After 2 years of waiting, the Web3 version of 'MapleStory' (MapleStory N) has finally officially launched. This is the largest blockchain game ever and has become one of the hottest topics recently. After the official launch, the server was immediately full, and some players seemed to have trouble receiving verification codes during new user registrations due to the influx of many new players.
$NXPC, the in-game currency, launched simultaneously with TGE on multiple exchanges including Binance, Bybit, Bitget, Upbit, and Bithumb.
How to start the game? What is the game experience and gold farming income like? After personal experience and information gathering, I have organized it for you in this article.
Start Game
Go to the official website, click the Game Start button in the upper right corner, and it will ask you to connect your MetaMask wallet. Please keep your seed phrase safe!
If you have not registered an account before, you will need to register with an email. Then install the downloader and wait for the game to finish downloading and installing to enter the game. Subsequent logins are 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 versions of the adventurer classes (i.e., Warrior, Thief, Mage, Archer, and Pirate). Old players might feel this is equivalent to the ancient version before the V077 update of the God of War class, but in fact, elements like skills, maps, quests, and other aspects of the game such as UI, are not different from the current Web2 version.
Nonetheless, due to significant changes in the economic mechanism and the GameFi characteristics of Web3, the overall gaming experience has differed greatly at various levels.
When creating a character, players cannot input their own character names; the system randomly generates a string of letters as the player's temporary character name. Before minting their game character as an NFT, the name cannot be changed, and the condition for minting is that the character must reach level 65 (although only level 60 is required for the level condition, the other requirement, i.e., defeating a 'Bat Demon Balrog', requires at least level 65 to challenge).
So when I first entered the game, a bunch of players with English names were chasing the green snails, making it nearly impossible to get a drop... I exhausted myself trying to drop 5 green snail shells, and couldn’t even see other players... I got in the server earlier, and the screenshots I took myself weren't impressive enough, so I borrowed some screenshots from other players in the WeChat group.
The early leveling process of the game has been greatly simplified. After completing this task, you will directly enter the classic 'Pearl Harbor Map'.
Then it will directly ask which first job you want to choose. After completing the selection, the system will automatically increase your level to 10 and conveniently teleport you to the job change point for the advancement.
Then you will go to Archer Village to complete a series of simple monster hunting tasks. After finishing, regardless of your level, you will be directly leveled up to level 30 and conveniently teleported to the job change point for the second job advancement. After this, you will follow the guide to complete themed dungeons until the third job advancement at level 60, during which there will be a brief period where you need to take on tasks and level up by yourself.
In the game, monsters usually only drop the in-game currency $NESO and potions, and the drop rate for 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 gold shop for buying potions, but you need not worry about running out of potions; monster drops are very plentiful and will gradually drop more efficient potions based on level.
In the game, you can quickly check what equipment can drop on the current map. You can see that the current quantity of decorative items that can drop 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', meaning you need to kill Bosses every day and roll for equipment with players across the server.
I completed the kill of the easy difficulty Zakum and only rolled $NESO, without obtaining the Zakum helmet.
From the above image, we can see that the game has done some localization, but the completion level of this localization can be described as 'crippled'...
Overall, being able to play a childhood game in the industry I work in is absolutely touching, but there are still many areas for improvement in the experience, such as more comprehensive multilingual support including localization, better beginner guidance, etc. Due to significant changes to the game's drop mechanism, I hope they can introduce some interesting Web3 version exclusive events that align with Web3 characteristics; this is a bit far-fetched, especially since the game has just launched and needs time.
The mechanisms related to NFT items will take some time to verify how they will develop. From a Web3 perspective, the in-game currency $NESO can be seen as a no-threshold Play to Earn, while NFT items are Play(Hunt/Raid) to Raffle, especially the mechanism of rolling for Bosses across the server, which requires meeting certain conditions and hoping for good luck.
Gold Farming Status
Currently, players entering with a gold farming mindset are very dissatisfied with this point. Because of the nature of Web3, everyone hopes this would be a highly game-oriented gold mine, but the reality is that the current gold farming income is even worse 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 it's hard to assess this for gold farming currently, and it really depends on luck), the most direct method is to farm monsters in the game to drop $NESO and then exchange it for $NXPC through this gold farming channel. The current exchange rate is 100,000 $NESO for 1 $NXPC, which is really too high given the current drop rates.
Citing data from @ZiYu0210:
The prerequisite here is still to reach level 200, and to exchange the in-game $NESO on-chain, you also need a game character to mint, so to monetize the gold farming output in the game, users really need to play to a certain depth. Currently, only players who participated in early activities and testing and received large airdrops are making 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 modified, the game may face significant challenges, as this relies on players who genuinely enjoy playing the game or that NFT item outputs can become a good gold farming channel. But to obtain the top tier sets, you can’t do it without spending money; for Web3 players, spending money is equivalent to reinvesting, but how can this near-zero gold farming convince players to make their first investment? (Let alone reinvesting...)
For players who genuinely play the game, the overall experience of the Web3 version may not easily convince them to switch from the Web2 version.
This is a game that can be very grindy but also very relaxing; the fun lies in playing with friends. How the game will develop and adjust in the future will gradually reflect how serious NEXON is about this blockchain project and what kind of development strategy they have, so for now, I remain cautiously optimistic.
(The above content is excerpted and reprinted with the authorization of our partner PANews, original link | Source: BlockBeats)
"'Childhood Memories' Chain Game Version (MapleStory) Initial Experience: How is the Gold Farming System? What are the Earnings?" This article was first published on (Blockchain Guest).
