Nostalgia of Pre-BigBang Maplestory

I've played since May 2005, when I was introduced to the beta version of MapleGlobal by my friend across the street. I too, like everyone in this thread, remember as the OP put it, the 'resourcefulness' and 'dedication' of the pre-BB MapleStory.

Ironically, the biggest complaint before BB was leveling. Now, everyone is complaining that it's too easy to level. I don't think that it's necessarily the ease in which you can level these days, but that the changes made post-BB have made interactions with other players less vital and important. There were always 'grinders' who would grind silently for hours at a time to level. For those of us (the majority of people) who didn't enjoy grinding, friendships and relationships were much more important.

I remember the day MapleGlobal Beta closed and the official version began like it was yesterday. I'm not sure if any of you who joined after beta would be interested in reading more about it, if so I'm working on an article for Maple-News if I can dig up some old screen shots on my 2000 Compaq computer I have stashed away with screen shots from beta and the early years of MapleStory up to 2006. Back then, there wasn't even Ossyria. There weren't cash items. For fun, my friends and I would go to Lith Harbor and buy the cheap beginner clothing and pretend they were cash items and do whatever we could to look unique when there were only a few hairstyles, colors, and faces available when creating a character.

I remember seeing my first 'high leveled' character in 2005. His IGN was joeyjai and he was a level 66 bandit. I also have a screen shot of Tiger I took when he was level 74. Back then, and it could have been that I was still pretty young, leveling really wasn't considered the end-all-be-all. Everyone was so new to the game that we would explore every map in Perion, Sleepywood, and Elinia. Every hidden street was considered a new discovery. Level 30 was considered a big deal. I remember at one point, when I still had friends I knew from my local town who played, we would play the game together well into the night trying to get to level 30 on our magicians, warriors, bowmen, and thieves...messing up our stats of course! Things changed with Ossyria, but we loved it. Once the Cash Shop came along, we embraced the new looks we could get. I remember when they put the beta version of the Cash Shop up and you could only buy items that lasted 2 weeks!



Every player was different, but I certainly felt less pressure to achieve a certain level than there is now. Getting '1337 damage' and godly items wasn't even thought of. It was much more about the people you met, the friendships your forged, and the goals you achieved together. Guilds were different then. They were a community. It wasn't about connections for parties, but about meeting new people and going on adventures together. We would hunt monsters in a party just for the hell of it, not for EXP. We would have guild meet ups, guild events, and started guild websites because we were passionate. Fan Sites were thriving. Forums were thriving. I started Maple-News in 2007 after I was inspired by the fan sites and forums I was a part of. People wanted to be part of communities just to meet people. The selling boards were actively used marketplaces, even after the FM stores came to pass.

Things have changed not only in the game but on the Internet since that time. Facebook and social media is now huge, and although one would think that would encourage even more participation in the fan site communities, they seem to be dwindling. I was once someone who was passionate about the game. Someone who, even when friends quit and things happened in the game that would make people quit, I kept moving on just like a lot of you here. But now, as is evident by this forum topic, a lot of us are losing that will - or have already lost it. We can speculate all we want about why we feel the game has died or has lost that spark that interested so many of us. Maybe we have just grown out of it and cannot recapture the nostalgic idea of what the game 'used to be'. Maybe we have put it on an untouchable pedestal that is so high above us that we can only make out the largest features of the game - the ones we choose to see. Maybe we all need to move on.

Everyone's experience is different, there's no denying that. However, I think we have all felt a shift in the dynamics of the game. Nexon doles out tons of events, most of which are unimaginative and uninteresting, in the vain attempt at keeping the game going. They boast about quarterly profits and their users, but who knows if that is accurate. It can't be. Nexon has lost sight of what made the game great - the community. They fail to connect with players and fan sites except when it is convenient or benefits them. They are completely clueless, and I think we have them to thank for the way the game has dwindled. Perhaps they're just not as motivated as they once were...perhaps their heart isn't in it anymore. Who knows.

I guess we all have to make the decision if we want to continue on and try and forge new friendships and new experiences, or if it is better to remember what once was.

^ Savage knows what's up

I came on here just to look for one of these threads! I miss Maplestory so much. It was beautiful. I don't think anything else in my life has been more fun than the times I spent on Maplestory with my buddies. I sound like a complete loser lol, but I had more than a fair share of wild times in college and I still stand by this statement. The game is chock-full of fond memories for me.

On to what I miss! I hardly played after Big-Bang, so I'm going to be incredibly biased ofc.

• I miss the community before Big-Bang. So much easier to strike up conversations with random people. Nowadays, people are relatively aloof and preoccupied with the game. Or AFK all the time. I know, I know, somebody is going to disagree with this sweeping generalization, but I'll just insist you're in denial over the death of our beloved game
  
• Before they added the Ereve ferry, the Orbis boat was one of my favorite parts of the game. New faces all the time (but not really because they were all Face 1,2, or 3, haha)! Ahhh sometimes I'd go back and forth just to play Omok or show off my damage when the CRogs came (aka stroking my ego with wild reactions from newbies).
  
• Ludi PQ. Great times . Had a Ludi PQ mule at 50 just for the fun. When I got a great party (by great I mean friendly and interesting people), we'd go all night.
  
• Guild PQ... soooo fun. Most of the time, I sat out during bonus because I didn't care about the rewards.
  
• Training at Grims! I liked it for some reason . Maybe I'd be singing a different tune if I was a MG-less cleric though. Warriors had plenty of time to talk in chat.
  The other Ludi maps were fun too, especially MDT and DT. Aqua Road was okay too. I didn't like Leafre because everybody was 1-3 hitting everything... I guess I just wasn't pro enough during Ludi and Aqua to do that
  
• Decorating trees at Happyville.
  
• Ch. 7 FM whoring (Scania)
  
• Oh yeah, Perion CH 1 "FM"
  
• MUSHMOM
  

What I don't miss:

• Getting KSed at zombies on my warrior accounts. Getting KSed in general I guess, but it was much more frustrating when maps were hard to come by
  
• Seeing hackers on every channel in the Ludi maps... this was during the time there was a hacker in the top 5 in Bera (Deap I think?). It just felt like Wizet was turning a blind eye to hackers. That period was the only time I cared about vac hackers.
  
• Those crazy hacks that were insanely unfair: Zakum JQ warp, PG hack, etc. Mainly hated how long it took for Wizet/Nexon to handle these things
  

I'm sure there's much more to these lists that I'm forgetting now. I wish my dad didn't sell the computer with all my screenshots ;__;
If they did a reboot of the entire game, I'd jump on playing it. I feel like some of the closest friendships I've ever had were on Maplestory

I stopped playing just before Big Bang came out. I went back to peek at Maplestory in the past few weeks (and laughing at the fact I am 14x already). Especially relevant to this thread, I re-downloaded the game exactly because I was nostalgic (and had some free time on my hands). All I can compare therefore is exactly pre-Big Bang and picking up years of updates later

Obviously I'm gonna be biased cuz I had a ton of people on Maple I enjoyed playing with before. Full buddy lists, guild, the works. And that was, as most people have said here, definitely the highlight of the game. Sure, I did feed the Nexon-machine with way too much NX to help make the leveling less painful, and eventually just gave up on leveling in the 16x-17x range. It didn't matter, there wasn't this huge pressure to get to 200. I basically logged in to chat, and to do boss runs/help organize HT runs. I had a lot of little chars and did PQs on a lot of them. Loved Carnival PQ, very sad it's not available in some way anymore. I didn't even re-log in to old accounts for a while because I wanted to leave them preserved as a happy memory (cheesy yes). When I did log in finally, no one in my old guild was online, no one on my BL was either. It was just a "meh" moment and off I went. Better to just leave it intact. Best things about pre-BB were the PQs (and that you could find people willing to do them with you!), and better sense of community. So many awesome PQs! LudiPQ, CPQ, Guild PQ! Crimson?PQ. Also, when I quit I can't remember if anyone had killed PB yet, or if it had just started. Anyway, I liked going to these bosses with the parties as if u were actually a team working together....what is this soloing zak business now? D:

Contrast with now...nobody really wants to chat or have much to do with you other than R>LHC/HOH/whatever newfangled training maps there are now (I went through some of these levels blissfully unaware of "jesters" or "aliens" LOL). All most people seem to want to do is level or buy stuff with their oodles of NX. Damage is everything, people seem to be very judgy based on the dmg numbers. In my past experience, I felt people used to want to do stuff together and help each other out, very little of that sense now. This has turned me off so much that I haven't actually trained at this LHC thing lol. It's telling that I haven't dropped a cent on NX since coming back and don't see much incentive to. Sometimes I wish I hadn't started playing again because I feel like it's ruined my happy nostalgia! The only thing I remember thinking "damn this is exactly as I remember it" was the zakum jump quest haha.

Summary of Pre-Big Bang highlights for me:

• Party Quests
  
• Full Bossing Parties
  
• Friendlier Community
  

Contrast with now...nobody really wants to chat or have much to do with you other than R>LHC/HOH/whatever newfangled training maps there are now (I went through some of these levels blissfully unaware of "jesters" or "aliens" LOL). All most people seem to want to do is level or buy stuff with their oodles of NX.

That's the change I feel as though is the biggest. The only way you get conversations with people is if you attack their ego or smega a lot.

Seeing hackers on every channel in the Ludi maps... this was during the time there was a hacker in the top 5 in Bera (Deap I think?). It just felt like Wizet was turning a blind eye to hackers. That period was the only time I cared about vac hackers.

As opposed to hackers on every aliens map.

The biggest change since I started was losing friends. I stopped playing gms because everyone I knew didn't play anymore. Scores of people who logged in daily dwindled into 2 or 3 people.

The other big change is the fact that everything is so much faster now. Attack skills used to be like twice as long as they are now. PQs used to last 10-25 minutes (lpq was the main offender). Everyone and their mother has flash jump, excluding my two favorite classes (viper/mechanic). Everyone has max speed and jump by default. Things that used to be large events with as many as 30 people and much preparation are now solo ventures on a whim (zakum/horntail).

And the one that upsets me daily is the inequality gap. Can't boss? Invite your friend who does 50m dps. Oh, you know that boss empress that would require 100 of you to kill? That one guy soloed it.

My favorite moment that ever happened in gms was when NLC came out. Nobody got the chance to explore it before us, it didn't come straight from kms, it was a gigantic surprise because nobody knew what was to come. "Have you been to wolf spiders yet?" "No, what the hell is that?" "FOLLOW ME, WE'RE GOING ON AN ADVENTURE!"

I remember my friend calling my house saying get on no one is KPQing right now and we can get in and out as much as we wanted. Got from like 22 to 30 that night straight up with friends from JHS until like 4am. Those were the nights. Had to mute my volume cause the "BOING" from getting the wrong combo was too loud and no one at home knew I was up that late.

"Someone go scout!"
"OMG GET IN GET IN!"
-screen turns black- :f6:
YEAH WE MADE IT IN... AGAIN!

My favorite moment that ever happened in gms was when NLC came out. Nobody got the chance to explore it before us, it didn't come straight from kms, it was a gigantic surprise because nobody knew what was to come. "Have you been to wolf spiders yet?" "No, what the hell is that?" "FOLLOW ME, WE'RE GOING ON AN ADVENTURE!"

This happened yeah, but sooner or later you knew all maps, and became a "veteran". Then when you were a "high level" (100+), there are some days when you'd be bored, an decided to help newbs at HHG or random maps to do their quests, or whatever, just to re-live the adventure.

Now level 100 takes less than a day, yeah.

As opposed to hackers on every aliens map.

I don't even know what aliens are. But yeah, from what I can see, the hacker problem is so much worse nowadays.
I guess I failed to mention that I wasn't trying to make a comparison between pre-BB and now. Just reminiscing.

This happened yeah, but sooner or later you knew all maps, and became a "veteran". Then when you were a "high level" (100+), there are some days when you'd be bored, an decided to help newbs at HHG or random maps to do their quests, or whatever, just to re-live the adventure.

Now level 100 takes less than a day, yeah.

That's why NLC was so special, because nobody knew the maps. People were still discovering stuff weeks later. The double-edged sword of having extractions these days; it sucks knowing what you're getting if it's better as a surprise.

I sometimes get the urge to play MS again but then I look at this picture and remind myself how broken and imbalanced it has become.

 Spoiler

Randomly Feeling Maple Nostalgic today.
More than anything else: It wasn't pay to win, not yet anyway.
It began with Hammers that gave you extra slots for NX, but most people pinpoint it at the Potential system, Big Bang was around the same time Maple really started cranking up the Pay to Win mentality.

I got my Shadower to 13x pre-BB, it took years of playing, but it was a fun journey. Now, getting a shadower to 13x is probably just an average weekend for modern players, oh well, I enjoyed the pomegranate out of it.

Edit: The lack of social aspects popped up in here too, and I think that can be at least partially attributed to the absurd difficulty and monotony of the game at the time, it actually made you want to talk to the people around you. Maple worked it into its favor, and as a result was probably the most social MMO I had ever played.

Edit: The lack of social aspects popped up in here too, and I think that can be at least partially attributed to the absurd difficulty and monotony of the game at the time, it actually made you want to talk to the people around you. Maple worked it into its favor, and as a result was probably the most social MMO I had ever played.

I already posted in this thread, but you brought up a really good point. I hadn't thought about the difficulty level as a motivator to be social, but thinking about it that's exactly what it did. It definitely forced people to be social, to make friends, and to work together in parties for training or PQs. You obviously always had those who would grind till all hours of the day and night, but the vast majority of players were very social. I suppose LHC was an attempt to get people to be social again, but more often than not people just have mule accounts or friends who leech them and there is very little 'party questing' going on.

I remember all too well the frustration of leveling, but when you got to a specific level it meant a lot. It was inspiring (and made people jealous) seeing higher level characters. I guess nowadays everyone just expects everything now. We have tele rocks, which are extremely convenient, but gone are the days of having to wait 10-30 minutes on a ship and running into the cabin before Crogs came out (if you went AFK, well, enjoy waiting another half hour!). That's pretty reflective on the way our culture has developed, and you can't necessarily fault Nexon for giving players what they wanted. I made a fan site because I enjoyed the game so much, but as of late, I have lost the motivation. Nexon doesn't give back to their fans or their players, unless they have something to gain by it whether it be promotion or some marketing scheme.

I think the question at the end of the day becomes: can this be fixed? It would be extremely difficult for Nexon to put stricter leveling restraints on players now that tons of people have gotten to 200 with the post-BB changes. Everyone who gives a pineapple about the game and is part of the community especially on forums and fan sites is looking at Nexon wondering, what the hell are you doing and can this be fixed? I fear that this may just be a generational gap and maybe we're all just too old. Who knows. What's strange is, there is a lot MapleStory has done right and I'm surprised that no one else has tried to take what MapleStory began and do it in a much more refined and intelligent way.

I already posted in this thread, but you brought up a really good point. I hadn't thought about the difficulty level as a motivator to be social, but thinking about it that's exactly what it did. It definitely forced people to be social, to make friends, and to work together in parties for training or PQs. You obviously always had those who would grind till all hours of the day and night, but the vast majority of players were very social. I suppose LHC was an attempt to get people to be social again, but more often than not people just have mule accounts or friends who leech them and there is very little 'party questing' going on.

I remember all too well the frustration of leveling, but when you got to a specific level it meant a lot. It was inspiring (and made people jealous) seeing higher level characters. I guess nowadays everyone just expects everything now. We have tele rocks, which are extremely convenient, but gone are the days of having to wait 10-30 minutes on a ship and running into the cabin before Crogs came out (if you went AFK, well, enjoy waiting another half hour!). That's pretty reflective on the way our culture has developed, and you can't necessarily fault Nexon for giving players what they wanted. I made a fan site because I enjoyed the game so much, but as of late, I have lost the motivation. Nexon doesn't give back to their fans or their players, unless they have something to gain by it whether it be promotion or some marketing scheme.

I think the question at the end of the day becomes: can this be fixed? It would be extremely difficult for Nexon to put stricter leveling restraints on players now that tons of people have gotten to 200 with the post-BB changes. Everyone who gives a pineapple about the game and is part of the community especially on forums and fan sites is looking at Nexon wondering, what the hell are you doing and can this be fixed? I fear that this may just be a generational gap and maybe we're all just too old. Who knows. What's strange is, there is a lot MapleStory has done right and I'm surprised that no one else has tried to take what MapleStory began and do it in a much more refined and intelligent way.

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 sometimes get the urge to play MS again but then I look at this picture and remind myself how broken and imbalanced it has become.

 Spoiler

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.

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?

I remember my friend calling my house saying get on no one is KPQing right now and we can get in and out as much as we wanted. Got from like 22 to 30 that night straight up with friends from JHS until like 4am. Those were the nights. Had to mute my volume cause the "BOING" from getting the wrong combo was too loud and no one at home knew I was up that late.

"Someone go scout!"
"OMG GET IN GET IN!"
-screen turns black- :f6:
YEAH WE MADE IT IN... AGAIN!

Oh my, the memories of "DEXLESS SIN WITH ILBIS J> PQ HAVE AC AND TRACK!"

I remember grinding for hours at green mushrooms for panlids.

Honestly, the only thing better about pre-BB maplestory was my friends.

YESSS I remember panlids, before Ludi and its fancy-aesthetically pleasing shields it was all about panlids

I remember my friend calling my house saying get on no one is KPQing right now and we can get in and out as much as we wanted. Got from like 22 to 30 that night straight up with friends from JHS until like 4am. Those were the nights. Had to mute my volume cause the "BOING" from getting the wrong combo was too loud and no one at home knew I was up that late.

"Someone go scout!"
"OMG GET IN GET IN!"
-screen turns black- :f6:
YEAH WE MADE IT IN... AGAIN!

Oh god, I had so many of those nights training my old perma beginner. They were so enjoyable even if the quests took forever.
For the most part, my beginner relied on party quests to level, and I made up for my crappy damage with godtier clicking skills and extensive knowledge of every quest out there. Me being a beginner would always get the party talking, and even if it was all bashing and mocking me it was still active discussion. I prefer heated debates and arguments over a bunch of robots going through the quests motions. Now the damage gap between people has become too massive for my beginner to kill ANYTHING and pqs are so simple/dead now no one needs him for anything.This is why I quit him when big bang hit... There are absolutely no upsides to being one now and as such he's retired.
But with the discussions I kept back then I try to keep this spirit now. I lead as many parties as I can and at LHC I motivate as many people as I possibly can to talk. In my short time in Broa I've already made many friends thanks to this. The social aspect is still there... you just have to work harder to break everyone out of their robot-like trance.

Tl; dr version- There is more stuff to do but the "heart" of maplestory is gone and there's no going back :/

Hi, I created an account simply to add my 2 cents to all of this, but just a bit of background.

I was a player way back in...I think 2006? It was around the time when the old blue gem cursor was in use and I don't think FM was in any use at the time (apart from perion). I picked Broa because a IRL friend started playing there and I think it was the newest server at the time. I played on and off, usually only in the summer so I guess I was casual player of sorts. Pre big bang, the highest level I ever got to was 7x (a ranger called Mitzyfizz, hola if anyone here knows me, I'd be very surprised!) and even when I had reached that level it was still somewhat easy thanks to LMPQ (although I rarely did use it in my defence, I preferred grinding/questing if I wasn't in a party with friends). Still, reaching 7x was an accomplishment.

I stopped playing as soon as uni started (back when pirates had just come out). FI got an email from nexon saying they'd give me a free gift box, so I thought what the hell and so I redownloaded the game. Starting up again now, it's like a whole new game really. I remember genuinely seeing some of the newer classes and thought they were hacking! The fact that my ranger can now double jump was weird enough! I think another poster mentioned doing something similar but I too decided not to level up my ranger char as a sort of memorial to the older maplestory, and decided to start again in Windia (besides with the whole potential system,all my equips are probably useless now).

I gotta admit, playing some of the newer classes is fun. The only one I've tried so far properly is the Thunderbreaker class but I managed to level up to 113 with relative ease. I also agree with whoever cried bs to there being more things to do back then. The professions system alone allows for more things to do. Just because certain areas are the best to train at doesn't necessarily mean you have to train there. Just for reference, on an unfunded Thunderbreaker with minimal effort playing, I reached 113 in about a week, without jesters and aliens (and no leeching either). I was even considering giving LHC a miss (for getting to 120) and see how that goes since the 1.5x exp coupons are still dropping from the boxes in town.

The thing is though...I don't really want to play anymore. After less than 2 weeks, I'm bored. Maybe it is the age thing too and so I have little patience for young'ns (I'm 23, sorry for sounding patronising ), plus I have other things to do over the summer, but I feel that maple has lost its heart. Getting to a level was an achievement in the past, now I breeze through levels so fast, I don't even notice I need to add sp/ ap.

The social factor has gone too, nobody just "hangs out" in any of the maps I've seen because there's no reason to take a break since levelling is so easy. The best example for me is Ludi. Ludi used to be full of people but it feels like a ghost town now. I remember being level 3x-4x and hanging out at teddies just to pass time between LPQing. Sometimes I'd get a group together and do some chronos training or even venture into the depths of Ludi toyfactory/ time area for a suicide run (and walking past the DKs and Priests was always funny). Don't get me wrong, it was pretty cool being able to actually defeat the monsters on my Thunderbreaker now but...I kinda wish I had the chance to be able to do that back when levelling was an achievement. It was such a let down when I did go there recently for a quest. I can easily say I had a full active BL in the past, now I have perhaps only 2 people on my BL and had only recently joined a guild with talkative people (I've just kicked out now for being inactive). For nearly 100 levels, I was pretty much a loner :/

Don't even get me started on hackers. It was bad then too but this is ridiculous. I had hoped Nexon would've implemented a system where you can report any number of times, perhaps based on how trustworthy your previous reports were but alas.

The other factor is the potential system. I understand Nexon needs to make money but I've been hearing figures of spending a US$500 on a character just to be on par with the rest of the community?! I actually do have that sort of money to waste but spending that much money on a game just to be level with the rest of the population just screams extortion to me and so I refuse on principle. I remember when gachapon and exp coupons had come out, that was bad enough but in comparison, were really minor alterations to the game because if you actually tried to merch, you can still reach the level of funded chars at a reasonable pace. If I were to merch my way up to funded levels now, I imagine it would take years! I also think the rift has also created an even bigger schism in the community, leaving the the very funded left together as they form the most efficient groups for partying and the unfunded just make do/ quit altogether.

I've heard that unlimited is only going to make things worse. Truthfully I think I've grown out of the game but it's just sad to see maple a hollow shell of what it used to be (for me at least) and neglecting the orignal adventurer (explorer?) classes is just criminal