White and Greedy

Rio's too cool to hang with pirates

Rio was running some 400 wool from Tripoli to Lisbon for a merchant quest. Sometimes, she had escorts, sometimes none. With no escorts, she had to resort to bribing. After a few more bribes that hit the bottom line, she couldn't take it anymore and started fighting back!

Support Captain Rio

There are three ways to help Captain Rio:

1. Click on the VCO banner below to go to the official VCO website (opens a new window).
   
   
   
   
2. Write a short description (or copy-paste from the example if you like) why you like Rio's blog, e.g.
   
   “Captain Rio's blog is entertaining as well as informative. And she looks good, too.”
   
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3. Vote for Cap'n Rio on the polls.

Please login to this voting thread on the official VCO forums using your IGG username and password to submit your votes and write-ups.

You have only until Monday, April 30 to submit your votes! Vote Captain Rio Now ^.^

The Mummy - VCO Edition

The Mummy

Starring

HAZE as Group Leader a.k.a. Joker, the Profiteer

HawkLord as Baron Girl Problem

Takizawa as Terrorist Hero

and introducing
Rio as the Damsel with a Shining, New Flintlock

Directed by Anubis
Produced by Overdose
Costumes by BooBoo™ and JungleBunnie™
Stunts and Extras by Antipus

Availability

Get The Mummy-VCO Edition. Download your copy now!

Synopsis

The promise of great treasure has sent numerous men into the sands. Most gave up the time they spend in the desert, others gave up their lives in the attempt. Only a few lived to tell the tale of the legendary amulet held in the great pyramids.

Four adventurers set out from Alexandria to seek out the famed amulet. However, little did they know of its ancient powerful guardian mummy, Anubis who has spent eons in slumber and has awakened to feed on the pink flesh of men once again.


Five (4) adventurers gather at the port of Alexandria. I said four, right? =P


The great pyramids as seen from a distance


Shooting the undead makes them dead. I wonder if that makes any sense at all.

The Making of "The Mummy"

The Mummy Promotional Poster

Overdose wanted to shoot a new horror movie entitled "The Mummy" and set in the Great Pyramid of Alexandria. At first, they were all excited at the prospect. The entire cast were supposed to gather at the entrance of Alexandria suburbs, but then only five members bothered to show up. And it seems the rest of the crew--the make-up artists, cameramen, soundmen, etc men--have gone to the Great Pyramids already to do some sightseeing before the shooting.


Alexandria is a sight to behold from the desert.

Still, not all were ready upon arrival at the suburb entrance and after a few more agonizing minutes, a cast member excused himself to the powder room and never came back. O.O Oh well, it seems only four members are left. And the rest of the cast and crew were waiting for the four diva-superstars at the pyramids.

The four stars found out that the crew left them and didn't leave any mounts. Being an independent film, the crew of "The Mummy" had few rides, and being very late, the crew had left the four cast members. HAZE and company had to go all the way to the pyramid on foot. Rio was complaining because the sun parched her skin even with the big hat she was wearing and that Anubis has borrowed her designer sunglasses the day before.


A crew member meets the cast after arriving on the set

Just moments after arriving at the set, the crew moved to dress up our beloved stars. There was an unfortunate tussle as HAZE struggled to keep his purple coat and green hair. The director, HawkLord was furious as it did not go well that his protagonist insisted on his Joker costume rather the more standard adventurer costume of khaki, brown leather boots and a nasty whip.

Giving up, HawkLord decided to start the shooting with HAZE and his purple jacket and green hair.

So far, all the action scenes were perfect and there was only the unfortunate incident of the actor Takizawa beheaded by a Tomb Raider axe. Not to worry, Takizawa's head is just a props and so was unharmed. He was sent back to Alexandria for a check up, and was sent out immediately with a clean bill of health. There were still bloody stitches where the axe cleaved cleanly through the neck, but the make-up department was able to cover it up with packaging tape that matched the skin color of Takizawa perfectly.


An action scene outside the pyramid

The interior pyramid set was perfectly done. There was genuine slime on the floor, cobwebs and evil-looking lamps. This time the action scenes inside went without a hitch. Action was pretty quick, it took a lot of running around and around, more shooting and hacking.


The stunt crew practicing moves with HawkLord and Rio. Takizawa is in the background fiddling with his gun.

The climatic scene with the antagonist was very realistic. Unfortunately, Takizawa was injured again. This time, the superstar Anubis got his sharp talons entangled with the tape that held Takizawa's sewd-on head. It was a good thing that Anubis immediately realized his mistake. He then apologized to Takizawa. Takizawa immediately demanded an amulet, but Anubis said that he had gave it to another actor who got his balls cut off by Anubis. The producers then offered to pay for Takizawa's medical bills, and Tak went off happy with a few coins and bandage memorabilias.


Not your usual romantic scenes, but romance just the same with Booo and Rio. Takizawa is next in line after Rio.

After a few hours of shooting, Anubis was retired to his trailer and didn't want to come out anymore and so the set wrapped up and headed back to Alexandria to freshen up.


Alexandria offers a lot of healthy sports entertainment. Rio exchanging some friendly blows with the Evil Alchemist after the shoot at the Suburbs Gym.

The lead actor for the film is HAZE, however HawkLord decided to give Rio first billing since she was lovelier than HAZE. Especially with his pink shirt and green hair.


The people in Alexandria are polite and accommodating, too.

Row, row, row your boat...

I have a confession to make. I'm crazy about this blog thing, you know. So really, relish it while I still have boundless energy going into the blog. ^.^

So, if I'm blog-crazy at the moment, how come there are few updates, you might ask. Well, for one thing, there's not much happening in the game right now. Rio has taken a vacation and has asked Angel to prepare for the level 4 ship upgrade. And for the past few days, Angel has shot up from a mere puny logger to a Level 21 logger. Quite high considering the effort that goes into logging these days. Her personal headquarters are currently located in Las Palmas de la Gran Canaria, a short hop from everybody's shopping destination of choice, the Wal-Mart of VCO—Seville.


Logging in Las Palmas

Aside from the more mundane tasks of logging and mining, Angel also went out to help a guildie in need. elgimikero, a fellow Filipino, wanted to visit America, the land of the free. Unfortunately, it was also free of cities and he had been freed of his provisions as well as sails. Desperate, he sought for a way to kill his sailors and free him from the long travel back home. But it was not to be as our lovely superhero, Angel on board the Darna, comes to the rescue!


Passing by the sunken city of Atlantis on the way to the Americas

As of the moment, the only port of importance in the Americas was Tortuga which is, in fact, a pirate port. Not that it's the only thing to watch out for when you go there. There is also the famed sunken city of Atlantis whose area casts some terrible cyclones that blow your sails away for five minutes (as if it will not be completely gone before the first) and damnable billows that damage your hull (as if it will not be completely gone before the last second). And so, Angel, being a newbie sailor, didn't manage to repair her hull in time. Darna sunk just off the sunken city. What a way to rescue! How embarrassing. Really.


Cool Japanese armor

The Mummy - VCO Edition (Teaser)

The Mummy starring HAZE, HawkLord, Takizawa and Rio

A great treasure awaits those who discover the Great Pyramid of Alexandria, but a powerful being guards the prize along with his legions of undead.

Coming Soon

1 more day to go... O.o

About me

Two Darna's from different generations. (Left) Rio Locsin and Angel Locsin

Rio and Angel Locsin are characters from Voyage Century Online. In real life, they are both Filipino screen and TV actresses. They are not related.

Coincidentally, they happened to portray the same character at different points in time. This character is Mars Ravelo's Darna, a superhero character based on a comicstrip and has made the transition to movie to TV. Rio portrayed Darna in the 1979 movie "Bira, Darna, Bira", while Angel portrayed the 2005 TV adaptation of Darna.

Chanak, the name of Rio's ship, is a Filipino mythological monster that takes the form of a baby. Angel's ship is named Darna.

The pilot for both of these characters is usually a guy. So don't you be getting any ideas. =P If you're lucky you'll get to talk with his sister who plays these two characters as well when she takes a break from her online game Dofus. He chose Rio and Angel's name because they carried the same surname. Rio was referred in a song, and Angel was known due to her TV presence. The Darna connection was not known until the writing of this article. O.o

The banner for this website is a remixed version of one of the wallpapers from Voyage Century Online. When Rio was still new to the guild Overdose, she frequently ran into storms and sank a few times which made the guild leader HAZE comment that Rio likes storms. And so, the banner is very apt for Rio and her Chanak.

Chanak battles the Perfect Storm


I think storms like Rio, not the other way around

Blog contest requirements (>.<)
IGG username: tagayakal
Server: Magellan
Names of Characters: Rio_Locsin -and- Angel_Locsin
Email: tagayakal@yahoo.com

The day Rio broke her bank

The day started just like any other day, aside from the fact that the Med was getting boring. So, Rio sailed to Africa!

There are wondrous discoveries to be done in Africa, not so much cities though.


Rio at the port of Luanda. Pretty nice little town. Except they lace their food with scorpion poison. Yuck!! Run, Rio, run!


Cape Town welcomes Rio.

At the Med, HawkLord was organizing a fleet to sail against the North Sea Pirates. So Rio sailed back with all possible haste back to Seville with her African crew singing...

I'm just a buffalo soldier in the heart of America
Stolen from Africa, brought to America

Overdose ships preparing for battle off the port in Lisbon. (From left) Sultry_Slut (HawkLord), Black_Pearl (Aleth), Chanak (Rio_Locsin)

After meeting and resupplying in Seville and Lisbon, we're off to Hamburg for a final resupply.


Overdose fleet sailing against the North Sea Pirates.


A quick stop in Hamburg to resupply. Picked up a new teammate, too. ^.^

Round One was a dud for me. Aside from the numerous hundreds of cannonballs, I didn't get any useful loot. Aleth seems to be enjoying so much though. Well, you would if you picked up a lot of high level figureheads and cannons. :D Maybe I was too busy hiding behind Hawk and Lex. You would as these pirate cannons would put leaks the size of assholes into your hull easily, and Chanak was not meant for battle being a simple merchantman.


Rio and Hawk in the port of Hamburg after Round One of pirate hunting.


Rio and Aleth preparing to disembark for Round Two.

I decided Round Two to risk life and limb (and use Hawk's Repair Kits [tm]) to get loots. And I did! I did! Lots of Lvl 4 and 5 cannons and shields! o.O

I don't know where to place these things anymore. Hawk suggested that I keep them for my Lvl 5 ship. To do that, I need a new warehouse. With barely enough silver at hand and at the bank, I got a new warehouse in Seville. If things turn out to be a little bit tight, I'll just raid the new warehouse and sell the stuff at Wal-Mart. Now asset-rich and cash-poor Rio is reduced to Escort missions to build up capital for Merchant missions. ;_;


Taking a break from missions in Oslo.


The nights in Oslo sure are quite. I hope it doesn't have something to do with Rio's big, new, shiny flintlock courtesy of DRAGONOS Industries.

More Tragedy in Crete

BooBoo suggested to simply land the ship and not engage the pirates at all. So that's plan. Some help from the guild was solicited to conquer Crete. And "Charaaan!" Captain Rio has arrived on the Isle of Crete with her faithful guildie, Captain Taishi.

After picking up a few collectible shells on the beach, Rio started inland. Two choices, does Rio go into the Crete Inland or Hill-enclosed village. Rio chose to go into the village first. She encountered some really bad ass pirates there, and was picked up at the beach in the morning. Again, she tried the other one with quite similar results but with a different set of pirates this time.

A direct approach would not be acceptable at the moment and so it was decided to place be stealthy and reach the village by avoiding the pirates. It didn't work.


The Isle of Crete where Captain Rio is a one-hit wonder. Literally.

Some screenshots are available but, in the words of BooBoo, "it's embarrassing". Just so embarrassing.

Pic of the Week 2

La Capitana guapa en Barcelona

Tragedy in Crete

As many of you know, the Ottoman Empire has been amassing an army in Istanbul to invade Italy. An army raised from poor souls from around the Empire. One of these men is Mayeroff, son of Samuel (a granny actually) in Alexandria. I tracked down Mayeroff in the hopes that he will be able to tell me about a certain secret entrance in the island of Crete. I delivered some shoes from his mother and in exchange he gave me a map of Crete.

Knowing Crete to be a major hold out of pirates, I was hoping to sell some fine Istanbul brandy and loaded up my whole ship with it, along with a few provisions to reach the island and stay for a few days to decipher the map and sell the brandy.

I have entered the offshore of Crete confidently when suddenly I was suddenly ambushed! A Jackal and two Golden-eyes have appeared and cut off my escape. They signaled for us to surrender our cargo of brandy. It seems that someone has been following our deal in Istanbul.

I gave the order to outrun them. But their ships were faster and we were sailing into the wind. They gave me a full broadside intent on sinking us if they couldn't obtain our cargo.


A heavily-damaged Chanak receiving a broadside from a pirate Jackal

We were desperately fighting back but hardly dealt any damage against the more powerful ships. A few more pirate broadsides and our sails were all destroyed leaving us dead in the water. Chanak was taking in water from several holes below decks and all our cannons have been destroyed. Knowing that only death awaits on the ship, I gave the order to abandon ship. The few men left and I descended into longboats. And we watched our beloved Chanak sink into the depths of the sea.

About Voyage Century Online

Voyage Century is the first 3D Nautical Online Game in history, which combines the strategy, trade and role-play. You can download the client on the official website of Voyage Century or other cooperated websites that released on the official site. The Client is about 1.12G in total.

- Official VCO FAQ

Shamelessly lifted off the original Wikipedia article

Background
Voyage Century is set in the Age of Sail, a time when sailing ships ruled the seas before the advent of steam. It features accurate historical representations of several coastal cities. Players are given a choice between four career paths at the beginning of the game: explorer, merchant, craftsman, or warrior. This choice is vital to a character, since it greatly influences the playing style of the character for the rest of the game, players can switch between career paths however. Combat occurs both on land and on the sea, where players risk the threat of pirates when venturing further from the more populated areas. The game profits off of optional cash shop items that are available for players to purchase with real money.

Careers and Professions
Merchant System
The merchant system is subdivided into three jobs: vendors, who gain money primarily by vending; investors, who profit through purchasing goods at low prices and selling them at high prices; and traders, who increase their wealth through trading goods between ports.

Logistics System
The logistics system is full of players who produce raw materials or craft goods that can be sold for a profit. These professions include: miner, woodworker, farmer, fisher, blacksmith, tailor, alchemist, and shipbuilder.

Battle System
While any player can wield a weapon, the battle system creates characters that excel in combat. This system includes combatants on both land and sea, and also consists of pirates.

There are 4 ways to fight a sea battle:

1. Cannon fight - In arming your ship, there are several types of cannon to choose from, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. The normal cannon gives a balanced range of attributes, whereas others are more specialized - The howitzer cannon has the greatest firing range but smallest firing angle, the buckshot has the widest firing angle but low range, and the quick-firer has the highest firing speed. The higher the cannon fight level, the higher level cannons one can equip.
2. Grappling battle - Grappling in battle means boarding an opponent's ship. The screen will be switched to a scene of a grappling battle where players attempt to eliminate enemy sailors and captain. If a player fails to grapple the enemy’s ship, there is a 20 second delay before another attempt at grappling is allowed.
3. Ramming - The simple process of ramming another ship to do damage. A ram must first be bought from the shipyard boss and equipped. Larger ships and faster sailing speed will increase ramming damage. Ramming does damage to the hull only, and it is very useful when taking out a lower level ship in one blow.
4. Mines - Mines have the potential to do high amounts of damage to massed enemies, but can also do damage to friendly ships. There are many different kinds of mine, each with different attributes, and only merchants can use them. There is a 20 second delay after the placement of a mine before it detonates.
   

Exploration System
The exploration system is one part of the game which has a lot of content and a huge scope for the player to explore. The exploration system is the long, vast, ocean inside Voyage Century Online. Thus, the exploration system holds a large amount of the file. This is because the ocean is much larger than the land in Voyage Century, a more realistic figure compared to other MMORPGs which may have little or even no seas. Voyagers may come across islands, passages, and many other interesting obstacles while sailing the seas. Some of these obstacles are storms, pirates and even other players.

In order to get findings, players need to sail on the high sea and look for sparkling spots near the shore, which means that something special is hiding nearby. Players can begin their exploration by clicking the explore button in the operation menu and input the number of sailors dispatched. Equipping higher level telescopes will help to find more findings. Players will acquire the discovery logbook of their findings if they find something. By giving the discovery logbook to the authenticator, the players can get some money and boost their reputation. Higher level discoveries offer more money and reputation, reputation is your social standing in the world. Reputation is used to gain higher noble titles, higher level noble titles allow a user to wield equipment that is stronger than a regular equipment. For example, an ensign command falchion that requires 11 falchion and level 2 noble title, is much stronger than a weapon that requires 17 falchion.

New friends! Old problems!

One thing I love about online games is getting to meet new friends ^.^ Here they are



Jack is in the foreground, while Juvie is beside me at the back. This was taken at the Alexandria docks.

Shommyckus has just rammed his ship into the cliff! Maybe his chief mate fell asleep. LOL I did manage to see a teammate spawn on land upon entering the offshore area! Unfortunately, he logged out before I could get a clean screenshot of his dilemma.

Much Ado About the Parthenon

Don't you just hate it when you're stumped? Oh well, we went up the hill in the Athens suburbs and discovered the Parthenon! As well as a bastardly "Despressed Poet" who is actually the boss of the place. Being puny low level creatures, we ganged up on the poet expecting him to drop us a Parthenon authentication item. However, it was not to be. He never gave us anything! Just a few coins, and a Level 2 Cutlass, that's it. We did take time to smell the roses while waiting for him to spawn again.

Pic of the Week 1

Captain Rio starts the day by basking in the early morning sunshine

Going ga-ga over collection skills

At first I thought that the seven skills can only be used. So I had carefully chosen Fishing to be my collection skill.

Fortunately, Jack the completist told me that you can train all skills up to lvl 31. However, only seven can be chosen to reach lvl 100. And so I started a great collection craze.

I took up Mining due to the rising prices of metal in the market. Then, after leveling it to obtain Pure Iron (Level 2) I started Logging.


Fishing in Genoa on a rainy day


Arriving in Lisbon


Fishing in Istanbul


Mining in Alexandria can be a bitch so it helps a lot to have companions


I hope I don't ruin the carpet or else the tavern boss will catch me smelting pig iron during my shift.


After mining, logging comes to mind...


Great view! I meant the scenery, not just the sexy thigh... >.<


TIMBERRR!!

Basic Trading in the Mediterranean

The Mediterranean is full of interesting cities, people and produce. As a merchant, keeping tabs on the current prices of goods in cities is a must.

Profitable trading has two advantages. First, it gives you money which you can use to buy more goods, better equipment, a larger ship, etc. Second, it gives you experience in the form of ship experience (Structure Level) and personal experience (Eloquence).

Structure will allow access to new and better merchant ships at Levels 11, 21, 31, ...

Eloquence will allow you to purchase more valuable goods (Purchasing), bribe away pirate attacks for less silver (Negotiation) or vend more goods at your stall (Vendition [sic]).

Doing merchant quests at lower levels will give you much money as well as experience. Many of these involve fetch-me-something-type missions.

For example, the Merchant Guild in Genoa may ask you to fetch 75 glassware. Glassware is produced in Athens so you'll need to sail there to get it. Also, glassware is heavy. Depending on your ship, you will need to shuttle between Athens and Genoa a few times to get to the required number. You can also buy goods in Genoa that you can sell in Athens. That would make the mission more profitable--xp-wise and silver-wise. You can equip your ship with a water-based figurehead in order to increase its cargo capacity.

Don't forget not to get overloaded because it slows you down a lot. This limit is actually 70% of your total cargo capacity.

You can either choose to use a full crew or a minimum crew. Using a full crew will enable you to become more flexible--ride out storms, fend off pirates, do a little exploring on sparkling areas (sailors may get unhealthy or maybe even die when exploring)--without getting the speed penalty for having less than minimum healthy crew members. However, crew cost provisions and provisions cost cargo space. Having a minimum crew will allow you to carry more goods for trading. But make sure you bring a fat purse to bribe attacking pirates.

The Ottoman Empire and Her Humble Servant

Rio was an unknown scholar from the famed Great Library in the desolate port city of Alexandria in the southern reaches of the Ottoman Empire. Alexandria, as famous as it is, is not kind to its penniless citizens such as Rio. Aside from her job at the Library, Rio also works as an entertainer at the local tavern and other odd jobs at the city suburbs.

Juggling so many jobs and still mired in debt, Rio decided to find her fortunes elsewhere. An opportunity presented itself when she overheard some sailors talk about a new ship that docked. The ship was named Glory and Rio heard wild and wonderful tales about its exploits. Scrounging what little monies she had, Rio managed to obtain passage on the ship in the cheapest compartments.

And so it Glory departed from Alexandria, with a hopeful passenger on its decks. Unknown to Rio, hope was not all that the sea presented. The treacherous waters held a lot of dangers: dangerous storms, monstrous creatures, and the most evil of them all--pirates.

Glory had not sailed far from the port before it was besieged by pirates. Rio, who has never witnessed a sea battle before was terrified. She and her fellow passengers have been ordered off the deck by the Mystic Captain of the Glory, and were herded into the passengers' quarters. A few moments later, they heard the ship's cannons conversing with the distant pirates'.

Nearer and nearer those loud shouts came, and the sound of crackling wood and splashing seawater. Soon they could heard pirates shouting while boarding the Glory. There was fighting just above them, and blood started to trickle into their room. Rio's instinct wanted her to scream, but she couldn't find her voice.

After several tense moments, she could no longer stand doing nothing. She and a few fellow passengers who have found the courage to get out of their hiding place, went out. Soon, they found a longboat used by the pirates to board the ship. Rio and her companions went down to the little craft in order to sail away from the ship.

They did not expect another pirate ship to spot them, and so they were soon screaming among themselves. And so, defending themselves, they fired upon the pirate ship with the lone cannon on the longboat. Woefully, none of them knew how to use a cannon properly.

They did managed to fire a lot cannon rounds, and luckily, very luckily managed to disable the pirate ship with a shot. So they went away from the battle, escaping the carnage, and sailed back home to Alexandria.

Or so they thought. Having no skilled navigator, the ship landed in Crete, home of the pirates instead of their home city. Luckily, the pirates were more interested in the profitable trade ships in the Mediterranean than a few castaways.

After spending many nights at sea, Rio and her fellow passengers--now crew--landed in Athens. There was no news regarding the Glory and her Mystic Captain. Things were not so well at home either. Hussein was appointed as the new Sultan's hand in Alexandria and his first declaration was to rename Alexandria as Alexander, after his famous great grand father. And he had all the young men that they could find conscripted into the army of the Ottoman Empire.

In Athens, Rio and her crew decided to become traders and vowed to become the most famous of them all--to enrich themselves with both gold and adventure.

And so starts a new adventure by our heroine, Rio Locsin on the merchant ship Chanak.

VCO, ready? get set... START!

Lift the skin up, and put into the bunt the slack of the clews (not too taut), the leech and foot-rope, and body of the sail; being careful not to let it get forward under or hang down abaft. Then haul your bunt well up on the yard, smoothing the skin and bringing it down well abaft, and make fast the bunt gasket round the mast, and the jigger, if there be one, to the tie.

-The Seaman's Manual (1844), by Richard Henry Dana, Jr.

I have just recently started playing VCO. I did not start to blog right away as I was still discovering the game. I've always wanted sailing-exploring-trading games, where you discover, trade and fight pirates so VCO was quite a fit for me.

It wasn't as visually appealing to me as other games, but it sure is a lot of fun firing cannons into a pirates broadside. ^.^ Many of the places here are based in the RL world and map, so it helps to know your geography. However, you'll find that the translation is indeed lacking. For example, Alexandria, the famous port in Egypt is named Alexander. Interface labels are mistranslated as well. At first, I guessed that the game is based in Korea or Japan. Man, was I surprised to find out that it is based in China!

I'm still a newbie to VCO so it's natural that I'll be making mistakes in interpretation. You're welcome to comment about them, but please refrain from being rude--not for my sake, but for the other readers sanity. I don't want this blog to turn into an online slug fest.

I'll be blogging about my character, Rio_Locsin. So stick around and I'll tell you more. Shiver yer timbers, Cap'n Rio's aboard!