We have recently told a lot of stories about old online games. In terms of time dimension, these games may not be so old, but they are no longer what people used to be familiar with, as if their appearance has changed, they are completely unrecognizable. We try to record their living conditions in the article.
In the coming days, we will also conduct visits and discussions around the game industry or other fields in the form of such a “series of topics”. In the next issue, we will focus on the current physical video game and arcade industry, and friends who are engaged in related work are welcome to contact us and share their experiences and stories (please contact WeChat: AlgaeTanic, or QQ: 371773627).
A while ago, the 18-year-old “QQ Tang” officially shut down the game server, and a month later, another classic online game “Audience” also leaked rumors that it was about to be shut down.
It seems that some corners of my memory have been awakened again. I opened the browser and downloaded the long-abandoned “MapleStory Online”.
“Adventure Island Online” was also launched in 2004, and it belongs to the same period as “QQ Tang” and “Audio Dance Troupe”, which have been announced to be out of service. I searched the official website and found that the latest version was updated in June this year. , the version number is V190, and the slogan on the promotional page is “new journey, start an adventure”.
But obviously, it’s hard to associate “MapleStory” with “new” by now.
1
As a post-90s generation, my first MMORPG game was Adventure Island.
For me, who was still in elementary school and many of my peers, the other MMO styles in the same period seemed too mature, and “Adventure Island”, with its cartoon pictures and casual and relaxed gameplay, became the social circle of children in the community at that time. popular games in .
As a side-scrolling MMORPG, “MapleStory” has many designs that seemed to be quite good at the time, including many hidden map levels, beautiful music, and very different career choices, but I believe the most important point should be “Lifestyle” – 20 years ago, it brought the feeling of “virtual world” to many players (mostly minors) who came into contact with online games for the first time.
Ships bound for the Sky City have a fixed departure time every day, and it takes time for the ship to fly from the port to the destination. Therefore, traveling on the same ship has become a way for many isolated adventurers to make new friends.
The bat demon who occasionally came to hijack the ship used to be a nightmare for newbies, but the nervousness of hiding in the cabin has also become a common memory of old players
Equally impressive is the in-game free market – it’s always buzzing. In the ancient times when gold brushing studios had not yet appeared, players could use gold coins to find a lot of good things in their personal shops like a real market, and they could also gather at the door of the shop to chat and chat.
Going to the free market regularly to “go to the market” has also become a regular task for many veterans
The map is huge and complex. Since there is no fast teleportation point between areas, in most cases, players can only rely on walking to reach a certain town. However, the journey in the wild areas of the game is long and dangerous, and the feeling of safely arriving in a new town is no different. Explore an uncharted territory in a Souls game today.
The 20-story tower of Babel is the only way for players to go to the hidden area, and it is also a dangerous journey for beginners
As an online game, the rhythm of “Adventure Island” was famous for being “slow” even at the time. It takes a long time to upgrade each level in the later stage, and the equipment drop rate is also pitifully low. A weapon with ordinary attributes may be able to accompany unlucky players through the entire wasteland period.
At that time, the popular weapon of the game, the sky snowboard, actually had general properties.
Because of this slow-paced design, compared to other MMORPG players at that time, most of them pursued “strengthening”. At that time, the players of “Adventure Island” showed the characteristics of “Buddha” and “leisure”, which also made “Adventure Island”. “The game experience really has the taste of “adventure”.
Compared with games such as “World of Warcraft” and “Fantasy Westward Journey” that require cards, “Adventure Island”, which featured “free games”, attracted a large number of students in that era, and some black Internet cafes in second- and third-tier cities allowed minors to enter. Inside, you can often see the figure of this game.
In the era when players still needed to go to the game portal website to check the strategy, many game information websites had a prominent “Adventure Island area”, and the former 766 game network was once famous for “the largest platform for adventure island players in China”. The popularity of the game is evident.
766 game homepage in 2010
Now, 18 years later, this game has quietly passed its 190th new version – as a classic old online game, you can hardly see any discussion about the new content of the game on social networks, whenever someone mentions The three words “Adventure Island” are more of nostalgia and sigh of childhood.
2
Like many old online games, although “MapleStory” is still in operation, private servers have long been flooded among players.
For an online game like Adventure Island that does not require a card, the existence of private servers is mainly due to the dissatisfaction of old players with the status quo of the game.
If you search with the keyword “Adventure Island Private Server”, you will find that the version code provided by most private servers is “079”, and even the related player QQ groups are mostly discussed with the 079 version.
If you’re an old gamer, you can definitely see what’s special about 079 – it’s the last major version of MapleStory before the “Big Change” update.
There may be many complex reasons for the decline of a game, but if you ask MapleStory players, nine out of ten they will mention the massive update 12 years ago, the new version called “The Great Change”.
From maps, occupations, plots, to the game’s system and the direction of subsequent updates, the “Great Change” has brought earth-shaking changes to the entire game, and the core of which is the acceleration of the overall rhythm.
After the “Great Change” update, the experience value required for each level of a character is halved, the equipment drop rate has been greatly increased, and more fast-moving items have been added.
The faster pace brought other changes, too. For example, the upper limit of the attributes of equipment has been increased, many new ways to strengthen attribute entries have been introduced, and there are also paid items such as “rubik’s cube” that randomly enhance the attributes of equipment.
In order to achieve the ideal performance of equipment, using a large number of Rubik’s cubes to “wash attributes” is one of the reasons for widening the gap between players
In addition, “introducing more new occupations” has also become a major update content in the late game. The “Great Change” version brought three new characters at a time, and after that, new career options appeared almost every six months. The connection skills between different characters in the same account also increase the overall enthusiasm of the game.
Strengthen the attributes of the main character by cultivating side characters, and the connection system brings new options to the game
For the game, “The Cataclysm” is undoubtedly a more “modern” transformation, making the game rhythm more in line with the trend of the times; but for the player, the “Adventure Island” that has fallen into the “involution” environment It also lost its original features.
When you have fast movement, you will not spend time waiting for the ship in the port; when you can easily obtain rare equipment, naturally you will not have any special emotions for the props in the game.
Although there are more career choices, the functionality of a single career has been greatly reduced. For example, before the “Great Change”, the “Holy Fire” for warriors to increase the group’s maximum HP, the “Holy Prayer” for priests to increase experience, and the “Light Gong” for Fei Xia to increase movement speed were all indispensable to the team, but After the revision, everyone seems to have become a fast and long-running heavy firepower output.
But it seems inaccurate to say that the “big change” caused the decline of the game, because in the later stage, almost all players who persisted have discovered the benefits of plug-ins.
Powerful plug-ins have gradually become a new choice for ordinary players
After experiencing the convenient functions of invincibility, full-screen monster absorption, and automatic attack, few players are willing to return to the era of manual upgrades. Due to the limited map, a large number of ordinary players were seized by the plug-in party for the leveling space, and then they joined In the ranks of plug-ins.
The download link of the plug-in can be found in almost any player forum and community. Coupled with the official attitude of turning a blind eye, it has chilled the hearts of many old players. At that time, the profession of “Shadow Dual Knife” in the game was even divided into “manual knives” and “technical knives” (technologies refer to plug-ins) by players based on “whether to open or not”. has become mainstream.
Just like Warcraft players miss the vanilla era, the old players of MapleStory miss the version before the big change. Even after 10 years, you can still download different private server versions from various channels, and their content basically stays in the game. Before revision.
Out of curiosity, I joined a group of MapleStory players who are still active, and wanted to see how private server players play the game now. But when I opened the event schedule announced by the group, I found that the most involved was the “Gobang Competition” every Sunday—a small game that players played while waiting for ships in the port before the Great Change.
Even for veteran players of private servers, there is little discussion about topics such as “professional strength”, “Boss play style”, and “equipment attributes”. A group friend told me that the reason why he chose the private server instead of the official sequel and mobile game version that was officially launched later was because he felt that the original Adventure Island “is not a game, and everyone just wants to find childhood in the private server. a feeling of.”
3
In 2014, Nexon launched “Adventure Island 2”. The national server also attracted a lot of attention when it launched the internal test in 2017. It was difficult to get a ticket for the first test, and many players shouted “Ye Qing Hui”.
But nowadays, when you enter “MapleStory 2” in various search engines, the first thing that catches your eye is often “Why is MapleStory 2 cold”.
Players’ answers to this are generally consistent – MapleStory 2 has almost nothing to do with its predecessor beyond the name.
In addition to inheriting part of the character design of the previous work, “MapleStory 2” has undergone earth-shaking changes in terms of game perspective and gameplay. It is not so much an innovation of the previous work, but more like a “sandbox” made by Minecraft. Online games”, and then put on a “Adventure Island” title.
MapleStory 2’s “renovation” didn’t get much recognition
Of course, there are also some players who enjoy this game, because Adventure Island 2 inherits the casual atmosphere of the previous game to a certain extent. Even if players do not pursue character improvement and only regard this game as a “mini game hall”, they can also Have some fun with it. But obviously, for those players who want to retrieve their childhood memories as much as possible, such a “selling dog meat” sequel is unsatisfactory.
In fact, after a few years have passed, “Adventure Island 2” has also become the feelings of some players to a certain extent, just like many old online games that have fallen into the dust of history, from time to time someone will go to the post bar to ask “This is Is the game still in operation?” “Is it still worth entering the pit?” “Why is it different from the first generation?”
In this game, players who have long been accustomed to cold words from the outside world usually reply: “It’s cold, and the server will be closed next week.”
Players of old online games often look for private servers and sequels on a whim, but in the end, what everyone is looking for is not a game client that can evoke memories, but those memories themselves.
As some old players have said, the real client of “Adventure Island” now belongs to NetEase Cloud Music.
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