I see a lot of people on these forums seeing the changes to the game and saying it's dying or dead. They're not wrong, but there's a lot more to it than that.
I love MapleStory. I've been playing for 8 years now, and over those 8 years, I've seen the game change. MapleStory is no longer the MapleStory we knew from before Big Bang. It was more traditional in the sense that the community was built around leveling, bossing, and exploring together. The meat of the game was in the earlier levels. It took 4 days to do what now takes 4 hours. Having 50m made you the richest one around. There were no gear sets, there was no endgame; the game never really ended. You PQ'd and quested, and leveled slowly. However, in 2010, the game's focus diverged extremely.
In December of 2010, the game went down for almost an entire day to update to the infamous Big Bang patch. With this update came many changes, such as a decreased XP curve, increased stat and damage scaling, but most damaging was the increased pay-to-win aspect. While the game had previously had pay-to-win aspects (such as Gachapon exclusive gear that was some of the best you could get), you weren't forced to spend hundreds of dollars to get anywhere. You could farm up that 20m to get that +7 PAC. Now, however, pieces of gear are going for hundreds of dollars by themselves. With this change in focus, a lot of players quit the game, decimating the community.
The p2w was the main factor in the destruction of the community. The constant flow of content meant that new gear was constantly coming out, so the people who spent hundreds to thousands to get their gear to a respectable place kept getting screwed. There was no free way to cube, so the players who spent real money on their gear just ended up leaving the game. Entire guilds went offline. Maps were empty. The FM was barren, there weren't even any bots for a while. It looked like, after the biggest update to-date, the game had committed suicide.
Yet here we are now, 7 years later, saying the same thing. This time, for different reasons. The game is riddled with bugs. It's almost impossible to get onto the game at this point, between the crowding of the Reboot server and the constant crashing. MapleStory has stopped working, please go **** yourself. I'm glad that Nexon has finally decided they should listen to their playerbase, but that doesn't mean you make it impossible to play the game. The focus on the lategame (200+) is a bit of a slog. First they make 250 our goal while making it almost impossible to get to 200, then when they finally give the 200+ players somewhere to go, it's the most drab place in the entire Mapleverse. Not to mention there's so little to do post-200. Do dailies for Arcane Symbols or whatever, so your daily bosses for GP, which they changed it to 1 entry a day for reg instead of 2, and you can only do Chaos bosses once a week. Then you AFK or spend money on cubes to get that sick 2m~2m range. Except there's no range cap anymore.
Will the game die? No, I don't think so. There are some people who feel as if they have invested too much, or there will be people who enjoy not spending anything at all and the gratification of doing it themselves. Even if the official servers do end up going down at some point, I can almost guarantee that plenty of servers will pop up.
Comments
This game will die if Nexon doesnt get their shet together.
Honestly, i love maplestory too and i've played since its release but quit till Big Bang came out.
Big bang wasnt too bad, it was okay, the part where it went bad was when they released Potentials.
This game holds many memories but very frustrating to play knowing that Nexon isn't taking very good care of it.
Please upgrade your customer support.
Riot VS Nexon
Yes we clearly know Riot makes lots in revenue, but all these recently change since League of legends was free to play. Riot's trying to make it too easy, just how like Maplestory went through. Maplestory is filled with only Adults. I will say Riot has more 12yrs old on League of Legends than Ps4/Xbox1 Users, which we can factor into why Bronze is consider elo hell.
Riot made have a better stability package than Maplestory since it like 4yrs apart of each other. MapleStory should start huge wipe of external storage on their part in order to have better stability.
I think people, nowadays, are way more obsessed with power, damage, levels, hitting big numbers, having the best equips, comparing equips, showing off, basically being the top notch and that to me it's like secondary or it should be secondary, it's futile, just ruins the game. Let's just take a chill pill here and think about what's important in a game, is power? money? prestige? friendship? socialization?
In my opinion, the developers should take a really good amount of time and come with a strategy to bring back that social aspect of maplestory that so many people miss and quit due to the lack of it.
And also now partying to level up give us less exp. Go to High level map such as Vanishing Journey. Noone actually partying up. People are soloing. No actual benefit in partying up with others. We are encouraged to play solo. If you play with others, you will be at disadvantage, lower exp. hmm i will write this down more on suggestion section. have just came up with it ;o
There are many issues for the Global region.
Suggestions generally do not pass through into the live game. And if they are it is generally done poorly, I wouldn't even put it remotely close to moderate or average. Some examples are how the Cash Shop Suggestions are delivered. Royal Hair and Eye styles generally still has a rotation of incredibly disgusting picks with maybe one or two good ones at extremely low rates while the similar format is done for Surprise Style Boxes. It seems that we're bound to random or subscription-based services since permanent items or a direct selection is rare for Cash Shop.
It took years for Potential to become more accessible to free-to-play and by that time the damage has been done. Bonus Potential and Nebulites are still behind a massive paywall. The fact that many upgrades are generally accessible through Cash Shop and Marvel Machine which are near impossible in-game continues to discourage new players from ever joining. We're also the only region without Flames of Rebirth.
There are many bugs that have not been fixed. The infamous one would be pet loot and kill lag which has been mainly caused by quests or trackers that attempt to keep a tally for whatever is being counted for. Another issue is The Afterlands which is just a total nightmare if you encounter a bug. Ursus Kill Screen, Exploration Boxes, TakeOver Reward Boxes, Kanna Not Receiving [Easy Magnus] Magnus Simulator, Change Channels does not work on first attempt, Korean Folk Town Deep Water Bug, and many more.
Reboot isn't a solution to everything since they also suffer from a lack of suggestion changes such as Nebulites, with subscription-based services like cosmetics and pets along with having the worst stability as the most populated server. Not saying that other servers haven't encounter stability issues. Even though the main issue that had plagued us for weeks has been resolved there is still a lingering lag that continues for me in Scania throughout certain channels, some worse than others.
Cheaters are another issue. Many remain unpunished and seems to keep getting away whether they're within the shadows or in plain sight. They plague the rankings and markets making them utterly useless. Those people are the ones who ruin the game as well by making an imbalance with the power structure making more people stronger than they should be in all servers and making mesos entirely worthless in Non-Reboot. Has anyone seen the plague of hackers in secluded areas such as Mu Lung, Herb Town, Masteria, etc.? They're within Arcane River too if you know where to look.
Sure that there's a lot of issues at hand, but with the amount of money-milking going on especially from the Re:Zero Event (more like a Cash Shop cash grab than an actual event) why hasn't the game improved more than it has with Tune Up? In my opinion that name is a joke of an update.
The game is great and all, but those behind the decisions for the Global region continue to fail my expectations again, again, and again that isn't even close to second-rate.
The game is about dying. I have no motivation to play this anymore since it's not fun and exciting as it was.
Benefits which were previously being available such as great benefits due to the Drop Rate effect becomes unavilable anymore.
Also, I wish some few rewards from events such as chairs or equipments will be tradeable or tradeable within the account.
Furthermore, the reward base is not that good at all.
For example, we keep receiving some regular rewards from Gachapon such as:
Big Money Chair
Dragon Chair (Inferno)
Dragon Chair (Abyss)
Lv. 125 Fearless Weapons (untradeable once equipped)
Lv. 140 Lionheart/Dragon Tail/Falcon Wing/Raven/Shark Tooth Equipment Set (untradeable once equipped)
Lv. 150 Amaterasu Equipment Set
Some specific mounts
100% scrolls for a specific weapon which gives +1 att/m.att
60% scrolls for a specific weapon which gives +1 primary stat and +2att/m.att
10% scrolls for a specific weapon which gives +3 primary stat and +5att/m.att
70% dark scrolls for a specific weapon which gives +1 primary stat and +2att/m.att
30% dark scrolls for a specific weapon which gives +3 primary stat and +5att/m.att
and some more which are worthless/useless
Rewards I wish to see in gachapon:
Weapons
Bamboo Spear
Bamboo Sword
Black Tube
Black Umbrella
Blood Snowboard
Colorful Tube
Dark Snowboard
Emergency Rescue Tube
Fishing Pole
Frozen Tuna
Frying Pan
Green Umbrella
Guan Yu Polearm
Hula Hoop
Japanese Map
Light Purple Umbrella
Maple Umbrella
Purple Tube
Red Flowery Tube
Silver Snowboard
Sky Blue Starry Bandana
Sky Blue Umbrella
Sky Snowboard
Super Snowboard
Armors
Teru Teru Hairband
Hair-bands for lv. 5/10/20/30/40/50/60/70
Black Wisconsin
Brown Adventurer Cape
Colorful bandanas for lv. 10
Colorful Ragged Capes for lv. 25
Palette
Pink Adventurer Cape
Pink Gaia Cape
Purple Adventurer Cape
Purple Gaia Cape
Stone Shield
Yellow Gaia Cape
Lv. 150 Fafnir Equipment Set
Accessories
Green Shades
Raccoon Mask
White Raccoon Mask
Dark Raccoon Mask
Spectrum Goggles
Chance to earn Onyx Apples
Evolution Scroll for one-handed weapon 50% (can be used on any one-handed weapon)
Evolution Scroll for two-handed weapon 50% (can be used on any two-handed weapon)
Scroll for Gloves for ATT 100% - provides +3 attack
Scroll for Gloves for M.ATT 100% - provides +3 magic attack
And more...
I believe the equipment rewards should be given with a generated random range of stat options.
For example, for White Bandana which it has 8 weapon def - there is a chance it will have 8~12 def.
Thank you for listening.
We still enjoy it as much as we did years ago, we have fun, we meet lots of friends, we spend some quality time, away from real life's troubles.
Sure, the P2P system has expanded over the last years, but that doesn't mean the game is dying, not even in the slightest, as the years pass, I assure you MapleStory will be 10x as better as it is today.
Mapler for life.
oh and also hackers apprently is allowed to keep their items. while legit players also loses their.
i predict within a year nexon shuts the game down. and or they get pulled into chourt.
Not many games last longer than 10 years. Maple's already almost half-way to 20.
Predicting that Maple will shut down within a year is likely... wait no, almost guarenteed, to be a losing bet. Expecting them to face court time (for what I assume to be your perception of 'mismanaging' of a video game) is a more laugh-worthy assessment bordering on absurdity.
been playing this game for 12 years already and there is less and less people each year the game will stay as long as the "benefactors" keep gambling
All things in legacy status are subject to death and eventual dismissal. I witness the party-quests queues and they are empty. They use to be full. They use to have players shouting 'R>PQ' or 'J>PQ' but something happened. These players were shouting 'R&J>PQ' even after the nerfs because they were socialistic mini-games; the point of an MMO. In addition to Pay2Win; it seems as if the 'exploiters' were righted the ability to take the heart of what made this game... away.
I wish that I could 'like' this, well said. It was players & players that brought this game together. Whenever I was introduced to it a friend that I had met in real-life asked for help with some sort of quest/party quest. I had never heard of the game before. Having someone needing another player to help them achieve something profitable was more powerful than any advertisement that the business managers/owners could possibly invest in. They need to create more situations that will make you talk about them. Its that player needs and finds or makes another player that creates your loyal fans.