Latest news (which I bother posting about
)
A new Bay 12 company (TheTwelfthBay) has been created in Marseille. The next goal is to set up a charter house in Northern Europe. (10/17/2010)
What is Uncharted Waters Online (UWO)UWO is a free-to-play MMORPG developped by Koei and based on the previous Uncharted Waters games released... at some point in the last millenium (too lazy to check dates). The game is set in the 15/16th centuries, during the european exploration/colonization period. The players take up the role of the captain of a small ship and attempt to leave his mark in history.
Like previous games in the serie, UWO offers a wide range of ways to play the game. Unlike most MMO, it does not focus exclusively on combat; in fact it is quite possible to play and progress without ever taking part in a fight. Adventuring and trading are just as important as combat and have both been developped in great details to reflect that. Battles happen mostly at sea, where maneuvring is as much, if not more, important than character's skills.
A word of warning however: UWO is a
very slow-paced game. You spend most of your time in-game travelling; either running around the cities or sailing from one port to another. Many people mentionned the tutorials in the following posts, but these are no exception, but rather a good indication of the pace of the game.
Characters creation, classes, skills and other gamey stuffCharacter creation is very limited, you get to choose between a few underage guys/girls and a few other characters, a handful of visage and hair color and that's about it. You have the choice between 6 differents nations: England, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, France and the republic of Venice.
I will not get into the details concerning the classes and skills because of the huge amount of both (75ish classes and 100ish skills). Unlike most MMO, classes in UWO do not limit what you can learn or do, they are only meant to make it easier to focus on specific gameplay aspects. Any character can learn and master any skill. However, skills have requirements and need to be used a lot to rank up; classes allow you to ignore those requirements and reduce the ranking up requirements by half. It is possible to change class but it requires a special item, which you can get from quests (the tutorials also give some).
Characters can earn experience and fame in several ways: travelling, discovering cities/relics, trading, crafting, battling or completing quests. Players progress in each schools (adventure, trade, battle) individually. Levels affect the maximum number of skills you can have (of any class) and which ships you can use. Fame affects the quests available and allows you to unlock regions' ports permits (needed to dock at ports).
Playing the game: advices and linksOfficial SiteUnofficial Wiki It is far from being complete, but it provide some useful information.
Job Change: quests list, this is a link to a message posted on the forum of La Royale, a french company, which list details about all the job change quest: name, location and skills requirements. Very useful when you start looking for intermediate classes.
General advices:
- Learning fishing, storage and acquiring the book Fisherman Arts- Preservation Methods will let you fish while sailing and turn those into generic fish trade goods. This can be useful to replenish food stock ("convert to supplies" in the ship's cargo window), a single fish can be turned into a few 'fish' goods which can be converted into 3 food, thus saving you a lot of cargo space. Fishing can also be used to create trade goods to sell for profit.
- Learn the accounts skill. Even if you do not plan to focus on trading, you will be doing a lot of travelling bewteen ports, so you might as well turn this into profit. The accounts skill will make it much easier to know which goods can be profitable.
- Learn the steering skill and, if you plan to ever use galleys, rowing. Both steering and rowing are easy to rank up and both can be very useful for travelling, fighting and fleeing or minimizing damages.
- Be prepared for the worst. There is a lot of random events that can occur while you are sailing; being prepared for these can save you a lot of troubles. Sadly, inventory space is limited, so you cannot reasonably carry items to counter every potential hazards. Plague, sirens, leaks, fire and... rats are amongst the most dangerous, so try to keep a few items to handle these. Keeping a few ceasefire agreement to put an end to risky ambushes is also recommanded.
- Know your ship. All ships are differents and knowing the capabilities and limits of your ship is essential. This is mostly true for people interested in fighting, but also apply to traders and adventurer.
- Make sure your insurances can cover any potential losses. This mainly applies to traders, but remains useful for others.
:
- You can learn locations of discoveries by reading books in the librairies.
- Look for specific nobles to report your discoveries for maximum reward (the wiki mentions them).
- Always bring some healing items when doing land exploration.
:
- Before choosing a class, study the market in your region. Food/livestock and fabric/textile are generally considered good choices for starters as both offers a variety of goods in most regions.
- Learn and rank up sociability, reporting discoveries (check the wiki to know who will give best rewards) and talking to allied cities' officials to invest are good ways to rank it up. The skill will increases the chance of a successful haggle and will reduce the amount of formality required for speaking with nobles and, more importantly, cities' officials which will allow you to invest.
- Invest early and intelligently. Can't say a thing about this since I haven't focused on trading yet, but it's important... apparently.
:
- Know your enemies. This is as important as knowing your own ship. Some enemies use rams which can deal serious damage, others have very high attack/defense for aboardage. Avoiding or adapting to these enemies will prevent useless losses and/or frustrations.
- Choose the right ship and equipment for yourself. Ship and parts greatly affect which strategy will be most effective. Making the right choice for yourself will make combat that much more enjoyable.
- If you decide to focus on gunnery, keep some bell of withdrawal in case you get caught in melee against a dangerous foe.
If anyone has other suggestions, tips or advices, feel free to PM me and I will edit. While I usually read most posts, I will NOT look for additions in these... I am usually too lazy to make the edit right away or to search for the message later. Yeah, I am just THAT lazy
Bay12 players, company?It's there! TheTwelfthBay is now accepting members from B12. We are currently established in Marseille. Anyone from B12 is welcome, of course.
Eventually, I will add a list of players and their specialisations/crafts.
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Topic: Uncharted Waters Online - F2P MMORPG (B12 Company started) (Read 44688 times)