Not really sure why I’m writing this, but it feels like the right time. I’ve been on MapleRoyals for a little over three years now. I originally joined with a few IRL friends. We made a guild, did PQs, messed around, talked shit in Discord, and just enjoyed being bad at the game again. No long-term plans. No endgame grind. Just nostalgia. Predictably, they all quit. Not in a dramatic way. Just life. Jobs, burnout, other games, touching grass. One by one they stopped logging in until eventually I was the only one left. I didn’t expect that part. What I really didn’t expect is that I didn’t quit with them. Somewhere along the way, this game stopped being “that old mushroom game” and turned into something I genuinely enjoyed logging into. And yeah, this game is old as fuck. By all logic, none of us should still be here. And yet… here we are. There’s some kind of gravitational pull to Maple. It’s honestly hard to quit completely. I’ve seen people quit for good, uninstall, give away gear, write goodbye posts, only to be back months later like nothing happened. I also see people complain about this game nonstop and then log in every single day anyway. The server could be on fire and half the playerbase would still be like “yeah this game sucks” while doing dailies. There’s some kind of magic here. Or Stockholm syndrome. Probably both. When I think about MapleRoyals, I don’t think about efficiency or spreadsheets. I think about moments. I think about spamming like 10 APQs in one day and somehow still wanting to do more. I think about doing Von Leon for the first time with your guild, completely wiping, having no idea what you’re doing, and laughing about it after. I think about doing back-to-back-to-back CWKPQs and getting absolutely nothing but swiss cheese and reindeer milk and pretending it was still worth it. I think about helping people with their long as shit Neo Tokyo prequests, listening to them complain about how unlucky they are with drops, and laughing because we’ve all been there. I think about late-night scrolling sessions with friends, basically gambling, sitting in Discord and just talking about life. That’s the stuff that sticks. Along the way, I’ve met a lot of real friends on this game. People I talk to regularly. People I trust. I’ve even met a handful of people from Maple IRL, which is kind of insane to think about for a mushroom game from 2005. I’ve also lost friends along the way. People quit. People banned. People drift. Sometimes things just don’t work out. And yeah, I’ve definitely been involved in my fair share of Maple drama too (lol). Dumb beef over pixels, ego clashes, disagreements. If you’ve been around long enough, it’s kind of unavoidable. Through all of that, what kept me here was always the same thing: playing with people. When people join Bougie, I usually tell them straight up that this probably isn’t going to be what they expect. Endgame Maple is grindy and isolating. A lot of it is solo bossing and mage farming. Efficient, sure, but not very social. When I think about Maple at its best, I think about APQs, LHCs, quad/5man HTs, and doing content with the same people over and over. That’s how you meet people. That’s how rapport gets built. For me, that phase was LHC, HTs, and APQ. You would hit the homies at reset on the BL or guild chat. Same faces. Same runs. Same mass SED wipes at HT. Slowly getting better together. Bougie didn’t get built overnight. It was built brick by brick, before endgame even mattered. By the time we actually reached endgame, the trust was already there. I also won’t lie, I was really excited for Pink Bean this year. It’s been talked about forever, and it sucks that it still hasn’t been released. I was genuinely preparing for it and looking forward to pushing for a first clear with the gang. Hopefully soon™. Now it’s the end of 2025, and somehow… I still enjoy this game. I enjoy planning runs. I enjoy helping newer players experience content for the first time. I enjoy being a guild leader, even when it’s annoying, stressful, or time-consuming, because it gives me a reason to stick around and care. I’ve quit before. I’ll probably quit again. But I don’t think I’ll ever fully leave MapleRoyals behind. Because as old and scuffed as this game is, there’s something about it that keeps pulling people back, even the ones who swear they hate it. At least it did for me. End of 2025. Still here. Still playing a mushroom game from 2005. Still convinced Pink Bean is “coming soon™”. At this point I think I’m just built different (or mentally ill). - Andy
Well said. Ive been on Royals for over 10 years. And ive seen countless friends "quit". And from what ive seen, theres no quit, theres only breaks. Those breaks may be years or decades long but people eventually come back given enough time. There should never any shame in returning either cause all of us have been there. Atleast a half dozen times ive said i was done done. And 6 months or a year later im back. Old school Maple scratches an itch no other game can. Its satisfying to scratch it. Its amazing that somehow you can become obsessed with a 20 year old game over and over again. Its never quite like how it used to be, but its close enough. You get home from work and all you wanna do is log on Maple and do the same thing you did the day before and before that and before that. I feel incredibly fortunate to have Maplestory and Royals to play whenever I feel like I need it in my life.
I thought I quit. Then 8 years later I somehow found myself back again. And I've never even really liked the gameplay, its just such a lovely way to build community and chat with random people.
Been here for 10 years and I couldn't have said it any better. Some of my best times on this server were those nights doing 10+ GPQs in a row, whether with a full party or duo it with a good friend.
