Website screenshots of EMS, JMS and KMS during their Close BETA (2006, 2003, 2002)

The skill effect of "Meteor Shower" was different from now
when it was first introduced in Tespia of KMS.

It was like:

Spoiler: Read More this article

Just like ice rises from the ground for the skill "Blizzard" of I/L mages, a volcano rose up from the ground.

so, actually, the name of the skill was also "Volcano" originally.




and you can also see that the icon of the skill was also different from now.



Before the icon of Volcano in the photo above was made,




"Volcano" shared the same icon with "Inferno" of Ranger class.



Photos below are what remain on the internet about this archaic form of "Meteor Shower".








Thank you for watching this post,

and i really love studying about and collecting photos of early MapleStory.

I'm gonna share some interesting facts of early MapleStory when I have some spare time.

 

so....

These are what happened on the day VIP teleport stone was first introduced in MapleStory in 2006.




"If it were a Pianus, it would be hella cool" - a lvl 1 noob in the picture above

Spoiler: Read More this article

Nexon was so fool that they didn't expect mischievous users could go to inappropriate places,


so you could face a Jr.Barlog right after making a new character

because high lvl users were able to come to maple island and use summoning sacks.




and another user could suddenly pop up where you were doing 2nd advancement quest and KS you.


Of course Nexon realized it really went wrong

and had a patch to make vip teleport stone unable to teleport to some inappropriate places.


Still there are some archaic screenshots on the internet that show these stupid happenings:



a lvl 88 dragon knight killing some blue snails in maple island




"Please teach me skill build of warrior" - a noob 'Fighter1020' talking to PROs in maple island.




high lvl users strolling around Amherst



"This quest area is for beginners, but you are not a beginner?" - Peter

While nexon didn't expect this vip tele disturbance, some how expected(?) some users could come to maple island

and prepared a npc dialogue for exception handling.

 

WEWWWWWWWWWWW I MISS THE OLD KMS DAYS

 

I appreciate your appreciation on my posts, Gert

also thank you guyz for enjoying this maple archeology

 

I always feel oddly sad when I see or think of small details such as these fading into obscurity, and being forgotten. Thank you very much for posting this! I had no idea about either of these

 

Zipangu was first introduced in JMS on April 23rd, 2004 with its first town: Mushroom Shrine (キノコ神社).

In early days of JMS, you have to go to Kerning City and climb up a tower crane

, and the npc 'Perry (ペリー)' the pelican was there waiting for you to take you to Mushroom Shrine having you in his MOUTH POUCH.

Spoiler: Read More this article

Check this article written on April 22nd, 2004, a day before the first Zipangu update: https://www.4gamer.net/games/011/G001163/20040422220257/ (it is written in Japanese)


These pictures below show Mushroom Shrine back in 2004:







Since Perry was one of iconic NPCs in JMS, there are some fan-arts of this NPC by Japanese players,

and I think this one is the best (you have to read it from right to left, you know, its Japanese-style):

so our friend Perry accidentally swallowed the player while flying and he was lost for words.

This fan-art was made in 2009: https://maplestory.nexon.co.jp/community/fanart/view/90113/


If you also want to see the early Showa Town(ショーワ町), check this link: https://www.4gamer.net/news/history/2005.05/20050531170456detail.html


Okay, this series still goes on,

Chapter 2: Floating Market - Thai MS
Chapter 3: Shanghai Wai-Tan - Chinese MS
Chapter 4: Ximending, Taipei 101 - Taiwanese MS

To be continued....

 

Oh god, Perry is actually real Nostalgic, I do remember going full hype rushing home as a kid after school for the new update, only to find this new NPC after school when Zipangu was first released into my Server!
Thanks for posting this!

 

These are just great, please keep them coming! I honestly had no idea about Perry.

 

Floating Market (หมู่บ้านตลาดน้ำ) was first introduced in ThMS on 15th September, 2006, which was 15 ก.ย. 2549 in Thai calendar system,

and the version was ThMSv22. (Reference: https://mgronline.com/game/detail/9490000116702 written in Thai)


What do you think? Which map would be the best to connect with Floating Market??

Developers of ThMS cleverly chose 'The Swamp of Despair' of Kerning city, which was really consistent with Floating Market,

and the npc 'Captain Nares (กับตันนเรศ)' was there waiting for you to take you to Floating Market with his small ship.

Spoiler: Read More this article

While developing Floating Market, developers of ThMS referred to Damnan Saduak Floating Market (ตลาดน้ำ ดำเนินสะดวก) near Bangkok.

There are some official photos by ThMS showing exactly which part of the real floating market they referred.




See. Placing the npc Captain Nares at the swamp map was a very clever idea.





(Reference: https://www.sanook.com/game/944531/)

In above photos we can really feel the effort of developers of ThMS exploring real Thailand to make their original maps.


Actually, to understand the full story-line of Thai maps in MapleStory, we have to also take a look at a town called 'Siam(สยาม)',

which was the 2nd Thai map after Floating Market and also connected to Floating Market,

and which was later introduced in other countries' MS with another name: 'Golden Temple'.







so the full story-line of Thai maps was:

As the demon Ravana (Asura) in the basement of Siam's temple (Golden Temple) was released from the seal, it adversely affected surrounding animals, causing uprising of frogs, chickens and snakes in Floating Market.


After Big-Bang update, players of ThMS had to go to Victoria Tree Platform, and there was a portal to Floating Market.




Okay, this series still goes on,

Chapter 3: Shanghai Wai-Tan - Chinese MS
Chapter 4: Ximending, Taipei 101 - Taiwanese MS

To be continued....

 

awesome work!

 

Among Royals players who love to strolling around maps and maps, some may have wondered why this npc even exists?




The npc "Yang the Pilot" in the map "Temporary Airport" does nothing in Royals and also did nothing in most countries' official MS servers,

so some could have thought that this npc was just a dummy one or quests were designed for it but not realized for some reason.


The truth is:

In CMS, the npc "Yang the Pilot"(洪姓驾驶员) was the one who flew you to Shanghai Waitan(上海外滩) from Perion.

He audaciously parked his plane on the roof of warriors' sanctuary. I wonder what Dances with Balrog thought about that.



(reference: http://t7912192003.pixnet.net/album/photo/90784846)

Spoiler: Read More this article

(reference: http://epaper.pchome.com.tw/archive/last.htm?s_date=old&s_dir=20061102&s_code=0521)


By the way, unfortunately, I couldn't find a single photo of Yang the Pilot from CMS.

Although i have spent many hours to search on Chinese search engines such as Baidu, Sogou, Sina, QQ, etc... eventually I failed.

If any Chinese player who have found any photo of Yang the Pilot from CMS, please share here.

Instead, the photos of Yang the Pilot above were from TMS, so the name of npc is written as 洪姓駕駛員 (traditional characters used in Taiwan), not 洪姓驾驶员 (simplified characters used in China).


Unlike other world-tour NPCs that I have introduced until now, Yang the Pilot was still left in MS servers where the npc had no any function,
so it used to be regarded as a mysterious npc in some countries.


"Lastly, this is~ the place called Shanghai temporary airport... Can i fly to somewhere with this plane?
It seems like there's some quests to do... err whatever
anyway i wanna take a plane once..."

(reference: http://blog.naver.com/PostView.nhn?blogId=leesle917&logNo=110024502436)

as you can see from the blog of a KMS player above.


Okay, this series still goes on,

Chapter 4: Ximending, Taipei 101 - Taiwanese MS

To be continued....

 

This is what the GMs used to look like in GMS. They just had a "w" brief case.

Also this was beta! As u can see top right corner.

 

I have the habit of dressing up like this, occasionally, when I'm sick of my fancy NX outfits.

 

For the last chapter of [Special Series] "When There Was No Spinel...",

we will cover the world tour area that has not been introduced in MapleRoyals: the Taiwanese maps.

Therefore, I think we have to take a look around Taiwanese maps first, before I explain how to get there.



Taiwanese maps consist of two parts: 福爾摩沙 (Formosa) and 摩登101 (Modern 101),

and Formosa consists of 西門町 (Ximending) and 不夜城 (Night-less Quarter), where you can just walk to and from each other across the hunting maps.

the word Formosa which is also used to call Taiwan is originated from a Português word "Ilha Formosa" which means "a beautiful island".

Spoiler: Read More this article

1. 西門町 (Ximending) - 福爾摩沙 (Formosa) Road



The town 西門町 (Ximending) was released in April 19th, 2006 for TMS v0.28,
(reference: https://blog.xuite.net/kyo.k/twblog/129611755-★楓之谷V0.28版西門町新任務攻略詳解~(自製台灣版地圖))



and obviously referred to the real Ximending street of the real Taiwan.

You can see the buildings in the background of the in-game town is almost exactly identical to the real photo below.




the town Ximending have parody NPCs of real celebrities in Taiwan such as




Although the video below is the KMS version of the Taiwanese maps, you can see the town, the hunting maps and the monsters of Ximending area.



Especially, I highly appreciate the map design of those hunting maps. It makes you feel like you are jumping around buildings to hunt monsters, which is really exciting.


To go to the town Ximending, you have to talk to the npc 捷運服務員 (MRT employee) in Kerning City subway station, then you can take a subway to Ximending just like when you go to New Leaf City in GMS.



and you can get to Ximending subway station (西門町捷運站)



then.... yay~~ welcome to Formosa~~





2. 不夜城 (Night-less Quarter) - 福爾摩沙 (Formosa) Road

This area is often called as "Night Market" in English.




The town 不夜城 (Night-less Quarter) was released in Aug 23rd, 2006 for TMS v0.36
(reference: https://blog.xuite.net/kyo.k/twblog/129611752-★楓之谷V0.36版福爾摩沙-不夜城新增任務詳解(自製不夜城地圖))








As I already said before, you can get to this town by just walking through Ximending hunting maps.

Although the resolution of the video below is bad, you can see what the town and near hunting maps were like:




and you can watch what it was like to hunt at Night Market area.




At the last hunting map of Night Market area, there is a field boss 黑輪王 (Oden King), which is already familiar also to those who are not familiar with Taiwanese maps.




a video of lv85 chief bandit hunting Oden King in 2008:




Yes, Oden King is now at a Sleepywood hunting map in GMS, KMS, etc with its name 'Snack Bar'.

Taiwanese maps were released in TMS, JMS and KMS, and also in KMS, Snack Bar was at the Night market map at first:



After world tour contents was removed from KMS, Snack Bar was moved to Sleepywood dungeon, and they added new story to this boss: it is a rival of 24-Hr Mobile Store at Ant Tunnel Park:

" There is a famous street vendor at Ant Tunnel Park in Victoria's central dungeon. However, sometimes an unidentified stand also opens in a deeper dungeon than that ... What's more unusual is that no one has ever bought anything from this stand. The reason is that the attitude suddenly changes 180 degrees when you get close ... The street vendor at Ant Tunnel Park seems unpleasant with the emergence of a competitor. "

I think after that GMS and MapleSEA also got Snack Bar at Sleepywood. --> I need to study more.



3. 摩登101 (Modern 101)




This area is often called as "Taipei 101" since it actually referred to real Taipei 101 building in Taiwan,

and it is introduced later in other countries' maplestory server with its name "Kerning Square".




Modern 101 area was released in May 30th, 2007.
(reference: https://axiang.cc/archives/573)




and the map had some funny parodies of well-know brands such as:



and there was a boss monster called 瘋狂喵Z客(Crazy Meow Z Guest, Crazy Caterwauling Z Guest), which is later called 'Rock Spirit' in Kerning Square of GMS, KMS, etc.

It is pretty hard to translate this boss's name into English, because it is also hard to explain in Chinese. It seems like just nonsense when we see it as it is written.

Some say 客 might not mean 'guest' in the context, but it is rather closer to the 客 in 俠客 , which means 'chivalrous fighter'.

or some can argue that since 喵Z客 sounds like "musical" if we read it in Chinese so 瘋狂喵Z客 might mean "Crazy Musical"




(reference: https://maple.heyxu.com/tw/p/strategy-monster/mo100006)




After the update for this area, Modern 101, the new npc called 地鐵服務員 (Subway employee) was added and he send you to the inside of the subway on the way to Modern 101. You have to walk through these subway maps by yourself to get to Modern 101.

Demon slimes are the only mobs that appear in the subway maps. The subway maps were recognized as the best way to level from 20 to 30 due to their low hp and high exp. (You can see this in the first youtube video below)




Thanks to this nice guy who took videos of him and his friends going to and strolling around Modern 101 maps in October, 2007,

just 2 months after when Modern 101 was released in TMS, I can substitute his videos for the detailed explanation about Modern 101.


In this first video, you can see the way to get to Modern 101:






In this last video, you can see him fighting against the boss 瘋狂喵Z客.





so.... this is it! The longest post I've ever written lol.....

I have spent 2 days writing this post, but i felt I have to elaborate these fascinating maps and contents that Taiwanese MapleStory created, so I really enjoyed.

And I have to say that I got helps and supports from Taiwanese friends from the guild Savior while writing this, which I really appreciate.


so It was planned to be the last chapter of this world tour arc, but I think I have to do one more chapter.......

I mean right now, right here




Go and check by yourself in MapleRoyals.



Okay this is the end of this series: [Special Series] "When There Was No Spinel..."

Thank you.

 

Very nice post
Hope to see more content like this, it truly show the history the MS!

Since there's so much content on each post, possible to add spoiler button? It takes time to load when my internet went dumb.

Also just noticed other skills are using replacement icons too, wondering what skill they replaced on. Funny to see the 4th job icon are messed up

 

@Rinn Hi, Rinn, as always thanks for reading, and using the spoiler function was actually a good advice for me to tidy up my series which keeps adding up.

Here's the response to your curiosity:




Nexon used to release new job advancement's skills in Tespia, which is the test server of KMS, before they finished designing their icons.

So they had to temporarily use skill icons which already existed.

Sometime it engendered ridiculous situation like the photo below:

the same skill icon was repeated since HyperBody and PowerStance shared the same icon




To see more examples, press the spoiler button below:

Spoiler: Read More this article

This phenomenon was much more severe when 3rd job advancement was released in Tespia,

since there were only 1st and 2nd job skills

so they did more insincerely like this:

 

Today I finally reveal the The Real Title of THE BOOK....

Yes... Mr. Wetbottom's Secret Book... which is red.





It has been considered as one of the top mysteries of human history,

while actually there are few people who know the truth in Korea.


Since the real name of THE BOOK was used only for a short period of the very early KMS, even not every Koreans know it.


And the Koreans who know the truth fear to speak out it because it is really dangerous and shameful,
so it has been kept as one of national secrets of Korea.


However, today I finally decided to bravely disclose the truth:




The title of the book is "The Girl Next Door".


While the majority of players of MapleStory were teen kids at that time, Nexon dare to make an item's name as "The Girl Next Door".





Of course, Nexon realized it was very improper naming to kids, so they changed the name into "Secret Book" quickly.




While there have been some people who claim it is actually the magazine called Monthly Chinese Food,

but now we all know the TRUTH.

Thank you.

 

Nothing but screenshots of website of EMS, JMS and KMS during their BETA Test:

1. EMS in July, 2006




"Free to Play! In Multi-Language!"

"[Coming Soon] French version..."


2. JMS in October, 2003





3. KMS in late 2002 or early 2003 (the date is not accurate)



When a lv.26 magician was the highest lv user.

 

Omg this is amazing!
Loving the archeology work!