retro Cabal

[alterOpa]

Greetings everybody,

I have an announcement which has been postponed for more than three years and as probably none of you will remember me I’m going to quickly introduce myself.

Almost four years ago I put a very small server together and played with few people from Germany on it which was only available on weekends as it was running on my computer. I even have an old thread about it but the server had to be closed due to the lack of my spare time. Since then the idea of creating a larger network grew and I tinkered on my build of server files to this date.

This server initially started out as a reunion for my guild mates from the time I played Cabal on the official servers. I started before completer skills were a thing and as far as I can remember stopped playing sometime after the release of Porta Inferno because of most of the changes to drop balancing but I’m wandering from the subject.

In summary I’m really glad to be able to share the knowledge of my very long play experience in form of a server and will finally introduce you chronologically of official releases to the compiled server files I’m planning to test fire on 14th April.


Cabal Online
Back then when completer skills didn’t exist we were solely reliant on the highest skill rank you could possibly have and dual transcender was common for low level characters. Berderk Faello and most dungeon drops were unique which therefore in some way were rewarding.

• The first character you create is max level, has the highest honour rank, nearly every quest finished, almost perfect gear and should be the class you know best
• Every newly created character is dual transcender and needs to be levelled up with medium server rates
• Each boss drops three items and any chest in a dungeon drops two items including Lake in Dusk bosses
• Two channels have fast respawning bosses with their old drops and the war channel has the new more difficult bosses from official Cabal
• Dungeon drops for Lake in Dusk, Ruina Station, Tower of the Undead B1F/B2F (Part 1), Volcanic Citadel and Forgotten Temple B1F are based on old drop tables
• All drop tables are without an exception based on official drops which changed a lot over the process of updates and are only improved in chances
• Monster pets drop with a two percent chance from their respective mobs so for example a Garlie Pet drops from a Garlie
• Removed visual effects for all the old buffs are back and never released ones are brought to life
• There won’t be shops with tons of options to buy overpowered gear just the essentials and some cash shop items are in them
• Other cash shop items such as appearance changing items are available with eCoins through the ingame item shop and each player gets 10,000 eCoins per week
• A Remote Shop Card is in every inventory and can be used to buy every mainstream dungeon entry item on the fly
• DT Dungeon entry items can be purchased by the grocer in Green Despair to find the infamous Ring of Luck +2 and Critical Ring +2
• Formula Cards for basic crafts at the moment can be purchased by event girl Yul until craft merchant Cloe will get multiple shops
• The basic craft progress is saved comprehensively for each character on your account and features a new craft for Siena’s Bracelet

Cabal Online Episode II – The War Begins
This glorious war between the two factions Capella and Procyon got the attention of hundreds of players which resulted in epic battles. Six bringers and ten guardians for each class represented the strongest players on each nation while dungeons like Forgotten Temple B2F remained unbeaten.

• At that time the most useful party buff Raise Spirit for special point regeneration loses its later gained debuff since Arionell is around and skill rates are exactly like official ones
• Miracle Keys are back and can be used to participate in the old Chaos Arena which was famous for gaining great amounts of experience
• Only one Nation War for the highest level is used in which six Bringers and sixty Guardians can defend their nation for honour
• The newly introduced rank up quests are adapted to the recent ones of the official servers to not be as time consuming
• Titles like Hidden Helper T is Watching You and the Chaos Boundary titles are back and integrated to the new achievement system
• Every other mainstream dungeon yields one specific item type so that for example Forgotten Temple B2F chests have Forcium gear and Forbidden Island SIG Metal
• From there on drops in chests are unified but every item you get out of these dungeons have a guaranteed craft and are at least one slot with greater chances of having something in it
• Reversed the All Skill Amp. craft to Sword and Magic Skill Amp. so that getting a double Sword Skill Amp. item for a Magic class is possible again

Cabal Online Episode III – Soul & Siena
With the addition of soul abilities max level characters faced a new challenge to max out all of their runes. A lot of new dungeons made their first appearances with new gear to gather and DX dungeons offered solo challenges with three difficulties for the average player.

• DX Dungeon entry items can be purchased by their respective grocers in Bloody Ice, Desert Scream, Green Despair, Port Lux and Fort. Ruina
• The quest items for unique rings like Mergaheph’s Ring now have their own chest after defeating the last boss of the dungeon and drop exactly one time
• Prideus’ Bracelet in Altar of Siena B1F and Drosnin’s Earring in Illusion Castle Radiant Hall are guaranteed to drop with only their highest stats possible
• Lycanus weapons also drop with highest stats possible each time you finish Illusion Castle Underworld
• Pieces of Siena’s Bracelet can be dropped in Altar of Siena B2F and with the extracted Pieces of Prideus’ Bracelet crafted into Siena’s Bracelet

Cabal Expansion
Porta Inferno, as already mentioned the last update I played, laid the foundation for each and every future change Cabal has went through. The favourite addition had to be the all new transcender skills which in general are always great since combos can be enhanced.

• Each additional transcender skill is again only dropped in Porta Inferno and future skills will also only drop in the new maps they got released with
• The +15 upgrade system remains its official rates but Enchant Safeguards can be dropped in Chaos Infinity and will get distributed with events
• Top tear Mithril items can be found with higher chances in Mutant Forest, Pontus Ferrum, Porta Inferno and Arcane Trace and no item will be character bound after equipping

Cabal Expansion Part II – The Mercenaries

• Faith mercenaries are available at the DP Exchange NPC in Port Lux and Dazzlement mercenaries can be dropped from legendary boxes in their dungeon
• Protection of Veradrix will maybe make really rare appearances on extremely rare occasions but every other overpowered potion won’t ever be distributed

Cabal Expansion Part III – Legacy of Darkness

• Drei Frame gear can similarly to Lycanus weapons only be found in its respective dungeon Maquinas Outpost and has the highest droppable tear on it
• Both Lycanus and Drei Frame is destroyable and the extracted cores with Peticia’s Key can either open Yerte’s and Eite’s Weapon Boxes or Argris’ Armor Boxes
• The resulting items out of the boxes then have the chance to either be the tear droppable in their dungeon or the highest possible tear for them

Cabal Expansion Part IV – Saint’s Requiem

• Bike Epic Converter Boxes will be droppable from bosses and the highest tears of bikes have been updated to meet the official standards
• The chance for a bike to be converted to an epic bike is guaranteed and the tier is the highest possible tear you can get on that bike
• Instead of all the experience potions dropped by the minions from Vikalitan of Golden Sunset at the event from Lakeside Potions of Honor can be found next to Cores

Cabal Expansion Part V – The 3rd Awakening

• Minesta Training Books and Craft Stones can be purchased by the strange merchant in Mutant Forest
• Chaos Lamps can either be bought by the grocer from Port Lux or dropped and have next to the new Lamps of Dazzlement altered treasures

Cabal Expansion Part VI – Arcane Trace

• Craftsman and Master items can be crafted through the professional crafting system which has to be levelled with old standards in order to be able to craft the strongest ones
• Arcane Trace can be visited and has the Arcane Golem as an usual field boss which almost has the official drop tables like all the stronger boss versions of the overhaul

As you might see where the name retro for the server is coming from this server offers an old school experience with highly adjusted rates and features. There even are some features I’m keeping secret since I’ve never seen them on any other server and don’t want to be copied until the release. Furthermore I might have missed one or another feature but there also is a lot I still want to add. For example there are all the new dungeons, the new map Senillinea, some minor changes I want to do to client and of course bugs. Keep in mind that I’ll still have to adjust all the features mentioned above in order to offer you the best experience possible and if some of them are not in or only halfway implemented until 14th April I’m sorry because I haven’t had time to finalise them.


This is the concept I developed over past years but there sadly has to be a catch. On 14th April the server at first will only go online for the weekend and afterwards I’ll take a look on if it’ll be possible to sustain the server for a longer period of time with a donation system. Now if you the community shows that the need for such a server exists I’ll immediately take care of a proper host and it’ll be back online, with further regularly planned updates, on 21st April.

Pay to win is a bitch and I think most of you will agree. For that reason donations would only grant those who want to support the project cosmetic items such as costumes. Moreover there will be concrete donation goals as for instance the amount of money which is needed to pay the dedicated server bills for a month and if reached every player will get a reward for it.

Lastly if you want to be part of the test fire event and may get some bonus items for when the server is ever lasting online leave a nice comment plus that you want to participate and I’ll send you temporary account details over a private message. Questions, suggestions, criticism and every form of contribution to the topic are appreciated.

Over the next weeks I’ll keep you updated and post some pictures plus videos to this thread!


alterOpa

[SMT2008]

Sound very interesting Looking forward to it!

[Tun4de]

Not a bad idea at all . Waiting to see how it will be .

[alterOpa]

I forgot to mention that I'll begin to send out account information next weekend so that nobody who writes in this thread is wondering why I'm not reacting to your responses but I'll let you have the first picture!

alterOpa

[EddyZOO]

Originally Posted by alterOpa

I forgot to mention that I'll begin to send out account information next weekend so that nobody who writes in this thread is wondering why I'm not reacting to your responses but I'll let you have the first picture!

alterOpa

ME!!!

Can i start now? *-*

[LevatioGN]

It's really nice to see a non sterotypical Cabal Online server with an ideas which follows the growth of original Cabal ideology.

The sad part is that the current players of private servers has distanced themselves so much from the original Cabal concept, that they just need instant 1-hit level, 2 maps and 3 dungeons through the whole p.server.

Little bit of difficulty makes their brain explode, while Cabal originally is most enjoyable when you have to grind and get to know the whole game itself.

I truly hope this project continues and it will reach its goal. Definitely going to follow this post on the updates!

Keep up the good work @ !

[aRustySpoon]

I'll defiantly give it a shot

[HansMarcos]

use mshield please

[alterOpa]

Originally Posted by EddyZOO

ME!!!

Can i start now? *-*

I'd love to let all of you on right now but there are some things that have to be taken care of as I tried so many things in the past that the current client is far from stable and some configurations still need to be done and double checked.

Originally Posted by ewil24

It's really nice to see a non sterotypical Cabal Online server with an ideas which follows the growth of original Cabal ideology.

The sad part is that the current players of private servers has distanced themselves so much from the original Cabal concept, that they just need instant 1-hit level, 2 maps and 3 dungeons through the whole p.server.

Little bit of difficulty makes their brain explode, while Cabal originally is most enjoyable when you have to grind and get to know the whole game itself.

I truly hope this project continues and it will reach its goal. Definitely going to follow this post on the updates!

Keep up the good work @ !

You're right and the rates might even be too high as of this point since everyone gets one character with max level. But hey, it's adjustable and I'll take each and every criticism after the test fire weekend very seriously.

The starter gear is also generous but I want to give you the chance to have at least one character with which you, a friend and some skill can at least do some of the most difficult dungeons together. It'll be very similar to the first SIG Metal 10% Amp. gear you could get from an event if you'd upgraded a gear part to a certain level in a certain amount of time while the upgrading part will be left out.


Seems like I'm still not able to directly post pictures to this forum but that'll hopefully change after some time. Here are some of the most common shops you'll most likely always use. From left to right the Remote Shop Card shop to grocers from Bloody Ice, Green Despair, Desert Scream, Port Lux and Fort. Ruina where some of the obvious gaps are for future dungeon entry items.

alterOpa

[Nakihito]

I keep forgetting I'm registered here and every now and then I come take a peek to see what's new in the CABAL section, and imagine my surprise when I come across this post.

It's very refreshing to see a seemingly more dedicated and mature approach towards a server for this game. It reminds me of other private server communities out there that function a lot differently than CABAL's, and it gives me hope that maybe this community isn't quite dead yet. Now if only *someone* would grace us with another server files leak... that'd be the kicker.

A few comments on your project, for the sake of feedback, if you're interested:

- Partially maxing out your first character seems to me like a bit of a double-edged feature. On the one hand, it's useful and time-saving for players who want to get started on endgame content right away (or be available for it in case a party is looking for people).

But on the other hand, if your goal was to encourage players to experience the base game (including progression and quests) just like in official servers, only with increased rates and other features typical of p-servers, this might discourage players from doing so, especially those players who generally only stick to a single character class for serious play.

- Automatic dual transcender, much in the same vein, definitely banishes the painfully tedious skilling aspect of the game to the Shadow Realm, but skill rank progression can feel rewarding to players (especially if, once again, your goal is to promote vanilla style of playing).

It's true that unlike level grinding, where you're also technically farming for drops (with or without a luck set), you can't really do much else while skilling, especially at dummies. However, you could always take a third way out and find a fun and inventive use for skill EXP potions that players would have to farm (in maps and/or dungeons) and could then use to progress skill ranks without having to skill manually at all. Kinda like a happy medium.

It's apparently somewhat common for p-servers out there to have honour potion drops to this end, so I'm thinking liberal use of EXP, skill EXP, etc. potion drops could be an interesting venue to speed up progression without making it instant or near instant. It also feels rather rewarding /when they're actually useful and necessary/, in my opinion.

- Old buff animations and monster pet drops are real deal makers to me, to be honest. I know the old buffs annoyed a lot of people but I've always found them endearing. I remember back when I started playing at MMOParadox's first iteration they had those buff animations too and it was worth it, I think. If it becomes too laggy during War because of them, I suppose something could be done about it later on.

Drawing inspiration from Ragnarok Online p-servers, I think it'd be cool to expand the droppable monster pet selection and include boss pets dropped from said bosses with a really low chance (like an astral bike, for example). They could perhaps also be purchasable via donations for those who don't want to farm them. Since all pets are equivalent gameplay-wise as far as I know, this wouldn't be pay2win. But I realize that can take quite a bit of work adding all those pets (and I don't know if you're limited by item caps or something), so I understand if it's a no-go.

- Appearance changing cash items purchasable with weekly free eCoins is IMO a very good and generous call because that's one of those comfort features that require real money in official servers which I like being available through other means in p-servers.

- I was never too fond of having to hunt down Transcender skill books in Porta Inferno, but if that's a fundamental feature for your server then I understand.

- I don't know how you configured DP saving in your server but I would recommend being a bit more generous than vanilla with regards to DP saving time so that players don't have to worry about losing their DP if they don't run a dungeon in time.

- Another recommendation: if you happen to have post-EP8 buffs which have no series type (strengthen X) at all, I'd suggest adding a type to them for balancing purposes (keeping in mind the default maximum stackable value is 3 same-type buffs at CR20, including no type).

- A minor suggestion: I don't know how you configured your language folder either, but if crafted equipments are showing up with "of X" prefixes rather than suffixes, I'd suggest either switching them to suffixes or eliminating the "of " part so they don't look as weird. I know it's such a minor thing but it's just one of those pet peeves of mine lmao.

And that's about it for now, I think. I have to say that adding back old dungeons was a really good call (I for one miss those D.T. dungeons nobody else liked!) and all those comfort features and tweaks you implemented feel fun but not overpowered. Really good ideas!

Hope to see this server launching and sticking around in the future! Lord knows this game's p-server community is in dire need of some serious changes, and something revitalizing, for a change. Best of luck to you and your players!

[alterOpa]

Originally Posted by HansMarcos

use mshield please

Sorry I must've missed your comment this morning but I feel like this is an as important and necessary topic to discuss as all the features mentioned in my initial post.

I took a small look at the mShield's website and saw that almost all private servers use this as a protection for their client but also noticed that they'll probably charge for it and have no clue what it all guards from. Correct me if I'm wrong but I would also like to hear from some more players if it's worth an investment for the inevitable cat and mouse game.

My initial thoughts on protecting the game were to mostly protect it on the server side. For the first weekend however I won't focus too much on protection since the test fire weekend is more like a closed beta for which you can only register once even though I'm not guaranteeing there won't be bans if you're using no skill cooldown and so on.

Originally Posted by Nakihito

I keep forgetting I'm registered here and every now and then I come take a peek to see what's new in the CABAL section, and imagine my surprise when I come across this post.

It's very refreshing to see a seemingly more dedicated and mature approach towards a server for this game. It reminds me of other private server communities out there that function a lot differently than CABAL's, and it gives me hope that maybe this community isn't quite dead yet. Now if only *someone* would grace us with another server files leak... that'd be the kicker.

How nice of you to take your time and respond with so many suggestions! Hopefully I can give some more insight by answering all of them.

Originally Posted by Nakihito

A few comments on your project, for the sake of feedback, if you're interested:

- Partially maxing out your first character seems to me like a bit of a double-edged feature. On the one hand, it's useful and time-saving for players who want to get started on endgame content right away (or be available for it in case a party is looking for people).

But on the other hand, if your goal was to encourage players to experience the base game (including progression and quests) just like in official servers, only with increased rates and other features typical of p-servers, this might discourage players from doing so, especially those players who generally only stick to a single character class for serious play.

There are two reasons for why I chose to give everyone a very high level character at the beginning. Reason one is to as you already said attract those who enjoy high level dungeons and to further improve their character. The second reason is my very unrealistic wish to finally after all those years again have an epic 100 vs 100 nation war.

People who still want a little change have the option to start a new character with some of their friends and can enjoy the game in a whole from a different perspective. Quests are done so that they aren't visible for a character which already has the highest level.

Lastly I think it should either be everything or nothing and no one is forced to play with the fully geared character.

Originally Posted by Nakihito

- Automatic dual transcender, much in the same vein, definitely banishes the painfully tedious skilling aspect of the game to the Shadow Realm, but skill rank progression can feel rewarding to players (especially if, once again, your goal is to promote vanilla style of playing).

It's true that unlike level grinding, where you're also technically farming for drops (with or without a luck set), you can't really do much else while skilling, especially at dummies. However, you could always take a third way out and find a fun and inventive use for skill EXP potions that players would have to farm (in maps and/or dungeons) and could then use to progress skill ranks without having to skill manually at all. Kinda like a happy medium.

It's apparently somewhat common for p-servers out there to have honour potion drops to this end, so I'm thinking liberal use of EXP, skill EXP, etc. potion drops could be an interesting venue to speed up progression without making it instant or near instant. It also feels rather rewarding /when they're actually useful and necessary/, in my opinion.

Back before three years I had plans to even bring back the split sword and magic skill training but quickly realised that it won't be possible without major changes. Afterwards I took out the character's rank restrictions for a skill rank up to be achieved which also caused problems. It didn't show properly so that you gained experience but the user interface only updated after you got another skill rank up.

One of the biggest problems though is that after the third episode you are able to train your whole skill rank on a dummy so that the idea of making it possible to gain dual transcender at a very low level was bad and not rewarding right from the beginning. That is the first intention for the dual transcencer skill rank at level one.

The other intention is that a raise of skill experience rates were not an option because people just need to hit a monster once to gain back all the special points they lost so that each dungeon's difficulty is drastically changed. Your idea with skill experience potions are good and I didn't know of them back then but it would require way too much fine tuning to compensate the raised experience rate.

Originally Posted by Nakihito

- Old buff animations and monster pet drops are real deal makers to me, to be honest. I know the old buffs annoyed a lot of people but I've always found them endearing. I remember back when I started playing at MMOParadox's first iteration they had those buff animations too and it was worth it, I think. If it becomes too laggy during War because of them, I suppose something could be done about it later on.

Drawing inspiration from Ragnarok Online p-servers, I think it'd be cool to expand the droppable monster pet selection and include boss pets dropped from said bosses with a really low chance (like an astral bike, for example). They could perhaps also be purchasable via donations for those who don't want to farm them. Since all pets are equivalent gameplay-wise as far as I know, this wouldn't be pay2win. But I realize that can take quite a bit of work adding all those pets (and I don't know if you're limited by item caps or something), so I understand if it's a no-go.

For the buffs there was quite a bit of research involved because no one did it at the time when the files were fresh. My suggestion for if serious lags occur would be to offer two clients but I for myself never experienced any slow downs. Moreover there is the possibility to lower the effect options as the client then only shows the visual effects for your character.

The reason for why pets are dropable is that they evolved to become an essential part of anyone's equipment. Every other pet which isn't available through drops was intended to be a one of the donor's item as you already suggested. Even though boss pets aren't planned for now I like your idea but would also like to ask the community if they are ok with such a change as my original plan was to avoid any custom additions to the server like wings and such.

Originally Posted by Nakihito

- Appearance changing cash items purchasable with weekly free eCoins is IMO a very good and generous call because that's one of those comfort features that require real money in official servers which I like being available through other means in p-servers.

Cabal doesn't allow much character customisation besides equipment and the few hair options you can chose from at the beginning so that I thought it was only fair to make those items available for everyone.

Originally Posted by Nakihito

- I was never too fond of having to hunt down Transcender skill books in Porta Inferno, but if that's a fundamental feature for your server then I understand.

Could it be that I'm the only one who liked the change of not having every skill purchasable from an officer? Nevertheless it would make sense with an event where you can't access your high level character and have to start a new one which also addresses your concerns about the main character. The set level limit would be raised by the completion of a community goal and only if the level limit of your character is higher than your character's level the lock for this character will be released.

Originally Posted by Nakihito

- I don't know how you configured DP saving in your server but I would recommend being a bit more generous than vanilla with regards to DP saving time so that players don't have to worry about losing their DP if they don't run a dungeon in time.

Both the items for dungeon and ability point savings are buyable from every grocer. If that's not enough there is nothing against a raise in time.

Originally Posted by Nakihito

- Another recommendation: if you happen to have post-EP8 buffs which have no series type (strengthen X) at all, I'd suggest adding a type to them for balancing purposes (keeping in mind the default maximum stackable value is 3 same-type buffs at CR20, including no type).

Buffs will definitely keep their types! Some of the new buffs which are implementable like the Shadow Shield equivalent for wizards are planned to later be added.

Originally Posted by Nakihito

- A minor suggestion: I don't know how you configured your language folder either, but if crafted equipments are showing up with "of X" prefixes rather than suffixes, I'd suggest either switching them to suffixes or eliminating the "of " part so they don't look as weird. I know it's such a minor thing but it's just one of those pet peeves of mine lmao.

And that's about it for now, I think. I have to say that adding back old dungeons was a really good call (I for one miss those D.T. dungeons nobody else liked!) and all those comfort features and tweaks you implemented feel fun but not overpowered. Really good ideas!

Hope to see this server launching and sticking around in the future! Lord knows this game's p-server community is in dire need of some serious changes, and something revitalizing, for a change. Best of luck to you and your players!

No worries, an option is displaying as it should for most of the items. Craftsman and Master items are if I didn't miss a mistake the only exception. I'm also not sure if I'll be able to change the client's executable in time so that the item names and stats are displaying properly and they therefore might not make it in the craft menus on the test fire weekend since their display is very confusing.


alterOpa

[Nakihito]

The thing with PI skill books for me is just that having to hunt them down feels like a bit of a chore and runs contrary to the rest of the game, as well as MMORPGs in general. That particular design choice by ESTsoft always felt to me like it came out of nowhere. Still, it's a small thing, it's no big deal, and I suppose it's in accordance to vanilla.

Oh, and by the way, I don't think I mentioned this yet but good call on making this a medium (medium plus?) rate server. Everybody always seems to want the super high rate PvP-focused fun servers where you barely need to build up a character and I'm just here wanting to play a nice cosy midrate with some comfort features where I don't get bored after a week... Really looking forward to this project, truthfully.

[Matrixdragon]

i would give it a try since im looking for a long time now for an old school server

[baskog04]

Would love to try out once you open it. Reading the info you posted made me excited for it. ��

[Fifou12]

I would love to play your server,
but I have some questions, its EP2 client based ?

As you are entering in the Private server world you must know some thing :

You need strong DDOS protection, nice anti cheat protection (Mshield is the most known as it protect your server very well from 95% of haxor)