For many years it's been a community I've increasingly been meaning to re-visit. I had heard whispers of a recent patch that significantly altered the game so much as to almost make it unrecognisable, but I didn't want to jump back into Maplestory all that quickly. After all, I didn't really enjoy the game that much to begin with, and the thought of making another account and slogging through the opening all over again was... disheartening. Instead I did something I thought I would never do: I visited a game specific forum. Yep, I ventured into the depths of the Maplestory boards to discover... I don't know what I wanted to discover but I'm sure it would of been something interesting. I was wrong. To bear witness to such single-minded devotion for one specific game is a sobering experience and it brought back terrible memories of my younger, fanboy self. It would be hypocritical of me to say that these people are wrong to spend so much time on the one game and miss out on so much more but, I said it. I'm sure that anyone could point at my obsessions and say the same thing about me and I'm totally OK with that. But come on guys, really, it's Maplestory. You can't argue with my logic, no sir.
Despite my snark, I did manage to stumble across something remarkably interesting during my foray through the forums (I didn't sign up, I swear!). It requires a little bit of backstory however. Maplestory, like most games, features an introductory tutorial after you create your cute little avatar. The slightly unusual aspect of the tutorial is that it's cordoned from the rest of the in-game world. It takes place entirely on an island called Maple Island. When the player has familiarised themselves with the controls, gameplay design and maybe even leveled up a wee bit, they can head off to the nearby harbour and set course towards Victoria Island; the island of the main game. However, once you've left Maple Island, you'll never be able to return. It is an island strictly created to introduce new players to the game in an extremely controlled environment (beyond all the other newbies) before the real meat of the game. This isn't a bad thing! There honestly isn't that much to do on Maple Island and it's only after you've left it do you get the opportunity to chase down further class advancements and truly develop your character.
But, whether it was through sheer boredom or general interest in how far a player could stretch the boundaries of Maplestory, some gamers created a character with the intention of never leaving Maple Island. Affectionately calling themselves "Islanders", these people wander the lands of Maple Island for eternity, never catching that boat ride to Victoria Island and never getting the chance to go beyond the class of "beginner". They toil endlessly, fighting the same monsters over and over again and watch their XP rise at an infuriatingly slow pace as the level of their character quickly outstrips the level of their enemies. Sometimes they might stumble upon that rare monster drop and get that rare item they've been searching for and other times they might simply stop and help out the newbies just starting their adventures in Maplestory. The newbies will never understand why their benefactors are so over-leveled though or why they have yet to hop onto the boat for Victoria Island. Rather, they will accept their help graciously (hopefully) and eventually leave the island and, by doing so, abandon the very person that helped them so much during their time of need. There isn't any everlasting fame in being an Islander nor is there any true recognition of what you're sacrificing to be one. Gaining levels quickly becomes an exercise in mind-numbing tedium and even item drops eventually lose their luster as the player realises there are only so many items one can obtain on Maple Island. So, what's the point? Is there any reason at all to be an Islander or are these people simply mad?
I would say that they're perfectly sane. In fact, I would say that Maplestory is, despite my grievances, a wonderfully designed game to allow such a strange thing to happen in the first place. This is genuine, player-defined role-playing that every game developer hopes for. Having exhausted all possibilities of the intended ruleset, players have instead set their own rules and limitations to enjoy themselves. Sure, players don't need to do this but the option is there, which is great. It reminded me of a review of Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together by Jeremy Parish in which he detailed the Chariot system. For all of you who don't know, Tactics Ogre is a strategy RPG in which a player moves a group of team members in a chess-like fashion across board-like stages with engagements being determined by a mixture of stats and a myriad of other systems. It's a frequently challenging genre that requires a great deal of patience to enjoy. The developers of Tactics Ogre: LUCT recognised this and incorporated the Chariot system, which lets the player rewind a certain amount of turns to correct any mistakes that they might have accidently stumbled into instead of having to resort to a hard restart. Despite this feature being entirely optional (as Parish mentioned), gamers cried out at the decision to incorporate it, stating that such a feature ruined the gameplay balance. It didn't. What the feature encouraged, and was most likely incorporated into the game for, was a stepping-stone into a very niche, difficult genre for beginners to play.
The truth of the matter is that there was a sizeable amount of players who ignored the Chariot system and that's as valid as choosing to use the system. One could even say that not abusing the Chariot system was encouraged, as the game tracked the amount of times you used the system in your statistics. The point is that gamers do this sort of thing all the time. We complete a game and, if we particularly enjoy it, we might decide to try a second run and limit our options. Super Metroid is infamous for the many ways one can sequence break the intended route of the developers, Dead Space can be entirely completed with just one weapon (alongside a whole lot of other games, I imagine) and even some gamers have had the blackest of hearts necessary to kill off almost every single member of their party in Mass Effect 2, a feat that requires an absurd amount of careful decision making and knowledge of the inner workings of the game's mechanics. Instead of deriding the people who want to be an Islander in Maplestory or the people who are simply experimenting within the framework of a game, we should be fascinated by it all. They are the grown ups who are most able to remember what being a child is all about and are the ones most likely to challenge game developers to create flexible design. These are the children at heart capable of receiving a great big thing of desire in a box, unwrap it, toss the item of desire aside and make a fort, treehouse or any other remarkable figment of their imagination a reality using that simple cardboard box.
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