Voyage Century Online

Voyage Century Online (航海世纪/王者世紀) is a free nautical MMORPG developed by Snail Games and published by IGG. There is also a European distribution of the game that goes under the name of Bounty Bay Online which is published by Frogster. It is set in 16th century Earth and features accurate historical representations of several coastal cities. Players are not required to choose a career path at the beginning of the game. This gives players a rather varied gameplay in which you can either specialize in one skill and trade for resources, or make use of all the skills.

History
Prior to its English launch, Voyage Century Online was available to players in China, South Korea, and Germany. An alpha test open to 1000 players began on the English version on December 8, 2006 and an open beta version was launched on December 22, 2006. The game's full version was released April 8, 2007

Storyline background
Voyage Century Online is an elite game against the beautiful backdrop of Europe in 16th-century. The game has its roots in the glorious age of Sail, allowing players to embark on magnificent vessels that embodied the adventurous spirit of an age when men sought great adventures and epic quests.

From the 15th century, western European explorers push eastward in an effort to seek treasures, spices and other luxuries of that time. They opened a gate to riches and greed for those in power, who sponsored explorers' cause without abandonment. As the fleets stretched their paths, westerners expanded their influences to Africa. Later they cruised around Cape of Good Hope to reach Indian Ocean. In the other direction, they explored westward and found the New World. The late 15th century saw the start of the global expansion of Western capitalism and colonial exploitation of the rest of the world.

VCO storyline begins at Mediterranean from the late 15th to early 16th century. The western powers start the bloody pursuit of riches that led Europe in to an age of great turmoil. Every character in the game was from a mysterious birth. Some of them are descendants of the courageous cavalry in Yuan Empire, some carry the family line of caravan merchants faring the Silk Road, some are the witnesses of the not so well known affair between of Marco Polo and Chinese princess, and some are even the offspring of west Europe's pirates. But all players are to maintain a firm belief: the pursuit of peace and hope. Bearing the faith, they embarked on a passionate adventure on the High Seas.

Skill/stunt system
Introduction

Voyage Century offers 17 unique skills for the characters: navigation, sea battle, eloquence, sword-playing, falchion-playing, axe-playing, shooting, medicine, bare-hand fighting, mining, timber-felling, planting, fishing, foundry, sewing, alchemy and ship building.

Basic skills

There are three stages in every skill, initial skill, phase 2 promotion skill and phase 3 promotion skill. Initial skills can be upgraded to level 31, phase 2 promotion skills can be upgraded to level 100, and phase 3 skill can be upgraded to 120. The newly created characters obtain one phase 2 promoted skill: navigation (upper limit: 100 level), and three initial skills: sea battle, eloquence, and bare-hand fighting. Other skills can be learned from skill tutors in the game. The tutors are usually at the city gates. Every character can learn all initial skills, but can only promote 7 skills to phase 2. Promoting more skills to 2nd phase requires special skill-promoting books which can be bought with Item Mall points.

Special skills

Every time a skill gets increased by 4 levels, player will receive one stunt point. Stunt points can be exchanged for special stunt skills (sub skills). Special skills are divided into 2 categories. Passive and active. Active skills require stamina points (blue bar) to be activated. Stamina points can be recovered through sitting for a rest or using recovery potions. Passive skills usually increase characters base stats like +5 SP (stamina point).

Professions
In the new version, there are 5 new professions for players to choose from. Each profession has its own strengths and weaknesses, so whether you can stand out in the game depends on whether you can make full use of the strengths.

Royal Military Officer: Very high ranking military officer who is not only good with a cannon but also good at land battles.

Imperial Guardian: The elite of the Emperor's army, good with the falchion, the axe, and the sword to name but a few. Although melee is their main strength, they can defeat enemies by using grappling tactics during sea battles too.

Caribbean Pirate: Roaming the Caribbean, they consider killing and robbery to be their hobbies. Very good at melee battles, and having many attack tactics such as grappling, ramming, and short cannon attacks to defeat enemies during sea battles.

Treasure Hunter: They have the passion to explore every corner of the world to find treasure. However they also excel at long distance cannon attacks, mines, and ramming tactics. On the ground, they are sharpshooters and smart enough to deal with all kinds of urgent matters.

Armed Businessman: Good at defense but bad at attacking, in addition, their main strength lies in repairing and enhancing ships, and healing sailors. On the ground, they are good at healing, assisting, and shooting.

Professions can be leveled. With higher level professions, more skills gets available. Upper limit of profession level is 120. Every profession level gives +10 HP (health point) and +5 SP (stamina point).

Reputation and noble titles
Reputation can be acquired many ways - through authenticating treasures, discovery, quests...

Noble titles are divided into 13 levels and 5 groups. Each of titles requires a certain amount of reputation and silver coins.

Europe noble titles:

Commoner, Warrior, Hero, Knight, Chevalier, Baronet, Baron, Viscount,Count (Countess), Marquis (Marquise), Duke (Duchess), Arch-duke, Royal Highness.

Chinese noble titles:

Commoner, Scholar, Academician, Zhanshi, Doctor, Xiao Wei, Assistant Minister, Cavalier, Minister, Du Wei (military officer sub-general), Tai Fu (a powerful official), General, Tai Shi

Japanese noble titles:

Commoner, Samurai, Ninja, Rojin, Soldier, Ippan Heitai, Soldier Chief, Hatamoto, Tozama, Shinpan, Bu Jiang, Shogun, Tenno

Korean noble titles:

Commoner, Discuss political affairs, Du Ti Tiao, Pan Shu, Zhi Shi, Can Pan, Shang Shan, Caretaker, Can Yi, Bie Jiang, Si Jian, Grand Guard, Bu Jiang.

Pirate noble titles:

Wanderers, Peg Leg, Iron Hand, Metal Tooth, Golden Eye, Jackal, Falcon, Flying Tiger, Skeleton, Devil, Hades, Great Pirate, Pirate King

Noble titles greatly affect characters. Almost every armor and weapon require some noble title to wear. Better the equipment, higher the noble title required. With title Baron or higher players are able to speak on public chat.

Refining
Another aspect of the game is item refining. Every armor or equipment can be refined to add different bonuses on them. Those refiners are obtainable in-game or Item Mall.

Patches
Voyage Century has had 2 notable patches, first the Colony patch, released in January 2009, which allowed guilds to build small colonies throughout the game world. As well as the Beyond the Horizon patch released on the 25th of November 2009, which added the continent of America, presenting 6 new cities, 4 new pets, 5 character classes and other features. In March 2010, the Atlantis patch was released which introduced two new instances: Bimini Island (Atlantis) and North Islands (Arctic Tundra). The new instances brought with them new quests, which could be turned in to level a characters profession level. The profession level max was also increased to level 150, whereas it was previously 120. The patch also released new weapons, armor quests (to make the new armors) and new jewelries to match the new profession levels.