Ever encountered games which are totally dumb and brainless yet so addictive? Been playing MapleStory for the past few days and I just can’t explain why it’s just nice to play. It’s a side scrolling action (old gamers think Commander Keen) with an MMORPG (newer gamers think UO) theme. Yes there are classes to choose from, xp to gain, eq to gather but it seriously lack some important elements in an online RPG that is to encourage grouping and creativity. I mean one of the best ways to play the game is to go solo shooting or whacking monsters the whole day. There’s no team play element in where players organise groups to go after big monsters for xp, gold or eq which takes a group to take out. No room for creative ways to defeat powerful monsters, and no clan politics with war and pkill threats (heh).

Me (chaux) and Cheesecake (sucre) posing for a photo!

Oh well. This is just the start of a new style of RPG and there’s definately much room for improvements, though I can’t exactly say how. The simplicity of playing does introduce lots of lamers and idiots into the game (much like what counter-strike did to the FPS community). Not much time to lament on this now, perhaps in the near future..