General

I am addicted to maplestory

For the last seven years, I've always been somewhat of an ambitious mapler. actually ambitious doesn't cut it, I've been a full on addict. Nevertheless, my addiction has destroyed virtually every aspect of my well being, from my health, to my socioeconomic status, to my ability to function as a valuable component of society. This seemingly mundane hobby evolved much too far with my intentions, and now I sit here, a hopeless shell of a person. However, the addiction is not completely agonistic as I am simply overjoyed when I play maplestory. That moment when you play newly released content, that "brrringg" sound when you level up, and the beautiful, tender faces of my pixelated avatars warm the cockles of my heart. I LOVE MapleStory, and I'm not afraid to say it!

My history as a mapler started during the game's beta testing period while I was in elementary school back in 2005. I had hopped around various online games such as RuneScape, but nothing really captured my attention until the day came when I discovered MapleStory through one of my best friends. The game hit me hard, and I quickly fell in love. Sooner or later, I saw Maplestory manifesting itself into my real life. Many of my school friends began playing, and the game became somewhat of an after-school social hangout.

Everything was fine for about a year until my addiction truly began. New content was being released after the beta test was over, but my internet was quite slow. I asked my parents if we could upgrade our internet, but they refused. I asked them every day, but they never agreed, until I began throwing tantrums. "ALL OF MY FRIENDS ARE GOING TO BE STRONGER THAN ME IN MAPLESTORY!" I screamed viciously at my parents every day. I destroyed bits and pieces of my house, punched walls, and gave my parents and ultimantum: upgrade the internet or I will destroy the house. I'm not sure if it was my perpetual nagging or my parents' need to adapt to newer technology, but they eventually did it. Maplestory continued to consume my childhood; I would draw pictures of my character and various monsters on every single class assignment I had, I listened to maplestory music in my free time on CDs in my car, maplestory was the subject of all my school conversations. We even started referring to each other by our online names and roleplaying maplestory at recess. If i saw a snail on the sidewalk I would smash it and scream something like "haha +4 experience!" or something along those lines. When visiting anywhere, such as a park, I would pretend I was in a field full of monsters. My friends would soon grow out of the addiction, unlike me. I spent my summer mapling even downloading maplestory on every computer I came into contact with so I would never have to be away from the game. I used my dad's laptop to play on family vacations, even stealing it from him when he thought it was enough.

Middle school was startin' and hormones were a-ragin'. Everyone was excited to meet new friends, I however was to get straight home and hop onto maplestory. The school days were longer and all I could think about in class was "maple maple maple maple maple" I was usually a good student, but I opted out of doing homework in exchange to grind my character off for hours after school. My parents started cutting my allowence and computer time since they knew all I did was play maplestory. I started copying people's homework to maintain my grades so my parents would lay off me, and that they did. I wasn't in love with the game exclusively, I also found myself addicted to the maple culture. Most of my clothing consisted of maplestory shirts I had ordered online, and my room was full of plushies of all types of monsters. I discovered forums such as basilmarket and sleepywood and spent lunch every day in the school library reading them, participating in maplestory discussions, and making maplestory comics using paint and photoshop. I started bringing footage of my gameplay into the school library and using their video editing software to make MMV's and stuff like that. Cash shop was introduced and I began saving all my lunch money in order to buy NX cash. I quit any other hobbies I had ,such as basketball, to play maplestory. Middle school was the transformation period, as I entered high school, I was a full blown-addict.

This is where any of the most destructive habits formed. Throughout high school, I ditched regularly in order to come home early and play maplestory. Sometimes I would sneak into friends' homes while they were merchanting and their computer was left on and steal some of their items and mesos. I spent a lot of money on maplestory related goods such as NX, iTCG, and clothes; but there was a burning desire for "more" within me. I needed cash, and lots of it. I began by trying to "work" with jobs such as babysitting but those tasks took too much time away from my mapling, so I began stealing cash from my parents' wallets, but I realized that they would soon notice. Instead, I begun stealing jewelry from my grandparents' house and selling it. I noted that they too would eventually notice, so I deliberately stole whatever I could from where ever I could--supermarkets, peoples' homes, school-- and selling it on craigslist in order to make money to buy NX. Eventually, through someone at school who also played maple, i got hookups for weed and started dealing, only to spend nearly all of my money on nx. This is still my primary source of income, and much of it still goes to maplestory.

Maplestory also affected my sexuality generously. Since my addiction started at the root of my adolescence, all of my sexuality has been strongly linked to the game. Initially, it was nothing major, just admiring cute avatars and well-drawn fan art of attractive characters. Eventually like any other teenager, I started phantom blowing, but not to you know what like the rest of my peers, but to hardcore maplestory. I searched the internet and compiled folders upon folders of maplestory, even saving some of it on my phone so I could phantom blow on-the-go. I phantom blowed to maplestory exclusively until I started having cyber phantom blowing with one of my guild-mates. Eventually, we exchanged phone numbers and had phone phantom blowing as well. Through maplestory I discovered I was bisexual, I had multiple online bfs and gfs and i regularly cybered with them. One of them even stopped in a town nearby and we met up, however he was a creep (he looked better in pictures) and was into some freaky stuff ( that i won't go into detail about). much of my maplestory fantasies involved something maplestory related, and I even started taking weird suggestions from people I met online (such as wearing women's underwear or wearing diapers while I played).

Throughout my addiction, I gained a great some of weight, lost all of my childhood friends (since they quit), and have little to no connection with my family. However, I know that morally these things "matter" but in all honesty, I don't really care. I don't feel depressed or lacking in anything in life, but when I think about my life in the context of normal society, I see myself as "pathetic".

Anyways, the addiction still persists, albeit, not as strongly as it did in my youth (I'm looking for a job, working on school), and there is much more I can add, but I don't want to bore you guys, I just needed to get everything off my chest and am thankful to found a community such as Basilmarket who will listen. If there are any suggestions you guys have please let me know!

TLDR: addicted to maplestory for 7 years, became my entire childhood and adolescence, started stealing crap and dealing weed to pay for NX, strongly influenced my sexuality, health, etc. ;still continues but I can't seem to give a damn.

August 11, 2014

35 Comments • Newest first

Aiirosama

[quote=evildragono]Get some help seriously, you don't wanna be stuck playing this game forever. MapleStory can be harming to your health, get some help please. Have someone take you away from technology, and make you realize how productive and important you can be than sitting on a computer all day. Some people in the world have a zero chance in playing a computer, so you should be thankful that you even have a computer to play with, so don't take it for granted.[/quote]
I make 150k. A year. Sitting at a computer all day.

So much more productive going outside amirite? Them evil computers and their darned video games will get yer children. Make em violent.

OP as someone who quit and came back to maple because I didn't hit level 200 I'm just splurging so I can quit again. By all means there are far better games you can spend your time on than this one, and even playing from pre-bb I can say that you should put the game down.