There seems to be a lot of hype around the new MMORPG Voyage Century, here are some facts i would like to clear up.

First of all regarding the concept, the whole idea of a MMORPG based on 16th-17th century European maritime theme is not really new, in fact the Japanese company KOEI first released Uncharted Waters on Super Nintendo way back in the early 90s and like many of Koei's games quickly rose to cult status. Since then, the franchise has been refined and the latest installment is Uncharted Waters IV, the game has been revolutionised since its early 2D SNES days. With each instalment, the graphics, character development, and gameplay is significantly improved and like the very first game in the series rose to cult status across Asia.

Uncharted Waters Online was released following the fourth single player version and has since been developed and improved through closed betas for about two years. Open beta's have just recently been released in China and Taiwan recently, while in Japan it has already finalized and operational for several years.

Voyage Century was developed by a Chinese company and has been operating free-to-play with item mall in China for at least 3 or so years (including betas).

The similarities between Voyage Century and Uncharted Waters Online is uncanny, they both have three classes, the Explorer, the Merchant and the Soldier/Warrior. The crafting system is identicle, each with seven of the same crafting profession, players gather raw materials from rural areas outside the town and require to purchase item blueprints to craft the items. In both games skill rank is increased by the number of times the skill is used, actively or passively and the character level determines the upgrade of ships. Furthermore, the whole notion of profession guilds and accepting missions from the guildmaster is a system both games employ. The maps and the cities are also the same, the names of the ships are almost exactly the same, the whole thing of the photograph revealing after an object is found are the same, even the very photos of the animals resemble and

I am not making allegations, but amount of similarities bordering on being identicial is ridiculous. If you have played both games, its not hard to miss, but my point is essentially, Voyage Online is a cheap rip off of a much better and much more ingenous game Uncharted Waters Online.

I was reading some posts regarding Voyage Century on this forum, and one person said that the game felt fishy. I think i understand the feeling he's having. The game feels like a cheap imitation, a home-made rip of a favourite artists's CD or a one of those pirated movies filmed in a Mexican cinema. The content is clearly there, but the quality, the authenticity and the overall experience is completely deficient.

This is quite evident within the game, it's not consistent, the transition between the 3D city-scape and the 2D poorly made sea-scape is awkward, and crude. The gameplay feels broken, like broken English, for example the four categories of objects to be discovered with natural objects, relics, historic ruins and 'sea-shells' seems like a piece ripped out of a complete treasure map. These 'fishy' feelings of imcoherence and incompleteness are not hard to find.

I often wondered why the developers didn't spend their time makign the sea-scape 3D, given that they made the ports 3D, its seems that a) either they lacked the technology know-hows of how to accurately re-create the 3D geography, given that most Chinese programmed MMORPGs were 2D, or b) it would take too long and clash with the eventual release of Uncharted Waters Online.

It's unfortunate that Uncharted Waters Online by KOEI is unlikely to be released in English, so meanwhile we have to put with this cheap poorly-made imitation, but to give an honest opinion, this game is just trash, and it wouldn't take people long to figure that out for themselves.