Difficulty:

Hard

Time Spent:

100 or More Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Waste of time"

Let's get right to it. This game is a complete waste of time. The thing is, though, even if you know that, you're still going to play it, because the developers of this game have cleverly found ways to take advantage of your humanity, making you unhealthily addicted.

One thing they have done, is that they have made being at a high level and having the third and forth job look very attractive. When you see those level 100s people riding about, looking down at you from their stupid hogs, raining arrows from the sky, summoning angels and fancy dragon seals, and doing however many thousand damage to monsters you can't even touch, IT MAKES YOU JEALOUS. IT MAKES YOU WANT IT BAD. So you are going to grind real hard, for however many months to get just close to their level.

Another thing they've done is what I've just mentioned: the amount of grinding it takes to go up just one level, especially when you start getting into the 60s and 70s is utterly ridiculous. Unless you do some cheating it WILL take days, at least, of mindless grinding to go up just one level. And even with cheating i.e. "Glitch party quest " it will still take you several hours. Again you know deep down that you're not doing something productive, but you still do it because you rationalize that it's good. You're training. You're working hard. You're getting stronger closer to that third or fourth job. You're making progress. But in reality, it's just you wasting your life away.

The last thing they've done is they've made all their quests ridiculously hard, with rewards that aren't even worth it. You have your usual kill 1000 of this monster, or collect 1000 of this item, which rewards you with this crappy scroll, these crappy potions, or this miniscule amount of experience that will probably raise your exp percent bar by less than 1%. The party quests are even worse but I'll get to that. The worst of all is the jump quests. They are probably the only thing in this game that takes practice and skill. However, they are designed to be incredibly annoying and frustrating, for if you screw up just one jump, you will usually fall all the way back down to the bottom - Another hours long, time consuming ordeal.

Most people who play this game are preteens/ teens, and you know how most kids are at that age: irrational little douchebags… After all the mindless grinding and frustration you can imagine that the result is: THE CRAPPIEST COMMUNITY IMAGINABLE.

That is why the party quests are terrible. If you manage to get into a party you had better know how to do the party quest perfectly. One screw up and they call you a NOOB and boot you. I mean you are going see the word NOOB in that chat box at least 100 times a day. If you are a beginner this game those who aren't are going to make it even harder for you. You know why? Because they have been beaten down, weathered and mind-raped by the addictive, frustrating, ordeal that is this game, and they are going to take it out on you. There are also many hackers and scammers. Making money and buying the equipment and items you want is a huge pain because you inevitably have to go to *sigh* the Free Market… and *sigh* try to bargain with these kids. It's half impossible.

In the end, when you've finally become uber powerful, you find that it's all meaningless. There's not much to do anymore except show off your fancy power, call people noobs, and grind some more so that maybe you can get to level 121, maybe even 122 in a few more months... why?

This is supposed to be an MMORPG. Why do people play MMORPGs? So they play an RPG while making new friends and socializing. Well let's see here… 1. Maplestory is more of a mindless grindfest, and a frustrating exercise in futility and pointlessness than an RPG. And 2. You aren't going to make that many good friends in this pathetic community. So all in all, this isn't really an MMORPG. So what is it then?