I would really like to nit-pick the MapleStory comment.

We haven't got that far into P2W, emptiness, d-baggery yet. If we ever do, and I hope we never will, this community will seem like a shining relic of perfection. If we took mechanics and the community of MapleStory into this game it would be find a guild after you grind, or pay, your way to triple maxes (>>Line locks in MapleStory are $10 PER LINE PER ROLL and there is no way in hell you are getting the perfect set without going over $100,000, honestlly. No way to (legally) use the in-game currency either.<<) and hope your guild does one FSC every 2 weeks. Other than that? You're sitting in Haven listening to spam-bots rip people off to sell on gold-farming websites and watching fly hackers spam the screen.

/rant

I'm sorry, I just cringe at the thought of people underestimating how bad MS is.

I'm a long time, experienced, high end player. I agree with a lot of what you said.

@Perronius, totally agree. I often don't do pugs because of begging. Just ruins my fun. And about 75% of the random players (or more) i play with think it's ok to beg me because of my ingame toys.

Another reason many people, such as myself, don't like to do random runs comes back to the immaturity perronius spoke of. Namely, i find when i play with people who seem to be very young that they just take FOREVER. Nothing bogs down gameplay more (IMO) than when you have to wait 5 minutes at EVERY party pad. Ugh.

Also, i don't play very much anymore, so when i do play i feel obligated to play with the friends i have been 'neglecting' for so long.

Anyhow, good post OP. Sucks that so many people just myopicly troll everything on the forums.

P.S. I would never hesitate to suggest this game to your friends. Worst they could do is not like it. Otherwise, it might enrich their lives like it has for so many of us.

Hey man, good running with you yesterday.

Funny, I caught this post, didn't look at the OP and I ran into you in one of the runs. Then, I went back here to read the forums and saw your name and I was like I was running with this guy for a few runs. And now we're here. Agreed with most of your post. Actually, I was playing TF2 and thanks to the Spiral Sallet I ended up playing this game. I have to admit, I probably have spent a few tens of dollars on this game.

It's not bad, unfortunately the tens of dollars that I have spent now have translated to gear that I want and I can run FSC as much as I want - I have only purchased a few elevator passes that for reasons because I'm on vacation have been ok to play. I don't think that there is enough end content for me to enjoy playing for the next year or so. Even with the expansion, those who like playing the original game there's a dearth of end level things-to-do. Vana is great and all, but when I play by myself I lag out on the fire and it's not fun.

So, no end level content, LD isn't for me for the same reason that the fire isn't fun for Vana. I'm waiting for more content and waiting for more fun things to do. I enjoy the game, but I wish there was more than just runnign the same bosses over and over.

edit: Also, yeah, the beggars, can OOO/Sega just limit anytime people say the word "Energy" or report people who beg? It's really annoying.