.

Naturally, we could just add the quest ring which everyone wants, and call it a day. However, we wanted to do something else. We are not sure yet what we will conclude with, but we are definitely aware of the high demands for more ways to get HP, as well as the requests for a quest ring.

We hope the pendant that was released for this Christmas was a nice addition though!

More map availability

Users usually prefer to train at the most meta map at all times. Of course, not everyone handles it this way, but a lot does.

Having to wait for your map adds to the chore of gameplay. Technically speaking, just grinding at a worse map is better than waiting and not gaining any EXP at all. Unfortunately, not everyone works that way.

As we did this year, we try in 2021 as well providing more options for people to grind at, as well as improving the available dungeons, such as the Skelegon dungeon in November.

Having map availability and places to grind at hopefully improves the overall experience of playing the server, instead of waiting for a meta map to free up.

Constantly adding more channels is not the solution to us, which I am aware of a lot asked for as well.

We hope we are able to provide more map options in 2021, so when one map is full, people still got options to other maps as well.

More love towards Party Quests

Party Quests are something we feel we haven't really touched upon this year, even though they are an important part of people's childhood. We've had some ideas to improve Party Quests and the reason to do them, but never came to a conclusion on any of them.

We are totally aware people love to Party Quest, and that some Party Quests are extremely underwhelming or are at an awkward level range. We hope to be able to improve the Party Quest availability for 2021, either by improving the rewards or by altering the level range of some Party Quests. Nothing is set in stone, but we are very aware of the demand right now to improve the very underused ones.

Improved transparency

This is something we've been doing already recently, which is trying to be as transparent as we can be. No, this does not, in particular, mean immediately that we disclose how everything works behind the scene. It also doesn't mean we immediately let you know every single balance change we are going to make. While we love to, it's impossible to please everyone with our balance changes, and regardless of discussions, a group of people will end up being upset, and having 2000+ people discuss upcoming balance changes will be nothing but chaotic, and very confusing to follow.

Of course, some major things such as drop rates or formulas are still not disclosed, and we may even get told 'poor transparency' due to that particular reason alone. All I can really say is that there are really reasons why we are not doing it.

Besides that though, we are really trying to open up more towards the community, and we cannot wait to prove that further into 2021.

For example, have you noticed lately how during maintenance I try to give as many updates as I can be in #server-status on Discord? I am doing that with the goal of not leaving you behind in the dark and so you know much better from the outside how maintenance like that works.

... and many more!

Of course, these do not contain all the changes. We have still so many things on our to-do, but so little time.

As with every year, MapleLegends will push the server forward, and even inspiring other servers to do similar changes after we have done them. However, of course, we get inspired by others too at times. That's how we all improve each other and giving everyone a better experience playing this wonderful game.

Climbing to the top of the mountain...

We are slowly climbing to the top of the mountain. This year we became one, and sometimes even the biggest server available at the time.

From hundreds of players to thousands of players enjoying the server at the same time, whacking these snails and mushrooms, as well as partying and making friends.

MapleLegends was in 2016 seen as an empty server. Many people teased us, and even at other servers declared us as dead. Some of our own users were slowly giving up as well.

Giving up was not the option, especially after deep support still from the remaining users, so we pushed through. 4 years later, and we became one of the strongest server available.

We definitely changed a lot compared to back then, and I still believe it was required if we wanted to stay ahead of the rest. Looking now at servers, there's not a single one anymore that brutally stays vanilla. If they do, they usually do not stay populated, because people figured out how broken this game is in its vanilla form. MapleStory is, unfortunately, a flawed game, so all we can do is do our best to make it better. We try our best, but we can't do it flawlessly either.

Help us reach the top of the mountain

Have you ever wondered how YOU, the user can help us gain exposure? The thing about advertising and promoting is that it's the strongest if it's done by community members. With community members, users have more trust that it's genuine, where if it's an ad by the administration it's less likely people come.

Most of our exposure is thanks to community members, streamers, or users bringing up the server on social media such as Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, etc. It's thanks to YOU part of the player base has happened, and we can't thank you enough for recommending MapleLegends as the server of choice to friends, family, social media platforms, (gaming) forums, and more. Even just pressing the 'like' button on our main website for Facebook helps us. Thank you!

A reminder though that advertising on other MapleStory servers directly is discouraged. Please don't do it!

Help us making new users feel home

When a user is new to a server, the first impressions come at the beginning of their journey. We've had people joining a server, or coming from a different server, and ask a bunch of questions. Help us make the user feel welcome by being nice towards the person, and answering the questions when need. If the user mentions them came from x, don't bash that server, but instead answer what makes us different. We want the new user to feel home, not in fear because they are criticised for having played in server x. This way, a new user has a better impression of the community, which may lead to another user that ends up playing here!

We all started somewhere, and we all were new at the game at some point. Yes, we still have users joining still that are COMPLETELY new to MapleStory, so they may ask very beginner kind of questions. We've been hearing a lot of users that are feeling welcome lately, and we can't thank you enough for being kind towards our new, and of course also current users. That too, help us grow even more.

Thank you for playing and supporting Maplelegends through 2020!

We have one of the wildest rides this year, in a very positive way. The community stays one of the tightest I have ever seen in a server. Users like to help each other, make friends, run charities, and more.

It's clear that users here are for each other, and not for themselves only. Guilds are big families. Accomplishments such as killing Pink Bean are done and celebrated together, instead of only within the group.

We aren't just one big server. We are one big family. A family that we as staff, as well as myself, are very proud of.

Of course, I can't end this topic without giving a huge thank you to all the current and past staff of MapleLegends. Each, and I mean EACH of them helped shape up MapleLegends up further, as they do every year. Without them, we would not be able to handle the extra load we've received from the population increase this year.

If you have any enjoyment out of MapleLegends, please don't just thank me, but also our staff team. Not just here, but at all times. They are the ones putting countless hours into the game, the server, as well as making sure everyone has an enjoyable time here at MapleLegends. I would really appreciate if you thank them as well, so they feel they are appreciated as much I appreciate them for their work.

Lastly, a huge thank you also from all the external help I've received. I have not written down who helped me. To prevent forgetting someone, I just want to give a global thank you for those that helped me, or one of our developers. Your help is deeply appreciated and never forgotten!

Thank you for everything and let's hope the best for 2021.

You are all Legends!

- MapleLegends Administration
Unscheduled Staff Christmas Tree pic: Click