How many people are REALLY still playing Maplestory?

I don't think you remember why this whole discussion started.

1. You stated the storyline sucked. (Opinion)
2. I came in and clarified it was an opinion.
3. Apparently it's fact because people ("majority") hate the game. (Which still makes point one an opinion. That doesn't change anything.)

Okay... so you keep slamming down on the "people hate this game, so it clearly sucks" idea. Which I may agreeing happens, however, you can't just throw the entire playerbase that left as people whom are like that... Unless you're willing to get some data that proves that you're correct on the matter.

If they actually enjoyed the changes than that population would still be playing and grabbing newcomers.

If the lore was any good, people would still be researching and graphing it out to understand it.

What data do you want? Interviews with the entire population that left? How about all the forums where thousands of players over the years have voiced their complaints about how nexon has become a joke. How about the fact the highest population related to maplestory for a forum is a hacking forum.

Do you want to talk about how many people quit after they got hacked from the database leak, how many quit after being falsely permabanned?

Your argument is "Not all apply@@@", is absolutely shallow and tries to distract that the majority have quit for these reasons, the real hardcore players who spent thousands of dollars even play private servers over GMS, since private servers actually make the changes they want. Want evidence of that? How about the #1 private server hosting twice as many players as GMS.