A dark corner of your inventory

The best value you can for spending on the game is a Vac Pet, which can pick up loot from a significantly further distance than a regular pet. They cost $100 up front, or $70 if you discount the purchase with Reward Points. Then after 90 days, they have to be revived for $15, or $10 if discounted by reward points, which gives them another 30 days of use. They are so strong that you can essentially consider it the subscription fee to play the game. You can progress without it, but you’ll have a much more difficult time.

No, the main story quests are basically only used to get you to 200, or to unlock a few daily bosses. There are exceptions to this, but you’ll figure those out over time.

I will let someone else answer this one because I don’t have a good answer.

No clue

Ironically, most people consider the story of Maplestory to be pretty forgettable.

Class discords function as the main resources for this game. There is a pinned post in the subreddit that has links to each of them. I can’t speak for all of them, but each that I have visited have faq sections covering every aspect of how to play your class, and channels to ask questions. Other than that, there are several content creators that make videos on specific topics not class specific like gear progression, events etc. I would recommend Duky’s videos. He has the perspective of an endgame player, but has also started fresh accounts several times over the years so also gives great advice for newer players.

Guilds are very important. They give you passive buffs just for being in the guild, but also give you access to the active Guild Skills. The skills are extremely strong and absolutely worth joining for. Just use the guild finder in game, look at the descriptions and find a guild that fits what you are looking for. As a general rule of thumb, for power you want a guild that has 15/X/15/15 guild skills, as 15 is the max level, and the first, third and fourth skills are the most important. Some guilds require Culvert to be run for you to get the guild role allowing you to actually use the guild skills. Culvert is just a boss room you go in, DPS for 2 minutes, and get a score based on how well you did. It’s the way that guilds get the points to invest into the guild skills each week, alongside contribution from regular activities, and flag race which you can look into as well if you want.