I have spent many, many hours in this game and have spent a lot of my money on it. This is probably the game that consumed the majority of my time between 2005 and 2015. I have a ton of memories made in it that I get incredibly nostalgic for. The soundtrack slaps harder than a brick to my face, but there is no denying that Nexon absolutely destroyed everything great about this game.

The cracks began to form in 2012 after the Big Bang update completely overhauled the game. The maps changed, entire class structures changed, monster levels were randomly boosted or nerfed, a lot of content was removed, and it began to really chip away at what I thought was the pure joy this game gave. It slowly started shifting towards becoming a pay to win model, where people willing to spend billions of mesos always fared way better than people who couldn't, ruining the casual playerbase.

Anyone not able to play often were suddenly left behind by their now overleveled friends and guildmates. Party quests and traveling shut down and the social aspect died with them. Grinding for forever to get to max level and having the best equipment became normal gameplay.

I have tried several times to randomly get back into this game, but it's just a husk of what it once was. You barely run into anyone anymore and the only thing to do in it is to just grind levels out forever. Nexon is still an awful company, so I am done trying to get back into this game even as a meme. Very disheartening, but the soundtrack at least lives on.