Well, some friends wanted to get into it (it got on Steam, etc.) so I hopped on to show them what's what, and I ending up finding how much the game has improved.
A list of improvements off the top of my head...
- Moon gates and such being always-on and unlocked for new Uladh characters (Mana Tunnels all marked for Iria ones) makes getting around a lot easier.
- Removal of many specific-day limits on quests makes the game open to more people and less stressful.
- The addition of life EXP to many life skills makes people who don't want to focus on combat able to play and enjoy the game almost as if it was a Harvest Moon MMO with a half-done dating simulator. This means I can get a lot of my female friends and people with lag issues into the game too.
- Free inventory+ shows some care from Nexon at how players play the game, since it makes the bank more viable as long-term storage and allows all people to open shops/kiosks.
- Nexon seems to pay more attention to their support/tickets (though I saw this a few months ago).
- The beginner talents giving out beginner equipment means people don't need to save up ~40K for a healing wand and then spend 500K a week repairing it if they want to party heal and fight with it all the time. This makes more combat/skill systems open to new characters/users.
And more crap I can't think of right now. So, for the time being, I'm playing mabi again, and seeing as this is likely the best forum for it, I'm back to using this... likely not too much though since I have people to play with now. ^^;