Nostalgia of Pre-BigBang Maplestory

The one thing I liked and miss the most of pre-BB Maple was the sense of adventure the game had back then. None of this "choose class, teleport to training spot and grind your ass off until you get tired". Back then going around exploring maps was not a "waste of time" as some people might label it nowadays, back then it was part of the gaming experience. You level, and besides getting more powerful you also "unlock" new areas to explore and train in without getting yourself slaughtered. *Gasp* Incentive to playing!

And that's one other thing that Maple lost. You COULD go explore any places you wanted at any level if you wanted but the risk of dying was pretty high. There was a sense of danger, and I remember fondly those times when I tried to reach the end of Ant Tunnel with my trusty lvl 20ish warrior. Or when I got stuck at Sleepywood right after leaving Maple Island until a kindred soul helped me get out of there (seriously, the whole Sleepywood dungeon back then was genius).

Anyway. What else I remember fondly? Looking for Hidden Streets. Falling on the Golem pit. Running from the Iron Pig. Grinding and chilling(to recover MP) at the Slime Tree. Taunting Crimson Balrog-t.

Yep, I miss the adventure and sense of danger that accompanied it.

To this day, I still don't understand why Nexon decided to "standardize" the stats of every monster nerfing them to hell in the process (my biggest beef with BB). Not like it really matters now, cuz potential.

You can still do all of that, you know. It's not written anywhere that in order to play Maple you have to grind at a particular map for x amount of levels.

I still find enjoyment in doing the very things I used to do before BigBang. I explore higher level maps on my characters, take on monsters I have no place taking on, and doing party quests with random folk for fun rather than XP.