Before I played Naval Action i had a small wee wee, no friends, no girlfriend, depression and absolutely no will to live. None of these things have changed, but the game is pretty good.

Naval Action(해상 대치)의 서버는 서버 자체가 시즌(시즌 서버) 입니다.
과거에도 시즌 서버가 PvP와 PvE를 모두 지원했는지는 알 수 없으나
현재의 시즌 서버에는 PvP와 PvE가 모두 허용합니다.
항해도(M)를 열어서 보면 초록색으로 칠해진 일대가 안전 지대라 해서
PvE 해역이고 초록색으로 칠해진 영역을 제외한 그 모든 일대는 PvP 해역입니다.
시즌 서버는 약 6개월?을 주기로 해서 게임 내 모든? 것을 초기화 한다고 합니다.
개발자의 주장은 오랫동안 플레이해온 기존 유저와
최근에 플레이를 하기 시작한 신규 유저 간의 격차를 없애고
게임 내 경제 거품(인플레이션)을 없앤다는 차원에서
시즌 서버를 초기화 하는 것이라 합니다.
접속 유저수는 200여명 안 밖으로 영어를 쓰는 유저가 100%로 차지합니다.
외국인 유저들 인성 수준이 높습니다.
따라서 한국처럼 수준낮고 인성이 낮은 친목형 대화가 전혀 없습니다.

I started playing Naval Action in 2017, before it was "officially launched". I was hooked right away. The Age of Sail and the Napoleonic Era are some of my favorite's in history. Here was a game with realistic graphics, where you could command ships in battle against other players not just in PvP, but in RvR. Your choices mattered. You may not know it right away, but the choice you made in battle 5 minutes ago will have a repercussion 10 minutes later due to a change in the wind direction, or the way you tacked left when you should have gone right...

This game combines strategy with third person POV shooting (from a ship) in a way like no other. The friendships I made in this game have become lasting friendships in the virtual space. I even started a YouTube channel to help new players learn the game, because at the time there was no in-game tutorial, and very little in terms of new player resources.

Naval Action became very popular during the COVID-19 Pandemic because it had recently "launched", and everyone was shut indoors. This game requires you to literally sail from point A to point B, which could take 10 minutes, or if you're crossing the entire map, it could take hours. Suddenly, people had a lot of extra time and were able to jump into a game that necessitated that.

Since it's inception, the developer-player relationship of this game had been strained. The developers would make last-minute changes, even after the game was supposedly finished, and cite player feedback/functionality as their rational for doing so. In reality, almost all of the changes they implemented were not things that were asked by the community, and indeed the player response was almost always negative.

It is their prerogative as developers to make changes to their game. I have no qualms with that. However, the messaging around those changes was never appropriate. Last minute announcements coupled with lashing out at critics on their forums made for a very negative developer-playerbase relationship.

I stood through it all. And I did it because I was very invested in the game. My friends played it, and it scratched an itch that no other game could. The mixture of realism, PvP, RvR, crafting, the relationships that were made with friends - this to me could not be topped, so I was willing to look past the broken parts to see the muddied image beneath.

That all changed when the developers announced they would be changing the core system of the game to a "wipe" methodology. I was no stranger to having my game progress wiped. We had to start from square one several times while the game was in development, and when it first launched. However, the game was supposed to be finished at launch and there was not supposed to be any further wipes. Now, the developers have changed it so that wipes are a built-in mechanic in the game. And this, again, was done because they thought it would be better and player feedback stated that it was what was wanted, when indeed, the majority DID NOT ask for it.

Imagine a game where you have to sail 20 minutes to a location, and then once you get into a battle, it could last 1.5 hours, and then you need to sail back to port which takes another 20 minutes. That is 2 hours out of your life. This isn't counting crafting. Imagine that it takes you several WEEKS to build a competitive or "meta" ship, and so every ship is extremely valuable. That is one of the things I enjoyed about the game. It added an element of risk to it, and made actions truly dangerous.

Now imagine that all that time you spent, the progress you made, is wiped clean after 3-6 months. You need to start from scratch again. Sure, they introduced mechanics where you could bring certain things with you from one wipe to the next, so you don't start out completely at square one. But the premise, the thought remains. You are taking the 100s of hours that I have invested into this game, and deleting it, for no reason. That is the worst part. There was no reason to make this change.

The result? An extreme drop in player count.

Give me the old, 2016-2017 Naval Action, and I'll play that any day of the week. In the current state, after I have invested 3500+ hours (on this account alone, I have over ten accounts), I say no thank you.

Disgusting developers, and a disgusting turn of events.

Your time is your most precious resource. Thank you for spending your time reading this review, and please, be mindful of your time, and don't waste it on this game.