Information GTOP100 temp. changes

I would/have voted twice since the change to 12h voting, albeit not perfectly.

It's an effort for us. You act like its a few seconds but if I'm switching to my phone and am in a spot with poor connection, I can spend 2-3 minutes waiting for the stupid capcha to populate on mobile. In that time I could have addressed work emails etc. It IS an inconvenience and to act like it isn't is insulting. Not to mention my voting is all screwed up because I don't vote exactly every 12 hours. The result is even with 6k being the total for a 24 hr period, I probably would lose nx over a longer stretch of time because it's much easier to miss a vote than before.

Sorry your player base is so unsupportive and useless. Maybe we ought to advertise more on our own and try and recruit friends like you mentioned?

OH WAIT. I fucking did. I joined with the player yodamaster93 months ago who is a friend IRL. We spent hours, days, weeks and months trying to progress through the game. So much time spent trying to find a party to do KPQ, LPQ, LMPQ, PPQ, holy shit it was awful.

Then we finally hit 100 and went to try jr. balrog in sleepy only to find that he got 1 shot as a result of not washing hard enough. If only we had started with 200m of int gear! Instead we found that after spending tons of time/money on either pqing or leeching, both unsatisfying and grueling, his character was essentially useless for most end-game content. He would need to start over in order to have any sort opportunity to try the rest of the game. All that work for nothing.

So the choice is essentially, start over with tons of expensive int gear + possibly inting your character, rendering them worthless for lots of early/mid game content. Not to mention starting over and trying to accrue 100s of mils in leech money to climb back to lvl 100+. So he quit and that was it.

One last point I want to make. It seems like the philosophical tendency of this server is more or less, "if it's harder, it's more worthwhile and therefore better". That's great in theory and one of the reasons I enjoy pursuing/grinding towards far away goals. But the reality is the players, especially the established players do NOT participate with the rest of the community for the most part. The game is challenging and instead of looking to grind with fellow maplers and build any sort of memories/relationships, players who have been around for a while are employing only the BEST methods to progress. Namely leeching, especially leeching oneself.

Nobody wants to train with a lvl 134 shadower because I don't have HS, HB, SE, SI mules etc. Why would you bother training with me when you could train with a bishop/mage/better attacker? Sure your exp isn't going to be that much worse with me, but why even bother having worse exp? These players are driven to find the best EPM/DPM/create perfect end-game items with white scrolls.

The new, less established players have no one to play with. It hinders their progress and they eventually stall and quit. They can't even attempt to make half the characters in the game because of washing requirements. First they would need a bishop, then a lot of money from selling leech etc. THEN you can try your low lvl bowman. Alternatively you can skip washing, hit the wall my friend did, and quit. Either way they don't stick around and you can't blame them. This server is straight up hostile to newcomers and when I try to mention this to any players they give me some trash response like "you don't think I struggled when I started"? Wow I'm so sorry you struggled with a higher, more active players count. I sure hope your white scrolls succeed on your perfect end-game weapon! Meanwhile the players will continue to drop due to general satisfaction, the established players will continue to not notice or care, and the developers are left blaming the players as things fall apart.

But hey it's going to be fucking sweet when you get that 21 attk WG and can show the 15 people online how much higher your range is!

 

I'm literally telling you, as someone who has made multiple new accounts over the past few months, played with people who made new accounts, and currently try and play with new players.... THAT THE GAME IS HORRIBLE FOR NEW PLAYERS. Like I said, harder isn't necessarily better, this isn't the bedroom.

Your options are to hit lvl 65 and buy leech. That's it. That's the fucking game. People who still train outside of this use mules or are few/far between. This isn't about being spoonfed it's about having an opportunity to do ANYTHING except the highest EPM routes that have been paved by players before.

The disconnect between staff/players who are already end game and only concerned with making mules/zakum/HT and players who are trying to join for this nostalgic "what maplestory was all about" fairytale is ridiculous. I think you should at least be able to concede that under the current climate, none of these players coming for nostalgia are going to stay in the long term. There's nothing for them to stay for once they've filled their KPQ/LPQ good feelings. They are stuck in a hole, unable to access end game content without a complete restart because they didn't wash. Even if they are fortunate to not need washing, they are unlikely to find anyone or anything to do because again, everyone has calculated the highest EPM routes/have made mules to train themselves/have no interest in wasting EPM playing with an inferior player. Expecting people to just sit and buy hours of leech, waiting in the FM for a seller, paying all their money, all so they can't even play the game themselves as it was intended, is absurd!

The current state of the game goes completely against your ideal of "nostalgic maplestory". They are incongruent and you frankly ought to adjust one or the other.

 

edited, inappropriate for this thread chain.

 

I think this would be better reserved as a topic on itself instead of this current topic about GTOP and voting

 

So instead of user count, maplelegends is now a low-end server that illegally attempts to manipulate vote counts?

 

You're certainly right.

 

bear this is an excellent post, great way to summarize my experience as a new player here. i still like the game but it isn't very nostalgic and ive pretty much found other things that i like about it despite coming here for nostalgia v62

 

This specific server is very canon to old-school maple, even the controversial bits. So to say that this server doesn't follow the nostalgic ideal is simply not true. It's 2018, not 2008. People who play old-school Maple today generally have way more knowledge about every intimate detail of the game than back then. What you're upset at is not the game, rather that the people playing it are playing beyond just nostalgia. The game itself is accurate. For example, look at other old-school themed games like old WoW pservers or Oldschool Runescape and you will immediately realize that all these communities consist largely of people who already know the best ways of playing the game. The only thing stopping you from playing the way you want is either peer-pressure or you yourself becoming more knowledgeable of the "better" ways of playing (usually opportunity-cost based). As a side, I would like you to point out what it is exactly you think is not original from Maple that is in this server, because leeching, FM-hoeing, yes even hp washing existed back then too. The big difference with washing here is that it's not gated behind a huge paywall and is open to all.




On-topic: I'm glad voting is going back to 24hr because I was having technical issues with GTOP.

 

I'm tired and will respond tomorrow but you missed the larger point of my post entirely.

 

No, I understood your post perfectly clear. It's true in general that most people will lose interest in something after a nostalgia trip wears off. Where you are wrong is in thinking that is a fault of this server, rather than the nature of nostalgia itself. This server does cater to those looking for nostalgia to an extent because it is very canon. The part that is impossible to recreate is the collective memory/knowledge of every player can't be erased and started from scratch. This is why everything you complained about (leech/wash/eph) is prevalent. You claim that "none of the players coming for nostalgia will stay long term" which is not true, evidenced by the current population of the server being higher than it was in the past. There really isn't much you can do to prevent players from leaving after nostalgia runs out other than participate in improving the health of the community. The point I was trying to make is that this phenomenon is not specific to just this server. You see it within other old-school games as well. If you try to modify the game too much you remove the appeal of nostalgia for more new players. Unless you think you have the mythical golden ticket to this problem, go ahead and share it because it's not just this server.

 

Everything written below is going to be my own personal opinion as a returning player.

I think it is hard to ignore the fact that the population of Legends is decreasing. And I personally feel it is mainly due to the retention rate of players. Majority of players join the server because of nostalgia. Most of us played pre BB and want to 'relive' that feeling of enjoyment again. But I'm sure that nostalgia for majority of us didn't include hp washing, grinding non stop and selling/buying leech. Legends is provides the same game, but due to us growing up and having too much existing knowledge of maple, the game isn't played nearly the same anymore. Maple is just the same as every other game out there where people try to level and gain as much money as possible with the fastest method possible. New players join the server, play till their nostalgia gets fulfilled and leave. There isn't anymore incentive to continue the near 'endless grind'. Which comes to the question of how do we increase the retention rates of new players? How can we make the game fun for them to continue playing even after their nostalgia gets fulfilled?

I returned to this server around a month or two ago after quitting the game for around 8 months. As expected, I was expelled from my previous guild and my buddy list was dead. The first thing I did was join the discord, went to recruitment and started searching for a guild. I was around lvl 93 at the time. I finally got an invite after an hour or two. I joined and got kicked within a minute or two after a jr master went "who invited this guy". I thought, what happened to the community, were people always such dicks? Maple is no doubt a social game. But with the server lasting for so long, people have already found their own cliques and it is hard to enter their circle without being of use to them. Even after joining a guild, I find it hard to talk to veterans who have played the game for so long. They are just too high level and I'm just too weak to join the same level of content that they are playing. With no one near my level, who am I supposed to interact with and train with? Do I just go about my days selling leech all day to get better gear or train solo till I'm strong enough?

I have to agree with Bear on a point of people leaving the game due to HP washing, however I find that it was the lack of knowledge on maple that led them to that state rather than having to HP wash itself. They joined because of nostalgia, and when they played the server in their time, they didn't know what HP washing was. So when they joined Legends, they just played the same way they did and not HP wash. While I was leveling my HB mule, I met a lvl 39 assassin training at teddies, we partied up and started grinding. He started to talk about how he joined because of nostalgia reasons and said he would quit after reaching lvl 100 or so. I asked him if he had any plans to level up even more to try out bossing since he played a assassin. I then began to talk about HP washing and how it helps to survive bosses. He literally had no idea what is HP washing and was irritated that he had to potentially level a mage to earn messos for int gear. I added him to my buddylist after we stopped training. He has not logged on ever since.

Back to the main topic of GTOP voting. It is obvious that being at rank 3 would get more new players trying Legends out than being at rank 4~5. Most players will just go down the GTOP list when finding a new server. Being at a higher rank would help the server obtain more exposure which could potentially increase the population of the game. I agree with @kimmy that we should keep the votes at 24 hours and let people vote a second time if they want to support the server. It makes it more convenient for the average voters while sparing the hassle of voting every 12 hours. Someone already pointed out that they could potentially lose more NX with the 3k NX per 12 hours as compared to the 5k NX per 24 hours due to the repercussions of missing a vote due to being busy. Giving people an option to vote again to help the server stay in the higher ranks would allow players like me who like bitching about the server not having enough players the ability to help the server out and make it more popular. I mean if we are all willing to write complains on the forum/discord, I'm sure we can all take the extra time to vote again to raise the server's ranking in the GTOP ranks which in turn would lead to more exposure.

Does player population affects you? Voting in GTOP only increases exposure and by no means would increase the playtime of new players. One of the few things you can do in your own time is to help new players out. I'm sure it'll be more effective than writing a long post like I did on the forums.

 

HP washing is now the Voldemort of Maple o.o Im sorry "He-who-must-not-be-named"

 

I feel like new players have had horrible issues with guilds... something i personally did not know was going on. This is about the 3rd time i read someone new or coming back unable to join a guild or being kicked a few seconds after joining.
Id just like to say regardless of the level Flavors alliance will love to recruit anyone whos active and friendly.. (R>HORNY)

Edit: stop blaming the veterans for being shitty. When its just players in general that are shitty. Every guild in my alliance has been around 2 years + (except Home) and still has some of the original players in it.

 

I think that the last thing I said is what I would encourage you to reread and focus on. Arguing that the infrastructure of the game is canon to old-maple is ridiculous, I'm not arguing against that in any way, shape or form.

I am aware that this server abides by v62 as closely as possible. The rates are the most modest of any major server and the content is as true to as it was in 2008.

Also want to address your comparison to old school RS. Never played WoW so I won't comment on that. I played RS as much as anyone, I've made dozens of accounts, mostly pures, at many different facets of runescape's existence. So I can say that it's a pretty awful comparison. Yes the players are more knowledgable and are seeking nostalgia generally, just like here. Yes I already know the best ways to level my accounts and go PK at. But to say, about maplelegends, "The only thing stopping you from playing the way you want is either peer-pressure or you yourself becoming more knowledgeable of the "better" ways of playing (usually opportunity-cost based)" is straight up wrong. I and other players who want to access certain content are COMPLETELY unable to because of the state of the game. Whether that's because of HP washing creating an invisible ceiling OR, more importantly, players being incentivized to not participate in PQ's or other reasons.

If you go to LMPQ right now on channel 1, it's completely dead. There's no one doing it, an hour from now no one will be doing. Tomorrow no one will be doing it. In runescape you can and SHOULD train lots of things solo. These are fundamentally different games. I will not be hampered by a low player count or extensive knowledge in runescape. My experience is not aversely affected.

If it takes hours to find an OPQ/LMPQ/PPQ, then that experience fucking sucks. Period. If you are therefore pigeonholed into buying leech for 50+ levels, thereby skipping a HUGE portion of your class/game experience then it fucking sucks. There's nothing satisfactory about it.

This is the point. There is a philosophical ideal that this server should be a true, unabridged, nostalgic experience like the maple we all enjoyed at one point or another. It is currently not anywhere close to that goal in any way shape or form for large portions of the game. To argue that leeching existed back in 2008 is laughable. 95% of us did not buy leech back then, or at least I didn't in 2005/2006. Now, probably 80% of players who are making it to 4th job are employing leech and skipping all of their 3rd job class experience. If these knowledgable players weren't affecting the rest of the new players that are filtering in, that would be fine. If we were playing runescape that would be fine. But we aren't.

As an aside, Runescape is a truly horrible game. It's nostalgic for a lot of people and pking became huge but as a standalone game, it's pretty awful. Maplestory at least has quests that give some decent reward for your time. Most of the content in runescape is not worth the time or energy.

 

I'm not blaming veterans for being shitty. I'm blaming a climate that allows them to completely not interact with new players to the point that portions of the game are completely and utterly dead.

Brb buying red slime leech! Buying wraith leech!

Let me provide some ideas before things get messier.

Agree on some of these facts first: memorable/lasting experiences with OTHER players lends itself to a more satisfying overall gameplay. People want to come back and continue to play with each other and the friends they make. Some of my best experiences have revolved around meeting and talking to players who quested, namely pqed with me. Most of the friends/players I know on this server are from pqing. Conversely, the people I bought leech from or split leech with are just random people who I have no relation to. At MOST I added one or two to keep buying from or buying with. Satisfactory and fun? Nope!

The issue is the climate that currently exists allows players with knowledge of the most lucrative EPM routes to skip lots of content and possible interactions with other players a la leeching.

Let's look at one of the most successful and active pq's currently in the game: apq. Why is apq done by a huge portion of the population? Incentives, namely apples. Because the reward is so substantial and worthwhile compared to other money making opportunities, we all want to partake.

And sure enough, it works! We meet people in apq, you are forced to interact and solve puzzles together. People talk/are social. This is a great thing and we should aim to replicate that in other areas.

Would it work if we tried to increase the incentives of other pqs or added things like MPQ, romeo/juliet PQ or CPQ? Possibly. It should at least receive consideration. I know that OPQ was touched up with little to modest results. I think at it's core, if pq's were more worthwhile than just leeching, people would eventually move to engage in it. And that's what the ultimate goal is right, to get players to leech less and interact more.

It might have to be a drastic swing, but frankly if the choice is either play in a 2x exp server where you buy hours upon hours of leech OR a ramped up PQ system with say 6x the normal exp and level up with reasonable speed (maybe too quickly for some of you hard-nosed players but w.e) than you can guess which one I'm choosing!

Again, this is not the bedroom; harder is not necessarily better. It is fucking hard to level on this server. And it sucks, it isn't rewarding. You aren't even playing the game, someone else is. Change the climate so that isn't the aim of 90% of the knowledgable players.

 

Let me disagree with you because my experience as a beginner (about a year ago) was completely different from what you describe. I was helped SO MUCH by random people I just met, without even asking. Yes the pqing part was a bit slow but I made many friends I play with up until today, and joined a guild where I was helped even more, countless times.
This server is all about the community, and it's plain wrong to say that 'veterans' do not interact with new players, some might but it is a personal choice.
Lately I opened a new character to experience a different game-play, and as dead as LPQ is - I still managed to join a party, have fun and make friends.

I wasn't playing maple for few month because of RL stuff and was not kicked out of the guild, the alliance is active and both veterans and new players are welcome into any of the participating guilds.

Now that I'm a high lvl I often help new players with mesos because I know difficult it is in the beginning, and try to help whenever I have time and pass by Vic.
I know I am not the only one!

So bottom line is - I'm sorry your experience wasn't as good as mine but there are some awesome people who help new players, and guilds organize events and activities all the time.... you just need some luck to meet the people you resonate with