31/1 - Characters' max level is increased to 250!

All of these posts simply underscore my point that this game has evolved into exactly what Americans want these days: entertainment with instant gratification.

More like people shouldn't have to devote their entire life to a game sitting on a computer all day for months to start to enjoy its content. It is not an accomplishment just being able to sit on your ass for long amounts of time.

Yeah, training for 12+ hours a day for three months straight is boring at times,

Not to mention extremely unhealthy and an obvious obsession.

but you know what made it not? Talking with friends on Ventrilo/Skype. Watching T.V. or movies while cycling and OHKOing a map. Yeah it would get repetitive, but there's a certain peacefulness in the humdrum of routine.

The fact that you have to do something else entirely while playing a game to enjoy it shows there is an issue with the entire damn system.

Welcome to life, kids.

Are you actually comparing grinding on MapleStory to life?

Life doesn't give you a job for two hours, upon the completion of which you'll earn thousands of dollars and be able to go on a vacation for a week.

Life also doesn't entail working for 12 hours so you can pay your boss to work 12 more hours even more efficiently for little to no reward.

Life is all about dedicating enormous amounts of time doing much of the same tasks so you can survive, and if you're smart enough, work hard enough, know who you are and what you love and are ambitious enough to get it, you'll find a career and a life for yourself that, while perhaps boring and repetitive to others, are engaging, interesting, and worthwhile to you.

Am I the only one finding an issue with how much you make MapleStory out to be a lifestyle? Am I the only one who finds an issue with the fact that MapleStory HAD to be a lifestyle to get to decent leveled content at any time?

So in addition to meeting some incredible people I'm beyond glad to still call great friends today, grinding to 200 on MapleStory when it actually took time and effort taught me a few other indispensable life lessons: patience, resolve, and the humble understanding

You had to learn that from playing a game?

that to accomplish something truly great and impressive in this world, be it on a virtual pedestal or worthy of a Nobel Prize, it takes tremendous amounts of time, effort, and dedication. You can't just call it "boring" and give up after two hours, unless your desired destination is nowhere.

I'm not downing your accomplishment at all here. As someone who's played since beta, I know how hard it was compared to today and am proud of how far I got. Hell, I didn't even have the knowledge a lot of my fellow archmages, or rather, wizards had about the game. DoT training was a subject that was laughed at by the community, nor did we had the maps or insane mobbing skills that almost catered the players, specifically Ultimate spamming Archs and Bishops, that 4th job gave to you. Hell, x2 cards didn't even exist until 07. I don't need someone, especially a ranking system that Nexon does such a poor job of maintaining, to tell me I accomplished something.
While games should take an effort on to get somewhere, however, they should not take an effort to play. That was the biggest problem with Maple during pre-BB times, you had to work insanely hard to enjoy what little content there is. While we all had our reasons to stay at the time, be it friends, artwork, or just plain addiction, MapleStory was, is, and always will be an extremely flawed game.

Furthermore, since you insist on comparing Maple Story to real life, I want to point out something; the only constant in life is change. As life goes on, we as people grow and develop. What was an accomplishment 30 years ago is more than likely laughed at by experts in whatever field that accomplishment was today. When times change, you have to rise up to the challenge to meet those changes or get left behind. That's what life is, and what is happening here.