February 25, 2010 – KryptoDEV, a popular MapleStory private server development forum, is soon to make MapleStory history by becoming the first private server development website to be sued by Nexon Inc. Rumors have been flying around since January about problems within the website and a trusted source has told Maple News that the rumors are true. A Canadian law firm is acting on behalf of Nexon America Inc. in the lawsuit against owner of the website, Alex Manov (known as Sparks).

On February 13th KryptoDEV posted a Twitter update in which they admitted the lawsuit was in fact real,

@AkaiMS We have to be careful what’s floating around KryptODEV due to the filed lawsuit, on top of which the features…

KryptoDEV’s database was also wiped after one of their administrators (xcheater) was hacked which debunked rumors that Nexon had already shut them down.

So, over the past few months, it’s been nothing but hell for us. One of our administrators (xcheater) got hacked which turned out by the time I got home from work the entire forum was pretty well wiped, this was not the work of Irwin (x0r) but rather another individual unknown.

Despite the lawsuit KryptoDEV is still up and running. We have not received a comment from either KryptoDEV or Nexon America regarding the lawsuit against KryptoDEV. Please check back for updates as they come.

On January 25th the OdinMS creators made the first update in almost a year on their website. Read it below.

Update (01/25/10): After a period of silence something is happening again. We received a bill of indictment from the public prosecutor. Therein we are accused of having illegally copied, distributed or broadcasted a work without the agreement of the holder of rights. The contained report of the facts of the case is in our opinion quite dubious to say the least.
A Korean attestor is named to have prepared an incriminating expertise for which he seemingly was granted access to all of our confiscated data.
Our lawyers will now again request access to the records so we can review the actual evidence (including the expertise of the Korean guy) and decide if we want to name any other attestors or request hearing of evidences.
The lawsuit takes place at the juvenile court (since one of us is still younger than 21) of the Amtsgericht Neunkirchen which is the lowest level court possible in Germany.
(Please note: Contrary to all rumors this marks the beginning of the first lawsuit against us. Everything that happened before was just part of preliminary proceedings. There has been no kind of judgment so far.)

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We will keep you posted if any new information arises.

It looks like MapleStory’s most infamous private server to date won’t be around much longer. On November 3rd the administrator of DestinyMS and RPM, Shadow, made the announcement that they have been unable to pay their bills for the past few months. Shadow also confessed that they owe €1,500 euros which is roughly $2,230 for our American readers.

Due to unable to pay for our bills for the past few months, or barely.
We already had a problem earlier with out domains, what, luckely, got settled before any damage ocures.

As of now, our DMS server has lost its connection untill further notice, we had about 1000-1500 euro standing open on bills, where we paid about 350 euro from yesterday.
I’m letting them charge 500euro from my bank account, after this is done, hopefully we will get our service back.

How long this will last, is unknown, might be a day, or 3-5 days. Maybe even till the end of the month.

As i’ve got more bills to pay, and i rather wouldnt give up that 500euro just yet (as i really need the money), but as i have no other choice…. i will have to, otherwise it will be byebye DMS, and i dont want that to happen.

Anyways, everyone’s updated. Enjoy the downtime.

Do not complain unless you donate(d). Thanks.

Regards,

DMS Administration.

Shadow has stated he will be paying €500 in an attempt to put the server online, but as one onlooker commented, “Flushing their money down the toilet is a better investment!” it doesn’t look like it will do them any good.

Thanks to an anonymous source for this link. Looks like the “Blizzard doesn’t sue private servers!” argument is now null and void.

Source

We’ve talked about private servers on the site here before, but in case you haven’t heard the term: they’re unofficial servers, very much against WoW’s Terms of Use, that are run by companies other than Blizzard. They’re shady as get out — some make you pay (and these are not people you’d ever want to give any credit card information to), some will delete or change characters on a regular basis, and many times they’re created just so whoever’s running them can mess around with GM powers, and cheat with any items they want.

So you can see why Blizzard would want them shut down, and that’s exactly what they’re trying to do with this lawsuit filed in the California Central District Court against a company called “Scapegaming” that runs at least one private WoW server (and they’ve apparently been running microtransactions in-game — selling in-game items for “donations” of money). The law firm working for Blizzard, Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal, also worked on the “Bnetd” case, which was another piece of unofficial server software that allowed players to play off of Blizzard’s Battle.net setup.

The complaint lists copyright infringement as the cause, which means they’re probably using the same argument targeted at other private servers in the past. We’ll keep an eye on this, but it’s very likely Blizzard will win this one unopposed, and Scapegaming (or at least just their WoW server) will get shut down for good.

Thanks, Phenom!

MorphineStory, the latest private server to attract Nexon’s attention, closed yesterday after an ongoing battle with a Vermont law firm hired by Nexon Korea. MorphineStory was the first private server to run on a version 0.75 source. I spoke with Darion (RaptorJesus) and he confirmed MorphineStory has closed down permanently.

Darion: Yes

Go report that the biggest and best private servers is now closed

and that no server will fill our amazing footsteps

Another administrator of MorphineStory, Vodka, announced yesterday that they were forced to shut down their website and forum.

Due to Lloyd Korn, we had to shut down our website. That unfortunately includes the forum. So the MorphineStory forum is no longer available.

Thanks, sorry.

Despite this it is rumored that the game itself will remain open until October 8th. It also seems quite strange that Vodka talks about Lloyd Korn when Nexon Korea was the branch that contacted MorphineStory.

When asked what happened to the site and forums Vodka reassured players that they’re on to, “Bigger and better things.”

Vodka:

Blame Nexon. We’re moving on to better things now.

MorphineStory was the largest MapleStory private server to run on version 0.75. This is a major win for Nexon and a major upset for private servers.

I was contacted by MentaL, the owner of RaGEZONE, who linked me to this announcement found on the RaGEZONE forums regarding Nexon’s recent Private Server announcement (see this post). Below is the official announcement from the RaGEZONE forums.

Hi,

It has come to my attention that Nexon (MapleStory license holders) are currently releasing a lot of statements regarding the “private server” scene and to which I feel obligated to say my part.

First and foremost , these servers are created by fans of the game, a lot of them still play the official servers and on the side create a server for others to play, their intention may or may not be profit but for Nexon to release the statements that they have is absurd.

99.99% of servers you will find here do not contain keyloggers, infact, we have a strict policy regarding this and have done since the day RaGEZONE was created, anybody found releasing virus’s, trojans or any malicious software that coincides with maplestory (or any other server) are instantly banned from our forums so for Nexon to say that by playing a server you will be infected with a trojan/virus is uncalled for.

Secondly, if a server does have a donation/cyber shop, 99.99% of them use PAYPAL, a free service which stores no information to the actual server owner other than your email address and home address, so how can they justify stating that “These illegal servers do not have legal or any other binding obligations to keep your information secure. This means your information has a high risk of being shared, leaked or stolen from unofficial, unsecure servers” its paypals liability for any information obtained not the server owners, paypal transactions do not release ANY credit card details.

Nexon should rethink its words and actions as each time I read something regarding this company they seem to lower their reputation.

MentaL

Today the MapleGlobal staff made an announcement about private servers on their official website tagging private servers as ploys to earn money through donations, identity theft, and/or fraud. This is the second announcement made by Nexon America since last March when they first made the “truth” about private servers known.

You can read the official announcement below:

A Warning About Illegal (Private) Servers

Dear Maplers,

As we’ve recently seen more problems with illegally operated, private servers, we wanted to provide information to our players regarding the dangers of these operations. Private servers are run by individuals who already understand that they are performing an illegal activity. Thus, the goal of private server operators is to make money using the least amount of resources possible. That means they often engage in identity theft, fraud, and other means to steal funds both from the official operator, and any users of private servers.

These illegal servers do not have legal or any other binding obligations to keep your information secure. This means your information has a high risk of being shared, leaked or stolen from unofficial, unsecure servers. Not just the information you write when you register for these servers, they also track IP addresses, and are able to obtain other information just by you logging into a private server. And when you do play, you are using an unsecured, modified client which may cause you to download keyloggers, viruses, and other harmful components to your computer. And of course, you can lose everything you worked for if the server runs into a problem or shuts down without notice. And not to mention you miss out on the in-game events in the official MapleStory. Fishing and Spirit Week events anyone?

We strongly ask you not to compromise the integrity of the game for the millions who play MapleStory North America (this includes our global players that still connect to us) and those who play other official versions worldwide. In addition to warning our players about private servers, we are making sure our service is the best MapleStory experience anywhere. Thank you for continuing to play MapleStory, and we?ll see you online!

Thank you,

-MapleStory Staff-

The infamous MapleStory private sever, DestinyMS, announced yesterday that they will be upgrading to MapleGlobal version 0.75 on Saturday September 12.

DestinyMS is known for their bouts with Nexon America (specifically General Counsel Lloyd Korn). Their administrator, Shadow, has refused to abide by every Cease and Desist/DMCA letter and shut down his server permanently arguing the Dutch law allows private server activity and welcomes a lawsuit. DestinyMS is currently the most popular low-rate private server on the MapleStory private server topsite rankings.

MapleStory private servers have remained at version 0.62 for almost a year and both players and owners are looking to DestinyMS to be the beta testers of the version. If DestinyMS succeeds we can expect other servers making the switch to version 0.75 in weeks to come.

Remember a server named Maple Geek? No, then let me refresh your brain from the information I have. Maple Geek was basically the same as OdinMS because it ran off the OdinMS Source. They had a hard time getting their server online because they were still trying to get the source from the Odin Devs. They got the server online and it was in beta for a while, then all of a sudden NEXON filed a lawsuit against OdinMS and that is when a lot of the major servers at the time were afraid of getting sued and this is only part of the reason why Maple Geek shutdown. I took a look at their website and from some other stuff and it turns out that they also shutdown because of some ownership problems.

A couple days ago I was checking my email and I got a email from Maple Geek a while back that I ignored saying they were re-opening the community, but not the server. However, if they got a high amount of people wanting them to re-open the server they may take it into consideration.  I checked my email again and I received another email saying that Maple Geek is looking for new management and the owner will get all privileges and all that good and complicated stuff. I think it was yesterday or so that they picked the new owner and released it to the public. The new owner at the moment is Espada. He made a announcement saying that they will be merging with an existing server and the staff will all merge. This is one of the oldest servers coming back from the dead. I will update you on this as much as I can.

Images and most info:

Google.com ;D

maplegeek.com

Hey, everyone sorry for my absence. I am sure you have already read about koolk’s Maple Story Map Editor right?  You also may know that is was somewhat leaked on Rage Zone and other Private Server websites. This is completely true, but the person who leaked it tampered with it and it only works for a TitanMS Based Private Server.  Some people may know about HaRepacker, it is a program that lets you load up .wz files and lets you edit the file. For Example, I could load the Map.wz and save the background to Ellina and change everything to a different color or whatever I want. This program HaCreator based on koolks Map Editor lets you edit and make MapleStory Maps. HaRepacker and HaCreator both have sped up Maple Story Private Server Development a lot more now. I was amazed when I actually watched the video and I thought I would look into it and I found this. Nexon may act on the person that created these programs or they might just start closing down even more servers. We have yet to see what Nexon and Nexon Korea can do.