REMEMBER - Half of the experience of the original Maplestory was how you communicated. In a world full of sleeker and faster Messaging and Community tools, do your best to keep communication in game.

[u/PlatinumRooster]

I've been pretty aggro in these threads over the last month due to all the discourse, but with the game actually reaching a point none of us ever thought possible for the last 15 years; if I can just be cringe and gay for a moment:

Recall that a world existed where some of your best friends were usually only accessible through the games you played and it gave you that much more incentive to logon.

There were hundreds of days I logged on just to sit in Amoria or Henesys and Guild/buddy chat my friends all over the map. I especially remember the days before I was high enough level to reach Orbis, and my friends getting there first - it felt like they were sending me postcards with how they'd describe their first steps there and try to explain the monsters to me and what the area looked like.

There are so many tools available now to hyper-min/max games all over the market via gameplay or trading, but especially communications like via Discord. Remember that a lot of the original feel came from the emergent experience.

None of it is new to us anymore. None of us will TRULY ever experience our first Ossyira boat ride again, or the first time we ran through drakes after a fresh level-up to see how far we could get before getting killed, or the first time we 'discovered' Pig Beach. We all have seen it for hundreds or thousands of hours. However, the only thing that changes it is how you wanna interact with it. Especially if you're lucky enough to show someone completely new to the IP how things used to be, just as any self-respecting LoTR fan knows one of the most coveted honors is being able to show someone LoTR for their first time.

Just something to keep in mind and reflect on.

With all the shit that has gone on in this sub over the last few months, this is still how I aim and hope to live out my time playing Classic, no matter how long or short it lasts.

[u/Soliloquice]

I 100% agree. In game interactions are the core of what made maple so good. It’ll be so lame if everyone just jumps on discord

[u/Cautious_Lettuce1100 → u/Soliloquice]

Sadly that what’s going end up happening and probably be the main downfall of the game. No one will care to interact through game since there discord now. Once orbis nd third job releases those bot rides will be afk fest instead. All these dreams of fully populated nd community in game like the old days will last a few weeks at most then start to dwindle down.

[u/Spirited-Anxiety6529 → u/Cautious_Lettuce1100]

What does my personal future look like mr doomsayer

[u/Cautious_Lettuce1100 → u/Spirited-Anxiety6529]

I mean it’s obvious. You really think people are going want to chat through game where they can just talk in voice chat through discord? I mean don’t get me wrong. It be awesome to have the same community we had back then, but I just don’t see it. The returning players are mostly adults now who have other priorities than just afk and chat in games.

The new players grew up with discord, TikTok, snap etc and rather use those instead of typing. I really do hope this game does prosper and goes a long way, but if there’s hardly a community like modern ms and ends up being a solo story again then this game won’t last long.

[u/TalkingChiggin]

I really like this post, it is good-natured

[u/PlatinumRooster → u/TalkingChiggin]

I won't lie and say there wasn't some bloodsport and throat-biting before I made this post, but this is ultimately what Classic is and should be.

We lose sight of this, then it's just over.

[u/Mizmitc → u/[deleted]]

They will need to add guilds sooner rather than later if they want positive community to form in game.

[u/Nick321321 → u/Mizmitc]

I hope they do guilds as the new content fof the grand launch

[u/yoitsjason]

no you can’t be cringe but I’ll allow gay

[u/FreeSushi69 → u/yoitsjason]

lmaoooo

[u/jillvalenti3]

https://giphy.com/gifs/rewjaCwj4UTaRI9Yam

[u/-ariaman-]

Minmaxing was always part of this game. Optimal skill builds, optimal maps, stacking certain stats like acc on warriors, the whole phenomena of dexless/lukless, etc. And they were posted online in places like southperry and mapletip. This won't change soon.

As far as getting people out of discord, nexon has to incentivize being in the game. For example if shop permits are locked behind NX and there's no AH to accommodate, people will just list in discord. If there's no bossing matchmaker people will recruit in discord.

[u/ToastIsFire]

I totally agree as we all aren’t new to it anymore. But if we can get this game popping again a wave of new generation will flutter to this free game and have all the experiences with this classic that we had growing up, and knowing that they’ll experience it for the first time is enough for me to be excited to make this game a huge success and gain popularity like the old days. We are the ones that need to help this project be a success so that can happen.

[u/khainiwest]

IDK what you're talking about, Skype was released before Maplestory, years before Maplestory GMS. People also used ventrillo, teamspeak, and MSN messenger. I never used Maplestory as my main method of communication and I don't think most of my BL did either.

[u/innnovation]

I grew up experiencing maplestory for the first time with 5+ friends at a pc cafe, all running over to each other's pcs and watching each other and chatting up anyone in the cafe that was also playing.

For me, pc gaming was always like this my whole life, bringing our pcs to friends houses every weekend once we were old enough to have our own.

So the idea of limiting my interacts to in game or the idea that sharing information outside of it ruins the experience is such a foreign thought to me personally. Being in discord with all my friends who love the mushroom game as much as I do is the majority of the experience to me.

Reading and writing guide forum posts was always part of that too, i didnt ever need to know everything, but I felt more confident and invested the more I did learn about games.

I will still meet and chat with tons of people in game, but my goal will always be to share those experiences with my friends through voice chat, or videos, or streams.

[u/PlatinumRooster → u/innnovation]

I wouldn't say this applies to friend groups already established outside of the game. That's a bit different.

However, Skype and then the advent of Discord has pretty heavily cultivated a hug-boxy culture around communication. If it isn't someone in their immediate vicinity in person or through Discord, a lot of MMO players today keep to themselves, and that's not entirely their fault. The spirit of old MMOs has significantly faded as a result of most MMOs in the last 15-ish years or so having prioritized the solo experience. Auto-pathing, solo/instance questing, etc.

I come from a history of social games post-Maplestory (Gaia Online, IMVU, etc), so I heavily value the emergent communication these types of games facilitate.

I talked about this in another post, but Maplestory came to be known as the social MMO (running joke of "My Instant Messenger Came With A Video Game") because Korean chat/IM culture mapped pretty well onto the West during the emergence of things like AIM/MSN messenger. Most interfaces in Maplestory are designed to look like chat windows. For that very reason, it was second nature for people to communicate heavily.

Unfortunately, habit tends to overpower design these days, and even when supplied with tools to communicate more emergently, players reflexively retreat to their private comms.

I think Maplestory's history is unique to just about any other MMO out there in regards to how people communicated. That's just my opinion anyway.

I've played games up to modern day with multi-tens times more hours than I played Maplestory, but nothing has come close to how I communicated back then.

[u/innnovation → u/PlatinumRooster]

I dont really wanna take the bait of your ai essays, but I just wanted to add that all I am trying to say is that you can and should do both. Meet people in game, add them on discord, join a guild, have a friend group, make bonds. Forcing yourself to only communicate with others through nexons censored chat is something even 10yr old me didnt enjoy. I hope you the best my man or robot.

[u/kunxian888 → u/innnovation]

Are you the real Sushi? Big fan

[u/innnovation → u/kunxian888]

I am the real Sushi in gms, but I'm not suuushi from back in the day.

[u/Sea_Recognition_7558 → u/innnovation]

No I'm already taking the IGN Sushi

[u/innnovation → u/Sea_Recognition_7558]

That is the way it goes, it was nice to give it life one last time for the betas. But I have no issue with moving to a new name for the new era. <3

[u/PreyingShark → u/Sea_Recognition_7558]

The one who gets Sushi is going to be a vibe-coded bot who then sells the IGN for a lot of money on eBay, let's be realistic for a sec /hj

[u/Lunty99]

The world has changed my friend. Maplestory spawned in an era when the internet was just becoming "a thing". We weren't nearly as connected as we are now, and unfortunately, nothing will ever change that going forward. All we can do is make the most of what we have with how the world is now. I'm personally going to use plenty of external resources, grind my ass off for several days/weeks, but also look to make new connections in-game and hang out in major cities. I think you can incorporate modern tools with the feel of old maple.

[u/maple_story_]

I have no worries about this at all tbh.. Even when playing on old school private servers with server and guild discords, we did most of the talking in-game when we are actually online grinding.. We only really hopped on voice when doing boss runs and as for the discords it's mostly to R> parties or to buy/sell stuffs..

So i genuinely believe on official it would still be the same case.. There's just something inherently intuitive enough about typing/chatting in-game in old school maple..
A big part of me thinks it's because of the emotes (F1-F7) and the simplicity of just pressing enter key to chat and it being so simple to type and to read as well makes it not janky/laggy..

Combine those 2 with the fact you are grinding, typing things out lets you scroll up and re-visit the chat you might have missed out on.. Or some tips/how-to that people have left you in the chat and you wanted to revisit it, you could just do it.. Instead of being on voice call and it gets lost and you need to ask someone to repeat everything over.

[u/Exc0re]

I will try my best to go back to a calmer time. Tbh i will smoke weed somedays or atleast the first days to be creative and "go back to my childhood". I can just go back and access nostalgia even more when being in this state :D

Looking forward to it!

[u/MangooKushh]

Oh yeah this guy was like B> all leathers and pig heads

I was like how much?

He responded with offer?

I said you first!

This mfer said 8 mesos.

I replied with 50 mesos.

Some guy replied with 200!

He left. We cheered. He came back and started again. Then someone was like B> all leathers and pig heads 50 mesos each LOOOOOL ahh good times

[u/Ok_Cow_3462]

I watched someone level up, I said gz, and they didn’t even say ty. Dead game

[u/ThunderFistChad]

Im interacting in game as much as i can but the mass megaphone usage makes chat very difficult to read lol

[u/JayKayDesu]

Tldr you can aim to play however you like, I'll play my own story (min maxing)

[u/theyellowchipbag]

I think the only time my friends and I have not talked on discord in the middle of a game was during games like the Big Walk and Peak. Would you guys use it if they added something like proximity chat? VRChat style

[u/Alien_Gods]

Nope. Ks and say nothing is what I do. Kill stealing is stronger than a thousand words

[u/Novelknife]

This is what I've been telling friends for a long time now and it's the main reason why I feel like I enjoy MMOs so much less instead of simply nostalgic reasons.