In the dream Evan wanders a strange fog-enshrouded forest. Terrified and alone, his eye catches sight of a strange illuminated boulder engraved with bizarre glowing runes in no language known.

Evan follows the light toward the rune-carved boulder as if in a trance. Then the boulder cracks with a noise like the world has broken and Evan is face-to-face with a majestic black-scaled face. Ancient, wise eyes stare into his own and a voice echoes in his head.

Let the NEXT HERO RISE as Evan finds the Onyx Egg and becomes the descendant of the Dragon Masters!

Coming soon sometime in March! Prepare to feel the THUNDER! (lame)

Link: http://maplestory.nexon.net/evan/main.html

skycombat’s video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSsYHAJRDRs&feature=sub

( What shocked me the most about this is that we’re actually getting a job content faster than MapleSEA! )

Link: http://www.gamepro.com/video/news/138003/nexon-america-dice-interview/

Credits to GAMEPro.

Moments later, it seemed his account had been hacked.

During our 2x EXP weekend event, a MapleStory GM named “RavenSCA” made a critical error while drafting an in-game announcement. The GM in question accidentally posted his account information while using a text shortcut program meant to issue commands within MapleStory. This was a serious breach of protocol, and the GM will be disciplined. In addition, we’re investigating the actions of a player who abused this error, which is a serious breach of our Terms of Use.

We hope this information can shed some light for our players. Due to the sensitive nature of the problem, we will have no more information to provide on this topic, and we ask players to please avoid discussing the matter on our forums.

Regards,

The Nexon Team

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.

As well a trailer of the new Dual blade class! VIDEO BELOW ENJOY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=scmGD_YWb0o

In my personal opinion it seems OK. I think Aran and Evan both look like they brought more to the table, but that’s just me. I guess we will have to see how it all plays out in the end. Should be fun I suppose.

All credit to Spadow on this translation here though. Here is the translation of the story of the Dual Blade. Seems interesting.

The previous Dark Lord had a student Jin and a daughter Sulhee.
So basically what happened is that the friend of the previous Dark Lord, Tristan, requested help to kill Balrog.

Unfortunately, Dark Lord got turned into a monster by Balrog and his student Jin had to kill Dark Lord because he was attacking Kerning City.
The daughter of the previous Dark Lord, Sulhee, saw the dead body of her father brought by Jin.

She thought that Jin framed him and killed him because of his position.
So Jin became the next Dark Lord and Sulhee created a secret dark organization to go against Jin. (Although, she loved Jin)

Now the rogues are disappearing from Kerning City by Sulhee’s command to make them into Dual Blade to fight against Jin.

KMS will be getting this very shortly so look for it in GMS about 6 to 10 months from now? HEH

-Subspace

Maplestory… you really made these two years interesting. Maplestory you have created many things, (translated). Now 10 patches later from v73, GMS (Global Maplestory) is closer to becoming a Universal world carrier. Let’s recall the main patches we have gotten.

v73 = Knights of Cygnus Job

v75 = Monster Carnival 2 / Mu Lung Dojo

v77 = Haunted House 2 / Balrog PQ / Trend Zone Metropolis

v79 = (Ep 1) Explorer Job

v80 = Aran Job / New Server: Galacia / Mush-King Empire

v81 = Monster Survival Quests

(Current as of 2/17/10) v83 = Neo Tokyo / Kerning Square Mall

{[( NOTE! THIS IS ONLY MY OPINION AFTER RESEARCH, I COULD BE MISSING INFORMATION, WRITE MORE BELOW!!!)]}

So between the Summer of 2009 and the beginning of 2010 we had more updates than any other other year before. It seems like it’s been a fast 6~7 months. But, the reason why I am writing this, is because… GMS is soon to really live up to it’s name. But apparently…we have more to come. Anyone here oh… Maplestory DS? So…

Maybe I am wrong, maybe version 50~60 is better than anything else we had in GMS’ Lifetime, write your opinions… tell me… do you agree or…disagree. Discuss!

A lot of new information has been posted on the new “Dual Blade” job in the past few days. First off the release date is 2/25 which is just around the corner! Second, the biggest buzz about it so far is that even though the Dual Blade class will have its own cash shop, its being promoted as the 3rd adventurer thief class. With the other two being Bandit and Assassin of course. A couple reasons most people are thinking it will be an adventurer is because, the job IDs of the current heroes (Aran & Evan) are 21XX and 22XX. Where the job ID for the Dual Blade is 430 which falls in to the thief category. Another reason that Dual Blade is leaning more towards the adventurer side is, in a recent presentation Nexon shows that the Dual Blade class when you select a character looks VERY similar to the adventurers unlike the two heros.

Also another thing that is pushing towards adventurer is its job advancements.
1st Job Advancement (Lv. 10) → Rogue
2nd Job Advancement (Lv. 20) → Semi Dualer
2nd Job Advancement + (Lv. 30) → Dualer
3rd Job Advancement (Lv. 55) → Dual Master
3rd Job Advancement + (Lv. 70) → Slasher
4th Job Advancement (Lv. 120) → Dual Blader

Not to mention the main city is based right by Kerning City.

But of course nothing is for certain with Nexon. It hasn’t even hit Tespia yet so its one of those things that could change any moment. Like always we will keep you up to date as information becomes released.

Below are some sneak peaks of the new skills Dual Blade will have to offer once release.

Flying Assaulter

Owl Dead

Upper Stab

Sudden Death

Bloody Storm

Chain Hell

La Times posted a new article today about how Digital Sales are steadily going on the rise. With Nexon Corp.’s US Division’s VP Min Kim as the main focus of the article. Each year digital sales in games are increasing. In 2009 MapleStory’s sales grew by 12%! To be honest, when I saw this article I was surprised to see how young the VP of Nexon America was. Let’s see if he can turn Nexon’s poor reputation around. Below is the article from Ben Fritz and Alex Pham.

All Credit to this article goes to LA Times

LA Times

By Ben Fritz and Alex Pham

February 9, 2010
The future of the video game business is playing out very differently on two sides of Los Angeles.

In Westwood, nearly 200 people recently lost their jobs when Pandemic Studios, the maker of Saboteur and other gritty video games, shut its doors.

But 12 miles east, at Nexon Corp.’s U.S. division, bustling staffers are upbeat as they prepare to double the size of their workforce. The South Korean publisher best known for its lighthearted game MapleStory saw sales climb 12% in 2009.

The difference? Pandemic makes games on discs that come shrink-wrapped in plastic boxes and sell for $60 at stores such as Best Buy and Target. Sales for that kind of video game fell 11% last year.

Nexon, however, distributes its video games online free of charge and generates revenue by selling virtual items such as weapons and costumes that players use in the game.

Whether it’s $15-a-month subscriptions to World of Warcraft, $10 downloads on a PlayStation 3, 99-cent iPhone games or ad-supported games on Facebook, digital transactions are growing fast and could be the future of the video game business.

Even as traditional media companies struggle to find profitable business models on the Web — as evidenced by recent moves by Hulu.com and the New York Times to start charging for content — the games industry is experimenting with a variety of methods to generate revenue online.

“What a lot of folks miss is that when you add online services, micro-transactions and subscriptions, the whole industry is headed for strong growth in 2010,” Electronic Arts Inc. Chief Executive John Riccitiello said.

Discs aren’t going away soon. Retail video game sales are still a $45-billion-a-year global market, compared with an estimated $5 billion for online digital games. And game executives expect sales to remain strong for blockbuster titles such as Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, which has raked in more than $1 billion since its launch in November.

But the long-term trend is clear: Retail sales are declining, and online digital sales of games face rapid growth.

Valve Corp.’s Steam service, the largest seller of downloadable games for personal computers, reported a 165% jump in revenue in 2009. Direct2Drive, owned by News Corp., grew 40%. Sony Corp. reported that sales of downloadable games and game-related content on its PlayStation 3 increased 139%, and Microsoft Corp. saw 50% growth for the same items on its Xbox 360. EA’s digital revenue grew more than 25%.

There are still risks in depending too much on online revenue for games, however. Unlike the shelves at Wal-Mart, there’s no limit to the number of games that can be stocked in a digital store, making it difficult for individual titles to stand out. Apple Inc. alone sells more than 130,000 games and applications for the iPhone.

In addition, although people are spending more time playing games online, they tend to pay less for the experience, leading to lower revenue generation.

“Unfortunately, as with other media as they migrate from traditional distribution to online, you increase the amount of hours spent, but you decrease the amount of money you get,” said Bing Gordon, partner at Silicon Valley venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and former chief creative officer at EA.

The transition to online gaming is particularly evident at EA. In December, on the same day that it announced it would lay off 1,500 workers, EA agreed to buy Playfish, a maker of games for social networks such as Facebook, for $275 million.

The costs of distributing goods digitally are much lower than manufacturing and shipping discs. Production expenses are lower as well, because players online are often interested in shorter, less lavish experiences that cost less to make.

But lower cost is only one reason that game publishers see dollar signs in broadband and wireless connections. When players get engaged in an online game such as World of Warcraft, they become a subscriber, ensuring a continuing revenue stream for the company.

“We’re going away from a packaged-goods mentality to a service mentality, which means instead of extracting as much money as we can at once, we’re generating ongoing revenue,” said Gabe Newell, managing director of Valve.

Even games sold at stores are having their business models transformed by the Internet. As the cost of producing a top-quality title has escalated to $20 million or more and sales have stagnated, publishers have become increasingly dependent on players who have already bought the disc to fork over an additional $10 to download more digital accessories.

“It’s crucial for the economics of our business today,” said Peter Dille, senior vice president of marketing for Sony Computer Entertainment of America.

Companies such as Playfish, Nexon and Zynga Game Network Inc., meanwhile, offer free versions of their games and generate revenue by “upselling” players on additional content.

Nexon has a catalog of more than 10,000 virtual accessory items for sale that run from $1 for colored contact lenses for characters to a $32.90 sniper rifle. Most players never touch any of it, but the minority who do buy the features are enough to make it a viable business, company executives note.

“We operate by the 80/20 rule,” said Min Kim, Nexon America Inc.’s vice president of marketing. “Twenty percent of our audience make up 80% of our revenue.”

Playfish co-founder Sebastien de Halleux notes that by dividing the company’s online games into small chunks that can be rolled out and sold separately, Playfish captures revenue from a broad range of people, unlike retailers that charge a single price for a uniform experience. Some Playfish fans spend only a few dollars, but others invest $100 or more.

The result, De Halleux said: “Over time, many of our players end up spending a lot more than they would for a retail disc game.”

Sealed boxes will drop from certain monsters and each box will have a chance to drop “Owl’s Tail Feather”, Unagi, Pure Water, Elixer, Blade scrolls, Chaos scrolls, and a few other things. You may use the “Owl’s Tail Feather” for a quest or can save it till 2/25. If you keep the feather you will receive a box. Inside this box is a random item. With this box however you have a chance to receive one of these new blades.

You also have to collect feathers for a chance to play in Tespia from February 18th until May 2nd. There’s a good chance that when Tespia opens February 18th that the Dual Blade class will be there waiting for all the lucky new people to play.

- Subspace

Credit Thanks to:
KMS Maple Story