Customization

LibreMaple aims to expose the entirety of Maplestory to customization. Not just cosmetic changes and NPC scripts, but fundamental changes to gameplay allowing for new entirely custom classes, custom game content, client-side plugins, and more.

Without the restriction that a black-box client puts on the game as a whole (both client and server side), Maplestory can be freed from the way that Nexon wants it, and from the way that Nexon wanted it so many years ago.

True freedom

Maplestory has always been nominally free-to-play. Then, with the advent of private servers for the game, even the burden of microtransactions could be lifted. But Maplestory has never been free as in freedom.

Now, with the power of the Journey client (licensed under the AGPL v3) and the open-standard data format it uses (NX PKG4, licensed under the CC BY-SA 3.0), the work of the earliest Maplestory private servers (c.f. OdinMS, licensed under the AGPL v3) can be completed. Maplestory can be played without any of Nexon's proprietary software or data formats, yet still be the old Maplestory you already know and love, however you want it.

Collaboration

LibreMaple is a large undertaking, but all players and fans — long-time or new — have something to gain from it. LibreMaple is not itself a Maplestory private server. The efforts of LibreMaple go towards no server in particular, but rather allow a set of tools that can be developed and used freely by anyone for any purpose (including independent private servers).

As such, LibreMaple welcomes and accepts contributions from persons of all stripes and all affiliations. Such a project can only thrive on cooperation.

Cross-platform natively

Maplestory has, regrettably, always been native to the Windows NT line of operating systems. Some rather ugly, inefficient, and time-consuming hacks are required to run it on macOS, and even then, it's not even close to native. Not to mention GNU/Linux and the BSDs, free and libre operating systems which have had no ability to run Maplestory at all. Even newer versions of Windows NT struggle with older versions of the game as used by numerous very popular private servers.

With an open version of Maplestory, both parts (client and server) of the game will be fully native to any operating system where the code can be compiled. LibreMaple makes it a priority to keep everything as portable as possible.

Join in and help out

LibreMaple needs your help! Check out the "Join in" section for more details. We're mostly looking for those experienced with software development, especially experience with C++ (C++ is the implementation language for the Journey client), but server-side experience and general programming is highly welcomed as well.

Additionally, LibreMaple will need testers and maintainers of the client/tooling for various different platforms. And as it grows, it's possible for there to be opportunity for community-made custom content to be added into the game as well, which would require a great many skills (visual art, writing, etc.).