>>82979386Back when it released, it was an amazing game with a thriving community-focused playerbase.
Then it went to shit with the Big Bang, with Maplestory introducing huge P2W mechanics and causing a large majority of the playerbase to leave.
Not many people realize, but there was an even WORSE update following this called the RED update, which fucked over MANY classes and changed a lot of established maps and rules (which is also the time when the old director of Maplestory switched hands, going from "balancing to prevent power creep" to "lets just make everyone stronger even though we don't know how our own classes play").
These two huge updates have definitely left scars on the game -- Big Bang moreso than RED -- but they've been recovering from them since then. Nowadays the game's unironically better than it used to be with the biggest difference being that the community-focused playerbase is now in the level 265 - level 285 range due to Nexon NEVER fixing the power-creep problem.
>>82979451Ironically, 2024 has been the best time in Maplestory's history outside of it officially launching to get back into the game for GMS.
>Brand-new Reboot server (Reboot = You can't trade and things like teleport rocks and cubes can be bought with meso; you also get a huge permanent passive buff to your damage)>P2W mechanics have been side-lined into Interactive servers or outright removed>Nexon announced a splintering of focus between KMS and GMS, meaning KMS content will still drip over to GMS but GMS will have its own director for creating GMS-focused content (for the first time in the game's history)>There are events going on right now to help new players and returning players actually LEARN the important mechanics of the game, as well as level up (they provide items for you along the way as part of the event)There's a few other things, but basically Maplestory has long since redeemed itself but it's absolutely not the game you're used to if you played pre-Big Bang and never saw anything about the game since. See:
https://youtu.be/8CrTl6ohtbw 