General

[quote=JjwyH]until supporting class like bishop is not even needed anymore[/quote]
But they give the sweet HS, why would they not be needed lol?
OT: ' MMORPG means "Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game" '
what do you think?

First time someone agreed with what I said, thanks dude. They really could have expanded the importance of damage as well as other stats (and introduced content that motivates people to strive for better equips) rather than making this game all about damage.

yeah Mostly Men Online Role Playing Girls.

@PandaPoet I do agree with these aspects of what you said in terms of party-play. Having different jobs with different roles in boss runs would be amazing, because the stereotypical 50m capper just solos everything.

Watching EMS's superior world is really cool. People would make other jobs that had more defense and other stats mattered besides damage. It's an entertaining idea for sure.

Just as you said, me cubing and getting %accuracy just makes me facepalm. %accuracy plays no role, yet it has a point in the passive hyper skill slot and we can cube %accuracy lines too. Completely pointless.

[quote=Sprinkle]There's always going to be differences between funded / paying players and unfunded / non-paying players in any game.[/quote]

best answer in this thread

@jjwyh: theres no TEAM in MMORPG. if you want a good "circle of friends" I'd recommend joining a guild.

@zEric7x: I found most of my friends in fm

[quote=CherryTigers]@PandaPoet: When I mean "variety," I meant that funded and unfunded people alike both use fafnir equips, but the "variety" is in the fact that we all scroll and cube our items differently.

And about training and getting rich, I feel it's easier nowadays to make money and easier to train. [b]My perception may be a bit off on these topics[/b] though since I was a kid back when I played old maple when training and money making was harder since I wasn't as smart. But I think it has to do with motivation because there was really nothing driving/motivating me to level higher after 3rd job. There was also no motivation for me to get "rich" because the best equips and the average equips were almost the same and the damage difference didn't mean much either.

Eventually things changed though. 4th job was released and that made getting to 200 more attainable. Eventually, CHTP/zak helms had a market and people like HefferHeffer of Windia became famous for doing those boss runs. But by then, I had already quit and moved to a different game that had more diversity.

Of course, this is just me seeing Maplestory through my own eyes; my own opinion. Nowadays, there's a large gap, which is motivation for me to climb higher and higher.[/quote]

Ohh right, but I still think this "variety" is bad, as it's just a damage variation (a ridiculously high one).

The reason I don't like it is because having a high damage gap overvalues damage and overrides other factors such as defense, accuracy, speed, jump etc. I liked old Maple's system because the damage gap was small, which encouraged players to strive to improve on other factors such as their defense, accuracy, etc via scrolling. I enjoy a game with a small but fair balance of many factors rather than just one large factor. Of course if you have a large gap across many factors, it becomes unstable. Furthermore, a large damage gap overrides players' incentives to interact in terms of party play, and it also overshadows class roles. The large gap also gives reason to set up a threshold, in which players above the threshold can kill a boss within the time limit (whether in party play with players with similar damage or solo) and players below can't, and that's exactly what Nexon has done.

The old Maple's system wasn't the best, as you pointed out, but subtle adjustments could have been made so that many of these factors would be valued equally by players. Why not advocate for a system that introduces a small gap across many factors such as damage, defense, accuracy, evasion, speed, etc. rather than just having one large damage gap? As long as each of these factors play a small but important role, game features and content could have been introduced so that players are motivated to strive to improve their gear. The threshold also wouldn't exist (and can't exist because the gaps each individually are too small), and party play as well as class roles such as a Bishop's healing ability would have still remained important.

I've mostly migrated to WoW but have a more extensive history with Maplestory. Comparing the business tactics of each is interesting; perhaps also a reflection of the targeted class/age groups.

Paying a monthly subscription (vs freemium) seems to yield better technical support (and fewer technical issues), a more mature player base, and more interesting background stories in the game's roleplay.

Past MS was mostly great due to the people / good community in my opinion, but those people have grown up and moved on from it.
Things change and so do people. Depends if you see it as for the better or worse.

There's always going to be differences between funded / paying players and unfunded / non-paying players in any game.

@PandaPoet: When I mean "variety," I meant that funded and unfunded people alike both use fafnir equips, but the "variety" is in the fact that we all scroll and cube our items differently.

And about training and getting rich, I feel it's easier nowadays to make money and easier to train. [b]My perception may be a bit off on these topics[/b] though since I was a kid back when I played old maple when training and money making was harder since I wasn't as smart. But I think it has to do with motivation because there was really nothing driving/motivating me to level higher after 3rd job. There was also no motivation for me to get "rich" because the best equips and the average equips were almost the same and the damage difference didn't mean much either.

Eventually things changed though. 4th job was released and that made getting to 200 more attainable. Eventually, CHTP/zak helms had a market and people like HefferHeffer of Windia became famous for doing those boss runs. But by then, I had already quit and moved to a different game that had more diversity.

Of course, this is just me seeing Maplestory through my own eyes; my own opinion. Nowadays, there's a large gap, which is motivation for me to climb higher and higher.

[quote=CherryTigers]Old maplestory: no variety in equips. No drive or motivation to improve. The game was so dead boring people just gave up training and started socializing. That's why the "social aspect" of the game used to be huge.[/quote]

Why is "variety in equips" a good thing(besides NX apparel)? In fact there's too much "variety" that it encourages people to spend a ridiculous amount of time to find the 'best' set of equips for a given level. One or two sets of equips of the same level is perfect. I don't see why we need 20+ sets of equips of the same level.

[quote=CherryTigers]Nowadays, there's actually more things to do. There's a drive and a motivation now because if you do stuff, you can [i]actually[/i] improve. If you want to get to a high level or get rich, you CAN if you try hard and work hard. Because of variety, the game has more diversity and more options. It's not a bland, dull, stand-still game that has no ways of improvement.[/quote]

Wasn't old Maple mostly about reaching a high level, and/or getting rich? How does this tie in with "variety"?

[quote=Harry923]Now please, get some friends [/quote]
How? Nobody wants to chat. Not even my own guild really.

@Timothy
I've played since open beta and I prefer now than before. The best thing about the pre big bang era was the ease of socialization. Other than that, the game didn't really offer much. Now, the game has so much content it's crazy. And you know what, people lack the social aspect of the game, but I keep it alive for my own experience. The game may have driven people to be more of a solo player, but it's still possible to oppose that kind of play style.

[quote=CherryTigers]Old maplestory: no variety in equips. No drive or motivation to improve. The game was so dead boring people just gave up training and started socializing. That's why the "social aspect" of the game used to be huge.

Nowadays, there's actually more things to do. [/b]There's a drive and a motivation now because if you do stuff, you can actually improve. If you want to get to a high level or get rich, you CAN if you try hard and work hard.[/b] Because of variety, the game has more diversity and more options. It's not a bland, dull, stand-still game that has no ways of improvement.

I believe the most important part of an MMORPG is the aspect of improving your little pixelated character that runs across the screen. (Mine is running around with bubbles) With this in mind, the current version of Maple fits my criteria. Yes, there's always going to be flaws with this, but all-in-all, I don't expect perfection from Nexon so I just play the game and have fun where I can.

The game's evolved, for better or worse? I guess that depends on your opinion. I believe Nexon picked the best of both worlds. They get lots of $$$$$ from our cubing, and we have more variety and a drive to improve in the game.[/quote]

Thats why this game became a huge turn off for many players. Most people would not spend few hours a day to make meso to get good equips because its very time inefficient. You might as well get a minimum wage job and spend it all on MS to be more time efficient in terms of funding your character.

Thread title is really stupid, Yes it's still an MMO everyone just has the "Kirito" Syndrome.

[quote=Timothy]Maplestory was better back in the day, you're just saying it sucked because you never played back then.[/quote]

Nothing was better back then, you're just wearing your rose tinted nostalgia glasses.

@Timothy Just because people don't agree, doesn't mean they didn't play back then. I played since 2005 and things that happened through the years were both good and bad. If they kept the old MapleStory from before BigBang, I would have quit playing already.

@maplestorysux Haha, good one!

[quote=Timothy]Maplestory was better back in the day, you're just saying it sucked because you never played back then.[/quote]

I have a mark of the beta on my cousin's old account.

Yes, because MMORPG stands for [b]M[/b]ostly [b]M[/b]en [b]O[/b]nline [b]R[/b]ole [b]P[/b]laying [b]G[/b]irls.

Old maplestory: no variety in equips. No drive or motivation to improve. The game was so dead boring people just gave up training and started socializing. That's why the "social aspect" of the game used to be huge.

Nowadays, there's actually more things to do. There's a drive and a motivation now because if you do stuff, you can [i]actually[/i] improve. If you want to get to a high level or get rich, you CAN if you try hard and work hard. Because of variety, the game has more diversity and more options. It's not a bland, dull, stand-still game that has no ways of improvement.

I believe the most important part of an MMORPG is the aspect of improving your little pixelated character that runs across the screen. (Mine is running around with bubbles) With this in mind, the current version of Maple fits my criteria. Yes, there's always going to be flaws with this, but all-in-all, I don't expect perfection from Nexon so I just play the game and have fun where I can.

The game's evolved, for better or worse? I guess that depends on your opinion. I believe Nexon picked the best of both worlds. They get lots of $$$$$ from our cubing, and we have more variety and a drive to improve in the game.

It's a pretty fun Mmorpg due to the vast class selection. But it gets boring after a while from grinding like most rpgs.

It used to be an MMO, now it's just a spoonfed game.

not really. Doesn't mmorpg mean MASSIVELY MULTI online role playing? The role playing is still in but ain't nobody really plays anymore. I mean, we are getting more server merges next month. I think that speaks volumes about the current population. Whenever I used to log in at night (between 8pm-3am est) on weekends (no 2x) I'd find a person in GAZED maybe every ten minutes.

To add onto things, you don't even need to be with other people for it to be a MMO. I think that there's group playing, there's solo, and there's true solo. I used to try and do things in a true solo way. No PQs, no talking to other characters, and sticking to unpopulated channels (even now I always go to ch19 - it's just become a habit). I think that I do a lot of things on my own still, but it's more like a gauge. One of my friends is significantly weaker than I am, and is unable to do bosses that I can solo on their own, so I accompany them to kill bosses sometimes so I know that the two of us can't fail... I guess I play solo so I know I can play with others easily, if that makes any sense.

Massively Multi Online Role Playing, doesn't mean that you need team work. I don't know where you got the idea of MMO has a meaning of teamwork.

Technically yes. And I assume you belong to the unfunded group.
I can see that you have complaints about it by your choice of words and grammar.

This is my answer, MapleStory's gap between unfunded and funded became large. So did our real world, difference of poor and rich.
People make the game and play the game, it is and was something unavoidable because we needed to make a win win system. The reason is Nexon needed to give a true advantage to NX purchasers.
Giving no advantage means less purchase and lesser purchase means no sufficient imcome to run the game.

And as for bossing, before, killing the boss itself was the achievement but nowadays the solo speed is the achievement.
Like you said, there are lots of unfunded people so am I.
I recommend getting friends to go together, I myself still gather friends to go on an expedition because I can't solo them or simply because
we are together.

Now please, get some friends

I dont know what you are asking
Please check what MMORPG means

MMORPG doesn't mean everything has to be done together. Runescape is an MMORPG but their combat system is single player based. I think MS is what you make of it. I've met a lot of long time friends on MS, because you find people you mesh with. That, in my opinion, is what should really define an MMORPG; the community. It sounds sappy but I think you can relate it to any big game really.