Pay-To-Win Design: Has MapleStory 2 Been Beyond Cure Already?
Many Maplers might have considered themselves stuck in the middle of a swamp that Nexon had inflicted on MapleStory 2. Instead of figuring a way out, the company seemingly tried to drag anyone else down. This Swamp, which makes a halt to any further movements and put anyone in it with a slow painful drowning, greatly features a variety of deadly snares and one of them must be the Pay-to-Win mechanism(P2W for short). P2W is commonplace in the game industry by now, with plenty of video games, outdated or popular, sooner or later, implanted in. This design, just as its name suggests, is a system that only favors of the customers who have been paid real-world money for the games' contents and help them succeed in any competition with more powerful and superior props. Undoubtedly, this P2W design is unfair and lop-sided for the majority of other players who have no intention to purchase any in-game contents or a big part of it. The only foreseeable consequence of this design occurrence is draining all the core audiences and users of any game with it and make it obsolete sooner or later. GMS2, the global version of MapleStory 2, has been lately accused of indications of slipping into a pattern of P2W design, with tons of Meso sellers defying Game ToS, flinging into Worth-Million-Dollar Real-Money Trade and Nexon itself beating a path to make a fortune out of MapleStory 2 fandoms. But what if I told you that KMS2, the South Korea version of MapleStory 2 and the oldest version as well, which have launched in Korea region for over 3 years and have the whopping big-scale P2W mechanism within it that makes the GMS2 one look like a toddler? Crazy, no, not at all.
As sensational as the story tells, G2W design now is rooted in the deep-down of KMS2 and goes all-pervasive with any activities you could ever imagine and have possibly done before. For example, costumes in KMS2 are socketable with special types of gemstones called Lumistones. It is theoretically possible to F2P them but you would have to have been hardcore grinding basically since day 1 for 2~3 years to be caught up. Otherwise, it costs about $200 for a time-limited package for a nearly full T3 set for your class. If you didn't get the package during the time it was available, you had to get them from RNG loot boxes instead which typically runs ~$1,000-$2,000 for a full set of T3~T4 Lumistones. Worth noting that P2W only goes up to T4, after that you have to grind it out.
What's more, in KMS2 you get 4 raid entries per week normally but can buy another 8 per week, allowing P2W players to gain three times as much loot as F2P ones. This costs about $72 per week to max out all the raids.
It was told that there's a purchasable butterfly insignia which gives 3% Piercing and 3% Boss Damage. Costs $50. There is no other way to get it in the game. Even Chaos Onyx Crystal, and Onyx Crystal, which are all absolute as a reward of dismantling equipment in GMS2, turn out to be sold in packages in the cash shop of KMS2 (500 chaos/100k regular respectively).
It is clearly not the whole picture we should condemn about. Actually, P2W, for some of the exceptional titles, is not so wicked and unacceptable as it sounds. The strong argument to clarify the fact would occur to us is MapleStory, the first and most popular installment of MapleStory franchise, released in 2001, and won the worldwide recognition and over 100 million player base back in the 2000s. Now, MapleStory is still NO.1 MMO in the list of TOP 100 Most-Played Game in KR PC cafes, and most importantly, it features 100% P2W!
Sadly to point out, but MapleStory 2 didn't make the list at all. (not even in TOP 100)
So might as well bring up a bold assumption to this case: Unlike MapleStory, the predecessor, MapleStory 2 has been evolving yet with some severe birth defects deep within, which are the primary factors that are suppressing transformation from good contents into a great success and amplifying antipathy and boycott that derived from players towards bad contents, i.e., P2W design.
If you are not satisfied enough with the amount of currencies you have been rewarded with from dungeons, quests, Markets, Vendors in MapleStory 2, including Mesos, Merets, Onyx Crystals, Treva, Rue, Havi Fruit, Blue/Red Stars etc, there is a special place for you to pay a visit and benefit from - MMOAH. It has been dedicated to the MS 2 Mesos' transactions for months since the game had been released. And Prove himself as one of the best sellers in the industry when it comes to the cheapest and most secured MapleStory 2 Mesos, Onyx Crystals and corelative items, plus power leveling. Not only did appeal to the products thousands of players placing their orders on the website, but got intrigued more of them its service and delivery lines and won against other companies.
