I haven’t blogged in a long time, not that anyone reads this, so I guess I’ll explain.

I got completely fed up with the MapleStory community. I know there are nice people on there, people who are smart and not annoying and don’t brag or hack or ks 24/7. I know that’s true, but they are definitely a very, very small minority. Almost all of my interaction with people on there leaves me with a bad feeling in my stomach, or simply pissed off. I guess it’s because it’s a free game, or something. Whatever. So I avoid people for the most part when I train.

But then, when it comes down to it, the training isn’t even fun. Sure, it’s exciting to get a drop now and then, to plan out skill builds and write up wish lists of items I want. I realized I actually have more fun thinking about MapleStory than actually playing it. The training is boring, repetitive, and there aren’t many alternatives. Going to mess around with friends is stressful, when it means you could lose hours worth of experience. Even after I just levelled, when I’m at 0% and free to play around, the huge emphasis on training and levelling is always pressing into the back of my mind. What if everyone outlevels you? What if you train slower than all your friends and then can’t play with them? Wouldn’t it be great to train so fast you amaze everyone?

So, to summarize, I began to find MapleStory extremely stressful and not very rewarding. It basically just wasn’t fun for me anymore.

So I decided to try World of Warcraft. A lot of my friends who used to play MapleStory were now playing WoW, and I heard nothing but good things. I wanted to play a game that was actually fun, and I have enough money to fork over and give it a try.

I love it. It’s addicting, but it doesn’t take over my life. I don’t feel guilty if I don’t play for a few days because I’m busy with other things. Actually, quite the contrary, if you log out in one of the many inns all over the world, it actually benefits you. You get into a state called Rested, and you get double experience from the monsters you kill while you are rested. The longer you stay logged out, the longer you’ll feel Rested, so if you didn’t play for a few days, or even weeks, you’ll be able to jump back into the game with a little bonus.

The community is great. I can’t really speak for Alliance, because my character belongs to the Horde, but the whole Horde VS Alliance thing really helps people to band together. Partying with others is rewarding, and the loot sharing system is very fair. When a particularly rare item is found, everyone gets to click a dice to roll for the item automatically. You choose between Need if you will actually equip the item, or Greed if all you’ll do is sell it, or if you can’t use it, etc. Need rolls take precedence over Greed rolls. People are generally very honest about this, because if they choose Need and everyone in the party knows they don’t actually need it, they’ll get kicked from the party and have a very hard time doing any of the rewarding group activities in the game.

You can tell that the GMs really care about making this a quality MMO. The guides emphasize tact and politeness in dealing with other players, and often tell you straight out to put a bad party member on your Ignore list, to kick a greedy member, and to be fair to others. I’ve never had a lazy party member yet.

There’s no real grinding, unless you want there to be. There are literally thousands of quests available by talking to different NPCs around you. Some are hard, some are easy, and they usually involve exploring or killing monsters or hunting items. There are escort quests, where you escort an NPC through monster-infested territory, fighting beside him/her to keep them alive. There are dungeon quests with Elite monsters that are best tackled with a party. There’s a very handy Share Quest feature that allows you to share a quest you are on with all your nearby party members, if they are eligible.

At this point you’re probably extremely bored of hearing me rave about how much better WoW is than MapleStory, and probably a little bit mad. XD So I’ll wrap it up. I’m not really saying it’s a better game. Well, I think it is, but obviously what you prefer is up to you, and isn’t wrong either way. Heck, maybe you say Guild Wars is the best. I’m just sharing my experiences with both these games, in part to show my appreciation for the experience WoW has given me so far.

I’m not quitting MapleStory, or deleting it from my computer. I still play it for an hour now and then while I’m watching a movie or something, or just get on to chat with buddies. I’m about one level away from being able to train at Death Teddies without Hyper Body on my Priest, at which point I think I’ll level a lot faster, and maybe even have a little more fun. But in the end, to me, I know it will still be boring, repetitive training, and the only thing I’ll have to look forward to is new outfits, new weapons, new skills, and then even more boring, repetitive training. XD Sorry if you love MapleStory, I don’t mean to offend you. I’m glad if you’re able to enjoy it. I wish I still did.