MapleStory.

That word brings out so many feeling in me.

Sadness, hatred, happiness, addictiveness, necessity, evil, and restraining to name a few.

MapleStory is a game headed by the evil North American Nexon Dominion, to take a thread from BlackNazgul. It controls the economy with Gachapon and NX, restricts gameplay to the NX-less, and has even gone so far to allow people to use NX to directly obtain MapleStory items through the MTS! Nexon is promoting their currency everywhere, mingling it with MapleStory, and there is nothing we can do to stop them.

What is NX? Nexon Cash, a cash currency bought with real money. It drains off much from the players, and forms most of the company’s profits from MapleStory.

Still, the MTS (Maple Trading System) does prove useful to many players. It allows people who normally wouldn’t be able to obtain NX to sell their items on the cross-server MTS to obtain a bit of Nexon Cash. However, Nexon is only doing this to make even more profits. Nexon charges a fee of The price you want to sell an item + 100 NX + 10% of your price to get to The Total Price. Say you sell something for 110 NX (lowest amount). It still comes out to 221 NX paid by the buyer. 110 NX goes to you, while 111 NX goes to Nexon to take NX out of the cashflow. Maplers do like the idea of trading Items for NX, because ‘Items=Mesos, and Mesos are just virtual currency, not real currency. So I’ll trade it in for REAL currency!’ However, mesos aren’t free. You spend time training, merchanting, hunting, and such to earn your mesos (or you just use NX).

As you can see, NX has (for better or worse) become entwined into the game of Maple. However, I say it is really for the worse.

Quite simply, Nexon is giving its NX cash users too much advantage. Nexon Cash is way too influential. To stand out from the crowd with fancy gear, eyes, hair, and accessories, you usually need NX. And the real world NX currency is pretty much on more or less a 1k NX-1mil mesos currency. You don’t even have to risk using Gachapon anymore and getting cruddy items. You can just buy them off the MTS. Not to say selling items on the MTS is bad, but it gives NX users even more of an advantage.

Why not just turn it pay-to-play? The sick thing is, Nexon makes more money because it exposes more players to it’s advantages.

Now to deal with the optimistics:

‘NX helps fund Nexon.’

True, but they already make millions of profits each quarter off players through NX cash.

‘You don’t need NX to have fun in Maple.’

That is true . . . or is it? Sure, you can have fun. But with others leveling 2x as fast as you with 2x exp cards, looking much better than you with NX clothes and hair, and being uber-rich over you . . . well, let’s just say that Nexon leaves a lot of incentive for its players to buy NX Cash.

And I have.

What, you didn’t read it right?

Fine.

I, ipod123432 of MMO Tales, have bought North American Nexon’s NX Cash.

Scary, I know.

It makes me feel sick, but now, now I feel as if I need more. Once you get a small taste of it, you want more, MORE, MOAR!!!

. . .

Sorry about that. But Nexon Cash is very, very powerful thing. I myself have went without it for two whole years, and have never felt such a passion, such pure power with it. It’s really scary. If I don’t control myself, I fear I will go on a mass-NX-spending rampage and pillage about $200 worth of NX.

*shudders*

How did I get caught in such a trap? Nexon’s new-old game cards at various locations around North America.

Let’s begin my story.

It was a sunny day that day, with the sun pounding over my head. Yet I kept on biking, biking to this store. I needed to get a birthday card, and was hoping to find it over there.
‘Hmm. . .’ I thought, ‘I better put my bike over there, where hopefully nobody will steal it.’
Walking it to the shady alley next to the store, I pulled down the bike stand and parked the bike right next to the wall.
*Fwoosh!* went the automatic doors and they heeded my arrival and withdrew. I smirked, and headed down to the birthday card section, over at the other side of the store. As I browsed through them, a glint of light caught my eye. Oh, I wish it hadn’t, and I had just went along with my own business and just picked a gosh darn card.
So what did I see?
A $10 Orange Nexon Game Card worth 10k NX Cash.
My body froze, as my gaze was locked onto the card.
Should I buy it? I only had brought $10 dollars, and needed some for the birthday card.
Still, I couldn’t resist taking a sneak peak at it. I slowly walked forward like a robot across the aisle and bent to examine it. It was genuine, all right. However, what would become of my birthday card that I would have to buy?
So I slowly walked away, back to the birthday card section. I only looked back once, and then it all goes blank.
The next thing I knew, I had already biked back to my house with a $10 NX Cash card. My hand trembled as I slowly entered the code on Nexon’s website.
I pressed ‘Enter’. . .
‘Successfully Charged.’
I couldn’t believe it. Was it that simple? I quickly called my friend up, and he too went to buy one. While he did, I checked out my account. The NX was there!
Seeing the NX there made my heart heavy though. Was this what I had descended to, after two years in playing? Was I not an NX-less Bandit?
Those thoughts made me recoil in horror. I stared at my computer screen with a new emotion, fright. Would I become addicted? Would I never be able to stop?
Then my friend called. He said he had just bought twenty dollars of the stuff, and gached it all. He slowly listed his items, and asked for their value. My heart sank. He got a gach run worth maybe 21 mil. It had taken me a year of playing my Bandit before I myself had reached that value. And he was only in his 3x levels. I now have 25 mil as a level 69 dit.
To be honest, I felt ashamed. How could I only make so little in so much time? I needed more. I needed more mesos. And for that, I needed more NX cash. More, MORE, MORE!!!
Then I stopped myself just in time. I would NOT become an NX wh0re. I would just not buy NX. That was a resolution I’ve kept for about 2 days. But every time I look at my NX, the more I am pushed to buy more. NX is a powerful thing, and is one of the most powerful things I’ve ever faced.

. . .

~Podeuro

P.S. Bandits: Cut the sky until it bleeds.
P.P.S. Spade, hurry up and send your portion of Axis of Ekil [04]
P.P.P.S. Fighters: Born a Warrior, Grew a Fighter, Lived a Crusader, Died a Hero. (Not mine)
P.P.P.P.S. I’ll add more in another blog. Now click that orange button. It’s orange!