I want to start this thread with a story; the story of how I joined this great server, why I stuck around for so long, and why I came back after I thought I had quit for good. This story begins in September of 2013. It was the beginning of my third year of college, but second after taking a break from school and transferring. I still wasn't sure what I wanted to study and I didn't care much for the classes I was taking at the time. On top of that my girlfriend and I were continuing our long distance relationship, one of my best friends had recently moved, and I had other personal issues I was going through. I was depressed and I needed something to take my mind off the grind of real life. That's when I decided to check out some maple private servers. I had marginally followed the direction GMS had headed and I was longing for that old school feel I remembered back in high school (2007 was when I started). After looking at several different servers, and trying out a couple, I decided Maple Royals was the right server for me. Although it didn't have everything I wanted (I really wanted Romeo and Juliet PQ) it had almost everything and didn't have things I didn't enjoy as much, such as the Scissors of Karma. It had what I considered reasonable EXP rates, 10x at the time (this was pre-wipe so quite a bit was different), 2x spawn, a nice community, and that old school feel. On top of that you didn't have to wait for boat rides and could teleport directly to the FM. It was great! Then the server wiped. Rates were lowered to 4x, spawn was reverted to 1x, and other minor changes were made. At first I wasn't a fan of the new EXP and spawn rates. I was only a casual player back then and only played a few hours a week after all. There was a reason I didn't join the 1x or other low rate servers, I simply couldn't put in the time required to get my character to where I wanted it to be. But, again, I gave it a shot. I met a few people doing HPQ the first night. That night we all ended up in the top 5 on the rankings before going to bed and I had loads of fun. Although I couldn't keep up on the rankings I continued to play with the people I had met. We would often go to the FM to chat with each other since our levels were getting further and further apart. While we were chatting we would meet other people as well, and that's when I met @Daniel. We chatted for a bit in the FM and he invited me to his guild, Lubs. I also ended up meeting Ty, Chelsea, Christine, David, and many other well established (at the time) members of the community through my time hoeing it up in the FM. Without these connections I had made BECAUSE of the FM Button I wouldn't have survived long on this server. Before the wipe I was only marginally attached, I didn't know many people and MapleStory really isn't that fun when you don't know anyone. It wasn't until after I had met completely random people in the FM, people that, like myself, wouldn't have been there if not for the FM Button, that I became fully attached to this server and community. To us, the FM wasn't just a place to go to buff ourselves (there were no buff mules back then) or to do trades. It was a place to get together and hang out no matter where we were in the Maple world. In the four years I have been attached to this server the two likeliest ways I met people were 1) through people I already knew, and 2) through the FM. What I would like to suggest is something that @Matt himself suggested and people didn't really pick up on at the time; I would like to replace the FM Button, since that will unfortunately not be coming back, with a new button that would transport you to a map to socialize. In this map things like trading, dropping, and using skills would be disabled. The purpose of the map would be to go to socialize and meet up with friends or new people. Given the current situation I believe this to be a good compromise to getting rid of the FM button and would love to hear your opinions on this topic. Please don't discuss getting rid of the FM Button in this thread, keep it on the topic of a new room for socializing. Also, if you could give your reasoning for your vote in the comments that would be great for helping drive discussion. Thanks and happy Mapling!
I'm all for it. Edit: Spoiler: Music maybe? Let's be honest, this is some socializing mind food right there.
Love it love it love it! The FM is sometimes so far away and tedious to walk to just to meet up with friends (if they're even there because of the walk too). I know it because I'm always there haha. A socializing place is an amazing idea!!! I remember when new source hit and nobody's BL's worked. Everyone just came to hang out in ch 1 FM. Those first months of new source were actually where I met some of my really good friends today. People who maybe wouldn't have crossed paths met each other instead of everyone running to the FM in their favorite channel like usual. It's not always fun being in the same spot or channel and seeing the same people there. I'm all for this~
Honestly I couldn't care less about the FM button being used for skills or ease of trade and marketing. It's removal never crossed my mind, but now that it has, it has seemingly returned the general social aspects of how GMS in the day was, which I missed and now very much enjoy. Victoria Island, mainly Henesys has profoundly increased its population since the Old Source; the original social hub. I've met one or two friends in FM during the FM button days, but something about the place as the social hub kind of irked me. It felt a little intimidating, kind of like being a new kid at a school during lunch, where everyone's already invested with their friends at their table, and you're kind of just there. This isn't at all an argument, just my personal experience and feelings on the matter. I'm sorry, but I'm gonna have to vote no. All I want is the incentive to socialize at the classic spots.
Regardless of my opinion on buffing mules in the FM... What you are mentioning is one of the reasons the FM button was removed. The only reason a Social map would be implemented would be that you can't buff.
We had this discussion before on another post. The idea was to make the Henesys Gaming Room to be that warp button map. Where people would play games, socialize, afk, etc. And, of course, make it so you can't use any skills in there.
I think you mean this thread https://royals.ms/forum/threads/game-room-in-fm.104154/ which seemed more in the direction of having a portal to the Henesys game zone in the FM itself, but there wasn't too much feedback in the thread. I also think if the Henesys game zone map could be a bit too big for what we need, but I'm sure we could make a custom one similar to it. We could either have just one map for the social zone or have a portal leading off the social zone to a game zone map if players feel games should be separated from where people hang out and chat? I'd expect that the functions that would be blocked in the social zone would be trading, dropping, using skills, and using summon bags. So things that work would be chatting (obviously), scrolling, minigames (if wanted in the same map), weather effects, and chalkboards (unless there is objections for that as well). I'm somewhat okay for a Jukebox to be in there as long as it is done well; Maybe have it cost 1m mesos for somebody to choose a song, probably have a cooldown on usages so that people can't instantly override a chosen song, or just have it play the whole song in full once before returning to the original music and allow another song to be chosen, could also have a possibility of a song queue system (probably with a limit of songs you can have in a row), have the jukebox list the song names along with durations, maybe also the area the songs are from, and maybe have it do a map message when a song is chosen saying who played the song and what the song is.
First thing that comes to my mind as a social hotspot in bb-MS is henesys' potion shop lol. Even now in GMS when i hop in there to npc some things out of an old habit i get a little sad that i dont see anyone there anymore.
I only disagree with Trading/Dropping. Some people like to gamble with minigames, or could arrange trading meetings. Also the infamous Dropping Games some people like doing. I like the idea of making a small version of the map, better than having a second portal for it. Everyone togheter is better than separating things, since what we want is a social place. If someone is feeling bothered with a crowded channel, should just change to another one.
That's an interesting idea... An expanded interior with ropes, ledges, maybe some hideyholes (like the post in one of the hene shops people used to trick people to drop trade with.) Just lots of places to sit, set up a game, etc. If dropping/trading is allowed, it also cuts out the opportunity to allow islanders/pre10 characters/Applehead people from joining in on the fun/socialization unless coming from certain maps/continents can have their own restrictions, I think it's still best to just keep trading/dropping out IMO
As much as I'd love to have at least trading/dropping allowed in such a map, I don't think it'd be implemented that way. And if islanders are allowed to use the button, which I believe would be a great way of integrating the islanders community with the community at large, I don't think there should be trading. Again, this isn't my personal feelings, ideally I'd want the old source functionality back, but I think this could be a good compromise.
PLEASE, regular chairs in a garden-ish background... I love sitting the regular chairs from the maps.
