(reposted from my Google Plus feed)

So I finally decide to try Maple Story. Why? Because the art is so cute.

That’s good enough for me.

I sign up. No problem. I download the client, or rather, what turns out to be the dowloader. Oh wait no, it’s actually the downloader *for the downloader*.

So there’s some more hoops, and then the actual downloader starts downloading… woops, nope, turns out it needs more hard drive space.

This thing is 2 gigs? For an online game? that is 2D? Sheesh!

So I clear some space. Now it can download, yay!

Except no, now it is giving me an error message about some file already being there. Do I want to start over from scratch? Yes! Same error message.

So I try a bunch of crap that doesn’t work, and then finally give up and reboot.

When in doubt, try turning it off and on again.

That does the trick. Yay, now it can finally start downloading!

An hour and a half later, it’s done. All right, I can play now!

Nope. Now it has to install. Couldn’t it have done that while it downloaded? Nope, apparently not.

Another forty five minutes and it’s ready. Yay, finally! This better be good.

I boot up the client. It boots up my browser. Seriously… this thing is 2 gigs and it still needs the browser? For 2 gigs, it should have its own operating system!

So it goes to the Maple Story website…. and hangs. Try again…. it hangs, then gives an error message saying something about database maintenance.

Fair enough. What are the odds, I come around right for the usual maintenance downtime, huh? Just my luck, I guess.

I didn’t know the half of it.

I come back a few hours later… and everything is still borked. I finally get the main page to load and it says “GAME OFFLINE”. Turns out they are doing some “unscheduled maintenance”, which in my mind involves fire extinguishers and prayers in five languages.

So apparently, I came around just in time for the whole thing to go tits up.

Now what are the odds on *that*?

And, just in case this had anything to do with me… um, sorry.