A Letter to the MapleRoyals Community

Great ss choice...
Anyway I figured I should share my thoughts on this matter that Andy has brought up as well.

To sum it up, I've observed how processes have generally become more streamlined in royals. What I mean is that we have more and more people knowing how to, in a sense "play this game".

Spoiler

Make a hs mule> make an archmage > sell loads of leech > fund your new attacker (prob a nl) > get burnt out and quit

And I wouldn't say its unavoidable as let's face it, the content of this game stays relatively the same. Not a 6k NL? Good luck getting into a ht run. I'm not here to say if this is a good thing as I think it's only fair funded people do not want to be weighted down by less funded people, but this range requirement simply did not exist back in 2015. Was it because people ran HT with more than 1 full party, or was it because people were willing to spend more time online killing a three-head dragon with friends? I do not have the answer.

For another example, I used to go for Zakum runs hosted by a very dear friend who was an Ice Lightning Mage in 2015, fast forward to 2019 prepare to get meme-d on so hard if you even dare to mention Arch mage and attacker in the same sentence. Was it because I simply valued the community and friendships that in contrast people care only about damage so much that we've just shoehorned every class into a certain "category"? I don't know this too.

And Andy personally I knew you back in 2015, you gave FREE skele leech on your bishop. That is unheard of nowadays. I get people cursing me because I wanted to go to bed and did not want to leech.

Spoiler: I am the devil

It's a weird time for royals now. I've nothing to add as of most recent events because I've decided to stop playing, but there's my insight for you as someone who's been around since 2015.

 

Yes, it's the literal objectification of "pretty pixels" (as they say) into something that must be obtained.
Rudimentary I want "A" ----> "B" thinking that this game breeds (well, any game for that matter).
I've witnessed people hastily look to obtain pictures, discord chats, "marriage"... because a character is a girl? Furthermore, when these advances are clumsily included in introductions....?

I find that, again, such behavior robs someone of their character and reduces them to an "item".

 

I've played this game only during new source, started mid 2017. The environment I was in versus now is somewhat different in a sense because I made it different.

Back then when I started, I would frequently surround myself with people of the same mindset. Grind, mesos, grind, mesos (@eden can attest to this). I would party up with them, set strict timings on what time to grind, let them know when I'm coming on. I've also had buddies who kindly tell me off of how antisocial I am cuz I miss out on chill-time with them and was always in SkyNest selling leech or in MP3 spamming heal above the vehicle and out level them by a lot.

Versus now, the only thing that has changed is that I've become more independent, hardly ever socialising or partying up like PQ or mp3 days as I'm concentrating farming on heartstoppers. I still surround myself with like minded people who grind and think about mesos a lot. We hardly ever meet actually, my way of interacting with them is hardly ever in FM and always using whisper. We can talk about non-maple stuff, and a shitload of it, which I truly appreciate!

In-game wise, I believe nothing has changed. When people claim that the game is becoming more grind-centric and less social it's only because they've lost their old buddies either cuz they've totally quit or come on in-game and AFK for most of the day. Most of the players who raise these kind of concerns are the old source players. They are probably decently or very funded that it's 2nd nature to try to surround themselves with players who are on the same level as them, therefore less likely to interact with newer players who seek the humble beginnings that we experienced years ago.

In forums tho, I've not looked at how the forums are like couple of years ago partly because the search function is down and partly because it's nearly irrelevant to me. But from my 1.5years+ using and observing forums, still nothing has changed about the community. The population shrunk but there are still players who try to maintain neutrality and avoid conflicts, players who look through the threads to offer their free assistance, players who bash on another just because they know more than others and many more.

imo, nothing has drastically changed. Who u subconciously surround with affects ur opinion about the community as a whole and that is of course a bad sample size to generalise the whole Royals community, both in-game and in forums. If u're so constantly caught up with the best buddies in-game, I really doubt you'll be distracted by the toxicity that's been going on around you. I think making new friends, especially with the newer players, is a good way to relive what you've experienced those years ago. It is also harder to do it cuz let's face it, the influx of players is never a plus sign for Royals. It all takes time.

Royals is great af.

Somewhat realised I made the same points as @Jooon . No accuse me of plagiarism pl0x

And let me defend myself with the best defence mechanism online: Just my 2 cents.

 

Discord voice calling really helps have fun and prevent burn out when I farm.

I’m not too sure if this is true. But I feel The standard of basic attacker gear has gone up compared to when i started. I feel like starting gear is generally 15scg/6-8shoe, 7-9 cape. back in 2017 I felt like players did not have such high expectations. also remember when people who telecasted could charge more?

 

Yea the QoL all went up. Back then wa12 cape is 5b and leech petri was 90m. Now it's 4b with petri leech at 130m.

Also, too bad for me I hardly discord vc with anyone cuz silence is gold to me.

 

I too, appreciate the old "mute call" where we simply listen to questionable music choices made by acquaintances over the internet

 

Hail to the Steel Plate overlord. (For anyone wondering, I paid over 1 B to Succubus to be the proud owner of this giant collection lol)

Sorry I'm so late to respond here but finally got some time today to read your thread over. I agree with what you're saying, but at the same time I haven't really experienced much animosity or conflict from other players. I think, in my humble opinion, that there are some issues like you said, however I would never consider this a toxic community.

I have a theory however that because the player base is much more skewed to more experienced / veteran players like yourself, it only makes sense that the community may seem more unfriendly. When anyone first starts playing on this server or any game for that matter, you mostly just enjoy the game and the experience. As you continue to play however, that initial joy of a new experiences starts to fade as all things do. Due to the lack of growth of the server, the majority of the population are players who are no longer just enjoying the game for the experience.

Usually newer players are quite friendly. Not saying that older players are not, in fact older players actually have the tools to not only be friendly but helpful due to their experience. However, just as life is, USUALLY older people are more cynical and grumpy. They have been through all the joys in life and all the terrible things as well. I find people are much more affected by negative things. Not only that, usually when people go through negative things, it is a much more difficult task to revert back to a more positive mind set. I would say it takes more positive things to happen to a person to keep them in that spot than to push them to a more negative personality.

As majority of the player base are loyal Royalers for over 2+ years, i'm sure within that time, negative things have happened to all of us and as such, majority of people will tend to slowly become not as nice or not as polite. My post was more on the etiquette when talking or trading with people. As I stated in the beginning, i haven't actually had any problems with people, but i have seen and been told by people about issues so they definitely exist. All in all however, majority of the people old and new I have found to be quite polite and friendly :d

 

Very good summary of things. Things get taken out of proportion on a new player and i try my best to give free items and sometimes money because it's usually the things i don't really need. Either that or it's just a small donation i'm happy with.

It certainly doesn't feel safe anymore to AFK. I believe i only got killed by a summon twice out of these 2-3 years. I used to be staged up in Maya's house but came back to death. Kudos to the loser that did it. Another time was in Kerning i believe, only because i was really hungry and went to make something to eat for unless than 10 minutes. If you're smart, use the Lounge as an escape from toxic activities like AFK killing even though we shouldn't have to. Yeah i know it's part of the game but have some common courtesy. You don't see people trying to kill you everyday IRL from just trying to sit outside.

Another thing is swearing. I do it. You do it. We all do it. But at least respect the server's rules and don't go shouting it out like a homeless person in public. I try my best to do it in chat with friends than out in the open where someone would just get butthurt, screenshot you and get you banned for 3 days counting as a strike. Most of that usually happens in PQs from frustration, Henesys, or GM Events. I was shocked to see people just spouting about with a GM present. If i recall back then, a GM would tell you to refrain from using profanity. Now everyone just ignores the rules flying by the chat box and do whatever they want.

You guys could look at my perspective as a "yeah, whatever" but that's how you're making the server be like.
We need to make this community great again. It's mainly the reason why i even made a guild, "Sanctum". Picking up the people that need help, growing and helping others out whether it's from your days of wander or from the ground up.

 

I'm friendly. Try me! Don't offend me though.

 

3 años jugando en la realeza trabajando duro para poder disfrutar de mi ladrón pero mi malmadre inglés los y unas palabras que explique mal fui sentenciado como un criminal por,unas palabras mal expresadas creo que es injusto y que los ejecutivos me traten asi : '( a este paso este servidor perdera muchos veteranos y futuro nuevos jugadores por que no investigan bien y castigan sin mas U-U

 

I love MapleRoyals.

Spoiler: <3

some nice fresh beginners on maple island in 2016