History VideoGame / MapleStory

** Ignoring the fact that the homes are meant for humans, almost every house in Henesys looks like the homes of [[WesternAnimation/TheSmurfs the Smurfs]].

** Compare the first soundtracks with the newer ones, you'll notice big differences. Also Many [=NPCs=] (especially event ones) are given new sprites.

** Storyline development over time has come with more human and human-ish NPCs and bosses. Pre-Big Bang, most bosses were several times larger than the character, and there were no human mobs outside of Showa Town.

** The Vanishing Road introduced in the Fifth Job update is arguably ''worse'', as its landscape features buildings and structures from nearly every other area in the game disintegrating into dust. The only enemies in this area are an assortment of faceless black creatures with white antlers. Further into the area, a fork in the road leads to two equally bleak areas: a shattered plateau with blue flames erupting from the crevasses, or an ominous forest of glowing blue mushrooms.
* BlindIdiotTranslation: Poor, poor Athena (or most other clearly female [=NPC=]s for that matter). She is constantly referred to either as 'him', 'it', or 'they' by other [=NPC=]s.

* BonusBoss: While most bosses are technically optional, defeating the Boss of Showa Town is not required for any official quest. However, defeating him - which can be done once day - nets you a hundred Elixers, so it's worth the effort, especially at lower levels.

*** The constant "You must be my boss!" voice acting every time you log in, change channel, etc can also get annoying very fast.

* PurelyAestheticGender:
** Anyone can do any job save for Mihile, who is always male, and Angelic Buster, who is always female. Gender-specific armor for females tends to be cheaper due to lower demand.
** This is partly because all players use the exact same base body sprites. Gender features are usually added by the face and hair overlays, and details such as breasts are hinted at by the way armor or clothing is drawn.
** This occasionally falls under the variant of the writers just not caring that the character might be a different gender than expected, usually female instead of male. In some questlines, the [=NPCs=] involved will assume your character is male and treat them as such, playing up to masculine ideals, flirting with them despite being female themselves (this being a game where player marriages can't be between characters of the same sex), or outright using male pronouns. The Kaiser storyline is especially bad about this and does all three within the first thirty levels.

** The development of MapleStory's storyline over time has come with more human and human-ish NPCs and bosses. Pre-Big Bang, most bosses were several times larger than the character, and there were no human mobs outside of Showa Town.

** Androids. They follow you around, they look human... but they literally do nothing else. They can only wear clothing from the Cash Shop and do not attack or even pick up items. To make it worse, the hearts that operate them expire, requiring players to either buy replacements, find recipes and craft replacements quite often, or spend some serious cash(either billions of mesos or real world money on gachapon tickets) on permanent hearts. Only some of the hearts have any decent stats or potential(really the only reason to use these at all) and some hearts only work on select androids(often with no indication in-game that this is the case, until you try to equip it). The exceptions are the Hilla, Magnus, Orchid (and now the Dr. Jang from the Masteria Through Time Update) androids, which are highly sought after by players [[EvilIsSexy maybe Hilla more so]]). They have a very valuable ability, letting you access a merchant anywhere, thus letting you buy potions or return scrolls wherever you are, or sell unwanted junk cluttering your inventory. (Especially useful in maps where you cannot drop anything; such as the ship voyages in Commerci.) Unfortunately, both are very expensive, and to date, have only been available in one event.

* [[AbsurdlyHighLevelCap Absurdly High]]/[[AbsurdlyLowLevelCap Low Level Cap]]: Gets hit with both at once. The old cap of 200 is much easier to reach now than it was years ago, with [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRskdyU6VKI one player]] managing to do it in [[UpToEleven less than an hour]]. For many players, this is when the game truly begins. On the other hand, very few players have actually hit level 275, given that it takes several hundred hours even using every available method to speed things up.

* MoreDakka: All ranged classes except Cannoneers with various degrees. Turned UpToEleven with Bowmasters, who can drop an Arrow Blaster while firing Hurricane – both fire so rapidly that there’s no gap between the arrows.

* NiceHat: The [=GMs=]'s hat not only identifies them as [=GMs=], but is also what gives them their insane stats. Also the extremely high statistic hats such as the Zakum helmet; although arguably they don't look very nice depending on the person.

* TheAtoner: [[spoiler: Orchid. After being almost killed by Lotus/Suu and Gellimer and left to die in an alley, she was saved and nursed back to health by the Resistance, joining them and abandoning the Black Mage. Whether or not she feels genuine remorse is unknown, but she did stop Gellimer's mind-control bombs in Black Heaven, helped the player character get to safety after he/she was gassed and after having lost Lotus for good, she appears to be working against the Black Mage these days. Her reasons aside, she's switched sides.]]

*** The Fusion Anvils at least keep these items relevant for players who want the appearance of the item, anyway

** A lot of stuff you can get in events qualifies. Damage skins (which cause the numerals that appear when you deal damage to do so in bizarre fonts) can be fun, but not worth spending hard-earned coin on. The same goes for most Mounts and Chairs, most are cool, but frivolous.
** Power Elixirs may restore 100% of HP and MP but Nexon imposed a 3-second cool down period on their use, making them useless if you are being hit constantly. Tradeable and untradeable do not stack in the same slot and isnce they are not sold in any store, must either be won in events or bought from other players for a large sum. The ginger ale sold in New Leaf City restores 75%(odds are once you hit 25% you're going to heal yourself anyway) and is rather cheap, making it the better alternative.

* BearsAreBadNews: There are several bear enemies in the game. The most fearsome of these is an upcoming raid boss that dwarfs any other seen in the game thus far.

** All classes lose 10% exp when dying, which isn't good considering the amount of LevelGrinding needed to level up at later levels. (Post-Big Bang, a character lost his entire XP bar.)

** Leveling took several times longer than the current EXP curve brought by the Big Bang. It could take 10 straight hours of dedication to gain even a single level.

*** Jump quests? Try entering your PIC without the lag messing things up! Evem if a character is clicked and a star appears in the box, it may have not registered with the server. Oh, and if you enter the wrong PIC too many times in a row, you get banned for 5 minutes as a security measure.

* FallenHero: The White Mage fits this, yet he never gives up on his dream to make a peacefull world, even if it mean he has to destroy everyone and himself.

* FantasyCounterpartCulture:

** Mu Lung (China)
** Ariant (Middle East)
** Zipangu (Japan)
** New Leaf City (New York)

** Half the planet seems to be based on medieval times and ancient myths of magic and wizardry, with a strong emphasis on swords and knights. The other half? American Indian culture, an inner city slum, a town made of building blocks, a futuristic military base, ancient Japan, modern Japan, Japan in the future, pirates... you get the idea. It can be jarring walking from a town that looks like it came from a Tolkein book to a town that looks like Compton.

** Also, the three races of Riena Straight (seals, penguins, and wolves) don't like each other at all. [[spoiler: Only when they realize they share a common past and have a common enemy do they agree to work together.]]

** The first letter of each post Black Mage major patch focusing on the Grandis storyline appear to be spelling Grandis. [[note]]Currently '''G'''lory, '''R'''ise, '''A'''wake, '''N'''eo and '''D'''estiny.[[/note]]

** With the exceptions to this both outnumbering the classes that did use ammo and also made said classes feel more archiac in comparison, The "Destiny" update eventually just gave all classes that use arrows, throwing stars and bullets updated ammo passives that makes it so they don't ever actually consume their ammo and thus never have to replace it.

** In Black Heaven, the Cygnus Knights and the Resistance make up the Alliance, but they ''really'' don't like each other at first, and argue all the time. The player often has to be the voice of reason in every disagreement [[TheMainCharactersDoEverything (resulting in him/her handling every major battle on his own)]] and eventually, [[spoiler: used as a scapegoat after a disastrous loss at the end of Act 3. Fortunately, this eventually leads to both sides finding common ground later.]]

* LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters: Taken to the logical extreme in GMS, where there are no less than (soon to be) ''thirty'' different playable classes, excluding Beginners.

** Inverted with the 5 heroes that fought the Black Mage, as they were all sealed away.

** The plan of the Black Mage, as revealed during the Tenebris Expedition. [[spoiler:It is revealed that, during his time as the White Mage, he found a way to observe the future, seeing how to better the world as he hoped. However, the only way to do this rid the world of Transcendents. Because the White Mage himself is a Transcendent, he could not harm or even kill other Transcendents, including himself. To do this, he had to become the Black Mage, and he needed to be sealed away so that the Arcane River will fill up with Erda, (due to Transcendents are the only thing preventing it from filling) to complete his plan. Furthermore, he saw that his commanders (except for Will) would oppose him and cause him to fail. However he needed them to kill the Transcendents. So he needed The Alliance to form and take them out after they kill the Transcendents. He saw the plan go one of two ways. He would destroy and recreate a peaceful Maple World, or he would die as the final Transcendent, bringing peace to Maple World. [[XanatosGambit Either way, he would win. ]]]]

*** [[spoiler:Kao, mentioned in the explorers storyline and the Ellin Forest questline, is the player from a bad timeline and the amnesiac Temple of Time monk.]]

** [[spoiler: Heroes of Maple also ends on a bittersweet note. Damien's plans to become Transcendent of Life and absorb all life on the Maple World have been stopped, but the Demon is forced to finish off Damien with his own hands in order to destroy the evil spirits of his ancestors possessing Damien's sword, Alicia is forced to scatter her own life force in order to restore the life force Damien managed to drain, Alfrien is still dead and now that the other two Transcendents aren't in a position to oppose him, the Black Mage has decided to enact his plans. That's not counting further damage caused to Seoul, South Korea due to the Abraxas crash landing in it.]]

** In the Ellin Forest quest line (which takes in the past), everyone mistakes you for a person named Kao, who is never seen and has seemingly gone missing. Later in the game [[spoiler:you eventually do find Kao, who ended up at the Temple of Time without his memories. Just to top it off, the reveal gives him the same face as your player character.]] The other players on the ship in the Explorer tutorial also call you this name.

* TheCorruption: Maple World was, for the most part, a paradise world once, before the White Mage himself was corrupted in his quest to find the Ultimate Light, and instead found an evil force that caused him to become the Black Mage. Since then, the monsters have turned feral and predatory as his dark influence spreads. This same corruption created Zakum, Horntail, Gollux, and other Boss monsters. [[spoiler: In the Gate to the Future scenario it's much, much worse. The monsters of Victoria Island have become mutated, nastier versions of their previous selves. It isn't known what happened to other parts of Maple World.]]

** A rather comical one involving some explanation: There's an area called Ellin Forest, which exists in the past and requires [[TimeTravel time travel]] to reach. The common quest line for this area, that all classes are given, involves the player being mistaken for a resident of the forest named Kao. However, a class-specific quest line for Aran, who was alive in that time period before being sealed away for at least a hundred years, involves the townsfolk recognising Aran and being overjoyed that [[AmbiguousGender he or she]] is alive and well. When playing as Aran you can run these two questlines simultaneously, resulting in the [=NPCs=] flip-flopping repeatedly over whether you're Aran or "Kao".

* MadGod: Despite the people of Cernium worshipping Mitra as a benevolent deity, we find out that the god is actually insanely violent as the quest goes on. Ultimately Mitra declares the "adversary"(your main player character) as a threat due to being bonded with the seal stone and turns Seren against you in an effort to destroy what it perceives as a threat.

* VendorTrash: Pretty much every monster drops one. Or more than one. Some are used for quests; some are just useless other than for selling. And some of them can't even be sold as they have no monetary value, or can't be traded.

* PeopleOfHairColor: [[spoiler:The living forms of the Goddess Tears]] all share the common trait of [[YouGottaHaveBlueHair blue hair]], or in one character's case, blue fur. [[spoiler:Once Alpha and Beta figure this out and start looking specifically for blue-haired people, the Shadow Knights plant fakes who have blue hair and fake time magic, causing the duo to waste time on them. After Arsen ends up hospitalized, his hair becomes brown, presumably its natural color.]]

* TheGuardsMustBeCrazy: This is one example where this Trope applies to the good guys HQ, at least the Resistance. At the beginning of the Evolution quest line, Orchid wakes up briefly and somehow manages to sneak away to Gelimer's lab (she no longer has her powers, remember, is injured, and is wearing a hospital gown). The player has to rescue her before she's killed in a confrontation with the AI. Also, in Black Heaven, [[SomethingCompletelyDifferent the player assumes control of Francis]], and is able to sneak past the guards and surveillance system in the Resistance HQ by doing nothing more than ''hiding under a box'' and inching past.

** [[spoiler: Then again, you might need it when you stare down Lotus...]]

** The new '''Reboot World''' update is changing all that. This new server, which focuses on the game's RPG roots, does ''not'' allow trading or access to the Cash Shop! (More info will be added as it becomes available.)