Worst MMO Ever? - Uncharted Waters Online

Patreon: / joshstrifehayes
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A horiffic, hellish, journey of unliving immortal crew trapped aboard an indestructible ship endlessly sailing around an uncaring world...
except you can't leave the ship at certain points because, you know, bureaucracy.
Uncharted Waters Online is an MMO about pirates and exploration, except they've added in all the boring bits like logistical concerns and paperwork and mutiny happening on your own ship.
Thanks to the Patreon supporters and Twitch subs for keeping the channel going :D

[@Crystalgate]

This game proves that Columbus didn't discover America, at least he never set foot on land. There's no way he could have had a docking permit.

[@GiygasStarman]

"HEY! AHOY! HEY, YOU! INDIANS! CAN I DOCK HERE!!?" "... NO!"

[@exodore2000]

Columbus did see the coast of Venezuela once but thought it was an island. The name of the continent should have been Columbia. The reason it's not is Amerigo Vespucci published his book first and it's hard to change public perception.

[@jojbenedoot7459]

@@aggromemnon335 that book is also complete ahistorical nonsense lol

[@emeraldcn]

nah, he built the dock.

[@yul1032]

i cant believe Columbus was beaten by anime characters

[@BKPrice]

"I learned leathercraft so I could craft one on my own." A true MMORPG veteran.

[@HomoErectusIsAFunnyName]

Adam Savage would be proud

[@mr.serperior7002]

josh is getting more and more chad every video

[@aramislucas3281]

Once I tought myself to make flutes, then I learned to play them so I could cosplay as a bard. I tried learning to play guitar first. I suck at it.

[@7ehNP]

Josh strife hayes is a world treasure

[@milkjug4237]

@@mr.serperior7002 Few vids ago he revealed more openly that he works out and now this. He is the previously-mythical peak performance of MMO players.

[@Dynahazzar3]

Josh : "Quick, think of the most exciting thing in a video game about high sea pirate" Me : "Dude i'd love to have a game focusing on the logistics aspects of...ah shit."

[@Nerobyrne]

You could give Sea of Thieves a look, it's a lot more intensive than a lot of pirate games.

[@yosurushi1427]

U ever tried sid Myers pirates

[@pelinalseth]

@@yosurushi1427 honestly thought about getting that awhile ago.

[@commandershepard4235]

@@pelinalseth If you dont mind the dated graphics, its a GREAT game.

[@sephirothbahamut245]

CGP Grey would be proud

[@brentc3580]

“The potential adventure is there, but it’s hidden behind an overwhelming feeling of ‘what am I doing?’” Didn’t know they turned adulthood into an MMO

[@joearnold6881]

The micro transactions and pay to win are absurd!

[@LegaliseShemp]

Brilliant

[@BrutalJambon]

That "God mod until lvl 20" *really* feels like the developers realizing their gameplay is way too complex and hazardous, but it would be too hard to fix it at this stage, so they just let everyone be impervious to everything so that they don't quit on them immediately after loosing their whole crew and destroying their boat 3 times on their first tutorial voyage.

[@umbreonandespeon]

Impervious to scurvy-ous

[@mafiousbj]

They should tell you about it beforehand though, so then you don't feel the need to cure the crew or fix the boat wasting items

[@inertiaSpook]

dude if you only knew how simple this complicated quest line is to get started, it was sooooooo much more a grind

[@LG1ikLx]

It's like they developed the endgame but no way to level up to it so just slapped on godmode for 20 levels like "ahh that IL do" 😂

[@lilmanmf]

That's not the point at all been playing this for years. The point behind the god mode is for the player to get and earn money for repairs

[@gr8southernnerd136]

Josh is a fucking legend. “I taught myself to leather craft” Bro has zero chill with things he loves. So cool

[@creativedesignation7880]

Reminds me of a friend of mine. They were unhappy with a lot of table top games, so they learned how to balance gameplay, design cards, design gaming pieces in blender and are currently creating their third original game.

[@stevenedwards7398]

facts

[@fishpodpizza544]

@@creativedesignation7880 that is sick

[@Riverglacier]

My husband and I were watching this video, and when Josh could not get into pirate college he burst out laughing so hard he coughed and struggled to breathe. Out of ten.

[@badgerlordpatrick6493]

Years ago I played UWO as a Venetian merchant. The tutorial included eating and drinking at a tavern, being told to practise sailing, fighting, and trading. I don't remember seeing Rugged Voyagers. Something must have really changed; your confusion definitely was not my first experience.

[@kirktown2046]

Yeah I'm a little puzzled at this review, did he not go to the tutorial school? You pretty much have to go through at least 2 of 6 schools before you're really out of tutorial. It's definitely quite a grind and there's many problems with the game, but the setting and the writing can be quite charming. Still, it would be SO nice to have a UW game that has no gatcha or pay to win elements... The console originals were so fun.

[@NokoFace]

@@kirktown2046 He says later in the video he tried to go to the tutorial school, but it said "It was full and not accepting new enrolls."

[@marthdaeglin]

Yep, a while ago they moved the "school" to Portugal. So if you didn't start in Spain or Portugal you need fame to access the "tutorial". They also removed the explanations from the school, so it's just "Here's a quest, good luck working out how to do it!" Also, gloria a Venezia! Venice best nation!

[@chalor182]

​@marthdaeglin wow talk about shooting your own game in the head. What could possibly have made them think that idea was anything other than stupid as fuck

[@TheNephilimofEmpireCity]

@@chalor182 remember the review in the vid about the GMs being asshole griefers along with the community, thats why.

[@jonerikson5925]

"This is just like Earth 2, except this exists" well played sir.

[@Zakarias89]

"I destroyed my own ship trying to do the tutorial". Not even Dark Souls treated the new player that harshly

[@billyhyde1415]

To be fair, that wasn't the actual tutorial. To be extra fair, The actual tutorial is worse.

[@somerandomgamer8504]

@no or maybe yes At least there's skill involved

[@Mikeofthenorth1892]

Watching it was like Josh making a lvl1 char in WoW and trying to run deadmines with it....

[@tjwonderboy]

That wasn't the tutorial, that was a trial (mission) and yes, he failed :)

[@Zakarias89]

@no or maybe yes Yeah, that's pretty harsh

[@jordangordon2350]

Those reviews make me think this game is doing a great job of filling an uncommon niche for some people, and I can really respect that. The ones that do love this game, REALLY love this game. And that makes me happy

[@haydenmcdonald4087]

Yep! The games slow and convoluted as all hell but this game back in the day, and even now dipping back in here and there, still slaps real hard. This game and suikoden were my jam back in the day

[@Jrock420blam]

It's nice to see the die hards of some of these mmos accept the criticism and still enjoy it rather than throw tantrums and rage in the comments. This is one of those games where the base seems to understand its faults and not get offended.

[@haydenmcdonald4087]

@@Jrock420blam for sure! It's a shitty game by many metrics but it's gameplay and feel hasnt been replicated elsewhere, so it will forever hold a part of my soul

[@Wyzai]

that or those reviews were paid for. At least one of them sounded like they are employed in the marketing team.

[@blazingfuryoffire1]

@@Wyzai it's more that the people who put 1000 hours are the kind of people who like the in the weeds style. Honestly, it's basically focused on trade. If you want enough money to do anything in the game, get used to going port to port. Sort of an age of sail version of EVE online, which oddly enough was released around the same time.

[@seantaylor424]

Beginning: Josh's unbridled love for adventure and willingness to make his own bandoliers because of said love. End: A thorough description of Hell's pain and inescapable nature.

[@slothsong080]

*Sailors tell tales of a battered sloop sailing listlessly through the Mediterranean. The captain seems very much lively, but the crew is said to have grey, shriveled skin with a stare cold enough to chill a glass of rum. Pirates sing of the bounties of plundering an undead ship of lost souls who are mysteriously resurrected by an unknown benefactor. Some have even reported seeing the ship docked just outside of the ports of Cairo. Both crew and captain staring blank eyed at the cozy wooden dock. Some say they were ghosts. Others claim they didn't have the right papers.* *The Legend of the SS StrifeHayes has become a cautionary tale for any foolhardy scallywag trying to live a life of adventure. Also, it's probably easier to be a bandit, I dunno.*

[@GerardMenvussa]

Joke aside, I do feel bad for my characters when I abandon them on a crappy or dying game. I usually try to leave them in a nice place or at their home. It's the least I can do...

[@XenosInfinity]

Strictly speaking, it should be HMS, I think. SS is used for steamers.

[@wolfsruhm]

@@XenosInfinity but HMS is reserved for ships of the Royal Navy

[@worldweaver2691]

fate stay night fanfic: From Fake Dreams by Third Fang enemy: *Intensifies*

[@daSEGAfanatic]

I wanted to hear about Local Pirate A

[@Serevarno]

All those positive steam reviews. I can just hear them in the background: “It gets really good about 1000 hours in!”

[@BrBross]

Nah, it's good from second one if you are autistic enough, this is one of those games like dwarf fortress, you either get mesmerized as soon as you open it and start playing or you hate it

[@StriderWolf]

@@BrBross don't make fun of autistic people. that's not cool, dude.

[@fonesrphunny7242]

Less autism, more Stockholm syndrome.

[@AtemiRaven]

@@BrBross No, it really isn't. Dwarf Fortress is actually fun. This game has no features that are fun or interesting.

[@boldCactuslad]

@@StriderWolf In what way does this make fun of autistic people? He said the game is good if you're autistic enough.

[@archaeologistify]

23:22 "Johnny, sing that one about leaving her" In light of Johnny Depp vs. Amber Heard trials, this aged extremely well

[@anounyoumissed4073]

Moments like the "living ghost ship" always impress me with how JSH manages to make even mind numbingly boring mmos hilarious and enjoyable.

[@Kekadis]

This game was quite relaxing for me, actually. I used to play as a fisherman/chef and just sell food to players. At first i wanted to be a pirate, but seeing the old time players absolutely demolish everyone in combat, i decided to stick with cooking.

[@ray6tw]

I got rich by fishing tuna in good old days.

[@kunheepark2053]

영어서버인가 글로벌서버인가? 이 유저도 유저 해적에게 학을 떼고서 어부&요리사로만 했나보다. 유해(유저 해적)놈들은 외국에서도 마구잡이로 다른 유저들을 습격하는데 악명높은가보다. 빌어먹을 유해놈들. ㅡㅡ

[@thefruch7588]

Yea I played this game during a tough time back in 2011. It was relaxing and a decent escape.

[@stevenparker9911]

@@kunheepark2053 agreed

[@DaigoParry]

Plucking chicken feathers in Venice in the early game and making $2 million Ducats per shipload. 🤗😁 I remember the relaxing music.

[@Twigspeaker]

I can't believe Josh actually went up against a Sicilian when death was on the line. That's one of the classic blunders!

[@allisonkuechlesilva3332]

It was fine. Death wasn't on the line. He was under level 20

[@metalthrashingmatt]

@@allisonkuechlesilva3332 whoosh….

[@TJRex01]

Inconceivable!

[@StubbornBullet]

@@TJRex01 You keep using that word, I do not think it means what you think it means

[@SilverDreamweaver]

@@metalthrashingmatt Life is pain. Anyone who says differently is selling something.

[@VitchAndVorty]

I remember playing this game as a dutch character and trying to sail to Batavia(Or maybe India. I forgot), only to see the estimated time to reach that place, which was around 7 days in real life.

[@lilmanmf]

Lol where you in a baraca lol you wouldn't even make it there

[@mitchella5124]

The original game years and years ago was amazing and I loved it! This game has gone through a few company transfers since and the tutorials just have gotten worse. The learning curve and complexity of this game now, truly, requires the patience of Job these days. There are a lot of tips and tricks but still, the game is slow going, especially early on. The further you get into the game, the more you can enjoy it. It is definitely more enjoyable with a group, which these days, is hard to find. I would only suggest this game if you have a group of people set on doing this together. I can't suggest doing this game solo and definitely advise against it. The lack of explanations in the game, the awful tutorials, the time consumption.......this game unfortunately, can not come back from the depths it has fallen.

[@cmdrasumoto9658]

I had fun while playing but it was a long time ago... loved the exploration part but didnt play that much and didnt really know what i was doing.. still tho good memories of this game

[@gringojoe1]

I love playing this game back in the early nineties sometimes I would stay up for 2 days I love it

[@horrorreadersanonymous3533]

The unfortunate thing is that about two years ago they changed the new player experience on a way that makes it harder to get into the game. Every capital used to have its own school to teach you the basics but now the new player experience requires you to head to a specific town in Portugal. Yet they've kept the spread out starting points so new players might not even be able to reach the new player quest hub.

[@Shyvorix]

Sounds like they wanted to make it intentionally harder to get new players into the game. Kinda hilarious since that's how games die off.

[@hawkticus_history_corner]

Thats... incredibly dumb. And I don't even know why you would do that

[@UlshaRS]

Sounds like someone who played the game, acquired and maintains it, but wanted to make it as private a game as they could a MMO. Restricting playability to new players in such that they themselves need to hand hold the new player through the essential but gated content they hold all the keys for. TL;DR so it's a game controlled by elitist bullies who throw dirt at any one who gets too close to their playground.

[@Heriarka]

That explains why portugal was crowded. Gotta love a game that requires you to read a walkthrough to create your character.

[@ChaoticNeutralMatt]

My head hurts reading that

[@Camkitsune]

Uncharted Waters was originally a pair of RPG/Simualtion games by Koei. They're two of the most unique titles on the SNES; focusing on sailing 'round the world in the 1600s, building a fleet of sailing ships, trading, and a tactical approach to naval battles that unfortunately had 'stab the enemy captain for an instawin' that sort of undercut it. Very janky, but still pretty fun if you had the patience for them. I remember recognizing the name, thinking an MMO version was a brilliant idea, and immediately being turned off by the game's... Well, everything.

[@rhyspatterson679]

I loved playing the old SNES version of the game. I would pull it up on my laptop during breaks in college so I REALLY get why this could have a fan base even with its heavy logistics focus but this has swung way way WAY too far off course into logistics

[@Ashreal1]

One of my earliest video game memories is of playing the NES version with my dad. I've gone back since and replayed it a few times, it is a fantastic game that doesn't get the fanfare that it deserves IMO.

[@-o-1695]

This game feels like it is managed by Japanese Boomer who have next to zero savviness in PC gaming considering that they forgot to give title to the update news. So it make sense that it originated from a japanese handheld game

[@belstar1128]

Did these games ever even come out of japan when they where new.

[@message2god]

I played the SNES version. I remember the game is similar like this at the start. You have to trade stuff, earn money and fame nearby slowly until enough to buy permits and get better ships to get to the more interesting stuff. World is fully open to do whatever you want but going out to further waters when not ready is certain fail and its all not told in game how to do it. Josh played the game wrong but i was like that too when i started.

[@Eliwood407]

19:45 "And you'll have one or two guys - who know how to play it, and they will be really excited whenever anyone shows interest because they know that without them to act as a guide, no one would make it halfway through the rules without just giving up" Add to that showing off the 1000USD worth of ships they bought and you have Star Citizen players in the same boat.

[@benrollin1207]

The endless traveling is what I remember the most out of this game. Always some calamity would set me back, but for some reason the feel and the whimsical style of the game always made me want to come back after I swore to quit. This game will always have a place in my heart but I wish it was so much better.

[@estefaniac.1011]

"I will become a living ghost ship. Immortal souls trapped forever inside weak mortal bodies, racked in endless pain, they will die to be reborn to die and this will be their existence." Poor man losing his mind because of the boredom and he's not even half-way there. Really cool concept, though 😅

[@AngryPickles]

There are actually ghost ship encounters in this game. 🤣

[@ionick995]

The character arc of Josh Strife Hayes from actual actor in Shakespearean plays to Spanish pupil of Shakespeare in Uncharted Waters Online is a thrilling yet sad one.

[@aguyhere7945]

Next he'll be doing Shakespeare in its original Klingon.

[@VictorGnoato]

25:23 i was almost falling asleep but instantly perked back up because of the Proof of a Hero motif (from Monster Hunter) in this song, i wonder if that was intentionally... "inspired"

[@plattiewhack]

i was looking in the comments to see if anyone heard it too, its almost 1:1

[@misper7827]

Finally! Another hunter!

[@joshuarobinson1689]

The PS2 vibe is incredibly strong with this one. As soon as I saw you running around in the town, my first thought was "is this running on the FFXI engine?"

[@NickWing]

You reckon you could "worst MMO ever DC Universe Online"? everyone says it's terrible and I'd love to see your opinions on it.

[@luketfer]

It's not terrible...it's just barely supported these days. The Gameplay was...ok...the story was...ok...I think they've gone the route of spamming loot boxes as content. The same could be said for Champions Online, again the game is ok IF you're a subscriber with a freeform build slot (otherwise it's kinda crap) but it's just left to die a slow death in maintence mode where the only thing the devs are doing is pumping out more loot box shit.

[@NickWing]

@@luketfer they actually just remolded subscriptions making it better for free players and they still release new episodes every month or two. On the forums and KZbin though people constantly say it's the worst or one of the worst MMOs ever and I just don't see so I was hoping to see it from the eyes of some one completely unbiased who puts out great informative content.

[@AxeGaijin]

@@NickWing Well to be frank, on every forum of every MMO there are people complaining that theirs is the worst. :)

[@Thatpinkoctopus]

I remember that end game being pretty boring. spam the same 3 or 4 powers in order over and over again and you win. no need to use your fighting style. maybe they fixed it, but i dont like it anymore

[@CrystalMang0]

@@luketfer barely supported? There's literally new stuff all the time

[@kokosan09]

"we will become a living ghost ship" Josh accidentally revolutionising the entire isekai genre 👌

[@greenapple9477]

I'd read that shit.

[@ChaoticNeutralMatt]

@@greenapple9477 I'd be.. curious

[@rikkamoe]

I honestly enjoyed my time with this game, especially when I was younger. After school I would hop in and ask this guy, who saved my shipwrecked ass when I started the game, if he was going on a spice run for easy money, since his clipper was significantly faster than the carrack I had at that time. UWO gave me lots of online friends, and lots of memories shared with them. I’ll never forget them.

[@Pratt_]

27:49 "30min in and we are nearing the northern strait of the Libya-Israel border" that's one way to describe Egypt I guess lol

[@notreallybro8508]

My uncle played this game for hours and years on end. He loves games involving ships and sealing to adventure! He could go on and on about his journeys, how he got taken down by a kraken for the first time while being out for a trade from france to spain in his early levels and how he saw the changes when the game first got shipped from one company to another... I even played it for a while! Not gonna lie, the community itself and the idea of sailing and trading with different countries and horizons was really awesome back then. It's hard to believe this game has fallen. Back then, we didn't know we we're making a memory of thoses good times.

[@Kfo221]

Spain*

[@permavirgin3595]

You searched months for a reason to show off your cosplay, be honest.

[@passedjudgements4729]

Years. The whole purpose of this channel was all for this one day

[@timogul]

This kinda reminds me of a game I played in high school on a school Apple II, where you played an immigrant to NY harbor in the late 1800s, and you had to find living space and work for yourself (including how you would commute to and from work) and your children (gotta put those kids to work early), and budget out your daily expenses, with everything intended to be accurate to the economy of the day. The entire game was done in spreadsheets, zero graphics.

[@hansonwinx7843]

I've been playin this game like drinking coffee. Bitter at first, but become "not bad" later. Then I delved into the skill and levelling system, and realized it's a game designed so you will never run out of things to do. Once you get a hang of it, the games ages like fine-wine.

[@andrewsan1997]

I don't know man people say the same thing about putting barbed sticks up their urethras. Doesn't make me any more interested. If the base game tutorial cant explain the mechanics and you can't have an actual adventure whats the point?

[@TheSnowKK]

@@andrewsan1997 game is 20 years old, the tutorial was pretty good for its age, people nowadays just have a really short attention span, reading the actual text explaining is not seen in good eyes anymore, everything needs to be straight forward, no complex systems. the game actually has a ton of adventure and roleplay if you "endure" reading the tutorial text explaining the systems, you can spend thousands of hours just being a merchant sailing port to port and making routes, another thousand being a pirate or an adventurer (edit) its still the best game for this niche, 20 years later, you can't find a better merchant/pirate simulator, which is sad, the genre is too niche i guess

[@billyhyde1415]

OMG. I have been hoping you'd review this game since you started the series. I'm a longtime player and I love it, but . . . it is SUCH a mess. Posting this pre-review, I'll add bits after. TLDR after: UWO only pretends to be boring and incompetent. Behind the facade it is so much more, and so much worse. Long-form after: Bit 0: If you can believe it, you barely scratched the game's surface. The comparison to a thick Eurogame is absolutely spot-on, in more ways than one. This is a MMO, yes, but like in many Eurogames, you're only barely competing or cooperating with other players, each of whom is interacting with the systems in a way that you likely aren't. This definitely isn't the game it advertises itself to be, but I'm going to go out on a limb and reiterate that I do enjoy it. I won't say "it gets better after 100 hours" or the like, but this isn't really an adventure game. It's a management game, more similar to EVE Online (there's one you should do, by the way) than Far Cry. For me it's relaxing instead of dull, and rewards patience and planning, rather than being a grind. I know that comment really saps my objectivity as a reviewer, but for me, part of the satisfaction is correctly choosing my goal for an evening, and going through all the frustrating steps you talked about, choosing resources and plotting a course, and enjoying the reward of several hours spent following through. Getting to look at low-poly but reasonably accurate and realistic sailboats just sailing along while chatting on Discord with friends is the fun for me. In that respect, UWO is the MMO equivalent of baseball. It's fine, once you understand the rules you can pay minimal attention to it most of the time. But as I said in my pre-post, this game isn't just a mess on the levels you discovered. It's an onion of problems that, as you unravel them, you see transforms from charmingly inept to frustrating to intentional to downright evil. And this is coming from someone who actively plays and enjoys the game. Consider the following: Bit 1: This game is an ancient Frankenstein's monster of bespoke systems and "features" all added one by one, to the point where you can't tell beginner stuff from advanced. Even when you've FOUND the proper content for your level, there's no real way to gauge if it's actually a challenge or not, because your Class level doesn't raise your skills, you have to buy and train all your skills individually, and there's very little means to determine the danger of an enemy. Many of the things that you get the clearest directions for (meaning, you get directions for them at all) are the newest things, and the newest things are generally top-end content. You're seeing it first because that's the best way to ensure that long-time and returning players see it first, too. Bit 2: Inventory management is a nightmare of, to paraphrase you, "diabolical" proportions. I don't know if you noticed, but the cannons on your ship, and in fact your ship itself, were items that you held in your personal inventory. Everything is in your personal inventory. You have a 'vault' at the bank, but not right away, and it has limited slots. You can purchase 'quarters' to use for storage, but not right away, and they have limited slots. At the same time, even if you manage to follow the nonexistent directions and achieve things during the game, you get a constant bombardment of items whose uses are unclear or not even described, and whose value you likely don't know, so you can't tell what to throw away and what to keep. Inventory management is so bad in this game that many players create not just alternate characters solely for the purpose of storing items, but entire alternate accounts for the purpose. Bit 3: I can't BELIEVE you didn't even TOUCH the cash shop. Uncharted Waters Online has a cash-shop solution for every problem, and they're almost all either limited in duration or come out of the game's lootbox system, which is, itself, built on a cycling timer so certain items are only available for a week or two and if you don't get them then, you may not see them again, ever. Ship too slow? Buy a speed increase that lasts 7 days. Grind too slow? Buy an experience boost that lasts 7 days. Not famous enough? You guessed it, buy a fame boost that lasts 7 days. Ship just bad? Buy a lootbox with an extremely low chance to give you a new ship, but is guaranteed to give you things that will clog your inventory. Inventory clogged? BUY AN EXTRA BOX THAT ONLY EXISTS FOR 30 DAYS and then mysteriously ceases to exist, making everything you put in it still visible, so you know you have it, but you can't access it without buying the item again. Bit 4: Historically, this game has jumped hosts multiple times over its life. Since its 2005 release by Koei, it's shuffled to Koei Tecmo (not the most reputable of game hosts, even by Japanese standards). For NA and EU players, it started out on Netmarble in 2010, then jumped to OGPlanet, and jumped to its current host, PapayaPlay, a few years ago. Koei Tecmo still supports and releases updates for the game that eventually filter to Papaya and its Taiwan host, but not before a round of incompetent language ports and a check to make sure that everything (and by everything, I mean most things) works (and by works, I mean should work), while at the same time not backtracking to streamline or reorganize anything that came before. At this stage, at least for players in the EU and Americas, the game is four times removed from its original form, and is sustained by companies that have absolutely no ability or interest in making sure the new player experience is good. Bit 5: In all honesty, that's this game's biggest sin. It's not that it's boring, it's not that it's clumsy and overcomplicated. It's that Uncharted Waters Online absolutely, unapologetically, focuses itself on its loyal, long-time players, many of whom will speak of the "NM" or "OGP" days with fond nostalgia, and whose sunk cost into this very niche, only-playable-enough, and wickedly monetized game is immense. UWO floats under the radar because its quirkiness and limited appeal let it hide behind monstrosities like the FIFA games, but it's a poster child for predatory monetization. The game absolutely does not care if you played it for 2 hours and were bored and logged out. It likely can't be bothered that your review of it, even, will reach an audience many times larger than its playerbase. All it really cares about is someone who has been playing for eleven or possibly sixteen years, who has potentially survived restarting from scratch after not one but two different license changes, and sees that for the next two weeks only, they might have a very small chance to "win" a ship that's a few points better than the one they have.

[@AlonsoDalton]

I'm so glad you touched on how it's jumped from host to host over the years. While I've never played this game specifically, as someone who played some of OGPlanet's other games, I'm very much familiar with how a game that jumps from host to host like this generally suffers from a lack of care or ability to change the game in a meaningful way. I still remember when OGP got the hosting rights to this game. RIP OGP though, they went out of business years ago now.

[@surfeit5910]

This game is an abused child. I left a Steam review of it a few years back that had 10,000+ hits, where I brutally slammed it for it's horrible past. Then, that version got taken off of Steam and only recently they added this version.

[@jsfiii1212]

This is actually an amazing comment. I loved this game when I first played it 10 years ago. I still loved it when I returned last year. But it has some real issues

[@Mysterybic]

I think i played during ogp and spent decent amount of time,got thro some of the school did the merchant thing and got better boat,this is a other screen game after you learn logistics,i didnt do those"starter missions" luckly XD,didnt try fighting till i had a bigger boat and never exploited that early game death thing i only had a 100 or 200hrs in but i enjoyed it as a side thing or pallet cleanse from other mmos i also found it relaxing

[@BrBross]

The game is from 2004 and it passed through the hands of different studios and publishers, were you there during the Papaya Era?

[@Reac2]

3:30 That's actually a good idea for an MMO's stature selection to put them on the screen at the same time, so you know how you would look relative to other people. In WoW it's really unclear how big a Tauren, Troll or Dwarf really is ,because they are shown at varying levels of zoom and never together. Wish all Race/Stature select screens would do this.

[@mikehunt9884]

i've played a lot of MMORPGs in my life.. this one was one of my favorite ones. I get that its not for everyone, but it was awesome. I wasted so much time playing this. Nowadays it doesn't really have the playerbase. after all of the server moves, game has been passed around from one company to another and if you didn't keep track with character transfers then you would lose your character.. Even putting the game on steam didn't help much. But its still running at least. I put a lot of hours between this and Eve Online..

[@erbz]

U must of been a serious stoner/drunk 😂

[@jonathanbaker4361]

Ok thank you for making it less insufferable with the surprising entertaining undead hell ship dynamic. One of my favorite flavor texts, was on the Magic:TG card Pharexian Processor: "Death is no excuse to stop working."

[@user-et8vm9cc3t]

You know, this game gave me an idea. They should make another film about "The Mummy", where an "adventurer" with dubious qualifications, a poor intern and an overworked doctoral student desperately try to survive the administrative hell necessery to get a permit from the Egyptian authorities to conduct excavations to prove their theory. That would make a fine adventure film.

[@blackthornthetechno-prophe3697]

That actually sounds pretty cool

[@lliamthrumble]

With scurvy

[@irkalla100]

This game gave me ptsd and it's all coming back to me. Had a friend who was adamant to have fun with this game. Weeks of playing this awful clunky thing.

[@esbenm6544]

I had a similar experience with EVE Online, except there I can see the appeal that make others like it. Not so much with this game.

[@protiod]

"My friend tried to have fun and failed" man what a game

[@whathappenedto9374]

Ptsd? You were taking part in the royal navy sir 🧐

[@RATGODORIGINAL]

@@esbenm6544 EVE is a very specific game for specific playerbase. But it's fun reading about events that happen there. This was just built for some 60 year old masochists.

[@0owmjapo0]

During the war... 😂

[@AyoItsAntony]

Just found your channel and let me say idk why it wasn’t recommended earlier, absolutely love it!

[@AniGaAG]

That handmade bandolier (and the cosplay at large) is dope as heck, man. Real nice work.

[@MariusThePaladin]

One thing about the school: It used to works fine. You get to enroll and go through several quest chaians that explains aspects of combat, exploration, and trading in game. It was suuuuuuuuperrrrrrrrrr immersive. But the dev decided to cut that off and put simplified version of school in Sagres, Portugal. All because they wanted players to gather around that town. It is totally shit.

[@Gio954]

"Johnny sing the song about leaving her" just triggers that AC Black Flag nostalgia

[@JakeySlake]

@no or maybe yes It's a shanty they would sing upon return to home, while they were pumping the bilge before docking

[@planescaped]

Just help bob out of that freaking alley already.

[@janrautenstrauch4729]

Oh man, the memories... me, drifting aimless on the high sea singing along to that shanty. Would rather do that again for 100 hours than playing one hour of uncharted waters.

[@Gio954]

@@janrautenstrauch4729 Played through AC IV like 2 or 3 times by now, might do it again soon, lel

[@jmhaugen4757]

Fun fact: this MMO is based on an old SNES game of the same name. A lot of the elements in this video were present in the cartridge version, including how NOTHING gets explained and the ridiculous difficulty curve. I never got far enough in the SNES game to see if it got better.

[@kenn5287]

There’s an NES version that came out first, much more fun than New Horizons

[@KentHambrock]

I think this fits into the "trucking simulator" genre of game like Elite Dangerous and Euro Truck Simulator. You tend to either love it for it's detail and realism while you chill out to an audiobook or listen to music, or you hate it for how absolutely monotonous it is.

[@kriskropd]

This game came out in Japan in 2005 and honestly it's amazing that it's still around. It's also the last MMO I ever attempted to write a macro-script for before deciding I don't want to play any more MMOs where I need to do that to enjoy the game.

[@kriskropd]

And then MMOs started including auto-pathing and auto-run and I kinda stopped playing them all since then. It's funny in hindsight.

[@Frost059HD]

@@kriskropd auto pathing and auto run is what turned you off MMOs? I don't think the genre was for you regardless haha

[@hannahtornatore8685]

I've played UWO for years while it was on it's prime, and since back then, yeah, getting into it without a player's guide or a friend's help was hell. So for all my love for UWO, thanks for this video, it was really nostalgic to see it's awful start once more and to remember that you could only pass some of the tutorial maritime's quest with other's help.

[@BrBross]

I legit never met a hostile player on my 10 years playing, even the pirates that i met, usually near South Africa, were bros and drank with me

[@matthewrichey2089]

@hakuna matata Yeah...RIP Instructor Alan

[@YiotisTheGnome]

@@matthewrichey2089 More accurately, RIP every new player that starts off by selecting a nationality not having the port permit for the new School/Tutorial village.

[@BigBadLoneWolf]

@hakuna matata when they reset the server, it took me 16 hours to do All the schools, all 3 classes, all 3 schools. But it does help if you know the game. When closed beta started, very few people knew the game, just those who had played on other servers, and trying to find till you were told about the japanese wiki etc

[@reddrake4451]

This was one of my favorite games there was so much skill and planning involved the sails you pick and the angle you travel dramatically change your speed and thus your effectiveness. Me and my friends played it for a few months it was so chill and it had great music.

[@Pomale69]

Great video as always. I hope in the future you'll cover Priston Tale, a game I loved in my childhood but has since experienced a meteoric fall and would fit perfectly on your channel.

[@Enduring_Mantle]

I used to enjoy playing as the Mechanician class.

[@Pomale69]

@@Enduring_Mantle Hey, me too! Also two years on, still no Priston Tale video :(

[@Enduring_Mantle]

@@Pomale69Well hopefully Josh will create one. I am looking forward to it.

[@stevewhite5045]

The music in UWO is surprisingly good and quite close to the actual music of the regions in which you hear them. The London music is reminiscent of Elgar's Pomp and Circumstance, and the wilderness music in that area is like a page out of Gustav Holst or Ralph Vaughan Williams' work. I was quite impressed.

[@seb24789]

The boarding battle music makes me want to slay an elder dragon for some reason...

[@billyhyde1415]

The only exception I'll note here is the Africa music, which is more 'Epic Sax Guy' than 'Massive Land Full Of Adventure'.

[@HubertCumberdaleful]

Wow, thanks for telling me about those two, been listening to them and I love it. Tell me more!

[@mautauaja7208]

This takes me down the memory lane. I love playing this game. However this game has a troubled history , well the translated version at least. This is a PAID Japanese MMO originally. Then a Korean game company , Netmarble , bought the license for Korean and later English version and turn it into free MMO. Changes are made here and there, Quests Rewards are cut to just 1/10 of the original version, some ships become cash shop gacha only etc. Because of this players started RMT for the cash shop items. The in-game economy pretty much got screwed because of that IMO. To this day I still think this is one of the best MMOs I've played. Its greatest strength (and weakness) is its dedication to realism. Everything is so inconvenient so much so that you may think this is an idle game. Tutorial is also a major hurdle for new players, they basically has to ask in world chat just to know where to go for beginners. Also the tutorial missions that Josh showed is pretty much endgame content. You definitely can't do that missions unless you have sufficient skills.

[@HighPriestFuneral]

I am curious, was the original license holder of this game, Koei? Or was the name bought by another company from the start?

[@mautauaja7208]

@@HighPriestFuneral Koei is the creator of the series and later the MMO.

[@HighPriestFuneral]

@@mautauaja7208 Did they hold onto the license? As in, is the state of this game their doing? Or is the current license holder (?license borrower?) the ones who turned it into... well, this.

[@mautauaja7208]

@@HighPriestFuneral I believe so. I think Koei knows how the English version is and fine with it. The Japanese version of this game is still getting expansions. And the English version is also not that far behind in term of the expansions. This would not happened if Koei who provided the updates doesn't ok'ed the changes. While I don't know the exact details on the license, I would imagine it goes like this. The English version will be getting the same updates as Japanese version does, and if there's something that needed to be changed like making some ships to be cash shop only it will be done.

[@kuro9410_ilust]

koreans destroying games is unsurprising tbh would much prefer the game to be handled by chinese

[@AM-bo2ns]

this game looks a lot like sid meier's pirates, which i spent untold hours playing on the sega genesis as a kid. it was awesome - you could be a pirate, privateer, get into ship battles, siege port cities, swordfight, find buried treasure, and the sailing part was broken up pretty frequently by random encounters. it was very sandboxy, but ultimately pretty darn fun. this is one of those games i might have wanted to play casually if it didn't look like it'd take a bachelor's degree in Uncharted Waters Studies to get a grasp on the basics

[@AnimatronicBadgerlord]

Honestly... I like the concept of the game. I want a modern version of a game where I can trade materials and things for profit but no one seems to want to make those anymore.

[@Brocuzgodlocdunfamdogson]

Have you played Uncharted Waters 2 on the SNES? It’s still a really fun game IMO. It’s easy enough to find a ROM for emulator play as well.

[@AnimatronicBadgerlord]

@@Brocuzgodlocdunfamdogson I'll have to cheek that out. Thank you!

[@Brocuzgodlocdunfamdogson]

@@AnimatronicBadgerlord It’s a pretty obscure game that doesn’t get enough credit IMO. If more people knew about it maybe Koei would have made a few more games in the series, instead of a million Dynasty Warriors and Romance of the Three Kingdoms games (though I actually do like both of them). If you have any trouble finding UW2, just let me know. It’s been years, but Im sure I can still find it.

[@astracontritus1209]

Game looks awful but the aesthetic really speaks to me. Reminds me of old school monster hunter mixed with ff11

[@Draekrio]

The game originally launched in japan in 2005, ff11 was 2002, so you're not actually too far off

[@ortah2616]

@@Draekrio Monster Hunter is a 2005 game too, pretty spot on

[@divagaciones1628]

Yeah these graphics have a certain nostalgic quality to them

[@JeanneFeisont]

Too bad Monster Hunter World is peak Monster Hunter.

[@ortah2616]

@@JeanneFeisont Not really, every Monster Hunter game has something great to look back to, be it in gameplay, monsters, design or themes. I don't really think any MH game is the peak of the series, considering all of them are fantastic games worth going back to and giving a shot

[@LittleDinoDaniel.]

Okay that Nathan Drake cosplay actually is so good I love it

[@blazingfuryoffire1]

one, understand this game was originally released in 2004 two, the focus off the game is managing your ship and crew. The game wasn't built as primarily as an action game. three, you're charging out of the starter area before you've upgraded your ship. four, the free respawn is basically a noob protection mechanic. once you hit 10 levels, you lose everything when the ship is sunk.

[@danmarshall4812]

Love these MMO reviews, currently binge watching them all so ty very much for all your work on these.

[@Heranara]

(Insert ''Don't worry it will get good in 100 hours'' argument here)

[@taylorester2658]

It doesn't hold your hand

[@killjoy1887]

​@@taylorester2658 I am sure that will be some comfort to someone while it dies a slow inglorious death.

[@eduardoborges506]

This isnt a get good in 100 hours, it more get a basic understanding of whats going on in maybe 100 hours. Get out of early game arround 500 hours xD. Do not recomend this game in 2021

[@VdRckr]

no sadly it dose not its kind of like you had to be there before the fucked the tutorial the schools use to be a great tutorial quest line but they moved the schools to another island and did not care to replace the old ones because papaya play had just acquired the game and i guess did not care about doing what's best for the starters a nd the only way to know where tutorial island is is if you already knew where it was kina like isla de muerta from pirates of the caribbean.

[@DHAGSFU]

@@killjoy1887 Not every mmo can last forever. It has been up for about 15 years now. Its the type of mmo that wow classic was, very hardcore but they stood by this concept unlike wow and the new mmos that make everything easy. There should be easy mmos and hard mmos, this one is one of those hard mmos

[@martijnalblas1761]

the whole immortal crew thing gave me an idea for my fictional world. Thank you, josh!

[@Gijontin]

I wasn't sold on the game at first but then you showed the deck battle part and that just blew my mind, 10/10 would scurvy again!

[@dzhambov]

I play this game for more than 10 years now. It is a great game, very time consuming and full of wiki type of information. A lot of nice people there, yet, if you wanna be a pirate - you will need a couple of months in order to be a great pirate - couple of years. So, it is a game for a dedicated players.

[@jeankirchstein2552]

This takes me back I played this game way back when on some mmo website that I cant remember I played it for like 20 minutes hated it and never saw it again til today

[@TwisteDxBoi]

I love the part where Josh geeked out so hard about his bandolier. That does spark joy

[@monroeriddell5822]

When Josh said he taught himself how to leather craft just to make a bandolier, that was the moment I subbed! That's dedication!!!

[@AxeGaijin]

Strangely, I now have the desire to replay the Monkey Island games.

[@Bear-form]

Nice flag.

[@Tinytraveler]

For all the effort on that bandolier it was worth it! Love your stuff! ♥

[@purplehaze2358]

I for one actually appreciate depictions of pirates that include the many, MANY shitty aspects of pirate life. I've never much been a fan of the weird romanticization of piracy.

[@xeagaort]

Pirates are just cool dude. That’s why.

[@SudrianTales]

Game remiinds me of the Hornblower series of books where 70 percent of the book is Hornblower trying to find food or men. Both run out quickly

[@trompell0]

Yeah it's like war. Commonly romanticized, rarely experienced.

[@bldontmatter5319]

@@trompell0 except war is explosive and violent. This is literally just holding forward movement for hours doing nothing

[@SudrianTales]

@@bldontmatter5319 What do you think was going on in the 16th to 19th century on board ships? It was sailing forwards at the beck and call of the wind and hoping that no one finds you, no one gets sick, your food doesn't run out, the wind doesn't do a funni and sink you, the Teredeoes don't eat your ship too much, the captain can navigate and so on. Sailing ships suck

[@DominusDionysos]

I remember playing this game when I was a kid, it took FOREVER to get to the ship part and do some "free exploring." Starting towns were basically empty, and the walking speed made the game very tedious. I do remember some random player randomly gifting me a better ship early on in the game, I didn't play for long to use it though.

[@grantrencourt]

The graphics and UI of Uncharted Waters Online remind me of Final Fantasy XI. A game that came out in 2002. So, yeah, spot on Josh. It does look like a turn of the century JRPG.

[@belgariontheking1]

This looks like a lost expansion for FF11 and hopefully it'll stay lost.

[@PeninatorSS]

I was thinking it looked suspicionly like 11

[@soyekinthehideaway6763]

You aren't exactly wrong though, this game came out of freaking 2004, just 2 years after FF11 was released.

[@Sagitta62]

I love FF11 online been on the airship fighting Skeleton Pirates

[@NadavNevo883]

I have to say, I live in Israel and hearing you describe your planned route to get to Cairo made me think I had an aneurysm. Then you showed the map and I realized you just read it incredibly wrong, so thanks for the chuckle. FYI, what you called Lebanon is Cyprus, and what you called Israel is Egypt. Israel doesn't share a border with Libya, and you'd reach Cairo before Israel if you came from the west. Also Lebanon doesn't have a southern shore, it only has Western coast.

[@einer1314]

That deck battle was awesome, thanks for the laughs.

[@Syenthros]

I respect my man's dedication to nerding out enough to learn an actual craft to make his own bandolier.

[@arielrg6033]

I can imagine the crewmembers: "Existence is pain!!"

[@VegasLounge]

Honestly, a game where I have to swab decks to keep hygiene, buy oranges to prevent scurvy, research pathogens and deal with port permits sounds like a lot of fun to me. I might have to check this out. No, I don't get invited to a lot of parties.

[@loneronin6813]

I'm also big on the Uncharted games and in general I love anything that has to do with ancient history and culture. You pull of the Nathan Drake look perfectly and that bandoleer is brilliantly made! When it comes to crafts I wish I could learn to do myself, I would love to take up blade-smithing.

[@scintillam_dei]

Brits cosplaying as pirates suits them. Pity their emire was smaller than my people's. Hypocrites of course, count oceans of sand, but not oceans. To know who truly owned most of earth, they ahve to ignore most of earth. NONSENSE. Brits had to shre every ocean. Pathetic. LOL

[@aegisiv1815]

The ‘mr bones wild ride’ line really got me, that’s a throw back.

[@Michael-dj6pd]

Would be cooler if they had a system for you to eventually become some scarred skeleton or ghostship from the dead when you kept dying and letting the crew go mad. However that would be too creative and fun to put in this game.

[@RaphaRox]

Your Nathan drake cosplay is on point!

[@skyvolt2566]

I actually like this game bc of the mostly uneventful sailing around... It gives me a moment of peace if that makes sense lol

[@joe3140]

Oh man, I remember this game, some fond memories of sailing around, talking to my guildmates and more. Even was able to talk to one of my guildmates IRL over a call and discover that they were a girl! As a young lad assuming all girls in game were actually guys, it was monumental for me XD oh and building my cool adventure ships too ;) lmao also needed that school quest line to learn everything haha.

[@shib5267]

Stop lying bro, everyone knows women don't play da vidyagames

[@janrautenstrauch4729]

@@shib5267 Well they do sometimes... and if you're lucky, they're even wearing clothes and don't sit in a whirlpool while streaming on twitch and asking their simps for money.

[@solodevinc]

the best most thrilling aspects of high seas pirate adventures? Oh, well, mopping the decks you dont get rats, remembering to buy oranges to prevent scurvy, researching pathogens to prevent the plague and applying for port permits so i can legally docks while watching my ship sail for literally hours while nothing happens. Wow. What a coincidence O.O

[@koinijikoimizu]

That battle music made me pause the music and make sure I had't left Skies of Arcadia: Legends running in the other room.

[@bordel6121]

Love your videos man !

[@bahamutdragon1754]

I'm legitimately impressed at how well that bandolier you made looks. You should seriously consider making a few more and selling those.

[@rolfs2165]

Wait, this is an MMO. And time passes only while you're at sea? HOW DOES THIS WORK? Every player will have a completely different day of the week and time of day!

[@benlin2186]

Yes , every min in real world is 1 day in the sea , there is no time concept in city 😂 so if u travel from asia to eu took 40 days that is 40 min in real world

[@surfeit5910]

It only counts towards a skill timer. Times and dates make no difference to any other feature in the game.

[@MadScientistMikeOfficial]

just watched this while playing the game lol. I just started playing again after several years away. The community is a lot smaller now. I like to fill up on food and forage for goods with the collection skill, then craft and cast the things I find into trade goods. There is a ton of content in the game and it is an older game so I can see why it might be boring now to most people. There are a few handy wiki pages but most of the time it can be confusing with the poor translations. Taking out the school was probably a bad idea

[@skkim0217]

My big brother luvs this game to the extreme, that he would actually buy a tech macro tool to level up skills all day for 3 months. Time to time, he would persuade me to play this with him, and I actually did (I even played beta version way before official release in South Korea), but in the end I came to the conclusion like Josh: Dull & complicated. He doesn't play it often these days, but he always comes back once in a while when a new update hits.

[@Astolfo2001]

What is it with South Korea and its addiction with MMOs?

[@jfs983]

It's pretty sad that despite everything I'm actually most impressed that this game lets you choose from multiple body types. Why is that so hard to find?

[@setosgirl0]

Because that means adding a lot more work to the modelling of cosmetics, and possible animation issues. You can see this in Fortnite, since they added more variety in the models, with some backblings hanging out a mile in the air behind smaller characters because of where they'd have to be on the huge ones, or the smaller male models having weird arms or weird-looking animations because they have to work the same as the larger ones. It's definitely -possible- to do, but it's a lot more work and people are normally accepting enough if it's not included.

[@hendrikrasmus]

This did not go where I expected. But then again you didn't even manage to enter the first school. I still like the skill system of the game except the part where a good chunk of your skill slots get taken away by the languages. What I made me quit eventually is the fact that outside of europe is a full loot PVP area and I sucked at combat.

[@taruden2529]

agreed that's when all decent games die, full loot PVP is trash

[@hannahtornatore8685]

About the language skills, the workaround would be to get the body language skill and travel with lots of food to replenish the stamina, or to travel with someone who knew that language, so it could translate to you while near. Otherwise it would be really hard to have all needed languages and job skills at the same time. (I also hated those limited slots)

[@MariusThePaladin]

You can use bodylanguage instead, and pirates don't attack players anymore nowadays.

[@Gwesster]

I was gonna go into talking about body language and making sure you had food but everyone else already beat me to it lol. As for the PVP, I'd recommend using cease-fire agreements to avoid getting stomped, I almost always had one running when I was in spooky places back when I played a lot.

[@MariusThePaladin]

@@Gwesster Being nice/friendly/polite works too. Pirate these days only kill players to grind bad rep, I think. So even if they sink your ship and got your items, they will return it to you if you ask nicely.

[@pluviasalutor1290]

We need fan art of Josh as a ghost pirate. I really wish I could draw sometimes.

[@milosradivojevic8341]

This game had tutorial so long that it could take you weeks to complete it. Since new players complained, it was reduced so many times unti it became this. I have more then 5000h in it...

[@catalinbuhai3]

I used to play this game for along time. I had fun back in the day because it was new to me. Actually learned some geography by playing this. I think that the genre itself is quite good but it needs polishing and improvement. But I doubt the developers will ever do something with it x)

[@hannahtornatore8685]

This game deserved a well done remake by Koei. Some of it's core mechanics where amazing (but certainly not the battle ones).

[@surfeit5910]

@@hannahtornatore8685 I agree with all of that. This was the only game you could use a real world atlas to navigate around. The trading and exploration mechanics were far beyond anything any other MMO has even attempted to try since as well.

[@MariusThePaladin]

Dev are beta testing a new MMO in the same series called Uncharted Waters: Origins. It's not releashed yet but it's coming.

[@CBA1017]

I wish I had that kind of love for MMOs to teach myself some crazy crafting skills

[@alphahunter4791]

So . . . It's a highly advanced Oregon Trail at sea with combat and adventure? That actually sounds pretty bad ass.

[@bag-manbaron2547]

Well it's an mmoified version of the original 90s uncharted waters games, but that is a fair take as well

[@T61APL89]

14:50 "It's just the training mission! I expected a lone enemy I could track down and capture not the Kobiyashi Maru!" lmao this game feels like an infinite test of unbeatable odds

[@aries4378]

OMFG! Not only did I totally forget about this game, I totally forgot I played it for awhile.

[@dwavenminer]

You're not the only one....

[@letheas6175]

@@dwavenminer Yes he is since we're living inside his simulation.