Doood, I remember Perion as the FM, too! Everyone right at the bottom, all buying Omok Tables for 100k. I thought to myself "Woah, I could be rich if I got ahold of some of those!".
If I could suggest a few more things for this... 1) Don't limit it to just a place where you can only go there with the button. Perhaps customize the Orbis town map a little bit so that it can have an extra portal to lead the players to that place. Why Orbis town? Because it's like the main continent for ship rides that connects many places! And it's sort of a central hub for travelling. I think this is one of the reason why guild headquarter is implemented there and Orbis is placed in the middle of the world map, in which it connects many places but not the platform in Ellinia where it only connects to Orbis. 2) Instead of making it a "free" warp for those who use the button, maybe implement a small meso or NX (something that works like instant warp for boat rides) cost as a slight meso sink in exchange for convenience? I suppose many will oppose about this but it should be something like boat rides, Spinel's World Tour, Florina Beach, and taxi too, where you pay a small fee to go to a certain place. 3) Maybe setup a special NPC there to sell some kind of special weather effects that can be only purchased and used there? And maybe some "beverages" that have funny effects on the characters once consumed? I guess this can be another meso sink but could be a little difficult to implement. 4) An omok / monster card rental service where you'll lost the item once you leave the place? Could have special / unique omok pieces too, even if just recoloured ones so that the omok sets collectors won't feel so upset about their own collections being available easily around but this can take extra works. 5) Perhaps some dance moves like the ones from Star World? Or maybe we can just implement Star World as the social place or something since that content features many mini-games too. But then, this is coming from a player who prefer immersion, like a Skyrim player who never fast travel, and even went to an extent to install the carriage mod where you can see yourself travel in the carriage instead of instant warp so...yeah, just take the suggestions in regard of the placement of the place and how to go there as a grain of salt for this feedback.
I read through the OP and all of the replies, and I'm still not sure if I'm in favor of the map or not. I wish I had a "futue simulator" to test what it would actually be like. Of course, at first it sounds very nice, but then I'm also afraid towns would go "dead". However, one of the interesting sub-ideas that popped up was the "Jukebox" It is suggested that it could have Edelstein BGM (btw, that map looks very similar to Sleepywood/Dungeon ) How about "CDs" dropped from monsters? For example, Kulan Field CD would drop from all the Grays. I'd like to see the droprate being... insanely low, kind of like Monster Card. These CDs would then be inserted (not consumed) into the Jukebox and play that certain song. If non-Royals BGMs are desired too, maybe make them available from Gachapon?
I'm not sure how you're going to accomplish that without removing the FM entirely - Henesys is not the social hub of MapleStory on our server right now at all. I am not going to walk from Ludibrium to Henesys to be social. I'm going to ask the people in Henesys to go to the FM because I can go to the FM with the portal much quicker. I have been to Henesys exactly one time to sit in Henesys to talk to other players and I found about seven people there, all of whom were there because we actively decided as a group of friends to leave wherever we were and be there. This was channel 1 during the recently-ended event. I understand your point and you are completely free to socialize in any place you feel to, but the blunt truth is that even now, Henesys is not the social hub for a wide, wide majority of players even without any FM Button or any social room as is proposed by this thread, and it never will be just by virtue of how the Free Market works. I'm not trying to crucify you or be mean to you in any way - I'm just pointing out that, no matter how much you might miss it... let go. Henehoes are not this huge thing everyone does now because of no FM button, and this social room isn't going to "kill" Henehoes any more than father time already has. Now for more on-topic; I think that this social room idea is wonderful. My largest request is to be able to use it from most maps as a reprieve from the grind of the game that doesn't require us to jump through hoops to use; I can completely understand the logic that it should not be accessible from boss maps, but restricting it being used from training maps like Dragon Nest Left Behind and Road to Oblivion makes it feel like a chore to both start grinding as well as start socializing due to the travel time. Otherwise, my only requests are that it be free from cost, as we shouldn't be charged a tax on our desire to socialize, and that Summoning Sacks be disabled on it so that we don't have another post from @maggles about being killed with one while AFK. Looking forward to better accessibility in future!
*Sigh* Everyone who doesn't go to Henesys believes it is dead. o.o There's just about the same amount of people in Henesys right now as there is in Free Market, and Henesys isn't partially a place people go to sell or buy things. EDIT: Actually, just to be sure I counted. In Channel 1, there are 35 people currently in Henesys, and 28 in Free Market.
Henesys ch 1 looks more full because some guilds are headquartered there. It doesn't mean its the premiere social hub. Just couple months ago you had Arcady and friends headquartered in FM Ch3 which had 20+ members sitting there at any given time during SG prime time. It didn't mean that Ch 3 FM was the social hub.
I literally cited my findings, and now you've cited yours. Now, would you be so kind as to cc around Henesys and cc around the Free Market and give us a total number of all channels across the two maps? The findings may shock us! EDIT: Prompted by your post, I have checked myself. I found a total of 90 individuals in the Free Market over every channel, including six channels that were completely barren. I found 21 individuals in Henesys channel 1, and exactly one individual through the rest of the channels, bringing us to a grand total of 90-22. These numbers are also including the relative deadness of channels 8 and 17 FM that are normally populated with a bunch of Oblivion and Genesis alliance members as well - I'll be generous and assume the 10-15 people total in these rooms would be offset by whichever groups are missing from Henesys currently, though! I stand by my post. Henesys is not and has never been the social hub of MapleRoyals. It has always been the Free Market. It's always the way that I've felt, ever since 2013 when I started here, and I never thought I'd have to prove it with factual evidence, but there you are. I am more than happy to do this test again throughout the day to prove that the people in the Free Market at any given time is far higher than the people in Henesys, if it pleases you.
I should First, I need to address the fact that none are arguing for Henesys to be THE social place; I personally just don't want it to become a redundant place to hang out. Of course, most everyone in Henesys will be in channel 1, and in FM you got your 0-7 people headquartered in every other few channels. The only really consistent guild I see headquartered in Henesys is Mystic, the rest as of right now is a mix of 12 other guilds. As people who do not hang out at Henesys often or at all, I find it really silly to make the claim that nothing has changed since the removal of the FM button. I've been here; Henesys in the Old Source was utterly barren, and now with the New Source it is not. I cannot make a definite claim on the causes, but I feel the most rational one would be the fact that they are no longer offered an extremely convenient alternative with a click of a button. Hene-hoes are a thing right now; they're not the biggest goddamn thing ever, no one said that. But I can only theorize that returning the conditions of social access from the Old Source, that the situation will return to how it was in the old source, where Hene-hoes were most definitely not a thing. This is not an argument against a social button, it is just my personal gripe against the potential changes that'd come with it.
Dammit, I did say that. Please mercy me to redact the previous statement. I don't care for Henesys to be the primary social place, just for it to be a good social place.
All I mean to say is that, even currently, Henehoes are a subset of people who do choose to be where they are regardless of other options that may be easier. I don't see Mystic relocating to the social room because I know their leader personally and I know how much he likes being in Henesys. Perhaps other people agree with him, and with you. I understand that the way you like to relax and enjoy the game may be negatively affected by a social room like this, but you have to sympathize with us as well; the lack of an FM button very strongly negatively affected the way most of us relaxed and enjoyed the game, and this social room is an attempt to rectify that. It's clearly not your intent, but your posting here about this topic is detracting from the idea of a social room; perhaps instead you could make a suggestion to give more incentive for people to be in Henesys independently of this topic? I know you're going to dislike this statement as well, despite it being true; boat rides make it harder/less enjoyable to get to Henesys if you're far away. Perhaps supporting more avenues for quicker travel would also promote Henehoe culture, and I'm sure you'd be pleased to know that staff has mentioned the future possibility of family teleport to contribute to that. I'd also be waiting for the return of Henesys PQ whenever it does; that'll draw people to Henesys as well. Otherwise, as it stands, Henesys is kind of a redundant city. There's nothing of interest to do in or around Henesys apart from using the Gachapon and the occasional visit to the cosmetic shops, so if you're aiming to go there to socialize, you're leaving wherever you were accomplishing things in order to be there. I'd argue that GMS had Henehoe culture (and Perion market culture before it) because of how much more difficult it was to reach levels where you've outgrown Victoria Island; more low levels means more Victoria Island activity means more people in its cities. I think that that was Henehoe culture; people who were either low levels or people who had mostly-to-fully retired from actual game content and just wanted to hang out and meet new people. That's not exactly the same culture as the people who inhabit the FM who are looking to socialize/rest from regular game content. If I were you, I'd make a case for more casual reasons to be in Henesys as opposed to less reasons to be elsewhere. Keep fighting the good fight, friend.
Okay, so, thought to give this thread an update seeing how the debate is still going strong. We have made huge process on this suggestion, and in fact, you will see the result by the next patch.
