Maple Story

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MapleStory (Korean: 메이플 스토리) is a free, 2D, side-scrolling MMORPG developed by the Korean company Wizet. Several versions of the game are available for specific countries or regions, and each is published by various companies such as Nexon (NexonKorea, NexonChina, and NexonJapan), NXGames, Shanda, AsiaSoft, and Gamania. Although gameplay is free, many player appearances and gameplay enhancements can be purchased from the "Cash Shop" with actual currency. MapleStory has a combined total of over 47 million players in all of its versions. MapleStory Global, for players mainly outside of East Asia and Southeast Asia, has over one million players.

In the game, players defend the "Maple World" from monsters and develop their character's skills and abilities, as in a typical role-playing game. Players can interact with others in many ways, such as through chatting, trading, and playing minigames. Groups of players can ally together in "parties" to hunt monsters and share the rewards, or they can band together under a common name in a guild.

MapleStory DS is the tenative title of the Nintendo DS version of the game, which is currently under development. The Korean release date is set for late 2006 or early 2007.

New players are sent to Maple Island, a floating island specifically designed to be beginner-friendly. Unlike many other MMORPGs, players in MapleStory can not choose a character class or job when they create the character. Rather, every character starts with the job Beginner until they meet the requirements to complete the first job advancement.

When a player creates a new character, he or she is able to spread 25 ability points amongst four different statistics: STR, DEX, INT, and LUK (Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, and Luck, respectively). Players can not manually choose where these points will be placed, as the distribution is randomly generated by a dice roll, to which an infinite number of rolls are possible. The minimum possible point level scored when the dice is rolled in a statistic is four and the maximum is thirteen. The player can also choose, between a limited variety, the character's face, hair style, hair color and skin color. These can be modified only through the purchase of special coupons from the Cash Shop.

Leveling up Characters begin the game at level 1. To increase in level, the character must kill monsters or complete quests to gain experience (EXP). MapleStory has a progressively, near-exponentially difficult leveling program.[6] During the earlier levels, only a few minutes or hours of gameplay are required to level up. The higher a character's level becomes, the more experience points one needs to level up. This makes it so that the higher a character's level gets, the more time is required to gain one level. When a character is level 70 or higher, it may take days or weeks to level up one time. At each level up, a player receives five ability points (AP) to be distributed among the stats of HP (health points), MP (mana points), STR, DEX, INT, and LUK at their own will. After undergoing any job advancement, the character gains one SP (skill point) and three SP per level after the first advancement; SP that are remaining prior to another job advancement are invalid after such advancement, sans the newly-acquired SP. Each SP can be used on various class-specific skills.

Players can kill monsters alone, or they can form a party with up to 6 other characters. Each party has a leader who initially creates the party and then invites others to the party. While killing monsters, money and EXP are shared based on damage dealt to the monster as well as each character's relative level. The EXP and money gained is only shared if the party members are in the same map. The higher the character's level in relation to other party members and the more damage done will increase the EXP received. When a player forms a party with other players, and then lets the other players fight and get free EXP and loot, without any effort, it is called "leeching". Leeching is generally considered rude, unless with permission from other members of the party.

When a player logs on, they can see how their character is ranked among others in the same world and among the other players at the same class as their character; it will also display the character's changes in ranking from the previous day. All characters in the game are ranked based on how much EXP they have gained or, equivalently, their level and percentage.

Both the MapleStory Korea and MapleStory Global websites have ranking systems that allows anyone to view character rankings. Rankings may be viewed in four ways: overall, world, class, and fame. This adds a new level of depth to MapleStory as it allows players to compete for higher rankings between friends.

Abilities There are four types of abilities, to which one or more type holds more significance over others, depending on character class. General effects of each stat do not depend on a character's class; however, damage will vary based on job, level, and the equipped weapon. Most classes have one main stat which they raise to increase their damage output, as well as one minor stat which is raised to meet the requirements to equip weapons and armor and/or increase the specialties that come with some of the abilities. These are raised using Ability Points. Characters do not have to follow these general beliefs and may choose to raise other items at their will. For example, while warriors generally raise their STR and DEX, some may put more emphasis on their HP over the increased damage from STR and better accuracy and item-handling from DEX increases. As the player can build their character to their liking, there is no such thing as a "perfect character."

Strength (STR) increases the maximum power of melee attacks. It increases the maximum damage for warriors. Warriors need at least 35 AP in STR to make their first job advancement. Dexterity (DEX) increases the accuracy, avoidability and minimum damage of all attacks, except magic. It increases the maximum damage for bowmen. Bowmen and thieves need at least 25 AP in DEX to make their first job advancement. Intelligence (INT) increases magic attack and magic defense. INT affects a magician greatly as their damage and accuracy is based on it, although INT isn't too useful for other classes. It also determines the amount of maximum MP increase upon leveling. Magicians need at least 20 AP in INT to make their first job advancement. Luck (LUK) increases the avoidability of all characters, and decreases EXP loss when a character dies. It increases the maximum damage for thieves when using throwing stars and daggers that depend on LUK for attack. Some players believe that LUK increases the drop rate of items, however, this is not true.

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