I remember seeing plenty of ads for MapleStory in the 2000s online, but then, and even now, I have zero idea what kind of game it even is, or if it was even a game. I didn't know. It seemed like some kind of anime flash/browser social chatroom for weebs. As I recall the marketing for it was truly baffling and ineffective.

World of WarCraft, on the other hand, I knew exactly what it was because me and my friends and cousins had all been playing WarCraft and StarCraft since around 1995 or so.

But MapleStory? I couldn't even have told you with certainty if it was even actually a game or not. Turns out it is, but I didn't know that back then. I just looked and saw that it released in NA in 2005, that was halfway through highschool for me but I never met a single person there or in college that played it. If lots of people were playing it, I have no idea who they were.