Old Maplestory...

[KhainiWest]

Y'all have no idea what you're talking about. The MS community is way too large to draw sweeping generalizations about the type of people playing the game. People were not less greedy, or more friendly back then. Tens of thousands of years of human history have not been changed in the span of the 8 years that some crappy online game has been in existence. I started playing in '04, on and off. I quit a year and a half ago. I remember posting on Sleepywood way back when. It was the same bullpomegranate about a bunch of teenagers stealing each other's stuff, showing off how much money they had, and causing all kinds of drama. There were of course, also plenty of nice folks and great contributors to the community, and then all those in between.

The game hasn't really changed that much, either. It was a sloppily programmed Korean grinder when it came out, and it still is a sloppily programmed Korean grinder. There is still no new content progression, all they do is release a new zone for some random level range every now and then, tack on extra classes, and give you new gear upgrades to grind/spend for. They've shortened the grind, but that doesn't really mean anything.

The only thing that's changed is the way you perceive the game. When you started playing, everything was new to you. You didn't know what to do. It was an open world to explore, and you would enjoy different kinds of adventures every time you played. Now, everything is routine. You know what to expect when you start the game. You know what you're getting yourself into when you find a map to grind on for a few hours. You know what kind of bullpomegranate you have to deal with, and you've learned to recognize the problems with the community. This happens to everyone after enough time on an online world. It's not the game or the community, it's you.

...Aren't you a teenagers yourself? I just find it funny how you try to talk down to people when in fact you're not challenging anything just making general baseless assumptions. Is that why your post is essentially ambiguous because you lack any point? Makes sense to me.

To correct you, when maplestory came out, the options for gear were minimal, money was made by playing the game. Are you seriously going to sit here and tell me the game hasn't changed when NX has become the source of transactions, where meso is worthless? You can spout all this "I'm an adult and understand how perspectives changes when people get older!" but for maplestory that started off as a game where limitations were strict which made us dependent on others as well as ourselves has clearly hit a form of exemption. The community see's no limitations which leads to us not necessarily needing anything but a great deal of funding. The game is no longer a story but MoneyStory. It's all about you funding and getting to level 200 as soon as possible, not to achieve anything but to concentrate more onto getting stronger. I'm not sure what maplestory you played but that's not the generation I played in. Sure damage whoring was a priority back then, dexless being the most efficient way, but that's because items gave us the opportunity to do that and it was more cost effective. Now people go for that damage aspect so they don't deal with the community.

As an adult I would expect your starting sentence not to be so baseless, as a teenager it's expected.

[SwordStaker]

Miss my old screen shots so bad..I had some from Beta to my character getting 120 and the start of my Evan. Then my computer decided to die and the monkeys at best buy didn't save my pictures even though I gave them the stuff to do so and they said they could. Had a lot of good memories on there>.> Now I can't take any pictures.

[Moonlapse]

Remember when Windraiders were a hot training spot, guys?

[y0y0y0y0shi0]

Someone tell Nexon to revert all of the game back to when it was still the original 5 classes.

The sad part is that I'm only level 103(?) and I made the character all the way back then, before anyone had even hit level 160 and 4th job and all that fancy shmancyness.

[Dusk]

...Aren't you a teenagers yourself? I just find it funny how you try to talk down to people when in fact you're not challenging anything just making general baseless assumptions. Is that why your post is essentially ambiguous because you lack any point? Makes sense to me.

To correct you, when maplestory came out, the options for gear were minimal, money was made by playing the game. Are you seriously going to sit here and tell me the game hasn't changed when NX has become the source of transactions, where meso is worthless? You can spout all this "I'm an adult and understand how perspectives changes when people get older!" but for maplestory that started off as a game where limitations were strict which made us dependent on others as well as ourselves has clearly hit a form of exemption. The community see's no limitations which leads to us not necessarily needing anything but a great deal of funding. The game is no longer a story but MoneyStory. It's all about you funding and getting to level 200 as soon as possible, not to achieve anything but to concentrate more onto getting stronger. I'm not sure what maplestory you played but that's not the generation I played in. Sure damage whoring was a priority back then, dexless being the most efficient way, but that's because items gave us the opportunity to do that and it was more cost effective. Now people go for that damage aspect so they don't deal with the community.

As an adult I would expect your starting sentence not to be so baseless, as a teenager it's expected.

Your first paragraph is a trainwreck of random insults. Did I offend you by not complying with the norm in a nostalgia thread?

I'm 22. I played MMOs before MapleStory. You also have no idea what you're talking about. You have always been able to buy power in MS, and there has never been anything to achieve other than getting better gear and leveling up. Meso selling sites have existed for almost as long as the game has. Buying and selling leeched experience was incredibly common and a huge part of the how the game operated for years. It's fun to point fingers and blame Nexon's greed or the terrible players ruining the community, but the truth is that nothing has really changed.

[KhainiWest]

Your first paragraph is a trainwreck of random insults. Did I offend you by not complying with the norm in a nostalgia thread?

I'm 22. I played MMOs before MapleStory. You also have no idea what you're talking about. You have always been able to buy power in MS, and there has never been anything to achieve other than getting better gear and leveling up. Meso selling sites have existed for almost as long as the game has. Buying and selling leeched experience was incredibly common and a huge part of the how the game operated for years. It's fun to point fingers and blame Nexon's greed or the terrible players ruining the community, but the truth is that nothing has really changed.

Apparently calling you out for making baseless assumptions and pointing out your hypocritical perspective of opinion's is insulting? Okay, but it's certainly not a train wreck of random insults as it has a clear point.

My lord, you must be really brickwalling or really uneducated with the current game. It saddens me I have to re-explain my points because you're too focused on inaccurate assumptions but okay.

You also have no idea what you're talking about.

No, you can't read or you sloppily did. The game has dramatically changed from whatever naive memories that you have about it. You could always buy mesos but it also was relative to the amount you could purchase in exchange of nx, if not an insignificant difference. The problem that we have is a cause and effect scenario. When meso's value have depleted to the point where the maximum is a fraction for normal transactions, then you can't really purchase things by playing the game, only investing into it. Unless you want to go buy a 2x card and go to whatever monster drops the most cash and calculate how many months it would take to achieve max mesos once I'm going to assume it's an unrealistic feat.

So are you going to tell me this kind of change has not changed the game from what it was in 2007-2008? I don't know about you, but I could go to spirit vikings/florina beach to obtain things for money making. (Those were my personal choices I'm sure there were better) Or better yet the exchange quests? Now what happens when playing the game no longer yields results? You retort to hacking, you retort to scamming to obtain results. There was scamming in old ms, there always has been, but it has been an accepted practice, as has hacking. This was never the case, and you were extremely ridiculed for even attempting to hack. People now smega it. This makes it so that players have to invest further into 3rd party programs in order to become standard or pay nearly 5x more nx to keep up. With the vast amount of gear that you can benefit from in a number of ways the temptation is even greater.

Also like to note that leeching wasn't really a problem for the times we are discussing, such as ludi partying. It's been stated by numerous people that was our golden time, now either understand those were the circumstances laid out or provide actual examples of your thought process. If you're going to try to insult people, at least do it right, rather than trying to live in this illusion you're the only one that gets it. That unfortunately is an attitude of an adolescence.

[Dark Link]

Only thing I liked about "Old Maple" were the memories, pineapple everything else about it.

[ThatWasMyKil]

;~; but but.... isn't..his themepark ludi?

Does ludi look like its made outta sticks?!

[SwordStaker]

Does ludi look like its made outta sticks?!

Depends. Which part are we talking about

[Dusk]

@KhainiWest I realize I'm being a bit patronizing, and I apologize for that.

What you're talking about is not really relevant to what I was talking about. Everything you're describing is just a result of a snowball effect that started years ago. Mesos were near worthless long before I even quit the game. It wasn't worth the time to pick up the mesos that monsters dropped even back when Leafre came out. Hackers vac monsters, run their bots, dupe vendable items and exploit the vendors for tons of mesos, and sell them. Nexon gets the bright idea to try to compete with meso sellers by selling their own mesos, which just makes the problem worse. I mean, you really haven't been able to grind your way up to riches for years now. It was easier 3 years ago, and you could certainly work your way up by selling leech, selling boss loots, etc...I agree with that. But if that's out the window now, it's not because of a design or community shift, it's because hacking has gotten even worse and Nexon doesn't know how/doesn't care to fix it.

Anyway, so yeah, maybe trying to advance or get riches in the game has gotten harder, but that's an entirely different topic from what my original post was getting at. My point is that there was never a happen golden time where MapleStory was a great game, the community was friendly and helpful, and no one cared about damage. If you earnestly believe that, then you haven't done enough online gaming. Nexon hasn't really changed its design philosophy, either. It's been playing the same game for years. I guess I assumed that if the gameplay didn't get worse than it already was and the community was still the same, you were just tired of the game. I didn't quit because I couldn't make any money in the game, I quit because I was tired of looking at the game, I didn't like the direction the game had been taking, and I was tired of Nexon's poor service. I was disillusioned with the little fantasy world I'd been a part of for years and I couldn't convince myself that it was a timesink that I'd enjoy anymore. I guess the neglected status of the game did make it worse over time, but I still stand by my views that the community was always terrible and the game was always terrible.

[sverreerik]

... The only thing that's changed is the way you perceive the game. When you started playing, everything was new to you. You didn't know what to do. It was an open world to explore, and you would enjoy different kinds of adventures every time you played. Now, everything is routine. You know what to expect when you start the game. You know what you're getting yourself into when you find a map to grind on for a few hours. You know what kind of bullpomegranate you have to deal with, and you've learned to recognize the problems with the community. This happens to everyone after enough time on an online world. It's not the game or the community, it's you.

Mind Blown. I'd have to agree with this.

My favorite memories of Maple were Discovering Aqua Road for the first time, doing the KPQ, making new friends and "tracking" people, and hanging out in an all Bandit guild.

Dusk, if I may ask, do you still play Maple?

I do not believe all the community is bad, But at the same time I do not believe it has gotten much better or worse over the years. It just kinda depends what kind of people you hang out with in game.

[KhainiWest]

but I still stand by my views that the community was always terrible and the game was always terrible.

That's an opinion I can't argue with because it has a lot of truth to it. However I do disagree with the fact there was never a golden time. Now it's only perspective as you said, but it's not baseless, I believe the ludi era was the only time maple was played correctly. People played and gained benefits from playing. This is by all means before the 2x cards that were introduced, but you were forced to socialize and benefit off eachother. None of us were strong enough, rather the maps weren't even designed for anything but partying. Other than that, I do agree, it's never been the brightest or compelling game, but it did have that one "era" that kept me for a long time, hoping it come back to it, especially with LHC.

But of course it never did and it only got worse, the game has been poorly managed and escalated to a level of where it's unplayable, which was my own point, because during our time we could play and yield results. It was a short time though.

I apologize for going cross with you, it's irritating for me and I'm sure others when people come in and denounce are experiences based on unawareness of our perspectives changing.

[Tay]

Eh, I don't think I'd consider this "old maple." I guess it's up to the observer, but yea.

[EarthAdept2]

4th job is when all the damage whoring and problems of leeching / illegitimacy really skyrocketed imo. My favorite era was the ludi era as well :D.

Ah the days of grinding at luster pixies because zombies were too hardcore for a low level archer.

[DrRusty]

ludi/aqua road era was my favorite too. Training with 3rd job at grims was so fun. The KS wars there were so epic.

[DRK]

Good old days.

[Link]

My first 800k. I felt so rich. XD

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Remember when these were rare to bump into? XD Especially in Pig Beach... That was fun! I remember a guy not too long ago, I don't remember who it was, trying to tell me they never spawned in L Forest. >_>

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Oh, boy! I died inside the ship, due to the Crimson Balrogs.

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The very first GM event I attended.

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I remember when I thought this was beyond godly.

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2007 Halloween event. Zenkat is there, too!

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Top Shadower of Bera at the time, I think.

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Me farming 4th of July hats on a mule because I thought they were worth something. LOL

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Fake boss event. :D

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My first APQ, I think?

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And then, last but not least, my first screen shot of 強海賊王, my Viper.

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I have a ton more JMS memories, but I'd rather not post them, since I'm sure most people here want GMS memories, anyway.

[xManuz]

Remember when Windraiders were a hot training spot, guys?

Man, WR's were the best. I LOVED it.

[Afrobean]

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[screenshots, including one of an Aran]

Good old days.

lol "aran" lol "old"

[DRK]

lol "aran" lol "old"

Screens are oldest to newest. I'm guessing you glazed over my first 2 screens :/