After 2 years of waiting, the Web3 version of 'MapleStory' officially launched yesterday. This is the most notable blockchain game ever, and 'Have you gone to the island?' became one of the hottest topics yesterday. After officially launching at 6 PM last night, the server was immediately full, and some players seemed to encounter issues receiving verification codes during new user registration due to the influx of many new players.
The game currency $NXPC launched simultaneously on TGE on multiple exchanges including Binance, Bybit, Bitget, Upbit, and Bithumb, with the current price at $2.87 and a circulating market value of $483 million.
How to start the game? What is the game experience and gold farming returns like?
Start Game
Go to the official website, click the Game Start button in the upper right corner, and it will require you to connect your MetaMask wallet. Please keep your mnemonic phrase safe!
Players who have not registered an account before will need to register an account using their email. Then install the downloader and wait for the game to finish downloading and installing before entering. The subsequent login is also done by clicking the Game Start button on this page to invoke the launcher to start the game, without needing to log in within the game.
Game Experience
In the Web3 version of MapleStory, players can only choose from the early version of adventurer classes (i.e., Warrior, Thief, Mage, Archer, and Pirate). Old players might feel this is reminiscent of the ancient version before the V077 update introduced the warrior class, but in reality, aspects such as skills, maps, tasks, and other aspects of the game like UI have no difference from the current Web2 version.
Nevertheless, due to the significant changes in the economic mechanisms and the GameFi characteristics of Web3, the overall gaming experience has varied greatly in many aspects.
When creating a character, players cannot input their own character name; the system will randomly generate a string of English as the player's temporary character name. Before minting their game character onto the blockchain as an NFT, the name cannot be changed, and the condition for minting on the blockchain is that the game character must reach level 65 (although the level requirement is only 60, another requirement, which is to defeat 'Bat Demon Balrog' at least requires reaching level 65 to challenge).
So when I just entered the game, a bunch of English names were chasing after the green snails, and I couldn't compete at all... It took all my effort to drop 5 green snail shells, and I couldn't even see anyone... I entered the server relatively early, and the screenshots I took weren't shocking enough, so I borrowed some screenshots from other players I saw in the WeChat group.
The early upgrade process of the game has been significantly simplified. After completing this task, you directly reach the classic 'Pearl Harbor map'.
Then it will directly ask which first transfer profession you want to choose. After completing the selection, the system will automatically increase the level to 10 and teleport you to the job change point for the transfer.
Then you will go to Archer Village to do a series of simple monster-killing tasks, and after finishing them, regardless of the level, you will be directly boosted to level 30 and sent to the job change point for a second job transfer. After this, you will follow the guide to do themed dungeons until the third job transfer at level 60, where there will be a short period of grinding where you need to take quests and level up.
In the game, defeating monsters usually only drops in-game coins $NESO and potions. The drop rate of NFT items is currently extremely low; in my more than 4 hours of gameplay, I only dropped 2 lottery tickets. There is no longer a coin shop to buy potions, but you don't have to worry about potion shortages as monster drops are very generous, and higher-level potions will gradually drop based on your level.
In the game, you can quickly check what equipment can drop on the current map. As you can see, the current drop quantity of decorations is very low, and the drop rate is naturally very low.
Another way to obtain powerful weapon equipment is by defeating bosses. In the Web3 version, defeating a boss does not directly drop equipment, but is equivalent to receiving a 'lottery ticket', which means you need to defeat bosses every day and Roll for equipment with players from the entire server.
I completed the kill of the easy difficulty Zakum but only rolled $NESO and did not obtain the Zakum helmet.
From the image above, you can also see that the game has done some localization, but the completeness of this localization can be described as 'crippled' level...
Overall, being able to play the childhood game in the industry I am engaged in is truly touching, but there are still many areas that can be improved, such as better multilingual support including localization, better novice guidance, etc. Due to the significant changes in the game's drop mechanism, I also hope that interesting Web3 version exclusive events can be introduced in conjunction with the characteristics of Web3 in the future. This is a bit far-fetched, as the game has just launched and needs time.
How the mechanisms related to NFT items will develop also requires some time to verify. From the perspective of Web3, the in-game currency $NESO can be regarded as a no-threshold Play to Earn, while NFT items are Play(Hunt/Raid) to Raffle, especially the server-wide Roll mechanism for defeating bosses, which requires meeting conditions and then hoping for a lucky outcome.
Gold Farming Situation
Players entering the game with a gold farming mindset are very dissatisfied with this point. Due to the nature of Web3, everyone hopes this will be a game-rich gold mine, but the actual situation is that the current gold farming returns are far less than the Web2 version.
Setting aside equipment drops (NFT market), which requires time to test the buying power (of course, the game has an official equipment recycling mechanism, but this aspect of gold farming cannot be judged at present and relies heavily on luck), the most direct way is to kill wild monsters in the game for $NESO and then exchange it for $NXPC through this gold farming channel. Currently, the exchange rate is 100,000 $NESO for 1 $NXPC, which is simply too high given the current drop rates.
Citing data from @ZiYu0210:
The prerequisite here is still to reach level 200, and you need to bring the $NESO from the game onto the chain for exchange, and you also need to mint a game character. Therefore, to realize the gold farming output of the game, users really need to play to a certain depth. Currently, only players who participated in early activities and testing to obtain a large amount of airdrop can make money.
This is actually a very contradictory point. If you want to continuously attract gold farming players, either the exchange rate or the drop rate needs to be modified at least one. If not changed, the game may face significant challenges because at this point, we are relying on players who truly want to play the game, or the NFT item output can become a good gold farming channel. However, to obtain the top-level sets, it's impossible without investing money; for Web3 players, spending money is equivalent to reinvestment, but how can we convince gold farming players to spend their first money when the current gold farming is close to zero? (Let alone reinvestment...)
For players who truly want to play the game, the overall experience of the Web3 version might not easily convince them to switch from the Web2 version.
This is a game that can be both grindy and casual, with the fun being in playing with friends. How the game will develop and regulate after this will gradually reflect how serious NEXON is about this blockchain game project and what kind of development strategy they have, so for now, I still maintain an optimistic attitude of waiting and seeing.
So, today, have you gone to the island?
