Maplestory (Mai)

Introduction
When people think of literature, they think of something that is physical that they can hold like a book. Literature has come a long way since the book. Technology has evolved to a point where we can convert a book in a digital copy in cyperspace and view it on an eBook. We are transitioning into a world that relies more on technology then ever and that can be seen clearly in the way we interact with literature. Technology has changed the way to view literature and has created electronic literature. Electronic literature has made the relationship between reader and author a lot more interactive

Technology has changed the interaction between readers, author and text. In the past the author would create literature for readers and the reader would have to interpret the literature by themselves. Technology has created new mediums so that interaction between readers, author and text are now more dynamic. This has allowed for more interaction between readers. Massively multiplayer online role playing games (MMORPG) have taken advantage of this new medium. MMORPG allow user to play with other user instead of just playing individually and has improve the social interaction in the game. Technology has allowed for knowledge communities to form. User will come together from all over the world to pool their knowledge in blogs or forums. This has allowed more users to have access to more information and hopefully decrease the amount of confusion. With user gathering their knowledge together, this has also caused interpretative disputes to occur. Everyone has their own interpretation of what is the correct answer and they have caused dispute to occur in the hope to sway the other user. The Doubloon by Moby Dick is an example of that everyone has their own interpretation. In the Doubloon everyone had their on interpretation of what the doubloon symbolizes. There is no correct answer usually so disputes will continue. The wired world has increase the amount of social interaction between users. Both collective knowledge and interpretative disputes provide readers with a better experience for literature

Maplestory is a Massively multiplayer online role playing game (MMORPG) owned by Nexon. Maplestory is not like most game where you play game to win the game. There is no direct way to win the game. One of Roger Ebert main arguments about whether video game cannot be considered art is because in video game you can win. That argument could be considered invalid because games similar to maplestory do not really have an objective to win. Maple story is constantly updated with new content so there is always something new to do so you can never truly finish playing Maplestory. Maplestory is common example of immediacy where are forget about the media that you are using. Player create a virtual character and get immersed in the virtual world and forget they are playing a computer game. I will be focusing on how users form communities to gather knowledge by way of discussion forums and online databases. Another topic I will discuss will be Interruptive disputes. Every user has their own interpretation on any subject and this has led to disputes between users. Remediation is also a important aspect of Maplestory. [|Rushkoff] believe that new media makes us appreciate old media more. Maplestory started out as just a computer game but it has been remediated into old medium and newer mediums. Maplestory has been adapted to many medium such as Maplestory DS, a Japanese anime, mobile game, trading card game and fan fiction novels.

.

Remediation
FAN FICTION NOVEL

Maplestory fans decided to put their own twist on maple story by using their creativity to make fan fiction novels on Maplestory. Typical Maplestory fan fiction novels are about certain adventure they they had in the game but with a twist or story they brainstorm up that are about Maplestory. This causes a lot of player to feel restricted and go to fan fiction site to post their fantasy about Maplestory. Fanfiction.net contains over 800 fan fiction novels that fan have produced. A fan fiction that I read was called obviously forbidden. It is about the author playing in the game as his Maplestory character. He describes a story where he is battle bosses in the game and also going to school. The author wrote this fan fiction because he wishes that he was the virtual character that he made in the game. Klosterman describes the reason why people go to virtual online world because we want to create a life that you want to live. So player create these characters in the game to be ideal model of what type of person they wish they were. It is a 2ndlife for players in a way. They feel like they are the actually the character on the screen. Maplestory is a platform for people to create an alternative reality.

Maplestory(Phone Edition)

Nexon decided to port maplestory from computer to iphone. Due to the way technology has been vastly improving, mobile phone now have the ability to run video games. Maplestory is a very complex game that requires a keyboard because there are a lot of buttons to control. Iphones posses only a touch screen so there is a limit of how many control you cannot put on the touch screen without affecting the game play. As a result of the limitation of the iphone, the mobile version was limited in it game play. The gameplay of the mobile version has a lot of the same basic gameplay to the computer version. The Iphone made it that the control were very basic where you could only jump and attack. As for the gameplay, you travel around in a virtual world to kill monster for experience points and complete quests. The difference is the virtual world is a lot more smaller than the computer version because you do not have as many monster or quest compared to the computer version. The main difference between both versions is the mobile version has no multiplayer online component. Rushkoff believes that new media will never replace the older media unless the new media can do everything old media can do and more. People will still going to play the computer version of maple story until the mobile version has all the same abilities as the computer version. Players appear to enjoy mobile version because it gives player a more accessible way to enjoy Maplestory when they are away from a computer.

(Maplewiki) Knowledge communities
Maplestory requires alot of strategy because it is considered a RPG. Having infomation before you atfempted a task in the game is extremely useful. Doing an unknown task can cause confusion and can consume alot of time for the player. Player turn to online databases to find infomation that will help them perform the task.For example there is website called hidden-street that provides users with a database of information about the game. Hidden street is a fan site set up to provide maplestory player cohesive and comprehensive information. You can find information on just about anything from monster, items and quests. Hidden street can be helpful to maplestory player because it can tell you which monster are the best to train on or if you need help finding a certain item for a quest. For example if you are trying to find a certain item for a quest but have no idea where it is located, you can search it up on Hidden-street to find out where the location of the item is to finish the quest. Hidden-street different from Wikipedia. Hidden-street is run by a group of experts that have a lot of maplestory experience, where anyone can contribute infomation to a wikipage. Player must submit to them infomation that they want to add to the database and before they post the infomation online a group of experts will confirm that the infomation is correct. These experts make sure there information is valid and have evidence behind it. These experts are usually very experience player that have played for a long time. Hidden street is one of the biggest databases for Maplestory and player constantly log on to hidden street if they need help.

Forum communities:

Fan join forum communities to discuss Maplestory related topics. Maplestory fan come to these communities to connect without maplestory fan and talk about maplestory. In these forums information is gather from fan posting infomation on topics in the forum. Contributors do not have to be experts on maplestory to post on the forums. They can range from first time players to life time players. An example of a forum community, is Basilmarket. Basilmarket is a popular forum where maplestory player gather to discuss about Maplestory. Every month Maplestory is updated with new content. These update usually come with new maps and quest. This content can be very dangerous for some player to explore because they can die very easy. So veteran players explore the content, then post the knowledge they gain on the forum and as more player explore the new content they post back what they find. Usually a forum member will organize the infomation that is gathered and will post a guide on the forums. This allows players to find information more effectively and reduces confusion.. Forums are a way player to pool their knowledge together and help people understand things he or she may not have known.

Who is the best? (Interpretative Disputes)
Maplestory let you choose from 5 different types of classes (warrior, bowmen, magician, thief and pirate) to play as. Each type of classes has their own special ability that makes them unique. For example Assasins are known for dealing the most damage on a single monster and bowmen are known for their long range attacks that can attack multiple monsters at once. Each class has their advantages but they each have their disadvantages as well. Assasin do deal more damage than other classes but they can only attack in close range and that puts them in danger of getting damaged from enemies. Bowmen also do not deal nearly the same amount of damage and they have to constantly refill there arrows. Maplestory tries to make each class equally powerful but some players do not believe they did so. Player constantly debate which character is better. These debates usually occur on maplestory forum communities where player gather. Most debate usually starts with a member who is new to the game, posting a thread asking which class is the best. A forum member will usually reply and say that there class is the best and other classes will come in and start an argument war about which is the best class. The average forum member has a lot of pride in their character. For example, a forum member that play as assasin will come in and say that they are the best class in the game because they do the most damage to one monster. They will use mathematical equations to show evidence. Maplestory uses a complicated set of formulas to calculate how much damage each character can do depending on a set of variables, such as weapon type, player stats and weapon attack. They use scientific evidence to prove there point. Other counter argue that though this mathematical model is true, it nearly impossible to achieve the maximum damage because you would need to posses the strongest possible weapon in the game which is nearly impossible. In the end forum member usually come together and say each character has their strength and weakness but the strongest character in the game is usually the player with the most money.

Links & Resources

 * 1) Maplestory Offical Page
 * 2) maplewiki
 * 3) Maplestory fan fiction novels
 * 4) Maplestory official facebook page