Maple Story new gameplay features and in-game events for summer

To celebrate this year's summer season, Nexon America Inc. is launching summertime events and introducing new game features for its hit MMOG, Maple Story. The new summer in-game events will be good for the next three months.

The Amoria Party Quest is an event exclusive to the 13,314 in-game married couples, which is chockfull of new challenges and items spanning across about eight stages. It also features Geist Balrog, a boss exclusive to the Amoria Challenge.

The Mushroom Temple area is also implemented, a new town themed on Japanese culture. Along with this new patch are entirely new areas, secrets, as well as Japanese-themed enemies.

To make things more exciting, Nexon is doubling the item drop rate for Maple Story's Summer Drop event. Monsters will also drop various tubes and surfboards (in theme for summer) that can be used as weapons. This event will be implemented every Thursday and Saturday for two hours. For Fridays, a Monster Cookout event will be held, where players can take out summoned low-level monsters in random locations.

Bringing more fun and excitement into the game are Game Masters who will host one-hour events every Wednesday and Friday. Players will be pitted with other players in the quest to win an event trophy as well as a rare scroll that gives random items.

There's more. Monsters will also drop patriotic hats to commemorate Independence Day, and to finally cap off the summertime and Independence Day theme, the new barbecue quest, Cody's BBQ, will let players trade maple meat, BBQ sauce as well as charcoal for an Independence Day flag and other items.

Not to be outdone, the Maple Story website also has its own event: The "GM Blog Event" invites players to comment in the GM Blog, where random 20 players can receive 10,000 Maple Points. Cash Shops Sales will also be implemented during the month to give Maple Story fans special discounts as well as special packages and 1000 NX throughout the summer