2016-03-03, 02:50 AM
maplefreak26 Wrote:Although I would like to see a new area that can be visited and has a main town with NPCs alongside some quests like the days of old; I do consider this to be a real update to Masteria.
Blockbuster content is filled with lore and goes into heavy detail. I honestly don't think NxProse would have gone to great lengths to have content produced for past Masteria; I think he would focus moreso on present day Masteria and expand onto Versal and (present-day) Krakia. The past would have probably been explained by a quick cutscene and through a lot of NPC text.
I greatly enjoy blockbusters, from Black Heaven to Heroes of Maple. The stories are nice adventures and they have a lot of amazing mechanics that we don't see in the main game, like from the one act of Heroes of Maple I played, the fight with the snow spider that crawls around on the ceiling which was quite enjoyable. Ultimately, I find this to be an issue, the increasing amount of blockbusters. Blockbusters would be really nice expansions to the game, but in reality, they aren't actually expansions. From a narrative perspective, yeah, it's great way to tell a story, but from a content perspective, I feel that it's somewhat lazy and cautious, cheap even. It's like, just a step above something like Skyrim's Radiant Quest system (which randomly generates quests, including the objectives and NPCs involved), it gives you the illusion of content; at least a blockbuster offers additional information, but at the same time, like a radiant quest, it doesn't majorly affect the game in a huge way because it's not actually integrated into the actual game. They could close it off one day and have to do nothing more than just taking out the NPC that let you access it in the first place, and nothing will have changed. The other issue with blockbusters is that so far they've been solo adventures. I tend to play alone, so I guess it's not a huge problem from, but MapleStory is an MMO, and some of the best content in the game shouldn't be locked in episodic, solo adventures. It's very much like Monster Life or FriendStory, I think, in that, it's basically a game within a game, like playing a solo RPG from within Maple.
Masteria is better than that. Like when Phantom Forest came out. I was so lost, but I was lost with other people. There were things to unlock, like Mo's shop, Joko's badge exchange, the Phantom Forest map, the Marker of Heroism. I realize it actually not all that different, but it felt different, it actually felt like I had some effect on the world, or at least, what I could access in the world, there was progression, you know? I guess, there is some sense of progression in doing blockbusters as well, but it feels more localized, and then you can just reset each act as well, just wipe out your progress like it was nothing.
A blockbuster is probably the best way to explore past Masteria, I admit, since it's more interactive than just hearing the story from an NPC and I don't mind if they end up making some retcons, especially not if they continue working on it. Plus, it's safe for them, like I said above, blockbusters have little effect on the game world (assuming this one doesn't as well, of course), and I think they're hesitant to really change Masteria after the alien invasion fiasco. But a past Masteria blockbuster ranks quite low for me compared to a proper expansion to the current Masteria, since I've already had lingering issues with blockbusters, great narrative content aside, combined with the extended length of time without a proper expansion, this has just turned into disappointment for me.