Why do we play Maplestory?

[COLOR="#0000FF"]*Sigh* RIP Dfo 2013~
Now that was a game..

Maplestory was pretty, had nice music and.. yea, but Dfo basically had that + beating people up real time + no money sink to get strong. You could buy some good avatar sets that gave additional stats with real money, but for one you could also buy them in auction house (expensive), or you could buy cheaper ones that make you look nice which will make you feel good at the same time (those also give stats too), then just upgrade your weapon and armor normally like everyone can. It's not like killing monsters by looking in their general direction is all that in a beat em' up anyway. If you played for long enough, you could make enough to try and get some of the rare avatars with in game money.

Basically, playing dfo felt rewarding basically in every level range because damage was pretty accessible, and even if you were weak, combo'ing baddies with multiple weak hits isn't boring either. If you're hilariously weak (hao), parties are there for you. I feel like the only thing that kept me on maple were the nostalgic graphics and music. Starting a new pirate/cygnus knight and hearing that music again never gets old.

still crying[/COLOR]

Dnf still going strong, =(

I still enjoy it quite a bit, but maybe that's because I prefer questing and collecting instead of "omg must spend $100k to get 30+% legendary on everything so I can solo everything in a multiplayer game and be an obnoxious jerk to everyone around me"

because the free to pay model has been so optimized around America's current legal system

Uhhh... Literally EVERY mobile game is equally, if not more, pay to win than Maplestory. Japan, Europe, and America do that pomegranate. It ain't American exclusive lol.

We've been talking a lot about how poorly the F2P model is executed in MapleStory.
Can we name a MMORPG who acutally do it right?
Don't get me wrong I've quitted maple for like 4 years now, but I can't actually name a single F2P that doesn't give a huuge advantage to the players that spend money on it.
Right now I've been playing Aura Kingdom which is nice and all there's even a some sort of cash shop which you can buy things with a currency within the game but it's hella slow to get money for that shop.
Some people been telling me this game is P2W as pineapple but as of now I haven't felt any kind of disadvantge over other users even at PVP.
I'm sure I'll get to that point because you can't LITERALLY enhace your weapons past +15 without spending cash.

We've been talking a lot about how poorly the F2P model is executed in MapleStory.
Can we name a MMORPG who acutally do it right?
Don't get me wrong I've quitted maple for like 4 years now, but I can't actually name a single F2P that doesn't give a huuge advantage to the players that spend money on it.
Right now I've been playing Aura Kingdom which is nice and all there's even a some sort of cash shop which you can buy things with a currency within the game but it's hella slow to get money for that shop.
Some people been telling me this game is P2W as pineapple but as of now I haven't felt any kind of disadvantge over other users even at PVP.
I'm sure I'll get to that point because you can't LITERALLY enhace your weapons past +15 without spending cash.

I find those that try to somewhat defend a P2W style game haven't seen end game. I don't mind paying some money for a game I enjoy. Hell it means you're supporting them, but that jump for Maple is rather hilarious.

TERA does it quite well, but it has an "elite mode" that counts as a subscription and gives many benefits, but is optional. Almost all things bought from the cash shop can be bought from the auction house, and at reasonable prices to boot. It's still P2W but not by that much, F2Pers can get by with taking twice as long and not 2384023984 times as long like with Maplestory.

Runescape recently got some P2W elements (squeal of fortune, solomon's store (which is the cash shop)), but it's still mostly subscription based, to the point where the free loyalty points you get from being a member per month can be used to buy stuff in the cash shop, and tons of ingame things give you free spins for the wheel anyway.

League only has cosmetics and benefits for those who aren't lvl 30 yet. IP boosts not really worth it since it takes many many MANY games to get good and get to diamond anyway, you'll be swimming in IP regardless.

Uhhh... Literally EVERY mobile game is equally, if not more, pay to win than Maplestory. Japan, Europe, and America do that pomegranate. It ain't American exclusive lol.

They mostly have a wayyy better cost:reward ratio though

Can we name a MMORPG who acutally do it right?
Don't get me wrong I've quitted maple for like 4 years now, but I can't actually name a single F2P that doesn't give a huuge advantage to the players that spend money on it.

League of Legends.
Guild Wars 2.

Just off the top of my head.

League of Legends.
Guild Wars 2.

Just off the top of my head.

League of Legends is not an MMORPG. Guild Wars 2 requires an initial purchase, although I think that is negligible and I was about to mention it myself but you beat me to it. GW2 is a great F2P game, and paying has no game-breaking ways to get ahead. I mean, I haven't played in a while, but I have friends who play frequently and they say it's a nice atmosphere.

Seems to be a good idea to look at games that did the f2p model right. What others can we list that we've come across?

League of Legends.
Guild Wars 2.

Just off the top of my head.

Not a MMORPG
Not F2P but B2P.
Again:
F2P MMORPG.

Not a MMORPG
Not F2P but B2P.
Again:
F2P MMORPG.

Don't get me wrong I've quitted maple for like 4 years now, but I can't actually name a single F2P that doesn't give a huuge advantage to the players that spend money on it.

League of Legends if a F2P game that doesn't give a huge advantage to the players that spend money on it. Also, considering it's got a playerbase of several million who play in direct competition with each other, I'd say LoL is the perfect example of a F2P MMO that doesn't give huge advantages to players who pay. Whether you consider it an MMORPG or not is semantics, in the long run. I see leveling with a varied pool of (How many?) millions of people over the course of a single night while completing a singular goal as an MMORPG. You see instanced battles as something else (I guess). To each their own.

As far as Guild Wars 2 goes, the initial purchase price is nothing when compared with the actual, F2P model they use at ArenaNet. You have to drop a few dollars to get the game, but the F2P model keeps the game running.

Wartune is a browser based game thats f2p. I think it's done fairly well for the f2p part. You can even get bound balens now ( balens = nx for maple) which can buy anything but the stuff on the sale/"hot" list. You can experience pretty much anything end game you want. However the power ceiling is even higher than maplestory should you choose to pay for it. If you want an idea it would take well over 10k dollars to reach the top and that still isn't the max. The Taiwan servers ( i think) have people that are hilariously nearly gamebreakingly strong people but they can still get stronger.

League of Legends if a F2P game that doesn't give a huge advantage to the players that spend money on it. Also, considering it's got a playerbase of several million who play in direct competition with each other, I'd say LoL is the perfect example of a F2P MMO that doesn't give huge advantages to players who pay. Whether you consider it an MMORPG or not is semantics, in the long run. I see leveling with a varied pool of (How many?) millions of people over the course of a single night while completing a singular goal as an MMORPG. You see instanced battles as something else (I guess). To each their own.

As far as Guild Wars 2 goes, the initial purchase price is nothing when compared with the actual, F2P model they use at ArenaNet. You have to drop a few dollars to get the game, but the F2P model keeps the game running.

It's not semantics, an MMO has greater challenges to overcome than a MOBA, I mean that's just common sense.

League of Legends if a F2P game that doesn't give a huge advantage to the players that spend money on it. Also, considering it's got a playerbase of several million who play in direct competition with each other, I'd say LoL is the perfect example of a F2P MMO that doesn't give huge advantages to players who pay. Whether you consider it an MMORPG or not is semantics, in the long run. I see leveling with a varied pool of (How many?) millions of people over the course of a single night while completing a singular goal as an MMORPG.

Farmville should be MMORPG too then, to each their own

As far as Guild Wars 2 goes, the initial purchase price is nothing when compared with the actual, F2P model they use at ArenaNet. You have to drop a few dollars to get the game, but the F2P model keeps the game running.

I heard the game is amazing and I won't debate your opinion about it but let's recap what's a F2P

Free-to-play (F2P) refers to video games which gives players access to a significant portion of their content without paying.

Also; way to tweak my questions. What I asked was:
"Can we name a MMORPG who acutally do it right? "




I've been into Neverwinter and it seems good and feels good cash shop doesn't seem that imbalaced but I read that like any other F2P the endgame content is almost unreachable from any free user.

Ironically dragonnest is a very well managed game, with a lot of content for free, with the option to put effort into what you get. It may take time but I feel its proportionally even.

Too bad for me that vindictus is still region locked, and I dunno if dragonnest still is.

DFO (Dungeon Fighter Online), while it was still alive, was well done for a Nexon game. While its Korean counterpart is still going strong, the American port was doing fairly well. Here's the cash (NX) part.
1. Buying safe upgrades (storage) (Perm)
2. Buying dual skill build (Perm)
3. Pets (Perm)
4. Avatars (option of duration or perm) clothing for looks + gave stats especially the "rare" quality ones.
5. Keys (Gachapon)
6. kaleido boxes ( reroll quality which changes stats a bit)
7. (PSOK type item to allow tradeability on rarer stuff)
8. Bind cubes ( combine avatars for a chance at a rare or clone rare)

I think that's the majority of it. Only thing not buyable with the ingame currency was the keys/kaleidos/psoks/safe upgrades/ dual skill builds. You could get kaleidos and keys daily so really it was a quality of life kind of upgrades. Clone rares carried the stats of rare avatars in addition to allowing you to fully customize what you wear. So the rich used those and the poor would often use the sets Nexon would have for sale or just buy cheap ones.
Everyone had access to end game. The end game sets were also really good for that matter and were ONLY obtainable from the dungeons. Unfortunately with the lack of security that Nexon put out it did become completely overrun by hackers/botters.
Also the really good stuff wasn't tradeable, so either you got lucky and obtained it or you farmed for it.

League of Legends is not an MMORPG. Guild Wars 2 requires an initial purchase, although I think that is negligible and I was about to mention it myself but you beat me to it. GW2 is a great F2P game, and paying has no game-breaking ways to get ahead. I mean, I haven't played in a while, but I have friends who play frequently and they say it's a nice atmosphere.

buy gems
turn gems into gold

use gold to max all crafting disciplines to 400
????????

level sixty or seventy

Uhhh... Literally EVERY mobile game is equally, if not more, pay to win than Maplestory. Japan, Europe, and America do that pomegranate. It ain't American exclusive lol.

Don't tar all mobile games with the same brush. There are plenty of decent games (though they aren't generally f2p) such as TWEWY iOS, or the phoenix wright trilogy.
Theathrhythm is a good example of F2P on phones done right. Base game is free, buy more songs as DLC if you want them.