I don't understand why people say Old maple was so much better

The first time I tried the game I was only able to play for one week... the game experience was awful and I didn't even understand why it was awful. As I came back and learned it was because of hackers and the community in general being awful.

Made my first character, a mage. I couldn't go anywhere to train because there was one hacker in every channel killing everything. I had to go to to other maps where it wasn't so great just to get harrassed by others because "my damage was weak, my character was awful, etc". I got my 2nd job after grinding a lot just to get more awful comments "ewww a i/l mage" and that kind of stuff. I can't remember the exact date but I know it was 5 years ago.

When I came back 3 years ago there were less hackers (which made me stick to the game) but the community was still awful except for few people.

i'm pretty sure during my time when vkpt/gpt/gbpt/sqpt was in place, ice/lightning mages were SO WELCOMED at 8x+. they were good and welcomed and respected
and for the hackers map, im pretty sure u came into the unpopular maps, which is where to hackers are. hackers during the time tend to hack at unpopular maps because if there are many coming into their map their hack wouldn't work