Sometimes I like to play some less known MMOs, and one that I played for a while was Uncharted Waters. The premise is that you are an adventurer during the discoveries era. So you start as a captain in one of the European powers and gradually gain a reputation, either in combat, trade or exploration; usually a mix of them. You level the three branches independently and tons of skills on top of that. It becomes really grindy but, having so many different activities, you can mix and match to avoid boredom.

During years, playing only a few days each time I got myself to a pretty decent spot. Not even close to the “endgame” level, but I had my own colony, permits across al Europe, Asia, Africa and parts of America, some decent skills… and then, the game was sold to a different publisher and all the progress was lost. Maybe active players got to transfer their characters or got some kind of compensation package, but I didn’t. I wasn’t playing at the moment and, if some email was sent to warn me, I missed it. So, when I tried to come back and found myself without my character, decided that I was done with the game.

(Goes to black. Transitions to present time)

Right now, the game loop of this game is precisely what I want. I can set a course and travel semi-AFK for a few minutes, or I can mindlessly grind a skill. So here I am, slowly leveling my Spanish captain.

It seems that they are still adding content, but I see less active players than the other times I played. there are lots of AFK players on the big cities, but across the sea, not as many ships as I remembered. Maybe they are on higher level zones, mind you, I’ve barely traveled to Africa yet, but even high-level traders tend to come back to Europe, and I don’t see a lot of them. But even if the game may not be long-term viable, I’m enjoying it right now, and that’s enough for me.

Right now, I am at levels 14 (adventurer), 13 (merchant) and 7 (maritime). I own port permits across all Europe, Far East, and the western Africa coast, and my main focus is on improving fame to get permits to go to Asia when the sailing times really start to become long. The game comes as a rate of 1 real-time minute per 1 day in-game sailing time.