How important is Maplestory to you?

Since I've been playing since 2007 (with a lot of long breaks), I can say that this game has become a small part of my life. I don't consider myself addicted but I often feel guilty for playing for more than a few hours.

So I'm wondering; do you consider yourself addicted? Do you see it as pure entertainment or is it more of an escapism? How would you react if you'd get banned from Maplestory? Do you consider Maplestory friends as real friends? Not a very common question but I think it's intresting and perhaps important to reflect upon..

Share your thoughts!

very interesting topic Luke   glad you made it
I don't see maple story as addiction as long it not harm other sides of your real life and as long its make you happy and you keeping to enjoy the game...I will agree with you I feel guilty for playing that much but on other hand it makes me happy so why not? entertainment or escapism? really depends on how much you play...if you get soaked into all the maple active world it is a way to escape few things or maybe fill for something you don't have irl. if I will be banned? I guess I will start all over again with hope that I will run into awesome people I currently know . About friendship sometimes its easier to talk with maple friends than real ones  ofc its cant be compared to real life friendship (I wish I could meet some of them irl). but that's kind of friendship is what keeping you to enjoy the game, at less that's how is it for me.

First i played maple global with a friend of mine for about 2 years, then I got hacked trice so i decided to take a pause. Then I heard of maple europe and I thought i'd give that a try, With great succes!
I guess its part of my life and i owe some experiences to it Since I joined this guild I did have more of a feeling of friendship and not doing everything on your own and stuff xD I also really would love to meet some of you in RL, but yea Holland eh?

I pretty much agree with most of what Anna said, my personal opinions are:
-At times I consider my self an addict, or at least I play a bit too much than what I should, though my longest break from maplestory was 3 years straight so... I can't really say that I'm addicted to it always.
-The times I get addicted to maplestory is usually when I see it as an escapism from the real world around me (because of personal problems), but most of the times I see it as entertainment.
-I'd be really sad, since i'm very proud of my Hero Chonci because of the history behind him (I've played ems since it's release with another character, but the year after I created Chonci and made him my main since then), so yeah even if I see quite a lot of people saying they've been playing maplestory for a lot of years, not many can say they've been playing with their same main character for so many years.
-As Anna said I don't really consider or treat my maplestory friends as my irl friends, though I'd very much like to meet you guys irl anytime!

That's all I hope it wasn't too long to read.

For me is Maplestory my life allomost litterally.

I stay up, eat my breakfast, start PC, open Maple and play to in the midnight then i close maple, turn off PC, watch some TV, then go to my bed.

this cyclus i do each day almost, unless we will go to a birthday.

Because i got in the reality no friends, i got them here ingame, when they are nice i dream about them, when they are bad i cry in my bed, sounds odd, but its always so, i call my teddybears to ppl i know ingame.