Just recently, Nexon released a statement/announcement on the Global MapleStory’s website strongly compelling against MapleStory Private Servers. Before you or anyone else decide to create pointless discussion thread about this or hate messages, I suggest you take my advice and listen up firstly.

THE ANNOUNCEMENT (CLICK HERE)

As much as “most” of us hate Nexon, I strongly urge you not to make any comments targetting Nexon. Why should we play the same strategy as Nexon, by threatening, and negating us, when we can humbly ignore what they are doing and continue what we do. They do have the rights to fuss over about this, cause its like a man discovering fire and having the idea taken and distributed. It’s a natural instinct for humans to feel angered about this.

However, it is not Nexon’s job to be C&D’ing private servers or even resulting to meaningless statements. Nexon are just the publisher or the distributors of the Game MapleStory. Wizet are clearly the developers holding all rights in legal actions and C&Ds. As Nexon are primarily the publishers, they only have rights to publish the content which does include advertising and event management.

The tone of that statement clearly refers to the whole MapleStory Private Server industry just for reference. Now for the rebuttals.

As we’ve recently seen more problems with illegally operated, private servers, we wanted to provide information to our players regarding the dangers of these operations. Private servers are run by individuals who already understand that they are performing an illegal activity. Thus, the goal of private server operators is to make money using the least amount of resources possible. That means they often engage in identity theft, fraud, and other means to steal funds both from the official operator, and any users of private servers.

Here, they made use of “MORE PROBLEMS” to make it seem surplus and abundant, when clearly, there’s only 1 PROBLEM (without S). The fact they make it sound abundant almost points it out to the unaware audience that, ‘we’, developers of the private servers are plagues and rogues to the Official MapleStory server communities, when this is NOT THE CASE.

They also stated the fact we are aware of ‘the illicit activity’ we are performing. To some degree this is true, but residing in a country (such as mine) where there isn’t much laws regarding game emulation, I have it in my heart knowing what I do is NOT ILLEGAL. Once again, Nexon is referring to the small portion of the World and not seeing this as an international standard.

Nexon once again threatens user(s) to avoid Private Servers by stating we are performing these illegal actions for the sake of our own benefit and to make “MONEY” with the “LEAST” resource needed. Nexon is clearly aware there are over 50 active private servers providing a gaming environment for users without doing such things, but this is once again a clear attempt to pull users away from private servers.

It doesn’t matter how many resource you put into setting up a MapleStory server, getting players is the hard bit enough, the time and effort required for a proper source setup, advertisement and reputation is redundant! If this statement was to be true, it would merely refer to the 1% of the Maple Community, I do not agree to the fact most servers setup just for the MONEY however it is almost obvious that we do not:

engage in identity theft, fraud, and other means to steal funds both from the official operator, and any users of private servers.

Haha, steal funds from OFFICIAL OPERATOR? Yes, lets steal funds from Nexon’s PayPal now shall we? I do not see Private Servers as a threat to the OFFICIAL OPERATORS revenues, in fact, Nexon, is earning beyond the millions each month from all the NX Cash people purchase for “VIRTUAL” goods. So how is Nexon to say we are using the least amount of resource possible in the aimto “prosper” financially?

During their recent showing in E3 Convention, their interview stated they had over 10,000 concurrent users and millions of registered and active players. This versus a standard private server running under an average of 100 users, I don’t see this as a mere threat AT ALL.

Also, there is no evidence they have of identity theft, if they are not aware, our registration consist of a simple ‘username’ and ‘password’ field with ‘DOB’ at times. The MapleStory community would be perhaps the least likely choice of identity stealing, why don’t you go pick on Online Forums and Networking Sites instead? I can almost garauntee the fact we have NO knownledge of all the users actual details or even a breath of their financial data.

The fact we are accepting donations is only to repay for the server fees which result in the fields of $100s for a stable and high-performance server. These financial trades are done through “PAYMENT GATEWAYS” such as PayPal. Once again, this is a fact Nexon is completely aware of but is clearly twisted by them to manipulate users into thinking negative about the Private Server Community. With PayPal, we won’t even know the credit card details of the user, so how are we resulting to steal funds?

Just to make my point clear, most users would end up playing a private server from reference, a popular advertisement or a topsite. These servers they end up finding are normally high in reputation, high in standards and most likely trustable. Its obvious once you scam a user through the use of a private server, it won’t happen again as clearly the user would end up posting the site on a forum or reporting it to the police which will inevitably end up in the knownledge of the private server community. So, if this was true once again, it would be the least < 1% of the MapleStory servers out there. EVERYONE IS LOOKING FOR PLAYERS.

These illegal servers do not have legal or any other binding obligations to keep your information secure. This means your information has a high risk of being shared, leaked or stolen from unofficial, unsecure servers. Not just the information you write when you register for these servers, they also track IP addresses, and are able to obtain other information just by you logging into a private server.

Yes, private servers do not have any legal or any other binding obligations in most cases, but cases such as my time in certain “server(s)”, I have posted a small thread regarding the PRIVACY POLICY and how the information is kept and used. As an ex-owner of a private server, I clearly do not find any necessity in sharing or leaking such information or in no way redistribute. I do not find any use of it besides referencing and banning users where necessary. And once again, its up to the user(s)’ discretetion on the information they provide us, in most cases the e-mail is false, that is fine, we do not mind nor do we make use of it. The only time we get information of users to be honest, is your registration in forums, the game itself DOES NOT GET ANYTHING OFF YOU BESIDES A USERNAME, PASSWORD AND IN MOST CASES E-MAIL + D.O.B.

IP Addresses? Please, almost every website you go to now a days would log your IP address and visitor information, even unintentionally! Get Apache web server and it will log almost every information about the visitor. IP address are of no significance to us and I highly doubt any Private Server owners would make use of it besides banning a user for hacking or misc. activity. Once again, they are making use of technical abbreviations and statements to “THREATEN” the clueless into quitting Private Servers or perhaps avoiding them at all costs. This is a failed attempt to blacklist the Private Server industry. The only benefit they have over us is the fact its posted on a major high-traffic website with thousands of view. But if your a player of a Official Server, I would like you to know, WE ARE NO THREAT. WE ARE CLEARLY PEACEFUL DEVELOPERS LOOKING TO ELEVATE OUR SKILLS IN PROGRAMMING FOR THE NAME OF EDUCATION.

And when you do play, you are using an unsecured, modified client which may cause you to download keyloggers, viruses, and other harmful components to your computer. And of course, you can lose everything you worked for if the server runs into a problem or shuts down without notice. And not to mention you miss out on the in-game events in the official MapleStory. Fishing and Spirit Week events anyone?

This is one of the strongest part of the announcement that clearly pulls users away from us by saying “LOSE EVERYTHING”. Everyday, ten and thousands of users go online to download stuff, browse websites and what not, is that not secure already? Once again, as I stated, most users would end up playing large high reputated private servers that are completely secure and clean, I highly doubt any users will end up joining a 0 players online server or perhaps a server with no reputation or comments in the past. May I remind you, most developers are under the age of 18, at such age, we have almost no intentions in criminal activity or mastermind. In these cases, I believe its the user’s discretetion to monitor what they download and ensure they have proper offsite backup systems and Antivirus programs. Private Servers alone are not solely a eden for backdoors and what not, but websites you browse around too as well! Identity theft lurks around the whole INTERNET WORLD, NOT JUST PRIVATE SERVERS.

Do not be fooled by Nexon’s manipulation and attempt to draw you away from Private Servers. Private Servers are sources build completely from scratch with the use of Programming knownledge and simple packet sniffing. Its an educational benefit, as people such as myself, strive to learn the art of programming or game development. Without MapleStory Private Servers and the first TitanMS, I would had never been able to discover PHP or learn the arts of Web Development and Designing. It was truely a benefit I’m standing for today.

Also, I would like all viewers to know, Nexon has acted very CRUELY and MINDLESSLY at the Private Server community for ages already. We had complied where necessary and all they (By they I’m solely referring to “Lloyd Korn”) are continuous threat letters. The incident with ‘koolk’ was true in some parts, but he was no hacker. It was an attempt to put ‘koolk’ out of business by Nexon, it was a completely false accusation in which Nexon had NO evidence for and led to the failure of their charge (if I’m not wrong).

Another case was Nexon shutting down Cheatengine and many other development forums. Their harsh and frightful messages were the reasons behind this, and if only the Official MapleStory community had a chance to see the “BACKSTAGE” to what is happening, they will only know how childish and incompetant Nexon (or specifically “Lloyd Korn”) is acting.

If you require such evidence, I can provide. But my major implications is that, we, the MapleStory Private Server community, have no intentions for illicit/illegal dealings or activities. We simply wish to provide fun in our point of view as MapleStory is clearly being managed by Adults. Private Servers provide a chance for us, developers, to learn about Programming, Community Management and perhaps even Networking. It builds both interpersonal and intrapersonal skills and thus, shouldn’t be hated for.

Reconsider your thoughts towards Private Servers if you think its a complete threat. To some degree, we are also helping the Official server develop better methods in preventing their servers from Exploiters, Hackers, etc. Private Servers are an embodiment of creativity which you can clearly see from the recent WZ Edits or features such as REBORNS and PVPs, these… are not present in Official Servers.

I had obviously made some mistakes in this post that I will take consideration in editing, but I really believe this announcement by Nexon was NOT NECESSARY. Its an attempt to blacklist us for something we HAVE NOT DONE, and if so, would once again be the least 1%. I suggest they re-phrase their message or perhaps provide their “INTENDED” response which is…

We hate private servers cause they are stealing our players.

Have a good day to you. Especially if your name is “Lloyd Korn”. I wish you good health.

Thank you for the so-call “TRUTH”, your first one was better though.

P.S. I’m in NO way representating the private server community or speaking on behalf, I’m speaking on behalf of what I believe in. This is most likely not how others would think. Also, Renoria doesn’t contain any Nexon related content at all, the idea may/may not be based upon MapleStory but it has no content of MapleStory or Nexon.

And I do apologize for referring to Nexon as completely “incompetant”, I guess I may be referring to an individual perhaps?

EDIT: Another great post! and advice by Mateo

Face it, if anyone from Nexon is reading; The reason why your number always go up after a patch and simmer down 2 months later is because the same people always come back and leave because they get bored. It’s not private servers that are causing damage. Honestly, in total including all the new v75 servers, theres a total of 2000 people playing private servers. From what I read on that newsletter Nexon had 70,000. 70,000 – 2000 = 68,000. Big woop. If you guys stopped for a second and think, the only reason why you had so many people come back was to try KoC, but they realized that all you did was just RECOLOR skills and quit. I know alot of people who quit GMS simply because theres nothing else to do.

You guys had the chance 3 years ago to try to take care of the game and make a fun environment, but instead you fucked it up without even caring for hackers, not helping ANYONE out with retrieving old account info EVEN IF they forgot their security question. Jesus christ, you should never expect people to put real info for an online game.

So while you guys keep making threats to private servers and thinking they are the cause of you guys dying, just consider it like this. People who were playing GMS and were loyal have been playing for what, 4 years nearly 5 now. They are bound to quit and move on with their life sooner or later. If you want people, simply market and take suggestions from EVERYONE, not the people in LA near your HQ, EVERYONE in your forums, because if your going to cry about 2000 people being gone, then you know something is terribly wrong.

Oh and may I add that most of the people who I was friends with on GMS moved onto to either Counter Strike or WoW, both games which are managed professionally and with the greatest customer care and anti-hack, so don’t just blame private servers and make bullshit about how there are trojans and viruses and how private servers steal credit cards.

From: KryptoDEV

EDIT (29/9/9): Statement released from Mental of RaGEZONE – Click Here.