I really shouldn't be posting this since I've posted 1 video (and a 13 sec. preview video in the dumpster of all places) and barely have animated (on/off) for a year now.. BUT from what I've heard, maple animating was super popular "back in the day", but I've only heard stories. Maple animating seems slightly unsung now adays compared to what I heard it was before. Where do you think maple animating is gonna end up in the future? I'd be curious to hear as many opinions as possible (especially from people who have been here for a while).
Hi c: I've been here since 2007 or so. Well, making/watching MS animations, that is. I could write you an essay on how MMVs have changed and evolved, honestly. I love it; I love seeing it, and I love the nostalgia of old MMVs. Certain styles just scream that they're ancient. MMVs and collabs are less common now than they used to be. People still make them, just not as many people. Collabs are different, too; they're stricter, still less common, and often have fewer participants and definitely less variety in them. There's a ton of dead MMV collab studio accounts, from groups of animators who wanted to regularly make collabs together, but died out from inactivity, drama, etc.. Collabs that aren't MMVs are even less common. There's maybe a few a year? Admittedly I don't follow those as religiously, but I still hardly see any. It seems to me that fight anims are dying out faster than MMVs are. Maybe PR has a part in that? I personally don't think MapleStory 2 animations will catch on. Very few have been made (I think only two people have made any?), and 3D animation is completely different. It's an entirely new dimension to pay attention to. I think it's harder than 2D animation, but I don't have much experience with 3D models in a 3D animation setting. I don't see that catching on, and definitely not surpassing the popularity of MapleStory animations in their prime (which, by the way, I would estimate was around 2009-2010). One of the biggest reasons that MapleStory animations became so popular was the I Did It For Love MMV contest that Nexon themselves hosted. If Nexon were to host another MMV contest, I'm sure the popularity of MMVs would once again skyrocket. Fight animations would probably do the same in turn. But, without BannedStory, with MapleStory 2's release, and with the current population of MapleStory animators, I doubt there will be another MMV contest anytime soon. We do have some people returning or starting out; new and returning animators. So that helps keep the community alive. There are several efforts, both large and small scale, to keep the MapleStory animation community active and alive. Though personally, all I see happening is a flat, relatively constant population from here on, if not decreasing.
Great to hear the opinion of someone who specializes in MMV's and is actually around my age group as well haha *drowns in college credits*. Going through a lot of mmvs (new and old) I can understand what you mean by "Certain styles just scream that they're ancient." I probably cant relate to your nostalgia of older MMV's, but I can definitely see a specific charm about them c: I actually had no idea about the "Did It For Love" contest, so it's actually pretty cool to know that a Nexon driven event sparked something so big. As for 3D animating , I can definitely say that 3D animating is on a whole different level than 2D (I did a little bit of 3D animating a while back) and that I feel the reason why 2D (sprite) animating is a bit better imo is cause people can get into it easier since you don't need an extensive amount of drawing or complex 3D software experience to make a fun video (all the arts kinda done for you so u just need to make story out of it). Fight animations also just end up being small short videos in the end too (I think animators block hits everyone during all their projects which leads to such short animations). All in all I hope something positive ends up happening for the community it'd be a shame to see it plateau forever. also kinda off topic but I heard there's a discord? How do I join exactly? lol
"What we can all agree on tho is that no matter what happens, there will always be a community out there somewhere, big or small....To help those that want to get into maplestory animations." I find this quote pretty heart warming Vash. I haven't been around as much as you, but it's nice to hear that there will always be some form of support for maple animators no matter what (especially nice for people that want to peak their heads in animation again after a period of inactivity). Also in regards to things like mbr's, it seems its been pretty idle since May (from what I've looked into). I haven't participated in any, but I'm curious as to why mbr's happen all at the same time then fall off a bit (only to hopefully happen again). I'm probably wrong when I say that too, but I'm just curious to know why there haven't been as many mbr's happening in the last couple of months.
What got me interested in maplemations is how you can create and personalize your own original characters. Bannedstory helped a lot with this. To this day i think it's still the best media to create your own original characters, animate them in your stories, practice your fight choreographies or do whatever girls do. All other sprite based animation communities died before maplemations because they were forced to make "copies" of already existent and prominent original characters. I think the demand for this type of creative expression will always be around. So unless a new style of game sprites appear that can give you the same creative freedom maplestory sprites provide, maplemations can keep running for a long time. To be very real, sure, the future doesn't look bright at all unless nexon suddenly decides to support us, but even without support we can continue steadily like this forever only benefitting from the experience we make. We had a huge decline in activity in 2012, but since then we have created some of the greatest collabs and animations we have ever had and i think we will keep increasing in quality no matter how much the quantity decreases.
i've had this theory about Maplemation bouncing around in my head for some time and this seems like as good of a place to throw it out there as any. to put it simply i overheard the words "I WISH i could have been around during the glory days of Maplemation." and as someone from the period of time it really got me thinking just what had changed, where did things go wrong and was there any way to get the community to that point again? the answer i came to? the thing that killed the growth of our community was in my mind without a doubt the collabs. or to be more specific, collabs killing off the MBR scene. There came a point where animators no longer cared about the thrill of a 1 v 1 animation competition and instead wanted to shift their focus on being part of something greater, the lure of having your animation presented alongside the greatest animators of our community was no joke, Purely from a publicity point of view it's like being given a spot in a movie featuring a massive celebrity, it's a way for you to put yourselves in front of eyes who normally wouldn't see you. But collabs have a very serious downside, when it comes to accessibility and shareability they suffer tremendously for those not already invested in the community. you can't just casually pass a collab to someone and say "hey take 40 minutes out of your life to watch this thing you don't know anything about, trust me its good. Just ignore that bit at the start where they are talking about how great each other are and about beating up a mushroom i promise it makes sense." I've tried very hard to share animations from our community with people outside of its normal reach and it rarely results in anything more than an "okay i'll think about watching it." i'm also aware that MMV collabs probably lack the same innate problem but i'm not experienced enough with those to know for certain. But back to the real meat of the issue, the MBR scene. When i joined Maplemation it was because i saw the plethora of MBRs from the greatest animators of that time, thinking the concept you could join this community, easily create a unique character, and in a way gradually build your own legacy fighting against other animators. That's a concept that no other medium of animation could even think about replicating and in my opinion it was the maple communities biggest selling point, now that the glory days of MBR have come to a close, with it i believe came the great downfall of this community. these days, One minute Melee and its competitors fill peoples cravings for short sweet animations and in a way could be considered a natural evolution of the MBR with mass appeal in mind. Ironically still mostly produced by maple animators. In the end these are just my thoughts and i openly invite people to challenge me on this if you disagree with anything i said, i love this community and want to see it thrive, perhaps down the road there will be a great resurgence, the next great era for us to look forward to. As Taki said, the demand for this kind of creative expression is eternal, and i know a great many of us have no plans to stop any time soon.
The way I see it, Maple animation (specifically Maplemation) thrives on spikes of activity. Since this is a hub for content creation - time is taken to create that content. As time passes, standards have also risen and with higher standards comes more time into producing those type of content. When a big collaboration drops or an MBR with interesting prospects - there is a short spike in activity but that dies down once the surprise and wow factor wears off until the next big thing happens. Not familiar with the MMV scene so I can't comment on that much.
In regards to Kayas' comment and the MMV scene, MapleMation itself doesn't really spike in activity when MMV collabs are released. They're released a lot more frequently than fighting collabs, and the MMV community outside of MM seems to produce more than MM does, but there just aren't many people on MM that care about MMVs enough to get excited for them and flock to a collab.
(incoherent rambling from a mega maple story animation community member OG) It was the absolute beez kneez back then, I can't really speak about how popular it is now but I would honestly tie it to the fact that MapleStory is a relic of the past in these fast times. Most kids growing up nowadays have smartphones, back then that wasn't the case when the generation before grew up on PCs where MapleStory's presence was not only giant, but was flourishing with high player counts (9so put two and two together and you'll see that most of this generation aren't on PCs). A good chunk of those players got involved in the community, and from there animation was pursued. I miss the times I was incredibly illiterate on the MapleSim forums posting up re-colors of MapleStory weapon sprites back in 2007 haha So as for where it's headed, again, who knows? MapleStory is kinda dead but with MapleStory 2 on the horizon it could maybe bring more people into this community? I wouldn't hold on it though. Only thing I regret is not archiving everything from the past, there's a ton of history in MapleStory animation that will most likely only live in the hearts of those who participated and probably never get notated, sad sad.
