Masteria Preview?

But my point still stands.

Allow me to remind you of your point and then restate that you were wrong:
"Maplestory pre-big bang never had a story in any sense of the word" <- false

It was very horribly put together, there were very huge gaps in between what little information you were given, the quests which related to the black mage were very randomly thrown about and came in no particular order, and I doubt they were put there for the sole purpose of setting the stage for all of these legend characters and the big war against the "black mage".

The now-existing storyline aspects are nice, sure, but it's not a NECESSARY part of the maple world. I can guarantee you most players didn't play for the quests back then, nor do they now. pre-third job it was about grinding until your fingers bled, trying to outlevel guildies and friends, PQing, JQing, and having fun with other players. Now it's about rushing to 160+ and soloing bosses with your ridiculously overpowered potential equips.

I actually completely agree with you on all of this (in fact, I said similar things in this thread), but none of this was what you originally said.

...wasn't it an alternate future?

It was a hypothetical alternate future created by, I believe, Akyrum's power.
So yes and no.
Basically, it could be an alternate future but the events that would create it have never happened.