Without Maple

I grew up a very awkward anti-social kid (thank you Aspergers) but I was introduced to Maple round the time it started and it's been the only game I've stuck with. Maple was my first MMO and truly my first experience with people over the internet, a month or so before I started playing my family got our first desktop computer (my mom didn't share my love for tech back then). So being the awkward kid I was, having a platform where I could socialize while not actually having that fear of being in front of the person it genuinely helped me develop my social skills. I was able to practice different social techniques that I could then transfer over to people in real life. Maple is also the reasoning I got into learning coding languages, once I found out about private servers my curiosity on how to make my own sky-rocketed. Now I'm not an expert at coding what so ever but I love doing little projects of my own and I enjoy learning more. Also I live in a area where there are little to no people like me, geeky I mean, so over the years I was able to make friends who to this day I still keep in contact with regularly.

In short Maple helped me through a lot of my issues, I couldn't be happier and more thankful that a friend of mine introduced me to it all those years ago.

 

I got seriously addicted to this game back in the day. That was definitely a change for the worse. I got fatter, pastier, less social, all so I could level up my dumb warrior.

So after being borderline depressed because my life went to shit I took a look at myself and changed it. Now I'm happy. Wouldn't have had to go through that change and make myself a better person if I hadn't played this game/went through a weird downward spiral.

Tl;DR by making my life shitty, I gained a better outlook on life as a whole when I decided to change it. Thanks to this fucking 2d grinder.

 

i guess the main reason maple is that kind of game is the comitment you must have for it... you feel the urge to play and get back to that world....
i played alot of MMO over the years (mostly after quitting the going downhill game called GMS) and i never felt the love for any of them (over 5 games all played 2 months at least)

now im back here... and getting the same feeling who made me eventully becoming who i am... maple made me get close real life friends who are my closest friends 10 years after i stated playing (started age 12 now 22)
and if benefits its what you wanna hear then from a non knowing english at all child who need private teachers to get an avg grade i ended up getting 99% at most diffecult level in high school (in israel you take a class in english to your level and getting bonus points for the thoughest class you take).

so here i am writing in this english over sea furom and i know i get my grammer and spelling wrong alot but at least you understand me (i hope )
all because that virgin game i started age 12 without knowing how it will affect my life.

 

There's no big obstacle or anything substantial that Maple has helped me overcome; it just makes me feel better in general, and that effect has yet to diminish.

I've never been able to make friends very easily, and most of my life is spent alone. It may sound silly, but being able to have a connection with a character who I'm putting a lot of effort into raising fulfills almost the same thing. And it's much more rewarding on a server like this with low rates!

 

I love playing maple because watching numbers go up as I press a button repeatedly gives me the ultimate sense of satisfaction.

 

I stumbled upon Maple when I was 8 or so and I can also say it changed my life. I'm both gifted and cursed with intelligence and the ability to understand and learn even the most complex things very fast (yet I sometimes fail to grasp the simplest, everyday things due to thinking too much into it), and as a result felt and was treated like an outsider. For example, I was better at answering questions about e.g. math than your average 6-7th grader as a 2nd grader, which was nice but definitely put me in a weird place. It's not like I'm incredibly awkward or antisocial; I sometimes say the wrong thing like everyone else and whereas I can be blunt and egoistic at times (unless it's for/about close friends who I genuinely care about), I don't have that much of a hard time making friends... Nowadays. I used to feel different and therefore isolated myself, which lead me to Maple. I was just like all the others on Maple (apart from a little young) and that made me feel safe in a way and I went on to meeting people that I can still call some of the best friends I have or had. Being able to spend my time with a group of people on Maple was much more preferable to me back in the day; that group would be SINCity for me (and shoutout to quite a few who weren't in the guild, as well, of course). It also helped me become fluent in English.

I also met my first love and first serious girlfriend on Maple. Her and her twin sister were my best friends from '08 until last year or so; when they coincidentally moved a bit closer to me (From France to somewhere in the middle of the Netherlands) one of them went from best friend to girlfriend and I can safely say those had been the best years after a long time of felt 'solitude' and also helped me discover my (then unknown) passion for romance a lot earlier, all thanks to a party in LPQ, really.

In the last 4 years or so, now that the imaginary 'gap' I felt between me and others of my age has been growing smaller and smaller and is becoming less significant to nearly insignificant, I started to get more of a social life, yet I continued to play Maple (less than before, but yeah), simply because I never fail to meet new and awesome people on private servers these days. Especially last year and part of this year, a Maple private server literally kept me alive, since the people I met on it helped me deal with my problems far better than anyone IRL could've done or tried to do. There is times in my life where I think I wouldn't be here without Maple, yet there's also times where I hate this game with a flaming passion ('cause fuck 2x EXP, done with this shit). It's a love-hate relationship these days, yet I never manage to leave thanks to the community and people I consider close friends on here, as well (I blame Aero, Latte and Joy tbh).

I'd have been a lost cause without Maple throughout part of my life, really.

 

I won't allow you to leave me boy. We bro's. #SKT4Worlds

 

Maple in particular didn't do anything extraordinary for me, but this server helped me to survive one of the toughest periods in my life thus far, when I was struggling badly with the end of a 3 year relationship. Wouldn't be so dramatic and say that it saved my life, but it definitely helped me to continue to function.

 

Maple has definitely had an impact on my life because I played it when i was very young - I had some friends who were older than me and they introduced the game to me waaay back then when I was 4 years old. I can't say it changed my life as others did here; It made my life - my friends, and pretty much everyone I knew played and that's how I met most of the people I still know today. Among my best memories are just playing maple for hours on end with my buddies next to me. Yeah, that's pretty sad (and unhealthy), but that's how I grew up... I grew up on this game.

 

gunbound on ijji B) .. Boomer pro here

 

RIP ijji... anyone remember gunz?

 

im living it now and i fcking hate that!@#!@#!@#!@#!@#

 

Once the server is shut you'll all go back to your real life, the fairytail will end. Might be that you'll find another tail to live in, thats what I do haha

 

ill probarly find another fairy tail... just what i do.
b4 i descovered this awesome notalgic server i went from 1 mmo to another not connecting so well 1 time i went back to play pokemon fire red for so long because i had no other "fairy tail"

 

Back in the day when I was like 10 years old Maple fucked up my life. It sparked my interest in online games and taught me some basic English which lead to the academic achievements I'm proud of today. I was always extremely anti-social, I still am today, and because I couldn't make friends in school I decided to focus on studying and fitting into the stereotype of the quiet, smart nerd. However, Maple ruined that because I got quite addicted to the game. Over time things got worse and worse with my family and the 1 or 2 people I was sort of friends with and I lost all motivation for studying, trying to socialize and honestly life in general. I started getting picked on in school cause my grades went to shit real quick and I had no more friends so I was an easy target for bullying when I was 12-15 years old.
So when I was 15 I had to redo a grade since I skipped school for 6 weeks because I was just so sick of everyone. It wasn't just classmates giving me shit, but also teachers wanting me gone because my behaviour didn't fit the school image. That time was probably the hardest of my life because I didnt even have the motivation to get out of bed, eat, anything really. All I had was the internet and games and I found comfort in that, even if it was only for a few minutes a day. Eventually the school forced me to go see a psychologist and I was diagnosed with manic depression which then again lead to me having to live the great life of happy pills and pretending life is alright. After some time I refused taking the meds because I realized they were not helping whatsoever. I had to go to school again obviously but I just yolo'd from that point on. I didn't study anymore because my grades got back to a decent level, I started partying and socializing more which just ended with me developing an alcohol problem and getting drunk alone at home every few days (I quit 5 months ago yay me!) and I picked up kickboxing. People at school still hated me and so did the teachers because they knew I was giving no fucks and not even trying. I usually missed around 15-23 days every school year but they couldnt kick me out for it so why the fuck should I care.
ANYWAY I got through school finishing semi-decent,(except for English which was 15/15 points ayy) made some friends over the internet and got my life back on track sort of.
Now I'm working small jobs to earn some money until I go to uni to study psychology all while still playing games.

TL;DR Maple fucked my life really hard but I'm grateful for that because facing struggles and overcoming them makes you a stronger person. Looking back I have to blame 10 year old me, not the game. OH WELL.