Nostalgia of Pre-BigBang Maplestory

There'd be too much backpedaling, potential has damaged the game in such a way that I don't think any amount of changes can fix it, every time they release a new boss, some Angelic Buster or something with absurd equips is going to solo it in 10 seconds or less.

I'm still kind of banking on Supreme world. I know its not Pre-BB, but the massively increased difficulty could help to renew the social factor a bit, and the forced slower leveling (from having cooldowns on mob skills/dying in good training spots) will once again make seeing someone 100+ impressive. I hope.

I think you're right, sadly. Short of releasing 'MapleStory 2' and wiping all the accounts like they did once MapleGlobal beta ended, things are probably too far gone.

This. I am a competitive person, thats a defect I guess. During the years I played MS I did chat and had a lot of friends, but I also enjoyed grinding because it felt rewarding leveling up, knowing your char was getting stronger and competing for being among the top. Nowadays nothing matters, leveling is so easy that there's no pride on it other than self acomplishment, you can get to lvl 200 and be as noob as a lvl 10 character as long as you don't have NX. You don't need NX to play the game or to participate in many of the features the game has, but without NX you simply will always be bellow everyone else and althouh there are ways to get around it spending little money, the economy is so bad that it takes years.

There's no way I can play MS anymore other than casually. I just go on for a few days after a new update and check the new things they added, then go on with my life. I'm probably not the only one and thats why the speed and size of game updates has increased since the last couple years.

Agreed. I remember when the top five were talked about frequently and even stalked by players. Now, no one cares and level 200s are nothing special.

I'd be curious to know how other versions, particularly KMS, have matured over the years since they've seen a lot, if not all, the same changes as MapleGlobal. Do you guys think it's a cultural gap, or has KMS gone the way of GMS?