Nostalgia of Pre-BigBang Maplestory

I hated pre-BB maplestory. You grind and grind, only to grind some more. You might break it with PQs, and beating a boss felt like something, but game mechanics were so basic and controls so floaty that you never really felt directly in control but rather like you pressed a button and something just happened. The community is not the fault of the Big Bang, nor is the power creep. Those things were inevitable for a f2p MMORPG, all of those went through a rough start, a smooth "we sorta know what we're doing" period, and eventually went to pomegranate. Maplestory Nostalgia is stupid, because really, Big Bang meant you got more done and actually felt like you were making progress.

The only good thing about pre-BB in the game itself was the old cursor and relative untouchability of bosses. Community vs. Updates is a matter of Correlation vs. Causation. People don't like change, no matter how great.

Paying players had an advantage since they introduced exp and drop cards; exp doubling your meager experience (decent being 3% an hour, amazing being 5% an hour) and drop being able to more than triple income by farmnig rare items along with the increased mesos themselves.

So, maplestory is basically a wavy line; it was bad at some points, good at others, relatively unpredictable and generally not that excellent compared to other f2p MMORPGs like Rift or Everquest or Torchlight.