Michael LumConfetti cannons, item giveaways and a large Orange Mushroom marked the official launch of the expansion of Singapore’s most popular MMORPG.
Licence2Play may have been the name of the 3-day consumer electronics and games event held at the Suntec City convention hall, but it was really the Asiasoft GameFest 2009 (ASGF) that stole the whole show.
One bystander, who declined to be named, even commented that the Licence2Play convention was really Asiasoft’s event, seeing as how they commanded the attention of most of the visiting crowd.
Indeed, when we arrived at the convention hall where the Licence2Play event was being held, Asiasoft’s booth was packed to the brim with gamers and fans eagerly awaiting their chance to redeem in-game items or to preview some of the upcoming Asiasoft games.
Among the list of games featured in the ASGF 2009 was MapleStory Episode 2, an expansion to the 4-year-old MapleStory, which is (still) the world’s most popular 2D side-scrolling casual MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game).
Needless to say, the PCs running MapleStory saw the highest level of activity from visitors eager to have a go at some virtual monsters.
While the game is free-to-play and will remain so, as confirmed by Asiasoft, players can opt to give their in-game avatars more individuality and personality by purchasing various virtual add-ons.
In fact, given the amount of attention that MapleStory gathered during the 3-day event, the ASGF 2009 might well have been renamed as the MapleStory GameFest 2009.
While other Asiasoft-published games received substantial publicity as well, they paled in comparison to the sheer amount of attention that the world’s post popular 2D side-scrolling MMORPG was getting, especially with events like ‘Free the Newbie’, ’10x Exp’, a charity auction and redemption of limited edition in-game items, which were major crowd pullers.
So what’s so special about MapleStory?
11-year-old Ryan Lew, the winner of the ‘Free the Newbie’ competition, thinks that MapleStory‘s ‘fun’ factor is vital in its popularity.
“My sister introduced the game to me a year ago, and it was really fun,” he said to UrbanWire on how he started playing MapleStory after winning the competition.
He plays a level 51 Bandit, a character which specialises in swift dagger attacks, and is the second-job advancement for the Rogue.
16-year-old Xavier Chan , who has been playing the game for 4 years, agrees. “There’re always new things added to MapleStory, so it’s never boring,” he said.
“It’s also an interactive game; you can play and join up with others,” he explained.
However, fun as it may be, most gamers will remember a recent outroar over an outbreak of hacking cases where many accounts were compromised, resulting in gamers losing their hard-earned equipment like weapons, loots and mesos, which is MapleStory‘s in-game currency.
Most of the affected accounts were home to high-level characters.
A spokesperson for Asiasoft confirmed the hacking cases, saying that the issue has been acknowledged and that the company was taking steps to ensure the safety and security of the gamer’s accounts.
“We’re working very closely with developers and experts, and on our side, we have taken steps to enhance our servers’ security,” he said. “But on the user side, we also hope that gamers don’t download any 3rd-party software that could put their security at risk.”
It was throwback to the spate of cheating cases in the past, where some players resorted to downloading cheat-engines and hacks in an attempt to work around the game’s mechanics and score more advantages for their characters, like higher experience and drop rates, as the rewards then were perceived by some to be inadequate.
However, he believed that in spite of the hacking controversy, there was much to look forward to in MapleStory Episode 2 that would appeal to both new and existing players.
Examples of features included new interfaces, maps, boss monsters, mobs, and a ‘family system’, where experienced and high-level players assist and help out junior and newbies, a system which is supposedly intended to create more social interaction between players.
Giant boars and oversized beetles have NOTHING on the brave gun-totting Viper (bottom)
or power-charged InFighter (above)
While its effectiveness remains to be seen, considering how KS-ing or kill-stealing still runs rampant in MapleStory, it does add credence to the game’s ‘social’ factor which many fans have spoken about.
But perhaps the defining factor of MapleStory’s success among both hardcore and casual gamers of either gender has to be the irresistibly cute and adorable characters that players control.
14-year-old Janice Lim was not afraid to admit that it was the drawing style of MapleStory’s graphics which attracted her to the game.
“The artwork is so adorable,” she cooed while showing off the MapleStory poster she managed to snag at the official launch when the development team tossed them off the stage for members of the audience to grab.
And we are inclined to believe her on the cuteness factor, especially after how our reporter was so mesmerized by the adorable anime-style graphics that he had to be coaxed away from his comfortable spot in front on the TV which was endlessly looping the animated trailer for the 5th job advancement, due to be released sometime in June this year.
But then again, we can’t really blame him for having that soft spot for virtual cuteness, because in truth, we too were somewhat taken in by the irresistible official artwork.
Cuteness…overload…must…buy…MapleStory…Prepaid cards!!
Perhaps Asiasoft should suggest to Nexon, the developer of MapleStory, to rename the game into ‘CutieStory’, because we know we’ll definitely play THAT game.
If not, ‘MapleStory’ is still perfectly fine.