ForPain

Aggraphine wrote: »

ForPain wrote: »

"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...).

Aggraphine wrote: »

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.

Aggraphine wrote: »

ForPain wrote: »

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.

Fuhreak wrote: »

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.

the original post of this thread that I make doesn't come to demand anything of Nexon or show some sort of repulsiveness from the game. The decisions they make is all theirs and their own financial and content directors know their stuff (I assume).

But this suggestion forum exists for a reason. I may be talking and wanting stuff purely from a user perspective and not consider the damages that it would make to saturate the "Black Mage" content by making it available IMMEDIATELY to EVERYONE.

There is a point to your claim, but we can agree that it's time-restricted and the top brass would need to understand that. So measures need to be taken that when date of expiration arrive, the "Black Mage" content will not be tossed aside like "Horntail" or "Zakum" by players who have no intention of doing them whatsoever as they're on their way to THE REAL END GAME BOSS GERALD DARMOOR. A "Blockbuster" would make an amazing solution for that.

Otherwise, if the difficulty of the Arcane River and its necessity to keep on playing the game and reach new heights continues, it will create a bottleneck where many players have to experience the disappointment of grinding and look for "the fastest way possible" to storm through this content in order to reach the next point, which will eventually be Gerald Darmoor and Grandis. I don't want the "Black Mage" content to fall behind as an old-timer and pioneer of Maplestory.