Maple goods payment event problem occurs, economic inflation concerns 2023.12.31 14:17 Game Mecca Reporter Kim Hyeong-jong
▲ Special Sunday Maple representative image (Photo source: Maple Story official website)
An event management problem occurred in Maple Story, an online game serviced by Nexon. There are concerns about a negative impact on the in-game economy.
From midnight on the 31st, Maple Story started a special Sunday Maple event. Among these, a problem occurred because the conditions for obtaining the ‘Messang Station Money Box’, which provides Maple Points and in-game goods, were not applied and were distributed.
When used, the Mesaeng Station money box basically gives 2000 mileage points, and there is a low probability of obtaining up to 10 billion mesos (Maple Story in-game currency) or 1 million maple points (exchangeable for mesos). Until now, the distribution of these in-game goods probability boxes had limitations such as reaching a certain level, being able to use them only after a certain time, or having one per Nexon ID to prevent the indiscriminate supply of dummy accounts. However, in this event, one payment was given per Maple ID without this limitation.
▲ Special Sunday Maple Event Notice (Photo source: Maple Story official website)
Some users who noticed the loophole created a large number of level 1 accounts and participated in the event. When a good reward was obtained from the money box, a message was revealed in the world chat, but there was a lot of confusion as players with similar IDs continued to come up or IDs mocking this situation received rewards. Maple Story confirmed the situation and added a level limit of 230 just 3 hours after the event started, but it is known that a large number of users have already obtained money boxes.
Maple Story’s in-game inflation continued for a long time, so the developers pursued various methods to prevent it. Last November, the price of a major meso supply item called ‘Crystal of Powerful Power’ was lowered, causing backlash from users. As the large amount of meso released due to this event is expected to further accelerate inflation, major chaos is expected in the MapleStory economy.
(Updated at 8:00 PM on December 31, 2023)
The MapleStory development team issued a notice around 2:00 PM on the 31st, applying temporary restrictions to 5,821 Maple IDs that received rewards by creating two or more new Maple IDs under the same name. Through this, approximately 89 billion Mesos, 880 million won were lost. It was announced that only Maple Points will be recovered. However, only new Maple IDs were recalled, and nothing is known about the supply and demand of goods by existing multi-account users.
