Beats all those 15th century Nautical Games out there hands down. If you're a fan of Age of Sail, you might like
I was a fan of [Uncharted Waters] series by Koei released on the SNES as well as PC, and [Age of Sails] as well.
Comparing the game play, I'll say that there're quite a lot of differences.
Firstly, the ships selection here is very limited. There's less customization
in terms of storage space, crew space, cannon slots/type, sail speed. And
there's so few ports around compared to Uncharted Waters series >.<
One thing is that you can only control 1 ship at a time.
There's no NPC as your vice-admiral, captain, vice captain for a huge fleet
of ships.
Consider this is a real-time game, and taking into the fact that lag is
always present, I guess it is a good choice not to put multiple-unit control.
For sea combat, Voyange Century sure brings a different flavour with it's
skills and items. It brings a closer experience to a sea battlefield.
There are 2 types of combat, character combat and ship vs ship combat.
In character combat, you fight with your hero in third person mode just like,
WoW, FF XI type. for ship combat, it's like, hmm... ships :)
Careful, you actually get killed, not like some other games where your
character is like god.
Item drops from character battles are protected. So, there's no item
snatching. But the ship battle's spoils are not. And yes, expect your kill
to be looted by greedy idiots(minority but still there).
** This game is in Chinglish. China's english. So bad translation is expected
and uniformity in translation is not really good. So you might have a quest
with "kill hyenas" when you can't find hyenas, and actually they meant "Wild
wolves" And i have to say the Developers are slow on correcting them although
the bugs and suggestion board is full of it.
But one thing this game can't win those single player games out there, is the
multiplayer experience, team play, interaction and such (but not as aggressive
as FF XI or WoW).
The 3D graphics are adequately good. If you're a crazy XBox 360 kind of
graphics guy, then you'll be sorely disappointed. Cuz this is kind of like
PS2 kind of graphics at best. I'll say the 3D environment though, has very
few bugs, is excellent in creating the atmosphere needed for such games. The
towns are very detailed. Even with graphics set to damn low, you'll get to see
PS1 high-end graphics. You'll never see a bare town, cuz there's always enough
NPCs to walk around.
The Ships are beautifully designed, not forgetting to mention the character
armors and hats as well. Very well designed.
Well, the economy at looks good for now. As with most MMORPG, I see a problem
when money becomes too abundant. I hope they have a solution to it. Currently,
the pirates are doing a good job extorting money to save the economy ^_^
And good thing, it's NOT like those rouge-type where you have to eat food =_=
The aim of this game is kind of like trying to reproduce what FF XI or Wow have
done, in the kind of auxiliary jobs/roles that you can take. Like a smither,
weaver, potion maker, full character combatant(soldier), full ship battle
type(navigator), logger, miner, farmer(real farming), explorer, merchant,
pirate. You name it. It's not just mindless leveling. Only few things you can't
do is be a belly dancer or you want to serve extra service with your female
character.
Quite a lot of interdependence of players, because you can only choose 7 out of
I think 16 skills to level up above level 31(total level 99). You really must
think of your character development after level 31. Note that there's no
general character level. All levels is in skill-type level. when you add a
friend, it shows "total character level". I'm like near total of 250+ in about
16+ skills, so go figure :)
Oh one more thing, your character skill level and ship skill level is totally
different, but they are interdependent. So to get bigger ships, you need the
basic navigation skill, as well as the appropriate ship's attribute level.
Think of your ship like another character. 3 attributes on ships.
Also, I take the thrill in exploring their different cities. I like their 3D
designs very much.
The quest/task system is a bit limited for now, at least what i've seen in
the newbie seas (yes you've guessed it, the Mediterranean seas, near black
sea) Mostly teaches you the basics of the games while rewarding you
appropriately.
There are 2 type of quest/tasks. One is story quest, one is guild quest
where you join an NPC guild and choose one from their list.
I'll say the story quest is good in terms of story. In terms of what you have
to do to complete the quest, sad to say, there's little use of brains in
puzzle solving or much word riddle. But the stories are good.
The team play part. currently it is quite limited, at most you just form party
and gain bonus in experience and extra on exp distributions, though i saw some
defence bonus as well. I can't wait to have an all-out full-scale, Ship vs
Ship, or Ship vs Port battle. Of course as in all MMORPGs, expect some grinding
when you're at mid level.
Bugs are minor, the only problem major is translation.
The game music isn't complete yet. At least, the sfx are good.
The GM call button: GM response is retarded, as in slow. Maybe they're trying
to translating what I'm saying in english to chinese. "Please refer to the bugs
and suggestions forums" is their generic answer. Supposedly, GM are round the
clock in the game. I haven't tested, but i tried at 3am in beijing, china,
time, they are there alright. The game community. Consist of japanese, chinese,
french, spanish. Well alot of countries. Attitude: ok. We have some
item-snatchers most probably those kids with no sense of honor.
##TAKE NOTE: the game is NOT COMPLETE. Don't grumble, patience is a virtue.
I have high expectations for it when it's a full release.
Overall, for a BETA game, which is also FREE, this is an EXCELLENT GAME.
Now looking at the open beta community, at least for now, we're safe from
griefers and other bad players(but we have people with bad ethics)