1. Maple Story By: Nick Martineau

2. General Game Information Title: Maple Story Company: Wizet\NX Games Type: Side Scrolling 2D MMORPG Price: Free

3. General Game Information Hardware Specs:

4. Quick Overview Maple Story is the worlds first 2D side scrolling MMORPG Original target audience was for kids between the ages of 7-15 but the average age of a player is 24 Over 1.5 Million people registered to play

5. Quick Overview Cont. Four different flavors of the game  MapleGlobal – United States  MapleSea – China  MapleKorea – Korea  MapleEurope – Europe With anywhere from 5-10 servers per flavor 20 channels per server

6. Story Line No real continuity to the game, do what you want, when you want

7. Player Roles Four different roles to play  Thief  Bowmen  Magician  Warrior

8. Instillation Go to http://www.mapleglobal.com/ click on the download button and download the game.http://www.mapleglobal.com/  NOTE: The web page must be opened in Internet Explorer About 200MB Run the downloaded file to install

9. User Interface

10. User Interface Cont.

12. Fairly functional game play without to many problems Controls can be tricky, there are about 45 keys that are bound to various functions Better to use a gamepad with keyboard bindings

13. Game Play

14. Game Play Cont.

18. Playing the game is quite simple  Run around  Kill stuff  Do missions  Gain expirence  Level up  Don’t die

19. Scoring There is no scoring in this game however you do receive drops and money (mesos) from monsters that are either traded in or used to buy various items Experience

20. Artwork Visually stunning for a 2D game Not a lot of animation Lots of monster artwork (about 2000 monsters in the game) Lots of item artwork (about 1000 items in the game)

21. Monster Artwork

22. Sound and Music Not the best midi files ever Some sound effects are cool others are annoying Ability to shut the music/sound effects off

23. Special Features Cash Shop  The way the game makes money  Can buy different items, pets, gear, safety charms, etc…

24. Manual Not an official game manual but there are several web sites that will help you  www.hidden-street.net www.hidden-street.net  www.basilmarket.com www.basilmarket.com

25. Bugs Hacking!!!

26. Game Review What is good/fun about the game?  Its eclectic  Easy to learn, easy to play  Great artwork for monsters, skills and worlds  Social interaction, play against the world  Play for free, character never expires  Unlimited character levels

27. Game Review Cont. What is bad about the game?  At level 60 it takes about 10 hours to level your character and grows every level  Quests don’t give enough experience at high levels (level 65 quest gives 10k exp when you need 1.9 Million to level)  Hackers – VacHack, map hack, destroys the game and the economy

28. End of Class Presentation Question? Comments?

29. How does it compare to similar games in the same genre? Character types are similar (warrior, thief, mage, bowmen, etc…) 2D graphics makes the game easier to explore but doesn't give it any depth like 3D games Free to play, no monthly fees, no cost to buy the game, only pay if you want to buy something from the cash shop

30. Better or worse then similar game? Better  Free to play, easy to learn  Lots of things to do, lots of areas to explore Worse  No depth to the game  While 2D is cool it gets old after a while, you cant run around monsters

31. Appropriate Age As it was mentioned before, the target audience was for 7-15 year olds but the average player is 24

32. Design Mistakes Allow hackers to hack  Not a full proof system to stop hackers  GM’s don’t respond quick enough to players requests

33. Summary Strengths  2D art work is amazing  Lots of areas to explore  Lots of game content (missions) to do  Tons of monsters  Lots of skills  Unlimited levels  Free to play and own  Eclectic and fun

34. Summary Cont Weaknesses  2D gets old after a while  Takes forever to level as the character progresses  Hacking destroys the game economy  Music and sound effects get annoying after a while (thankfully you can shut them off)

35. Worth Purchasing? Yes and no I suppose  Its worth getting and playing but you don’t have to pay for it

36. How could it be improved? Get rid of the hackers Cut down on the amount of experience needed to level in the latter levels Have more quests that reward the player more frequently