I used to Play VCO way back Before even the even starting with the high powered "recruit" items on every newb and a Powerful ship.

I first played when you actually had to try to do stuff, where you actually had to level, and there were people in every city... Sail the seas and make random teams... and people were actaully willing to help you with somethings...

When i started playing again, around the whole "recruit" power items at the start... This didnt really bother me... Now this new patch... You dont even need to play, but what really kills it for me is is the whole profession crap. Mindless task that tell you to here and there kill this bring me this.. This game doesnt have any botters (to my knowledge) because it basically gives you a bot anyway.. i know people always use to afk in areas.. but still auto afk that attacks everything...

I use to Love vco, sailing into port with like 10 other people around you chattin well hacking down trees, getting together a random team to get to pirate battlefields... I know that they need new material for the game but i think they just over killed it.

With the newest patch they basically kill alot of items that are pretty much useless in the game, no reason to make em, or sell em or anything... i think it all went wrong for me with the whole super newb thing Turtle ship here a pistol that can do as more then a level 4 noble rifle...

I loved the old VCO...

Still play it? how good is it?
Quit it? what killed it for you?

Hate:
-The over powered newb stuff
-Killing alot of items and upgrades
-Empties cities
-Profession Items and skills
-No people really there

heyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa is that kruella if so rply say yes :)

Memooo here btw

I'm still playing the game, and in some ways I have to agree with you.

Profession is just another skill tree.  And truthfully, before I was playing the game to quest and craft and follow the storyline.  Now it seems all I do is grind job exp and skill exp to advance.  I hardly ever used to AFK ingame but I find myself doing it more and more these days.

And your also right that store bought weapons are insanely powerful now.   I go to areas I never would have attempted before the patch and kil with alarming ease.  I'm now stuck with low level drawings that are essentially useless other than for leveling up your craft skils.  Nobody wants the stuff you make.

So it has all become one big race to the end game it seems to me.  The old game is still in there, its just that nobody wants to play it now.

  Anyway i play it mainly because i enjoy the historical period of the game, the ships and also the pace is nice if you like leisurely as a pace.  And being in a good guild always makes a huge difference in these types of games.

So I will continue to play ( it is free after all ! ) but it does seem to have lost some of its charm for sure.

Truth is that it seems the expansions were never really planned from the start. I remember, when I first start in VCO, 2 years ago, you had to spend a few days leveling up your weapon in the newbie city suburbs so you could go somewhere else look for stronger and more dangerous mobs. And it was fun. You went to islands and found wolves, tried to avoid the dangerous wolf lord, that you could not take if attacked you along with the others. I remeber go to Mallorca suburbs and be very careful with bears, running like hell when met a frenzy bear. Or attacking the cannibals, trying hard not to bring the evil cannibal hero, that could kill me if I were too reckless.
In the sea, take my level 3 battleship to Corsica offshore, trying to make to beach surviving to the jackal and falcon armed ships. Or go with my now evolved lvl 4 battleship into Santa Maria offshore, happy to survive to the frightful tiger armed ships, impossible to sink.
Then came the Hurricane Island expansion. And with it, the recruit weapons, stronger than a level 4 noble weapon. The land star, that made your lvl 3 nobre infantry uniform a joke. And the Dragon Head Gunboat, stronger than a level 5 battleship, faster than a level 4 raider. Suddenly, instead of play the game pace by pace, you could now create your char, sail him to Sicily and leave him leveling weapon afk on boars, after 5 minutes of existance. Or clean Sardinia offshore of its Golden Eye and Jackal armed ships with your 10 minutes lifetime Dragon Head Gunboat.
The fun of the hard begining(and of the discovey of the game itself, the main idea of an exploration game) had gone.
Now, with the new Era of Conquest expansion, it is done. The weapons and clothes you buy at blacksmith/tailor are far stronger than the noble ones three levels above. Those who used to make a living by crafting uniforms/weapons were muscled out of the market by NPC´s.
I created an emperor guardian in the day of the release of the patch, less than 2 months ago. He now can ride a lvl 9 ship, use lvl 8 falchion/sword, I can leave him afk on Madagascar tigers with no worries. Without a single rl buck invested on him. It took my main char more than 6 months to reach those levels.
VCO became a game with high level players only. You can grind your way up in very little time. And the reason for this is Item Mall. Low level players spend very few in IM. High level players spend much more. IGG/Snail only found a way to make you level up faster, so you can start to heavily buy IM faster. And didn´t hesitate to crush the game for this.

You are absloutely right on Cpt Antillus.  I wish I had been there in those early days.

Its too bad they didn't keep at least one server with the old game for people who like to take things slow, with a little bit of difficulty added.  

Still an intriguing game, but its more of a solo grinder now , rather than a group exploring game.  Too bad.

the customer sevice is awful that was the last straw not being help with a bug, started playing in 07 before auto scrolls and the huge amout of item mall upgrade stones and other junk,now i have very high level alts and can farm all level mats and craft most weapons so on,but i still can`t compete with someone willing to pay 1000`s a week on IM points to pimp figureheads and items,ships,other problem i have with vco is blue names drop now unless you use IM and red players don`t drop useing IM so their is a few players running about afk killing now and beating down low levels without repercussion everything seems to be geared towards the mail like most so called free games.all these words are now blocked in chat i noticed (GAY ASS IGG GM`S)  btw theirs bots in vco all trade bots sailing from cape to asia in magellan.only online game i played for years but thats it for me.

In sum...

They had a great game and nowhere to go with it.

I really think that VCO was one of the best games i've ever played. Then came DHGBs and Recruit stuff... Those didn't bother me much. But the whole profession thing killed the game for me. It is too easy now. Where's the challenge? You don't even need to find anything, you have that stupid book. Just click the place you want to go, and ship sails automatically...

It was really fun to just sail and find new places. Fight against the way too powerful foes and die. Quests were good, too. Especially that 14 mill. quest, until that was nerfed to 3 mill... I never used the IM. God that was great, when you hit that certain level in crafting and could make that uniform you were looking for...

Crafting and chat options were great, a lot better than in WoW or other crappy games. Especially the fact that there weren't "Holy Trinity" makes this games the best MMO i've played. You didn't have tanks, DPS and healer, everyone was equal, struggling to survive on a harsh world...

I totally agree with this.  I use to go in for just the black bears, if a frenzy showed , off I ran.  I liked the mid lvl Ensign that I use to hammer out.  They are now a joke.  The game has changed for the worse.  Support is terrible. How can you even compete with someone who literally spends thousands of real dollars to play the game in the item mall?  I dont have that kind of cash/

Then when you could kill the frenzy bears then there was the cannibals.  lol  and i thought the frenzy were bad.  Now a new person within a day can go kill frenzy and canniballs.   I dont get it.   For me its the end.

VCO , as I found out, if you go against the "Big Boys w lots of Item Mall"  your screwed.  2029 another game, it already has a class action lawsuit against it.  My suggestion is find a totally different game.  There are a lot better games out there to play other than the ones put out by the aboved mentioned parent company.   I was threatened by a player that actually worked of the parent Company who was suppose to remain  neutral to disband the guild and the fleet.  They have no idea what legal matters are in the making for them.  We didnt budge, we would not fold the guild. So they Blocked Ip addresses.  So guess what now they get there way, because none of us can log in so eventually the guild will go.  The parent company does not want to take any responsibility for anything.  The American English language is the 0nly language censored.  At it seems the parent company has unwritten rules and make them up as they go so it seems.