Introducing RX 2.0: the fun in Next Gen Games

This is Part 2 of a two-part post that reconstructs the MSU GDC session titled “MapleStory Universe: Perfecting the Core MMORPG Experience with Blockchain.”

In our last post, many of you expressed a keen interest in RX, the core element of the MapleStory Universe GDC session and one of the biggest differentiators we showcased in MapleStory N. In today’s post, which is the last of the two-part reconstruction of the GDC session, we will delve into more detail about what RX is and how we are taking it to further in MapleStory N.

#. Please note that the numbers and descriptions in this article are provided for illustrative purposes only, and we will cover more details in later articles.

MapleStory’s Success Factor = RX 1.0

Let me ask you a question: what does it take for an online game to be consistently successful over a long period of time?

We believe that the answer lies in game design that allows the fun that players experience to remain even after repeated gameplay. Therefore, the role of the development team is to clarify the core fun of the game, design it, and develop it in a way that reinforces it over time.

In our GDC session, we presented Maplestory’s core fun factor as the “fun of winning items.”

We have all experienced the thrill of obtaining a desired item after the long hours of continuous failure and tiresome grinding. For instance, fishing for hours in the rain in Animal Crossing and suddenly having a giant Coelacanth (15,000 Bell) land in your arms, or farming in Diablo 3 and finally seeing the light pillar effect, along with the unique sound that signifies a legendary item. We have decided to call this experience — that moment when your heart pounds in your chest and you say, “That’s it…!” — the Reward Experience.

As developers, it is easy to make looting fun by consistently providing valuable items. By frequently placing valuable rewards for the players, we can continue to reinforce the core fun over time.

However, MapleStory is an online game where players start with different resources and timeframe, grow at varying speeds, and have diverse playstyles. They interact, compete, and cooperate in one vast world, where a unique economy system enables them to trade items with each other.

As a result, there are times when players might feel excited to discover what they think is a valuable item, only to find out that it is worthless after showing it off to others or entering it into the item auction. Conversely, they may assume that an obtained item is useless, but its demand could be higher than the supply, significantly increasing its value. Due to the fluctuating nature of item values in online games, it is challenging to create items with a uniform and stable value for a large number of players and to provide them with RX.

Therefore, we have set up two criteria for providing excellent RX in MapleStory’s online environment: Utility and Rarity.

1. Utility

An item’s utility refers to its versatility, i.e., how many different purposes it can serve. An item that can be used for multiple tasks is generally considered more valuable than one that can only perform a single function.

For example, consider a pair of shoes designed to walk on slippery ice without slipping. Compared to ordinary shoes that can only be used on regular ground, these specialized shoes are considered better items because they offer higher utility.

Similarly, weapons with higher damage capabilities are more valuable because they enable players to hunt more monsters effectively. Therefore, an item’s utility plays a critical role in determining its value in the game.

The most effective way to increase an item’s utility in an online game is to introduce new content, and the original MapleStory has consistently delivered content updates to enhance RX and expand the utility of its in-game items.

Over the past 20 years, hundreds of developers have created a vast amount of content that is still being expanded through regular updates. This ongoing process is the primary driver behind the expansion of item utility, increased item value, and the overall improvement of the game experience, strengthening RX.

2. Rarity

Rarity requires that an adequate supply of an item should be provided based on the item’s qualities. If a ‘good’ item is easily obtainable that anyone can get it, it will naturally lose its value. On the other hand, if an item with not so ‘good’ qualities is difficult to obtain and becomes rare, it transforms into a valuable item for someone who strongly needs it.

However, there are times when the way players experience the game may deviate from what the development team intended as we update the content. This is why the team continuously monitors and tries to improve the gameplay experience to ensure that RX is operating as intended.

We use real-time price monitoring to bring game design developments and updates, as well as to monitor user trends after patches and make further improvements. In this process, we also detect and block macros and bots to eliminate RX-destroying factors. The biggest RX-destroying factor is the illegal farming of numerous automated bots and macros that ultimately depreciate item values by oversupplying in-game items and currencies.

In order to prevent this, Nexon has been sanctioning the activities of these bots by having the development team directly cut off such activities as well as having a specialized team of more than 200 people hold real-time monitoring for a more systematic and thorough counteraction. The cumulative number of accounts banned since launch is over 10 million, far exceeding the population of New York City (8.468 million).

As explained in detail above, MapleStory has been providing its service for 20 years with RX as the core fun factor. With an average longevity of 15 years for the top 50% of players, it’s safe to say that MapleStory has been played by multiple generations. However, we realized that we need to continue putting in more effort to stay relevant for years to come, and we found one of the solutions in MapleStory Universe.

A New RX Paradigm with Blockchain, RX 2.0

We have talked about scaling the fun of RX with a development team of hundreds, so let’s delve deeper into what we need to do to strengthen the RX even more. Perhaps the easiest conclusion could be that we grow our development team to thousands and increase the scale and density of upcoming contents.

However, this is not a realistic solution. Simply adding more developers to create more content will not necessarily improve the RX for our players. Instead, we must explore new avenues to enhance the overall MapleStory experience.

Generally, people only consider in-game activities when they think about playing a game, but our players know that there is much more to MapleStory than that. Sharing tips and experiences in forums or creating and enjoying fan-made content are all part of playing MapleStory. Nevertheless, these activities have always been separated from the game itself, as the core fun factor of MapleStory, RX, is limited to in-game activities.

Until now, there’s been a clear separation between the game and its derivative ecosystem — one cannot use in-game items in the derivative ecosystem since MapleStory’s core fun factor, RX, was limited to in-game activities. What if we could bridge that gap? What if we could allow players to use in-game items in this derivative ecosystem?

This is achievable through the use of blockchain technology. By building MapleStory on the blockchain and creating all items as NFTs, a structure can be established where items can be freely exchanged between various Dapps beyond the MapleStory blockchain ecosystem.

This would allow MapleStory’s RX to be strengthened not only within the game but also in various derivative ecosystems outside of it. Moreover, apps could interact with each other through freely movable items, breaking down existing game boundaries and moving towards a larger ‘universe’.

Instead of solely relying on the development team to fulfill the demand for new content, a derivative ecosystem of creators could bring the fun of RX to the players. This is how we envision the evolution to RX 2.0, the next generation of RX, where the development team is a part of the ecosystem, collaborating with various creators to produce massive creative content.

However, it is clear that the road to the next generation is not as well-paved as simply stating it as above. There are many factors to consider. Especially ‘inflation management’, which is closely tied with RX’s rarity, is the most fundamental factor. This is because ‘inflation management’ is closely linked to the core area of the game, and it is a challenging issue to approach without changing the fundamental structure of the game.

Like other MMORPG games, MapleStory has an infinite number of items that can be created. All rewards are generated and provided based on each player. If 1,000 people each kill a monster, 1,000 items are generated. If 10,000 people each kill a monster, 10,000 items are generated, and so on. However, it is impossible to accurately predict the number of players in the course of running a service, making it difficult to manage the rarity of items over time.

To achieve this goal, MapleStory N will be implementing a new item production structure called “limited quantity item generation.” Instead of allowing the game to have an infinite number of new items generated as the number of players increases, we will set a fixed total number of items for the entire server. This number will remain constant regardless of the number of players, ensuring that the number of items rewarded periodically is limited.

To ensure that MapleStory is sustainable for years to come, we will make RX more enjoyable by actively embracing blockchain technology and design. We will use NFTs to increase scalability across our derivative ecosystem, and we will use limited-quantity generation to address the underlying item inflation problem and increase rarity. With this blockchain technology and design, MapleStory will evolve into MapleStory Universe, an entirely new MMORPG virtual world with RX 2.0.

Wrapping up…

Our GDC session was titled “MapleStory Universe: Perfecting the Core MMORPG Experience with Blockchain.” We recognize that the term ‘perfect’ carries significant weight. As we emphasized in our very first post on Medium, we don’t claim to be unconditionally right, but we put our heart and soul into the word “perfect.”

We’ve been successful for 20 years in light of focusing on the fun of RX — the fun of winning items. And through the design and technology of blockchain, we aim to move towards the world of RX 2.0 that will carry us into the next 20 years.

MapleStory Universe is our first attempt to bring this to life. It’s a new, massive universe of MapleStory that goes beyond the boundaries of the existing games and is created by the development team and creators together. It evolves into a virtual world that can be infinitely expanded and freely navigated through NFTs on the blockchain. This is how we envision the MapleStory Universe.

Our vision for MapleStory Universe is MapleStory MMORPG in its ultimate form. Join us on our journey to perfect the game and experience its growth like never before. Let’s explore the limitless possibilities of MapleStory together.

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