Returning Player
Hello!
I am a returning player from half a decade ago and decided to create a new character starting in London. I was wondering why I can't join/go to school. I am actually overwhelmed right now, and lost on what to do. So far I did 2 adventure quests that requires talking, currently doing the 3rd available quest which requires me to get to Amsterdam.
Also, is this game dying?
Comments
Have a read of this. Although it’s written for a Merchant starting in Venice, the process is similar for Adventure/Maritime, and other cities.
https://unchartedwaters.fandom.com/wiki/Beginners_Guide/Merchant
Thank you kind sir. I started doing basic trading and a number of adventure quests. On my way to Sagres to join schools. Will read the link during break time.
Ahoy! Welcome back to UWO.
The new school at Sagres is a bit of an abomination. Don't expect much out of it, nor from the school chat channel. They made it much more difficult to join and stay in that channel so it's not really representative of how active the game is.
In the time you were away - there have been lots of updates with new features, and more are planned. So, even though the playerbase is on the smaller side, the game is far from dead.
I would suggest taking your time and enjoying the discovery/rediscovery of what is still a fantastic game. Try get into an active company and don't hesitate to ask for help if you require any ;)
Thanks!
I made it to Sagres and kinda disappointed. I took 2 quests to London and Amsterdam. To be honest, my progression right now is boring compared to how I first played the game a while back. I dunno lmao
I will still give the game a shot and be excited of the new features you mentioned.
Cheers! xD
Oh yeah, Sagres is just a tiny portion of a huge game with much to explore. It's a good time to do a few exams though due to the exp boost happening, but at the same time - don't feel like you have to do it right away. It will reward you better ships, though, so keep that in mind.
You can always take a break from schooling and focus on other stuff like a production skill or doing some trade runs, battle reports, or my favourite - adventuring. The nice thing is there is quite a variety of things to do and having fun should always take precedence over grinding, I say!
Really, Ferrolio? I'm in the game for more than 10 years now. The game seems to be dead.Look at Venice, France, The Netherlands. Comps. still exist because of having alts. I have 18 toons in my company,otherwise it would be nothing. There are not a lot of (Main) sailors around anymore. Sailors left, not only because of relaunch, but most of all before that at OGP. When the game became more and more fantasy, "Pirates of the Carribean" instead of "Black Sails" and more and more easy and childish. Great adv.quest became worth nothing, because of reducing them to lvl. 1. Etc. etc. It was a great game with thousands of sailors. All reduced to lvl 1, "fun" and "easy". That's the problem. And that is why people left. The game is already dead. Also because of greed in different ways. Amsterdam has only half the comps. they had a few years ago. And those comp. members are mostly alt. Koei, OGP and now Papaya are killing the game. They should have kept it difficult, historical, old school and less fantasy and reducing great quests to lvl 1. It could have kept thousands of players in game. Now it will be a tough job to get them back for more than a week.
Did you were playing on the Japanese servers though, Tantalus? If you didn't, should have remove "more than" part since Global server existed around 2010.
Also, not all "great" adv quests' pre-requisites got reduced to R1, only few of them that I know of so far (Tenochtitlan & Knossos Palace discovery quests), & since 3 years ago, there's r17 adv quests that requires you to activate certain skill acquired from doing Boston Academical theses.
Welcome back to the Game!
Ive been restarting my characters also, and will probably re-establish my old trading company as soon as there’s a free slot in Seville.
The biggest change - aside from Sagres - is that everyone (or almost everyone) uses alts. I have no problems with that; whatever helps keep this game going works for me.
There’s supposed to be a brand new Uncharted Waters game coming out next year (the trailer came out a couple months ago). Not sure how that will affect this community, though.
Pappaya regularly holds double XP weekends, and those help with the grinds.
Can’t say much about the community, but from what I’ve seen so far, many of the same faces are still around, and a few of the old timers are streaming back in.
But yea, I hope you enjoy your latest journey through this game, and happy sails!
Aloha 😊🤙🏼
I've been playing this game a long time, and lately with the pandemic, it seems that there are more "old" players returning, but it takes new players to make the game grow. Papaya needs to find a way to advertise to an ever growing population of gamers.
That said, word of mouth advertising is always the best, so invite your friends, and even a few enemies, if you have any. Don't be afraid to talk UWO in online chat circles. It won't be for everyone, but for some, it will become their favorite game for years to come.
MikeR2
@Tantalus I actually agree with a lot of what you stated. I also wish there was fewer fantasy elements, and more historic based content. There is no shortage of avenues they could explore and replayability they could add to the game, that doesn't include such fantasy bits. And I, too, wish they didn't make a bunch of quests have lower requirements. Or add those stupid bagel boxes!
It's true that in many ways, they are cheapening the experience and taking away from the sense of accomplishment. But at least we have the choice, in the way we play, that allows us to opt out of some of those things. For example: I usually refrain from buying those Millionaire boxes. Similarly, I don't like buying EA goods/Spice to boost up my trade levels; preferring to earn it myself. It gives me something to do and keeps me from burning out like many players who choose to fast-track to "end-game". I could give loads more examples...
But to say the game is dead is just not true. It's an older game so it's not exactly overflowing with players, but there are a fair few people about. There could be even more if they fixed the tutorial and did a better job advertising the game. Seville is still full of bazaars. There are numerous people doing dungeons, Nanban, SoW everyday... And speaking about my own company - we have pretty good numbers online throughout the day, and I'm sure we're not the only ones. Perhaps you could do with joining a more lively company? Shoot me a message in game, and I can hook you up in ours.
Something that might be helpful for you, is to understand that despite its age, and the less than desirable path Papapa/KOEI have gone with some aspects - UWO is still a great game with so much to keep you occupied, that you can overcome some of the flaws and still have a good time. Safe sailing 😉
I’ve been playing MMOs for 20 years and only heard about UWO 6 months ago. And that was only because I was researching Naval Action (which I also hadn’t heard of before).
I’m not sure what fantasy elements you are talking about, but the ones I have encountered so far are based on legends that would have been believed at the various times the game is set in, which I think is fair enough.
Thr fantasy elements are some of the items you get from adventuring that give sorcery attacks in battle and somewhat Atlantis and the sea of wonders.. None if those items you can use against other players though, only npcs and the lands are mentioned as real places in history. I don't mind the fantasy element because it's not heavy and comes from the perspective that it is from true legendary historical background.
Welcome back!
I am just a newbie, and still learning :D. Was able to get insights from the thread! 😁
Same here. Played about 10 years ago, and loved this game! Reached high level chars back then so understand the main wokings of the game. However, as a return player, starting in London, can't seem to understand what I need to do. Already leveled up to Adv 5, and Trd 2, but do now understand how to join school (won't let me in London), which I know is a key part of the game. Do I really need to travel all the way to Sagres to join school? I don't even have spanish skill. Do I need to restart in Seville? Seems like an absurd change to give people the change to select a nation, but only spain seems to work.
Honestly, completely lost on day 1, and not enjoying having to google everything, when I supposedly knew how to play.
Ya the new school system was a real bust to this game. Ya you do nred to gi to sarges but as long as you have body language you'll be fine.
I played UWO for years and experienced some changes from netmarbel to OGP to the unforgivable loss of many accounts, including my account.
I put so much time and money into the game. Certainly not as much as other players who invested thousands, but I would guess it was probably €100-150.
Some things wouldn't bother me to do again, but many would. In addition, the grind is generally very tough and long up to the point where you can do almost any quest you want and have a reasonably fast ship.
Like everything, I was offered a bonus if I started again. I even achieved the highest joining bonus as far as I know. Unfortunately, the login details didn't work and I felt doubly cheated.
Firstly because they "accidentally" lost my account, to this day I still don't believe this was an accident. It's clear that there isn't much interest in customers who already have almost everything and have already invested too much money in the shop. Of course, a reset helps because you can ensure that all customers “have to” shop again. I may be paranoid, but can you really blame me for thinking that?
Then the login doesn't work either, which would have allowed me a better restart with some very interesting gifts? At that point you start to become suspicious and I'm sure I wasn't the only one who felt that way. This is how you scare away old customers.
For me, UWO was the best MMORPG and the only one that I kept coming back to for many years. Accordingly, I had achieved a lot and starting over is difficult.
On the one hand, because you ask yourself: Who will tell me that something like this won't happen again? In two, six or ten years? Yes, UWO is actually a game that you can play over and over again for over ten years. But once trust is gone, who is willing to take the risk of making an investment of this size?
The trust was once there, after several provider changes you could trust that the provider would change, but you would keep your “stuff”. As soon as it switches to papaya, everything is gone and even the compensation that is offered doesn't work. A good start.
So, if papaya actually wants the old players back, papaya should offer an appropriate incentive.
When I think about my player level alone, it was a long time ago, but it was probably 60/70/70 and my expensive ship and aide ship, my second account, all the artifacts that enabled me to achieve extremely high adventure skills few for trader skills. My rank with France, the quarters, the grind to learn the skills and the land combat technologies, arena and so on.
I'm getting a headache just thinking about it and if I didn't want to live in the game it would take years to catch up.
Sorry for complaining, but that's the long answer to the question of why so many old players don't come back.
Even if you were ready to start over, would there be a risk of falling victim to an “accident” again or that in 5 years you would be back to where you were years ago only to then perhaps experience the server being shut down? LOL or a new change with account loss?
This is a game that should have been in a better league with loads more players but they went down the wrong road, which is why its on the 3rd company running it
If they had gone down the monthly membership route with everything in the actual game and not a shop, the game would be crawling with players
New players now get a really reduced form of tutorial when the previous version was miles better, they also notice the over priced items in the company shops etc and its not hard to notice the players with multiple accounts etc
In this day and age many people are put off when they see people with shop purchased ships etc, non in game plunderable items etc while they spend days upon days just to get a mid good ship and gear etc etc
This is why the player base remains a steady number with no increase but don't get me wrong I still play and enjoy the game although I also had to start a new account!! and they could make more remain in the game by doing a few simple things such as adding more ships that can be player made instead of putting all the good ones in the shop, Reduce the amounts to rank up skills EG ship building is way too slow especially when you need to use specific jobs and this in turn means other skills are stopped at rank 10 meaning your stuck on SB if you want to get to say rank 16 for a very long time, yes you can change jobs to level up other skills but its gets a little annoying, Inventory is way to small and fills up fast forcing some to either pay for more or use alt's and loads have alts making the game seem more busy than it actually is. PVP was so good in the old days but now if you meet a shop player your toast fast, Lastly guess how you can get the really good Aides!!!
Simple fact is if they have made this game a freetoplay version and a monthly membership version just like Runescape did, they would have had a good playerbase but they went with the shop version which never works with this type of game
I still play and enjoy the game sometimes in very long gaps like months and have tons still to do but it would be nice to level faster and create more things like ships, items for quarters, gears etc but it's a over grind which makes people lose interest and once they start trying out other games, you tend to lose them for ever or a long time
Yes, indeed thats the Reason i dont start again from zero. I Playd it in the Past with very good Friends that long ago left the game. It was a nice time in my life, a time where i have a lot spare time. XD
I Playd it with long brakes again and again but only for the Reason that i can go where i want and can do what i want with my High Level, very good Ship and Equipment that i earned over jears of Grind.
I would maybe start again if:
1.) I get a Huge Boost
2.) My Account is saved on my PC so i never will loose again my Stuff
3.) When the game ever dies it will be changed to a single player game
Otherwise the Grind is not worth my lifetime.