I can tell you why I left the game(which I played for 3 and a half years), and many people I know did too: it´not fun if you´re not an IM junkie. If you don´t spend at least U$ 500/month, you´re just cannon fodder. You can, of course, try to play it cash free. But then you have to own a nice PC, which can keep, at least, 5 clients on, and do 16 hours/day of the same annoying thing. You do Malta 5 times, then Madagascar/Bombay/Mausoleum Instances, then you do Bimini/North Island Instances, then you spend the rest of the day in Hurricane Island. The other day you do the same, but instead of HI, you spend countless hours killing mobs in NI/BI for job levels. And this is basically, you´re VCO day if you want to be compatitive in PvP and don´t spend the salary of a whole african city monthly in IM.

   When I started fighting wars, you could enter a Sea Battlefield against an enemy, both sailing around each other, firing and firing, until one of you sink.  Now, you stay in offshore until one IM junkie enters, fires 3 times, sinks everyone(you die in first hit), and then gets sunk by another IM junkie who rams him for 2kk damage.

   There is no more place in PvP if you´re not a heavy IM spender or the virgin son a wealthy family. And there is very little PvE content for end game.

   The solution I found was to seek another game.

  Truth is the auto system could be an excellent oportunity for Snail to turn VCO in a excelent hybrid of RPG/RTS game. If new features could be added, like a new improved trade system, and production of goods, variable demand of good in cities, the game could become excellent. Sadly, the only real concern of IGG/Snail is find ways to make you spend cash. They don´t really care about the game anymore, just try to find new ways to get your cash.

  High end game is, basically, spend your whole day grinding Sea Battle Jewelry to trade  for cash on Hurricane Island instance(most high level players solo this instance). Is always a lot of the same.

  When you get money enough, you go spend it all tryingo to lvl on the annoyng new islands, where you have to kill loads of mobs to raise your profession level.

  Since even  high level PvE demands a ton of RL cash, the game is gone. I keep playing because of friends and wars are fun, altough if you don´t spens at least U$ 500/month you´re basically cannon  fodder and nothing more.

  If you want a good historical/ nautical game, I don´t know what to do. Maybe PotBS, because VCO is just a lame excuse to get your cash.

   I must disagree with one things Coffee Girl said: VCO is the best MMO I ever played. By far. The game itself, I mean. However, it was developed by a crappy company, Snail, and was published by an equally crappy company, IGG. 

   The rest is the absolute truth. If you want to be anything but cannonfodder in PvP you need to spend a ton of cash. Not to be the best. If you spend U$ 2000 you won´t be among the best. Because they have spent a lot more. The ERA OF CONQUEST patch was developed exactly to enhance even more your cash shop needs. Even PvE requires IM refiners, or you won´t be able to do any instances, but the low level ones. You need to use jewels, which loose durability with supersonic speed, especially in instances. And to repair them, you need IM repairs. IGG nerfed your ways to make money in game(trading should be an excellent way, but is not). A good Merchant task gives you, in average, like 4 million silvers. It may take hours to get completed. If you have a level 12 ship with supershield, and you get sunk in a siege war, you´ll need 2,5 million to repair Ship + Shield(unless, of course, you want to repair them yourself, with your shipbuilding skill. Which has a cap of 120 repair  per second. Considering your ship has 140000 dura and your shield 300000, you will take  an hour to get them repaired.  And you get sunk a lot, because heavy IM users can sink your 140k dura ship in one hit.

  If you want to seriously collect materials, you need IM passports. Because the sources in game exhaust in like 5 minutes. and you have to wait more than an hour to get them refreshed.

   Truth is, if VCO were not such an amazing game, it would have closed already, ages ago, because it´s the biggest moneysink in the history of MMO. And everyone knows that. Just can´t stop playing because it´s so good.

    I signed up for the unlimited trial of AoC and when I was creating my first char, I had one doubt: the PvE servers have no PvP at all? No wars, sieges, whatever? If someone really pisses you off you cannot even give him a slap(by beheading him)?

   I ask that because I am more of a PvE type of player, but I don´t despise PvP. I like it, but not to be the main focus of my gameplay. I don´t like the idea of being a newb and be constantly ganked by higher level players, that´s why my choice was for one of the PvE server. But this means that if I decide to upgrade my account, this char will never be in a PvP fight or There is PvP but in a more moderated way?

   Thanks in advance for the answers. 

   I am quite sure you actually meant something. I am very sure, either, I have no idea of what it was, and probably noone(not even you) will ever know...

    I really want to try this game. However, few hous before the start of open beta, where is game client to download? No info about it on official website...

   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.