General

The Thing that Saddens Me Most about Big Bang

This thread contains my personal reflection on the past five years of MapleStory. It pretty much shows some of the most meaningful events that occurred during my own [b][i]early[/i][/b] (May 2005 to late 2006) game that I believe are noteworthy. Some of you in Scania who have been playing there since Beta or early after might remember some of the people I mention.

Well, after five years worth of playing MapleStory from the very beginning, the "veteran" MapleStory I know now is coming to a close. From fostering long-lasting friendships with people who I know in real life today; to my brother my cousins and I taking steps more than necessary to avoid the plague of keylogging; to making the long walk from Lith Harbor to Henesys on my first character and getting lost on the side maps; to becoming a Cleric, Priest and Bishop and partying with some of the best players I've met; to witnessing the exodus of the FM from Perion to the actual Free Market; to spending hours grinding on Zombies to get to level 58; to being a noob who thought that his level 36 friend was so pro that he could guide a bunch of level 20s to Balrog through the dangers of Tauros, but went along with it anyway and is glad he did so because that is one of his greatest memories playing this game; to meeting and witnessing Pulverize destroy the Tauros, thus clearing a path for our party to get to Balrog; to trying to track the spawn times of MM and Jr. Balrog; to my brother and I using our only money to get to Ossyria as level 15 players; to getting owned by Crimson Balrogs on the ride back to Ellinia, thus stranding myself in Ossyria until I found 5k worth of Sentinel pieces; to challenging the El Nath dungeon much too early; to meeting NinjaGaru in the El Nath dungeon and considering him one of the most "pro" players in Scania; to acquiring a "Thorns" back when they were insanely rare; to envying Ryuu for having an Evil Wings that he found from a Jr. Balrog; to playing goofy games of hide-and-seek with my friends around Kerning City; to backing my friends up in KS wars at Zombie Mushrooms; to thinking that I would never get past level 100 after witnessing a level 132 Cleric training on Zombie Lupins late one summer night; to still remembering the name of that one noob who scammed me for fame when I was level 20; and to meeting and experiencing people and things that I will always remember not because they occurred on an online game, but because they had some impact on my life regardless of how small that impact was. I'll always be grateful to MapleStory for allowing me to meet some really amazing people.

Now, for the actual thread.

What saddens me most about the changes that Big Bang is bringing is not - and this may come as a suprise to many of you - the cooldown on Genesis. This Bishop that I use as my Basil ID was the first character I ever made, grew to love and will continue to level despite the skill changes tomorrow. What saddens me the most, however, is that many of the places that I used to explore, and still return to in order to reminisce from time-to-time, will no longer exist. The potential map changes scare me because I feel like I will lose some of the things that got me to play this game. I truly hope that there will still be some sense of adventure following this monumental patch, and that people who start playing this game for the first time will still be able to find that this game is not only about leveling and being powerful through a strong character, but also about making friends and finding adventure.

What will you guys miss most about the "Old MapleStory"?