so first of all, to start off, i dont have an all too good memory but i still wanted to tell my thoughts and opinions; i also have not played reboot and this rant is not about reboot. this is also not an invitation to flame me in any manner, for my experience with the game is different from some, and i am not ranting in a way that is slanderful, for thats not my intention. i am just ranting here about the current state of the game and my experiences playing maplestory for the time that i had. heads up for a lengthy post; a tdlr is at the bottom of the post.
so around the middle of the 10th anniversary events, i first started the game as my sister wanted me to try out the game to give me something to do around the summer. i went from maining beast tamer, to angelic buster, and then finally evan, for 5 years. due to changes with beast tamer, my sister stopped playing the game alltogether, which lead me to progressing alone in regular servers for a while. i soon got a friend into playing the game for some time, yet she stopped as well as she cant put enough time and effort towards the game due to having her own life to tend to. so i was back at square one for a good 2 ~ 3 years of playing the game.
as someone who played almost entirely f2p / free to play in a game thats horrendously grindy and pay to win, i can honestly say this, and i cant stress this enough: please do try to find another game to play, because in my honest opinion, this game is not worth the time and effort; i can also say that i regret spending so much of my time on this game that gives no reward - maplestory isnt fun anymore like it used to be, i only really go back to the game for the lore updates and none of the actual events. ive stopped leveling my characters for legion and link skills, dailies and weeklies proved to be too stressful to keep up for me, my friends are all on different servers and they eiether dont want to go back to gms, or they dont want to restart in the server that im in due to the massive amount of time and grind that needs to be put in in order to properly do things such as bosses together - because lets be real - what else is there to do in current maplestory that doesnt involve the never ending grind?
so its been about 5 years from then to now - whats changed and what hasnt?
- party quests were once a popular way to level, i vaguely remember the whole "R> rnj @@@@" spamming at the party quest entrance, and i remember people selling kishin services for meso. now, party quest entrance is empty, zero people whatsoever, due to negative changes towards the party quests years ago.
- the game was still as horrendously pay to win as it is now, but i was younger at the time and didnt care about the pay to win aspects; i played it because, for once, playing the game and its lore gave me an outlet to relive stress, instead of giving stress like it does now.
-from what i can remember, progression was somewhat easier than how it is now - the free market was still a thing, along with fanmade websites that kept track of current prices and items that went up on sale. some items that go for very, very cheap prices now, sold for a good amount of meso then, which made progressing on my main easier. but now? making meso on a purely f2p account without kanna, without no meso% gear and ability lines at all, without spending as much time as i did playing the game, and not being able to make meso by selling cash equipment from surprise boxes? youre much better off uninstalling the game.
now, when i look back on the progress ive made in gms before i quitted, ive always felt that the progress i made is nothing, litterally nothing, compared to those who pay money, and lots of it, to the game. i have about 6800~ legion, 18 level 200 characters, all done in my 5 years of playing the game. but why do i feel that so much time and effort placed into maplestory is nothing? because there is such a very large and obvious gap between those who pay money, and those who play f2p. the new content, areas and bosses being added? you cant go to those for a very, very long time after theyve been added - you might just even quit the game before then. i heard that nexon tries not to cater towards their whales, yet with things such as marvel machine, frenzy totem, firestarter ring, it kinda makes one wonder.
you cant get past arcana in the arcane river due to not having enough range or other reasons; you cant solo bosses past chaos root abyss as you have no guild to help / guild is dead, you also cant get past chaos root abyss due to not having enough damage; your friends eiether dropped the game or are in other servers; not having the time to grind every day for your arcane symbols, and then having to do bosses daily/weekly just so that you can get a couple cubes, when good potential lines are obviously not guarranteed? not being able to star your items past a certain star level, because finding a clean copy of that item in case of item destruction is impossible depending on prices. simply not logging into the game during double miracle time, because the lag and frustration is not worth it, and its not like you have more than two or three cubes at a time to use during the event. excited for a new coin shop event with plenty of neat things that may help you progress? thats a whole other thing to add onto your dailies as well.
ive progressed to where i dont need to buy gear for mules - i can just grind for it - but what stopped me? shouldnt that be much easier for one to level their legions and link skills? the tedious, senseless grind of leveling from levels 10 to 200, and something that ive spent the most of my maple years doing. i dont have things such as holy symbol and kishin shoukan to help me out, nor am i going to go through the hassle of getting an entire, second computer to help me progress, and keep in mind that the majority of my leveling was before the legion system was added - so no exp coupons or exp potions - i placed so much of my time into this game and i am still nowhere near the people who pay money all to have their pretty pixels and tricked out equipment. now, it takes me only a couple weeks to get to 200 on a mule, yet because im f2p, i have to plan at least a couple months in advance, especially if i consider taking a character to 210 for level 3 link - which will probably never happen.
ive always heard abt the maple community / fandom ressurecting for a short time only to die out again - and i always wondered why. is it because of the current state of the game and its changes? is it because of a small amount of people, such as myself, keeping the memory alive in places such as tumblr and twitter? or it because of lore content that causes a surge - such as the glory update - and once it passes, the people go back to living their lives? maplestory is much more popular in other regions besides from korea, such as japan and sea, so whats causing gms to have such a small fanbase? if pre-bigbang and nostalgic servers open for gms that have versions as early as beta, before there were even pirates in the game; version 83 servers that people have been asking and begging for so many years, will the game really grow to become popular like it once did? will everyone abandon the new, pretty maple for the old maple that so many have grew up playing?
i have a few friends who played the game much longer than i have, and they all agree that the current state of the game is just not like what it once was years ago - modern maplestory is almost like an entirely new game to them, with very small amounts of nostalgia still there; yet whose to say that the precious nostalgia wont eventually be removed, be "updated", into a look that fits the modern art style of the game? lets take an old, old map thats still in game for an example, ellinias general store - will the look and layout of it be eventually updated into one that suits modern maple maps, as seen with places such as cernium?
concerning the topic above, i find it odd how those precious and old places are still in the games files - you can still teleport to henesys hunting grounds today via teleport rock - yet cant get there through any other means. places such as florina beach, kerning tower and neo city / tera forest, and things from events such as eluna and other crossover events are still there as well - those places are all still in the games files, yet inaccessable; if those places are still in the games actual files, then why are they still there? what reason do all of these unused places and assets get reinstalled for every update and downloaded, if theyre just... There?
tdlr; in spite of my criticisms, maplestory has indeed gave me joy and continues to do so in one form or another. i have plenty of ocs and a world inspired by the game, and i still continue to create fanfictions of the game for my favorite ship. ive met some of my closest friends who are also fans of maplestory - but its going to be quite some time, and positive changes will need to be done before i ever consider thinking about going back to gms for reasons other than lore updates and new characters being added. thank you for taking the time to read my post!
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