I don't want the "Black Mage" content to fall behind as an old-timer and pioneer of Maplestory.
That's how stories work. You reach the end of one segment and it falls behind as newer segments are brought forward. Does reading a book upset you when earlier chapters "fall behind" as you make your way through the book?
I have to agree with AKradian here. Are we supposed to just make all of the game into a blockbuster?
There's a buildup that happens before the events in the black mage.
While Black Heaven and Heroes of Maple are somewhat self contained, the developers do at least expect you to know a little about MapleStory.
With the Black Mage, there's the 5th job advancement as well as all of Arcane River.
Yes there's the recap in the event version, but Nexon included this because it was important for the event that any 200+ could play.
Imagine the rage of an event for 245~275 that lasted several months.
By the time you reach him, you've probably played most of the characters and know most of the stories.
It's supposed to take a long time in order to establish the villain.
You don't just plop down the big bad after barely scratching the surface.
I have to agree with AKradian here. Are we supposed to just make all of the game into a blockbuster?
There's a buildup that happens before the events in the black mage.
While Black Heaven and Heroes of Maple are somewhat self contained, the developers do at least expect you to know a little about MapleStory.
With the Black Mage, there's the 5th job advancement as well as all of Arcane River.
Yes there's the recap in the event version, but Nexon included this because it was important for the event that any 200+ could play.
Imagine the rage of an event for 245~275 that lasted several months.
By the time you reach him, you've probably played most of the characters and know most of the stories.
It's supposed to take a long time in order to establish the villain.
You don't just plop down the big bad after barely scratching the surface.
Nobody said anything about "making the whole game into a Blockbuster". You're framing my opinion in the wrong way. Listen.
I agree with you that it should take time to reach the main event and the final boss of the game, no doubt about that. But the problem lies in the method in which it is done, which promotes and rewards minmaxing over a ridiculous amount of time to unlock important segments of the plot which, in other MMORPGs, are usually supposed to be available to the customer base to showcase the strong points of the game (in this scenario - the plot of Maplestory) through a more user-friendly experience that tends to reward playing the game and making it enjoyable.
Not all of us are munchkins, not all of us have time to read about damage-range, equipment progression, Best-in-Slot items, boss farming, Commerci Voyages, dailies and etc. And this returns me to an earlier point that I've brought - games should showcase their strong points to their customer base and not reach a situation where a very large amount of their strength (this time - the plot), and the most central part of it at that, is hiding behind walls and walls of unfriendly user experience (at this scenario - absurd grinding). Don't tell me that it's not true. A full Sweetwater Set would usually take up to 77 weeks to farm. A good CRA set takes a ridiculous amount as well. Don't get me started about Arcane Symbols, Nodestones, and levels at Arcane River.
BUT ALSO, ON THE OTHER HAND the complete opposite shouldn't happen either! You shouldn't just "plop down the big bad after barely scratching the surface" as it would degrade the build-up and be an utter disgrace and injustice to the Nexon Staff who worked hard to bring us the content.
But while your opinion is very valid, there's a whole segment of the customer base out there that has a different opinion. Not one or two people, but a whole bunch. And their claims, as well, are very understandable.
It was available to "the customer base", as a nearly two-month-long event. The event is now passed, and the event content has now been added as a permanent high-level region of the arcane river.
I don't want the "Black Mage" content to fall behind as an old-timer and pioneer of Maplestory.
That's how stories work. You reach the end of one segment and it falls behind as newer segments are brought forward. Does reading a book upset you when earlier chapters "fall behind" as you make your way through the book?
If Maplestory was a book, I would be more focused on the fact that I have to put a ridiculous amount of effort just to be able to turn over one page after several days. I would look at the last chapter from time to time and be like "damn, look at all these pages I have left! I can't imagine even reaching to the end because it takes so much work to flip a single page!". At the worst case scenario - I would drop the book and focus on the more important things that I should be doing in life, other commitments that I have.
It was available to "the customer base", as a nearly two-month-long event. The event is now passed, and the event content has now been added as a permanent high-level region of the arcane river.
In the earlier pages there is a discussion about "you snooze you lose" method. It's inappropriate when talking about something as good and important as the Maplestory plot. It's acceptable and understandable when it's done with "limited time items", "limited time cashop discounts", "one of a kind chair" etc. But not with something like plot. You don't "you snooze you lose" something this important.
Nobody said anything about "making the whole game into a Blockbuster". You're framing my opinion in the wrong way. Listen.
I agree with you that it should take time to reach the main event and the final boss of the game, no doubt about that. But the problem lies in the method in which it is done, which promotes and rewards minmaxing over a ridiculous amount of time to unlock important segments of the plot which, in other MMORPGs, are usually supposed to be available to the customer base to showcase the strong points of the game (in this scenario - the plot of Maplestory) through a more user-friendly experience that tends to reward playing the game and making it enjoyable.
Not all of us are munchkins, not all of us have time to read about damage-range, equipment progression, Best-in-Slot items, boss farming, Commerci Voyages, dailies and etc. And this returns me to an earlier point that I've brought - games should showcase their strong points to their customer base and not reach a situation where a very large amount of their strength (this time - the plot), and the most central part of it at that, is hiding behind walls and walls of unfriendly user experience (at this scenario - absurd grinding). Don't tell me that it's not true. A full Sweetwater Set would usually take up to 77 weeks to farm. A good CRA set takes a ridiculous amount as well. Don't get me started about Arcane Symbols, Nodestones, and levels at Arcane River.
BUT ALSO, ON THE OTHER HAND the complete opposite shouldn't happen either! You shouldn't just "plop down the big bad after barely scratching the surface" as it would degrade the build-up and be an utter disgrace and injustice to the Nexon Staff who worked hard to bring us the content.
But while your opinion is very valid, there's a whole segment of the customer base out there that has a different opinion. Not one or two people, but a whole bunch. And their claims, as well, are very understandable.
The problem with this is, after you do the blockbuster for the black mage, if the story really is a strong point... What are you going to do with the other 75 levels?
Just stop playing? If the idea is to hook players onto the story and get them to play as long as possible, the last thing you want them to do is complete it easily.
If Maplestory was a book, I would be more focused on the fact that I have to put a ridiculous amount of effort just to be able to turn over one page after several days. I would look at the last chapter from time to time and be like "damn, look at all these pages I have left! I can't imagine even reaching to the end because it takes so much work to flip a single page!". At the worst case scenario - I would drop the book and focus on the more important things that I should be doing in life, other commitments that I have.
But MapleStory isn't a book. It's an MMO. And MMOs by nature are designed to be grindfests that waste as much time as possible.
That's why people like them. (Or at least, some people) Because you'll never be done and you can always find something to do within the game.
Nobody said anything about "making the whole game into a Blockbuster". You're framing my opinion in the wrong way. Listen.
I agree with you that it should take time to reach the main event and the final boss of the game, no doubt about that. But the problem lies in the method in which it is done, which promotes and rewards minmaxing over a ridiculous amount of time to unlock important segments of the plot which, in other MMORPGs, are usually supposed to be available to the customer base to showcase the strong points of the game (in this scenario - the plot of Maplestory) through a more user-friendly experience that tends to reward playing the game and making it enjoyable.
Not all of us are munchkins, not all of us have time to read about damage-range, equipment progression, Best-in-Slot items, boss farming, Commerci Voyages, dailies and etc. And this returns me to an earlier point that I've brought - games should showcase their strong points to their customer base and not reach a situation where a very large amount of their strength (this time - the plot), and the most central part of it at that, is hiding behind walls and walls of unfriendly user experience (at this scenario - absurd grinding). Don't tell me that it's not true. A full Sweetwater Set would usually take up to 77 weeks to farm. A good CRA set takes a ridiculous amount as well. Don't get me started about Arcane Symbols, Nodestones, and levels at Arcane River.
BUT ALSO, ON THE OTHER HAND the complete opposite shouldn't happen either! You shouldn't just "plop down the big bad after barely scratching the surface" as it would degrade the build-up and be an utter disgrace and injustice to the Nexon Staff who worked hard to bring us the content.
But while your opinion is very valid, there's a whole segment of the customer base out there that has a different opinion. Not one or two people, but a whole bunch. And their claims, as well, are very understandable.
The problem with this is, after you do the blockbuster for the black mage, if the story really is a strong point... What are you going to do with the other 75 levels?
Just stop playing? If the idea is to hook players onto the story and get them to play as long as possible, the last thing you want them to do is complete it easily.
If Maplestory was a book, I would be more focused on the fact that I have to put a ridiculous amount of effort just to be able to turn over one page after several days. I would look at the last chapter from time to time and be like "damn, look at all these pages I have left! I can't imagine even reaching to the end because it takes so much work to flip a single page!". At the worst case scenario - I would drop the book and focus on the more important things that I should be doing in life, other commitments that I have.
But MapleStory isn't a book. It's an MMO. And MMOs by nature are designed to be grindfests that waste as much time as possible.
That's why people like them. (Or at least, some people) Because you'll never be done and you can always find something to do within the game.
"MMOs by nature are designed to be grindfests that waste as much time as possible?"
"MMOs by nature are designed to be grindfests that waste as much time as possible?"
Oh boy oh boy do I have some news for you!
This is not the game, nor community, to try and tell people it's not designed to keep you online for as long as possible.
Let us, for the moment, ignore the dailies that can eat a solid two or three hours of your online time, depending on how quickly you can clear them out.
Have you never seen the relay events? Or sugar time events? One requires you to spend probably an hour just meeting the criteria for completion, then spend the next two hours waiting down four separate timers. The other is roughly the same, but differs in that you can run through the four times five times in one day. If that's not "designed" to eat as much of your time as possible, then what is?
"MMOs by nature are designed to be grindfests that waste as much time as possible?"
Oh boy oh boy do I have some news for you!
This is not the game, nor community, to try and tell people it's not designed to keep you online for as long as possible.
Let us, for the moment, ignore the dailies that can eat a solid two or three hours of your online time, depending on how quickly you can clear them out.
Have you never seen the relay events? Or sugar time events? One requires you to spend probably an hour just meeting the criteria for completion, then spend the next two hours waiting down four separate timers. The other is roughly the same, but differs in that you can run through the four times five times in one day. If that's not "designed" to eat as much of your time as possible, then what is?
Let's not even mention reboot.
I meant that there are OTHER games out there which are a staple example of how an MMORPG provides a user-friendly experience, I wasn't referring to Maplestory and I'm not going to elaborate further on that because I think we're straying away from the main subject for which this discussion was posted. I know Maplestory is designed to keep you online for as long as possible. This is nothing new. .
And yes, let's not even mention reboot. My one and only character is on Reboot Europe (my previous account which his around 10 years old was deleted so...yeah...).
From a developer standpoint, the whole point of the Black Mage content is to give people an actual reason to start increasing their level to - and past - 250, which serves a double purpose of keeping you in-game for longer (assuming you want to participate in that content) as well as providing a legitimate reason aside from pride to continue leveling. Allowing this content to be accessed pre-limina negates that almost entirely.
Yes, people who don't want to grind will never get to that content anyway because of life or because they just don't care to. That doesn't mean the devs shouldn't continue to develop higher level content. At this point every lore update is just going to go up in level.
As for the other blockbuster content, it doesn't really matter that you play it pre-200 because there's no important plot points in between your story quests and those respective bosses. If you access the Black Mage content as a blockbuster, many (like me, who was not already at Arcana before the event) will miss out on developments in the story (like being introduced to characters that were stationed in those areas).
It was available to "the customer base", as a nearly two-month-long event. The event is now passed, and the event content has now been added as a permanent high-level region of the arcane river.
I still have a problem with it. I wouldn't mind if there was never any event that allowed anyone to beat the Black Mage early. If everyone who wants to see the end of the story has to work the same to get to that point then so be it. But it wasn't that way was it?
With the event anyone could beat the Black Mage in its "pinnacle of power" while barely even starting the Vanishing Journey. So then a privileged few get to see the everything early while everyone else who missed it has to take the long way to get to the same result. If you are going to allow people to beat the Black Mage early then EVERYONE should have the same privilege, not just those who are able to play during those arbitrary 2 months. Not everyone can dedicate its life to an MMO after all.
From a developer standpoint, the whole point of the Black Mage content is to give people an actual reason to start increasing their level to - and past - 250, which serves a double purpose of keeping you in-game for longer (assuming you want to participate in that content) as well as providing a legitimate reason aside from pride to continue leveling. Allowing this content to be accessed pre-limina negates that almost entirely.
Yes, people who don't want to grind will never get to that content anyway because of life or because they just don't care to. That doesn't mean the devs shouldn't continue to develop higher level content. At this point every lore update is just going to go up in level.
Yes it is and everyone I'm sure understands that. However the event allowed everyone during a period of time regardless of progression to access the final fight anyway so it kind of defeats the point of having that content so gated if you are allowing some people to get away with it anyway.
I don't have problems with plots being level gated, this is the design of MMOs after all, but to have an event that allows you to see everything anyway defeats that purpose and telling people "sorry you missed it because you decided your life was more important" is not nice, specially when they have already spent years in this game waiting for this moment to happen.
Yes it is and everyone I'm sure understands that. However the event allowed everyone during a period of time regardless of progression to access the final fight anyway so it kind of defeats the point of having that content so gated if you are allowing some people to get away with it anyway.
I don't have problems with plots being level gated, this is the design of MMOs after all, but to have an event that allows you to see everything anyway defeats that purpose and telling people "sorry you missed it because you decided your life was more important" is not nice, specially when they have already spent years in this game waiting for this moment to happen.
Black heaven and heroes of maple allowed everyone to access the lotus and damien(respectively) fights many levels before you would actually stand a chance against their non-blockbuster counterparts and no one loses their minds over that ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
So you want to finish the game in under a week, is what you're saying?
There's several games that have the final boss before what is considered "end game," though most of those games are single-player oriented and nowadays "true" end-game is added as DLC. After beating the final boss, they allow you to either keep playing (for completionists) and do all the remaining tasks in the game or start new game+, which usually lets you keep a handful of abilites unlocked through the last playthrough but reset you at level 1. Black mage is technically end game and you can still do it without reaching level 275, although it's highly improbable to do so until the trickle-down effect occurs in maplestory. Eventually players who are highly funded could clear black mage as soon as they finish the tenebris storyline but it won't happen until Nexon buffs a lot of classes in the future.
TL;DR, it would be okay to unlock the black mage earlier, as we already know Black Mage won't be the real end of the game, and still have desire to progress even if there currently is no challenge.
It was available to "the customer base", as a nearly two-month-long event. The event is now passed, and the event content has now been added as a permanent high-level region of the arcane river.
I still have a problem with it. I wouldn't mind if there was never any event that allowed anyone to beat the Black Mage early. If everyone who wants to see the end of the story has to work the same to get to that point then so be it. But it wasn't that way was it?
With the event anyone could beat the Black Mage in its "pinnacle of power" while barely even starting the Vanishing Journey. So then a privileged few get to see the everything early while everyone else who missed it has to take the long way to get to the same result. If you are going to allow people to beat the Black Mage early then EVERYONE should have the same privilege, not just those who are able to play during those arbitrary 2 months. Not everyone can dedicate its life to an MMO after all.
From a developer standpoint, the whole point of the Black Mage content is to give people an actual reason to start increasing their level to - and past - 250, which serves a double purpose of keeping you in-game for longer (assuming you want to participate in that content) as well as providing a legitimate reason aside from pride to continue leveling. Allowing this content to be accessed pre-limina negates that almost entirely.
Yes, people who don't want to grind will never get to that content anyway because of life or because they just don't care to. That doesn't mean the devs shouldn't continue to develop higher level content. At this point every lore update is just going to go up in level.
Yes it is and everyone I'm sure understands that. However the event allowed everyone during a period of time regardless of progression to access the final fight anyway so it kind of defeats the point of having that content so gated if you are allowing some people to get away with it anyway.
I don't have problems with plots being level gated, this is the design of MMOs after all, but to have an event that allows you to see everything anyway defeats that purpose and telling people "sorry you missed it because you decided your life was more important" is not nice, specially when they have already spent years in this game waiting for this moment to happen.
You say yourself it was an event yet you don't want to treat it as an event. It was obviously done as an event to get the people that haven't played maple for ages back into the game hence they reduced the requirements to something failry easy to accomplish. It was made as an event so the entirety of maple world could unite to fight against the biggest evil in the game. Now that the event is finished it's introduced at the next logical stage as permanent content: After 250 and after the 6 Arcane Areas.
I honestly don't understand your claims in some parts here. If you want to get to know the story of any game you gotta play it cause the devs spend time on it. If you don't want to "waste" that time you can use shortcuts like forums or wikis to learn about the game. And the argument that a player doesn't have time to play this game that much: It's a korean game where grinds are intended to be tedious because the gamerbase there can invest that time apparently. You should have noticed by now that the game isn't catered to our liking.
I'm willing to agree that maplestory itself has a bit too much grind required to reach the level as of now, but that will not change based on what I say above. It was a great thing of nexon to make the event happen so people could come back and "finish" the game that they've played ages ago and if you haven't been able to play due to RL reasons than you at least understood the basic rule RL>Online games. I can understand you can be upset about missing it, but that is bound to happen at some point sadly.
Yes it is and everyone I'm sure understands that. However the event allowed everyone during a period of time regardless of progression to access the final fight anyway so it kind of defeats the point of having that content so gated if you are allowing some people to get away with it anyway.
I don't have problems with plots being level gated, this is the design of MMOs after all, but to have an event that allows you to see everything anyway defeats that purpose and telling people "sorry you missed it because you decided your life was more important" is not nice, specially when they have already spent years in this game waiting for this moment to happen.
Black heaven and heroes of maple allowed everyone to access the lotus and damien(respectively) fights many levels before you would actually stand a chance against their non-blockbuster counterparts and no one loses their minds over that ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
AKradian kinda did with how it only makes sense to fight the Black Mage at ones pinnacle of power for the sake of story. I don't mind beating a weakened Black Mage, mostly because I probably wouldn't last 2 seconds with the real deal, I just don't want to spend all the months grinding to see what happens. If you are allowing everyone to defeat the Black Mage early it should be accessible for everyone or for no one, not make it a time limited event.
You say yourself it was an event yet you don't want to treat it as an event. It was obviously done as an event to get the people that haven't played maple for ages back into the game hence they reduced the requirements to something failry easy to accomplish. It was made as an event so the entirety of maple world could unite to fight against the biggest evil in the game. Now that the event is finished it's introduced at the next logical stage as permanent content: After 250 and after the 6 Arcane Areas.
I honestly don't understand your claims in some parts here. If you want to get to know the story of any game you gotta play it cause the devs spend time on it. If you don't want to "waste" that time you can use shortcuts like forums or wikis to learn about the game.
Yes it was an event, when it shouldn't have. I do have to play the game to see the story, my problem isn't that. My problem is that the previous cases where heavy plot developments were had we had a Blockbuster were all the story is had at an early level and later we had a high level area added where all the grind for equipment and beating the beefed up boss was had. Here instead we had an event that does the exact same thing as the Blockbuster (allowing way lower players to see the story) but everything instead is tied to the high level area of the game, which wouldn't be much of a problem if the grinding wasn't so heavy. The only way to see the most important part of the story is locked behind month long grinding that was not the case previously.
And the argument that a player doesn't have time to play this game that much: It's a korean game where grinds are intended to be tedious because the gamerbase there can invest that time apparently. You should have noticed by now that the game isn't catered to our liking.
I'm willing to agree that maplestory itself has a bit too much grind required to reach the level as of now, but that will not change based on what I say above. It was a great thing of nexon to make the event happen so people could come back and "finish" the game that they've played ages ago and if you haven't been able to play due to RL reasons than you at least understood the basic rule RL>Online games. I can understand you can be upset about missing it, but that is bound to happen at some point sadly.
With the korean argument, I think this is a different problem than what is being had but let me say this. MapleStory is a korean game, yes, but we are not Korea. We are Global MapleStory and the community here is much different than the one Korea has, and as such should have a different development angle.
As for Nexon allowing people to beat the game early for those who have been playing the game for years they should have made that option a permanent option. Why? Because most people who grew with MapleStory and had expected the Black Mage for ages are adults now, and most of them have issues they have to deal with that are more important than playing a game. Out of consideration if I was the part of the dev team I would have suggested to make this a Blockbuster. Everything after the Black Mage could be done in whatever way the dev team wants, but the Black Mage has way too much baggage with him to just make him accessible after more months of grind.
But the story goes from, VJ - CHU CHU - lach - arcana - Morass - Esfera - Tenebris - blackmage.
Lets pretend each of these island are acts. and in story wise, they are connected together and ultimately fighting the blackmage. but compare to black heaven and hero of maple, instead of unlocking next act by finishing the previous one, this required you to progress to certain level to unlock next act. Its like waiting for a manga to release monthly for new story. if you cba grinding then i guess youtube video is your best bet to watch the story.
Comments
That's how stories work. You reach the end of one segment and it falls behind as newer segments are brought forward. Does reading a book upset you when earlier chapters "fall behind" as you make your way through the book?
There's a buildup that happens before the events in the black mage.
While Black Heaven and Heroes of Maple are somewhat self contained, the developers do at least expect you to know a little about MapleStory.
With the Black Mage, there's the 5th job advancement as well as all of Arcane River.
Yes there's the recap in the event version, but Nexon included this because it was important for the event that any 200+ could play.
Imagine the rage of an event for 245~275 that lasted several months.
By the time you reach him, you've probably played most of the characters and know most of the stories.
It's supposed to take a long time in order to establish the villain.
You don't just plop down the big bad after barely scratching the surface.
Nobody said anything about "making the whole game into a Blockbuster". You're framing my opinion in the wrong way. Listen.
I agree with you that it should take time to reach the main event and the final boss of the game, no doubt about that. But the problem lies in the method in which it is done, which promotes and rewards minmaxing over a ridiculous amount of time to unlock important segments of the plot which, in other MMORPGs, are usually supposed to be available to the customer base to showcase the strong points of the game (in this scenario - the plot of Maplestory) through a more user-friendly experience that tends to reward playing the game and making it enjoyable.
Not all of us are munchkins, not all of us have time to read about damage-range, equipment progression, Best-in-Slot items, boss farming, Commerci Voyages, dailies and etc. And this returns me to an earlier point that I've brought - games should showcase their strong points to their customer base and not reach a situation where a very large amount of their strength (this time - the plot), and the most central part of it at that, is hiding behind walls and walls of unfriendly user experience (at this scenario - absurd grinding). Don't tell me that it's not true. A full Sweetwater Set would usually take up to 77 weeks to farm. A good CRA set takes a ridiculous amount as well. Don't get me started about Arcane Symbols, Nodestones, and levels at Arcane River.
BUT ALSO, ON THE OTHER HAND the complete opposite shouldn't happen either! You shouldn't just "plop down the big bad after barely scratching the surface" as it would degrade the build-up and be an utter disgrace and injustice to the Nexon Staff who worked hard to bring us the content.
But while your opinion is very valid, there's a whole segment of the customer base out there that has a different opinion. Not one or two people, but a whole bunch. And their claims, as well, are very understandable.
If Maplestory was a book, I would be more focused on the fact that I have to put a ridiculous amount of effort just to be able to turn over one page after several days. I would look at the last chapter from time to time and be like "damn, look at all these pages I have left! I can't imagine even reaching to the end because it takes so much work to flip a single page!". At the worst case scenario - I would drop the book and focus on the more important things that I should be doing in life, other commitments that I have.
In the earlier pages there is a discussion about "you snooze you lose" method. It's inappropriate when talking about something as good and important as the Maplestory plot. It's acceptable and understandable when it's done with "limited time items", "limited time cashop discounts", "one of a kind chair" etc. But not with something like plot. You don't "you snooze you lose" something this important.
The problem with this is, after you do the blockbuster for the black mage, if the story really is a strong point... What are you going to do with the other 75 levels?
Just stop playing? If the idea is to hook players onto the story and get them to play as long as possible, the last thing you want them to do is complete it easily.
But MapleStory isn't a book. It's an MMO. And MMOs by nature are designed to be grindfests that waste as much time as possible.
That's why people like them. (Or at least, some people) Because you'll never be done and you can always find something to do within the game.
"MMOs by nature are designed to be grindfests that waste as much time as possible?"
Oh boy oh boy do I have some news for you!
This is not the game, nor community, to try and tell people it's not designed to keep you online for as long as possible.
Let us, for the moment, ignore the dailies that can eat a solid two or three hours of your online time, depending on how quickly you can clear them out.
Have you never seen the relay events? Or sugar time events? One requires you to spend probably an hour just meeting the criteria for completion, then spend the next two hours waiting down four separate timers. The other is roughly the same, but differs in that you can run through the four times five times in one day. If that's not "designed" to eat as much of your time as possible, then what is?
Let's not even mention reboot.
I meant that there are OTHER games out there which are a staple example of how an MMORPG provides a user-friendly experience, I wasn't referring to Maplestory and I'm not going to elaborate further on that because I think we're straying away from the main subject for which this discussion was posted. I know Maplestory is designed to keep you online for as long as possible. This is nothing new. .
And yes, let's not even mention reboot. My one and only character is on Reboot Europe (my previous account which his around 10 years old was deleted so...yeah...).
Yes, people who don't want to grind will never get to that content anyway because of life or because they just don't care to. That doesn't mean the devs shouldn't continue to develop higher level content. At this point every lore update is just going to go up in level.
As for the other blockbuster content, it doesn't really matter that you play it pre-200 because there's no important plot points in between your story quests and those respective bosses. If you access the Black Mage content as a blockbuster, many (like me, who was not already at Arcana before the event) will miss out on developments in the story (like being introduced to characters that were stationed in those areas).
I still have a problem with it. I wouldn't mind if there was never any event that allowed anyone to beat the Black Mage early. If everyone who wants to see the end of the story has to work the same to get to that point then so be it. But it wasn't that way was it?
With the event anyone could beat the Black Mage in its "pinnacle of power" while barely even starting the Vanishing Journey. So then a privileged few get to see the everything early while everyone else who missed it has to take the long way to get to the same result. If you are going to allow people to beat the Black Mage early then EVERYONE should have the same privilege, not just those who are able to play during those arbitrary 2 months. Not everyone can dedicate its life to an MMO after all.
Yes it is and everyone I'm sure understands that. However the event allowed everyone during a period of time regardless of progression to access the final fight anyway so it kind of defeats the point of having that content so gated if you are allowing some people to get away with it anyway.
I don't have problems with plots being level gated, this is the design of MMOs after all, but to have an event that allows you to see everything anyway defeats that purpose and telling people "sorry you missed it because you decided your life was more important" is not nice, specially when they have already spent years in this game waiting for this moment to happen.
Black heaven and heroes of maple allowed everyone to access the lotus and damien(respectively) fights many levels before you would actually stand a chance against their non-blockbuster counterparts and no one loses their minds over that ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
There's several games that have the final boss before what is considered "end game," though most of those games are single-player oriented and nowadays "true" end-game is added as DLC. After beating the final boss, they allow you to either keep playing (for completionists) and do all the remaining tasks in the game or start new game+, which usually lets you keep a handful of abilites unlocked through the last playthrough but reset you at level 1. Black mage is technically end game and you can still do it without reaching level 275, although it's highly improbable to do so until the trickle-down effect occurs in maplestory. Eventually players who are highly funded could clear black mage as soon as they finish the tenebris storyline but it won't happen until Nexon buffs a lot of classes in the future.
TL;DR, it would be okay to unlock the black mage earlier, as we already know Black Mage won't be the real end of the game, and still have desire to progress even if there currently is no challenge.
You say yourself it was an event yet you don't want to treat it as an event. It was obviously done as an event to get the people that haven't played maple for ages back into the game hence they reduced the requirements to something failry easy to accomplish. It was made as an event so the entirety of maple world could unite to fight against the biggest evil in the game. Now that the event is finished it's introduced at the next logical stage as permanent content: After 250 and after the 6 Arcane Areas.
I honestly don't understand your claims in some parts here. If you want to get to know the story of any game you gotta play it cause the devs spend time on it. If you don't want to "waste" that time you can use shortcuts like forums or wikis to learn about the game. And the argument that a player doesn't have time to play this game that much: It's a korean game where grinds are intended to be tedious because the gamerbase there can invest that time apparently. You should have noticed by now that the game isn't catered to our liking.
I'm willing to agree that maplestory itself has a bit too much grind required to reach the level as of now, but that will not change based on what I say above. It was a great thing of nexon to make the event happen so people could come back and "finish" the game that they've played ages ago and if you haven't been able to play due to RL reasons than you at least understood the basic rule RL>Online games. I can understand you can be upset about missing it, but that is bound to happen at some point sadly.
AKradian kinda did with how it only makes sense to fight the Black Mage at ones pinnacle of power for the sake of story. I don't mind beating a weakened Black Mage, mostly because I probably wouldn't last 2 seconds with the real deal, I just don't want to spend all the months grinding to see what happens. If you are allowing everyone to defeat the Black Mage early it should be accessible for everyone or for no one, not make it a time limited event.
Yes it was an event, when it shouldn't have. I do have to play the game to see the story, my problem isn't that. My problem is that the previous cases where heavy plot developments were had we had a Blockbuster were all the story is had at an early level and later we had a high level area added where all the grind for equipment and beating the beefed up boss was had. Here instead we had an event that does the exact same thing as the Blockbuster (allowing way lower players to see the story) but everything instead is tied to the high level area of the game, which wouldn't be much of a problem if the grinding wasn't so heavy. The only way to see the most important part of the story is locked behind month long grinding that was not the case previously.
With the korean argument, I think this is a different problem than what is being had but let me say this. MapleStory is a korean game, yes, but we are not Korea. We are Global MapleStory and the community here is much different than the one Korea has, and as such should have a different development angle.
As for Nexon allowing people to beat the game early for those who have been playing the game for years they should have made that option a permanent option. Why? Because most people who grew with MapleStory and had expected the Black Mage for ages are adults now, and most of them have issues they have to deal with that are more important than playing a game. Out of consideration if I was the part of the dev team I would have suggested to make this a Blockbuster. Everything after the Black Mage could be done in whatever way the dev team wants, but the Black Mage has way too much baggage with him to just make him accessible after more months of grind.
Lets pretend each of these island are acts. and in story wise, they are connected together and ultimately fighting the blackmage. but compare to black heaven and hero of maple, instead of unlocking next act by finishing the previous one, this required you to progress to certain level to unlock next act. Its like waiting for a manga to release monthly for new story. if you cba grinding then i guess youtube video is your best bet to watch the story.