[LOOKING FOR] Vibe coders

[yosiemelo]

Looking for Developers

Hello vibe coders,

I'm looking for a few people who would like to spend their AI tokens on something actually useful instead of another random side project.

The idea is to build a modern open Rappelz repack together.


What we're aiming for

• DX11 + x64 SFrame.
• GameServer and SFrame migrated to modern C++ (C++17 or newer).
• A clean GitHub workflow (branches, pull requests, commits, code reviews, etc.).
• Modern architecture instead of the old spaghetti code.

I already have a lot of development tools finished, so we don't have to waste time writing editors or utility software from scratch. We can simply integrate them into the repack and focus on what actually matters.

One idea I literally had a few minutes ago is the UI.

Rappelz NUI is already kind of HTML-like, but it's old, static and pretty limited. What if we extended it with proper CSS support? That would make creating interfaces much easier, allow responsive and scalable layouts, themes, cleaner styling, and generally make UI development far less painful.

Maybe it's a dumb idea, maybe it's not, but I think it's worth exploring.


I honestly don't give a **** about running another Rappelz server anymore, and I don't plan to open one.


Instead of everyone fixing the same bugs separately, we could build one solid foundation together.

Stop working alone on this ****.

Most solo projects die before they become anything interesting.

At the end of the day, once the repack is good enough, what really matters is content, stability, performance, and maintainability—not another bunch of random vibe-coded features.

If you're interested, leave a reply or send me a PM.

Let's build something the Rappelz community can actually benefit from.

Update :

9.1 vanilla Source is updated to vs143 and c++17 (can be boosted more but no point yet)

[Masumichan]

Maybe you should add chromium to rappelz and communicate with UI using JSON and sometimes you can even use BSON if you feel fancy! I'm sure the clanker can max it's tokens on JSON as it's a very extensive bloated format!

[yosiemelo]

Originally Posted by Masumichan

Maybe you should add chromium to rappelz and communicate with UI using JSON and sometimes you can even use BSON if you feel fancy! I'm sure the clanker can max it's tokens on JSON as it's a very extensive bloated format!

how comes that you are so passive agressive ? did i hurt you somehow ?

[Masumichan]

Originally Posted by yosiemelo

how comes that you are so passive agressive ? did i hurt you somehow ?

No, I am just giving you good ideas! you got this broski

[yosiemelo]

Originally Posted by Masumichan

No, I am just giving you good ideas! you got this broski

i realized that this css support was **** idea yesterday, again idk whats with you but how you want, i wish you all best 'broski'

but if anyone have actually a good idea about UI system in rappelz im interested.

[i33ELYTE]

Originally Posted by yosiemelo

but if anyone have actually a good idea about UI system in rappelz im interested.

CSS support is a good idea and there's nothing better for UI than CEF, prove me wrong

Originally Posted by yosiemelo

vibe coders,

Originally Posted by yosiemelo

the old spaghetti code.

^ Also this is contradictory

[yosiemelo]

Hello everyone,

We are not slowing down — work on this repack continues every single day.

Below you can find a list of what has already been completed. Our Super Vibe Coders group currently has 13 members, although so far only one person besides me has actively contributed. I guess the rest are still in shock :P

Come on, guys — start committing!

In any case, if you are interested and would like to contribute something of your own to the repack — whether it is a tool, Lua scripts, your own source-code solutions, improvements, or simply some good ideas — you are more than welcome to join us.

Everyone is welcome here, even people everyone knows I would normally rather spit in the face of

Have a great day!

CHANGELOG

Project milestones — what's been completed and what's currently in development.

---

COMPLETED

• Unified normal and Middle East SFrame clients
Consolidated both client variants into a single Win32 SFrame.exe. The case-insensitive /country:ME command-line argument now enables the Middle East resource overlay, Pango text layout, Arabic and RTL handling, and other regional behavior during startup. All other country values use the standard client behavior. The former regional CMake option, presets, build tree, and duplicated UI implementations were removed.

• Updated zlib to 1.3.2
Replaced the vendored zlib 1.2.8 sources with a reproducible CMake FetchContent dependency pinned to the official upstream release. Added compatibility tests for the legacy XZip wire format, XZlibEncoder, and every supported XEncrypt zlib format.

• Removed the legacy greta dependency
Replaced the obsolete greta regular-expression library with the standard C++17 std::regex implementation.

• Migrated the native build system to CMake
Replaced the legacy Visual Studio solution and project files with a root CMake build covering external dependencies, Internal Libraries, the SFrame client, and CaptainHerlockServer. Visual Studio 2022 v143 presets now cover all supported Win32 and x64 build configurations. Build output is stored in ignored CMake build directories. Added native build documentation and a PowerShell script for configuring and compiling the complete build matrix.

• Basic 9.1 fixes
Fixed trade movement validation, skill-list size handling, guild creation, sitting behavior, and SFrame item display.

• GameServer Lua 5.5.0 upgrade and sandbox hardening
Updated the embedded Lua runtime to version 5.5.0, migrated legacy scripts using math.mod, and modernized LuaVM for C++17. Game scripts retain access to the base, math, string, and table libraries. The os, io, package, debug, coroutine, and utf8 libraries remain unavailable. Lua errors now include protected tracebacks in both file and console logs.

• Removed the legacy anti-cheat stack
Removed the SecuritySolution/XTrap, GameGuard, and HackShield integrations and their dependencies from GameServer and SFrame. GameServer now logs sender information and disconnects clients that attempt to send obsolete SFrame anti-cheat packets.

• Updated the client and server source code to C++17 and VS143
Completed the migration of the Client and GameServer toolchain to the C++17 standard and the Visual Studio 2022 v143 toolset.

• Refactored the SFrame UI system to C++17
Modernized and refactored the legacy SFrame user-interface code to follow C++17 conventions, reducing obsolete patterns and simplifying further UI development. The mechanism responsible for assigning and binding NUI elements to C++ variables was completely rewritten. NUI controls can now be connected to their corresponding C++ variables through a cleaner and more maintainable implementation, significantly simplifying NUI editing, control replacement, and the creation of new interfaces.

• Completed the DirectX 11 client port
The DirectX 11 port is complete, operational, and successfully running in SFrame while preserving the existing client behavior and visual appearance. Final integration is currently being held until the broader engine redesign is completed. The next stage will replace the legacy rendering pipeline and resource-management architecture instead of permanently reproducing the old DirectX 9 design on top of DirectX 11.

---

IN PROGRESS

• Rendering engine and resource-management redesign
Redesigning the SFrame rendering architecture around DirectX 11. This includes replacing the legacy rendering pipeline, modernizing GPU resource creation and lifetime management, improving render-state management, and preparing the renderer for better batching, multithreading, and modern GPU utilization. The functional DX11 port will serve as the foundation for the redesigned engine rather than remaining a direct one-to-one recreation of the old DirectX 9 architecture.

• GameServer migration from MSADO10 to MariaDB
Replacing the legacy MSADO10 database-access layer with a modern MariaDB connection and updated database architecture.

[yosiemelo]

Hello guys, small update:

DX11 and x64 are now fully done, optimized, stable and ready to use.

The project is still based on vanilla 9.1 files. I don't want to upgrade it yet until I'm completely happy with the base. I prefer having a clean and solid foundation first instead of throwing more shit on top of unfinished shit.

There are still a few things I want to add before moving forward:

• Network optimizations from my Source Code version.
• In-game language switching, without needing separate clients/builds for every language.
• Changed security keys and packet layouts, mostly to prevent some "funny" jokes from our other super devs.
• More optimizations, cleanup and modernization where it actually makes sense.
• And probably even more random shit along the way, who knows.

The goal is still the same: get the base itself into a state where it's actually clean, stable and worth building content on top of before moving forward with newer files.


I also want to mention something I'm honestly a bit disappointed about.

Until today, besides me, only one person has actually contributed anything significant to the project.

Quite a few people asked for and received access to the repack/repository, but so far almost nobody has committed anything.

Not a fix, not an optimization, not a small cleanup. Nothing.

I'm not expecting anyone to work on this shit 8 hours a day. This is a free community project and everyone has their own life, job and projects. But the entire point of giving people access was to work on something together, not just collect another private repack on your hard drive.

So yeah, I'm honestly disappointed about that.

If you take access because you want to contribute, then contribute. It doesn't need to be some massive DX11-level feature. Fix a bug, clean some shit up, improve documentation, investigate something, review code, make a tool better, whatever.

Even small commits add up when multiple people actually participate.

Otherwise we're back to exactly the same Rappelz community problem we've had for years:

Everyone wants access to everything, but almost nobody wants to share their own work.

Let's try to do this one differently.

[hassuny]

Fantastic job, thank u for your contribution

[thefear511]

aion had the best UI design, it uses GFX and if you break it down you could rewrite NUI with gfx assets. there's no need to rewrite the engine to use css. just use new assets from tera or aion.

[yosiemelo]

Originally Posted by thefear511

aion had the best UI design, it uses GFX and if you break it down you could rewrite NUI with gfx assets. there's no need to rewrite the engine to use css. just use new assets from tera or aion.

im not about changing design at all, im more about how to EASY and FAST create new UI but i figured it out without any changes in source so far so good

[yosiemelo]

A lot of new updates, i will make a video about it this weekend.
hope you like it and it bring more people to our community

[yosiemelo]

RAPPELZ 9.1 REPACK — CHANGELOG & PROGRESS

Project milestones, completed work and current development status.

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COMPLETED

C++23 MIGRATION
Updated all native applications and shared libraries to C++23 while preserving existing file formats and network compatibility.
Author: YoSiem

AMD64-ONLY APPLICATIONS
All native applications now share the root CMake build, with Visual Studio 2026 support and all legacy x32 build paths removed.
Author: YoSiem

DX11 SETTINGS AND VISUAL FIXES
Added a dedicated Custom DX11 settings tab with expanded graphics options.
Fixed multiple lighting, shadow and surface-detail rendering artifacts.
Author: YoSiem

NORMAL MAPS AND LINEAR LIGHTING
Added normal-map support and linear-light rendering.
Moved mesh rendering into the engine.
Fixed overly dark characters and excessive ambient occlusion.
Author: YoSiem

AMBIENT OCCLUSION AND WORLD PRELOADING
Added ambient occlusion, per-pixel lighting and bounded world preloading.
Prop registration is now processed in parallel.
Author: YoSiem

D3D11-ONLY RENDER PIPELINE
Removed the legacy Direct3D 9 backend.
Improved rendering efficiency, memory usage, anti-aliasing, window resizing and device recovery.
Author: YoSiem

FULLSCREEN IMAGE SCALING
Intro, lobby, loading and ending images now scale correctly to fill the viewport while preserving existing UI layouts.
Author: YoSiem

TEXTURE LIFETIME PROTECTION
Protected registry-owned textures against premature release.
Fixed an unbalanced terrain-buffer release.
Author: YoSiem

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ━━━━━

RESOURCE SYSTEM MODERNIZATION

PHASE 9 — LEGACY LOADER REMOVAL
Removed obsolete client loaders, resource states and packing code after their modern replacements were introduced.
Author: YoSiem

PHASE 8 — SHARED WORLD LOADING
Moved terrain, avatars and minimap loading onto the shared job pool.
Fixed worker teardown race conditions.
Author: YoSiem

PHASE 7 — NX3 MODEL REGISTRY
Moved model sets into the asset registry with shared ownership and delayed cleanup.
Author: YoSiem

PHASE 6 — TEXTURE REGISTRY
Moved texture loading and lifetime management into the asset registry.
Added asynchronous processing and delayed eviction.
Author: YoSiem

PHASES 3–5 — JOB AND ASSET SYSTEMS
Added shared job workers, an I/O pool, render upload queue and asset registry.
Author: YoSiem

PHASES 1–2 — CONCURRENT RESOURCE READS
Reworked file and archive access to support parallel resource reads without a single global lock.
Author: YoSiem

RESOURCE ARCHITECTURE REVIEW
Reviewed client threading and resource loading architecture and defined the full nine-phase modernization plan.
Author: YoSiem

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ━━━━━

GRAPHICS AND CLIENT MODERNIZATION

DIRECTX 11 PORT
Ported the client renderer to DirectX 11.
Improved rendering performance, shadows and animation handling.
Author: YoSiem

SFRAME X64 MIGRATION
Migrated the client, GameServer and native dependencies to x64 while preserving legacy resource and packet formats.
Author: Ergal

OPENAL AUDIO
Replaced Audiere and Miles with statically linked OpenAL Soft 1.25.2 while preserving legacy playback behavior and effects.
Author: Ergal

DEVIL UPDATE
Upgraded DevIL to 1.8.0 and removed obsolete bundled libraries and development artifacts.
Author: Ergal

OPENSSL UPDATE
Upgraded OpenSSL to 3.5.7 LTS with static linking and supported cryptographic APIs while preserving protocol compatibility.
Author: Ergal

XML PARSER REPLACEMENT
Replaced TinyXML and TinyXML2 with pugixml 1.16 while preserving legacy cutscene XML compatibility.
Author: Ergal

UNIFIED REGIONAL CLIENTS
Merged normal and Middle East clients into a single executable.
Regional behavior is selected through:

/country:ME

Author: Ergal

DIRECT STARTUP AND AUTO-CONNECT
Enabled client startup without administrator rights or a helper launcher.
Added automatic server and character selection.
Author: Ergal

ZLIB UPDATE
Upgraded to statically linked zlib 1.3.2 while preserving legacy compression formats.
Author: Ergal

FONT STACK UPDATE
Updated and statically linked:

• FreeType 2.14.3
• Pango 1.58.0
• Cairo 1.18.4
• HarfBuzz 14.2.1

Arabic and RTL support are preserved.
Author: Ergal

REGEX DEPENDENCY CLEANUP
Replaced the legacy greta library with:

std::regex

Author: Ergal

CMAKE MIGRATION
Moved the native build system to a root CMake configuration.
Added Visual Studio presets, build documentation and a matrix build script.
Author: Ergal

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ━━━━━

GAMESERVER AND CORE FIXES

BASIC 9.1 FIXES
Fixed:

• Trade movement checks
• Skill lists
• Guild creation
• Sitting behavior
• Item display

Author: YoSiem

LUA UPGRADE AND SANDBOXING
Upgraded GameServer Lua to 5.5.0.
Restricted available libraries and improved Lua error tracebacks.
Author: YoSiem

ANTI-CHEAT CLEANUP
Removed legacy anti-cheat integrations.
GameServer now rejects obsolete anti-cheat packets.
Author: YoSiem

C++17 TOOLCHAIN MIGRATION
Migrated client and GameServer code to C++17 and the Visual Studio 2022 v143 toolset.

This milestone preceded the later C++23 migration.
Author: YoSiem

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ━━━━━

IN PROGRESS

MARIADB MIGRATION
Replacing the GameServer's legacy MSADO10 database access layer with MariaDB.

Status: In progress
Author: Not recorded

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More changes will be added as development progresses.

Repack development is focused on modernization, stability, performance and maintainability while preserving compatibility with existing Rappelz 9.1 data and protocols.

[Pwesty]

GameServer and SFrame migrated to modern C++ (C++17 or newer).


already did this actually

[yosiemelo]

Originally Posted by Pwesty

GameServer and SFrame migrated to modern C++ (C++17 or newer).


already did this actually

its on c++23 both including libs and tools.