Why is MapleStory Surviving for So Long? 

Who remembers when players like Tiger and FangBlade were God tier?

Pre-BigBang exploration was amazing. Anyone remember taking the ship to Orbis and Balrogs would randomly pop up, and everyone had to rush downstairs? Or even finishing Maple Island to level 10 (which took a while) and taking your first trip to Lith Harbour when that sweet BGM OST would play. Or doing Henesys PQ and glitching your internet connection to get extra rice cakes, or using /find to find out when another KPQ party was out so you can go in. Walking through Henesys, seeing chat bubbles everywhere. Walking through FM CH 1 and lagging because of all the message spam. Amoria weddings. Or watching Fangblade, curryishott, Korwyn/Loopedd (Broa!), etc climb the ranks to 200. Or seeing someone enter a portal and be stuck in the air because of the lag between switching maps.. RIP.

if nexon didn't murder pqs and party play then maple will still be a social game and will have heaps more players

It just wasnt social anymore, everything went solo

Honestly - I think a big reason people come back again and again is the music. This game is honestly a musical masterpiece - both the older, nostalgic tracks and the newer bgms. I really think that the only thing that could really put a halt on my comebacks to Maple is them changing the music too much. and even then I'll probably login for the old soundtracks and chit-chatting with the Henehoes :)

Maplestory was more of a social game for me, but that aspect of the game changed as it progressed.

I think MS has lasted this long because: 1. Nostalgia factor 2. It's casual AND competitive at the same time. Competitive in the sense that we wanna pass up X individual, clear X boss etc etc. Casual in the sense that it's pretty ez mindless gameplay that is relaxing for some. 3. Some people have put in too much time/money into it to drop the game. Some people have been playing for years and it's essentially become a part of their lives. While on the otherside dipping out will be seen as waste of x amount of money theyve spent. 4. Social aspect. Making friends while playing this game and fear of losing them when you stop playing. 5. Appealing artstyle. 6. Dress up If you play MS without doing/caring about any of these reasons i will be impressed.

"it's killing you, but also keeping you alive." that's what an addiction does

Man I miss the days when zakum was hard af and watching them party killing it on youtube

The reason I don't enjoy Maplestory anymore is because I get absolutely no sense of accomplishment, there's no satisfaction in leveling up and fighting bosses anymore. I used to look up to high level players, and watch videos of large groups of players fighting bosses, but last time I played the game I was able to get to level 120 in a few days and kill a boss that I used to think was crazy powerful in under 10 seconds solo. I felt nothing from doing this, reaching new milestones used to make me feel really good, but they kept making the game faster and easier and trying to make kids feel super powerful early on, that sense of accomplishment when reaching new milestones is gone. The community is also an issue. I mean, nothing wrong if people enjoy the community as it is now, but I really don't think that sense of community that was there early on is there anymore. Probably due to them making changes to appeal to people that want instant satisfaction, and I've never liked the communities that form around those kind of games. Plus so many people play solo nowadays, that it's hard to find any good people to talk to or play with while just wandering around the game world.

Oh god... This game is the first online game that i played... 2006.... Nostalgia is the reason that i back and tried it again... And end up uninstall... Again...

I can only stand to play on private servers of older versions now. Modern maple simply doesn't appeal to me. People are saying all their reasons in the comments as to "why the game went downhill" and they only list relatively very recent problems. Maple isn't good anymore because it's become a soulless husk of a game. It's not as simple as it "dying" at some specific update. It didn't "die" when they started adding new classes. It wasn't at big bang, or the level cap being raised, or 5th job, or any specific single point. It was a long slow death by a thousand little cuts. Sure some of those cuts were bigger than others, but none of them were solely responsible. Cubes didn't kill maple, a dwindling playerbase didn't kill maple, the removal of the MTS and world transfers didn't kill maple. Maplestory died on a personal level for countless thousands of people when they logged in one day, paused, and realized they didn't even recognize the game they were playing anymore. Maplestory's death was a personal and subjective event that happened at different times for different people. It was caused by the game changing so drastically and so quickly year after year that nobody could remain invested. I can't even begin to count the unbelievably massive number of gameplay mechanics, features, and storylines that have been added only to be removed and forgotten later. So many people would take a break for only a year or two only to come back to find the game not only drastically different, but all their equipment and stats now inferior, and possibly even their class completely redesigned and/or nerfed. I think nexon probably did this intentionally, so people would be afraid to stop playing, and stay completely glued to the game. It backfired horribly. I'll see you all on the private servers. Nobody quits maplestory, but I quit the official servers.

does one ever REALLY quit maple?

Dood, your points spoke to me. I didn't really play Maplestory for a long time but I'm a big fan of games with similar art style. Games now have just become so competitive, gamers have become so competitive, and it kinda affected the social aspect of online games. I remember back in the day I would just log in, hang out in populated areas, chit chat, talk to the guild, random whispers, it was beautiful.

God I remember back in the day before 4th job was out... KPQing and glitching the tickets and rocking the bamboo hats, grinding the PQ in Ludi, then the PQ in orbis from 50-70 and how there was an abusable glitch with the tickets again and how people were abusing it to get third job faster than usual before nexon patched it... buying a shit load of summoning stones for shadow partner, grinding for ilbis from mushmom, buying double XP tickets to get 0.02% from FoG in sleepywood, gathering a shit load of guilds for Zakum runs, +10 WGs, scarabs, sauna robes lmao. I remember before NX cards were released and seeing the nx blue pajama hat and thought it was so cool. Good times, crazy how much this game has changed from the old days.

I was 14 or 15 when it came out and I’m not sure when exactly I started playing, definitely high school probably in 2006-2007. It is a game that I can just come back to after years of not playing and just have a good casual time on.

I played maplestory pre big bang and loved party quests, the whole drop game scam time period and even following hackers to report and defame them as they ran away to eventually botting when realizing how grindy the game was as a kid. I eventually quit the game and moved on to the hype of Xbox 360 at the time. Came back to this game last year out of curiosity and nostalgia. I liked how they adjusted the exp and I enjoyed leveling all the new classes and exploring all the maps. After 2-3 months of an active grind and making 16+ characters over 150+. The same thing that happened years ago quickly settled in. The game was just very repetitive, monotonous and time consuming as you stated in the video. Not many people have the time to grind for hours and if playing on a non reboot server, it's nearly impossible to hit high damage without spending money on nx or buying someone's gear. And even then reaching damage for even chaos vel and etc is almost impossible. And after 10+ years being away from the game, nexon still hasn't been able to fix the amount of hackers in the Game! Maplestory still has a place of nostalgia in my memories and that's where I'll keep it. Imo nexon has continued to last this long by taking advantage of those who have fallen into the sunken fallacy of investing time and money into the game and never wanting to leave. Nexon will continue to milk those die hards of every penny they have until they continue the cycle again in maplestory 2.

I literally learned to read on Maplestory.

i played maplestory for 10 years before i did a real quit, maplestory is amazing back in the day, some say big bang is what killed them but i say no, it was other updates that slowly brought them down, for me doing the same thing for years is nice but there comes a points where u just get tried of doing and dont want to do it anymore. another thing that slowly killed it for me was how much worth there was in a char or the items. back in the old days just getting ur next set of gears 10 lvls later was huge. now all gear suck but cra, sw, tyrant, gollux. and lvl 200 gear. also the strengthens and weaknesses of each char has lifted. every char either has a flash jump or a tele skill. back in the day warriors and bowmen didnt have those, but it made the combat feel different. now almost every1 has a full screen attack. then what also killed it for me is when i realized that the game is more of a solo game and not a community based game. i loved doing pqs, training, and bosses with other people. now people dont event want to party with u unless u can kil the strongest boesses. and for the free to play way, unless u can play 5-10hrs a day and be good at the free market (which they took out for the auction house) it would take years to get to a godly lvl of strength. but with even all that, the game stays alive with new chars and progressive content and events. its just for me i lived all of that too long and there's not many people that really wants to enjoy the game day by day and experience the game. its a fast rush to lvl 200+ then become godly. lvl 1-200 in a day was never possible. oh lvl 200-250 is like the old school days of lvl 140-200. the grind is too real. i wish i could play maplestory again, but theres no new experience for me there. (i could keep going but i need to stop)

I think as a returning player the biggest factor for me atleast was a sense of clear progression. In a reality where you can't gauage your own "stat" coning on to maple after a day of work and seeing my level rise with my range just feels refreshing and gives you a sense of accomplishment. Sure other games have level systems and gear systems but non execute it as simple yet in-depth as maple does.

To me, I think the people I met in my time playing Maple was the more valuable part of the game. While yes, I had to eventually work on funding my character in some way, I found it comforting that it be picked back up at any point without the chaos of competing. In some way, it's a balance that I got while in highschool. I played Maple enough that it changed me as a person more then I realize until after I sit and reminisce about my experiences in Maple. Maybe I'll come back to it every now and then. Renegades is the server that I still remain on, despite it being "dead".

The same thing that happened to Maplestory happened to society in general: as technology progressed (smartphone, social media, etc.) people became less social. People became more insular in their social circles... people expect instant gratification or they don't invest their time, money, or effort into a game... it's sad, but that's really what fast-technology has done to us.. I'd say the sweet spot/golden era of games was that period of time between 1995 - 2008ish... It was exactly when smartphones became available (and thus mass adoption of internet usage) and social media (the crowding out of the internet), that things really went downhill.

So this is my look on maplestory and how it survived so long..... So starting out i forgot how old i was, i was perhaps 5 or 6 when i first started playing maplestory but it was somewhere in the late 2000s, and well.... it was much more different to what it currently is now. Everything was conpletely basic and in general sinple/grindy. 1. Controls One thing id like to note is that autoattack was concidered very effective as people prefered to save their money rather then spend it all on mp pots. There was also no classes with like, 10000000 abilies. This is a lot like how people liked video games back then, there was simple controls, like a joystick and 2 buttons or somethinf, and it was the same thing back then, 1 ability or manual attack and nothing else. At most you'd have 4-5 abilities stuck to your hotbar to click. Nowadays thats very different, with all these abilities including the ones you unlock in arcane river aswell as classes like mercedes, now you're constantly pressing multiple buttons, sometimes, 10-15 dedicated to multiple different abilities dedicated to maximize damage output. 2. The Skills Back then everything wasn't flashy at all, there would be a simple attack animations for the few abilities within the game. Nowadays it is very much different, now every ability we have takes up half the screen when you use it and a bunch of numbers appear, back then you'd be lucky to have a attack that hits 3-4 units but now they all hit up to 6. In short they rly upped the graphics on the abilities overtime, completely revamping characters to make them more flashy. 3. The graphics Back then everything including the gui was very rough and blocky, then came gui changes, first the exp bar relocation and then a complete revamp getting rid of all the blocky hp/mp/exp bars. They slowly evolved the gui to update it to current standards, and detail that would only be accepted nowadays. 4 - The Bossfights Before, every single bossfight was just a hit and survive getting hit, i remember stuff like zakum where there was very little interaction besides hitting between the boss and player, now they have stuff like Lotus where theres a rotating beam of death you have to dodge and Lucid which has a whole bunch of mechanics that you have to know. In short the bosses became far more interactive, theres no longer those ability locks and preventing u from attacking, atleast with the newer bosses. 5 - The Grind As you know, leveling back then would take forever, getting to lv 100 or 200 would be concidered godly. Nowadays thats different, people have been able to level to 200 in under 24 hours or less. In short gone are the days where everyone was patient and willing to spend 5 hours just for 10% of the level. Now we have an inpatient world thats needs a level up every hour or 2 to continue playing. This is another example of maplestory evolving to fit a certain "climate" of players, and a different generation. 6 - Minimaxing Now theres always been something for players even if its been forever since an update. We've always had a bit of minimaxing, or a way to increase damage output no matter how much effort they put in. Stuff like 22+ star force which have a 1% chance of success and trying to get triple primes are a few examples of minimaxing that the hardcore players of maplestory have been going through when waiting for new updates, and more importantly, it kept them playing the game. 7- Nastalgists So over the past 2-3 years ive been seeing nastalgists all over youtube, talking about maplestory, and its hayday as the #1 game, and i feel its possible this is introducing a new generation of players who have never experienced maplestory as they were growing up after maplestory faded into memory Anyways thats my 2 cents on the situation behind maplestory, but yeah sorry for the short comment....

everyone i talk to abt maplestory agrees with me when i say that its like smoking, once you start you never really can quit and thats how i think its lasted this long

This is a great theoretical analysis of maple and I love the ori and the blind forest track used during that chaos vellum clip man. Keep up the good work

Had a guy in reboot today randomly defamed me and said "HAHAHAHA" then ran away. I was like okay... someone was bored lol

sometimes i listen to the sound track to reminisce

The society point is so true. Lot of my friends nowadays are always on shit like Fortnite, R6 or LoL. Stuff like that where you get exactly what you said, instant gratification and fast replay. Which also brings me to the time point. It does take too much time. I can never grind in any game cause theres just so much to do as an adult. Unless your life is set and schedules always the same. But even then its hard to find time with work hours taking up almost half the day.

started playing since it first came out after watching a bunch of older friends play. It still awes me at the sheer amount of interactions I made with others and how everything just vanished after big bang.

They killed Hennesy Hunting Ground Set up. Where the top floor was mushroom, second was squishy and floor level was snail.

I think there are lots of reasons people don't like the new MapleStory. I remember in 2005 playing the beta opening for Maple. What made me fall in love were many factors. The warm environment, the beautiful music, the cute art style, and just the simple gameplay. Along the years, it was hard work leveling as it took hours just to get to get off maple island. Back then being 2nd job was such a feat, you would be literally worshipped. I suck at games so it took me 10 years to get to over level 100. But what I loved were the PQ's that made you interact with other players. It wasnt just a video game. It's like old school VR. You're playing with real ppl. Oldschool maple was a secret backyard where you can hangout with friends and even with your buddies from school and real life. Personally, I feel that Nexon ruined the game. I miss when Wizet ran it. Ever since Nexon took over in 2008, you could literally feel the game go downhill. Lots of the players were quitting. There came new jobs, that imbalanced the game. Then Nexon started to capitalize on the game even more. They introduced many items that only NX cash could buy. It got so bad that if you were a f2p, you had to struggle so much just to catch up to people. If you didn't have NX cash, you were looked down upon. Remember the hene hoes? "if you can't beat them, join them." Then the maple trade system got introduced. It was good and bad. But at least it gave a chance for f2p to catch up. Then it got removed, giving the p2w players an advantage. After big bang, so many players left that it was a big moment in maple history. Everything became so easy to the point where everything us old players accomplished, you could finish in literally an hour. It wasn't fair. I understand they Nexon is moving towards a younger demographic, but it seems that they are more concerned about making more profit than actually caring for their clientele. The game also got too flashy. It's too overkill. Too many things got introduced. The game got uncomfortably too complicated. The maplestory we all love is the innocent simple game where you could actually travel to places instead of teleporting. Remember hidden street? The hidden portals around Victoria Island where you would be delighted to find a secret map? It was details like those that made us adore maplestory even more. I don't like the new MapleStory. But that doesn't mean it's bad. To me it does, but it's targeted towards a different audience now. Everything has to change at one point. The music has gone from a simple cheery nostalgic tune all the way to orchestral! They jumped from a solo indie artist to studios. That's impressive. I like to make a joke that the worse maplestory gets, the better the music gets. There's too much to talk about maplestory to fit in a comment, but here's just a little bit of what's in my mind.

Where is the other video of yours about maplestory popularity? Did nexon delete it?

Sure you bring up some valid points. but you fail to look at nexon taking things like LHC out of the game and strong hold. atleast back in the day for me some of the best memories of the game i ever had was when people would pay hackers to use wild hunters to glitch their crockys map to like 50-70 mobs in the map and it was as good if not better then frenzy totem. So they way i look at it even as a slow paced do it yourself grinding mmo rpg they striped the party play and benefits from community interaction 1. 2. They just dont allow high spawn rates and faster progression/mob killing and i know it sounds like i just want the game to be easier but at least for me it was much more entertaining knowing that my abilities that hit 8 mobs always hit 8 mobs and anywhere i wanted to train was going to be filled with so many monsters i literally can't kill them fast enough. Now i understand that doing this may 1 imbalance the game due to how fast people progress or 2 strain the servers so bad that they can't handle it. But these are things nexon should consider and invest in. if they continue to not attempt to put themselves in the players shoes they won't make a great game. 3. their maintences are a complete joke compared to other companies./sever stability is also trash during new content/updates 2x events and any time there is a reason for a big rise in player count. 4. they handle their community situations like animals and im just being honest here im sorry. until the recent year or two when the head of nexon stepped down and they have made a whole bunch of changes bringing zhong and other players into the nexon head quarters for suggestions on things to improve. These are healthy steps in the right direction and i do see hope for nexon making the correct moves. 5. even in reboot there is this HUGE FUCKING GAP between "established players" and "non established players" and what i mean by that is players who are brand new to the game and established players who have had multiple accounts link skills and etc made OR just have prior knowledge of the game and understanding of what to do at which levels which situation how to spend money, grind, boss, farm, find loot for crafting souls etc. certain quests like the yu garden totem quest. 6. they made the game so complicated that for a new player its nearly impossible to understand what your clear goal in the game is even a month into the game. (which you could argue there is no goal its do whatever you want but some people play games to achieve things.) final point 7. They nerf things like mob spawn rate, kishin spawn rate, drop rate, boss drops, and being over leveled on monsters gives you a cut off in meso gain punishing late game players? this is totally counter productive to the people who play the game on a religious basis. forcing extremely long and tedious prequests. if you want story line make a short boss pre quest and a story line quest. i really wanna play maple don't get me wrong thats why i wrote so much but when i just am not killing as many monsters as i used to im not gaining as many items as i used to and im just having anyone to do it with. it just feels like they almost want the game to die. 8. minor i know i said 7 was last but in all honesty i think nexon should just be a little bit more vocal on why they make changes when they make a mistake. just be real and listen to your community. Things that made the game good imo over recent times They have decreased the cancer it takes to reach 200 which was a big deal making farming a little bit easier. adding legion instead of character cards is a absolutely phenomenal idea great job nexon. some classes don't have level 3 links but continuing to add more utility and damage links is nice. more entertaining classes to play. starting to adapt the make everything really broken instead of nerfing all classes to the ground(there is still always those "meta classes" but not as much its really more about the time you put in now which is nice.) They created servers like reboot to eliminate pay to win. They have increased server stability but it is still very poor considering other companies run much more intense games just fine but i can understand if nexon has a budget problem. Things i would change for the better 1.) Bring back party play maps! for the love of god but here is my take on it. make the mobs extremely fucking hard exp is insane and what not but make the exp balance out to the same if you were soloing, This way GOD tier players can solo grind if they want and weaker players can still group up and farm efficiently with not loss. this concept would be kind of hard but the best option would be to bring party play back and maps like LHC. bring these maps back in levels gaps like i would say crocs at 100 4th job right? then like every 20-40 levels you move party play maps until 200. then im not sure how late late game party play maps would go getting to 230-40 but moving on 2.) bring back short but beneficial PQs. the one i personally miss the most was monster carnival when you had to like out mob your opponent to win which means you gain a ton of exp usually people would trade win this but it was very fun and it gives people the option to grind or PQ. 3.) try to balance to progression graph and what i mean by that is there shouldn't be enormous obstacles and months potentially years of farming to over come one ordeal. level gap boss. Don't get me wrong i still think it should be extremely hard to reach the late late game stages of the game. but on the other hand. it feels like it takes over a year for a BRAND new player keep in mind to obtain what some would consider mid game items now like fafnir gear/weapons gollux gear/sweetwater and have it all upgraded and looking good. a lot of times as well you level until around 140-60 then you gotta stop and grind to get strong enough to hit 180-90 then you gotta stop and grind alot more to 200 etc. im not totally against having to stop and grind for a long time in order to achieve the next step BUT would i would say is make separate maps that are designed for meso farming maybe grinding maps give lots of exp but little drops and meso farming maps have a shit load of mobs like exp grinding maps but they just give little exp and a bunch of money so you have to decide when your too weak and when your good to move on. to the next set of leveling/grinding maps. 4.) have more community events. Earlier i mentioned how i loved the LHC days when people could some how hack maps to 50-70 mobs right. there was one community event GMs hosted that was my favorite one of them all where they just spawned a SHIT LOAD of mobs in the map and people just went ham. i remember being in a call with a bunch of friends we all grinded LHC with... how ironic anyways and we had so much fun it was like a private server on the real servers for a while. My brother and his friends used to play a server called extalia although i never played this server he said there used to be events or community events everyone knew about it was public ally announced in chat every day at certain times were you could particiapate in random jump quests or some random thing and if you win you could get big prizes which gives people a sense of community and gamble to win that big prize if they do it right and learn the jump quests. 5.) make the mob spawn rate insane. if you have to take stress off the server by decreasing the drop rate BUTTTT increasing the ammout of gain you get from the drops to compensate idk if that helps or whatever but again i am sticking to my opinion that more mobs=more fun. 6.) bring back increased exp for party play in maps again. 7.) give more loot for doing bosses in a party. also you could give instanced drops all the time no matter what the situation is so that way you can't have a ton of drop rate and solo with 5 mules in a party for bosses and the 5 mules have the same drop rate as the guy soloing. this allows you to carry your friends but you cant give them hordes of loot. Maybe im just crazy lemme know i want this game to be good hopefully someone at nexon reads this some how or someone can better clarify my ideas in better written post.

Awesome arguments and mature way to tell how things ended up being. Im just one of those veterans that enjoyed the game at the beginning but almost as much in todays era. Im mostly one of those who mind their own business and don't have that much friends to do those big bosses. The world we live today Maplestory is not being advertised as much (or at all) so there is small changes that younger generation will even find any interest in Maplestory. I love how nexon is expaning the end game. But i simply cannot see my self at the "last" boss, as i have no time to grind Arcane river and in Windia its literally impossible to get lvl 200 weapons (some people have them, i know). But i have no influence to get in Lucid, im too shy to even ask people to do it with me and people simply see that boss "impossible to kill" and "waste of time and effort". There are BIG problems in the game and those problems are solved little by little, not at all or with pay to win mecanics. -Immotion ("Last (remnants of) Finnish mapler"(s))

I couldn't agree more with your opinion on the reason maplestory has survived so long. I started playing in 2005 and on and off over the years. Got back into it with some friends in college, made a thief with the dream of becoming a NL one day. It took several years coming back but I always had such great memories of exploring, socializing, gear upgrades and the stress free game play. Here I am now a 210 NL watching your guides trying to learn all that has changed over the years! Maple will always hold a spot in my gaming collection lol

While there is a lot to complain about and a LOT that could be improved, I personally genuinely enjoy the game despite playing it on and off for so many years. If it did shut down eventually, no matter when, I would still be a little sad, if even just a tiny bit. The game with all it's pros and cons means a great deal to a lot of people like myself. That said, I realize that right now, that's not necessarily the majority opinion, and that's okay. If a game dies, it usually (almost always) dies for a good reason. Whether it happens on the dev side or the player base side is in a lot of ways up to us I think.

You probably won’t see this since you do league now. But I really am enjoying this now. Maplestory is a really fun game because it seems to make the journey really fun :)

Yea they did do something right... gradually make the game as addicting as possible and then sell their product

I remember having fun at PQs and even the traveling system when you had to wait for a "ship" to set off and get in with some people, and even meet them in the transition which was for about 15 minutes as i remember.

thanks for the video, I am a player from 2003 until the big bang, I played in the castle of von leon when the first heroes came out (mercedes, demon slayer and canon master) then I returned in 2016 and now I have been playing non-stop, at first I played for nostalgia from the beginning in a new server (bera) for more than 10 years I played in broa. The point here is that you made me remember the true essence of why I play and it is because the game relaxes me a lot and I have good friendships from other countries

I just recently got back on Maplestory, and I have to say that I've decided it stay with it as long as the company permits. I built great friendships and even met families there, it's very humanistic. We always take about how our daily lives were, what conflicts we had, what did we wanted to do for our futures, etc. These were some of the most casual and understanding people I've met then. We still have each other's numbers calling each other on some other days. It's obviously now really different, even the people there. I don't like how easy it is to level up, I don't like that there's a new class twice a year, everyone's too worried about the DPM charts and they give high level items away like candy,...but despite that, I'm still good with it. Yeah, it's the nostalgia, the 2D animation story lines, music and new friends that are keeping me in right now.

Gotta remember, that when Maplestory first came out, it was actually very advanced for the time.

Loved the video and thanks for bring back some of my childhood :) . I use to love playing this when i was younger. Spent a lot of time with ludibrium PQ. Received help of the polaris guild to get my first Zakum helmet. its crazy to think everything in the game now is done individual.

maple story is the OG of mmo's that's why, maple had the progression and leveling difficulty curve down pat for it's time too. I remember it being absolutely thrilling every time you would grind you way to a new job advancement and get new spells etc... The game had an endless customization enchant system as well as item stat variables and low drop rates right from the beginning which made all items you found in the world feel rare and potentially valuable somehow like you were fated to come across them or some bs haha. Especially as a child this game felt like an entire second life for me and brought me so much wonder and joy. It's hard to explain how perfect maple story really felt to play as a 7-10 year old kid in the early two thousands. I remember maple story being the first and unfortunately last of it's kind in terms of meaning and fulfillment, no other video game I played for the rest of my life would reach the bar it set. 15 years later I have tried to go back to the game I once loved so dearly and I have tried just about every other *game on the market but it just doesn't feel the same to me anymore. anyone else relate?

I remember back in the days of the Hidden Street Pig Beach and how everyone would panic as soon as an Iron Hog showed up. At one point I remember being one of the heroes that cam swooping in to rid the map of said terror as a lvl 60 Warrior... back when Warriors would really start coming into their own after lvl 50 and begin to leave the rest of the classes behind as far as damage went. Either that or the Bathrobe/bamboo hat/skanda Dex-less 'Sins. I think it's even my main character right now, I did a low dex build on it back in the day, back when main stat = damage and secondary stat = accuracy (aka ability to hit) were a thing.

Very accurate and philosophical explanation why MS means/meant so much to us. I highly agree that people want to achieve less in a shorter amount of time.. my friends whom I played Gunbound, Maplestory, Mu Online, etc. with back in the days adapted that personality too. Everytime we start a new game they just grind and grind while not caring about the game itself too much. I loose my interest quickly and that's why they keep calling me "casual" and I just get bored. I have to say though, and I highly recommend this game, is that Black Desert brings back this feeling. People in Black Desert set their own goals, are very social and even though it's a pay2win game in a way, you still have fun working on your life skills, do so many different things and just chill around. PVP is optional, and leveling isn't even the most important thing to do. It gives grinding a whole new meaning. I urge you to try it out!

2:53 holy shit is that 1.2 BILLION damage on a single line? you can kill pink bean in half a second...

I was lucky my friends showed me the game in the beta phase. I was so happy when they had full release and I had my maple bandana I always wore. I couldn't handle all the weird changes when they added other classes besides the explorers

I went from "Holy shit this game I love is dying." to "Holy shit that's a relief, it still has a future." at 11:56

Like this video! :) First time I watched something about MapleStory und one of ur vids, but I like your honesty and they how you straight forwarded to what I wanted to hear assured me that I wanted to watch the whole vid :D

Man maplestory was the first game that I really fell in love with back when I was like 14. I would stay up till 5 am playing, my parents used to kill me catching me on the computer that late. I was trying to grind to 120 before 4th job came out, but I messed up my stats and had to roll a new character. I remember I couldn't even go into channel 1 FM because of all the spammers. PQ's were the most memorable, CCing from channel to channel trying to find an open one. Tracking players inside the PQ so you can spam your Mouse1 xD. Everything felt more rewarding back then, like you earned it.

The issue I have with Maplestory is making a new main. I hit 230 on my Aran, with the best rings and such which. These rings were obtainable by events and cannot be transfered to my other characters (Reboot) I kinda want to play anything but Aran, but it requires so much time (Pre-Quests for bosses and so on)

- Actually the part where you mention you do everything by yourself it pretty much applies to the dead servers like MYBKCN , Windia , Broa/Khaini, Grazed and possibly Scania. In Bera and Reboot , almost everything is run on parties , and its really active specially on Reboot which is the most active on GMS by a lot. - Reboot server , V update , Flame introductions , Star Force to 25 , and the constant updates are the things that are making Maple surviving and improving in activity. If you look back , 2013 to 2016 everything was stall until the V update came , making bossing actually way more easy and introducing Lucid and later on Will. - Reboot Server is also as the gateway for people who wanna go free to play but don't mind paying on cosmetics, it was also a server for people to comeback who dislike the pay to win in normal servers, and it's also great for newcomers since lets be honest, newcomers get so discourage when the know the huge amount of money you have to put in order to be fully gear , unless you've been playing in the last 5 years without a break like MasteringGaming. - In the western society, we like to get rewarded by playing the game , and that's what reboot is, the time put on it , greatly reward the player. In normal server the player can get rewarded too but not as much as in Reboot, since the progressions are different.

Hey man i really loved that video! There are some strong points you make along the way and i agree on most of them. I think nostalgia is the primary factor that is causing people to return, because as you said, it is a unique game; I mean, it's not "The best game of all times", but it has it's own unique thing that some of us feel and others don't. And man, are getting older... I started playing when i was 10, back in 2006 and boy it was a ton of fun! But yeah... Our lifestyle right now is totally different than that it used to be as a kid. But you know what i liked the most about your video? You mentioned that you play it to unwind, to relax...And to be honest i never thought of that but it is really true. Anyway man really great job making the video, thanks for taking the time. :)

One of my favorite memories was when I skipped school for the first time to play maple. I faked an illness to play maple's first anniversary event with the introduction of maple weapons. I managed to find some and trade for some, regrettably tricking low levels into trading me too. I was a spear man so I enjoyed showing off the warrior maple weapons I had as I was one of the first to have them, then sold whatever items I got really high offers on, on the first day couple days of the event before their worth went down and everyone eventually had them.

To me the point where maple started dying out was when the whole artwork started changing. The skill animations were just a bunch of really badly designed colorful somethings that sprayed around the whole map. The damage values being so high also makes progress seem less important. I enjoy games that are really hard because it is special to carry special equipment. Back in MU Online for example, it was godly to wear a dragon armor.. and I remember spending weeks to be able to wear a +0 one that didn't even increase my stats.. just so it would look nice. Only game where I still somehow feel this magic is in Black Desert, it reminds me a lot of Mu Online (not necessarily of MS).. you should definitely check it out (it's my second comment saying the same thing but I really mean it).

My most memorable time from playing Party Quests to level up. Especially after a new world opened. There was a fun intrigue with limited amount of people able to pq at once. There was the knowledge you needed to do them efficiently, and the other information trading of when someone was going to leave a pq. There was also the clan drama and chanel KSing which added some spice.

The population back then was because of the amount of things you had to do to reach a certain level or past that. Because only those who insists on reaching end game rather quickly does so, the average player in the community stayed on the early game. Which resulted in more player interaction between new and older player. Now, a new player can reach end game in just a day. And that confuses the hell out of them, those in end game expects anyone who's in end game to understand the game. But new players who was suddenly pushed into end game doesn't know, he or she can't communicate with other players because those players in end game don't want to communicate or the new player hesitates on asking because he or she is already at a certain level. That's understandable. But that just results in those new player quitting the very same day they started. Back then, you would stay in early game for a long time. Not just because you don't know what to do, but because everyone would communicate. You meet new players like yourself, you meet Older players that never reached end game but acts like they know everything and help all the new players. And when you reach end game yourself, you know what to do and can understand what other player who plays end game content are talking about. ( The leveling speed might be exaggerated, but that's how I felt when I tried playing again. I was leveling so fast and not meeting anyone other than veteran players who were either afk or only looking to do end content )

I know its old but as a 26 y.o old guy, married with a kid. who grew up playing maple since the very begining, before pirate and 4 jobs only and havent played for so many years. I could littretly play Maple story today and that says alot - this game not only keeps being updated, balanced and with a nice community but this game has perfect gameplay for his genre: an action combat 2d side-scroller and i can defenetly see myself playing this game today just to kill some time if i dont have something else to play.

when I joined, I started in Demethos (pre grazed) back when EVERYONE was in the Steej family (if you remember families you're a vet in my eyes). Even then Demethos was one of the hard servers, hard in the sense that its population was abysmal. Even still, everyone did party quests together, guilds were extremely tight-knit (because there were only 5 major ones with DNAngles being at the top [even more props if you remember them]) and a major source of gaining game knowledge (still is today to a certain extent), but after years of spending lets say a minimum of 150 per yr per playing I quit, waited for cyg update, came back, quit red, came back, quit again, and now I have switched to reboot because it still has that population, with the training difficulty (which is still a cake walk compared to old maple, can't stress that enough), the fact that the only cash cost you have to incur is a pet, and even then you can last all the way to 180 with the ones they give you for free so I like that you get the best of both worlds. Honestly, unless you're a vet that has already spent in the thousands in funding on the reg server, its not even worth to play reg server. Especially the hack fest in Scania(literally made a Scania character immediately after big bang was released and got hacked kidd you not). All in all, I think MS does a good job at having its mature players return especially now that most of us are at an age where we can appreciate something that is at your own pace in a world that forces you to go at its speed.

I loved watching low lvl newbies fight monsters. Whacking the Orange Mushroom around and taking 10 dmg, picking up the 5 mesos and spore... awww lol look at the precious noob being a Mapler....sometimes I would cheer them on and fame them. I really love Maplestory

I just started maplestory. I know I’m super late, but I was one of those kids who’s mom couldn’t afford a pc when I was younger. But I’m glad I get to experience it now. It’s pretty relaxing imo.

Maplestory's fanbase is 90% korean,10% worldwide. I continued playing the game due to the many interesting blockbusters they released. They also started giving opprotunties for burning events, happening on a somewhat rare basis. Once the Black Update comes to GMS, the game is going to be completely risen. Even though GMS is not doinng well, I believe the Black Update would bring both returning, new, and regular players together since they realized this was a great time to get back into the game again. This was only based on my personal experience. I stopped playing Maplestory ever since Shade/Eunwol came out. But as soon as I heard about the Black Update, I immediately went back to the game and started grinding my lvl 95 thief to a lvl 170 Night Lord in *weeks*. And I'm still enjoying it to this day. The Black Update is something to cherish the nostalgia and goal back then, and finally being able to look back how long this game has come. Nexon still needs improvements though. If they want a bigger audience, make the audience pleased. Host more community events such as the classic bingo! Make party quests have more exp and the thing challenging! Let's not forget about the lack of security they have at the moment, causing the game to become glitchy as ever. I really hope this game can be risen once again in December. My love for this game has increased ever since.

For me, the main elements of this game were community, nostalgia, exploration, maps, hardship, teamwork, and simplicity. I think they should've improved the game with these elements in mind so that they would not be greatly affected. But now it's too late. Community - Community was a strong point of the game and it's totally understandable that it's just not as fun without the community around. Reboot doesn't completely solve this problem since the no trading thing is dumb and they don't implement teamwork systems so the game is still filled with solo grinders and KSers. I like the aspect of it not being P2W and the fact that it's the most populous world, but that's it. I also think they should've kept the family system. I thought that was pretty cute. What I like about the game now is Maple Chat. It acts like an in-game messenger (like an MSN or WhatsApp for Maple) and allows a more intimate interaction between players. Nostalgia - The nostalgic elements are essentially the classic elements of the game that shouldn't be touched/modified too much. Unfortunately, many classic elements of the game were altered, changed, or even removed. I'm still sad over how they changed the map of Victoria Island. Was it really necessary to change the map of the island? I think the dimension increase in map view also made the game less intimate and takes away a huge part of the nostalgic feel. I think they should've kept the old dimensions as well as the old interface skin. I think I would still tolerate a modern HD screen ratio to fill out the black bars on the sides, but I don't think the resolution increase in map view is a good change. Not to mention, there are still many old maps in the game that are still not modified to suit the new HD resolution, so they end up looking awkwardly small on the screen. You might say "if you want the old resolution then just switch it back to the old one in the settings," but it still doesn't feel the same as before due to the looks of the new skills that suit the new resolution much better, and the new interface skin doesn't really suit the classic resolution look, AND switching to the classic resolution disadvantages the gameplay that is designed for the new resolution. Skills these days look way too OP and ridiculous. Many 1st job skills now looks like they could've been 3rd or even 4th job skills if it was back in the days. I also think the additions of new classes are excessive. I think heroes are a bad idea. They are restrained by mandatory questlines and has all the dialogues and personalities set out for them which is actually pretty lame. Exploration - This is another important part of the game for me. Even traveling from one place to another felt like achievements; it actually felt like you were going somewhere and discovering new places. I still have wet dreams over that Orbis ship. Play a game of omok inside the ship, or just jump around like an idiot. Anyhow, it actually took a long time to travel to Orbis, so it'll really make you feel like you're actually going somewhere. And you could legit get stuck in Sleepywood, like wtf? We absolutely don't have that kind of element in the game now. And oh yea, the old Masteria maps were a pretty crazy experience, and by crazy I mean amazing because the maps were totally weird man. Old Maplestory made me feel like I was interacting with an actual environment that offers actual obstacles. Now it just feels like a huge sterile empty amusement park. Maps - The old maps were beautiful. Victoria Island, Orbis, and Ludibrium were especially beautiful places. There are just some things that should never change.... Hardship - This is similar to exploration. Or rather, the experience of exploration is like a type of hardship. Back in the days you could easily get killed by octopuses in Kerning at low level. Now they are nothing since you can level so fast now. The increase in EXP rate and leveling speed is ridiculous and has nothing to offer in terms of a fun, wholesome experience. The only thing it offers is temporary satisfaction of speed-leveling fantasies before uninstalling the game. Come to think of it, getting a character to level 40 in 2007 was 10000x more fun than getting to level 200 now. It's really sad. It really is sad. Teamwork - This one is related to community. I love that the game used to demand a team of players to accomplish certain tasks like PQs, specifically. I think PQs had a lot of potential to become a fantastic fundamental feature of the game to allow players to level up the fun way, AND level faster than solo grinding. Team grinding, I think, also could've become an amazing, fundamental feature in the game. Simplicity - Cubes, star force, etc. all these stuffs are too confusing for me. There are way too many power boost and gear improvement options in the game and they don't actually make the game any more fun, at least not for me. And Monster Life is just dumb. I feel like I've written comments like these every year on random MS videos but no one's ever read them. If anyone has any anything to share regarding my comment it would be much appreciated. Btw, I'm that type of player that gets back to the game every year or two and then uninstall the game 2 weeks later.. hehe

i loved this game so much before the big bang..kerning pqs, carnival pqs, riding the boats to and from orbis and ludi and talking to everyone on the boat about whatever the hell, hanging out in the free market and training in a party with friends just because it was fun t do. now you get on and all the pqs are empty..no one socializes..its all about being as efficient as possible and grinding. oh well, rest in peace sweet prince

I don't know why this video showed up under my recommended feed, given I have not played or watched a Maple-related video in almost 10 years, but holy shit what are those damage numbers. Power creep has gone off the scale. Those numbers seem excessively high. Don't get me wrong, I know numbers going up as games grow older is a natural course for the meta, but there's reasonable scaling and then there's this where people are hitting 23 million damages x50 combo across the entire map with one or two abilities, and it's spammable.

I'll tell you why it lasted so long is because people either invested too much time or money in the game.

You mention training in a party being beneficial. But I specifically remember, outside of KPQ and eventually ludi pq when it was released; Parties were useless. Even up until 3rd job was out, if I recall you had your Rope HS bot and 1-2 other party members clearing. Beyond that, parties were seldom used. Being one of the few clerics to be 70+ before 3rd jobs hit, I basically only farmed on zombies, having to KS war every few minutes. Thank you for mentioning this though. It brought back so much nostalgia for me. I played from basically beta to about a year after pirate job introduction. And then again from 2015 - 2017. I wouldn't trade the time I spent on the game for much else. The money however... ehhh... I could have probably saved myself some of that.

I played this around 2012-2013, then Nexon changed and I quit playing this game for a few years. Then I play it back cause I miss it. It's a part of my childhood :(( but I cannot have the same exciting feeling and enjoying talking with strangers like I used to be.

Maybe it's because you're on a less active server, but I find it pretty simple to have a nice conversation with someone completely random in henesys on reboot and bera. I feel like a lot of those conversations about reminiscing the good old days, haha

This video came up in my home page and I didn’t recognised the youtube channel. As soon as I heard the voice I knew it was you Jin. Didn’t realised that you started a new channel. All the best moving forward, both on YT and College!

Just the other day I reinstalled to pop into Henseys and chat up randoms. And man can I never Kernig city's BGM outta my head.. I love this game, played it back when you were just a green little apple on a treadmill starting the game. Me and my two closed friends played it together at the time. It's always been a social game to me, even when I was my kid self playing maple as my first online multiplayer game, I remember meeting this girl and after random chatting and party farming mobs, we became friends and I even found out she had the same birthday as me! Always loved popping into henseys and chatting anyone and everyone up, just meeting people, and showing off my low-ass level to complete noobs xD. I stopped playing eventually though since using my sister's computer was inconvenient and I got other consoles (a gamecube probs) to play on. I'd love to come back, but I don't feel like what I used to love is still all there. Certainly not the mass of people.

I mean with this corona cation I be playing this joint every day 😭

Very active mapler myself from 2007-2012, on and off 2012-2013, barely even log in anymore. The game was a huge stress reliever for me and i wish i could go on and just enjoy it again but my life doesn't allow me the free time i used to put into MS and as some people commented, the pay to win mechanics and a lot of the newer changes have made it difficult for me to even go back to my old characters cause i have no idea what to do anymore. I would like to restart but the game just doesn't feel the same anymore. Idk, maybe someday i'll go back and restart and just grind like i used to.

I started Maple in 2007 just before the release of Kradia and I enjoyed the social aspect with PQs and a generally slower-paced game. Even later on around 2011 with LHC that was fun too, with the party play. Everything is solo now and it just doesn't feel the same.

Coming in and playing mostly pre big-bang and during it meant having a deep understanding of things like how to level a character and skills, where to get equipment, what best scrolls to use, etc. that you’d learn from forums & wiki’s and from the people in the game!! Logging in now and trying to play is basically crazy, with (in my opinion) too many jobs (classes) and the classic options, start-up tutorial, etc. that old-new players were familiar and comfortable with are gone and of course, nerfing the party concept and multiplayer bit of the MMORPG

Getting my nephew into it! So much nostalgia with this game. I'm glad I got back into it. Such a fun game. Definitely miss the social aspects that use to be there.

I think to add on to the Party map level and community ideas, is to add in a group of classes that can actually combo like Aran so it isn't always press and hold one button, make the classes literally able to combo off of each other at a specific and decisive moment of doing a move like I don't know for lack of examples The Avengers movie where Hulk and Thor had their combo on the chitauri creature and Iron man's repulsor ray combo with Captain america's shield. And make those classes have specific buffs or passive abilities that only function when you are partied with the specific character listed from the new group of classes as well as having a growth system based on specific boss clears and or leveling to a certain level so that the ability is worth having at it's final tier. Having specific requirements for these passives will shine the light of the history and friendship of these characters and make there lore just as more important as they are fun to play with others.

Bellocan was a weird server, everyone knew everyone because of the NX contest it started with, if you played when the server launched you knew exactly who everyone was in the top 50 and all the guilds we were apart of. I was a Scania player for the longest time but then hopped over when that contest was on for a bit of a change of pace and it was a good time honestly.

I remember playing this in '08 to 2016. I would play for months, then quit for a year because it would get stale, then go back. Really nostalgic.

To be honest, I am not sure. For me personally, the quality of the game only went down as it got older. The heavy focus on damage pretty much killed the game for me. Even after coming back (I was curious) it didn't feel the same anymore. I find myself having more fun on private servers that put more emphasis on adventure and teamplay (monster pq etc) and that is a shame.

I love the game so much, that I keep coming back for short period. But it doesn't change the fact I have no time for all the grinds and gears, even those are the core of this game. Hope the game doing well over time.

I agree with this video soo much. i would play this for days when i was small but now as an adult i can't play it for more than a hour before i feel depressed and overwhelmed by all the end game things you need to do to advance your character. I didn't mind the grind before, but now i can't stand it.

So a lot of people talk about pre-big bang being the pinnacle of exploration and social gameplay, but I distinctly remember how much we HATED the travel time which took nearly an hour to get from Hennessy to Ludibrium. We hated pqing for 30 minutes in order to grow 30 percent exp at level 45. They made those changes because many of us struggled to enjoy the pace of the game. I will say we miss the "good ol days" but they weren't necessarily that great

Maplestory ruined gaming for me as an adult. I cant find another game like this. so i eventually go back

Wow. I had a long day at work and the exact thing I do is log on maple to unwind. True.

I have been playing Maple Story for 10 years :) I like a game with cute graphics and easy to play. It was my childhood. Now, I actually only played it about 1 per month, but I still enjoy it when I play it

Damn related videos. This made me feel so nostalgic :c I still remember smuggling in Kerning PQ or J-Style LPQ. The memories of e-friends to IRL friends was honestly one of the best i've had in gaming. Now over a decade flies by and it's like where did all the time go ;__;

It's familiar, attached to it because how much I invested into it. The skills have no value, but looks. Cardboard cutout story. I've transitioned into story driven games...

With the current generation, classic JRPGs have been booming. People want big, well-written narratives and tough combat, not instant gratification. If all people wanted was gratification, games like modern MS and modern WOW wouldn't be doing as bad as they are compared to when they were in their prime. Dude, Blizzard got so threatened by that one classic server that had what, 100k players at their peak that they shut it down. Remember when Blizzard told people at a conference that they didn't want classic servers and neither did we? Now look at them. They're trying to code a classic server and are offering large bounties for old server hard drives they sold that may still have the old source code on them. I bet you my entire bank account that if Nexon announced a pre-BB server right now, there would be a huge return in active users. The more you streamline a game and dumb down the mechanics, the fewer players a game will have in the long run. It doesn't matter how many copies it sells or how much money they make from microtransactions, in the end, more people will remember the game of what it was during its prime than what they are now and look for something that feels similar. Games like Skyrim may have sold more than their predecessors, but you know what? People are going to remember the older games like Daggerfall or Morrowind a lot more because they were better written and more challenging.

Its still popular not because of nostalgia but because it has great game mechanics. Lots to do and explore, and everything is well programmed.

I miss doing de ludibrium PQ for training from level 35 to 50.. it was so funny.. getting tracks from parties inside, killing alishar, dying on golens, getting level 70.. solo a papulatus was a big thing.. training on aqua road after 3rd job.. getting zakum helmet, doing monster carnival PQ was funny and competitive.. training in leafre after 4th job, killing newties and skelegons.. god.. i miss it so much.. downloaded the game.. played 5th job for a while on my dual blade.. but its not the same anymore.. just removed it from my pc.. i will always remember you maplestory and the friends i made on that time, thank you for everything

Reboot is a lot more lively than most servers, and it's free to play in progression and speed, so most of the problems in most servers aren't a problem in reboot. And plenty of people carry you in reboot if you're in a decent guild, although parties are still an issue unless you're a kanna or (phantom or bishop if you need hs)

Half a year ago I played OldSchool MS and realized I haven't had that much fun playing games in a while.

Wow! I think you have hit the spot on this topic. I really agree with everything you said. Good job.

My last memory from the game is training in LHC. One of the reasons I quit was that many jobs were added which had mage-like AoE-map skills. That kinda made magicians less unique in a way. Still, it remains an amazing game!

I used to play before BB at like 2007 or so, and for me personally, it was a cycle of playing the game, then quitting for a few months/years, then coming back. This time, I'm probably staying and I'm at the lategame point. Many people say that the BB update and the constant updates and changes made to the game made it way worse than what it used to be. I'm not saying that this is the case, but rather I'd say that MapleStory now is a different game than what it used to be. And also, there is actually quite alot of socializing once you join a guild. Yea, it might be "restricted" to your guild and alliance, but I'm talking alot on my guild's Discord server.

WoW , maplestory, Lineage 2 (for Europeans at least) were the top 3 MMORPG played back in 2003-2005..Many ppl just wanna remember the old times and I think many just return to refeel that moment imo..

I actually recently uploaded a video discussing this game in comparison to another nexon game, Mabinogi. I really did enjoy the social aspects of this game however at least on the server I played on I found the community to not be very welcome to anybody with a black avatar. I'm sure that's changed a ton since I last played ( its been years ) but aside from some trolling every now and then I really did like that side of the game. Unfortunately it was the predatory gambling aspects of the game that pushed me away. Now some of those same practices are leaking into other titles.

Great insight. The time concept you brought up was pretty close to heart. I enjoyed this video. I played a lot before big bang and a bit afterwards. You make some really good points about it being a return game where you can just unwind after work and relax to some maple tunes. I can't understand the new damage system. I mean do we really need to be doing a trillion damage? Can you even comprehend the damage you're doing at that point? WoW had the same problem and they fixed it by scaling the damage way way back and I respected that move. Pre-BigBang you know who the baddest character was; Bandits. Man, bandits with the 8x damage, even if it was only 120 on each hit, still bad as hell. Now it's like 9,999,9999,999. I mean who even cares at that point, right? Anyway, great video man, I enjoyed it a lot.