Maplestory: A Classic With Modern Charm
Maplestory is a massively multiplayer online role playing game (MMORPG), that was originally created for Korea and was quickly followed up by a Global release. The main premise of the game is that you start by playing one of 40+ classes, working towards trying to get stronger and eventually teaming up with fellow players in order to take down the “big bad”. Classic MMORPG stuff. There’s a lot of training, bossing and tons of social interaction involved in the process.
The game has been around for nearly two decades now, and I personally have been playing it on and off for more than a decade. It’s crazy to think how much my life has changed since I first started playing it, and how it’s sort of been a constant in my life throughout the past 11 years. There’s a lot to unpack about why it’s still around after all this time, but the main points I’ll cover are the charm, the content, and the daily questing.
The Charm
Maplestory is a 2D side scrolling game, meaning the environment shifts as you move left, right, up and down, but there is no forward and backward movement whatsoever. Each character has their unique set of skills that are designed for their storyline and overall archetype. The game really leans into the idea of wonderful 2D animations, resulting in a sort of iconic charm. As a side note, they in fact did try to launch a sequel called Maplestory 2, which was sort of half 2D, half 3D, but than ended up failing miserably and shut down within a couple years.
Staying faithful to their art style and truly trying to perfect their aesthetics has really kept Maplestory going throughout the years. It’s similar reasoning to why the likes of Terraria and Stardew Valley are so popular, as one doesn’t necessarily have the mechanical skills to manage a 3D environment with lots of moving parts. As an example, one of my close friends starts to get headaches whenever he plays a more realistic game like Valorant, but has no problem with Terraria or Maplestory. Furthermore, their unique art style also contributes to the overall nostalgia of the game, as it’s reminiscent of a time gone by, where art styles were always so distinct and ever so unique.
It’s unfortunate that the performance of the game hasn’t scaled as well as the design - having the game initially developed in 2003 has led to a metric ton of problems regarding scalability and performance. Maplestory is currently running on 32 bit client, which greatly limits their possible ram consumption and also creates a lot of problem when it comes to storing larger numbers and leads to far more expensive computation requirements.
The Content
PSA: All of the following on content below is based on my experience in Reboot World in Maplestory, and I haven’t ever spent money on progression in this game.
Man, I am constantly surprised by how well Maplestory has kept its content going. Since I started playing in 2009, there have been so many game changing updates, from Big Bang, to Red, to Unleashed, and to the V update. The developers constantly release new content which completely change the flow of the game and the progression timeline. For example, back when I first started there were very few people who had crossed the level of 100, and I could probably count the number of people who hit 200 on two hands. Nowadays, the game doesn’t really start until you hit 200 or so, and in fact most people consider everything before 200 a tutorial of how the game works.
The reason for this is that along with new content, they started to make that content more attainable. The barrier to entry for new players hasn’t really changed all that much over the years - in fact while the level cap has been increased and more mechanics have been introduced, the game has done actually a wonderful job in explaining any of these new changes to players. Most people can get really far in the game just by playing a little over the span of a longer period of time, since the game really tends to reward daily/regular playtime.
While I haven’t played a lot of MMORPRG’s, I have played my fair share. I’ve played through PoE, a bit of ESO, Planetside 2, and a couple of the more minor ones. For each of those, the barrier to entry for insanely daunting. I remember looking at the HUGE map in Planetside 2 and being absolutely confused on where to start and what to do. Similarly, looking at the skill tree in PoE was really cool, but also really scary. The amount of guides I had to lookup for both was incredibly frustrating, since you shouldn’t have to look for external content in order to understand basic game mechanics.
Lastly, the power creep in Maplestory is something that I absolutely adore. While it does have its fair share of problems which I’ll touch on it the next part, I do enjoy how easy it is to level up, get new gear, and get stronger overall. I recently started a new character about 3 or so months ago, and over the span of these 3 months I’ve been able to get to a point of killing nearly 60-70% of the bosses in the game either solo or with a group of friends. This was unthinkable for me until recently, and even two of my friends who had never played the game as a kid, have been able to reach the same state as me in a similar timeframe. Progression is quite cut and dry: you attain new gear, flame/cube it (essentially re-rolling stats), kill the next boss to get more gear. This all requires in game currency (at least on Reboot World), which is quite easy to obtain by just logging on for about 10 minutes or so every day (breaking a streak only affects the total amount linearly, that is there are no “streak” bonuses for logging on). The early-mid game flies by, and once you start reaching late game is where the grind really starts and progression slows down, but in all honesty this is the case with any MMO. Getting new gear is straightforward: there’s usually a guaranteed way to get the “next” item, but there are also ways to get it earlier by getting lucky through a drop.
All of these factors allow new and returning players alike to keep playing the game, never really getting bored since there’s always a guaranteed way to improve and get stronger if you put the time in.
The Daily Grind
This part is a bit of a double-edged sword. On one hand, the game really rewards you for just doing something called “dailies”, which are daily quests that give you rewards that help you get stronger over time. This is quite beneficial for a lot of people, since just hopping on the game and doing dailies every day or whenever possible will guarantee growth over a longer period of time without having to constantly play the game for several hours at a time. On the other hand, this is time-gated by design. This means that although your character may get stronger through other means, these daily quests have a tendency to hold you back from progressing further. Sometimes the only way to get stronger is to just give it time.
This is kind of predatory if you think about it. By time-gating people, they’re forced to keep playing the game over time in order to get stronger, which when combined with the constant new content results in far greater amounts of player engagement. It’s genius in the sense that when a user hops on the game to do dailies, they may end up doing various other things in tandem since they also want to experience new content, which may then result in spending money on cosmetics or things like pets. Not doing dailies sort of feels like you’re losing possible progression due to the inherent opportunity cost: and a lot of times the game can come off as a part time job which is the exact opposite purpose that most people play the game for.
However, this strategy has worked insanely well for them as it keeps retains players and keeps them engaged throughout the lifespan of the game. This, in recent years, has been the key to their success in my opinion.
Wrapping Up
In conclusion, Maplestory has been part of my life for as long as I remember, and it truly holds a place in my heart. I’ll likely always return to it whenever I’m bored simply because of all the memories I’ve made with friends and even those I’ve made alone. I do hope it continues to thrive since it truly has a lot of potential to improve and get better, and I also hope that this gave you a bit of insight on why it’s still alive today!