CABAL's shortfalls? A seasoned player's take.(2/3)

As promised, an in-depth analysis of the game for the first 90 levels (for your info, I'm a level 8X Force Archer on the server.)

Basically, the first good points of the game are that the quests and leveling are paced together very well. The quests you will receive will, for the first run-through, gradually give you a feeling of being an undefeatable Mary Sue (who, like in all MMORPGs, will revive anyway) in a long-running story.
I imagine this might actually entice the seasoned gamer more, since players who have been in contact with RPGs for a long time would generally like a running story to go along with a usually static gameworld. The good can sometimes be a bit too good, with the game seeing many level 100s in the space of just 4 weeks because of what I perceive to be "nannying" the player.

Not that I'm complaining, honest injun, just that it becomes a bit too quick and then you're going to have lots of players at the upper tier instead of the lower tier (with lower-level characters mainly installed as merchants for the mains)

Then here comes the biggie. On every server, half of the channels are available for PK. Goodness, that can encourage a lot of fighting, and a lot of childish spats can occur. Bleh. Currently, the guilds at higher levels are generally more or less well-behaved, although guilds are a constantly changing variable and can be subject to ups and downs. I'd be worried, because if a few guilds decide to go rogue and PK the innocent, then it would be up to the other guilds to stop these rogues, but often it's a heck-care situation (unless a nosey parker like me tries to go in, and ends up getting a bleeding nose). Good thinking on arranging for non-PK channels, but then it also excaberates the problem of controlling bots. (I personally would deal with bots the PK way, lulz.)

Remember I mentioned that there could be a potential situation whereby lots of high levels could occur? This is a very major catalyst for so-called alz sellers, and already many cases of hack-and-ban has been reported to AS because desperate players, in a bit to go for the stronger equipments, often risk their passwords and ID by visiting these dangerous sites. The regulation of such sites are almost impossible since they're only damaging company policy (i.e. no alz selling), not breaking a criminal law (and thereby falling away from the radar of the police). Already it is too late to fix the situation because there are too many alz sellers (and multiple IDs) and too little GMs to police the game 24/7.

Next time, I'll post more on a current, upsetting balance in-game that would turn players more to certain professions.

CABAL's shortfalls? A seasoned player's take.(1/3)

Those guys who know me very well would know that I can't survive without games. I'd go on another time about how I started playing something called "Three Dirty Dwarves" because of influence, but right now, I'll be talking about CabalSEA.

CabalSEA is of course, the South-East Asian server for ESTsoft's latest MMORPG offering. Clearly a game targeted at mature audiences, with a design schema for clothings that tend towards the more sensual or more rebellious, it's a far cry from MapleStory's 2D cutish image.

To digress, a little comical contest between a Dragon Knight and a Level 10x Blader would probably go on and on.

The game itself is not revolutionary than evolutionary. The basic premise of character leveling is still there, and grinding is still by and far an important thing not to be missed out. The idea of upgrading an equipment or slotting an equipment is not new either - I could think of Ragnarok Online with both - but skill rank leveling is a tad different.

Simply put, skill rank leveling would probably be a closer simulation to "martial arts practicing", in terms of grinding you have to do just for leveling skills. It does take a lot of time, and unlike character leveling it does not show results as immediately, but once you get used to the system it's everything goes. If you're up for grinding, that is.

Once again, the game employs the use of the F2P + Cashshop mechanism that has so far appeared in Trickster, Ragnarok Online Malaysia (one of its free servers), MapleStory... the list goes on and on, how about ijji.com GunZ with non-permanent avatars? Most of this is standard offerings, until one notices that there is a premium system available for those with money (i.e. kids, sorry, we don't *exactly* encourage you... that right, Asiasoft?) and then this throws the game into a weird tilt with no exact gauge of measure for balance. The rich levels faster and get rich faster; the poor, of course the exact opposite.

One thing I like for every game is to have some decent translation, not super-half-baked Engrish. I'm going to talk about DJ Max Portable 2 in the future, but this game - as well as another horrendous game called KalOnline - has the kind of Engrish that is absent in CabalSEA, for the most part. CabalSEA may have been ported direct off the CabalEU servers, though, so the jury is still out on whether it was translated for the EU or exclusively to SEA. Whatever it was, the minor errors are almost ironed out and only a few grammatical mistakes mar the game. Spoiler: The Sage Veradrix could sometimes be rendered as "the Veradrix Sage".

Excellent for a Korean-based company.

Next time, I'll be on to in-depth analysis of the game.