29 Jun 2015

Recent Mass Banning of Accounts after Server Check on 24th June 2015

Dear Maplers,

We wish to address the extended service disruptions that occurred earlier last week. We would like to provide information on what happened, what both Asiasoft and Nexon teams did in response, as well as the reason behind our actions. Most of you felt that we lacked transparency during the course of the incident, but it is difficult for us to communicate details whilst being hands-on and heads-down in addressing the issues.

Last week, we found suspicious amounts of items being created in-game. This sudden mass increase in quantities was not possible via normal means, which led Nexon conducting further checks on our game servers. Nexon identified a hack that enabled players to generate unlimited amounts of items. A server check was quickly done to block and remove the hack and to suspend the accounts which had abnormal increase of items.

During this period of mass banning, players reached out for more explanation and information. However, we regret that it is not possible to provide any insight while resolving such issues, as we do not want to tip off any other abusers of our response to the situation.

We had an indepth analysis and open discussion with our developers on the best way to tackle the issues, and determined that a rollback was not the best way to resolve the issue at hand. In this case, we ran a temporary block on the identified accounts so that the circulation of items can be stopped, and conduct investigations. Most of the accounts deemed clean were released immediately on the same day the bans were made.

Our priority is to ensure that the game health and economy remains stable, therefore all illegally generated items created between 22nd and 23rd June 2015 has been removed from the game, and permanently banned all offenders during today’s server check. If you have had legit items removed or have been restricted by mistake, please do send us an IBox ticket for further assistance.

We would like to thank everyone for their kind patience and gracious understanding in this matter.

Sincerely,

– Maple Administrator