Is it Worth Playing MapleStory in 2024?
One of the OG Pillar of MMORPG
MapleStory, this was one of the oldest and most iconic MMOs to today’s date that is still alive, kicking and still getting regular updates. In fact, on 30th November 2023, Maplestory released the 6th Job which is totally uncharted territory. Since then, I been wanting to go back and checking it out.
As previously mentioned, Maplestory was also the MMOrpg that got me into playing MMOrpgs. Before I tried playing Silkroad Online, before World of Warcraft, and before all of everything else.
Throughout my childhood, this one of the MMORPG I loved along with Silkroad Online and World of Warcraft.
It was a different era, a more simpler times back then, Maplestory graphics was iconic and different. Back then, it wasn’t much about the levels, everyone I knew, who played knew reaching level 200 was an hopeless dream and didn’t really care that we were stuck between level 40–100s. We all focused on customising our characters with fashion, costumes and pets instead which honestly is the true end game.
The core game of Maplestory still has not changed all these years, MapleStory is still a 2D side-scrolling game, it is still an MMORPG and it is still a chibi style cartoon graphics game. It has evolved beyond what GMS use to be back in the early 2005s. Maplers would refer to that period as Pre-Big Bang. The Big Bang update was a very different update that made massive game changes. However, the main issue Maplers disliked about Big Bang wasn’t the what most would think. It was the Big Bang EXP Curve that completely changed the levelling experience in MapleStory. Whether it was for better or worse, it has always been up to debate. Some loved it, others loathed it. For me, I personally enjoyed the “Impossible” dream more so than it’s current state of levelling even though back then it did frustrate me that it took forever to get to level 20 and each new character I wanted to level took forever to reach 2nd job advancement.
With the Big Bang Update, one of the biggest changes was drastically lowering the amount of experience points needed to progress from one level to the next making levelling through 1 to 200 so much more faster. In fact, re-playing the game due to 6th job being released. In 2 weeks worth of solo progression, I was able to reach a Level 234 Buccaneer, 221 Mercedes, 200 Angelic Buster and just a dozen or between level 105 ~ 120 for link skills. Will go into more detail in maplestory’s game focus below for the reason why I made so many characters and got them to over level. Honestly, realistically speaking, this probably pretty slow when compared to speed levellers but also keep in mind that we don’t have characters in reboot so missing all the passive account buffs but at the same time, this level of achievement would of taken months just to get to level 120 pre-bigbang patch and years for level 200.
Fast forward a decade later in 2024, MapleStory is still going quite strong of an average of 10k players daily in the past month on Steam Charts alone where as it was only ~3k in 2021. The MS players are actually higher as there will be a bunch of players using the Nexon launcher and not through steam.
So here comes the million dollar question, is Maple Story still worth playing in 2021 or should we find another game invest time in playing?
Publisher
Nexon was never the original publisher for Maplestory, the original developer and publisher was Wizet, which was absorbed by the current publisher Nexon in 2021.
While Wizet was more laxed and community friendly from my childhood memories, Nexon on the other hand was more of a money hungry company that focused on monetizing the game. In fact, Nexon has a notorious reputation of being a “terrible company”. With their own gaming community constantly bycotting their games due to it’s decisions made. Although, nothing much has changed for Nexon, their bad rep is still around, Maplestory is still going strong and I am happy that Nexon isn’t putting the game in maintenance mode.
Combat
The combat for this side scroller platform game is very smooth, one of the smoothest I played when comparing with other 2D side scrollers such as La Tale, Closers, Elsword or Grade Chase.
While it is not exactly an anime style MMO, it is still filled with chibi characters with super flashy skills and game play. If you like more of a retro 2D chibi characters poking mostly cute monsters as well. You will enjoy Maplestory’s combat system. Too bad Maplestory 2 shut down in the west. It was really hyped up for Maplestory Successor. In fact, using console instead of keyboard is pretty fun as well.
Game Focus
The one thing about old Maplestory (Pre-big bang patch) was that it never had a focus, there were people who chased the impossible level dreams and made it like the infamous Tiger or Fangblade. While majority of the community hovered at under level 80s and met lots of people to group up for Party Quests. Others spent premium currency to make their character as perfect as possible to their liking. While majority of the “goals” the community could earn for never changed besides the levelling. Party Quests or short for PQ has been a forgotten element of the past. This was simply due to the unnecessary need to do them any more as levelling was just that much easier. The game Maplestory has devolved into more of a hangout platform for majority of the community to just hang out after doing your dailies, events that are constantly happening in game and bosses. As levelling is super fast and shouldn’t take up all your gaming time which usually has small mini-games & jumping puzzles to keep it fresh, it becomes a lot more relaxed environment. With over 20 years of content under their belt and plenty of different servers & channels.
Another big shift in focus for Maplestory now is instead of focussing solely on 1 character and pushing it to it’s limits, the game is now much more alt friendly so a point where we constantly get levelling events to push our alts to level 200 & beyond. Further, each unique (class) alt character we have all contribute towards a Link Skill & Legion Stat system which provides your account’s world server additional stat passives or active skills.
Bossing
As of this review in December 2023, there are currently 32 Bosses available in Global Maplestory. From your OG bosses such as Zakum and Horntail to new additions like Princess No and Guardian Slime. From the original lore, the end boss such as Black Mage is also now a fight-able end-game boss. This UI can be brought up via the default hotkey F4 labeled under Boss Party. A super nice quality of life is the Clear Status tab which shows your progression for weekly/daily or monthly completions on that character. It would be nice if that gets expanded towards your entire maple roster as all characters attempts for each boss are not account shared.
Bossing is the only way to get the best game after level 140 Pensalir gear (dropped by just normal mobs in the world) or level 150 Sweet water gear (dropped by boss-like monsters when doing Commerci Trade Voyages). Which is directly tied into levelling progression as beyond level 200, arcane monsters are very strong and tanky and without stronger gear, one will struggle to kill them efficiently. This is even more of an issue in Reboot as Reboot servers have stronger monsters than regular servers. Below you can see one of week 2 clear status of solo progression. Most of the Easy~Immediate bosses itself are not difficult and knowing their attack patterns is the key to beating them. Afterwards knowing their patterns, it’s just a matter of having the stats and gear to beat them.
Completion
Maplestory is also now following the trend of completion of everything and literally everything. Each of these system, having completion towards them will rewards you with either direct power boost (stats), reward points or other goodies. There are systems such as Familiar system, Monster Collection, Hunting Zone, Legion, Linked Skills, Skills (Blessing of the Fairy/Empress’s Blessing)… just to name a few. Weirdly enough, there is a very indepth maple achievement which does not give any rewards or stats. While most of these are all interlinking and can be done at the same time, the power creep gained vs someone who does not have any of them is huge.
Customization
Character Customization
As mentioned in game focus, one of the highlights of Maplestory is it’s character customization. There are so many costumes, outfits and accessories to make your chibi exactly how you want it to be, whether it’s getting a new haircut, a makeover, gender change or a brand new sassy outfit. The only downside is majority of these features are all locked behind the cash shop or in-game events. Making it largely unavailable for a free to play player in reboot servers or for regular servers to spend lots of mesos to buy them off players. On the bright side, comestics wise, they are over 20+ years worth of cosmetics available and it is very rare to see the players dressed up exactly the same (speaking strictly from Cash Shop Cosmetics).
The customization doesn’t just stop on your own character, you can customise your character name plate, your speech bubble, and you can purchase and have up to 3 pets which can be skilled to auto-loot & auto-buff for you. Further, the revamped-ish android system which is just another customizable pet with an general store function and basically an additional stat stick/slot.
State of Game
Updates
Although it’s publisher Nexon, Maplestory still far from maintenance mode, in fact, it gets regular updates on par with the likes of the big MMOs. The storyline continues forward with no intention of stopping, the backstory and lore of each character is so detailed, the world of Maplestory is probably a lot more expansive than one would ever think or imagine. Further, Nexon continues to add new classes, races and content to the game on a regular basis making it all more enjoyable, surely there is a class or race for every one of you. With usually 2 big updates per year and smaller ones every 6~8 weeks. Without a question, I can see Maplestory having more big updates in 2024.
Events
One thing that does not fall short in Maplestory is events. There is always so much going on constantly, so much that it can and will overwhelm any new player to the game. In Maplestory, the game never stops, it just keeps going. You have plenty of content to cruise through and if you don’t want to do that, you have events on top of events on top of events. Further, unlike most MMORPGs where events are here and there, Maplestory has a habit of giving their players a sneak preview of some of the upcoming events.
Is Maplestory Dead?
Far from it, Maplestory is far from dead, to the point, each new cash shop cosmetic additional such as the MVP Surprise Style Box from Jan 17 2024 update, everyone went crazy trying get the cosmetics inside such as the Black Sword that originally came out in 2021. Mind you, each pull (attempt) is roughly $5 USD and players were buying them $100s+ worth at once. Further, this isn’t just the few whales going hard either. It is also worth noting the gif below is in the Reboot server, meaning these are pure cosmetics additions and you cannot sell them to other players nor does the item contain any sort of character power-up.
Why Am I Playing Maplestory
The progression in Maplestory Reboot is actually very fun. It is one of the best progression in any F2P MMORPGs that shows obvious progression over an x period of time. All Free2Play with very minor any Cash shop interference (drop pets). The fact that I was able to reach heights I dreamed of when I first played Maplestory decades back and still enjoying it while pushing to new limits and still feels like I am progressing day by day, week by week; feels quite amazing. I haven’t quite hit the point of where the veterans are at such as post 260+ where progression slows by a landslide but pre-260 feels quite good. Which also is where majority of the players are actually at as well. This is even more true for the newly released 2nd Reboot server Hyperion.
Cash Shop
F2P Friendly
While over the years, Nexon has really ruined Wizet’s image of Pay to Win. They have introduced ridiculous paywalls for free players again and again. It is near impossible to reach end-game and obtain best in slot (BiS) gear. However, this isn’t uncommon for Korean games at all, Korean Games are known to be very grindy, just look at Silkroad, you don’t start the game nor start leveling your character until you farm some odd-1million Skill Points (SP); talk abut having it rough. However, this is only true for the original servers. The new Reboot servers are not as heavily Pay2Win as the original servers where majority of the cash shop items conveniences items such as bag space can all be purchased via Mesos such as teleporting rocks (Hyper Teleport Rock), stat re-roll Cubes and then a new Maple Reward system which you accumulate daily via either by doing a set of dailies in the mobile Maplestory M game (this is usually can be done via auto-play and takes up to 30 minutes or so, 500 Rewards Points per day), killing bosses or Monster Collection Journeys which you can use to buy more stat re-roll cubes & even pet revives (Water of Life) . In fact, the population from my own personal observance; the Reboot servers have more players running around and in World Chat and is a lot more fun than the regular servers.
The cash shop has everything you need, if you can think of it, you can buy it. From gear resets to in-game gold to pets and fashion. Not only that, you can customize your nameplate, your text bubbles and your damage meters. The game is very customizable as long as you have the money to pay for it. Further, nearly everything in Cash Shop can be sold to a player in game making the cash shop items theoretically available to everyone as long they have in-game gold to buy it.
As mentioned previously, a in-game cash shop currency exist called Reward Points which in the Reboot servers are used to revive your auto-loot pet or Cubes which are re-rolling stats on equipments making it so much more free2play friendly. A brand new account with a week or so progress can accumulate at least ~100–200 points easily per day, making it possible to easily reach 2400 RP 3 times (since you can have up to 3 pets) every 90 days to refresh your pets. In fact, after 2 weeks of playing, my main Buccaneer (who is 219 as of this current review) is able to get over 400 Rewards Point a day by just killing majority of the Normal/Hard Daily bosses.
Pets
Are pick up pets a must in Maplestory?
Short answer is YES, 100% needed and is a huge game changer in terms of grinding/training. There are two different type of pets, the normal pets and the VAC pets, as the name suggest, VAC pets are basically vacuum pets where it has a much larger pick up radius range and picks up a lot faster and further away for the player. VAC pets are very expensive with a $99 price tag in Reboot and is only valid for 30 days where the user will need to spend an extra $14 each month to keep it active. Meanwhile, normal pets are regularly given away for free during events. For example, the Identisk event between December 2023 until January 2024 gives away 2 revivable pets. Otherwise, pets are roughly $5 each for 90 days and revivable (extend usage for another 90 days) using Reward Points or $2.40. Further, you are able gacha your pets for chance (lower than 1%) for permanent pets as shown in the picture below.
Artwork
The artwork in this game is just amazing, it’s looks clean and full of vibrant colors. Chibi cutesy characters that you can customize to your complete liking. Class fantasy of all kinds from tamers to swordsman to mechs, android robots or mystical creaters such as the 9 tailed fox or dragons. Even though the game is over 20 years old, the game doesn’t show it’s age at all. It is constantly improving. Nexon/Wizet are constantly adding new classes and new skills for all classes. Unlike most games, old classes usually gets dusted off and forgotten about. However, Maplestory developers are something different. Each of the old OG classes have gone through multiple revamps throughout the years to keep them refresh, new and engaging alongside the newer classes. Further, the game doesn’t just revamp old stuff, they come out with new stuff to like the brand new 6th job skill for all classes after level 260. Personally, I always wanted to reach level 200 for 5th job which I never actually reached since I only ever gotten as high as 176 previously. I want to strive for 6th job (level 260 this time around) While playing for the past few days as I am writing this review, I have already reached two 5th job characters from scratch; level 221 and 210 respectively
System Requirements
Is Maplestory Worth Playing
Fun
Is Maplestory Worth playing in 2024? To be honest, yes, why not. This game is still super fun and engaging. There are 20+ years of content and the game continues to evolve. With over 40 classes to choose from and max level at 300; brand new 6th Job Skills to play with, the game fun factor is a minimum of 4★ out of 5 ★. Personally, the constant update and continuation to the story is what makes me comes back every now and then just to enjoy it, even though yes, everyone skips everything but the black mage story is honestly pretty interesting. I love the fact that the story isn’t gated like World of Warcraft and most level 150+ Players are able to enjoy majority if not all the story without issues. Would really recommend giving Maplestory a fair chance, it may look childish but it may just grow on you.
Originally published at https://fayiette.com on December 27, 2023.
