2013-05-28, 03:05 AM
I stopped playing just before Big Bang came out. I went back to peek at Maplestory in the past few weeks (and laughing at the fact I am 14x already). Especially relevant to this thread, I re-downloaded the game exactly because I was nostalgic (and had some free time on my hands). All I can compare therefore is exactly pre-Big Bang and picking up years of updates later 
Obviously I'm gonna be biased cuz I had a ton of people on Maple I enjoyed playing with before. Full buddy lists, guild, the works. And that was, as most people have said here, definitely the highlight of the game. Sure, I did feed the Nexon-machine with way too much NX to help make the leveling less painful, and eventually just gave up on leveling in the 16x-17x range. It didn't matter, there wasn't this huge pressure to get to 200. I basically logged in to chat, and to do boss runs/help organize HT runs. I had a lot of little chars and did PQs on a lot of them. Loved Carnival PQ, very sad it's not available in some way anymore. I didn't even re-log in to old accounts for a while because I wanted to leave them preserved as a happy memory (cheesy yes).
When I did log in finally, no one in my old guild was online, no one on my BL was either. It was just a "meh" moment and off I went. Better to just leave it intact. Best things about pre-BB were the PQs (and that you could find people willing to do them with you!), and better sense of community. So many awesome PQs! LudiPQ, CPQ, Guild PQ! Crimson?PQ. Also, when I quit I can't remember if anyone had killed PB yet, or if it had just started. Anyway, I liked going to these bosses with the parties as if u were actually a team working together....what is this soloing zak business now? D:
Contrast with now...nobody really wants to chat or have much to do with you other than R>LHC/HOH/whatever newfangled training maps there are now (I went through some of these levels blissfully unaware of "jesters" or "aliens" LOL). All most people seem to want to do is level or buy stuff with their oodles of NX. Damage is everything, people seem to be very judgy based on the dmg numbers. In my past experience, I felt people used to want to do stuff together and help each other out, very little of that sense now. This has turned me off so much that I haven't actually trained at this LHC thing lol. It's telling that I haven't dropped a cent on NX since coming back and don't see much incentive to. Sometimes I wish I hadn't started playing again because I feel like it's ruined my happy nostalgia! The only thing I remember thinking "damn this is exactly as I remember it" was the zakum jump quest haha.
Summary of Pre-Big Bang highlights for me:
Obviously I'm gonna be biased cuz I had a ton of people on Maple I enjoyed playing with before. Full buddy lists, guild, the works. And that was, as most people have said here, definitely the highlight of the game. Sure, I did feed the Nexon-machine with way too much NX to help make the leveling less painful, and eventually just gave up on leveling in the 16x-17x range. It didn't matter, there wasn't this huge pressure to get to 200. I basically logged in to chat, and to do boss runs/help organize HT runs. I had a lot of little chars and did PQs on a lot of them. Loved Carnival PQ, very sad it's not available in some way anymore. I didn't even re-log in to old accounts for a while because I wanted to leave them preserved as a happy memory (cheesy yes).
When I did log in finally, no one in my old guild was online, no one on my BL was either. It was just a "meh" moment and off I went. Better to just leave it intact. Best things about pre-BB were the PQs (and that you could find people willing to do them with you!), and better sense of community. So many awesome PQs! LudiPQ, CPQ, Guild PQ! Crimson?PQ. Also, when I quit I can't remember if anyone had killed PB yet, or if it had just started. Anyway, I liked going to these bosses with the parties as if u were actually a team working together....what is this soloing zak business now? D:Contrast with now...nobody really wants to chat or have much to do with you other than R>LHC/HOH/whatever newfangled training maps there are now (I went through some of these levels blissfully unaware of "jesters" or "aliens" LOL). All most people seem to want to do is level or buy stuff with their oodles of NX. Damage is everything, people seem to be very judgy based on the dmg numbers. In my past experience, I felt people used to want to do stuff together and help each other out, very little of that sense now. This has turned me off so much that I haven't actually trained at this LHC thing lol. It's telling that I haven't dropped a cent on NX since coming back and don't see much incentive to. Sometimes I wish I hadn't started playing again because I feel like it's ruined my happy nostalgia!
The only thing I remember thinking "damn this is exactly as I remember it" was the zakum jump quest haha. Summary of Pre-Big Bang highlights for me:
- Party Quests
- Full Bossing Parties
- Friendlier Community