as right as he may be about the topic, his extremely cringey way of both speaking like he's a monocle-and-top-hat-wearing exquisite gentleman and body language give severe "drama kid that good too much praise whose ego never came back down and now is just a depressed adult predator on tiktok and discord" vibes
negative social life weeaboo vibes as well, regardless of which one is right you severely lack self-awareness and it blares every cringe alarm in every corner of my brain.@@degenerator
One of my earliest MS memories was the balrog on the ship to Orbis. I was an archer and got that level 10(?) quest to deliver a letter to Orbis and thought that I should go ahead and do that so I hopped on the ship and made it to Orbis just fine. Delivered the letter. Realized I couldn't kill anything in Orbis and I couldn't afford a ticket to return. I found some people near the guild area and asked for mesos for my return trip. They gave me some, I hopped back on the ship, and proceeded to die by the balrog who wasn't there the first time. I was so embarrassed that I wasted those people's mesos that I started a new character (a mage) to earn my own money for the return trip. I loved the mage and abandoned my archer. I ended up sticking with it and became the highest level I/L mage on my server before I quit just before 4th job came out. That kind of experience would never happen in games today but it was so memorable for me.
Getting on the ship on channel 1 with the big dudes of the time (most around like lvl 70 😂) and trying to “help” them fight the Balrog by going inside, then exiting to land a single 50 hit on it, then get back inside, followed by a late lagged lightning strike on your a$$ then dying was priceless.
The Ludi/Orbis towers were by far the coolest shit I ever saw in a game. Actually having a 100 level tower and forcing the player to traverse it if they wanted to get to the bottom or top gave the journey and location you were in such meaning. When you were in El Nath it actually felt like you were on another continent, so far away from Victoria Island that it might as well be an alien planet. Can't see that kind of thing in modern games.
Yep, well said. Same thing happened in WoW where the social aspect of the game has just died off completely. The world doesn't feel alive anymore because everything is instanced and you don't have to travel anymore either because you just teleport everywhere with the click of a button. The weird part is that this is how people seem to want it. I've talked to lots of people about this and almost nobody seems to share our point of view. The temptation of instant gratification is just too strong I guess.
Climbing down Ludi tower was so tedious but it was so rewarding. Omega Sector was such a fun area to play at the time. It's a shame we will never have an experience like this again.
I remember getting to the bottom of Ludi tower only to see Omega Sector wasn't open yet 😂And needing a friend to rescue me with an orbis scroll after I died in the tower. I really miss the old game though. The grind was so monotonous that everyone took breaks to socialize. But I feel like that could really fit in with the cozy game market nowadays. It was a slow-paced, relaxing game that would be perfect to play for a few hours after work.
@@T-The-KThat’s become an awful trend for gaming companies to force you out of playing with others and growing with them to soloing everything. A game in its most basic form is a fun activity between you the player and other players, hide-and-seek, tag, capture the flag.. there were games you could play by yourself, and the developers seem to think games are all about going solo and punishing players playing together!
I know I’m going to sound like a nutter but this trend of antisocial soloing in MMOs started after Covid, I’ve played MMOs my whole life and for whatever reason after and during lockdown this just changed how people behave socially online, the game was way more social even after cubes were released, in fact there was constant trading of cubed items free market was always packed etc, but after 2020 the game just became a ghost town, same with other MMOs like WoW, you can join a guild but good luck getting one of the 100 people online to queue with you. A lot of people are traumatized by all the shit that went down the past few years and don’t trust people because of all the sensationalist stories that show us the worst of mankind being blasted on every news outlet in every country.
@@aaronball4700 you're not entirely wrong, it was a mix of big bang and the cubing. the game before the changes relied on a social system to progress together which built up relationships with others(e.g. pq, sharing maps, trading items to improve gear. Big bang removed the reliance of other classes, cubing became the easier alternative to gaining better gear. The game after cubing became that haves and have nots. People who spent on gear became exponentially stronger. The have nots needed a party+ to do zakum, while the rich can go solo/duo. Hence the social part of the game slowly eroded. Pqs used to be the best way to get exp and gear, now it's a meme after bb/cubing. Maps were designed for group play e.g. lionheart castle. If they kept that core social aspect to the game in exp and rewards in cubes for pqs maybe the game would been more successful in the long run. Source I was a big whale
I started playing in 2005 and quit around 2012. For a player like me looking at all the new stuff they added is overwhelming. I tried playing again but I have no clue what any of those things you mentioned at the end of the vid mean, and add that to the fact that there's no social aspect at all to the game anymore. I used to be able to log in, walk around a bit and end up joining 5 different parties just doing random things, exploring, doing PQ's, helping me lvl, just chatting. All with people I had never even talked to before. For me the direction Maple went in is sad to me, because it really was my gold standard for games. I'm sure it has to do with money (bad changes are always money related anyway). I still cherish the memories I made in Maplestory and am grateful to have experienced it in its glory days :)
I made lvl 200 back in those days and logging in now just petrifies me from all the ridiculous stuff there is. I’d walk around remembering the good times for a bit then log off because non of that exists anymore
I was an explorer who knew practically nothing of games prior to Maplestory. I felt genuine fear and awe at the smallest things, and the monsters/npcs were alive in my eyes. I made genuine friends along the way, and caught glimpses of occasional lvl 100+ players in my travels. This was my maplestory experience 😊
When you realize the original class in maplestory was the "explorer" then this video kinda hurts watching seing how it has gotten next to 0 social and exploring aspects left. What is even funnier is that the thing that he partially praised the great athenaeum is getting removed just like the class jett and the friends and monad story quests
I recently revisited Maple for the nostalgia, and decided to play the explorer class in order to torment myself with the grindey nature of the game, and because I wanted to explore the quests in the world rather than specific storylines. I found out that they gave the explorers an actual storyline, which while appreciated, was not exactly what I viewed the classes for, but that's okay. I went through the first quests and after doing literally nothing, found myself at level 30 by reading the story quests alone, no gameplay. (RIP the days when I had to farm for exp to reach my second job advancement). Then I was out in the world, looking for all the old side quests in Victoria Island for the lore. All of them were either changed, or removed completely. Old quests, with hidden storylines that made the townsfolk have life were removed completely. Now the NPCs are there just to make the game look bigger (like a real village), with no gameplay significance whatsoever. Only a couple side quests relevant to the main storyline were kept, but a huge chunk of prerequisites were gone, and you weren't required to do the once linear quests in order (it became a checklist system where the NPC's quest seems more tied to the individual rather than the family, for example). The dialogue wasn't updated either, so it made no sense when NPCs were thanking you for what you did for a quest that you have not even done yet. New added area storylines, while welcome, should come on top of the past versions' quests instead of replacing them, because they clearly reference older quest versions, and if you're a completely new player, make no sense without context. Either that, or there is a whole bunch of lore that is now hidden away from new players unless they go out of their way to look it up online. This is just a personal opinion of mine. I stopped playing the game years ago, not because it was boring and stuff. The gameplay was fine. I was welcoming all the new classes and stories that came with it. It was the rampant script bots back then that stopped me (and many others) from playing the game. I noticed the new features to combat that meta problem, but with all the other changes, it does not feel like I'm going back to the same old game I once loved.
Wow. I have never heard of most of these places you just mentioned. Back in my day we only had Maple Island, then Lith Harbor, Perion, Kerning City, Ellinia and Henesis all connected by a road that goes around Victoria Island. Then there's the tree at the middle which you can access by going through the alligator invested swamps from Kerning City. And the bottom of that tree was Balrog which was at the time the most difficult boss in the game. Damn, so much has changed.
4:20 YES!!! SOMEONE UNDERSTANDS!!! i still remember getting ready to travel to el nath or omega sector from victoria island, since it would be a long travel, i would take damage from the mobs on the way so i had to take some hp pots and mana pots, i had to make sure i did everything i had to do on victoria island because i didnt know when i would make the travel back, oh man, such a good time on maple.
What a masterpiece of a video! Maple player here, since 2008 and currently in Reboot for 6 years. Thanks for this amazing video! Simply subscribed. (':
Great video and valid points. I think one of the biggest changes in your Explorer section is the addition of "UA-camrs". In early maplestory we didn't really have many guides and basically hidden street, Basil Market, etc were your ways of knowing how to get to places. Now, prior to us getting content you have 100 UA-cam videos about: Where to train, how to maximize your event time, How to build a character we don't even have yet. It kills that exploration and wonderment old maple had. -One of the Content people.
The amount of work you put into this video is insane. The way you've organized and presented information, the graphics used etc. Like wow, even if it isn't Ms based, you're clearly talented in video creation. I hope your channel grows!
I started playing ms in 2006 on Broa and then left in around 2016. I had a brief return in 2018. I recently returned and I can't believe how unsocial it is. It used to be buzzing but like you said its literally hyper tele wherever u want, complete your task (solo) and then repeat. I miss all the random pq's and weirdly, I love the journeying for hours, listening to the music, missing the boats to spend most of my day to find a grinding spot.
As a new player, I did not touch legion or do any daily routines. I’m glad I didn’t listen to guides that told me to train MercedesAranEvan before I start the game. One character during hyper burning is enough to ride me through the majority of MapleStory’s content, I enjoyed all the arcane river stories, and most of the black haven. If you are not an achiever at all, then Maplestory is not toxic, but rather filled with memories in the past.
My man needed some town return scrolls, lol. i just accepted the traveling as a necessary 'evil' for a world that seemed like it was always expanding in some way, i know they created a /need/ for 'convenience' items like Teleport rocks but accepting that was pretty easy as i already saw the need to bite the bullet once every three months for a pet with auto pickup, maybe some fancy clothes to go along with the pet. There was ass tons of traveling but the world felt so alive and bustling with busy adventurers that you didnt mind slowing down every once in a while to absorb the sights along with other people also waiting for that bus to the next continent. Maple was good times, i still have fun with it today and even though it is a very different game, it's always here to welcome me back into the Chaotic neutral frey.
if you're going through a nostalgia trip like me, you gotta try taking a trip around maple world the classic way. start with 6 path crossway, take the ship to orbis, explore orbis, then go to the eos tower, no using mesos go down eos by portal only. go to ludibrium, do the same thing, explore the lower level areas (although they're lvl 120 now), then go to omega sector, go back to ludibrium, go to korean folk town, go back to the tower, then finally head to deep ludi. go back to eos tower, take the rock if you want now, climb down til you reach aquaroad, explore, then lastly go to deep aquaroad. go back to eos tower, climb back up to elnath, travel to dark elnath, travel to dead mines, then go back to eos tower, take the taxi back to orbis then take the ship to nihal desert, explore the lower areas, then make your way to magatia, explore the place, then go back to nihal desert, take the ship back to orbis now take the crane to mulung, explore mu lung, then go to herb town, explore herb town, then go back to mu lung then you finally take the ship to leafre, explore leafre, then head to deep leafre, explore dragon nest before using the nts back. for the last part of the trip, you travel to temple of time. for this part, make your way to PB entrance without teleport rock, memory lane, road of regrets, road of oblivion, when you're done all this, travel all the way back to lith harbor. this is what i did a couple days ago. the only thing is that, no more malaysia, mushroom shrine and NLC got reworked.
Damn as a maplestory oldie I must say you are spot on. This explanation is insanely accurate (for me at least). I played the game from like 2007 till 2013 pretty actively. With some short termed comebacks the years after. Well I remember one actual comeback when battle mage, wild hunter and the robot job came out. The rest were just short looksies. I must say adding to the conversation that virtually hanging out and communicating with people was such an interesting thing back then. Also because it was new that the world was all connected via internet and because we were children. The downfall of maplestory is so immensely noticable also because we were children and teens back then. I think this plays a part aswell. And ofcourse all the reason you list are the biggest part of it. I also think nostalgia plays a part in it, because my first negative immidiate comment was "this leveling is way too fast and its unfair." Unfair because we had to play the game for seriously alot of time to reach level 70 or something. Becoming high level was hard, doing significantly more damage than others was hard, looking cool was hard, having a hog or whatever to ride and travel faster was special. Etc etc etc. Nothing is special anymore and nobody is interested in each other. That is if you are able to spot another mapler. Yeah.. I say to this. Just be happy we experienced a joyful, beautiful and enjoyable game back then. Dont be sad because its over, be happy because it happened. 😊
Your reasons are my reasons. I'm a big explorer and I mainly leveled up by questing back in the day. I can still remember the sense of pride I felt when I earned the medal that required you to complete 800 quests. I loved all of the stories and I really loved how the Explorer class had no existing story of their own. You are right, it did really feel like it was ME wandering around and helping NPCs solve problems. With the new, painfully long and boring Explorer lore, that connection is gone and it's not my story anymore.
I will never forget my first time in MapleStory back when Nexon wasn't even mentioned (shoutout to the Wizet era peeps!), and a few players alongside myself went exploring Perion and its surrounding maps. Only to be in shock of the Wild Boar that we thought we could take on at level 10, only to be met with a very swift end lol.
Tried the test and got 90s in Social and Achievement (alongside 70s in Action, Mastery and Creativity) yet modern maple feels extremely soulless to me. I started playing around 2006 and I'd definitely say pre-BB the game really felt like a living, breathing world. You'd be bumping into other players all the time and partying up to train, PQ or even boss whilst using each class' advantages to compliment each other yet these days it feels like every class just does everything, moves too fast, can wipe entire maps within seconds and most can even solo the majority of boss content whilst like you said in the video the experience has also become *EXTREMELY* streamlined so the incentives to explore or even team up have been thrown out the window and unless you find a guildmate out in the open any time you spot another player your interaction won't be a nice "hello" or "want to share maps?" as it will instead be an instant "cc pls" the moment they spot you even glancing at their 8-hour long grind in the same map. Personally I think the damage is already done as the 4th job reworks made every class a bit *too* versatile and 5th job skills kind of sealed their fate so power and utility creep have gone through the roof.
Essentially, Maplestory "grew up" with it's players and the current focus is simply what is more successful with modern gaming. Old School Runescape didn't really change that much when it comes to the early mid game experience yet players now still play it way different compared to back in the day. "Modern" Maplestory (post 5th job) is significantly more profitable and popular in Korea than it ever was before so there is very little incentive for Nexon to go back to the old design of Maplestory, and it's why they aren't willing to make an official way to play pre-big bang either. Personally I think modern Maplestory is more fun as an actual game, and the old maple was a better nostalgic experience. I think most people who have played both would agree that old maple wouldn't be much fun to play today at all. I still think the current Maple has a bunch of issues too, there's too much of a reliance on dailies/weeklies and endgame is even worse due to the sacred symbol timegate.
yeah, with around 95% of this video's script being cut content from my other maple video, an important bit of context lost with this segment in isolation is that if someone gave me the opportunity to play classic maplestory today, i absolutely would not want to do so. i already feel like this game is a barely-functional mess, let alone how it was over a decade ago, and if we're measuring the quality of the intended player experience, i don't think there's any real argument that maplestory is in a worse state now compared to ten years ago. rather, i'd say it's more a thing of "the intended player" changing significantly over time. at the end of the day, games like maple have to adapt if they are to survive in the long term, and i don't hate what the game has become, nor do i have any issue with people enjoying the experience it now offers; if anything, i'm jealous, as i've just spent the last few years sitting here, watching, as one of my favourite childhood games shifts focus such that i am very clearly no longer in the target demographic. to build on your point about maple "growing up", i guess that, in doing so, it left behind a lot of the things i really liked about it, even if it was for the better in terms of what it was trying to become. also, as a side note, i think when people ask for things like official pre-big bang servers, what they really want is the social-adventure experience of classic maplestory in a modern game, or, at the very least, that's what i want, as that's the reason why i've been hoping with all my heart that blue protocol fills the hole maplestory left in it, because, from what i'm aware, there isn't really any game that can perfectly scratch that itch at the moment.
@@degenerator reality is it's not going to survive, gms is not going to make it long term, it's fueled by the nostalgia of the whales. Nexon will keep pumping content that's formulated in a way so that whales would spend more on their game. The whales rotate out, some whales do stay but it's less and less players and it's only funded by 30 year olds with six figure+ income. Once they have other interests and responsibilities, the game will die. There's barely any fresh blood in Ms anymore. A lot of the issues with the game ultimately came as a direct result of the monetization of the game, and the scaling power creep was exponential compared to most other games, which completely killed the adventuring nature. Which also outscaled pq items/rewards and ultimately killed the social gathering opportunities and the concept of working together. E.g. I was in the second party of my server to clear lucid, there wasn't really working together it was just dodge shit and dump DPS and don't die, whereas a PQ there's a buildup to that final boss fight. Now it's just boss fight or grind. There's no story, no niche tricks, no actual collaboration, and no effort in Nexon making MS into an actual successful game. It exists to squeeze money out of whales. Sincerely, Ex-whale
@@bikini4700 what do you mean isn't going to make it long term. GMS has already been around with a decent playerbase for nearly 20 years. That's WAY longer than most games could ever dream of. It has already made it long term.
@@binber2450 it's dying because it's ultimately funded by gambling addicts. If maple wasn't dead, there wouldn't be server mergers, server swapping, or only see other players on cc1. Reboot was a great addition. While the addition of mesos paying for cubing and stars was a great addition, ultimately you will soon realized you're gatekept by your wallet: the unobtainable totem, outlaw, and shit they will never rerelease. I wish it was actually possible for actual players to reach those endgame content based on skill and collaboration, not a DPS check that's gated by your wallet. If you look at other high pop MMOs, there are shortcuts in the game, but it's actually possible to get to endgame and have entertaining replay loops as a core mechanic. If I join my friends on their private server of EverQuest, is EverQuest still a dead MMO?
Nah, current Maple is less fun by a WIDE margin. The only thing it's got over pre-BB maple are the mass amount of classes and pretty effects. Even then, they still feel soulless, like which class I play doesn't matter at all. Am having far more fun on Pre-BB private servers with minor QoL additions than I ever did with Maple post BB. Current Maple is nothing but a way to Nexon to siphon money out of whales while not adding anything of real substance to the game AND removing actual content in he process. It's a disaster. Just because many people "play it" doesn't mean it's a good game. Because people stupidly throw money at Nexon, they have zero reason to improve the game. Game went from an actual game with minor gambling aspects to a full on online casino with minor gaming aspects.
Thats so sad man I hope i will still be able to enjoy maplestory as a newcomer without having the gameplay loop of grinding taking away the pleasure of seeing all those maps and stories. I notice that the thing of skipping all dialogues and just teleporting everywhere to grind is the most efficient way to play, but damnit seems like such a waste of one of the most charming virtual worlds ive ever seen. Thanks for the video man it was very interesting and fun to watch, epic editing and, i assume, cosplay of your character? Hahaha
This was good! While I don't think the game is as bad as people say, I do agree with most of your points. IMO GMS has been the one to hurt the game the most with unattainable p2w aspects. If they balanced the insanely op items, made other content worth exploring, and incentivized people to play/level together at all stages of the game it would be much better. My friends who are interested in starting the game hate that they can't touch meaningful gameplay with me until past level 220
My take is previous or "old school maple" had all the aspects current does. Gambling with chaos scrolls end game content separating players and achievements like hitting 200 or killing horntail/PB etc. The main thing I think current maple does wrong or maybe I'm wrong. Is lack of party play. LHC and party play maps were some of the most fun I've had on the game. Making progression through interaction with the community is what its all about. currently i play in reboot and its literally just everyone playing a game of solo Q maple story in a call together. Its hard to get carried on bosses or receive help on anything, while also feeling extremely bad to help others out because of how lack luster it is in the long run. you gain nothing but satisfaction you helped someone. Back when the game was a bit more incentivized for even end game players to have some kind of service game that new players can funnel into exmaple. Zakum you would but service from end game players, but you would be able to sell the pre quest to the boss as a service allowing you to gain money to afford the carry. Weird interactions were new players and end game players can slightly come together and both profit in their own ways. The amount of long conversations and friends i made over the decade+ of playing this game through these interactions is what makes all my "maple memories" as corny as that sounds. more recent up to date maple just makes me remember about how i tried so hard to min/max my stats and how much time i spent doing X thing over and over to achieve a goal. No one was really a part of my journey besides maybe my end game bossing party that varies most of the time. Its not as full of life as it used to be. Its more lifeless, about being the statistical best player or strongest instead of how fucking raw it is to be in x guild with that group of people where we bool in ch 10 crockies or some shit.
I... think that, regarding the traveling time, the returning trip could be much faster if you just use a return scroll, instead of "TRAVELING ALL THE WAY BACK" to whichever main town you need to go. That should cut down the time needed to traverse. Also, might as well release all types teleport scrolls for all major towns instead. Add some limitations and it should be a good balance.
Maplestory was always about socializing over grinding for me. I made many great friends during pre-bigbang and I’ve returned on and off since then. Maybe it’s because I don’t have access to my old account anymore and I’m starting brand new but it seems no one cares to talk until you’re at least level 200. Many guilds I’ve come across only wants you if you’re daily active and/or are pass 200. I don’t run into anyone while I’m trying to level up and when I do run into someone, they’re “afk”. I miss the grinding and chatting. 😔
I never comeback to this game to play endgame i actually ignore most the buttons on my screen cause i know there are just there to shortcut me. I just comeback to play a different class from the beginning and enjoy exploring again and again do random content try the new characters and just relax. Forgot to mention the goddamn master class of a soundtracks that i still believe is the best of all time and still listen to it when i feel like it. I remember the first time i came across the Nomad Story that is now gone from the game apparently i was just in Awe.
100% agree with the trivialization of pre-200 content. 4th job era maple, and even development of hyper skills leading up to 5th job was all still fun to me. 5th job, arcane river, NODES completely changing the skill progression formula from level up based to drop/daily based killed it for me even though I was excited when 5th job was first being teased. The point about exploration dying, while it made sense, did not mention the fact that even if exploration remained a part of the game, it will always be exhausted eventually. Once you’ve explored the regions of the world X amount of times, that source of dopamine dries up unless they keep adding new areas continuously, which would devalue existing areas or risk adding useless regions no one visits.
30 seconds on the airplane to orbis? Nawww, it used to be like 15min wayyy back in really old 2003-2005 maple, when you can actually die to balrogs on the plane, all the weak players hides in the cabin, and the stronger players take them all out, for those 10% scrolls.
Great video. As someone who played mostly pre bigbang, ludi release patch was the peak of maple for me. So much ludi PQ, and all the maps full of people, etc. So much of the free market full of shops... good times. Nexon really needs to do a pre-bigbang and pre-dimensional mirror server.
Thank you for this Informative video on MapleStory. I used to play a Maple ripoff flash game as a kid and I loved it. After learning MapleStory itself I opened it and the full interface looked so daunting with so much to learn, unlike the flash game that really only had items, abilities, and levels. I wonder if there's any MapleStory recreation projects out there That would allow me to play base realse MapleStory.
MS was genuinely a great game! and considering how popular cozy games are now, i think there's room for a more slow-paced MMO out there. I would have gone back to playing several times over the years if the game actually existed.
As an old school player and someone who plays on old school private servers. Just having tried the new version of the game I'm sorry to say I think it is extremely fun. I will say though I don't really consider them the same game despite having the same name. As an explorer type of player I have no problem exploring all the new areas and enjoying that aspect of gaming. I'd also argue most players in any game are not explorers. MS is a "free to play" MMO that spearheaded micro transactions and is now deep on the waters of addictive gaming practices. Things like cubing and star force enable a gambling style of play. I'd argue cubing and sf has something there but implemented in a very inelegant way. The part of maple I love the most is the art direction and music which is say is better now than ever. I'd also say adding boss mechanics is a far better experience than the old strategy of every class tanking damage and spamming ur one attack. It is an mmo you're not gonna be at all the maps in such a large world. Nearly every game has fast travel these days. Maple is just following suit nexons only goal is bottom dollar and making a game that reflects that. Expecting anything else is simply delusional. I have many gripes so far about the new game (mainly the social aspect being all messed up) but I'd also say the game improved a lot in other ways. It's complicated lol
One of the reasons why it isn't as fun for me anymore is simply because it takes ages to get anywhere after level 220 or so. The level 1-200 content also just feels like a forgotten part of the game and is just something you have to get past to get to the real game. Not only that, but the bosses you can do prior to level 200 are largely useless since they do not really give you any rewards. Sure, you can technically do CRA before level 200, but by the point where you're strong enough, you'll have passed 200 if you play even somewhat normally. In Reboot, the damage scaling will kind of make it an impossibility, which is another issue I've got with the game, where something just a few levels above you takes 10 seconds to kill while you one-shot anything a couple of levels below you. Then when you reach the actual level of the mobs you took ages on, they are complete pushovers, just through the level scaling.
You are kind of describing two sides of the same coin... 🤦 The reason the first part of the game feels like that, is precisely because companies started to cater more and more to gamers who feel like you. The start of the game used to be meaningful. Nowadays, you get to lvl 150+ in a day or two... Everything in the early game is made completely redundant by all the hand-holding and pandering to the [lazy gamer]. Nowadays people only care about the illusive [end game]. And that basically ruins most of the experience a game could offer. 😕
@@vorcanvorcan9032 Do you know anyone who started to play the game recently? As for lazy gamer, most of the actually interesting bosses require a higher level. That's not something you'll achieve as a lazy gamer. For reference, the daily quests give around 3% exp at level 251. That's the most efficient exp you can get. Grinding might give you something similar in one hour.
@@CottidaeSEA Sure, some gamers might not be lazy, but most are nowadays. And they're part of the reason why you don't experience an [early game] anymore. That's why you rarely get to experience any sort of real [journey] in mmos anymore. But maybe you're young, maybe you have just never experienced such a journey before and are now mistakenly judging a [trash journey] with something meaningful. The fixation on [end game content] is a mistake. The start of most mmos nowadays is completely and utterly meaningless. Just something to skip and rush over so you can play the "real game"... And that is precisely the ISSUE. 🤦 You say that the level 1-200 content feels forgotten. And is something you just have to get past to "get to the real game"... Do you honestly not see the issue there? Do you not see that your need for quick level ups essentially did that to the game?! 😑 It's because most people nowadays have that selfish opinion. They just want to level up, they just want to get higher faster and be stronger, always more, always faster. It is precisely that sentiment that ruined the concept of an [early game]. Same reason as to why power-creep basically ruined the classes. Now everybody has insane movement capabilities, now everybody seems to be an aoe monster regardless of class. Back in the day, you'd have to wait to get some good aoe, depending on your class. Now, even my favourite class from back in the day gets an aoe at the first bloody job. Not to mention getting flash jump on the first job... Like, we aren't lazy nowadays? Really? 🤨 Even if we didn't get that ability until third job, it still wouldn't take any time at all to get there nowadays, but... Apparently that still wasn't fast enough for the LAZY GAMERS out there. So now we have ultra movement skills from close to the earliest point in the game possible. 💩🤦 We definitely became lazy, and the devs just abused their game into being more like what most gamers nowadays expect from an mmo.
@@vorcanvorcan9032 I've played games for nearly 30 years. I own over 500 games and I've finished most of them. I know very well how things have changed. The issue in MapleStory is simply that the 1-200 content is largely not interesting. Most of it is stuff you'd at most want to do once and the best stories are the job stories. Of course people will just want to level up as quickly as possible when the content is boring. I've played loads of World of Warcraft and I'd rather play through the 1-40 experience over and over again than set foot in the max level content. Because I enjoy the adventure part of the 1-40 content. That's because it's good, it entertains me even though I've played the game since 2005.
@CottidaeSEA "the issue in maplestory is simply that the 1-200 content is largely not interesting." That's exactly the point. It wasn't like that in the past. And the reason for that is partly due to all that content being made worthless through various changes to the overall game and ways we engage with the game. Something that's basically become the norm for a lot of games. Especially in the mmo scene. Some even start out like that, which is even more ridiculous. A game that just got released, and immediately the entire early game is just a pointless trek to get to "the interesting part of the game", everyone just single-mindedly rushing towards the end, the only sense of community being a part of this small aspect of a much bigger game... And that is also often neglected, the fact that there is also an issue on the player side. If you just want content to consume, why not go for content-rich single player games? Those have a relative better value in terms of "content" than mmos tend to have. Something that maplestory lost over the years, and is definitely as or even more important than content, is the community engagement Ingame. And like the other issue, this too is something that exists in many other mmos nowadays. People just run around [consuming content], the experience, the journey is lost. And a lot of games become like that over time or were made to be consumed like that from the ground up. We are seeing, in essence the same problem but you're clinging onto something that's a part of said problem, the concept of [the end game content]. The hypothetical [best mmo experience] is one that, at the very least, doesn't allow you to reach [end game] in any time frame that most gamers would currently consider sensible. A game that values the journey more than the destination, and thus, has crafted a journey worth taking. A game that values the experience more than the arbitrary concept of [content]. You said you've played video games for nearly 30 years. How do you feel about the concept of [the journey over the destination] in terms of the video game experience? Oh also, I'm not against achieving things. It is perfectly possible to achieve goals and break milestones entirely without the presence of [the end game] being all-encompassing as it is now in most mmos. It is even possible to have [the end game] be reachable while not deminishing everything that came before it. Your thoughts?
The game is as fun as it was as when you are younger if you play it on a pre-big bang private server. I play on Royals and don't min-max or anything and have a Bandit, Spearman, an Ice/Lightning mage, and a low level Bowman and I've enjoyed just grinding, questing, and doing the occasional PQ. I haven't leeched even once and I don't HP wash because I take my time and by the time I get a level 150+ it'll be a couple years from now. Maplestory only gets boring if you rush through it to get to endgame. I remember making an Assassin about a decade ago on the official servers and I spent real money on mesos and pretty much just only added int and leeched my way to 135 and then bought all my end-game gear at the free market after respeccing and I got bored and quit within two weeks. It's just one of those games where you have to take your time and realize it's not a race. Hell, I spent over 40 hours on my bandit before I even hit level 30 because I focused on doing all the quests I possibly could and it was a lot of fun. I grinded monsters all over the world and grabbed every drop until I turned around a dozen quests in at once and got all kinds of stuff. I even found a pan lid and lots of other gear to start more characters. I keep all my characters within 10 levels of eachother so I don't get burnt out because playing one class too long can get repetitive.
Even as an achiever I think modern MS is disappointing.. lvling in old MS used to be so hard! And the game gave you no breaks.. also earning money, back in the day we had a hard time even buying potions.. I remember having to restart cause I used my AP wrong.. back in the day 90% of the player base were noobs to a certain extent, but that was part of the magic, the game gave us no breaks and every bit of progress we made felt like such an accomplishment! I remember having my first character reaching lvl 30, it felt like a huge honor! And then reaching lvl 70, I was a rock-star in my middle-school for doing that, again, cause it was so hard! I don’t want a game to spoon-feed me hollow achievements on day 1, I want them to actually feel like they mean something
To me, the game got consistently better than in 15 years ago, with much deeper and complex progression systems. But I'm an achiever much more than an explorer, so have these clear paths on "what to do next" actually motivates me.
i remember doing like 30 ludibrium PQ's only to get a +1 all stats broken glasses. it felt AWESOME to get them. same goes for each of the belts in the mu long dojo. now with gollux its not even worth mentioning them even as a joke.
For me it was the exploring part and the excess of things to do as well. I usually like simpler RPGs, with some lore and mostly grind and maybe some PQs to do. MS nowadays just has so many content, for me it's tiring, I don't even want to try playing it again
vegas is an absolute dumpster fire of a video editor - i tried swapping / moving clips on the timeline & replacing / pre-rendering files before re-rendering the video multiple times; it never went away, and that isn't the only instance of it in this video - but unfortunately, i think it has the best workflow of any video editor i've used
I still much prefer old school maplestory for many reasons. I listen to the classic OST very often still while doing stuff and I keep thinking about how atmospheric some of the older parts of the game were. You had a different soundtrack for almost every unique map, take the Excavation Site in Perion for example, there's an unique soundtrack that plays when you go inside one of the small castles that you didn't hear anywhere else in the game. The Ant Tunnel is another good example, it has water drops mixed in the already eerie soundtrack. Old school maplestory oozed with awesome and atmospheric places to explore but nowadays the maps are all a smash bros stage so you can grind easily. I've played old school maple (PS) a while back and I still enjoyed the heck out of it despite the flaws the game had back then like HP washing and such. Current day maplestory feels like a daily chore checklist and events have become the same bland task again and again but in a different coating each time.
I love how socializing aka the best part of Maplestory went down the drain after big bang ruined party quests. Its crazy how simple the concept is but nobody recreated it properly yet.
I've tried MapleStory a few times after my childhood and last time the nostalgia wore off even before completing the starting zone of the then newest class's forced dialog quests. I don't really care what the people in a sub-30 area have to say when in the end you'll just be mindlessly grinding for most of your levels. The best nostalgia lies in the private servers running older versions with much less content (but also less players and more grinding).
I took a peek at Niru's stream and it's pretty sad to watch. The guy is so committed to the goal he's basically sleeping on top of the keyboard, but even at lvl 297 46% he's so far away from 300.
if they incentivized partying and made it so that in every aspect partying would yield more exp than solo play AND created maps that complimented different character skillsets so that different party types could gain better exp at maps that suited them/their playstyles. That's how old maple used to be, now it seems like every class feels the same and can literally just 1 shot everything on the map, also most classes have insane movement now. those are what killed it for me
The worst part is I loved maplestory. I started in....2007 ? 2008? Whe i was 12/13. I joined before pirate was released and before 4th job hit gms. I was always unfunded. But the game was fun, people were friendly. Highest level I'd ever got was 195 on a phantom when he was released. Haven't played since then.
Leveling in modern maplestory is so quick that it doesn't feel earned. There's no impact, no sense of achievement. I'm moving so quickly through the levels I don't have time to get situated or familiar with a location. Before I know it, it's time to move to another place and another. Theres the fast travels to instance grinding locations but where am I? How is this connected to where I was? I see, maybe, one person every few hours. It makes the game feel dead and empty and I wonder why I'm playing an MMO alone.
I think every MMO has a similar problem. Exploring is fun, but when the guy that already explored said it is not worth, then people stop doing it. If someone makes a spreadsheet of the optimal way to advance, then people will follow that. You can spend a long time asking someone to help you discover a secret, or you can watch someone doing it on youtube. Too much information is what changes the player and each individual player is what makes a MMO fun or not fun. MMOs are struggling for a while now because a lot of players are quitting, one fix to that is to create player habit, that is the reason dailies exist. Make the player login every day so that they play every day, and at the same time, make those players miserable.
I really do miss the old days. I remember when they added I/L and my one true maple love pirates 🏴☠️ . All the party quests and the people from different countries and continents I met. At a point in time 100 slots on my BL was simply not enough. I left for a few years after BB but always found myself coming back to it just to see what was going on. I’m returning now to the reboot servers since the reg servers are just graveyards at this point. It makes me so sad to see the reg servers in the state they are in but I guess most of that playerbase either moved on or went to reboot. I’m enjoying reboot I however do not enjoy the crazy grind to progress 💀 it took me some years of playing casually to even get to mid game stuff and when I got used to the systems BAM they changed it and make the grind even more insane for people that are just now coming back or hell brand spanking new. I still think there is enjoyment to be had. The social aspect is lacking, which I honestly liked being so introverted. The only way to tap into that sphere of the game these days is to be in a guild and it sucks because all of the active reputable guilds are basically locked behind a wall of grind, level/legion reqs and they just get higher. Anywho was a great watch def brought back some fond memories of childhood for me. PS: any new or returning players on reboot add me! Blasphemian I’m a 229 and half Bucc 😂. I’m a potato but I’d be more than glad to help in anyway I can. Once I get further acclimated to the game I can def help out more fs 🖤
The grind became to long not only that but to even get loot at high levels you MUST HAVE A PET and even if it has meso magnet it only picks up just as fast as you would by walking over it.Also I looked once but Maplestory only has less than 900 entries on R/34
agreed, but it's not up to the game to give intrinsic rewards. by definition, that isn't really possible, so the fact that grand athaneum gives a crappy pendant doesnt mean it doesn't give an intrinsic reward
TLDR: Game doesn't feel like a MMO anymore. Yeah. I started playing GMS shortly after the Cygnus came out and left shortly after big bang, but I still check what's happening every once in a while. The grind didn't bother me that much back then, because I'd be playing with friends doing various PQs and bossing. However, nowadays you just speed run characters to 200~ in a couple of days for legion/link skills, so you can get stronger and solo every boss.
I think the archetypes you refer to are aspects of the experience that should work in tandem. Exploration should require mobbing, questing, and bossing to get the full experience. Party play integrates the social aspect. That was the whole point of MMOs. Maplestory is not exactly a thrilling game mechanically nor is grinding and gambling so fun on its own that it compels me to hit max rank. It's a dead game to me because they completely abandoned all the aspects of the game that gave it appeal that weren't direct mechanical gameplay. The gameplay of maplestory has never been good enough to justify neglecting the rest of the fun. I don't think it was intentional but that mechanical progression is the only aspect of the game that Nexon is *forced* to continuously update.
To me worst thing i did that i switch from class to class never main one for long time that waste my time and my cash so wanna advice find your class first try all no problem find the one u love and try to main it as long as u can this way will make u op af
The death of exloration goes into my long ass comment to. Wanting to go to ch 1 to talk with people on the boat rides was a fun and interesting part of the game. Where do you ever just go see people and talk about random shit anymore? never its all about keeping to yourself soloing your bosses every week and doing ur culvert.
This is part of the reason im sure. However im really convinced the social experience just isnt there anymore. We used to rely on each other. Talk. The grind being harder made us chill more with each other in our downtime or rely on each other. The game has become very solo oriented which is my main issue as an old player.
To be fair a large reason why the game is less generalized is simply because Maplestory has more competition today. Back when Maple was released there was just simply not as many online games. Nowadays, it would be a tremendous undertaking to try and be the best game for all 4 types, so instead Maplestory chose to focus on 1.
The game was never that good at achievements, that doesn't at all explain why it dropped the parts it was fantastic at and focused on something it was pretty awful at and is STILL awful at.
I'm definitely the "killer" type but this game, you have to be ridiculously strong and spend days to months grinding or a bunch of money in order to be even remotely good enough to defeat the higher level bosses.
Thanks for helping me avoid redownloading this game for the umpteenth time... I was most into the exploration and social aspects of the game, with a bit of collecting on the side, which is why I can't enjoy modern Maple anymore. I have zero interest in the min-maxing progression loop that midgame and endgame involves.
I think MapleStory is what it is now is because their sequel game flopped. For me, the joy was to talk to people online while grinding mobs, doing Guild content. Because you know, it's an online game, it's supposed to played with others not solo. Today's MapleStory is an online solo game with an option to group. Another thing I disliked is the number of characters you HAVE to create for the legion aspect. Not my thing. Feels like how Ragnarok Online got mismanaged, same thing happened with MapleStory.
I really liked this video, and totally agree. I'm currently feelings the burnout from this game. Spot on video. I mean I love Maple, wanted to reach endgame, and 6th job seems cool. But it is just so hard to cling on, and it's just soo boring now and not to mention repetitive.
The problem is that this game has too many RNGs to upgrade your equips. Scrolling, Golden Hammer, Starforcing, Flames, Potential, Bonus Potential, Stamp, and Magnificent Boss Soul are all heavily dependent on RNG. And after all that, it can go kaboom 🤯What kind of videogame punishes players for giving their time and money into the game? MS is Masochist Story at this point. You can invest 100 hours in FPS and improve significantly. You also can invest 100 hours in MS and then kaboom your time gated item. 🤡 To keep playing this game you're either in a love hate relationship with the game and plays every now and then for the sake of nostalgic or just addicted to gambling...or both? I can see why people migrated from Reg Servers to Reboot because the equips upgrading experience is less depressing. But still far from healthy.
It's unfortunate but you are wrong at least with the achiever part because a lot of content pre level 200 isn't possible to complete because it's locked to lower levels or you can't without a party or the item you need to complete a quest is no longer available
Like I remember when leveling was rewarding, now it takes several hours and it doesn't even give skill points? What a joke. Not to mention the RNG that's coming with 6th job soon THAT I CAN'T EVEN ACCESS AS A CASUAL PLAYER!
Skeptics are just people who no longer will play until everyone else will. OSRS and wow classic were doomed to fail. So is Maple Classic /s Cosmetics in the cash shop alone would be more than enough to support it. Anyone against it is just hurt the game with more players isn't the one they have their near private server xp rate made characters.
ive been complaining about this for a while. mainly the copy paste events and lackluster rewards. If nexon isnt going to put forth the effort to make the game enjoyable, then im not going to put forth the effort to play. theres tons of other games out there .
as right as he may be about the topic, his extremely cringey way of both speaking like he's a monocle-and-top-hat-wearing exquisite gentleman and body language give severe "drama kid that good too much praise whose ego never came back down and now is just a depressed adult predator on tiktok and discord" vibes
bro, what are you talking about? i've never taken a drama class in my life!
negative social life weeaboo vibes as well, regardless of which one is right you severely lack self-awareness and it blares every cringe alarm in every corner of my brain.@@degenerator
Bros name is a whole weeb "owo" azz sentence and has the audacity to call someone cringe
Why is that panda bent over in your pic?
predator 💀
One of my earliest MS memories was the balrog on the ship to Orbis. I was an archer and got that level 10(?) quest to deliver a letter to Orbis and thought that I should go ahead and do that so I hopped on the ship and made it to Orbis just fine. Delivered the letter. Realized I couldn't kill anything in Orbis and I couldn't afford a ticket to return. I found some people near the guild area and asked for mesos for my return trip. They gave me some, I hopped back on the ship, and proceeded to die by the balrog who wasn't there the first time. I was so embarrassed that I wasted those people's mesos that I started a new character (a mage) to earn my own money for the return trip. I loved the mage and abandoned my archer. I ended up sticking with it and became the highest level I/L mage on my server before I quit just before 4th job came out. That kind of experience would never happen in games today but it was so memorable for me.
Getting on the ship on channel 1 with the big dudes of the time (most around like lvl 70 😂) and trying to “help” them fight the Balrog by going inside, then exiting to land a single 50 hit on it, then get back inside, followed by a late lagged lightning strike on your a$$ then dying was priceless.
Man I used to go in with new player just to protect them in case they show up but most the time I just told them to stay inside.
The Ludi/Orbis towers were by far the coolest shit I ever saw in a game. Actually having a 100 level tower and forcing the player to traverse it if they wanted to get to the bottom or top gave the journey and location you were in such meaning. When you were in El Nath it actually felt like you were on another continent, so far away from Victoria Island that it might as well be an alien planet. Can't see that kind of thing in modern games.
Yep, well said. Same thing happened in WoW where the social aspect of the game has just died off completely. The world doesn't feel alive anymore because everything is instanced and you don't have to travel anymore either because you just teleport everywhere with the click of a button. The weird part is that this is how people seem to want it. I've talked to lots of people about this and almost nobody seems to share our point of view. The temptation of instant gratification is just too strong I guess.
Climbing down Ludi tower was so tedious but it was so rewarding. Omega Sector was such a fun area to play at the time. It's a shame we will never have an experience like this again.
I remember going up and down that tower a number of times. It definitely fulfilled a real sense of exploration.
I remember getting to the bottom of Ludi tower only to see Omega Sector wasn't open yet 😂And needing a friend to rescue me with an orbis scroll after I died in the tower. I really miss the old game though. The grind was so monotonous that everyone took breaks to socialize. But I feel like that could really fit in with the cozy game market nowadays. It was a slow-paced, relaxing game that would be perfect to play for a few hours after work.
Ms died with cubing and the insane scaling it brought. You used to find friends grinding together, now u just run into people outside of bosses
They just afk posted up outside the boss farming for fames4buffs anyway… game is utterly dead in terms of “finding people” lmao
This is it. The social experience changing is what killed the game to me personally
@@T-The-KThat’s become an awful trend for gaming companies to force you out of playing with others and growing with them to soloing everything.
A game in its most basic form is a fun activity between you the player and other players, hide-and-seek, tag, capture the flag.. there were games you could play by yourself, and the developers seem to think games are all about going solo and punishing players playing together!
I know I’m going to sound like a nutter but this trend of antisocial soloing in MMOs started after Covid, I’ve played MMOs my whole life and for whatever reason after and during lockdown this just changed how people behave socially online, the game was way more social even after cubes were released, in fact there was constant trading of cubed items free market was always packed etc, but after 2020 the game just became a ghost town, same with other MMOs like WoW, you can join a guild but good luck getting one of the 100 people online to queue with you. A lot of people are traumatized by all the shit that went down the past few years and don’t trust people because of all the sensationalist stories that show us the worst of mankind being blasted on every news outlet in every country.
@@aaronball4700 you're not entirely wrong, it was a mix of big bang and the cubing. the game before the changes relied on a social system to progress together which built up relationships with others(e.g. pq, sharing maps, trading items to improve gear. Big bang removed the reliance of other classes, cubing became the easier alternative to gaining better gear. The game after cubing became that haves and have nots. People who spent on gear became exponentially stronger. The have nots needed a party+ to do zakum, while the rich can go solo/duo. Hence the social part of the game slowly eroded. Pqs used to be the best way to get exp and gear, now it's a meme after bb/cubing. Maps were designed for group play e.g. lionheart castle. If they kept that core social aspect to the game in exp and rewards in cubes for pqs maybe the game would been more successful in the long run. Source I was a big whale
I started playing in 2005 and quit around 2012. For a player like me looking at all the new stuff they added is overwhelming. I tried playing again but I have no clue what any of those things you mentioned at the end of the vid mean, and add that to the fact that there's no social aspect at all to the game anymore. I used to be able to log in, walk around a bit and end up joining 5 different parties just doing random things, exploring, doing PQ's, helping me lvl, just chatting. All with people I had never even talked to before. For me the direction Maple went in is sad to me, because it really was my gold standard for games. I'm sure it has to do with money (bad changes are always money related anyway). I still cherish the memories I made in Maplestory and am grateful to have experienced it in its glory days :)
I made lvl 200 back in those days and logging in now just petrifies me from all the ridiculous stuff there is. I’d walk around remembering the good times for a bit then log off because non of that exists anymore
I was an explorer who knew practically nothing of games prior to Maplestory. I felt genuine fear and awe at the smallest things, and the monsters/npcs were alive in my eyes. I made genuine friends along the way, and caught glimpses of occasional lvl 100+ players in my travels. This was my maplestory experience 😊
You explained it so well.
the big boys that could ACTUALLY fight the Balrog on the ship to Orbis
So much this
When you realize the original class in maplestory was the "explorer" then this video kinda hurts watching seing how it has gotten next to 0 social and exploring aspects left. What is even funnier is that the thing that he partially praised the great athenaeum is getting removed just like the class jett and the friends and monad story quests
I recently revisited Maple for the nostalgia, and decided to play the explorer class in order to torment myself with the grindey nature of the game, and because I wanted to explore the quests in the world rather than specific storylines. I found out that they gave the explorers an actual storyline, which while appreciated, was not exactly what I viewed the classes for, but that's okay.
I went through the first quests and after doing literally nothing, found myself at level 30 by reading the story quests alone, no gameplay. (RIP the days when I had to farm for exp to reach my second job advancement).
Then I was out in the world, looking for all the old side quests in Victoria Island for the lore. All of them were either changed, or removed completely. Old quests, with hidden storylines that made the townsfolk have life were removed completely. Now the NPCs are there just to make the game look bigger (like a real village), with no gameplay significance whatsoever.
Only a couple side quests relevant to the main storyline were kept, but a huge chunk of prerequisites were gone, and you weren't required to do the once linear quests in order (it became a checklist system where the NPC's quest seems more tied to the individual rather than the family, for example). The dialogue wasn't updated either, so it made no sense when NPCs were thanking you for what you did for a quest that you have not even done yet.
New added area storylines, while welcome, should come on top of the past versions' quests instead of replacing them, because they clearly reference older quest versions, and if you're a completely new player, make no sense without context. Either that, or there is a whole bunch of lore that is now hidden away from new players unless they go out of their way to look it up online.
This is just a personal opinion of mine. I stopped playing the game years ago, not because it was boring and stuff. The gameplay was fine. I was welcoming all the new classes and stories that came with it. It was the rampant script bots back then that stopped me (and many others) from playing the game. I noticed the new features to combat that meta problem, but with all the other changes, it does not feel like I'm going back to the same old game I once loved.
Wow. I have never heard of most of these places you just mentioned. Back in my day we only had Maple Island, then Lith Harbor, Perion, Kerning City, Ellinia and Henesis all connected by a road that goes around Victoria Island. Then there's the tree at the middle which you can access by going through the alligator invested swamps from Kerning City. And the bottom of that tree was Balrog which was at the time the most difficult boss in the game.
Damn, so much has changed.
4:20 YES!!! SOMEONE UNDERSTANDS!!! i still remember getting ready to travel to el nath or omega sector from victoria island, since it would be a long travel, i would take damage from the mobs on the way so i had to take some hp pots and mana pots, i had to make sure i did everything i had to do on victoria island because i didnt know when i would make the travel back, oh man, such a good time on maple.
What a masterpiece of a video! Maple player here, since 2008 and currently in Reboot for 6 years.
Thanks for this amazing video! Simply subscribed. (':
Pleeease tell me the magic of this world has not died 😭
Great video and valid points. I think one of the biggest changes in your Explorer section is the addition of "UA-camrs". In early maplestory we didn't really have many guides and basically hidden street, Basil Market, etc were your ways of knowing how to get to places.
Now, prior to us getting content you have 100 UA-cam videos about: Where to train, how to maximize your event time, How to build a character we don't even have yet.
It kills that exploration and wonderment old maple had.
-One of the Content people.
aaa memories
basilmarket for trading
hidden-street for information
sleepywood for forum social
The amount of work you put into this video is insane. The way you've organized and presented information, the graphics used etc. Like wow, even if it isn't Ms based, you're clearly talented in video creation. I hope your channel grows!
I started playing ms in 2006 on Broa and then left in around 2016. I had a brief return in 2018. I recently returned and I can't believe how unsocial it is. It used to be buzzing but like you said its literally hyper tele wherever u want, complete your task (solo) and then repeat. I miss all the random pq's and weirdly, I love the journeying for hours, listening to the music, missing the boats to spend most of my day to find a grinding spot.
As a new player, I did not touch legion or do any daily routines. I’m glad I didn’t listen to guides that told me to train MercedesAranEvan before I start the game. One character during hyper burning is enough to ride me through the majority of MapleStory’s content, I enjoyed all the arcane river stories, and most of the black haven. If you are not an achiever at all, then Maplestory is not toxic, but rather filled with memories in the past.
My man needed some town return scrolls, lol.
i just accepted the traveling as a necessary 'evil' for a world that seemed like it was always expanding in some way, i know they created a /need/ for 'convenience' items like Teleport rocks but accepting that was pretty easy as i already saw the need to bite the bullet once every three months for a pet with auto pickup, maybe some fancy clothes to go along with the pet. There was ass tons of traveling but the world felt so alive and bustling with busy adventurers that you didnt mind slowing down every once in a while to absorb the sights along with other people also waiting for that bus to the next continent.
Maple was good times, i still have fun with it today and even though it is a very different game, it's always here to welcome me back into the Chaotic neutral frey.
if you're going through a nostalgia trip like me, you gotta try taking a trip around maple world the classic way.
start with 6 path crossway, take the ship to orbis, explore orbis, then go to the eos tower, no using mesos go down eos by portal only.
go to ludibrium, do the same thing, explore the lower level areas (although they're lvl 120 now), then go to omega sector, go back to ludibrium, go to korean folk town, go back to the tower, then finally head to deep ludi.
go back to eos tower, take the rock if you want now, climb down til you reach aquaroad, explore, then lastly go to deep aquaroad.
go back to eos tower, climb back up to elnath, travel to dark elnath, travel to dead mines, then go back to eos tower, take the taxi back to orbis
then take the ship to nihal desert, explore the lower areas, then make your way to magatia, explore the place, then go back to nihal desert, take the ship back to orbis
now take the crane to mulung, explore mu lung, then go to herb town, explore herb town, then go back to mu lung
then you finally take the ship to leafre, explore leafre, then head to deep leafre, explore dragon nest before using the nts back.
for the last part of the trip, you travel to temple of time. for this part, make your way to PB entrance without teleport rock, memory lane, road of regrets, road of oblivion, when you're done all this, travel all the way back to lith harbor.
this is what i did a couple days ago.
the only thing is that, no more malaysia, mushroom shrine and NLC got reworked.
Damn as a maplestory oldie I must say you are spot on. This explanation is insanely accurate (for me at least). I played the game from like 2007 till 2013 pretty actively. With some short termed comebacks the years after. Well I remember one actual comeback when battle mage, wild hunter and the robot job came out. The rest were just short looksies.
I must say adding to the conversation that virtually hanging out and communicating with people was such an interesting thing back then. Also because it was new that the world was all connected via internet and because we were children.
The downfall of maplestory is so immensely noticable also because we were children and teens back then. I think this plays a part aswell. And ofcourse all the reason you list are the biggest part of it. I also think nostalgia plays a part in it, because my first negative immidiate comment was "this leveling is way too fast and its unfair." Unfair because we had to play the game for seriously alot of time to reach level 70 or something.
Becoming high level was hard, doing significantly more damage than others was hard, looking cool was hard, having a hog or whatever to ride and travel faster was special. Etc etc etc. Nothing is special anymore and nobody is interested in each other. That is if you are able to spot another mapler.
Yeah.. I say to this. Just be happy we experienced a joyful, beautiful and enjoyable game back then. Dont be sad because its over, be happy because it happened. 😊
This is a fantastic analysis that doesn't feel biased or stretching any specific reason.
Amazing job!
Your reasons are my reasons. I'm a big explorer and I mainly leveled up by questing back in the day. I can still remember the sense of pride I felt when I earned the medal that required you to complete 800 quests. I loved all of the stories and I really loved how the Explorer class had no existing story of their own. You are right, it did really feel like it was ME wandering around and helping NPCs solve problems. With the new, painfully long and boring Explorer lore, that connection is gone and it's not my story anymore.
Starfarce, seriously does not get enough hate for what it truly is compared to other enhancement gimmicks in the neighboring MMOs
I will never forget my first time in MapleStory back when Nexon wasn't even mentioned (shoutout to the Wizet era peeps!), and a few players alongside myself went exploring Perion and its surrounding maps. Only to be in shock of the Wild Boar that we thought we could take on at level 10, only to be met with a very swift end lol.
Tried the test and got 90s in Social and Achievement (alongside 70s in Action, Mastery and Creativity) yet modern maple feels extremely soulless to me. I started playing around 2006 and I'd definitely say pre-BB the game really felt like a living, breathing world. You'd be bumping into other players all the time and partying up to train, PQ or even boss whilst using each class' advantages to compliment each other yet these days it feels like every class just does everything, moves too fast, can wipe entire maps within seconds and most can even solo the majority of boss content whilst like you said in the video the experience has also become *EXTREMELY* streamlined so the incentives to explore or even team up have been thrown out the window and unless you find a guildmate out in the open any time you spot another player your interaction won't be a nice "hello" or "want to share maps?" as it will instead be an instant "cc pls" the moment they spot you even glancing at their 8-hour long grind in the same map.
Personally I think the damage is already done as the 4th job reworks made every class a bit *too* versatile and 5th job skills kind of sealed their fate so power and utility creep have gone through the roof.
Essentially, Maplestory "grew up" with it's players and the current focus is simply what is more successful with modern gaming. Old School Runescape didn't really change that much when it comes to the early mid game experience yet players now still play it way different compared to back in the day.
"Modern" Maplestory (post 5th job) is significantly more profitable and popular in Korea than it ever was before so there is very little incentive for Nexon to go back to the old design of Maplestory, and it's why they aren't willing to make an official way to play pre-big bang either.
Personally I think modern Maplestory is more fun as an actual game, and the old maple was a better nostalgic experience. I think most people who have played both would agree that old maple wouldn't be much fun to play today at all. I still think the current Maple has a bunch of issues too, there's too much of a reliance on dailies/weeklies and endgame is even worse due to the sacred symbol timegate.
yeah, with around 95% of this video's script being cut content from my other maple video, an important bit of context lost with this segment in isolation is that if someone gave me the opportunity to play classic maplestory today, i absolutely would not want to do so. i already feel like this game is a barely-functional mess, let alone how it was over a decade ago, and if we're measuring the quality of the intended player experience, i don't think there's any real argument that maplestory is in a worse state now compared to ten years ago. rather, i'd say it's more a thing of "the intended player" changing significantly over time.
at the end of the day, games like maple have to adapt if they are to survive in the long term, and i don't hate what the game has become, nor do i have any issue with people enjoying the experience it now offers; if anything, i'm jealous, as i've just spent the last few years sitting here, watching, as one of my favourite childhood games shifts focus such that i am very clearly no longer in the target demographic.
to build on your point about maple "growing up", i guess that, in doing so, it left behind a lot of the things i really liked about it, even if it was for the better in terms of what it was trying to become.
also, as a side note, i think when people ask for things like official pre-big bang servers, what they really want is the social-adventure experience of classic maplestory in a modern game, or, at the very least, that's what i want, as that's the reason why i've been hoping with all my heart that blue protocol fills the hole maplestory left in it, because, from what i'm aware, there isn't really any game that can perfectly scratch that itch at the moment.
@@degenerator reality is it's not going to survive, gms is not going to make it long term, it's fueled by the nostalgia of the whales. Nexon will keep pumping content that's formulated in a way so that whales would spend more on their game.
The whales rotate out, some whales do stay but it's less and less players and it's only funded by 30 year olds with six figure+ income. Once they have other interests and responsibilities, the game will die. There's barely any fresh blood in Ms anymore.
A lot of the issues with the game ultimately came as a direct result of the monetization of the game, and the scaling power creep was exponential compared to most other games, which completely killed the adventuring nature. Which also outscaled pq items/rewards and ultimately killed the social gathering opportunities and the concept of working together. E.g. I was in the second party of my server to clear lucid, there wasn't really working together it was just dodge shit and dump DPS and don't die, whereas a PQ there's a buildup to that final boss fight. Now it's just boss fight or grind. There's no story, no niche tricks, no actual collaboration, and no effort in Nexon making MS into an actual successful game. It exists to squeeze money out of whales.
Sincerely,
Ex-whale
@@bikini4700 what do you mean isn't going to make it long term. GMS has already been around with a decent playerbase for nearly 20 years. That's WAY longer than most games could ever dream of. It has already made it long term.
@@binber2450 it's dying because it's ultimately funded by gambling addicts. If maple wasn't dead, there wouldn't be server mergers, server swapping, or only see other players on cc1. Reboot was a great addition. While the addition of mesos paying for cubing and stars was a great addition, ultimately you will soon realized you're gatekept by your wallet: the unobtainable totem, outlaw, and shit they will never rerelease. I wish it was actually possible for actual players to reach those endgame content based on skill and collaboration, not a DPS check that's gated by your wallet. If you look at other high pop MMOs, there are shortcuts in the game, but it's actually possible to get to endgame and have entertaining replay loops as a core mechanic.
If I join my friends on their private server of EverQuest, is EverQuest still a dead MMO?
Nah, current Maple is less fun by a WIDE margin. The only thing it's got over pre-BB maple are the mass amount of classes and pretty effects. Even then, they still feel soulless, like which class I play doesn't matter at all. Am having far more fun on Pre-BB private servers with minor QoL additions than I ever did with Maple post BB.
Current Maple is nothing but a way to Nexon to siphon money out of whales while not adding anything of real substance to the game AND removing actual content in he process. It's a disaster. Just because many people "play it" doesn't mean it's a good game. Because people stupidly throw money at Nexon, they have zero reason to improve the game.
Game went from an actual game with minor gambling aspects to a full on online casino with minor gaming aspects.
Bruh the end HAUAHASUSH same man, same...
Im excited to watch your blue protocol contents then! :)
Thats so sad man
I hope i will still be able to enjoy maplestory as a newcomer without having the gameplay loop of grinding taking away the pleasure of seeing all those maps and stories. I notice that the thing of skipping all dialogues and just teleporting everywhere to grind is the most efficient way to play, but damnit seems like such a waste of one of the most charming virtual worlds ive ever seen.
Thanks for the video man it was very interesting and fun to watch, epic editing and, i assume, cosplay of your character? Hahaha
I used to have a side hustle selling orbis tower scrolls. And had a stock of the sentinal pieces for the repeating quest
Ethan killing it and putting maple story private servers in business while doing it all
This was good! While I don't think the game is as bad as people say, I do agree with most of your points. IMO GMS has been the one to hurt the game the most with unattainable p2w aspects. If they balanced the insanely op items, made other content worth exploring, and incentivized people to play/level together at all stages of the game it would be much better. My friends who are interested in starting the game hate that they can't touch meaningful gameplay with me until past level 220
If you think gms is p2w, you should go check out kms, it's way worse... let's not even get started on how blatantly unfair cms is.
My take is previous or "old school maple" had all the aspects current does. Gambling with chaos scrolls end game content separating players and achievements like hitting 200 or killing horntail/PB etc. The main thing I think current maple does wrong or maybe I'm wrong. Is lack of party play. LHC and party play maps were some of the most fun I've had on the game. Making progression through interaction with the community is what its all about. currently i play in reboot and its literally just everyone playing a game of solo Q maple story in a call together. Its hard to get carried on bosses or receive help on anything, while also feeling extremely bad to help others out because of how lack luster it is in the long run. you gain nothing but satisfaction you helped someone. Back when the game was a bit more incentivized for even end game players to have some kind of service game that new players can funnel into exmaple. Zakum you would but service from end game players, but you would be able to sell the pre quest to the boss as a service allowing you to gain money to afford the carry. Weird interactions were new players and end game players can slightly come together and both profit in their own ways. The amount of long conversations and friends i made over the decade+ of playing this game through these interactions is what makes all my "maple memories" as corny as that sounds. more recent up to date maple just makes me remember about how i tried so hard to min/max my stats and how much time i spent doing X thing over and over to achieve a goal. No one was really a part of my journey besides maybe my end game bossing party that varies most of the time. Its not as full of life as it used to be. Its more lifeless, about being the statistical best player or strongest instead of how fucking raw it is to be in x guild with that group of people where we bool in ch 10 crockies or some shit.
I... think that, regarding the traveling time, the returning trip could be much faster if you just use a return scroll, instead of "TRAVELING ALL THE WAY BACK" to whichever main town you need to go. That should cut down the time needed to traverse.
Also, might as well release all types teleport scrolls for all major towns instead. Add some limitations and it should be a good balance.
Maplestory was always about socializing over grinding for me. I made many great friends during pre-bigbang and I’ve returned on and off since then. Maybe it’s because I don’t have access to my old account anymore and I’m starting brand new but it seems no one cares to talk until you’re at least level 200. Many guilds I’ve come across only wants you if you’re daily active and/or are pass 200. I don’t run into anyone while I’m trying to level up and when I do run into someone, they’re “afk”. I miss the grinding and chatting. 😔
Old Maple: lvl 1-75 were legendary times of discovery, friendship building, and adventure.
New Maple: what's the point of lvl 1-100?
17:14 bro was so disappointed he factory reset.
I never comeback to this game to play endgame i actually ignore most the buttons on my screen cause i know there are just there to shortcut me.
I just comeback to play a different class from the beginning and enjoy exploring again and again do random content try the new characters and just relax.
Forgot to mention the goddamn master class of a soundtracks that i still believe is the best of all time and still listen to it when i feel like it.
I remember the first time i came across the Nomad Story that is now gone from the game apparently i was just in Awe.
100% agree with the trivialization of pre-200 content. 4th job era maple, and even development of hyper skills leading up to 5th job was all still fun to me. 5th job, arcane river, NODES completely changing the skill progression formula from level up based to drop/daily based killed it for me even though I was excited when 5th job was first being teased. The point about exploration dying, while it made sense, did not mention the fact that even if exploration remained a part of the game, it will always be exhausted eventually. Once you’ve explored the regions of the world X amount of times, that source of dopamine dries up unless they keep adding new areas continuously, which would devalue existing areas or risk adding useless regions no one visits.
Remember when the good grinding places were populated enough you'd often end up partying up with some people you found just to secure the place?
30 seconds on the airplane to orbis? Nawww, it used to be like 15min wayyy back in really old 2003-2005 maple, when you can actually die to balrogs on the plane, all the weak players hides in the cabin, and the stronger players take them all out, for those 10% scrolls.
Great video. As someone who played mostly pre bigbang, ludi release patch was the peak of maple for me. So much ludi PQ, and all the maps full of people, etc. So much of the free market full of shops... good times. Nexon really needs to do a pre-bigbang and pre-dimensional mirror server.
Thank you for this Informative video on MapleStory. I used to play a Maple ripoff flash game as a kid and I loved it. After learning MapleStory itself I opened it and the full interface looked so daunting with so much to learn, unlike the flash game that really only had items, abilities, and levels. I wonder if there's any MapleStory recreation projects out there That would allow me to play base realse MapleStory.
MS was genuinely a great game! and considering how popular cozy games are now, i think there's room for a more slow-paced MMO out there. I would have gone back to playing several times over the years if the game actually existed.
As an old school player and someone who plays on old school private servers. Just having tried the new version of the game I'm sorry to say I think it is extremely fun. I will say though I don't really consider them the same game despite having the same name. As an explorer type of player I have no problem exploring all the new areas and enjoying that aspect of gaming. I'd also argue most players in any game are not explorers. MS is a "free to play" MMO that spearheaded micro transactions and is now deep on the waters of addictive gaming practices. Things like cubing and star force enable a gambling style of play. I'd argue cubing and sf has something there but implemented in a very inelegant way. The part of maple I love the most is the art direction and music which is say is better now than ever. I'd also say adding boss mechanics is a far better experience than the old strategy of every class tanking damage and spamming ur one attack. It is an mmo you're not gonna be at all the maps in such a large world. Nearly every game has fast travel these days. Maple is just following suit nexons only goal is bottom dollar and making a game that reflects that. Expecting anything else is simply delusional. I have many gripes so far about the new game (mainly the social aspect being all messed up) but I'd also say the game improved a lot in other ways. It's complicated lol
One of the reasons why it isn't as fun for me anymore is simply because it takes ages to get anywhere after level 220 or so. The level 1-200 content also just feels like a forgotten part of the game and is just something you have to get past to get to the real game. Not only that, but the bosses you can do prior to level 200 are largely useless since they do not really give you any rewards. Sure, you can technically do CRA before level 200, but by the point where you're strong enough, you'll have passed 200 if you play even somewhat normally. In Reboot, the damage scaling will kind of make it an impossibility, which is another issue I've got with the game, where something just a few levels above you takes 10 seconds to kill while you one-shot anything a couple of levels below you. Then when you reach the actual level of the mobs you took ages on, they are complete pushovers, just through the level scaling.
You are kind of describing two sides of the same coin... 🤦
The reason the first part of the game feels like that, is precisely because companies started to cater more and more to gamers who feel like you.
The start of the game used to be meaningful. Nowadays, you get to lvl 150+ in a day or two... Everything in the early game is made completely redundant by all the hand-holding and pandering to the [lazy gamer].
Nowadays people only care about the illusive [end game]. And that basically ruins most of the experience a game could offer. 😕
@@vorcanvorcan9032 Do you know anyone who started to play the game recently?
As for lazy gamer, most of the actually interesting bosses require a higher level. That's not something you'll achieve as a lazy gamer.
For reference, the daily quests give around 3% exp at level 251. That's the most efficient exp you can get. Grinding might give you something similar in one hour.
@@CottidaeSEA
Sure, some gamers might not be lazy, but most are nowadays. And they're part of the reason why you don't experience an [early game] anymore. That's why you rarely get to experience any sort of real [journey] in mmos anymore.
But maybe you're young, maybe you have just never experienced such a journey before and are now mistakenly judging a [trash journey] with something meaningful.
The fixation on [end game content] is a mistake. The start of most mmos nowadays is completely and utterly meaningless. Just something to skip and rush over so you can play the "real game"... And that is precisely the ISSUE. 🤦
You say that the level 1-200 content feels forgotten. And is something you just have to get past to "get to the real game"...
Do you honestly not see the issue there? Do you not see that your need for quick level ups essentially did that to the game?! 😑
It's because most people nowadays have that selfish opinion. They just want to level up, they just want to get higher faster and be stronger, always more, always faster.
It is precisely that sentiment that ruined the concept of an [early game]. Same reason as to why power-creep basically ruined the classes. Now everybody has insane movement capabilities, now everybody seems to be an aoe monster regardless of class.
Back in the day, you'd have to wait to get some good aoe, depending on your class.
Now, even my favourite class from back in the day gets an aoe at the first bloody job. Not to mention getting flash jump on the first job... Like, we aren't lazy nowadays? Really? 🤨
Even if we didn't get that ability until third job, it still wouldn't take any time at all to get there nowadays, but... Apparently that still wasn't fast enough for the LAZY GAMERS out there. So now we have ultra movement skills from close to the earliest point in the game possible. 💩🤦
We definitely became lazy, and the devs just abused their game into being more like what most gamers nowadays expect from an mmo.
@@vorcanvorcan9032 I've played games for nearly 30 years. I own over 500 games and I've finished most of them. I know very well how things have changed.
The issue in MapleStory is simply that the 1-200 content is largely not interesting. Most of it is stuff you'd at most want to do once and the best stories are the job stories.
Of course people will just want to level up as quickly as possible when the content is boring. I've played loads of World of Warcraft and I'd rather play through the 1-40 experience over and over again than set foot in the max level content. Because I enjoy the adventure part of the 1-40 content. That's because it's good, it entertains me even though I've played the game since 2005.
@CottidaeSEA
"the issue in maplestory is simply that the 1-200 content is largely not interesting."
That's exactly the point.
It wasn't like that in the past. And the reason for that is partly due to all that content being made worthless through various changes to the overall game and ways we engage with the game. Something that's basically become the norm for a lot of games. Especially in the mmo scene.
Some even start out like that, which is even more ridiculous. A game that just got released, and immediately the entire early game is just a pointless trek to get to "the interesting part of the game", everyone just single-mindedly rushing towards the end, the only sense of community being a part of this small aspect of a much bigger game...
And that is also often neglected, the fact that there is also an issue on the player side.
If you just want content to consume, why not go for content-rich single player games? Those have a relative better value in terms of "content" than mmos tend to have.
Something that maplestory lost over the years, and is definitely as or even more important than content, is the community engagement Ingame. And like the other issue, this too is something that exists in many other mmos nowadays.
People just run around [consuming content], the experience, the journey is lost.
And a lot of games become like that over time or were made to be consumed like that from the ground up.
We are seeing, in essence the same problem but you're clinging onto something that's a part of said problem, the concept of [the end game content].
The hypothetical [best mmo experience] is one that, at the very least, doesn't allow you to reach [end game] in any time frame that most gamers would currently consider sensible. A game that values the journey more than the destination, and thus, has crafted a journey worth taking. A game that values the experience more than the arbitrary concept of [content].
You said you've played video games for nearly 30 years. How do you feel about the concept of [the journey over the destination] in terms of the video game experience?
Oh also, I'm not against achieving things.
It is perfectly possible to achieve goals and break milestones entirely without the presence of [the end game] being all-encompassing as it is now in most mmos.
It is even possible to have [the end game] be reachable while not deminishing everything that came before it.
Your thoughts?
The game is as fun as it was as when you are younger if you play it on a pre-big bang private server. I play on Royals and don't min-max or anything and have a Bandit, Spearman, an Ice/Lightning mage, and a low level Bowman and I've enjoyed just grinding, questing, and doing the occasional PQ. I haven't leeched even once and I don't HP wash because I take my time and by the time I get a level 150+ it'll be a couple years from now.
Maplestory only gets boring if you rush through it to get to endgame.
I remember making an Assassin about a decade ago on the official servers and I spent real money on mesos and pretty much just only added int and leeched my way to 135 and then bought all my end-game gear at the free market after respeccing and I got bored and quit within two weeks.
It's just one of those games where you have to take your time and realize it's not a race. Hell, I spent over 40 hours on my bandit before I even hit level 30 because I focused on doing all the quests I possibly could and it was a lot of fun. I grinded monsters all over the world and grabbed every drop until I turned around a dozen quests in at once and got all kinds of stuff. I even found a pan lid and lots of other gear to start more characters.
I keep all my characters within 10 levels of eachother so I don't get burnt out because playing one class too long can get repetitive.
Even as an achiever I think modern MS is disappointing.. lvling in old MS used to be so hard! And the game gave you no breaks.. also earning money, back in the day we had a hard time even buying potions.. I remember having to restart cause I used my AP wrong.. back in the day 90% of the player base were noobs to a certain extent, but that was part of the magic, the game gave us no breaks and every bit of progress we made felt like such an accomplishment! I remember having my first character reaching lvl 30, it felt like a huge honor! And then reaching lvl 70, I was a rock-star in my middle-school for doing that, again, cause it was so hard!
I don’t want a game to spoon-feed me hollow achievements on day 1, I want them to actually feel like they mean something
To me, the game got consistently better than in 15 years ago, with much deeper and complex progression systems.
But I'm an achiever much more than an explorer, so have these clear paths on "what to do next" actually motivates me.
same, and solo progression is a lot more feasible now than before, gives a better sense of agency.
The worst thing is that they still keep those ports even though they’re useless. It’s like a mocking memory of what used to be
i remember doing like 30 ludibrium PQ's only to get a +1 all stats broken glasses. it felt AWESOME to get them. same goes for each of the belts in the mu long dojo. now with gollux its not even worth mentioning them even as a joke.
For me it was the exploring part and the excess of things to do as well. I usually like simpler RPGs, with some lore and mostly grind and maybe some PQs to do. MS nowadays just has so many content, for me it's tiring, I don't even want to try playing it again
Basically the reason Maple private servers are becoming more and more popular
the edited areas you are in is great haha
Back then it was novel, the age when the internet was still considered new, and MapleStory was an entirely new experience one has never experience.
Subscribed ! Thank you for the great content !
What is that half-transparent screenshot that pops up for 1 frame at 5:55 of?
vegas is an absolute dumpster fire of a video editor - i tried swapping / moving clips on the timeline & replacing / pre-rendering files before re-rendering the video multiple times; it never went away, and that isn't the only instance of it in this video - but unfortunately, i think it has the best workflow of any video editor i've used
I still much prefer old school maplestory for many reasons. I listen to the classic OST very often still while doing stuff and I keep thinking about how atmospheric some of the older parts of the game were. You had a different soundtrack for almost every unique map, take the Excavation Site in Perion for example, there's an unique soundtrack that plays when you go inside one of the small castles that you didn't hear anywhere else in the game. The Ant Tunnel is another good example, it has water drops mixed in the already eerie soundtrack. Old school maplestory oozed with awesome and atmospheric places to explore but nowadays the maps are all a smash bros stage so you can grind easily.
I've played old school maple (PS) a while back and I still enjoyed the heck out of it despite the flaws the game had back then like HP washing and such. Current day maplestory feels like a daily chore checklist and events have become the same bland task again and again but in a different coating each time.
I love how socializing aka the best part of Maplestory went down the drain after big bang ruined party quests. Its crazy how simple the concept is but nobody recreated it properly yet.
Yeah big bang was the beginning of the end
I've tried MapleStory a few times after my childhood and last time the nostalgia wore off even before completing the starting zone of the then newest class's forced dialog quests. I don't really care what the people in a sub-30 area have to say when in the end you'll just be mindlessly grinding for most of your levels. The best nostalgia lies in the private servers running older versions with much less content (but also less players and more grinding).
100% agreed with this. I think it would be best for all pre lv 200 content to get reworked to give better rewards and more satisflying emersion.
6:00 - 8:00 was literally how we played MS back in the day lmaoooo I got flashbacks of that travel from Aqua Road to Ludi
Visual quality/green screen in this video is amazing.
I took a peek at Niru's stream and it's pretty sad to watch. The guy is so committed to the goal he's basically sleeping on top of the keyboard, but even at lvl 297 46% he's so far away from 300.
if they incentivized partying and made it so that in every aspect partying would yield more exp than solo play AND created maps that complimented different character skillsets so that different party types could gain better exp at maps that suited them/their playstyles. That's how old maple used to be, now it seems like every class feels the same and can literally just 1 shot everything on the map, also most classes have insane movement now. those are what killed it for me
The worst part is I loved maplestory. I started in....2007 ? 2008? Whe i was 12/13. I joined before pirate was released and before 4th job hit gms. I was always unfunded. But the game was fun, people were friendly. Highest level I'd ever got was 195 on a phantom when he was released. Haven't played since then.
Leveling in modern maplestory is so quick that it doesn't feel earned. There's no impact, no sense of achievement. I'm moving so quickly through the levels I don't have time to get situated or familiar with a location. Before I know it, it's time to move to another place and another. Theres the fast travels to instance grinding locations but where am I? How is this connected to where I was? I see, maybe, one person every few hours. It makes the game feel dead and empty and I wonder why I'm playing an MMO alone.
I guess to summarize, my issue is the game is too convenient.
No edit function on mobile browser.
Just saw that exp curve and no thanks. That curve goes from unsatisfyingly quick to absolute waste of time.
When you find out Danzō is a gamer 🤯
I think every MMO has a similar problem. Exploring is fun, but when the guy that already explored said it is not worth, then people stop doing it. If someone makes a spreadsheet of the optimal way to advance, then people will follow that. You can spend a long time asking someone to help you discover a secret, or you can watch someone doing it on youtube. Too much information is what changes the player and each individual player is what makes a MMO fun or not fun.
MMOs are struggling for a while now because a lot of players are quitting, one fix to that is to create player habit, that is the reason dailies exist. Make the player login every day so that they play every day, and at the same time, make those players miserable.
I really do miss the old days. I remember when they added I/L and my one true maple love pirates 🏴☠️ . All the party quests and the people from different countries and continents I met. At a point in time 100 slots on my BL was simply not enough.
I left for a few years after BB but always found myself coming back to it just to see what was going on. I’m returning now to the reboot servers since the reg servers are just graveyards at this point. It makes me so sad to see the reg servers in the state they are in but I guess most of that playerbase either moved on or went to reboot. I’m enjoying reboot I however do not enjoy the crazy grind to progress 💀 it took me some years of playing casually to even get to mid game stuff and when I got used to the systems BAM they changed it and make the grind even more insane for people that are just now coming back or hell brand spanking new. I still think there is enjoyment to be had. The social aspect is lacking, which I honestly liked being so introverted. The only way to tap into that sphere of the game these days is to be in a guild and it sucks because all of the active reputable guilds are basically locked behind a wall of grind, level/legion reqs and they just get higher.
Anywho was a great watch def brought back some fond memories of childhood for me.
PS: any new or returning players on reboot add me! Blasphemian I’m a 229 and half Bucc 😂. I’m a potato but I’d be more than glad to help in anyway I can. Once I get further acclimated to the game I can def help out more fs 🖤
fuck you
The grind became to long not only that but to even get loot at high levels you MUST HAVE A PET and even if it has meso magnet it only picks up just as fast as you would by walking over it.Also I looked once but Maplestory only has less than 900 entries on R/34
agreed, but it's not up to the game to give intrinsic rewards. by definition, that isn't really possible, so the fact that grand athaneum gives a crappy pendant doesnt mean it doesn't give an intrinsic reward
TLDR: Game doesn't feel like a MMO anymore.
Yeah. I started playing GMS shortly after the Cygnus came out and left shortly after big bang, but I still check what's happening every once in a while.
The grind didn't bother me that much back then, because I'd be playing with friends doing various PQs and bossing. However, nowadays you just speed run characters to 200~ in a couple of days for legion/link skills, so you can get stronger and solo every boss.
I think the archetypes you refer to are aspects of the experience that should work in tandem. Exploration should require mobbing, questing, and bossing to get the full experience. Party play integrates the social aspect. That was the whole point of MMOs. Maplestory is not exactly a thrilling game mechanically nor is grinding and gambling so fun on its own that it compels me to hit max rank. It's a dead game to me because they completely abandoned all the aspects of the game that gave it appeal that weren't direct mechanical gameplay. The gameplay of maplestory has never been good enough to justify neglecting the rest of the fun. I don't think it was intentional but that mechanical progression is the only aspect of the game that Nexon is *forced* to continuously update.
To me worst thing i did that i switch from class to class never main one for long time that waste my time and my cash so wanna advice find your class first try all no problem find the one u love and try to main it as long as u can this way will make u op af
For me is…. The community has changed, people don’t talk to each other as much. There pretty much no reason to anymore.
Would you recommend any private servers?
The death of exloration goes into my long ass comment to. Wanting to go to ch 1 to talk with people on the boat rides was a fun and interesting part of the game. Where do you ever just go see people and talk about random shit anymore? never its all about keeping to yourself soloing your bosses every week and doing ur culvert.
Because the sens of getting rewarded for effort and time in the game as gone away with big bang and Maplestory lost os soul
Maplestory isn’t as fun anymore because we’ve all grown up and the feeling just isn’t there anymore as it was when we were young.🥲
This is part of the reason im sure. However im really convinced the social experience just isnt there anymore. We used to rely on each other. Talk. The grind being harder made us chill more with each other in our downtime or rely on each other. The game has become very solo oriented which is my main issue as an old player.
I love it now more than ever
To be fair a large reason why the game is less generalized is simply because Maplestory has more competition today. Back when Maple was released there was just simply not as many online games. Nowadays, it would be a tremendous undertaking to try and be the best game for all 4 types, so instead Maplestory chose to focus on 1.
The game was never that good at achievements, that doesn't at all explain why it dropped the parts it was fantastic at and focused on something it was pretty awful at and is STILL awful at.
the magic of being lv 30 and pushing into higher level maps and missing on every monster 😂
Maplestory was peak just before big bang. Change my mind.
this video is really good actually, I relate to it a lot
How many attempts for that eyepatch?
one (trip to the hospital for cranial blunt force trauma).
@@degenerator dang Damien really fucked you up. That's batmans son for ya
When asking yourself "is it nostalgia or did it change" ask yourself if you'd enjoy a game today if it had no patches.
to me, its because maple now days has become pretty much a single player game.
I'm definitely the "killer" type but this game, you have to be ridiculously strong and spend days to months grinding or a bunch of money in order to be even remotely good enough to defeat the higher level bosses.
Thanks for helping me avoid redownloading this game for the umpteenth time... I was most into the exploration and social aspects of the game, with a bit of collecting on the side, which is why I can't enjoy modern Maple anymore. I have zero interest in the min-maxing progression loop that midgame and endgame involves.
I think MapleStory is what it is now is because their sequel game flopped. For me, the joy was to talk to people online while grinding mobs, doing Guild content. Because you know, it's an online game, it's supposed to played with others not solo. Today's MapleStory is an online solo game with an option to group. Another thing I disliked is the number of characters you HAVE to create for the legion aspect. Not my thing. Feels like how Ragnarok Online got mismanaged, same thing happened with MapleStory.
I really liked this video, and totally agree. I'm currently feelings the burnout from this game. Spot on video. I mean I love Maple, wanted to reach endgame, and 6th job seems cool. But it is just so hard to cling on, and it's just soo boring now and not to mention repetitive.
The problem is that this game has too many RNGs to upgrade your equips. Scrolling, Golden Hammer, Starforcing, Flames, Potential, Bonus Potential, Stamp, and Magnificent Boss Soul are all heavily dependent on RNG. And after all that, it can go kaboom 🤯What kind of videogame punishes players for giving their time and money into the game? MS is Masochist Story at this point. You can invest 100 hours in FPS and improve significantly. You also can invest 100 hours in MS and then kaboom your time gated item. 🤡
To keep playing this game you're either in a love hate relationship with the game and plays every now and then for the sake of nostalgic or just addicted to gambling...or both?
I can see why people migrated from Reg Servers to Reboot because the equips upgrading experience is less depressing. But still far from healthy.
It's unfortunate but you are wrong at least with the achiever part because a lot of content pre level 200 isn't possible to complete because it's locked to lower levels or you can't without a party or the item you need to complete a quest is no longer available
Like I remember when leveling was rewarding, now it takes several hours and it doesn't even give skill points? What a joke. Not to mention the RNG that's coming with 6th job soon THAT I CAN'T EVEN ACCESS AS A CASUAL PLAYER!
what a good video, wow!
ofc its not fun, u guys press 1 button and clear an entire map, back in 2005 you had to actully grind to make mesos and level up
good video moaaaar
Level 200 in one day with no exp boost or nothin? Seems impossible to me but maybe im just bad
18:50 you know you wanted to say shit
Skeptics are just people who no longer will play until everyone else will.
OSRS and wow classic were doomed to fail. So is Maple Classic /s Cosmetics in the cash shop alone would be more than enough to support it. Anyone against it is just hurt the game with more players isn't the one they have their near private server xp rate made characters.
ive been complaining about this for a while. mainly the copy paste events and lackluster rewards. If nexon isnt going to put forth the effort to make the game enjoyable, then im not going to put forth the effort to play. theres tons of other games out there .
Its better than in 2006.
I played since 2006.. and i got more to do in maple now.
Yeah the game got a lot better with Reboot. Maplestory back then was so slow and some classes were terrible to start out with.
i think you need to set up some goals! i use to find maple boring until i made a goal list made the game more enjoyable