Free MMORPG Forums

Syphon

Hopefully this will stay on the first page for a while so we don't get any more topics around.

Now, as you all very well know, Dragon Gem and Maple Story are often accused for being similar games, ripoffs of each other, or one of them is accused of blowing. The thing is, the two games are actually very different. I'll quickly give a rundown of the similarities, though.

Similarities

• The Same Job Names
• 2D-Side Scrolling MMORPG
• Similar Art Style [Chibi Direction]

Seriously, thats all I can think of. Theres not really a lot the same about these two games. If any of you have ideas of similarities, tell them, alright?

The games have many differences, which is what makes them their own games.

Differences

Bosses - Bosses in Maple Story and Dragon Gem are handled quite differently. Dragon gem has boss areas where bosses spawn every 15-20 minutes or so. While the bosses aren't as strong as they appear, there is a very high spawn amount in the boss areas making these battles difficult because of enemy bombardment. Maple Story deals with low-spawn areas that have bosses appear over certain time intervals, or has a quest that ends with a boss battle.

Skills/Stat Points - Skills are handled quite differently in Maple Story than in DG. In MS, once you make your job all of your skills are available to you, however, you must use Skill Points to improve these skills, which are gained with every level in MS. In DG, you buy skills from your job instructor. Certain skills require certain passives to obtain, or have level limits. Skills in DG cannotbe maxed right away often becuase of these level limits. Stat points are also handled every differently. DG has a pre-determined build for your character that you cannot change. The build is the same for all characters. Maple Story on the other hand, allows you to make your own build for your character, which spawns such odd builds as "Strength Mages" or "Int Warriors."

Leveling Policy - DG is much easier to level than MS. A person can bang out levels 1-7 in 10 minutes flat in DG just by the use of quests, while Maple can take an hour or two to leave to get your job advancement. DG also has many quests which give you high amounts of experience. These quests are avialable at most levels and shorten leveling time by a bit. MS also has a much stricter death penalty. Classes lose a certain percent of their gained experience upon death. This is can be very discouraging to players who lose tremendous amounts of exp upon death. Dragon Gem gives you Post-Battle Syndrome upon death, which will cut your exp gained in half. This doesn't really make you lose much experience, and usually can be healed for a fee thats not too outrageous. DG also has a fatigue system, which can make your character unable to gain exp for a few hours (I think its about two hours tops). This seems to support to no/little grind Policy of DG.

Upgrading - Upgrading is very different for both games. Where as in MS you require expensive scrolls to upgrade your weapon, DG has expensive gems used for upgrading. DG has certain NPCs that are addressed for upgrading. In DG, as your item gets more powerful, the chance of a successful upgrade will decrease. You cannot upgrade more than 3 times in DG.

Party System - The party system quite honestly is useless in both games from what it seems. Maple Story only has a worthwhile party system in the later levels, which takes months to get for most people.

Buddy System - The buddy system is very different in both games. While they appear similar at first, they're really not. MS supports Buddy, Party, Whisper, Guild, All, and Messanger chats, while DG only supports Whisper, Party, All, and Guild chats. This limits how much communication can occur between players because of the tedious job of who to whisper to whenever you get a message.

Classes

One of the bigger reasons people often compare the two games: The Classes. The classes in DG and MS may have the same names, but are actually quite different. I will give a rundown of each class and how they're different.


Thieves: Thieves in Maple Story are general long range characters, assassins. While there are also short ranged characters call bandits, they're honestly not very powerful, and later on in the game they're considered the weakest class by many. In DG, the thieves are very powerful and fast, but lack a lot of defense and health. Since they lack range, they are often death-prone or unable to take on boss monsters because of the high spawn.
This is all for now, look for updates soon I guess.

Warriors: Warriors in MS and DG are very similar classes; however, warriors in DG seem to be built more towards taking on mobs and attacking multiple targets. Acquiring their AoE (both side attacking skill) earlier than the other classes, Warriors boast an HP boosting skill to help them take on more hits from enemies as well. Warriors in MS are simply the strongest melee class. They have decent defense, but on particular job (Dragon Knights) lacks defense even though it is made for taking on multiple enemies.

Archers: Archers in DG are fast with decent range, and are able to snipe in many maps. MS makes it difficult to level an archer in the early levels do to the lack of attacking areas and their admitadely slow attacking speed. While archers in DG aren't the strongest class, they're able to fight in many areas taking minimal damage and dealing damage quickly.

Mages: Mages in MS are able to specialize in two fields, Fire/Poison, Lightning/Ice, or Holy/Healing. Mages in DG are made almost soley for taking on more than one enemy at a time. They start off with AoE skills, and continue to have other skills to support taking on multiple enemies. Mages in MS vary by job, ranging from AoE/Freezing to sole power, while Mages in DG are meant purely for mobs.

Edit: 8/21/06 - 12:24 PM EST [Mages and upgrading updates.]

Authors Notes: I will modify the class comparisons at a later time for a more indepth comparison, I just added quick comparison so people know the jobs *are* built differently.

__________________

GoFlyAKite

Good job, I always wanted to do that to show people, just was to lazy.

__________________

gigabit

Fatigue resets every day at 2PM PST.

Upgrading - take gem and item to blacksmith. I think it's unlimited upgrades but the chance of success goes down every time.

Duo

Xyo told me that first upgrade is 99 percent, second is 58, third is 18 percent, i'm not sure if you can go beyond that, cause if you do then it'll end up like 1 percent chance not sure though. it's what Xyo said.

__________________

gigabit

Yeah, he told me that too.

Duo

if you want to be a tart and keep upgrading with 1 percent you might get an item to +99 after using 10000000000 jewels

__________________

YoungKakashi

most of the similarities of dragon gem and maple are pretty obvious, but good job taking the time to write everything out in detail

EDIT: DG party system sucks, you cant level up the party, and the max is 5

EDIT: i re-read on your differences paragraph, good job! 2

__________________

Syphon

For upgrading, Besides the max upgrades (I'll keep it as 3 or so for now, read the paragraph and tell me if I should edit it) is there a chance of item destruction, or theres no real upgrade penalties?

__________________

Duo

there's no such thing as cursed jewels like how maple story has cursed scrolls. you must be thinking of the 20% and 70% scrolls. the 20% scroll gives the same abilities as the 10%, but if the scroll fails then there is a 50% chance of the item getting destroyed. the 70% scroll works the same way, only it has the same abilities as a 60% scroll. there is none of that bullshit in DG, which is what i like

__________________

TwinkeeBoy

My favorite difference between archers in MS and DG is that archers in DG don't use up arrows compared to MS archers.

__________________