[DISCONTINUED] Old Cabal Wars Mod v1.01 Thread

[KillerForm]

me..............................!!! since Apoc didnt gave me a beta testing for his mod, so i got Time beyond the Time i had!

im gonna test it all and let you know of the bugs! and stuff like that, please let me in *begging*

[Mr.Wizard]

i would like to know how they will attack us (the testers), if they are both melee or ranged or if one is melee and the other is ranged. that is really the only question i have for now, ~

[Joel]

@KillerForm : mail me for confirmatino please ...

@MrWizard : hmm could you be a more clear ?
If you refer to the Hunter PrimeLord, one will have a Ancient like attack (whirlwind and shout) and the second will be more likely to be a Frenzy/Stun attack.

[Mr.Wizard]

that is exactly what i was wondering, sorry i wasn't more clear--i put hunters in subject and not in post thinking you would've read about it, and you did (yay for my stupidity) ~

[KillerForm]

email sent, hope you will reply fast!!!
i really want to be a beta tester of this mod, cuz it looks FINE!!!!!!
btw, thanks

[Joel]

Some screen for fun ( taken with a lvl 99 character)

A bunch of pirates :
http://iceman.maxcom.nl/Joel/images/pirates.jpg

Some Unique Items :

http://iceman.maxcom.nl/Joel/images/unikbelt.jpg
http://iceman.maxcom.nl/Joel/images/unikhand.jpg
http://iceman.maxcom.nl/Joel/images/unikcoronet.jpg
http://iceman.maxcom.nl/Joel/images/unikcrown.jpg
http://iceman.maxcom.nl/Joel/images/unikgauntlet.jpg

[KillerForm]

Wow, that looks so cool (especialy the pirates, are they the necro minions?) thats gonna be total fun playing, maybe some of us the beta testers will get a game up to test it together or something like that.

and what will be the characters to test (or is it only the necro)

[Mr.Wizard]

in one of the earlier posts he said that there will most definantly be the necro, and if he has time the sorc.....so hopefully we get 2.

[Alkalund]

Wow, what a surprise when I saw the unique pictures: the Hand of Vecna!!!

Great stuff Joel, and I'm wondering if the Eye of Vecna also appears in your mod??

[Joel]

@KillerForm : eh eh the pirates are enemies that replace the fetish familly (piper,shaman and fetish) they were spawn here in act I for test. Don't worry, the necro has its own cool minions already : A Lesser Golem (from BG2), a blood puppet, a Hell Shadow (from PS:T), a adamantite golem (from BG2) and Succubi. He can also raise a pile of bones and guts to frighthen enemies.

For the classes, as far as i go the Chaos will be neat and OK ( mainly because doing skill bkg is a bit time consuming). His dedicaced weapons/armor are on their way and may be finish tomorrrow.
The Sorc will eb surely in, at least 2 of its variations.

@Alkalund : Yes the Hand of vecna rocks For the eye, it will be in, under its second name and in a quite original form.

Yep another features i come across yesterday.

1. Two types of magic books will be in : the active ones that lies in place of your gloves and holds spell charges ( a lot ), the passive ones stay in your inventory as a charm.
The passive books is always magic. First they come out empty ( 0 pages ) and with a little affix (like + 3 mana or +1 energy). You could find/create pages for this book and insert it into it via the Cube. There will be maybe 12 or 15 different pages and a book could hold till 5 or 7 pages.
Each pages add a bonus that stacks with the other etc ... There is a recipe to blank out your book.
The active books hold from 1 to 5 different spell charge.They are indestructable and must be placed in your hand. A active book drop with only 1 to 2 different charge and you must use special recipe to add them up.
Nothing crooky here but listen :
A complex but rewarding recipe system will allow you to change your passive book into active one, losing all their benefit but gaining the MAX (or near) spell charges available. Another recipes turn your active books in a VERY valuable page for your passive book.

2.Every single base item of little interrest hav gained a little cool automagic. Great shield protect from missiles, mask reduces your LR, poelarm have crushing blow, dagger have pierce etc ... Bone item repair them self ta da ta da , ther is too mny to be listed. So prepare to reconsideer dropping this "whattheheckidontusethisweapon"

See U

[Joel]

just to be sure :

I've created a Yahoo Groups to centralize beta discussion ( instead of overwhelming forums).

DID every beta tester receive the invitation ??

If i forget someone please mail me (no PM) Thanks

[MikeTheGreat]

I got an invitation and am in the group now, but when will you post up the mod files?

[Joel]

i just received the tools i need from the code editing forum so a harsh crash bug is fixed now.
Today i'll finish class-specific stuffs and polish the Skill bkg for the Necro.
So if everything OK, the files will be up Friday and ready to be tested.

I got your registration Mike it's OK.

[Joel]

Just some stuffs i was thinking about, please gimme feedback about the m;)

1. Talisman are replacer for mall charm. They spawn only normal and are always socketable. (1 slot). BUT you can't tell if the socket effect will be weapon/armor or helm It's random. So two talisma, socketed with the same gem could end up with two different effects of this gem.

2.As i said int he GMM Forum, three kind of runes will be out : elvish, dwarven and drow. Each have a color and build up different runewords. No runewords are mixed up ( no dwarven+elvish runes runeword for instance). Elvish runes are classic and could be found in Act I-V, dwarven runes kick in at Act III-V and drow runes at Act IV-V.

3.Each charcetr classes starts off with a Cabal Insignia and three differnt oddities. By combining the insignia and one of the odd, it gets a sub-class specific items.
Ex :

the chaos start witha Chaos Shard Inisgnia, a bone shard, a venom blossom and a pentagram.

Then cubing :

insignia+bone shard -> Death Talker tarting item.
insignia+blossom->Poissoner starting item.
insignia+pentagram->summoner starting item.

Obviously you start the game w33ith the cube.

4. some screenies :

the myconid and its broodlings :
http://iceman.maxcom.nl/Joel/files/mushroommadness.jpg

the new weapon : the sling from BG2
http://iceman.maxcom.nl/Joel/files/sling.jpg

[92petm]

Hey Joel, you're mod looks great. I got one suggestion though.

How about making a single, very powerfull runeword with the 3 most rare runes of each type, i.e the most rare elvish one + the dwarf one + the drow one?

That would be REALLY cool!!

[Mr.Wizard]

No runewords are mixed up ( no dwarven+elvish runes runeword for instance).

elvish, dwarven and drow.
so is each category going to have a class-specific item, or is a category going to be good for a certain type of attack (i.e Dwarven = good for melee, elvish = good for ranged and drow?? = good for magic?) or are they all just plain old runewords you made up?

[Joel]

you get the point Mr Wizard, each racial runewords is oriented into one of the mentionned field.

For example ( may change but it's an example) :

The elvish Runeword : LuUKe >> Enchantement is a bwo/xbow runeword that grants +2 to Hunter Skills, fats attack rate, pirce attack and such.

The Dwarven one : ThOrDen >> Carrion imbue axes with great poison damage.

The Drow One : SuSSuAr >> Murder, well it's pretty obvious, it charge a cape up with Invader Skills.

Some off them will be clas specific, maybe the mor epotent one, mybe sub-class specific.

[92petm]

*Removed*

[Joel]

Just to keep the topics on touch with the up-running beta.

Some bug fixes are on their ways.

i was deceived by a treachous bug of the /time modifier on gems and was forced to take out some gems.

Almost all my first gameplay changes are working ( slings etc ...) and i plan to add more.

The racial runewords are building up step by step and the new runes have a brand good looking

in early august, the sorceress will be ok and up to run fine ...

[Joel]

So a bit long without updates ...

1) About the beta :
***********************

As i hope it helps me to squizz early bug by working on a class at one time ... Some nasty stuff could have lend me to hour sof self wondering but now it's concealed.

2) Upcoming changes :
****************************

Before i leave for a week, i'll post the new beta version that will include the final form of the mod (aka a patch_d2 files + all the needed dll and scripts ). Again a hefty download but it will clear the situation.

Now :
=====

1.Chaos skills began to be tuned finely. The Poisoner tab now get decent mana cost AND decent damages. Two skills are on the fringe to be taken out. Pestilence will surely be replaced by a new passive skills : Posison Mastery that will increase the Poisoner posion resist by 2.5% per slvl and add 2-8 poison damage per seconde by slvl. The toxic skin is not yet fixed and will turn out into a more melee oriented armor or a completely new spell ...

2. Shalafi (sorceress) skills are almost finish. due to intensive dll edition, prepare to forget how you play sorceress before. Three new mastery will be crafted out of thin air to fit the new layout of the skills. Melee sorc could be viable now as the form of the Abjurator sub-class. Wait for spell like Giant Strength (that boost AR% and DMG% ) or Haste.

3. Uniques and Sets : Those ifties take out most of my spare time again. Nowadays ( in beta fix v1.02) there is 4 sets complete and checked along with 45 uniques certified. Some are REALLY buffered , some neat but i 've avoided crappy stuff. Mixed with a reworked drop rate, it's decent to finish a set in 0.5 or 1 difficulty level. Some uniques are directly taken from ANATOLIA MUD background like The Armagueddon Sword, Armbands of Volcanoes or the Lance of Michael.

4. The web site : it got a good look now and the next version will be uploaded as soon as the beat 1.02 is out.

Hope i don't kill the interrest on my mods by taking long long time before getting stuff out. Real life commiments is harsh sometime. To all who have been waiting for this, please keep waiting ....

See ya all

----------

EDIT : believe it or not, this auto-filter just filtered out chacked where i will type checked ...
Argh !!
** joel's being blasted by the Holy Filter of the Keep **

[Alkalund]

Hope i don't kill the interrest on my mods by taking long long time before getting stuff out. Real life commiments is harsh sometime. To all who have been waiting for this, please keep waiting ....

Not at all Joel, we are patiently waiting the release of your mod. Take your time, no need to rush things. Make it the way you want regardless of the time it may take to do it, this is what modding is about in the end

[Joel]

So some news :

1. The BETA :
-------------------

It's a bit stagnant, but bugs are slayed on a daily basis.
Hopefully, the v1.02 will be a overall change. First the mod turn into MPQ, with a complete easy to use install process. Sorry for dial connection, it'll be a pain in the @$$ to dl th ewhole stuff again.

I'll try to put in EVERY new monster animations (more than 60) in aone shot, even IF the corresponding monsters isn't use yet.


2. Updates :
---------------

The Chaos/Poisonner get his skills fixed :
- Pestilence is out and is defintly replaced by Poison Mastery.
- Toxic ### skills was swapped a bit and re-ordered to be more efficient.

The Chaos/Death Talker needed a BIG whump of changes.
- Enhance the Undead Mastery skills : it knows grants +15% HP on revived, +3 mana per kill per slvl, +25% damage to undead per slvl.
- Took out the soul armor and the Victimize spell and replace them with two offensive spells : Symbol of Kathras and Seal of Sepia Serpent.

*** Symbol of Kathras is an auto-hit missile that freeze target and leech its life away.
*** Seal of Sepia Serpent is a curse that stop monster regeneration, reduce their physical resistance and stun them.

*** The Aura of Charon now only give life. As a bonus, every times you consumes a corpse with it you gain 1 XP per slvl.


The Shalafi begin to look decent.With the extra dll, new aura and passive are abroad :

For the Abjurator :

Giant strength is an aura that give AR% and DMG%
Haste give IAS, FRW and FHR.
Tenser's Transform give MAX-LIFE% and HP-REGEN.


For the Conjuror :

Biby's Hand is a big magic fist that stump guys out there ...
Wyvern Guardian is an illusionnary dragon that stop enemy.

The others classes begin to get their first skills.

3. New concepts :
-----------------------

3.1 The relics :
===========

Remember FF7 and its Bone Village. Now in CW you'll find some bunch of odd looking rocks. By treating them the right way, you uncover ancient treasure prisonner of the rocks, like fossiles. The treasure range from gems, magic or rare item. Some sages speak of Ancient Artifacts lost for aeons that maybe found in these.

basically, a cube recipe allow you to clear the stuff to see what's lie in ...

3.2 The Heraldic Symbol :
===========

Ancient noble houses of Midgaard get destroyed in th wars betweeen Great Evil and Gods. Their treasures was scattered. Once people could find armor or weapon that was the owns of such familly but most of them lack the proper Herald to retrieve their ancient state of power.

Technically speaking, these are SPECIAL SPECIAL runes and runeword that must done each after the other :

ex : The House of Coraw Armor socketed with 2 Coraw Herald become
Coraw's Pride, a valuable armor. More of these could lead to mor epowerful stuff.

3.3 Hint scrolls :
===========

Like in BG , you could now buy story book or scroll of knowledge that contain various hints : recipes, infos on monsters power, elvish rhymes, dwarven proverb, drow maladiction etc ... Read them well as they reveal some of the mod's secret.

3.4 Scroll of Enhancement :
===========

Some elder mages have created scrolls dedicated to imbue weapon with power. These scroll, transmuted with the proper items grant it magic properties. Magic enhanced item are common, some speak of rare items being created such. But the most valuable stuff to get is an Hero's item ...

Cubing these scroll and proper reagents into the cube craft new type of items that could be futhermore upgraded by more powerful scrolls.


Pfff, i hope i could get my own tools working soon ( d2sheet and d2string) so all these will become easy stuff.

Next week, the whole website will be revamped and first concrete infos
posted there.

TO ALL MY BETA TESTER : DON4T GIVE UP
I need you , really, so don't despair to get an uodate

by bye

[Pape]

Don't be so scared all of your BT are wainting for the v1.02 of your beta, even Krabator who's a really leasy boy !

[Joel]

Come on boys and girls ...

So Cabal Wars v1.02 is almost ready.
First news, you will now play with 3 cabals :

The Chaos, The Knight and the Shalafi.
The four others will come out on after the other with subsequent patches.

Most big stuff i want to be done were done so ...
I'm only waiting for my runewords to cooperate and some animation to fix themselves up

So what's up in v1.02 :
-------------------

1. Corrected all Chaos bugs and mana costs. No more slvl 20 Not-So-Deadly clouds ... Damage of DC is now from 250-350 per sec during 2 sec up to 3600-4500 per sec during 7 sec. Now that's Deadly . other skills was similary fixed.
Some Deathtalker and poissoner skills was re-worked from scratch. The last thingy to do is to fix my passive using the extra.dll

2. Added in 60+ new recipes from Scroll of Essence that imbue items with elemental or positive/negative power. With a blank scroll and the proper reagent you could create your own Scroll or unleash some of the hidden ones.
other backpakc/Cube features will be added in the lasting weeks, including the archeologics stuff, the Herald recipes and some cube-only unique.

3. Act I Quest entirely remastered. The Den of Evil is now the orcs Hideout and it's 2 level deep. Some may find the entrance of the new multi level dungeons (good luck with this one , enter it before lvl 15 culd be deadly) and everyone will enjoy the new Holy Grove/Tristram look. If someone has deer and rabbits anims i looking for it (it's not a joke)

4. TCEx and drop-rate are being adjusted. All affix is done, maybe some will rise when i finish some other cabal. Currently when you find a lvl 25 item with your lvl 30 character, the affix it gets is worth the level. No more Sturdy Awesome Plate That got 1200 AC of the Fox ( +2% Ac, +5life) in Hell lvl 80 ...
That's a good news somehow. Rare get the same feeling and are NOW worthy their drop rate. Gambling percentage have been raised to 80ù magic, 15% rare 4% sets and 1% uniks.

5. Almost all boss lair have been revamped. A lot ...
along with Boss Skills. Hezron now have a nasty Symbol of Kathras clone that kick @$$ ...

6. I'll also repost the storyline here and on my webbies to help people recognize stuffs. Especially the boss name, locations name and hero's name.

7. Uniques : 55 news were added, for a total of 95.
Sets are again a bit scarce (4/25 right now) mainly because they're almost all class specific and so ... i ust wait to finish the cabal before knowing what skills hold etc ...

THE BIG GOOD NEWS :

Cabal Wars beta 1.02 will be PUBLIC BETA !
As more and more people ask for it, i think to release it sooner than expected. But remember that it's far from complete , so every complain about "hey dude, your act II look silly cos ..." will be ignored.

I hope to get an hosting at PD asap and get transfered to the Hosted Mod for getting a better place to discuss all the bugs that I 'm syre will arise.

The date of the release isn't fixed yet, and will surely dne before September. If by bad luck, the 1.10 patch come out between these, the release will be postponed of an small amount of time in order to be translated into the new format.

The beta 1.02 will come into a patchd2.mpq file, three dll files and the proper VB script needed to run the mod correctly. No need to say that old characters ( from classic Lod or from CW b1.01) will be all but compatible.

For people that wasn't there sometime ago, screenshots was posted on my website than show some new features.

Have a good day

[Joel]

CABAL WAR REVISED STORYLINE :
-----------------------------------------

Long ago , before the dawn of time, before humanity rise, their was a place where potent energy gather and begin to take physical form. This
place was known later as the Nether Place.

As time goes, more an dmore potent energy came by. One day, the energy concentration was so high that the energies become material.
This was the born of the first sentient lifeform in the universe. It was
Gol'Resh, the first living form to acces consciousness.

The energy involved in its creation give it divine like power. When it thought about something, this was created. Like a child playing with a toy, Gol'Resh create other sentient being. Some was good, some was not ...

Gol'Resh is now known as the Father of All Gods and Demons. By its side, laid Thoras, God of Law, Jilkara, Goddess of Light, Hezron, Demon of Destrcution and Bashti, Evil Godess of Murder. After a time of relative peace, all these divine creatur begin to struggle.

During the battle, Gol'Resh body was destroyed and the energies freed from their physical prison. Without these, the ancient gods power begun to decrease. In order to preserve the ir life and the NetherPlace stability, both Jilkara and Bashti sacrified themselves to bring balance into the universe. Their body and blood was soon transmuted into the realm of Midgaard and thus creating the world as we now it. Hezron was banished by Thoras to an unknown place. Thoras also begun to gather all the energy remain he could. Crafting it, it ressurect Jilkara and create the new generation of gods called the Primeras.

Hezron found also a way to master the reluctant energies that lies into its jail. He failed to ressurect Bashti but by sacrifying its own eyes, it creates hundred of new devils.

After creating new gods, Thoras sacrifice himself to bring life to Midgaard, creating all the life we know now. The human rise form his heart, the elves from his eyes and the dwarves from its hand. His blood fertilize the world and bring animals and plants to life.

The Primeras were now used to protect and serve the new born races of Midgaard. In these times, Hero and Gods walk along the world to slay evil and preserve peace. But one day, Hezron come back with its minions and began to war against every lifeform, spreading destruction all over him.

The battles were hard and many ancient world heroes fall under the strike of the demonic legion of Hezron. But when all the hope was lost, a Primeras called Deimos give the final strike to Hezron by using the first magic spell, later known as the Kharrhis spell. By doing so, Deimos gave magic to the mortal races.

In the wages of this wars, Primeras survivor granted Deimos the rulership of the NetherPlace and began rebuilding Midgaard. For ages, the gods have hunted down the last demon, imprisonning them into a place called Armagueddon, guarded by the mighty avatar Drakenraal, Lord of Faith.

Eons have passed and one day, a Sez'halak (dark wizard) called Yoheras who was once affiliated to Hezron's army, stole the secret of the Kharrhis spell to Deimos. Using it without reason, he destroyed almost every lifeform on Midgaard and banish the God back into the NetherPlace. That was the Great Cataclysm or Gyr'hal'toi.

Many years after this, the Midgaard survivor raise from ashes and start rebuilding their world, creating 5 of the now famous Cabal of Midgaard to guard themselves from such madness. The Hunter, Shalafi, Lionheart, Knight and Battlerager were so used to protect Midgaard from such madness.

The Sez'halak order was destroyed and its member kill where they stood. But evil is lurking beneath and at the gate of Armagueddon, the Ancient Demons, strengthen by the years of jail start to fight against their guardian.

And one day, the worst came up :

1. Drakenraal fell under the strike of the Ancients Evil, turning himself to the Darkness. He create the 6th Cabal of Midgaard, the Chaos and send his minions all over the world to spread destruction.

2. The banished Sez'halak who have survived the Purge created the last Cabal : The Invader and ally themselves to Drakenraal.

Now, all the cabals are fighting each other in order to slay anyone would could have been corrupted. The two evil order are now heading to Mount Doom where lies the hidden lair of Yoheras to find the Primeras secret ...