Good Morning,
Not sure if this has been suggested before, the possibility of even doing it in the first place, or if this is something that would interest the Nexon team, but here it goes:
Many of your Maplestory players are long-term players, and many people do miss the old days (Ah yes, another "bring me back to the old days"). Many other players periodically revisit the game, and play for nostalgia purposes, and find that the game is just too different than they remember, or too many things to learn at this point (Myself and some friends of mine at least).
So let's cut to the idea:
Basically you start a new instance of Maplestory out from shortly after beta, or even to right before third jobs were released (Or somewhere around there, i'm sure you guys have the files and all the patches sitting around somewhere). This includes any cash shop stuff (Obviously you can keep the cosmetic stuff that isn't character or story related), like no 2x coupons before 2x coupons were first released, or no pets before pets, etc. All big cash shop updates would come along the same update time they came originally. Don't worry, we will still pour money into the game, gotta have the new cash shop benefits as soon as they're out, right?
You periodically update the game (Let's just say monthly for example, maybe not at the same intervals as in the past, because things were still being developed), and keep implementing whatever the patches from before were. Maybe even give us a solid timeline "On March 01 2021, patch number 1.12" "On April 01, patch number 1.13". Obviously you would already be able to implement all your small bug fix patches from in the past as well, or any quality of life improvements that wouldn't have ruined the game or changed it too much from back then.
As the months/years go on, once this new version catches up with GMS, you move the server from the separate instance to the main game (Or even ALLOW a move? Or a separate server that will be ONLY for this Reborn/Refined server combinations? And maybe don't allow cross server transfers from this instance to the main servers?)
You could even implement more than one of these at once, Like 1 year into the new instance, start another instance, and so on.
You'd be able to wrangle in many people that are maybe playing Maplestory via some other method just to feel the nostalgia.
Just an idea, feel free to roast me now.
-Mike
Comments
No, it's more like an acceleration lane for people who are too overwhelmed by Maplestory's complexity.
I don't think any other game does that. Seems way too complex for the developers to maintain these multiple "instances", each at a different stage of the game's history.
Hellome666, just imagine you are starting up a game you've never played before, and learn it as you go. What you remember from back in Beta or whenever you last played, is largely irrelevant by now. You left the game, and maybe you regret not experiencing each update as it came, but it's not practical to create a personal environment for each person to feel like they played through the past 15 years.