2010-06-19, 06:44 AM
I have a lot to say and not enough time to organize my thoughts, so bear with me.
My favorite time period of MapleStory was, well it's been so long - 2006 to mid 2007. This was the period before and after the release of Leafre and 4th job. This was just a period of major activity on MapleStory for me, and not in a bad way like late 2008-early 2009 was when I was seriously addicted. I came back to MapleStory just as the first 4th job information was starting to come out (each class had one skill out at the point) and decided to start clean with a new character. I chose to make a Ranger, and made it to 3rd job in about 3 months. Levelling in those days was much slower; my first character was a CB that I quit at 71, and it took just over a year to reach that.
The Beran archer community was tiny at the point, so I quickly got to meet many of my fellow archers. Soon, my BL was filled with Archers. Archers were and still are a relatively rare class. As 1v1 DPS-oriented ranged classes, the archer community had always played second fiddle to our rival assassin community. There wasn't really much of a reason to be an archer as far as gameplay advantages go, though we sure as hell TRIED to make justifications for why we weren't all that bad (better mobbing, stunning). Most archer players were people who really liked bows, or people who liked investigating gameplay mechanics (go figure), or people who just liked to be different for no reason at all. One of the most interesting aspect of MMOs is the fun of banding together with a small group of people that you share something in common with. Anyone who held a bow or a crossbow in their skinny Mapler arms felt like family.
Meanwhile, more 4th job information was steadily coming out, it was all incredibly exciting. Hurricane and SE just looked so fantastic at that point. We were all talking trash about how soon NLs would be begging us for buffs. The archer community seemed to suddenly explode.There was a mid-sized all-Xbow guild called IronArrows at that point, but no such thing existed for Rangers, so we decided to make one. RainOfArrows we called it, and then when the leader quit on us without deleting the guild, we remade it as ArrowStorm. The guild started out with nothing. Our highest levels were 8x-9x Rangers. We couldn't GPQ because we needed HB to fight Ergoth, so myself and another Jr started a HB and HS/Door/Tele mule for the guild. We all really wanted to become part of the high level bossing scene with our awesome 4th job skills, and we really worked our asses off to get everything working. The guild grew and grew as 4th job neared and more people started bandwagoning our class, and we were happy to accept them. We actually reached 100 members for a while.
Now I'll stop rambling about my personal story and tie this in to the actual evolution of the game. The major thing that was going on during this whole period was a big pending update to all classes, and the release of a major area. 4th job was probably the biggest update to this game before this new stuff going on in KMST. It was what really fueled all of the excitement that lasted over a whole year. Sure, it shook up the entire balance of the game. People complained about EVERYTHING, from ultimate spamming to previously OP classes like DKs becoming completely mediocre. I think the thing that really keeps me going is a dynamic game. I don't care about reaching perfection in any one state of the game by selling leech for 12392 hours and getting perfect gear. I don't care about my efforts toward one class becoming overshadowed by the buffing of another class. It's just exciting as hell to see the core of the game changing, and discussing and adapting to the changes with your fellow players. I love seeing things like a new stat window, a new UI, new class balance, new area. It keeps the game a lot more fresh than seeing a new boss that drops a new ring that will improve my damage by 2%. It really feels like you're preparing for a whole new game.
My favorite time period of MapleStory was, well it's been so long - 2006 to mid 2007. This was the period before and after the release of Leafre and 4th job. This was just a period of major activity on MapleStory for me, and not in a bad way like late 2008-early 2009 was when I was seriously addicted. I came back to MapleStory just as the first 4th job information was starting to come out (each class had one skill out at the point) and decided to start clean with a new character. I chose to make a Ranger, and made it to 3rd job in about 3 months. Levelling in those days was much slower; my first character was a CB that I quit at 71, and it took just over a year to reach that.
The Beran archer community was tiny at the point, so I quickly got to meet many of my fellow archers. Soon, my BL was filled with Archers. Archers were and still are a relatively rare class. As 1v1 DPS-oriented ranged classes, the archer community had always played second fiddle to our rival assassin community. There wasn't really much of a reason to be an archer as far as gameplay advantages go, though we sure as hell TRIED to make justifications for why we weren't all that bad (better mobbing, stunning). Most archer players were people who really liked bows, or people who liked investigating gameplay mechanics (go figure), or people who just liked to be different for no reason at all. One of the most interesting aspect of MMOs is the fun of banding together with a small group of people that you share something in common with. Anyone who held a bow or a crossbow in their skinny Mapler arms felt like family.
Meanwhile, more 4th job information was steadily coming out, it was all incredibly exciting. Hurricane and SE just looked so fantastic at that point. We were all talking trash about how soon NLs would be begging us for buffs. The archer community seemed to suddenly explode.There was a mid-sized all-Xbow guild called IronArrows at that point, but no such thing existed for Rangers, so we decided to make one. RainOfArrows we called it, and then when the leader quit on us without deleting the guild, we remade it as ArrowStorm. The guild started out with nothing. Our highest levels were 8x-9x Rangers. We couldn't GPQ because we needed HB to fight Ergoth, so myself and another Jr started a HB and HS/Door/Tele mule for the guild. We all really wanted to become part of the high level bossing scene with our awesome 4th job skills, and we really worked our asses off to get everything working. The guild grew and grew as 4th job neared and more people started bandwagoning our class, and we were happy to accept them. We actually reached 100 members for a while.
Now I'll stop rambling about my personal story and tie this in to the actual evolution of the game. The major thing that was going on during this whole period was a big pending update to all classes, and the release of a major area. 4th job was probably the biggest update to this game before this new stuff going on in KMST. It was what really fueled all of the excitement that lasted over a whole year. Sure, it shook up the entire balance of the game. People complained about EVERYTHING, from ultimate spamming to previously OP classes like DKs becoming completely mediocre. I think the thing that really keeps me going is a dynamic game. I don't care about reaching perfection in any one state of the game by selling leech for 12392 hours and getting perfect gear. I don't care about my efforts toward one class becoming overshadowed by the buffing of another class. It's just exciting as hell to see the core of the game changing, and discussing and adapting to the changes with your fellow players. I love seeing things like a new stat window, a new UI, new class balance, new area. It keeps the game a lot more fresh than seeing a new boss that drops a new ring that will improve my damage by 2%. It really feels like you're preparing for a whole new game.