What is Maple Story? Many answers can be given for the question, but in essence, it is a game. What is a game for? This question is easy: A game is for playing. What is the definition of “playing” though? That is difficult to reply.

Now, I am not an expert philosopher (or even an amateur one), and I cannot give a clear definition either. So, I will borrow the definition written in Dan Doriani’s book “The Life of a God-Made Man”: “Play is a voluntary and absorbing activity engaged in for the enjoyment it gives, without regard for the results.” How does that apply to Maple Story?

Enjoyment – In our early levels, we kill monsters whether they’re weak or strong, go around the world, ride the ship to Ossyria (and get pwned by the good ol’ Crim), trade fame, going back and fro’ in the land, party with people we’ve just met, and sending buddy requests to the same people – all for fun.

Abosrbing activity – In our early levels, we are absorbed in the game itself (not the “materials” inside the game, such as levels). Who cares if I am wearing equipments that doesn’t maximize my stats? I look cool in that suit. Who cares if I’m not high-levelled? I go explore the Dungeon even though I know I’m probably going to get my rear end handed back to me on a silver plate by the Tauros. Who cares if I am not rich? I spend my money freely, on whatever I like, be it that it’s something critical or just plain silly (Plunger to mages come to mind).

Without regard for the results – In our early levels, we do not do everything for a “materialistic” benefit. We kill whatever monster we like, without caring that it provides bad experience, negative profit, and unnoteworthy drops. We dress outselves in whatever we like, be it that it has 20 defence or 5. We explore wherever we want to explore, and if you think I could’ve used my time to level, find someone who cares.

In short, we played for fun. Yet, as our experience slowly grew, as our levels begin to accumulate, as the length of the time it takes for us to level grow geometrically, the fun we had slowly begin to erode. Enjoyment degrades into competition, absorption to the game retargets to “materialistic” gains, and our freedom simply disappears as we bind our feet with guidelines. We no longer “play” our characters per se, but rather, we “train” our characters instead. Note the difference.

We begin to play too hard. We are determined to outlevel or become richer than others, in order to prove ourselves. We begin to treat others coldly. Most of us will yell “cc plz” or its full form at people, some of us deliberately KS to gain a map, and a few people even resort to scamming, botting, or hacking.

As our enjoyment degrades to competition, it drives the extreme out of us, and most of the time it’s on the negative end. We do thing that, translated into real world situations, would probably never do. Mass defames for a very petty insult are frequent; swear wars engages amongst us for something of no importance quite often; KS wars are somewhat rarer but still not unheard of. In competitions, our pride, ego, and the desire to win unmask the evil inside our heart, which we often kept in check in the real world, and it unleashes itself at will.

Even when there are no one around to unleash our evil on, we still no longer play the game, but rather absorb ourselves in “materialistic” gains (which are purely digital, I might add). Our zeal to converse with other people, to enjoy the quests and some self-set tasks (that is not in the form of reach level X or gain Y amount of money in Z time), to struggle against monsters tougher than we are for the inner reward we feel erodes, falters, and eventually disappears. Also, skill guides limit us. We tell every one who deviate from the “standard build” that he should either restart, or he is intellectually incapable. (For example, Haste first in assassin build is quite plausible if you just want to have fun. If someone asks your opinion on a build with haste first, don’t discourage him, just tell him that he may have a hard time training.)

I must say that I am not “holier than thou”. I am often not above the evils that tainted our play. I frequently KS others for not changing channel, am particularly stingy on my mesos (I almost never spend on anything that is of no importance to me), and speak nothing to anybody unless it’s a proclamation of joy on the particularly valuable/rare drop I just found or the level I just game. I know that it is often essential to go in what I coin as “hermit mode” (it has nothing to do with the class Hermit, mind) to gain levels, as staying at a rather low level forever is not very fun either. However, I believe there are certain things we can do to rediscover some of the fun we had early times.

Try to do some quests, even if you consider them time wasting and yields no significant reward. Sometimes, doing the quest is reward enough by itself.
Go on expedition trips to kill powerful monsters from time, with friends if you can gather any. If you are going with a party, try converse with them from time to time, instead of just slaying monsters silently for thirty minutes straight.
Try not to refuse newbies’ request for help. I know that by giving whatever they desire is not very helpful to either you or them, but keep in mind that “teach someone to fish, you feed him for life.”
Don’t take everything seriously. If someone yells “cc plz” at you, don’t pretend he asked you to change clothes or show him/her to Chuck n’ Cheeses or something. Just change channel as requested (at least if the request is reasonable).
Create an alt and plays on him/her from time to time. You can sometimes rediscover the fun you once had.

I know I want to reclaim the fun that I once had on the game. Do you?