Where has Nexon been, what have they been doing?

We have been doing exactly what we said we have. We have been banning thousands of players a week. We have been developing new policies, features, and implementing new systems to better serve our players. We have been adding more staff and resources to help achieve our goals for MapleStory.

We have been a bit quieter than we should have been. Since we have been working behind the scenes, and not working in a more obvious manner, some have gotten the impression that Nexon is not doing anything about some of the game issues. Nothing can be further from the truth.

Sadly our community has suffered lately while we have been getting ready for this day.

So let’s catch up.

In order to address some of the concerns we have seen recently, I am providing a short Question and Answers list.

Q: Why doesn’t Nexon ban Hackers or Cash Shop Users?

A: We do, every single day. However, some community members jumped to conclusions on a recent issue and assumed that somebody was given a chance purely on the fact that they had Cash Shop items. I will say this without mixing words. The fact is all these “Nexon doesn’t care about hackers”, “Nexon doesn’t ban cash users” and other posts like them are bad. They don’t serve any beneficial purpose, whatsoever. In fact, they have made the situation worse.

Now we are in a situation where people think that not only will they not get caught, but maybe Nexon doesn’t care enough to ban them anyway.

Should those people get banned? If you cheat on Twilight Princess, should Nintendo come knocking on your door? Of course not, you didn’t do anything wrong. I know that, and most of you know that. But not everybody understands that it is wrong to “hack” in MapleStory. And any type of understanding of that idea is taken away very fast when the community tells them they won’t get caught, or Nexon doesn’t care.

Is this the community?s fault? No, I am not going to blame this situation on the community. It is our fault for being too quiet with what we have been doing recently. We attempted to warn players in our recent announcements. In those announcements, we hinted at our future plans. We mentioned that we have been watching the situation. We have mentioned that we know how things are happening and that it will not be tolerated any further.

This was a warning.

Q: Well, then what are you doing?

A: As of today, you may see a lot of people you knew are no longer playing. We have taken action against an unprecedented number of players. Over 30,000 have had their accounts given a 30 day suspension, and completely removed from the rankings or banned outright. These are players who continued to hack after our last major announcement. (The ranking changes may not take effect immediately). If you somehow escaped this round, make sure you don?t end up in the next. Yes. There WILL be more.

Q: What happened to zero tolerance?

A: What I am describing is not tolerance. This is respect for our players. We do not want to lose our players; we want to lose the hackers. It has become very apparent that the situation has gotten bad enough that even good players have gone bad. We are not happy about this, and we want to make it right. Not just ban everything that moves.

Q: Why didn’t player X get banned?

A: Our policies are, and always have been that a GM can exercise their own discretion over the situation whenever needed. However, we are now standardizing our procedure.

If you are caught using a 3rd party hack, you will have immediate action taken against your account. The least of which is a 30 day suspension with permanent removal from the rankings. At that point the player is put on a priority watch list. Any player on the priority watch list will be banned permanently for any further policy violation. This includes using 3rd party tools, harassment and forum abuse.

Q: Does Nexon just care about money?

A: Nexon cares most about providing the best game possible. Unfortunately running a game costs money. In order to run the game, add features and services, not only do the employees need to be paid, but the servers need to be run, the utilities need to be paid and countless other things require money to keep the game running.

This will always affect our decisions when adding new features to MapleStory. The fact is, providing the best game possible also means that we need to be making money to allow us to do these things for you. Our primary motivation will always be “What is the best thing for the game”

For example, how much money could we make if we charged you $5 each time your character died? Would we ever do that? Of course not! Not only is that a horrible idea, but nobody would want to play under conditions like that.

Q: What about hackers?

A: If you hack. You will get caught. Period. Every hacker that plays the game gets logged. The only thing accomplished when you hack in MapleStory is a complete waste of your time. As you have seen, we just banned a very large group of players. Some of which may have only used hacks for one day 4 weeks ago. Some others spent weeks on their character.

THERE IS NO POINT HACKING. YOU WILL GET CAUGHT. You are only wasting your own time leveling a character that will be banned.

Q: What if I don’t believe you?

A: You don’t have to believe us to get banned.

Q: Did my list help?

A: Those of you who have been patient, and have helped us by listing hackers, and doing their best to help the game are greatly appreciated. We sincerely thank you. We hope that our efforts today and in the future act to show our appreciation for your love of our game. The vigilance of our community has been impressive to say the least. All of us here have noticed, and we have utilized everything at our disposal to take care of this situation.

Q: So what’s next?

A: A lot. Most of which I cannot discuss as they are still in development, however I will list some of our thoughts.

These are things that we are working on. NONE of these are promised, but they are in development, or under discussion.

Community Reporting.
Better reporting abilities (No more 1 report a day!)
Community Rewards
You report 20 hackers who are now banned? You get some goodies.
Show your pride
Enjoy some graphics and pimp out your sites with some MapleStory Art
MORE GMs
A lot more
What does the community want?
Polls and discussions on what you want to see next
Community Projects
Fan Art, Fan Videos and user submitted content featured on our main site!
New Policies
Who gets banned, how long and why somebody may be banned.
Community involvement
Run a site? Let’s talk

Q: That’s all fine and good. But how long will this last?

A: As long as this game runs, we are committed to making it the best as we can.

Q: But banning is only a temporary solution, what can be done in the long run to stop hackers before they even start?

A: We are working on strengthening GameGuard and hack detection as well as other features that will catch and eliminate hackers. Like I said previously, just because a hacker didn?t get banned one day, does not mean he will be able to log in the next.

Q: Why has there been no GM events for a while?

A: Until this issue has been adequately resolved, our GMs main priority will be to service in-game issues.

Thank you to various members of the community who have assisted with their questions and concerns. We have a lot of work to do.

This is not a final solution to the promises we have made. This is one of our first steps. Many have noticed that things seem to be happening, and they are. We will work harder to let you all know more about what is happening in MapleStory.

Until next time,

Maple On!

JoeW [sic]boi – Nexon Community Relations

*edited to reflect banning total