MapleStory N banned thousands of hackers on Avalanche
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.