Orange Mushroom's Blog

It’s been a while since I’ve done a non-patch related post. If you guys have been reading for many years, you might remember some of my really old posts like the MapleStory character relationship chart and the one about the various MapleStory published books/artbooks (it’s funny to look back at this, I said that I wanted to own them one day and I actually did just get them, 10 years later!). I also got the Aran and Eunwol remaster books so maybe I’ll do a post on those if people are interested.

Anyways, a while ago, I was looking through some really, really old MapleStory news and I found a bunch of official articles/streams/interviews that were archived by a user called mazefind (some of you might remember them as they used to upload a lot of KMS videos on YouTube). These streams included interviews with the development/design teams and they mentioned a lot of little tibdbits I thought would be fun to share.

It’s a bit of a long post but I hope there are some people that might enjoy this kind of ‘behind-the-scenes’ stuff.

Before I start, there’s a few names that will pop up here and there. Most of them will be very familiar to MapleStory players nowadays, and it’s interesting to see where they were and where they are now! I’m not 100% sure when these pictures were taken but they’re definitely from over a decade ago. They do a really good job of capturing real people in the game!

The first person is Kang Daehyun, who previously was the lead of the development team. Currently, he’s the COO of Nexon Korea! The NPC Gaga was based off of him!

The second person is Oh Hanbyeol. He was the director of MapleStory Korea from 2010 to 2012 (including the Big Bang update), and now has moved the western Nexon development team as GMS’ saviour. He appears in the game as Inkwell!

The third is Kwanghyun Lim, previously the lead of the design team. GMS players should know him as Dr. Lim, currently working with Inkwell on the GO WEST team! He was in the game as Mr. Lim, in charge of the long-gone subway cleanup content, and later on, reappeared in the Heroes of Maple quest line.

The fourth is Kang Wonki, who is probably the most well known director of MapleStory. He was also the longest running director, from 2015 until 2023. Last year, he became the director of all MapleStory content at Nexon! Of course, the Fairy Wonky is based off of him.

I remember seeing these pictures on Insoya (an old Korean MapleStory fansite) so many years ago and I would never have expected to meet most of these people in real life! I was able to meet Wonki at the MapleStory Fan Fest in Korea last year, and meet both Inkwell and Dr. Lim at Maple Fest in LA last month 🙂

While not included in the following articles, there’s other NPCs that are based off of Nexon employees. For example, Mike ended up being the current KMS director Changseop, after he voiced the character in Legends Return. And the NPC Terry that was used in certain overseas MapleStory events is based off of Sanghyun Lee, the overseas MapleStory director.

MapleStory’s First New Job: Pirates

Source (thisisgame)

This is Son Gwiyoung, who in 2007 was MapleStory’s content development team lead. She joined Nexon 4 years prior to that with the dream of becoming the best game planner, and ultimately was responsible for MapleStory’s first new job, Pirate! She shared her thoughts and experiences during the development of Pirates.

• They chose Pirate as the new job as it fit with MapleStory’s overall story at the time (Kyrin leaving Victoria Island on a boat to find the truth about her father, and returning to train players as her disciples), allowed them to add to the map without a new island popping up out of nowhere (Kyrin’s ship, the Nautilus), and they already had new skills planned out that fit well with this concept.
• They began planning Pirates in May 2007. They wanted to add new jobs before this but the planning team was too busy with MapleStory’s constant updates so it didn’t work out. Instead, they set up a brand new team specifically for Pirates, consisting of 5 people (excluding designers). The design team supported them with items and maps. As it was a new team, they were able to start right away and it took 4 months to create the new job.
• The development team, like most people would, also thought that pirates should use swords as their weapons, but there were already classes in MapleStory that used swords so they decided against it. Instead, since in the story, Kyrin was good with inventing and machines, they added a gun-wielding class. She wanted the other class to be one where you could show off your control with combining different keys, so they decided on a martial artist class that was good at close combat.

Son Gwiyoung was also the planning team lead for the release of 4th job the year before, in December 2006! I couldn’t find much more information about her, so I’m not sure if she’s still at Nexon or not, but it’s interesting to know the people behind some very big updates so many years ago!

MapleStory’s First New Job Branch: Knights of Cygnus

Source 1, 2 (mazefind)

The Knights of Cygnus were released in December 2008. For those of you who weren’t around back then, the original Cygnus characters were pretty different. They were much closer to being reskins of Adventurer classes, could only go up to level 120, and did not have a 4th job advancement. Instead, they unlocked a couple of new skills at level 100 and 110.

For the release, the MapleStory team did many interviews, including streams on afreeca, which was an old Korean streaming site. The Nexon employees included were Kang Daehyun (development team lead at the time), Kang Wonki (development team member at the time), and Kwanghyun Lim (design team lead at the time).

Development Team Interview

• They began work on the Knights of Cygnus a year before release, and started actual development half a year before.
• Though the Black Mage was a part of MapleStory’s story since its release, he was first fully revealed in December 2007 when Pirates were released. Now, through the Knights of Cygnus story, they wanted to let players know more about his true nature. And they said they planned for the Black Mage to appear in lots of content to come in the future. (It’s fun to think that the Black Mage would not be released as a boss until almost 10 years after this comment, in September 2018!)
• They designed the Knights of Cygnus as a more casual and easy job branch, with faster growth but a lower limit. This is also why they used a lot of existing skills from existing classes, and then added a few specialized skills for players to have fun with.
• They put a big focus on elemental attributes for these classes to make them more fun and diverse. In addition, elements were not used much previously so they wanted to utilize them more, and to increase usability of content that will be added in the future.
• They know that players might be worried about the balance between existing jobs and the Knights of Cygnus. This is why they gave them faster growth but a lower growth limit, so players could choose if they wanted a more fun, casual experience (Cygnus) or if they wanted to be the best in Maple World (Adventurer).
• Some players wondered why they choose the specific weapons for each Knight, which they replied that they wanted to be able to apply the elements in different ways, whether that was close range, long range, or both. For the jobs/weapons that weren’t selected this time, they said they might use them when different job branches are introduced in the future.
• The interviewer asked them why the Knights of Cygnus characters did not share Cash wardrobes with existing characters. They said that it was because they planned various Cash items that they could not add due to ‘planning limitations because of the sharing issue’, so they wanted to solve that by separating the Cash wardrobe. (This ended up being an obvious lie as explained in a later Q&A).
• They said that they were planning to develop Cygnus Knight exclusive content, like party quests, maps, or boss monsters. (I don’t think this ever actually happened lol)
• They named the Knights of Cygnus after the constellation ‘cygnus’. They wanted to have a sacred and luxurious image for the followers of the Empress, who had a fragile princess concept.

Design Team Interview

• Originally, the island of Ereb itself was a sacred beast. Shinsoo would have been much larger and as characters walked through the maps, the beast’s face would appear at the end. However, this was too creepy so they made a sharp change in direction. Instead, they made it a more friendly image with an important relationship with Empress Cygnus.
• The overall atmosphere was designed with the concept of beauty, luxury, and peace, to fit as the island where the Empress lives. They said that the design team put in a lot of effort into the maps, and together with the music, it gives a peaceful and warm feeling.
• The initial concepts of the Chief Knights were decided by the planning team, and then the design team took those concepts to work on. To match their identity and unify them, all 5 Chief Knights possess jewels bestowed to them by Empress Cygnus (who also has a jewel necklace).
• Each job had and outfit and colour concept to match their element. Soul Master’s yellow to give the feeling of souls, Striker’s blue to symbolize the blue sea, Flame Wizard in red to symbolize fire, Wind Breaker in green to symbolize nature, and Night Walker in black to symbolize darkness.
• In terms of personality, Mikhail is a prudent and upright young leader, Hawkeye is a witty prince-like character, Oz is innocent and straightforward, Irena is a straightforward and mature feminine character, and Icarut is a cynical man of few words. This is why they gave him a secretive mask.
• The most difficult thing when designing the Cygnus Knights was moreso the fight against time rather than any design difficulties. They worked a lot of overtime for these jobs to give them flashy skills and high quality backgrounds and maps.
• The interviewer asked them about how the existing Adventurer classes’ skills are less flashy and lower quality than the new jobs’ skills. They replied that as designers, of course they would want to update them to be as flashy as the new skills, but it would be very difficult due to their internal schedule and patch cycle. (Adventurers received a small visual update a few years later, and then the full blown remaster in the RED update in 2013!)
• The interviewer talked about how popular the skill Shark Wave was and how cool it was. When they first planned it, they wanted it to be a projectile attack, but they had to think about what shape. Should it be an octopus? A skull? A knife? Then they thought about the strongest, most dangerous, sharp concept and came up with sharks.
• The Cygnus characters have a different skin colour than existing characters to give them a more unique image/personality. Because they are knights that support the Empress in a sacred area, they decided on a brighter, more pure white colour.
• Kwanghyun Lim said that the monster that he is most attached to is Horntail, and revealed that he singlehandedly made Horntail himself. He worked long nights for about 2 months on it, doing the original drawings, designs, and pixel animation. The initial design concept was to make something scary and shocking, a bit different than the usual for MapleStory, but it became too scary so he added the bulging belly.
• The interviewer asked them about why items, maps, and monsters added to overseas MapleStory versions were not available in Korea. They replied that this was part of localization, as each version received specific content optimized for their countries. For example Japan had fewer restrictions than Korea, so they could not bring certain material from them. They said they try to exclude humanoid monsters as much as possible. They also that that these overseas content are done by a separate overseas MapleStory design team, and all content added overseas is designed in Korea by that team. (This is something that has been true for many years, and only recently are developers being hired for overseas versions, GMS specifically)

• When asked about Alishar, the boss of Ludibrium PQ, having some very visible ‘parts’, they had to clarify the misunderstanding that most players have. In fact, the pink dots on Alishar are its eyes, the glowing blue parts at the top are just a pattern. The belt is actually a helmet. When you look at Alishar when it attacks, you can see its mouth properly. So normally, Alishar is upside down, walking on its horns. To some extent, they did design it so it would be a bit of a fun misunderstanding, but of course, it’s a game for players of all ages so they would not use explicit content like that.
• When getting inspiration for the game’s characters, they said that 90% of it is from the designer in charge. Sometimes they use people in the development team as models. For example, Gaga is based on Kang Daehyun and Wonky is based on Kang Wonki. Hyuk, Geon, and Hoon from Omega Sector, Nanook (Aquarium) and Armi (Henesys) are based on development team members as well.
• Sometimes, designers take concepts from their favourite celebrities. The person who did the concept designs for the Cygnus Chief Knights is a woman that really likes BIGBANG, so when she worked on Icarut, she took some inspiration from one of its members.
• They said that they used Photoshop to edit skill and cash effects frame by frame. While it might seem tedious and not as natural as 3D, the 2D effects are unique, dynamic, effective, and allows for more detailed adjustments. It takes about 3-6 days to work on one effect for 3rd/4th job. For example, Bishop’s Genesis looks like there’s a ton of crazy effects, but in reality, there are a total of 9 hit images, 3 different lengths and 3 different thicknesses, that are chosen randomly. They stayed up for a whole week to work on that.
• When asked about Pink Bean’s ‘death’ animation where it returns through a mirror, they said that Pink Bean hasn’t been defeated and will appear again, maybe in a different form or more upgraded. (And now, Pink Bean is one of MapleStory’s biggest mascots, even a temporary playable job!)

MapleStory’s First Hero: Aran

Source (mazefind)

Aran was released in July 2009. The first MapleStory Hero class! This is also special to me as I started playing KMS right before Aran released, so it’s been more than 15 years! I played GMS before that, but seeing the Cygnus Knights released earlier in Korea and then the hype of this new class, I wanted to try it out for myself.

This press conference was led by Kang Daehyun, who had become the director of MapleStory by then, Kang Wonki who became the development team lead, and Kwanghyun Lim who was the design team lead. It’s interesting to see the progression of these Nexon employees over the years, and that most of them are still working there (in much higher positions)!

• Aran’s concept was a hero from the past, featuring an immersive story where you go back and forth between the past and the present. Aran’s biggest features are its commands and combos, leading to more thrilling battle.
• There were hundreds of candidates for the name of this new job. Unlike the existing jobs which were more generic ones that represented the type of job, Aran is an actual character name. They chose this to emphasize the story more. Some of the names that were almost chosen were ‘Hanbyeol’, ‘Syr’, and ‘Arka’. At first, there were many English and Spanish names, but because Aran’s concept was an oriental character, they decided on this name.
• They chose Aran’s characteristic clay skin colour to differentiate them from the typical stylish and cool hero image, instead focusing on a rougher and wilder character.
• The person who previously was in charge of the concept designs for the Cygnus Knights that modeled Icarut after BIGBANG’s T.O.P. was also in charge of Aran’s concept design. This time, the male Aran’s hairstyle is based on BIGBANG’s Taeyang.
• They chose the Polearm as Aran’s weapon as it is the largest and heaviest weapon, leading to bigger and more flashy movements. In addition, Aran is a hero from the past, so it was an appropriate powerful heavy weapon with big impact.
• Some players thought that MapleStory was moving towards a similar direction as Dungeon & Fighter with this new class. They replied that they designed Aran to fill the gaps of lack of action, excitement, and story that MapleStory had which ended up being similar to D&F content, but it wasn’t their intention.
• When asked about if new job branches would be antagonistic to each other, they said that probably not as most of them will have the same final goal of defeating the Black Mage. However, they are thinking about concepts like PVP. (This was later released in the Chaos update in January 2011)
• Aran’s character design concept was an oriential warrior, but they wanted to make a design that was slightly different from the existing Japanese and Chinese styles. Instead, they ended up looking at Central Asian cultures. However, if they only used that, it would look a little out of date so they mixed the patterns and textures of Incan, Aztec, and Mayan civilizations to create an original MapleStory style hero. (It’s interesting to see that Aran’s initial concept was actually an ‘oriental’ character, which they did focus more on in the recent remaster, but many players did not seem to like that)
• When asked about Aran’s mount, Ryuho, they said that they wanted an oriental style animal matching the strong and tough hero. They were deciding between a polar bear, dragon, tiger, black panther, and wolf. Among them, the polar bear and wolf were the final contenders but they decided on the wolf as it had a more oriental mysteriousness and coolness, and also, the polar bear was too large.
• When designing Aran’s town Rien, they focused on a cold region as Aran was trapped in ice. Then they decided on penguins for the NPCs. At first, they were closer to animals or pets than people, but since Lilin was the only human, it was so lonely that they anthropomorphized the penguins to make them more human-like.
• They teased that Lilin has an older brother, who already exists in MapleStory. (This was later confirmed in the story to be Nineheart, from the Cygnus Knights)

MapleStory Evan Release Q&A

Source (mazefind)

Evan was released in December 2009. This part was not actually related to Evan, as I couldn’t find much content like the previous jobs, but it was a Q&A from its launch. I thought it was really funny that a lot of the things that players asked about then are still things that are relevant today!

• There were comments about how Aran at level 200 was as strong as a level 220~230 Adventurer, how Bishop could one shot with Genesis way earlier than F/P and I/L, and how Paladin/Shadower had a small number of players because they were weak and slow. Even 15 years later, one of the biggest patches of the year was a balance patch!
• Some questions were about how there wasn’t enough high-level content or patches, and they answered that they have to prioritize based on the users’ wants. Should they work on job balancing or high level content? Now, people still argue about how when a new high level area is released that only 0.01% of players can use it versus people that say there’s more than enough mid-game content for others to enjoy.
• Someone asked if they plan to lower the difficulty of Pink Bean but they replied that they had no intention of nerfing it. They thought it would be defeated within 4 months of release, but it still hadn’t so they said they would wait a little longer to see if any adjustments were needed. Pink Bean was released in July 2008, this interview was in December 2009, and Pink Bean wasn’t defeated until July 2010, after the Big Bang patch. Nowadays, the most recent bosses (Suu remaster, Limbo) have been released as clearable but there was Extreme Kaling (released in August 2023 in KMS) which was only recently beaten for the first time in TMS!
• Someone asked why they could no longer share Cash items between characters starting from the release of Cygnus Knights. They answered honestly that when Pirates were added, even though they had a considerable development period, they did not make much money for their work. Therefore, starting from Cygnus Knights, they did not allow sharing between job branches. They said that they are discussing this for now. Currently in KMS, we get Lady Blair’s Dream Express events for 1 week every month that allows sharing Cash items between all characters, which they started only a couple of years ago.
• They said that based on the currently active users, those in their 20s or older accounted for just under a quarter while the rest were students. Although there’s no official statement for current MapleStory, I think most people can agree that the vast majority of players are probably in their 20s or older now. The playerbase grew up with the game haha.
• Someone asked why the World Tour maps were removed. They replied that they removed them because their hunting ground analysis showed that relatively few people were using those maps. They also stated that all overseas content (e.g. New Leaf City, Haunted Mansion, Neo Tokyo) were all developed in Korea, by a separate team.