Goodbye~
Hey all! Chika here.
It sure has been a while. In the last 5 months we've faced a lot of roadblocks while working on this update (family deaths, moving, PCs breaking down, etc.). Originally we meant to title this update the "Spring Cleaning Update," though I think it's safe to say we missed that mark. However, the theme still remains the same. Welcome to the Summer Cleaning update!
As we have hinted in the past, we reached the point where we feel the game is "feature complete." This means we probably won't be adding any new continents, jobs, or major bosses. Instead, we have shifted gears into improving the features we already have.
While we had been pumping out new content for a long time, we were always dissatisfied with the overall polish of MG2. We were releasing new stuff but, instead of fixing bugs and other flaws, we were pushing them into our backlog. The silver lining of this update taking so long is that we have fixed more bugs than we can even remember!
Bugfixes aren't the only thing coming in this update, though.
Something else we have also been focusing on is accessibility. Since the beginning we noticed new players often had confusion as to what features we had to offer, what events were going on, which quests were available, etc. We used Discord to mitigate this but, with how obscure it was, it never was as wide-reaching as we would have liked. Now that the Discord server is gone, it has become even more of a problem. Our solution to this is the new Game Guide window! We've received lots of suggestions to include a list of features on our website but we always wanted to keep the website simple. Our goal is to keep the experience localized inside the game as much as possible, therefore, we opted to make a window in-game with all the information about the server you would ever need! Who knows, this may even be useful to long time players. You never know what features you could have missed!
This year we have observed the number of players from non-English speaking regions increase quite a lot (안녕하세요 to all the Koreans!). To our understanding, many servers aren't very welcoming to foreign players. Here at MG2 we welcome you all with open arms! We want the game to be as accessible as possible for everyone, regardless of the language they speak or where they're from. This brings me to our next new feature: the Communicator window! The aim of this feature is to promote communication between players; you'll be able to send fundamental pre-provided phrases that the recipient will receive in whatever language their computer is set to. On release this will support English, Korean, Spanish, French and Chinese as our small staff team only has so many connections. However, we plan to support more in the future! If you'd like to contribute translations for your language or if you have any suggestions for other phrases we should include, feel free to contact us through the website! Our ultimate goal is to put the "Global" back in "Maple Global".
As always, you will have to wait until the patch notes to see everything new! When this Summer update drops this Saturday, July 2nd, we hope you'll join us for an ice cold cola at the Internet Cafe!