The fatal flaw with the current business model.

I Actually never had more than one account and don't really pay much to win either, after i spent some money on some perm pets and perm pet equips and perm hyper rock etc. for my main and a few upgrades i stopped. Yes the everything is a bit tedious and i agree with the person that said one of the most annoying things in the game in looting. I myself only realised how much easier it is to do everything with a little pet loot and being able to teleport to any map at a very late stage in my 6+ years of playing.

>Years of playing

Do you know how ridiculous that is, that you have to play years to get these opportunities just to looting/healing less tedious, or being able to move through, downright useless maps. on one character, not account, character, It's stupid. Nexon's very model is a contradiction, they focus on getting people to make some type of charge, being dependent on the high turn over rate, yet discourage players who start, and you can see that with the population dips.

That being said the game wouldn't be what it is to me without all the pay to upgrade stuff in it, even though i don't pay for much, I barely have 131k on my phantom with nothing more than 3% luk at least on each empress set which was bought when empress was low. Most i paid for was a few cubes for each item and luckily i got my card to legendary in 10 cubes. But back on topic, the game is a business, it's there to make money, no one is forcing us to pay to play it, people choose to and that's fine, but at some point they have to realise that it's a waste of money to spending thousands, but in the end that's their choice, without them keeping the game afloat i wouldn't have this game to play lol. At this stage in the game, it's going to be hard to impossible to switch to different method of making money without losing what they gain from it currently.

Honestly the reason i think most people who play it enjoy how hard it is to get where you want, the game makes you work for it, and you feel accomplished when you finally get there, let's be real, how long would you stick around in any mmo or game where you can get everything in a couple of weeks and kill all the bosses? Unless they release new content to CHALLENGE you every few weeks there would be nothing to keep people around for as long as we have been here which is a couple years. There isn't any game i have played (unless you count dota) which I have played over the last 10 years consistently (unless you count dota 2 lawl), because games honestly have a shelf life of content that expires pretty fast for any gamer. Maplestory is different in that regard in that it forces you to dedicate either alot of time or money to get what you want and then some. You just have to decide where your cut off point is. I'm quite happy building up my phantom bit by bit without spending large sums my only next investment will be shield scrolls to scroll my cane with 50s and hoping to be able to solo pink bean soon.

This argument is the biggest fallacy, in fact, the top 3 that Nexon white knights jump too. "I'm a business, I need money, I'm justified to charge you out of your ass". Nexon wasn't exactly struggling until 2010 hit then they finally made a profit. Gachapon, smega's, pets, clothes, safety charms and the 2x cards. They all made profit. Unfortunately they weren't made public until 2011. However they claim they were making 30 million by 2007. I want you to think about that, 30 million, based on what nx items? The ones I frekin listed. Granted that includes combat arms and mabigoni or however you spell it.

You're right though, business' should be focused on increasing that net gain profit, but when your player base has almost been at a constant static for the last 2 years, I feel as though there should be some encouragement for those who just have to get started. The work you suggest is absurd, it's a second full time job, you're working months to years just to experience the full potential of the class you selected, that doesn't even include gear. The proportions are completely unreasonable, and for anyone should go to any extreme from "Oh you just want hand outs" to "Oh, work for a few months to get your level 20 skill book!" is asinine. As a player, if I want a pet, it should take me a days worth of questing/farming or something to gain it. If I want some wheels of destiny, there should be some generic repeatable quest for me to gain 5 a day, if I want miracle cubes, there should be some type of in game drop rate for me to attempt to farm them. These items are not "optional" they quickly become staples to actually gain a decent net profit from bossing, assuming you can afford the nx and time to get a shop up.

When a game suggests that you struggle for months just to make the very basic skill mastery of your character when you could probably spend a week of a minimum wage paycheck, it's no wonder people jump the nx train. Then you have to make how many link characters? How many of them have nx transferable items? How many items can you reuse without karma scissoring? I mean it's like paying a fee just to use items you rightfully own, that you rightfully worked for. Not only do you spend months doing it, even years, making this one piece of equipment and they charge you to reuse it. It really isn't about discipline anymore, to resist this urge to be lazy, it's about common sense. You aren't going to struggle, wasting hours to progress for half a percent, in comparison to someone who spends $50 and progress' 18%+.