MapleStory 2
Role
Producer
About
MapleStory 2 is a free-to-play massively multiplayer online role-playing game or MMORPG. The global version that I was in charge was released on October 2018. The game takes many of the features of the original game, MapleStory, and applies them to a 3D voxel-based environment. Most mobs, NPCs, and locations make a return in this sequal, although with several changes.
As a Producer
From its first beta in May of 2018 through its launch on October 2018 and up until its major expansion update in May 2019, I led a cross-functional game production team as a producer from launch to live game operations for MapleStory 2.
Leading up to Launch
Before launch, I led the discussion with the development team to tweak/remove mechanics designed for Asian players to make the game palatable to western audiences. This included evaluating the game’s monetization interactions as a whole and redesign progression to work without it all the while reusing existing systems or UI.
This was only possible because the lead designer: Miyoung Lee and the director Minsuk Shin from the development team trusted us and worked with us to aim for a chance of success in western market. This led to drastic cuts of pay-2-win elements / removed unnecessary random elements / made user generated system related costs free.
As a result, we’ve reached new heights with MapleStory2 at its official launch on October 2018. The game went on to score X on metacritic as well as “mostly liked” on Steam reviews.
Hardship that ensued
As the year went on though, it became clear that the game was bleeding players too fast, quickly falling into unsustainable levels. In summary, the learnings of 2018 were below.
Continuing the Updates wouldn’t save the game: All the pre-planned updates we’ve scheduled and executed for the year of 2018 did little to stop the leaks and the game was losing interest fast.
The remaining playerbase we had in our hands were RPG enthusiasts: These players weren’t shy to call out the RPG core issues that MapleStory 2 was suffering.
Our roadmap and content reveal before the update often were criticized for oversight: While the roadmap and content were carefully planned and executed to the best of our abilities, some of the concerns our hardcore audience voiced after seeing our plan were good points that we agreed but rarely had the chance to react as these types of news were released right before the updates.
It was clear we had to do something.
Project New Leaf
Project New Leaf was ultimately the answer to the hardship we experienced. It was a player feedback initiative that I spearheaded during the first two quarters of 2019 to rekindle the flames of MapleStory2. Nexon America and Nexon Korea worked as a team and chose to stop monthly update cycles and listen to our players intently to define our next moves.
During this time, we’ve created a brand new website designated for this initiative and used it as our portal for conversation with players. We started by providing the general layout of the update plan, monthly cadence of fixes lumped by topics we discuss a month prior.
Under this initiative, I personally wrote and shared blogs weekly with the detailed info of the fixes that were included in the upcoming month’s update. These fixes were all carefully selected after many hours of discussions and persuasion with the development team. What was unique was that once these were released, we would open the thread up for more discussion and gather that feedback. If there were things we can improve based on what players have said, we did them and updated new blogs. If we couldn’t do it that month, we promised it for next time and followed through. If we couldn’t do it, we explained it up front and was clear why. Through this project, we were able to introduce lots of meaningful changes that players contributed and instilled trust with the playerbase.
Project New Leaf Webpage
At the end of Project New Leaf, this was the list of changes we were able to make it into the game in 3-4 months time.
Removed Fairfight mechanic and reduced World Boss HP by ~60% that reduces unnecessarily prolonged grind time.
Allowed top-tier gear trading to those who play the game more by creating and rewarding an item called “Trader’s Ribbons”
Improved overall UI and UX by adding new inventory category to reduce clutter, tweak the gear related notifications to contextually appear only when it’s important, and added buttons that simplified most common user actions on quest window.
Enforced stricter policy to root out botting farmers and make it fair for the rest of the players
Added the soft currency market to improve the fluidity of the market and increased drop rate of Epic pets to provide additional means of growth
Greatly reduced the soft currency cost for changing attributes and fusing fragments
Removed random failure chances on side growth content like Accessory Sockets and Gemstones and significantly reduced grind time to avoid repetition burnout
Reworked the enchanting system from ground up to provide viable upgrade methods for both the “I take chances” players and “play it safe” players.
Awakening Update and beyond
I wish I could end my tale of MapleStory2 at Project New Leaf. Unfortunately, the story doesn’t end there.
After Project New Leaf’s success in regaining trust from players, we tried to ignite the excitement beyond the core audience with a truly massive update; Awakening update.
The early numbers after the update were showing some positive signs. But the familiar bleeding pattern soon followed. Project New Leaf might have been successful at addressing existing player’s concern but it wasn’t able to change the fundamental core of the game. MapleStory 2 was a dungeon RPG that asked players to grind for a chance to get better gears and repeat. Players who came to MapleStory 2 expecting a cute, casual, yet diverse experience based on its looks and promises were disappointed when the game started forcing repeated dungeon runs in order to unlock progression. With this issue still present, it was becoming clear that the game will not be able to grow bigger than its current size.
With new projects coming down the horizon, I was taken off from MapleStory 2 after Awakening update. The game lasted another year with the continuation of player feedback loops that started with Project New Leaf and more content drops. The game service was ultimately discontinued in May 2020.
Final Thoughts
Death of a game is not anything new to the industry. But whenever I see anything related to MapleStory 2, I can’t help but think there might have been more I could have done on the project. couldn’t help but feel my heart sink and I couldn’t easily explain why. It might be because I’ve met some great people working on the project in shape of coworkers, teammates, and in-game friends. Or maybe because I saw and believed in the game’s full potential. Regardless of why, there’s no denying MapleStory 2 as a project has taught me so much and I will never forget it.