I don't understand why people say Old maple was so much better

Old Maple was hard.
People with no patience quit it after a couple months, around level 30.
The game has progressively gotten easier, more newbie-friendly, more instant-satisfaction. Best example is the new personality system. The actual rewards only change every 5 levels of a trait. So there's no real reason to have 100 levels, it could just as easily be 20. But people like hearing that "ding" and reading "your XXX level increased", so Nexon give them that every few minutes, every kill, every quest...

With the change in the game came a change in audience. Those who stuck around with the old game were, perforce, a bit more mature and patient than the new players who enjoy the fast-paced maple.

And I agree with everyone blaming Potential. Before that came, even with white scrolls and chaos and all, even the most heavily funded could only get to maybe double the damage of a normal player. Post Potential the gap between the haves and the have-nots has widened considerably, the rich having five times or more the damage of the unfunded. And I'm not even talking about the unscrupulous rich, the kind that won't hack, themselves, but have no qualms about buying hacked and duped gear... (I don't want to get into a hypocritical discussion about whether *any* white scrolls in FM can be considered legit. I'm talking about people buying 300-attack claws and 27-attack shoes, 100% positive they were not created in anything resembling a legitimate manner, and often for real $$).

So yeah, our chief weapon is surprise... surprise and fear... fear and surprise and ruthless efficiency the reasons maple has gone downhill:
- caters to the immature, attracting a less pleasant population
- potential system creating a huge gap between funded and unfunded
- rampant hacking nobody gives a rat's ass about anymore, making it increasingly frustrating to play the game by the rules

So basically the game should have always been take forever to level? Where's the fun in that? 1st and 2nd jobs sucked, I don't understand this hardcore obession older maplers have with grinding for hours. Old maple was not hard, being patient is not "hard". I don't want instant level 200 buttons like most of you older maplers seem to think we want, I just want to be able to play for a few hours and still accomplish something. I don't mind getting 1% an hour at 180+ because level 200 should not b easy, i do mind getting less than 10% an hour at 60+.

People always whine about how the community today is so much worse than yesteryears. I've since changed my mind, as long as you aren't a jesters or Mp3 the game community can be tolerable. I've gotten into random chats with people at roids or Pirates. People can be pretty nice. Even KSers have their moments. I'll say it once, I'll say it twice, maplestory's community was once good and that was only in beta and real early maple.

Even before BB leveling was piss easy. It's been piss easy to level up ever since the XP reduction when Cygnus Knights came out. The first day they were released someone had already gotten to 120 legitimately might I add. People always would leech too when 4th jobs came out.