There's no MMO I've quit and returned to more than MapleStory. Ah yes, that free-to-play game from South Korea has had its ups and downs, but in all honesty it's a game that's easy to love, easy to play, and easy to quit. I should know; I've quit that game twice a year for the last 7 years!
I first started playing Maple back in 2009, just 3 years after release. This was during the waning days of Maple's heyday, when the game was this super popular, super difficult MMO where you HAD to party up if you wanted to get past level 20, and in fact being level 30 was an achievement. And with a level cap of 200? HOLY SHIT! Anyway, I first started playing in November of 2009, when I was just starting to play MMO's in general. Being that I was a broke grad school student, I couldn't afford the premium games, like World of Warcraft, so I made due with free-to-play games like Travians, my very first MMO.
Anyway, I became an Explorer, because back then you were either an Explorer or a Cygnus Knight. I raised my character to level 10 in one night, because God was I having fun! When it came time to pick my class, I foolishly became a Thief, which was not a good idea because Thieves have little armor, no Mobbing skills, and their weapons are weak and flimsy. I died five times in an hour. Hey, I was a noob!
I deleted that character, whose name I've forgotten. I made myself a new character, this time being a Magician. I managed to get to level 12 before I had to uninstall the game. Thing was that school was a huge hassle, and the game was REALLY distracting. Further, my internet was trash at home and my apartment didn't have any.
I didn't pick up the game again till the Big Bang event happened. I went back to the game, having some time off school and being in dire, DIRE need of a distraction. I chose to make a Resistance character, because that was the new shit and I wanted in. I made myself a Battle Mage, and played around till level 15, I think. Then I had to go back to school, and let's say my life took a turn for the worse.
I came back around Halloween, I think. I did a few missions as a Cygnus Knight, then erased that character to try out the Evan class, then went back to Resistance class, and so on. I then got bored, so I erased the game again.
April 2011, I was starting to miss the game, so I re-installed it. After this I started a cycle of trying new classes, growing bored, then dropping the game. I did it for Phantom, Mercedes, Luminous, and Mihile. Lather, rinse, repeat. By 2013, though, the game was becoming too hard on my 2008 computer; it got so bad, I was playing with 8 FPS. So I uninstalled the game.
March of 2014 I bought myself a new computer. I opted to give MapleStory another chance, telling myself "this time, we're going up to level 70." I managed to do so twice: Once in 2014 with a Bowman, and once in 2015 with a Knight. However, again the game started crashing, so I stopped playing.
I've always noticed changes to the game every time I played: new classes, locales, enemies, etc. However, one consistent element which many old school Maplers always point out is how utterly BROKEN the new classes are. An example: It took me 2 days as a Warrior in the year 2015 to get to level 30. As a Kaiser, I did that in 5 hours. This isn't good. Furthermore, Boss fights that used to kill single players were now utter wimps against the new classes; used to be only Mano the Snail was beatable 1v1, but a Kaiser can make mincemeat out of ALL the Henessys Giant Mushmom bosses in minutes!
All in all, though, that critique is not part of my field; I was never a serious Mapler. I played MapleStory for fun, as a distraction. It holds fond memories for me, but I can't play it much anymore, what with me being in China and all that. Ah well, at least I still have my memories.
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