The Avalanche-based multiplayer online role-playing game MapleStory N has sanctioned thousands of accounts it believes belong to hackers. The game has experienced loads of bots and hacker activity since its launch in May, leading to sanctions on some accounts.
According to Keith Kim, the head of strategy at developer Nexpace, which serves as the blockchain arm of gaming giant Nexon, the company has blocked thousands of accounts suspected to be controlled by hackers or bots to maintain its integrity for legitimate players.
Kim mentioned that the ban has been going on this week, with thousands of accounts banned every day. While hackers, attackers, and exploiters are common in most games, especially Call of Duty lobby, the stakes are always higher when it comes to crypto games.
MapleStory N pushback against hackers in its game
According to MapleStory N, some of its users have reported an increase in bot accounts, noting that most of the lobbies are filled with bots auto-farming. Another reported on X about an abuser who solo defeated the endgame boss in what he called “a game-breaking flaw.”
MapleStory N players are allowed to earn real digital assets in the game by grinding, trading, and even fighting, but due to the blockchain, these malicious actors now own these items and tokens in their wallets. This means that their illegal winnings have value in the real world. “It was a huge, huge issue. Internally, all of our teams were on emergency alert,” Kim said. Kim also mentioned that the number of attacks MapleStory N has been receiving is bigger than the entire Nexo game ecosystem.
MapleStory N is the first entry in the wider MapleStory Universe, a crypto ecosystem using the two-decade-old MapleStory IP, which has a huge following. After it launched, the game caused a jump of 549% in active addresses on Avalanche, according to Nansen data, delivering one of the biggest NFT mints the network has ever seen.
Nexspace to deploy several measures against malicious actors
Kim stated that one of the reasons why the game has been experiencing a high number of hackers activity is due to the low entry barrier of MapleStory N. If the platform bans a hacker for illegal activity, the hacker can create another wallet and play the game free of charge within seconds. Now, MapleStory N is trying to fight the right obstacles that will deter hackers without affecting regular players in the process.
As a result, the game has announced a 30-hour delay in cashing out assets, as this is the same timeframe that prevents a malicious actor’s account from getting banned. Aside from banning thousands of accounts daily, Nexpace is also trying to improve its security systems. The platform also wants to strengthen its abnormal play detection to catch these malicious actors on time.
In addition, the platform has been restricting off-ramps from its dedicated Avalanche L1 gaming network, Henesys. This means that any damage carried out by a hacker is isolated to Henesys, with no option for the abuser to fully remove funds obtained from the incident.
If the hackers are banned as a result of their actions, it means the funds are useless to them. If the hacker issue persists to the extent that they hold a large supply of the asset, then Nexspace will use its clawback function to allow developers to take back assets tied to banned accounts.
“These are audited, and these are controlled by different layers of a multi-sig [wallet]. These are very, very hard to trigger,” Kim explained. “But when we, for example, see a volume of macro assets that are tied or frozen within the Henesys L1, we can do some housekeeping and bring this value back to the gamers. That’s an option that we have.”
He added that Nexspace will seek the opinion of the community before using the clawback function, but for now, he said its worth considering due to the low amount of assets stranded by banned players.
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