[EMS] 14 years of Rayque!

Sup guys! Today's the 30th of September, which means I've been playing EMS for 14 years!

It's been a comfy year. This year saw my 5000th in-game day milestone, almost all of my remaining 5th Job skills maxed out (the only one left being Erda Nova), and the start of a new equipment layout.

Perhaps more noticeable this year is the abundance of changes made to the game, some of which aren't too far away from reaching EMS. We should see the updated Blink skill soon, which will warrant its own blogpost as there's a lot to cover on that one. Every class is going to get a revamp, with the Adventures being scheduled in KMS for this Winter. I'm very interested to see what Nexon's plans are for Hero, and I'm certain to write about the skill changes when it arrives in EMS next year. Y'know, RED is already eight years ago. The next revamp is long overdue.

Last, but certainly not least, today also marks the last day for our old EMS producer Anna, as she's leaving her position as our producer tomorrow. I know I haven't really talked much about her on my blog, but now is probably the best time to do so. Seeing as I seem to be one of the few left in this community who's more than aware of her involvement in EMS, I'm also somewhat able to have some influence on her legacy. So that is what I will do.

The best way I can describe her contribution to EMS is simple: Anna is EMS. The game is very much her work.

Being a producer for a project means you have a lot of power to make a difference, as you also get to decide who you hire for the team. In Anna's case, she is the one who shaped the team that I often refer as "Nexon Europe" collectively.

I can't imagine a better team to run MapleStory other than Nexon Europe. There's only one way to describe that team: madness. But not the "bad" kind of madness. The good kind. Nexon Europe is pretty much a team that has their own way of doing things, and that is what put EMS on the map. Before the migration, EMS was notorious for being the oddity among all MapleStory versions, as they always seem to get the coolest stuff and avoid the traditions that plagued other versions. In return, that madness has influenced the future of other versions, and still does today.

It would take a very long blogpost to list every single contribution of this team when they were behind the wheel, but I can name a few that I believe is worth mentioning. The behemoth that is Premium Mini Dungeon, which I've talked about here. Releasing classes and job advancements out of traditional order. Releasing almost every World Tour content while also keeping the KMS bootleg versions simultaneously (so yes, we actually had Neo Tokyo and Neo City). Almost always giving us the definitive version of content, with sometimes even better rewards than the original (i.e. Mark of Naricain with slots, and also slots for Liberated Kaiserium). Creating the World Tour for EMS: Veracent (which is paramount to Monad's story events) and the Supreme server (which is LAB's precedessor). Protecting EMS from devastating changes that ruined other versions (i.e. releasing Wild Hunter without mines, releasing Additional Options without any of the drawbacks, Big Bang without a quest reset). Heck, we almost got the JMS Pachinko.

Unfortunately, all of this fun couldn't last forever, as the infamous "hackwave of 2012" changed everything. It was the only reason for why the migration happened, and that was also why Anna had to leave in 2013. Someone else was put in charge of the migration process. Despite that Nexon Europe had plans to upgrade to a larger office, the hackwave left that much of an impact that these plans fell through and ultimately Nexon Europe was silently liquidated.

The migration process took Nexon three years, a lot of time, and a lot of money. All of that was clearly evident in-game. These couple of years became a drag, as we received a small amount of updates spread across a tedious three-year-period full of droughts, with only few updates being actually fun. At least we did receive the best GMs you could ever ask for. Imagine that the Terms of Service and the End User License Agreement actually mattered then.

Only after the migration did we finally start to see some more attention to the game as we're lumped together with the update schedule for GMS, but Nexon US (and its community) kinda forgot we existed as a server. As a friend would describe it: EMS no longer felt like home. The server got flooded with bots, plenty of EMS exclusive bugs that Nexon US didn't bother to fix thoroughly, returning players having no account to return to, and the game state became a wild west where the Terms of Service and EULA no longer meant anything. And worst of all: stale game meta's where everyone becomes complacent, as apparently you don't need to learn the mere fundamental basics of the game.

So, Nexon US made a couple of mistakes in terms of handling the EMS part. Most infamously: deleting about 90% of the EMS characters despite that they promised not to do so. As expected, that upset Nexon Korea. Most of the Nexon US staff got replaced. However, that also brought back some of the old Nexon Europe team, including Anna herself.

Thankfully, this return meant that a lot of things were changed back to its original state, as the EMS team did the usual stuff. Bots were decimated in a single update, plenty new and exciting World Tour updates were released, GM patrol has somewhat returned and the rules started to matter again. Icing on the cake: European players are now eligible for certain (but not all) contests. They made it look that effortless that I almost felt like Anna's predecessor didn't care.

Ironically, looking back at how the old generation of the GMS community always envied EMS - to a point where they wished to be more like EMS - Nexon granted that wish by making them EMS in everything but its name. While people tend to believe that EMS "lost so much" with the migration, dare I say it is the opposite: many of the changes made with the migration have been reverted, overwriting what used to be characteristic of GMS into EMS. These days, the game feels very much like EMS again, and that couldn't make me any more happier.

Unfortunately, with Anna leaving, I do genuinely wonder what the future will hold. I hope that Sally will prove herself to be an adequate successor, and that she will continue the madness that is Nexon Europe's legacy. Yes, I know that Nexon Europe's never been perfect. But dammit, I will miss Anna's work. She was there at the beginning. I would've wanted her to be there at the end too, y'know. Anyway, hopefully my perspective on all of this was worthwhile.

Cheers everyone. May there be many more years to come. I'll see you guys again next post!