NeoTokyoDude

I have mixed feelings about L forest. It later changed into Mushroom castle but I thought it had a lot of potential as a wide open field map area. (perfect for adding hidden streets)

L Forest never changed to Mushroom Kingdom. In fact, Mushroom Kingdom use to be accessed through "Hidden Street: An Empty House" back then when you had to fight Helmet, Royal Guard, and King Pepe.

The only thing they had in common was the use of the same BGM.

That is right, we had both L Forest and Mushroom kingdom before Victoria island got changed, wow that was a long time ago! During that period my main had already moved on to Masteria and NLC. I still did run a few mules through the castle questline when I was trying to get them far enough to complete the quests with 60% GFA scrolls. Back then I was so desperate for mesos but as I remember it now, I think it was hilarious.

*ahem* Now for a post in English.

Something I really miss about the older days in particular was the subway party(?) quest which was basically an old-Ariant PQ styled quest you could only do until level 30. I found it a lot of fun! And while I do like the fast transportation of today's Maple, I did enjoy just talking to others on the ride to Orbis and other places. It's where I remember meeting one of my friends that basically started it all for me.

I don't play the game anymore, but it's a very pleasant feeling I have when I look back at it all. I just wish I had a little more time to do things with the friends I used to have, and to punch my 10 year old self in the face.

My flavor of choice was Netts pyramid, I wanted that belt!

A few years ago, I was very eager to say that the community was overall positive, but now I'd say that it was just as rotten as it is today. Perhaps it is my nostalgia goggles wearing off, but I'm starting to remember the negative experiences I had with people. I miss my old friends of course, but I've ran into some very terrible people. It's the same thing today, just that people are more spread out now so it's easier to avoid interactions.

I would say that the old layout of Victoria Island is still quite nostalgic to me. It was always fun being able to walk from one town and then return full circle. The large, intricate maps were a lot less straightforward to navigate in. I especially remember the L forest somewhere between Kerning City and Lith Harbor.

Negative nostalgia? That is an interesting concept. About 10 years ago, I had heard about how internet games generally had rude player bases so by the time I tried Maplestory my expectations were already low. But on the other hand in Old MS it was kind of easy to avoid if the player was well informed. If hackers tried to drop Wolf spiders or other mobs on your head, all it took was to change channels. Scammers were a real thing in the Free market but a quick visit to any of the fan sites would be enough to educate the public and guard against the most common ones. What was the age range of Old MS players? There were probably people as young as 5 and old as, well I couldn't say. It was the kind of game that had a very diverse population. I would be more shocked if there were no rude players.

I have mixed feelings about L forest. It later changed into Mushroom castle but I thought it had a lot of potential as a wide open field map area. (perfect for adding hidden streets)

이런 . . . .
도 늙은 메이플스토리만 얘기 하고 있네. 더럽다 친자

I think my google translate is broken, did you mean to say something about 1 million paternity tests?

College, especially, was the most expensive vacation I ever took.

Oh, you.

As far as immersion... I never really felt it with MapleStory. I could just be spoiled by RuneScape's great writing and world-building. I will say that I really really enjoyed Heroes of Maple, though. One thing that sort of turns me off in MapleStory is the amount of anachronism. It's been there from the start with Kerning City and taxis, but got progressively worse with things like Edelstein (I don't count things that don't get referenced in the fight against the Black Mage, i.e. Omega Sector, Singapore, etc. unless they have been and I'm just not aware?). It's not that it's bad content - the Resistance classes are pretty fun. It's just that it detracts from the medieval setting, seeing a warrior in plate armor next to a modernly-dressed person in a high tech mech. That's just how I feel, though.

Is it ok that I greatly like that kind of stuff? The way that I always imagined it for Maplestory was like the player begins on the "primitive" Maple island and after leaving there, then the rest of the game had some resemblance to the world as we know it. Similar to how there really are people on our planet that still live in tents (by choice I think) while there are also places with lots of high tech development.

Something else that cannot quite fit into words is what I will call the organic rate of progression. When a character reached around level 40ish that was about the earliest that one could go to Omega Sector without large difficulty. Probably after playing for a couple of weeks or a couple of months. The thing is that even though the number is only a measly 40 out of 200, it could be this giant milestone of getting to the bottom of Eos tower and walking out the other end. From humble beginnings on the island where computers had not even been invented yet and to reach a region that has better technology then what we have in real life. The core game play is still the same MMORPG standard "kill 10 rats" but with a different setting. The npc desperately explains that you must help them beat back the invading alien menace or all is lost! (go kill 200 aliens) Maybe simple to a fault but I think it works if the game is fun on a basic level. It also meant something that the enemies were not push overs. At the proper strength, they would be a fair match to a character but to a traveler who is under leveled the player could easily be KO'd or unable to kill the mobs. The level is only 40 and yet the adventure could have already advanced so far.

The creators of Omega sector knew what they were doing, even modeling the Meso rangers to look like the Gen 1 Power rangers. There are newer Power rangers but the originals are usually ranked highly when compared to the others. Although I am not familiar with the overseas version of the Power rangers that the english ones were based off of. After playing Old MS for a good while, the player has become strong enough to be in the presence of super hero's and to help them fight aliens in Omega sector. How dramatic!

Edit: If someone is only going to post in order to complain about something I did then try sending me a private message instead. No need to make clutter for the thread and I would be glad to discuss any messages that come my way.

There was once a soda pop company that changed its drink and then later changed it back to the older formula. this drink was called Coco cola. Could it have been that the customers had a deeper connection to the older drink or more nostalgia power with it? Possibly, it might have been that people were mostly drinking the soda because of nostalgia but instead of talking about soda, I'm going to talk about Maplestory.

I don't think nostalgia for this game can fully be captured in words. Even 300 threads or more would probably not be enough if everybody was included. Instead I can maybe share a small sample of it through drawing on my own experience. Players nostalgia is unique but also universal in some ways. People say "what is this Maple nostalgia that you speak of? I have never heard of it." You could say it is an affection for the past but in order to be accurate, I might need to make comparisons among versions. Which is not to claim that one is better than the other only that they are just different. Like apples and oranges, its all fruit.

To start with, I miss the Old MS loading process and sign in procedures. It was quick to start up and the sign board with mushrooms and grass in the background was charming. Today there is more to load so I guess the trade off is needing to wait for a while, maybe not a bad thing but I prefer when the loading was faster. Creating a character was like a mini game, perhaps not efficient but I thought it was always fun. If everybody could adapt to the newest version then that would make all the players happy. What else could there be in Old MS that cannot be found in a newer version? (this is the question I asked myself when thinking of nostalgia)

Remember, I do not see the past and present games as being inferior to each other only different. For instance, what would you rather do after playing for an hour?
1. Level up 10 times, auto assign a lot of stat points because its not that important to pay attention and maybe change training map.
2. Level up once, carefully distribute the few precious stat points and use the newly improved powers to better fight mobs of comparable strength.

Really just different ways of doing the same thing but with emphasis in different places. Some people say that the Fairy arc in SAO was less interesting because the hero was not in as much "real" danger. Old MS had a larger emphasis on making bad choices hurt more if the player goofed.
Like in exploration, today you might say "check the in game map." but in Old MS a player could become lost if they did not have directions or had seen a map on a site like Hidden street. Similar right? No dude, the in game map only provides an overhead view. In Old MS you literally needed to study the field maps (or get help) to figure out the routes to places. Little nooks and crannies are a tiny part of the larger world but they did help provide depth.

Speaking of travel, that brings me to the air ships and the dimensional portal. This is another instance of differing approaches to the same problem. I think the Phantom class was released just before the portal appeared. While I admit my other characters were jealous of Phantoms ability to fly anywhere, making fast travel easy for everybody sort of cheapens it. A few other classes have expanded travel options but I think they are robbed of some of their special-ness when class specific abilities get canceled out because there is a commonly accessible portal. Maybe things become more streamlined but I am not so sure that is always a good thing. Chief Tatamo of Leafre must really be having hard times because nobody needs to buy anymore of the warp seeds. The opposite approach could have been to make long distance travel even more difficult like with a broken down air ship or something. It might sound inconvenient but details like this add to the sense of adventure. Where as making travel much easier maybe lowers the sense of adventure a little. Given the choice between the slow air ships and fast portal I don't think there are a lot who would go slow but it is supposed to be something special that is reserved for a few classes. (like Phantom and his fancy airship)

Similar to walking 15 miles in the snow to reach point A from point B. During the long trek maybe you discover a Polar bear, or a frozen person who needs help or find buried treasure in the snow? Or you could hop on a snowmobile and arrive in about 15 minutes. They are kind of the same journey but also not the same. This is one of many things I miss.


Naturally streamlining is not always a bad thing but it is definitely not always good. How long could it be until Maplestory resembles one of the other zillion web games that exist?Games where the action boils down to:
1. push button to auto walk to quest Npc.
2. push button to auto walk to mobs
3. push button to auto kill mobs
4. push button to auto walk to quest Npc and complete quest.
5. repeat

Granted Maplestory and Old MS are not a lot more than pushing multiple buttons but I would think that players want more immersion and not less. At the end of the day it is still Maple and they are both online games so neither is really "bad" but in my very limited view of nostalgia, I would say that I like Old MS because it has good immersion.

One more thing I liked about the period of Old MS is that there were no artificial divisions between old/ current/ new, it was all just Maplestory.
Good times.

1. Never discuss ideas or suggestions that anyone might disagree with. If you do encounter someone with a different opinion, do not try to have a conversation and don't explain anything. Just forget about it and walk away.

2. Harassment is ok if enough people are doing it.

3. Parts of the code of conduct could be a placebo. Maybe good news for some but not so good for others, who knows?

Correct me if I'm wrong.