Removal of warp-to-FM button functionality

Can honestly say I never "abused" this feature but I loved how easy it was to go to fm. It was very helpful in ToT when I trained at RoR, and wanted to throw up a shop real quick or even needed to trade some snow over to another character / put it in storage for another char on the same account. If fm is a bit out of reach on a map, its extremely helpful to just click that button and whoosh your there. All round it was just extremely convenient and I never really seen anyone "abuse" this feature, and if anyone actually does, it's a huge ass waste of time LOL.

#BringBackFMWarp

 

Look, I get how difficult the implementation of the new source code is, and I understand that certain changes to the game need to be made in order to be technically compatible with the new client. However, what I really don't understand is the fact that you guys put so much effort into this update, only to shoot yourself in the foot by implementing changes that you know people are not going to like.

You guys know that people are going to be angry at the lack of the fm button, and you guys know that people are going to be angry that you limit apq to twice a day (idk if that's actually a technical thing or a active decision). So I have to ask you guys, why purposely piss off the majority of the players? What is this going to accomplish?

And if you guys are going to give reasons for why the fm-warp is a bad thing, give actual evidence for your reasons. Saying things like "It wasn't intended to be used that way" and "It's a detriment to the overall goals of the game" are not good reasons. There are plenty of games that had features that weren't "intended" by the developer, but ended up being very important to the game (see bunny-hopping and rocket jumping in Quake, "skiing" in Tribes, etc). And Nostalgia isn't a particularly good reason either. I highly doubt most of the people on this server care that this server is absolutely perfect to the very last detail to how Maple was in 2008, and I think most people will take beneficial features over being "accurate to the original".

I love Maple Royals, and I wouldn't be saying all of this if I didn't care about this server and community. It just pains me to see you guys self-destruct in this way...

 

I can understand that your main objective is to make MapleRoyals feel the same as the old official server, but you keep forgetting that this is a private server after all. Old GMS was in a completely different situation than MapleRoyals, and you have to understand that you can't just randomly make everything work as it did in v62 of official server and expect the same results. The biggest difference between GMS and MapleRoyals is player base. Back then the server was huge and even with 20 channels, going to Orbis/Ludi meant you'll sail the boat with at least few people you can talk to/play omok with, no matter what channel you go to. MapleRoyals is being played by barely 1,6-1,8k people daily, and while it's still a lot for a private server and we have less channels than GMS, it still means that we don't meet people in game as often as on GMS. Mandatory boat rides and removal of FM Warp button makes us walk a lot more, waste a ton of time to reach our destination. You need to keep in mind that these changes will make people visit free market a lot less often, and you're risking destroying the current place of meetings/socializing of people. The real part of nostalgia of old maplestory isn't all the features you're trying to stick to, but the fact you could meet a ton of interesting people and talk to them on daily basis. Just my opinion though, perhaps i'm wrong.

Anyways, imagine you could analyze the feelings and expectations of each person playing your server and tell whether a certain change will be good, or bad and how many % of people will be disappointed, how many will be glad. While you obviously cannot do that, i believe that each game has it's own small flaws, and each change/fix makes the community either happy or sad. That being said, i gotta say that removal of FM Warp button will most likely be sad for majority of the server. While i'm not a big fan of current maplestory and i don't play it just because it's way too complicated in it's current state and it's a completely different game right now, i noticed they do have a Quick Move option that allows them to teleport to a lot of locations, not only free market. We had just this one, QoL FM Warp button that's getting removed just because you want to keep the server as GMS-like as possible, seems stubborn to me.

I got a lot of experience over the past few years of running my own company and got a decent grasp on what you shouldn't be doing. I do believe, that if you succeed as a private server with a certain feature, in this situation FM Warp button, and people haven't ever complained about it, then you do not want to touch it. If something works and people are used to it, you don't simply come to change it just to piss people off. If i did something like that in my company, i could have lost a customer followed by a lot of deficit in monthly salaries. Same in this situation, while people probably will not quit over a small qol change and they will adjust over time, it will definitely make majority of them angry. Which eventually will lead to a point where some of them will quit earlier than they would if the bad decision wasn't made. These all are psychological aspects that must be known and never ignored if you want to run a good business, or in this case a good private server that definitely brings a lot of money from donations. Anyways, it's your server after all and you will do what you decide, just thought of throwing some feedback as i play the server as well and care about it's future.

 

Well this is a feedback thread, I am giving my 2 cents. I never said it was anyone else's problem.

 

As with most controversial changes there's gonna be immediate backlash from the community, however I think a lot of you guys are overreacting to this change. You guys are upset because this is something you've gotten so used to that you've never given it a real thought, it was second nature to you being able to warp to fm at any given moment. Let's say tomorrow everybody every player here is given a permanent hyper tp rock, what do you think the overall reaction would be? Not happy right? Now what if we had hyper tp rocks since day 1 and they decided to remove it after 3 years of having it, what do you think the reaction to that would be? Same as the removal of the fm warp I'd imagine. Can you sit here and say for certain whether hyper tp rocks are good for the game or not? It's easy for us to say it's not because we've never had it but if you ask a different group of people who've always played maplestory with it then their words are gonna be drastically different than ours.

I'm not trying to defend this change, my view on it is neutral but even if you strongly disagree with it at least try to understand why this change did happen and try to see the other side of the argument. And knowing how the gms are in this server it's unlikely this change will get reverted regardless of how much of an uproar it'll cause so the best thing to do is to come to acceptance with it.

 

I want to make it clear that all feedback is, has been, and always will be considered and taken seriously so long as I'm around. I make it a point to read as many feedback threads as I possibly can, and respond to as many as I can with informative posts that will hopefully achieve the gargantuan feat of explaining why we had to make the tradeoff that we did. To address your specific points; 1) the point of a private server is the goal of the ownership team that runs the server and nobody else's. That ownership group, on this server, is one individual who will guide the server to where he thinks it should be, because this server is his child and nobody else's. 2) The point that I'm responding to your posts should be reason enough to believe that your distressed feedback is absolutely important to us.

No, I will not confirm your last point. Nothing is set in stone, ever, as we have previously overturned decisions that were made when presented with sound enough reasoning to do so. However, at the moment, this change is being made in the interests of the server's health, as previously stated, and it will be implemented with the new source patch, and it will remain in the game until further notice.

You raise interesting points; there are unintended features of MapleStory itself that still exist; HP Washing is probably the cleanest example of one such unintended feature that was adapted into the game. There have been reasons presented for why the FM warp button is being removed; your opinion that they are not good reasons is certainly a valid opinion, but it is not an opinion that is shared from ownership's perspective.

I understand that it is frustrating to have others disagree with you and to not be in control of the situation, trust me. I too love MapleRoyals, and I would not be here responding to this thread if I didn't.

Thank you for sharing your feelings on the matter - there is one way to analyze the feelings of the players for a decision that has been made. It's called time. It is already clear how much distaste is expressed from this decision now, however it is best to still wait for the change to be live and take effect before judging just how positively or negatively it affects player activity and socialization on the game server itself. It is already clear that a lot of players are unhappy about this choice just from hearing about it, to the point that they have decided to no longer play this server anymore, but being able to see how players adjust to it in action is going to be the most valuable observation in any decision to overturn this change.

 

Let me rephrase myself to be very specific; even if a majority of the server is against removing instant FM warp, the removal will not be rescinded right? (s/o boat rides take four)

 

honestly, why can't you guys just go back to town and enter FM the normal way. I have been playing SEA since 06-13, and there is never such a warp function at all in-game.

 

I will be very specific as well; that is not a true statement so long as I'm here answering threads.

This post is not a guarantee or confirmation of any course of action we may take in future. It is simply one statement.

I hear you, and I'm going to do my best.

 

#BringBackFMWarp

Remove buffs in the FM.

Not a problem - i'll just leave my mules in-map or have it at town so i can door myself there.
Congratulations, You fixed nothing.

How the hell is that even a problem?

It's like you're some kind of feminist company, making up your own dragons and then slaying them.



To put it mildly, i am dumbfounded by this update.

 

To me, as someone who played between 05-08 or something like that, this definitely adds to the nostalgia.
Original Maplestory never used to have this FM warp button.
And come on, it's not like you can't reach a FM portal really quickly regardless on where you are.

 

When comparing GMS to Royals you have to take in population. Royals is nowhere close to what GMS was. That's why slow was possible. Boat rides were okay because you'd be on a boat with 10-20 people. If we had boat rides currently, i'd be waiting and would sit on a boat with maybe 1 other person. Same goes for FM warp. FM will not have as many people as it usually did. It will no longer be a place where people can gather to socialize. Meeting people in game will become a hassle. What, you're in Ludi? Why would I want to meet you i'm all the way at skeles. FM is a place where we can gather and certainly contains a majority of social aspect to Royals.

#BringBackFMWarp

 

What about making it similar to the Quick Move button in the current MapleStory? Some town maps are so big that it's hard to get to FM, having a FM warp button that only works in towns might help :/

 

I get why you would discontinue Mac support, to move forward and add anticipated content. But why take out a community favourite feature? The community makes this server better than the rest in my opinion. Unhappy community = less activity on this server = less donations? You guys are just stabbing yourself more than helping the server. Just cause GMS was like this back than doesn't mean royals has to be like that. There's a reason why GMS is slowly dying. Also, I'm pretty sure many people like Maple Royals fast paced game play compared to MapleLegends (ex. 4x vs 2x experience and many other features) while keeping that nostalgic feel to it. That's my take on it.

 

The biggest thing going for this server is its nostalgia feel. When you have something for like TWO YEARS (that people loved and never complained about AFAIK) and just take it away because it doesn't make this private server 1:1 with GMS back then... what do you expect people will think and do. Feel like since this is a PS this should be catered more to the players than the GM's choice maybe? Maybe have polls on the main page (I know there were player polls but those apparently mean nothing). I understand why you guys did this but again, communication. I'm a huge supporter of this server as many know through my character's various RP items lol and want nothing for the best since it's helped me a ton personally and I can never truly thank this server enough but to see it being torn apart when it's in such a big stage of it's life will hurt more than ever help. Maybe if there's no chance to bringing back the feature than bring a feature similar to it? Maybe make riding the boat not mandatory or something you can do to teleport to the FM maybe by an item through the Cash Shop or item in game I dunno but this feature shouldn't be discarded IMO and clearly many others. My 2 cents, not bashing.

 

I will miss the FM warp button but I think it was obnoxious that people sat 3-4 mules there to buff themselves up.

 

If it comes to boat rides I definitely agree. Forcing actual boat rides in current Mapleroyals would be really stupid as you would be completely alone 99% of the times having a boring time/just being tabbed out of the game for 15mins.
But if it comes to the FM warp... Come on.. There are FM portals in multiple cities per island. As I said you can reach the nearest FM warp really quickly. At least it gets people walking through a couple of maps for 1-2 minutes. This might in fact add to the feeling of a more populated server.
Boats, as said, are a whole different story.

 

When I started royals a year ago the first thing that made me was when I pressed the market button and suddenly I was in fm . I was stunned as if i was hit by a gold card (tf). Thought it was super genius.
+ 1 for bringing the feature back, and + 1 for disabling buffs in fm seeing how that seems to be the main problem.

 

My way around this FM button removal.
For example, Bishops could put their mules in nearest town where doors usually appear, door themselves in and out for buffs.
Mages usually have low level hs/door mules, therefore they can door themselves to nearest town where mules at and get buffs.
For players who don't have doors, they could put their buff mules (if your mules are high levels) at the previous/next map, hang
on rope or stand on a convenient safe spot... These are just suggestions or alternatives.

Sighs. I still can't get over with the removal of fm warp button . K Squad discord had a frenzy over this change today.
But we, players always think or come up of legit ways around things.

 

Here is a simple workaround: Just walk the path of like maximum 1-2 minutes...

I really don't get the uproar about this thing. Has this button seriously made people become too lazy to walk for 1-2 mins MAXIMUM?