ProjectOMS

For example, I look back to playing beta and the great friends I made for the first few years of MapleStory before Big Bang. Yes, you were forced to be more creative as there weren't as many features, and yes, the game was more challenging. But, I never got a character past level 75 until Big Bang. Perhaps I wasn't driven enough, or smart enough to get to a higher level. But, there were many people like me who couldn't level without 2x cards and the EXP curve was brutal and as a result, tons of players went to private servers. Big Bang, coupled with Nexon's legal onslaught, helped to eliminate that "threat."

That being said, I absolutely loved Big Bang, the new UI, and the new EXP curves. What I don't like, like a lot of people here, is the pay2win model Nexon has adopted and the ridiculously confused and broken economy within the game. The lack of the social focus of the game, which for all we know was a happy accident as there just wasn't enough to do in the game for the first few years other than grind or PQ, so those who weren't into SoloStory (and it was much harder to be solo if you weren't a machine) socialized to kill time and to enjoy the game. That was done more out of necessity than by design, in my opinion. Yes, the days of Kerning PQ were exciting and, here's the word again, "magical," but being able to actually feel like you were progressing in the game without spending most of your time grinding after Big Bang was a great feeling.

Nah. It's been said many times before in much more eloquent ways, but it really was by design. Many of the things that people view today as "inconvenient" were intentionally put in place to nudge players into interacting, socializing, and cooperating with each other. Now that most of those things have either been outright removed, made ineffective through the introduction of indirect changes, or penalized to the point that solo play is the superior alternative.