The North American Kart Rider version has been down for about 4 months.

On July 22nd, 2008, there was an update made on OdinMS.de. There was no author indicated but he or she explained a bit further into what is going on with the case.

As you probably noticed the OdinMS blog has been down since July 21st 2008. The reason for this is that all our computers, including servers, have been confiscated by the public prosecutor’s office of Saarbrücken.

Please understand that on our lawyers’ advice we can’t go into too much detail here. We will try to keep you informed about the proceedings as much as possible.

Since the lawsuits ahead of us will cause us a lot of financial trouble we decided to accept donations. Please note that like always you won’t get any compensation for your donations. They will be used to cover the expenses of traveling, consultations with lawyers and similar. They won’t be used to pay any fines or the like.

If you decide to donate you can do so below. After choosing the currency you will be redirected to PayPal and prompted for your desired amount.

The OdinMS staff/creators are accepting donations. I for one can agree that we all feel for them in this trying time. No one deserves to be sued almost over half a million dollars, not for a Private Server for a game called MapleStory. Lets hope everything goes well.

Many maplers waited eagerly last night into the morning for the slightest chance that the next server, Yellonde, would be released to MapleGlobal. Sadly, they awoke in the middle of the night only to see that nothing of use had been added.

Dylan, a longtime mapler has been eagerly awaiting the release of Yellonde. We spoke to him last night shortly before the server check.

“Yeah, it’s really late here. I had better go to bed for 3 hours. I’m going to get up when the server check ends to see if Yellonde is out. I’m crossing my fingers.”

Like Dylan, many other maplers are eager for the release of Yellonde and the chance to “start fresh” and meet new people. Forum topics with hundreds and hundreds of replies have been circulating for the last few months around forums large and small. People are still asking the question: “When will Yellonde be out!” even to the point of redundancy and people wanting to kick each other’s asses.

So until NEXON releases Yellonde, expect many many MANY more threads screaming the same echoing line that makes you want to kill yourself “OMG WHEN WILL YELLONDE BE OUT!?”

Who would have thunk it? The Pirate Class has appeared in Private Servers before most of the other versions! A new private server, FInal Story, was able to get the Pirate class working in their Tespia private server containing only 15 people. How? Most of the files in the Tespia version (courtesy of MapleGlobal) have Pirate files in them…all it took was some coding, re-modeling, and extracting. For you skeptics, the screen shots are NOT EDITED. According to Alex (MrHoar as shown in the screen shots) in a few days the Pirate class will be available to all players in Final Story. This is definitely shocking (and probably exciting news to many of you), but remember, you heard it first here at Maple-News.

CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE ALBUM CONTAINING THE NON-EDITED PIRATE SCREEN SHOTS!

Below is an exclusive chat log of me and Alex discussing features of the Pirate job in Final Story as well as a quote from Nx Prose on NEXON forums saying that the Pirate class will not be nerfed and guns will still appear. And to those of you we edit chat logs, here’s proof we don’t.

lAlex says:
heyheyhey
Savage – Maple-News.com & TheNEXGame.net says:
hey
Alex says:
I have 59 screens
Savage – Maple-News.com & TheNEXGame.net says:
wow
Savage – Maple-News.com & TheNEXGame.net says:
thats err alot
Savage – Maple-News.com & TheNEXGame.net says:
lol
Alex says:
http://www.eclipsestory.com/tespiascreens/tespiascreens.zip
Savage – Maple-News.com & TheNEXGame.net says:
cool thanks
Savage – Maple-News.com & TheNEXGame.net says:
you’ll most likely see them on MNN
Savage – Maple-News.com & TheNEXGame.net says:

Alex says:
xD
Alex says:
feel free to take some out if you’d like
Alex says:
and there are two skills that don’t work
Savage – Maple-News.com & TheNEXGame.net says:
oh
Alex says:
well
Alex says:
they work
Alex says:
but it glitches
Alex says:
err
Alex says:
well
Alex says:
when you try to dash
Alex says:
itll make you run and you won’t be able to stop
Savage – Maple-News.com & TheNEXGame.net says:
oh 0_o
Alex says:
xD
Alex says:
and the other one works, but it just doesn’t have the animation
Savage – Maple-News.com & TheNEXGame.net says:
i see.
Savage – Maple-News.com & TheNEXGame.net says:
how did u guys
Savage – Maple-News.com & TheNEXGame.net says:
get he pirate files
Savage – Maple-News.com & TheNEXGame.net says:
extracted from another version?
Alex says:
well, there was a big dump of pirate files in the tespia client to begin with, but mateo stumbled upon a source that could use those files and tweaked it a bit. More work has led to all pirate items and most working skills
Alex says:
well
Alex says:
not like he tweaked it a bit
Alex says:
more like a lot, lol
Savage – Maple-News.com & TheNEXGame.net says:
lol
Alex says:
((Wait, you’re going to just copy and paste this convo or are you going to rewrite it? lol))
Alex says:
((I don
Savage – Maple-News.com & TheNEXGame.net says:
i never re-write convos
Savage – Maple-News.com & TheNEXGame.net says:
lol
Savage – Maple-News.com & TheNEXGame.net says:
I may omit something.
Alex says:
*((I don’t mind either way))
Alex says:
nono
Savage – Maple-News.com & TheNEXGame.net says:

Alex says:
I mean
Alex says:
lol
Alex says:
I mean
Alex says:
Just write it like
Savage – Maple-News.com & TheNEXGame.net says:
I’ll just take outs tuff thats not relevant
Alex says:
When we asked how they did it, he stated “Direct quote”
Alex says:
other than just posting things like
Alex says:
Alex Says: jslafjdsk
Alex says:
Savage says: fkslfdjksd
Alex says:
xD
Alex says:
IDK
Alex says:
HAIII
Alex says:
*ahem*
Alex says:
any other questions? lol
Alex says:
oh
Alex says:
by the way
Alex says:
nexon isn’t censoring the guns for pirates
Alex says:
also, the NX prose interview says:
Alex says:
# Some are ranting one how pirates are gonna be censored due to the “guns not fitting into the E rating”, would it be “edited” to fit the rating?
I’ll say this: My Yeti laughs well everytime he sees a thread like that.

Scrolling across maplestory fansites, I’ve noticed that when I played KMS, it’s somewhat remarkably different compared to GMS. One of the things that have been pointed out is somewhat major, is that Showa Town monsters are different between the versions.

Take a look at the images below.

(Old) Bodyguard B – KMS
Walking | Attacking(1) | Attacking(2) | Dying

(New) Bodyguard B – GMS
Attacking(1) | Attacking(2)

(Old) Male Boss - KMS
Walking | Attacking(1) | Standing | Dying | Attacking(2)

(New) Male Boss – GMS
Attacking(1) | Attacking(2)

(Old) Anego – KMS
Walking | Standing | Attacking(1) | Attacking(2) | Dying | Skill

(New) Anego – GMS
Attacking(1):

(Old) Leader A – KMS
Walking | Standing | Attacking(1) | Attacking(2) | Dying

(New) Leader A – GMS
Attacking(1) | Attacking(2)

Read the rest of this entry »

We’ve seen what NEXON had cooking for us (more like lighting their house on fire) in the Summer Break Events Part 1. We had a lot of discounted NX Items (what else is new) and a lot of “Oops! We forgot to turn on 2x EXP.” Cody’s BBQ quest was interesting…but what does NEXON have in store for us for the second half of summer? One can hope, actual working 2x EXP and maybe the re-release of Tubes? What do you guys think? Post your speculations and guesses below.

I was strolling through Google and found this interesting little link on MapleSEA.com. It has a list of fansites from MapleTip to Hidden-Street (on Hidden-Street’s first site) there. You can check out the hidden page HERE.

Below is the list of fansites they added (but apparently didn’t want anyone to see):

I just thought I would share it with you guys…so far MapleGlobal has no hidden page like this. Brings you back to the old days of MapleStory.

I’ve promissed I’ll write about other ways to earn money on the internet except for PTCs.

Making money on the internet (Part 1) is availble here http://maple-news.com/2008/07/07/making-money-on-the-internet/

But first of all I will start with an update about http://www.bux.to:

Well guys, I said wouldn’t post here until I had something solid and somewhat trust-able.

I quote from George,

QUOTE

Talked with [Debbie], since pushing even more backlog will be cleared in about 4 weeks. Time figure you can be used for public.

Which means, the management has decided that an approximate 4-week timeframe from now will be sufficient to clear all the backlog of payments.

And to make things even clearer, it means that the endeavour of paying in 30 business days / 60 business days clause in the TOS will be met. It does not mean that every single person will get their payment in 4 weeks.

I can only hope that it’s true.
I’m sure my staff will JFJ (jump for joy).

Originally posted here: http://buxbb.com/index.php?showtopic=50453

Within 4 weeks Bux.to will start paying within 30 days for Premium and 60 days for Regular Members?

Hi there guys, I know this is a very unconventional news post for us…but I figured I would get it out there. We have noticed that over the course of the few short months TheNEXGame has been out, we have racked up 350+ users…but to our surprise, few of them take the time to post or even bother to validate their accounts (leaving me and other admins the nasty job of validating dozens of accounts). TheNEXGame.net has acted as Maple-News’s forums since December 27, 2007.

For those of you who don’t know what TheNEXGame.net forums are about, The NEX Game, is a pun on NEX (NEXON) in the fact that NEXON releases a new game every few months, hence, The NEX(T) Game. The site focuses on all the current NEXON America games. Of course, this doesn’t mean we agree with everything NEXON does, we just like their games. The forum started out strong but has since tired.

About a week ago there was a little poll up (which few of you bothered to vote on, thanks we appreciate your laziness ) where we asked if you guys would prefer Maple-News just have a forum called “Maple-News Forums”…basically a forum about MapleStory and Maple-News. We originally had a Maple-News Forum, but later removed it after the creation of TheNEXGame. Creating a “Maple-News Forum” would eliminate the need for TNG (TheNEXGame) forums.

So, I’ve come to ask you viewers what you all think. Should TNG continue, or should we just make a Maple-News Forum? It gets pretty annoying writing and updating a forum that no one bothers to post on…maybe it’s too confusing for you guys? We don’t know…so please help us out by commenting below about what your opinion is on the matter.

Thank you for your time and patience.

-Savage & The Maple-News Staff-

Nexon VS Private Servers – Round II

Today LocalMS received an e-mail from a multinational law firm called Allen & Overy acting on behalf of Nexon ordering an immediate cease and desist of any illegal acts which they have been committing, specifically the act of violating Nexon’s intellectual property by proxy of running a private server…

The letter was sent from a Kathy Lee [Kathy.Lee@allenovery.com]. She is not on the employee list which can be seen online. The email lists three violations of Nexon’s intellectual property:

(a) the setting up of and/or operation of unauthorized MapleStory game servers which redirect game players from Nexon’s official game servers; and/or
(b) the unauthorized access to and use of Nexon’s client software for the creation of and misuse of illegal software; and/or
(c) the use of unauthorized client patch programs to improperly interfere in the game and undermine the game play for other users of MMORPG.

With the aforementioned being noted, the LocalMS owners have been given fourteen days to cease and desist and illegal conduct in regards to violation of Nexon’s intellectual property.

So Is It Real?
As said before, an employee by the name of Kathy Lee is not listed on the Allen & Overy site, this does not however conclude the issue. After being served with the cease and desist e-mail, the LocalMS administrators decided to call the Allen & Overy offices in the United Kingdom to address the issue further. The phone call was recorded. In the phone call it is clear that there is a Kathy Lee working there but she was unavailable. Soon after the LocalMS administrators foolishly decided that the cease and desist letter was not real due to the fact that someone else had called Allen & Overy regarding the exact same issue, with the exact same reference number. This is probably true, but what did the LocalMS administrators expect after posting the images publicly?

There were others to receive the cease and desist letters, but they did not have the same reference ID; contrary to what the LocalMS administrators have said. I asked one of these to give me the email header, so the destination from which the email was sent could be determined. Here is an excerpt from the email header:

The email was definitely sent by Allen & Overy, the emails are definitely real; regardless of their legal validity.

Legal Ramifications?
Since there have been multiple generic cease and desist emails sent, it is fairly clear that Allen & Overy do not know the identity/identities of the server owners and have instead decided to target the site administrators. This being said, it is not viable to consider the legal ramifications for all nations in which private server owners (and/or their servers) may currently reside. I have decided to use the Digital Millennium Copyright Act Of 1998 because in American law all private servers would be tried under violations of this law.

In the Nexon Terms of Service agreement there are multiple clauses which effectively eliminate any chance of legitimately using/running a private server. Many of these are highlighted in section two:

By simply running a private server you are in violation of all of the aforementioned clauses you agree to when initially registering an account and/or on playing the game for the first time. There is no fallacy which can support circumvention of agreement to the terms of service, so scrap the childish “but i didn’t agree to all this!11!!” arguments.

In terms of the actual listed intellectual property violations aforementioned in the email by Allen & Overy, the only grounds on which the DMCA allows reverse engineering are as follow:

The developers of private servers do not fall under any of the clauses which limit such liability and then fall under the wrath of section 1201, 1202, 1203 1301, 1309, 1316 and 1321.

Private server operators fall under two main areas; violation of intellectual property and violation of copyright protection. By running a private server you are essentially violation Nexon’s intellectual property and making them lose money by taking potential consumers. The second clause lies under the mechanics of making the MapleStory client connect to a private server, which involves removing the copyright protection which would be the packer, then modifying their code without authorization. Under these violations you fall under the wrath of section 103, 1201, 1202 and 1203.

Due to the nature of most private servers, they are not completely susceptible as they are not profiteering (to constitute profiteering there would have to be things such as large donator benefits and/or own money to game currency transmuting system). This being said, Nexon have the right to claim damages to the extent they see fit. For OdinMS, this was 350,000� and this is likely to be less for most private server operators facing legal action.