Let´s put it that way: if you have a fine computer, that can run 12 accounts. If you have like 14/16 hours/day to dedicate yourself to VCO. Yes, you can compete with IM junkies.

  Because on five accounts you will run your merchant convoy, doing Merchant quests. In another four, you will have your raw material alts, miner, logger, farmer and fisher. In two accounts you will do you merchant alts, running quests to level eloquence. And in the last one, you will run your main toon, doing quests to level every skill up to level 61, then grinding afk the rest. Doning this 14/16 hours a day, you may have money enough to face the big IM spenders.

"30th April 2009

mound_dung is now craftable "
 

   Oh, my sweet Lord....my dream came true...I can finally craft a mound of dung in a game...

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.

   Yes, you can do this.   Actually, trade is a very important feature in the game, there are several Trade quests and there is even a skill (eloquence) that is developed by the kind of trade you want, i.e., buy goods in one city and sell them in another.

Originally posted by globosud

 

this is not true, the yusho is investing, January 15 was announced the patch colony.  after 15 January  bbo and VCO will be same.  

Look the link: http://www.bountybayonline.com/index.php?content=News&news_id=175

  Sorry, but that´s not true. In march(probably) the new patch Era of Conquest will be released, and VCO will be, once again, ahead of BBO.

   I have to say that it took longer than I expected for this to happen.

  As a long time VCO player(VCO and BBO are the same game, with different publishers), I always said it is impossible for you to go along in this game with a single account, with two characters that can´t interact(they don´t even have the possibility of a common WH, so they can exchange items).

 The closing of the P2P server was as certain as death and taxes.

  But I think Yusho should give the opportunity for people to migrate their long worked chars to the F2P server. Would be far more fair then just give People 25 bucks to buy IM.

 As a long time Voyage Century player(same game, only different publuisher)  I suggest you to try this game, especially if the reason is that you a re bored of games that are only the same thing (slaughter mobs for level-farm items-go PvP).

Have in mind, however, that VCO/BBO is a game with singularities.

Fact one: (this brings scandal to those used to other MMOs) You will need more than one account, so choose the free server, where you can create as many accounts as you want.

Fact two:The leveling is indeed a grindfest. But know you can do a lot of it afk (that also freaks other MMO players). The only heavy grinding where you can´t afk is Seabattle, ´cause you´ll end up in pieces and loose what most precious you have in game(no, not your life, but your expensive player made cannons).

  If you can live with that, you will find a very entertaining game, where you are never forced to do the same thing. Are you tired of leveling land battle? Go level seabattle. Tired of it too? go explore, make trade runs, missions, etc.

  Very nice game, very complex to learn from the begginer, but very rewarding.

  Just hope it had not became a lame excuse for selling IM stuff like the IGG´s VCO, where if you don´t spend U$ 300/month(at the very least) you´re out of the game.

Originally posted by SimperFi

Ok guys, look, I've been in this game 3 years so I've got a lot more room to talk than the first 2 posters here, so excuse me while I put in my 2 cents.

 

In truth I've had the worst time of my life playing this game. I've stuck with it simply because I had nothing better to play and didn't want to pay for the game. I can give anyone who want's to know why I think it's bad a full 3 years of evidence, screenshots, recordings and proof. Just come on one of my teamspeaks and I'll be happy to explain.

ts.internationalgamer.com:8767

69.133.199.56:8767

 

But for those who prefer to read, here it goes.

There is a group in this game with close ties to the moderators, in fact many ARE moderators. they lead guilds and get whatever they wish. They hack accounts and kick many ppl out of game simply because they don't think the way they do. This group is known as the BBS, a cute little cover name for the corrupt moderators and hackers of the game. They have a trick with Xfire that allows them to hack your Voyage Century account.

 

Also this group posted in the developers' forums that they 'owned the server" and were going to "make the game so miserable for other guilds that they would quit the game". (that's a quote from one of the members themselves who changed his name because he was afraid his comrades would hunt him down in real life and hurt him and his family).

 

Real life violence has already started spreading because of this game. Neighbors have started fighting only to be broken up by police and thrown in jail. People in my guild stopped playing, many crying on the TS and others going bankrupt while others broke up relationships.

 

That's only a taste of the troubles I've experienced, I've had to start 6 guilds because they keep closing them down. I can go into further detail on TeamSpeak.

 

Is that the type of experience you want?

    That´s, by far, the most smelly load of crap I have ever met in any discussion about a game. You have some nerve to think anyone would believe such a pile of s......

    Real Life violence.....Players afraid to have their families hunted....man,  I almost cry of so much laughing this BS provoked me.

    Get going.....here you got no one to believe your crap.

   Actually, BBO has two server, one P2P and other F2P with Item Mall.

  The second one may be more successfull, once VCO/BBO is a game designed for multiple account and AFK leveling. That´s why I always thought  BBO was a bad idea. And Yusho seems to think the same, once they launched a F2P server.

  Let´s just don´t feed the troll.

  If you don´t like PvP, you will be protected against it in BBO or VCO. In DaGama&Cook server in VCO there is a guild known for shelter non-PvP players, and even notorious pirates respect it.

 Besides, you´ll be protected by law. Usually, there is no free PK in VCO/BBO, if a player kill another he is red named and has to go to jail to get rid of it. So, people usually avoid killing at will.

 Play VCO/BBO(in that order), you will have lots of fun.

   For single player game, I would say Porto Royale 2 and Patrician 3 are the best, altough they are more ecommy driven games.

  As for my best pirate game on line, so far it has been Voyage Century.

  I liked some concepts of PotBS, but found the land part control of the game a bit confusing, but I played only during the last OB.

  I will try the Free Trial, when it´s released, and give this game another shot, despite the bad fame.

  Thanks for the answer.

   I don´t deny it. There is really a part where you don´t need Item Mall. You can actually got thru the whole game without ever buy Item Mall.

   All you have to do is accept the limit of 100 in all your 8 phase 2 skills and never PvP.

  I really never played a payed game, so I could never have an opinion about it. I played only F2P games, and the only one where I evolved a char till high level was VCO. All this argument began after I just stated a few opinions of mine about the game on latest stages that you didn´t took well.

  I guess one should be cautious when get in some high debate about a game that is playing for a month or so, and never tasted the real deal. I´ve been  playing VCO for 14 months, now. And I just started to spend real money in the last 2 or 3. Before that, I used to spend U$ 10 a month. But I´m in a war guild, and if I want to keep up I need to spend much more money. That´s how it is in VCO. The game features are designed for it. And these features are the same in both VCO and BBO. Maybe Yusho still haven´t faced the problem yet, and maybe it reacts in a different way. But it´s IM is no different - or I should say-  even larger than VCO´s. And the points spendure is the same.

 I don´t think I would try payed BBO. I think one account provides you a too limited experience of the game. One account, 2 chars, impossible to be logged at the same time.  If one could have 3 accounts for each subscription, then things could work, imho.

 Well, anyway, I still haven´t found a game that could make me leave VCO. Free BBO could have its appeal. But I think I know where it´s going. I don´t want to spend 12 months playing a game just to find myself in the exact position I was a year before.

  I am always looking for a good game, and this one looks nice. But, before I start, i would like to know, fromm people who actually play it:

1- The PvP is skill based or gear based?

2- is it laggy? Battles are fought in real time or you get awful lags that freeze your screen and allow you to do nothing?(I have a 2Mb internet connection)

3- Is it really free, or will come the time when you´ll have to spend a lot of money in Item Mall to keep competitive?

   In BBO there are phase 3 autoscrolls, that give you 3 times the xp gain of the regular ones. This means you get 64,8 million points on 6 hours of online imobility. This means a whole level and more after level 100.

   Everything that is bad and in VCO is also in free BBO. Unless Yusho is a company of righteous paladins and asked for changes-in their disfavour-in a game engine designed to be a money drain.

  So, one cannot take extra damage, meaning axe users will be the kings of PvP.

  But if this game is useless, why do you bother so much about it? Why get so upset if someone disagrees with your opinions about these games?

  I think VCO is a big money drain, a very addictive one, and that´s why it works so well in this goal. The free BBO server may not have tasted the problems yet, because it´s been out there for a month now. But is just a matter of time.

  People with deep pockets also enjoy playing, and they´ll be in BBO, as they are in VCO. Not a possibility, but a fact.

  By the way, you seem to know very little about how things work in high levels. Don´t you think you should wait a little to get so passionate  about this?

  Or your moved by some blind faith that Yusho will be any different than IGG when things demand? VCO engine is only one. Would Yusho change it to it´s own loss? I don´t think so.

    Here comes a word by word reproduction of the description of GUARDIAN LIGHT CHEST:

 " Contains 100 guardian lights. Each guardian light provides immunity for 60 seconds to all basic harmful buffs attached to players, such as injury, bleeding, poisoning and paralisys."

  So, my english skills fail me(I´m not a native english speaker) or I´m not the one who didn´t read things carefully.

  More: There is the phase 3 book(you pay 300 IM points to keep leveling certain skill after 100), and there is not  only the regular auto skill book, but also one designed for phase 3 skills, which multiplies by three the xp gain, meaning you make 30k xp points every 10 seconds of online imobility.

  About the pillars:Allow someone with deep pockets to harm the very essencial concept of guild work is not something nice. In VCO there are players who spend thousands of dollar monthly to make their über-Chars/Guilds. It´s just a matter of time till such players hit BBO. And if the environment is good for them, they´ll ruin the game for everyone else. Try to read the VCO forums, guild secrtion, Columbus server, and you´ll understand what I mean.

  I am very angry with the amount of money I´m spending on VCO these days, and I had free BBO server brought to my attention.

    First thing I do was drop by the Item Mall, to see the features. Item Mall stuff give a good idea about a game development.

   Seriously, I am shocked. BBO IM is a gamekiller alone. Let´s analyze a few items.

   Auto scrolls: existant in VCO, very controversial. Allow a person to scroll all his skills to max without ever bother to play.

   Phase 3 books. Existant and deeply hated in VCO, makes the "free game" concept a joke.

  Now the things that don´t exist in VCO:

  Guardian Light Chest: WTF is this? If IM description is accurate, each guardian light gives you total invulnerability against another player. This is a PvP killer. Two players spawning them during a fight will make no damage to each other. All PvP fights will never end.  

 Commercial/Industrial Pillars: Guildmembers will no longer need to work their guild up. One person, with 5 accounts and a deep pocket can make a lvl 5 guild in a day.  

 Really, I really don´t understand why people say this is any better than VCO.  One excellent game made into two money traps.