*Word of a warning, this post contains a lot of images - low bandwidth adviced*

On the 2nd of May 2011, CabalSEA's game publisher, Asiasoft was abruptly contacted by ESTSoft regarding a bug that relates to the Agent Shop. For those unfamiliar with the game, the Agent Shop is basically an in-game function that is similar to the Auction House from World of Warcraft or anything of the sort, which allow users to vend their items without opening personal shops or being online at that.

Asiasoft was only informed 10 minutes prior to the action by ESTSoft to shut the server down for an emergency maintenance regarding that said bug. Putting myself in the position of Asiasoft, I fully understand that they are given a figuratively short amount of time to do so and they have made effort in broadcasting them via multiple platforms such as their Facebook page and the forums, which happens to be at about 6.30 p.m. GMT+8 onwards, in which coincidentally I had been away from my computer, doing a vend with my personal shop.

When I return to my computer at about 8.00 p.m., I noticed that I have been forcefully logged off and think that there had been a maintenance (I was not inform as I have said that I was not in front of my computer). Knowing this was not a big issue, I decided to find out the reason behind this said maintenance. I went on their Facebook page and saw a notice that goes:

Okay, so I knew the reason behind the maintenance and decided to be as patient as I could and wait for when this would all be fixed and over. As my patience decided to feint and the time was about 9.50 p.m. or so, I decided to attempt a login, which brought to a 'Please restart to download update' loop and once again be informed of the maintenance that is still on-going.

I went back to their Facebook page and forum to seek if there were any extensions in their maintenance, at not to my surprise I see this:


All right, I go on and wait a little longer while I surf the web, but putting in a few looks in their CabalSEA Facebook page as well as the forums to get updates on when the maintenance would have ended. After 10 minutes or so, there had been an announcement over their Facebook stating the issue has been fixed and the server is finally up:


Thinking finally, the maintenance is over and I can enter to see if any of my items had been sold while I was AFK while vending my items in my personal shop. To my dismay, as I enter the game, I am still getting the 'Please restart to download update' loop even attempting this several times for about 30 minutes since the time of that announcement has been made. Again, I headed back to their Facebook page and then I saw this:


Then not long after, everyone who managed to enter the game told us that there were 2 new update patch files, update_158.dat and update_159.dat that they downloaded as they enter.


553 comments. I contributed about 5, which is more than usual for these kind of statuses suggesting a manual patch would definitely help a lot of players. Most of us who are not able to access the game seem to be from Malaysia, but I completely understand and bare with the situation for a little longer. Throughout that period, I was on the forum stating that the developers should have at least made manual patches while they were fixing this auto-patch problem which took them forever to realise that the suggestion would have saved a lot of people's time. As I attempt the client a few times, including reinstallation and re-patching, I finally was able to patch through. About awhile back, one of my Singaporean friends who happens to be a CabalSEA player as well told me his account was blocked for no apparent reason. I sympathize for this, I am sure he made no attempts at hacking or exploiting glitches from all the times I have played the game with him. Right as my patch completes, I see this announcements:


Right, no problems. As I attempted to login several times, I got this instead:



The first thing that came in my mind was, am I another one of the victims of these weird hacking phenomenon? I recalled a thread in the forum stating how there were many people who suffered from a similar fate when they discovered their account has been blocked for no apparent reason. Mind you, I take precautions when I play these games. If I absolutely need to play this game away from the safety of my own personal computer, I will change my password before going to play elsewhere and change my password when I return home. Most of the other players did take the same precautions, and yet they suffer such fate? In any case, the topic is found in CabalSEA forum at http://forums.asiasoftsea.net/forumdisplay.php?f=202 that is titled:


Direct link for that thread would be http://forums.asiasoftsea.net/showthread.php?t=913852

Having thought my account had been compromised, I decided to send an i-Box query to be enlighten on thus situation. The i-Box serves as a 'complain & enquiry' box for players who have problems for CabalSEA. It looks something like this:


I sent that query at the wee hours of the 3rd of May 2011, after discovering it had been blocked. Hoping for a reply and that this gets fixed soon, I decided to just go to bed and hope to get a reply on what could possibly be the cause for such actions, be it made by a 3rd party or even Asiasoft (or ESTSoft).

I posted a little about my concern in the thread as mentioned on what could possibly the cause of these sudden mass banning:




The following hours after I woke up from my sleep, I checked my email. It was passed noon, drawing closer to the evening when I discovered that the query has been responded by an automated mail that goes like this:


My full name has been removed for security reasons. I went through that mail, over and over again, word by word to make sure I did not read it wrong in any way.


caught for Product Investigation
ban for 7777 days
Only after successful identity verification and payment
You will be contacted by the administrator with an email on the mode of payment once we have received your documents


Those words steadily implied I have been in cahoots with a lot of shady game exploits, which I never done so in my life! If I had been doing anything illegal in the game, I would not be complaining over how defected the game has grown over the years, would I not? You can imagine the rage I felt for implying that I was already guilty without further evidential proof to support my so-called 'acts' on the breach of their policy which is very infuriating.

This does not end here. I brought this over to the forum, the following replies highlighted the events that follow (posting the ones that are relevant):








This was the last post on the thread and sad to say, I have yet to receive any notifications, email or even a reply regarding this issue by anyone. All of us are just left out in the cold and what made this worse is that the judicial system in this game is 'guilty before proven innocent'.

Even if they did find out that my account was in no way of a violation by intent, I hardly believe they would even apologize for their mistakes let alone compensate me for the lost of time for the game over the past 3 days.

This is not the first time Asiasoft had sparked me to write on how crapped up their services are, pass posts of their screw ups:

Asiasoft, Another Leader in Cyber Gaming Industries? I Think Not
CabalSEA Giving Away A-Cash! (This event never see the light of day)
Worst E-Gaming Company Ever - Asiasoft

You decide.