Hello

The keyword of this post is special character emoticons, which literally means emoticons made up of special characters. In this article, I looked at which special character emoticons are recognized in MapleStory, along with the in-game emoticons and chat shortcuts that are realistically usable

Special character emoticon site : https://snskeyboard.com/emoticon/

I had not really used these before, so I did not know much about them, but they have clearly become a genre of their own, and even this one site alone seemed to have well over ten thousand examples. If you visit the site and click the one you want, it is copied automatically

The problem is that special characters are not recognized properly in MapleStory, and an example looks like this

Original :

Website : ヽ(｡◕ܫ◕)人(◕ܫ◕｡)ﾉ

In-game :

In addition, many characters are not recognized even on Korean websites in the first place, so while I cannot say how it works in other games, in MapleStory it seems difficult to copy and use them as-is

So I first looked for the ones that are recognized in-game as well

Special character emoticons recognized in-game : Greetings & Congratulations

1) ( ´ ▽ ` )/

2) (^▽^)/

3) (＾ω＾)/

4) (ㅇ∀ㅇ)/

5) (>∇<)/

6) (>▽<)b

7) (ㅇ▽ㅇ)b

8) ＼(＾▽＾) /

9) (｀ω ´)b

10) (^o^)b

11) (>_<)9

12) (｀_´)b

Official in-game emoticons that can realistically be used

As you can probably tell from the examples above, the characters recognized in-game are quite limited. Because of that, it is not very practical to rely mainly on special character emoticons, and while the emoticons themselves are cute, they can also feel a little awkward unless both sides are already comfortable with that style, so there are clear limitations if you want to use them broadly

A more practical alternative that can be used alongside regular text is the official in-game emoticon feature. You can open its UI through the relevant menu in the chat window

When the emoticon feature first appeared, it was briefly forgotten, then improved through a later revamp, and after that it became relatively quiet again. Even though nothing new has been added, that revamp significantly improved usability and related conveniences, so if you want to use emoticons, it is still a fairly solid option

In practice, this feature is not easy to use widely because there is usually not much free quickslot space, but it can also be used with shortcut keys

This feature can also be used directly from the chat window. If you type :emoticon name:, you can use it immediately in chat, and the corresponding emoticon will appear there as well

There are also emoticons that were added in that revamp with party use in mind

There are also many small, pleasantly cute emoticons that have been around since the early days, so they are usable in a way similar to KakaoTalk emoticons

Chat shortcut feature

There is also a chat shortcut menu next to the emoticon menu in the chat window

This feature does exactly what its name suggests: it lets you create chat shortcuts, and you can make up to 20 of them

If you click the edit tab, enter the shortcut at the top, and then enter the text that should be sent when that shortcut is used at the bottom, you can afterward input that text immediately either by typing the shortcut or by placing it on a quickslot

For example, if you assign “/ㅁ” to “Good work,” then after finishing something like Extreme Monster Park, you can type “/ㅁ” instead of entering “Good work” in full

If you use this feature, the special character emoticons and official emoticons above also become a little easier to use

Lastly, the “basic commands” mentioned above refer to the commands below

• /ㄷ, /e : To everyone

• /ㄹ, /f : To friends

• /ㅔ, /p : To party

• /ㅎ, /g : To guild

• /ㅕ, /u : To alliance

• /ㅈ, /w : Whisper

• /파티탈퇴 : Leave party

You can also change the chat group with the TAB key, or by using the commands above

Thank you for reading