In my last trip to Victoria Island, I already made the choice to become a warrior by heading to the warrior town of perion to confirm my choice as a warrior. Basically you just need to be level 10 and have a minimum of 35 in the strength attribute (since I pumped all stats points upon leveling into Strength, I have more than enough), and talk to the chief, and voila! you're a warrior!
After that, I basically spent 3 days in Maple trying to recreate my previous feat, getting to level 30 within 24 hours. Its not as easy as I remembered. Either because the maps are now more crowded (The server I joined is no longer the latest server, as it was when I joined, 2 more have been added on top of it, s0 its actually a "mid-age" server. Either that, or I'm not longer as enthusiastic as I was in the past. The thing is, a majority of Maple's quests are basically "fetch" quests, or "kill X number of monsters" type quests.... which already bored me the 1st time round, and is worst now as I am simply not as used to being so depowered. It IS a fresh experience using a new character and starting afresh, but seriously, these types of quests have no replayability....
Another fault which I strongly felt this time round, is the serious lack of a back story to drive one forward. Unlike the other MMORPGs I played like Guild Wars and even Granado Espada, there really IS no story to Maple..... beyond the small stories tieing all the fetch quests together (I need to feed my dog, fetch me 800 fishes.......) Maybe in trying to make Maple a light affair playable by all ages, they have in fact made it TOO light......
Anyways, 2 nights ago, I finally saw the dreaded scene again.... empty maps with no monsters, until I saw one zooming past me towards the sky. Hackers are loose again.... Apparently this one is using a hack to warp himself/herself to a nigh location unreachable with normal means, and then "vacuuming" all the monsters in the map towards his location. I guess Maple being a 2-d game with so many variables hosted on the client side makes such hacks easier to accomplish. I took a screenshot and pasted it in the official forums, but with no way to identify the hacker (he/she is REALLY in an unreachable/unseeable location), it was merely a futile gesture, just informing any moderators who swing by to take special note of that map....
I initially wanted to make it to level 30 by my own new efforts, but by level 25, serious boredom set in.....I really hate fetch quests now, and getting enough loot to finance my character's equipment upgrades is getting taxing for me, even though that amount would be peanuts with my old high level character. In the end, I gave up and twinked my new character, transferring a small part of my fortune (1 million mesos) from my level 119 to my level 25. With this, I immediately went on a major shopping spree in the player marketplace, and became a force to be reckoned with, breezing to level 29 in 1 quarter of the time I needed if I had done so on my own efforts.
Now, its the major decision time..... at level 30, all classes get to pick a 2nd level job to specialize in a more narrow field. In the case of the warrior, I can choose to be a fighter ((specializing in swords and axes, becoming a crusader in level 70, Hero in level 120), Page (specializing in swords and maces, becoming a knight in level 70 and paladin in level 120), or a spearman (specializing in polearms and spears, becoming a dragon knight in level 70 and dark knight in level 120). Having taken the spearman path the previous round, I decided to try the fighter-crusader-hero path, who specializes in 1-on-one combat (compared to the spearman path I took before). Then its yet another "kill x number of fireboars" quest to get enough special items to make myself eligible for the class upgrade..... man I hate these quests.
At least this time round, there are more "faqs" on the internet with better questing solutions and "character build" advice, so I am on my way to being a decent fighter.....though generic. Thats another thing about Maple. There are usually only a 2-3 ways to build a character and with only 10 end-game classes to go around, and everyone following the same advice given to all these tried and proven builds, every one ends up doing the same things.... just at different paces. ... and at the rate I am loosing enthusiasm I think I may just stop totally. Note: When there is nothing to hold your attention beyond "getting to the next level", few casual players will stick around long.
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