SIXTEEN-YEAR-OLD Sean Lee is a ‘wanted man’. AsiaSoft Online, the official local distributor of one of Singapore’s most popular online games Maple Story, is looking to shut down the private servers operated by the teen and about a dozen or so others like him who run illegal versions of the game.

Sean runs it out of his bedroom, where he has an Internet connection that can handle as much traffic as those of many small companies.

Every day, thousands of people flock to his server to battle monsters, upgrade their characters and to interact with one another.

But unlike on the game’s official server, they do not have to pay real-world cash for virtual cards that allow them to upgrade their characters with items like new clothes.

AsiaSoft Online is not impressed with this budding online entrepreneur. It plans to crack down on those who operate private servers.

‘We are currently working with developers to take action against the service providers of private servers,’ said Mr Ng Kok Khwang, marketing director of AsiaSoft Online.

Despite the fact that it is illegal, Sean continues to run his server out of his parents’ four-room Housing Board flat because it has spawned a thriving online community.

‘If I shut it down, I will be letting them down,’ he said.

He owns one of the many home-run private servers - or computer networks - in Singapore, where online games can be played. The dozen or so biggest can host thousands of players.

People like Sean buy bandwith from information technology companies for about $150. This allows them to host games like Maple Story, which has one million registered players in Singapore.

But the private server games come without subscription fees.

Instead of paying for the upgrade cards - which can cost anywhere from $5 to $32 each - players are asked only for donations to keep the servers running.

‘Some items in games are rare and impossible to get on the official server,’ said 15-year-old Melissa Ong.

‘On a private server, I get the chance to obtain it and test it out.’

The games on private servers can also be modified, making them easier and faster to complete. For example, in some pirated versions of Maple Story, killing a snail can give a player 50 experience points - almost 20 times the value in the original game.

‘The main game takes too long. This way I get to see more of the game faster,’ said Irwin Teo, 17.

Ten out of 20 teens who spoke to The Straits Times said they preferred playing the game on private servers.

Sean started his private server in June after the one he was playing on was shut down when the operators ran out of cash.

He said he does not make money and hosts the game only for his friends. But within three months of starting up, his server had grown to feature as many as 32,000 players.

It is all, of course, illegal. Hosts who reproduce the game are violating copyright laws. Intellectual property lawyer Daniel Lim, from Stamford Law Corporation, said that in addition to lawsuits by the copyright owner, people running private servers can face a fine of up to $20,000 and six months in jail.

Despite knowing this, Sean still plans to continue hosting his private server.

‘If I receive a warning letter, then I will shut it down immediately,’ he said. That was the same deal he struck with his parents, whom he claims, know what he is up to.

As for the players, not all prefer going private and some have returned to the official server after trying out private ones.

‘Playing on a private server defeats the purpose of the game,’ said 15-year-old Phyllis Wan, from Pei Hwa Secondary School.

‘There is no challenge if everything is easily obtainable.’

This story was first published in The Straits Times on 30 December 2008.

Written by: Seow Kai Lun

Great way to end 2008? LOL

Singapore has more strict rules and laws than other counties do such as the United States. Some laws in Singapore prohibit people from not being allowed to chew gum! Some other laws are having guns in Singapore is a federal offense which leads to death.

If you want to see some proof of this just click on the link below.

CLICK HERE TO VIEW ARTICLE

If you have any further questions please contact me @ xbrahaxz@hotmail.com

Best Regards,

Braha - A former Staff Writer - I got a promotion!

The Maple-News Christmas Forum Banner and Find The Megaphones contests have concluded! We would like to thank everyone who took the time out of their day to participate in these events. You guys really showed us that you care and we can’t wait to award the winners! However, we do have some news regarding the Find The Megaphones contest. Sadly, there was only one participant in the event, thus the event has been terminated. We would like to thank iKam for participating in the event! We’re sorry we didn’t get enough entries! He will be mailed a special vampire cookie from Savage

Although we did not reach our goal of 20 people participating in the Forum Banner Event, we have more than enough to judge! The Maple-News staff will be getting together in a few days to judge these banners and vote on the winner. We already have that 10,000 NX Card locked and loaded! I will be driving over to 7-11 to go get those slushy 2x codes. Please make sure you have the correct email registered with your Maple-News account as the winners will be contacted that way. But, if you’re one of those lazy people…we’ll post the winners’ usernames in a post soon…

Happy Holidays everyone! We look forward to another great year in 2009!

-Savage and the Maple-News Network Staff-

Pictures: [These pictures were taken by a participant of the event.]

Videos:

If you want videos, you can go here or here.

Hi everyone,

I’m sorry if I offended/upset anyone with my last post. I’ve been really hit
hard lately with a lot of the drama that apparently comes with Maple-News. No
one really knows or understands what it’s like to run this website. When I made
this site I had no idea I would receive death threats, vulgar insults to myself
and my family, be harassed, and just treated like crap by other websites who are
either competing against us or just don’t like us. I made this site because I
liked writing and MapleStory. It’s nothing personal against our loyal readers,
it’s just there’s only so much one person can take. After all, we’re all just
kids.

I hope everyone can understand. I’m trying to get more dedicated administrators
who have the time to help me deal with the insults we get daily so that I don’t
feel bombarded with all this crap.

Thank you for visiting Maple-News, I really appreciate it guys.

-Savage

Therefore, if people are bored with this one, I will just put up a fun little poll with some themes and see which one you guys like the best. You can still vote for this theme if you like it the best as well.

Please refer to the following in the poll:

Choice 1: Current Theme
Choice 2: Tribune Theme (new theme we had)
Choice 3: Gamezine Theme
Choice 4: Monezine
Choice 5: Buy A Custom-Made Theme

Based on the comments I received for our old theme, I chose the above. Each can be modified and will if it is chosen. I have no problem keeping the current theme if that’s what everyone likes. I was only trying to answer previous suggestions for a new theme that related somewhat to MapleStory. I liked the one we had up because in the Pirates Promo video it looked like the newspaper shown there.

Please vote below:

I’m sorry if I offended/upset anyone with my last post, but none of you guys really understand what it’s like to run this website. When I made this site I had no idea I would receive death threats, vulgar insults to myself and my family, be harrassed, and just treated like crap by other websites who are either competiting against us or just don’t like us. It’s nothing personal against our loyal readers, it’s just there’s only so much one person can take.

Thanks and I hope everyone understands.

The last time I bust my ass for you guys.

Have you heard about the new hack called the “Meso generator” Well if you haven’t, basically all it is is a scam containg a virus. The hack does not work.The download may work,but when you try it your internet secrurity, such as Norton Antivirus,AVG,Etc. block the virus, and giving you a notice of letting it pass or block it. If you clicked let pass, you gave your computer a virus.

What does this virus contain?

-Nexon’s website gets blocked, so you can’t go into GMS’S main page. [Some peoples may be lead to another web page]

-Maplestory’s main website won’t work. [This means all the links to all versions of Maplestory are blocked, and you may have to google the Maplestory version page your looking for,but you can't still go into GMS's main website.

Whats the risk level?

-The risk level of this virus is LOW, but if you want to keep going to GMS's main page, you might want to consider it MILD.

If you ever see someone advertising this hack,please do not believe them! The hack is a virus that will be installed into your computer. Like what the GMS website said on the bottom of the page where thers a button where it says "Meso Generator" and when you click on it, it tells you there is no such thing as a Meso Generator and there never will be.

Click Here to view videos on these hacks. [This is just proof the virus exists!] DO NOT TRY ANY OF THOSE!

Solution: [Please Thank A Nub]

First i suggest you re-install Maplestory because well it wont work…

anyways, on to fixing the fricken thing.

1. Go to C:/WINDOWS/system32/drivers/etc
2. Open it with NOTEPAD. either double click it and choose notepad, or open notepad and drag the file onto there. then you’ll see Maplestory stuff come up and go “Ohhh!”
3. Delete everything on the file. Then save it. Not save as, just save. Then wait a lil.

---

• Email, News, and Comments subscriptions - You can now subscribe to our mailing list without making an account by clicking on EMAIL at the top right of the site.
• New Wider Scroller Headlines Today - Allows more than 5 news articles if we choose.
• Random news articles at the top and bottom of the site. See news you’ve never seen before!
• Wider news posts and wider forum. Now you can all stop bitching!
• MNN TV - Now you can see our latest video on the website!
• Brand New Layout - A brand new layout modeled after those such as the New York Times and AOL.com!
• Categories - The news categories are now easily navigable at the top of the site!
• Godly Squirrel Picture - Our creepy little vampire squirrel will be watching you as you read!
• Authors - In posts you can now SEE who wrote the post. No more authors signing the end of the post with their name or playing the guessing game!
• And lots of other shit that I don’t feel like writing.

I hope everyone enjoys the new website, it took a lot of work but I think you guys will really get to know and love this layout.

-Savage

-The Maple-News Network Staff-

Click here to watch

-Braha