Thorin Oakshield

There's good news and bad news again today. The good news, I finished the Epic Office Quest. The bad news, I died. Again. Yes, again. Was distracted while in a fight in the machine hub, when looking for the last employee I wasn't able to find. Before I knew it, a couple of Temple Guardian bosses thrown their traps at me, a few of those Fen Fires cast their spells at me ( and I'm still not sure if they do only magic or only frost damage!) while several other temple guardians were trying to turn me into mince meat. So my healthbar did the same trick as that car hitting the concrete wall: from 100% to 0% in one second. So, after the death (which was #12 on this char), I went on searching for that employee, found him eventually, jumped to Artamark and did the other quest at X-mas island. At least all of that was enough to give me another level plus enough SB to fight monsters 2-3 levels above me in Platinum. Still, I'm wondering what to do now. The way I see it, I got two options. First: Do a full explore of the map in Platinum, do all quests available - including encountering that spider bitch - before moving to Niob. Disadvantage: it will be long and boring to do that. Advantage: I will level up quite a lot, which may be safer. Or: Doing the main quest, HE side quest and the Epic Office Quest in Platinum, then switch to Niob and do the full map exploring, all quests etc again at that one. Disadvantage: I may enter Niob with an underpowered or underleveled character. Advantage: Platinum will be shorter, I will avoid some of the more dreadful side quests, although I would need to do some quests to open certain area's for the Epic Office Quest. IF I decide to take this route, I may consider downloading the Adornment of Nine Hells set as well as the set with that super resitance chest piece to be a bit prepared. Since that's only half of my equipment, everything else may still be depending at what I'm finding. Thorin

Did even more slaying as you knew. Was posting about it when you posted your reply. Thorin

Revenge can be sweet, but also ironical! Strange line to open a post, yeah, but all so true at the moment. I decided to do the Empty Office Quest in Gold after all, as it would help me in platinum in case I get close to or just over level 100. Well, I got that level 100 before finishing the quest, which means I will have the better (read: strong) potions to start with. But how ironical that not long before I reached the jungle region, my SB has increased enough to give me an eleven level difference. Even more ironical that one of the missing employees is located in the same cave the spider queen is. In fact, he's in the same room. So there I was, wondering if I had to fight her again and if so, if I would be able to lure her out of the way long enough to give me an opportunity to talk to him. However, the moment that room came into sight, the spider queen had an exclamation mark over her head. Which meant I had to talk to her to start the fight again! So I talked to the employee, switched to Shadow Step, turned my camera so I would be able to jump out of the room, talked, pressed OK, jumped away and ran into the hallway as I know - from the vid Gogo posted - that I would have a slightly better chance over there as fighting her in the room or dooropening. First thing I did after that was switching to the Expulse Magic - Meteor Combo and cast that several times in a row. At that point she hadn't attacked me, but her first hit did remind me of switching my orbs to Magic ones as well. So it was hit space, and continuing casting the combo until she healed up one time. After that I realized that I would auto attack the spiders, but that would also mean I would give her a window to heal (and to cast spells against me). So I switched to the CA itself, kept casting it on her until the Expulse Magic ran out, switched the combo and used that to keep any spider casts away from me. At some point I crossed her 2nd healing point and she didn't heal. Which was enough for me to once more switch to my meteors and keep spamming it. More important, it also gave me the time to do a screenshot, as I felt that even if she healed up in that small window, I'd be able to counter it again. And of course, that was the time she had to cast some spiders, meaning I had once more to revert my spells, then do her more damage with the meteors, until I was very very very VERY certain she wouldn't pull another trick from her sleeve. Which she didn't, at least this time I had the chance: Didn't take me long after that to kill her off and "harvest" my loot. Of course I do realize very well that I killed her when she was at the regions level cap, while I had in fact gained 5 levels; making her 3 levels below of what she could be. But at the same time, her hit chances compared to mine are amazing. So I'm quite happy as I didn't just kill off that dragon I didn't know was there, but also the nemesis of my journey through gold. Now it's time to get the last 12 employees, before jumping to Altamark, as it seems I have forgotten about a quest in that region. Thorin

I s'pose you mean this: I think I might as well list all my skills and the levels I intend to take them to: (listed as skill, current level, intended level) Bargaining: 99 / maxed Arrant Pyro Lore: 48 / 100 Concentration: 45 / 100 Arrant Pyro Focus: 41 / 75 Armor Lore: 99 / 100 Constitution: 31 / 75 Ancient Magic: 24 / 75 Delphic Arcania Focus: 13 / 14 (which doesn't seem right imho, as I intend to spec Expulse Magic as well) Shield Lore: 5 / 75 Enhanced perception: 11 / al remaining skill points Didn't know that about Grand Ivi, so will certainly turn all my runes into that and eat it to the max. May be very useful indeed to have the max bonus of that one. Got myself a bargaining suit (all the armour, orbs and some rings amy in the top of my inventory), as well as a bargaining slot (the last one) which - if I'm not mistaken - boosts my bargaining close to or even over 200. I'm not certain about it at the moment, as I need to upgrade some of the amulets in it. I was lucky enough to find myself two Necklaces of Greed giving me +4 bargain, as well as some armour pieces giving one or more points higher as the one they replaced. Haven't been shopping since, so haven't tested it yet. Will do that after I finished the Empty Office Quest on gold. With the CM patch is pretty easy to jump to the starter island now, so got a nice opportunity to shop there. Damn, forgot this one was there too: Oh well, it went down pretty fast, although I had more problems with the minions attacking me. Just checked, bargaining with the full suit on is at 212. Thorin

First task done: I managed to survive long enough to enter platinum with this character. It's been a close call a few times, including once fighting one of the machine bosses, but I managed it. Gained enough SB to end up with monster level of 108, at my own 99, most of the quests done (flame lord, poison lord and that Spider bwitch are open and empy Office is one I'm still considering) at the main campaign area; not certain if I move her in gold to the Ice and Blood area's or if I'll do that later. Knowing that especially the Blood Forest is having lots of anti-magic critters, visiting those area's later may be a better choice. As for skills and other stats: I got a full list of the points I've allocated, as well as all the additions done to the CA's in an excell file, to keep an eye on them, but also to keep track of what I actually spend where without taking all the items off of her. Won't post that list here, unless someone is interested. That may also the reason why I missed that comment Hooya posted. I started this build quite a while ago, set up my skills and the end-levels in an excell doc and never bothered looking at the post as I got all I needed to know. Or so I thought. Oh well, nothing I can do about that now, unless starting over some day. Perhaps I will, perhaps I'll do an ice build later. For now I'm going to level her a bit in Platinum and wondering if I should do the empty office quest or not (given that I may use the items on a seraphim I got waiting in Platinum as well.) Thorin

Long post ahead, so those who don't want to read, better move to another topic now...................... To start with, I discovered - to my horror, I must admit - that my HE was still wearing some of her Silver items, including a level 39 - most likely because of the socketted ammy or ring - piece. That's kinda asking for the problems I ran into. So it looks the death of my HE was more my own fault as in lacking the right equipment and perhaps being a bit too overconvident after so easily killing the campaign bosses, as it was to the CM patch. @Hooyaah , Thx for the tips. Unfortunately at my current level, Meteor Strike has already been improved, so I won't be able to use the ones you suggested. The improvements I choose were based upon one of the builds I found here; but I also discovered some of the names of the improvements have been changed at some point; which also may have been a reason or a cause for the problems. Anyway, the things I choose were Skull Smash, Smoldering Boulder and Copious Shower. It's listed in the screenshot as well, so no reason to explain why. For Grand Ivigoration I choose the same things you reccommended, although I'm not certain I've got enough points for a full spec yet. I am pretty sure I haven't been able to spec Expulse Magic yet, but your list was the same I had in mind - again, based upon that old topic - so at least I'm certain I took the right choices there. Makes me wonder if my build is based upon an old one you created a long time ago. As for DPS, I'm able to rain down 12 meteors doing 2.4K dmg each at a 1.4s interval. That's over 20K dmg a second; which should've been enough to deal with her. Unless my calculations are off somewhere? @gogoblender Have you seen that this player actually had the time to move his mousepointer away from the spiderqueen to click at a healthpotion? And not once, but multiple times? @Flix: Yeah, that leech option most NPC have is sometimes maddeing. Especially since they got it at both the physical - as in melee and ranged attacks - as the spell attacks; while as a player you only have it for your physical attacks. I do understand why the dev's took it out, knowing how my BM was able to survive a mob starting with 1% HP left, and then casting one or two fire spirals to use the 25-30% socketted LL to heal up. But at the same time, it meant that you go from overpowered in one game into underpowered in the sequel. And now you mention it, that LL could very well been the reason my char got killed. Like I said in my first post, she got hit twice in a row by some super spell or something. I had been able to heal up after previous attacks from her; which didn't take out more as 1/3rd of her health. However, if she did two of those spells, burning through all of my resistances and have LL on top of that; yes, that may be enough for her to kill my HE with two shots. Still, not something I'm happy about though. Anyway, one of the reasons I wasn't happy with the death was the way it happened, but also because of the loss. I had build up a nice amount of SB, making me fighting monsters 11 levels above me. After that death and all monsters at my level, I have been one-shotting them for quite some time. And since SB is based upon my actuall combat time and not - as in S:UW - upon the time you are near monsters, one-shotting monsters doesn't help much in building it up again. There were times I relied to other spells to fight monsters, just to increase the actually fighting time. But it eventually paid off and I'm facing monsters 6 levels above me again. I noticed that even that can be a pain, when encountering Mazzagon's Female bodyguards who were almost shredding me because of their setup. Which is a totem cast from one and rooting you from the other; as well as some other Dryad spells and, again, their spells having LL. Those two things combined can be deadly, so I used my Expulse Magic / meteor shower combo to deal with them until the point they gave up their casting and "simply" switched to melee. After that it was just spamming meteors until they went down. Compared to them the endboss of that quest was a walk in the park with your partner, while eating icecream and enjoying the sun. More important, with those 6 level's because of the SB and my char being level 97 atm, dropped items are getting better as well. I'm not where I should be, but I'm getting to where I used to be, including getting more difficult monsters over time. Still, I got the feeling that the previous two minibosses will be a lot harder as the Facetteleon. Especially since the latter doesn't move around as much and is partially ice / magic based and thus no match to an overdose of fire / physical damage. I hope. Thorin

After being absent from Sacred 2 for quite some time, I recently picked the game up again. One of the reasons why I abandonned it, was because I had 3 characters at near same levels running in the same area in Gold. And trust me, when seeing the same part of sand for the third time when leveling another character, things do get boring. Anyway, I decided to focus at my pyromancer HE for now, as she's also my shopper and therefore would be able to support the other characters later on. I knew I had three quests open, as at the time of starting them, the bosses were overpowered. Yet, after running around counting grains of sa.... erhm, collecting XP, I decided to face one of them: Holos, that minotaur. Didn't take me long to kill him, most likely because I had gained one level and used the five skill points to boost her pyromancer lore focus, concentration and armour, as well as the "fun skill" bargaining. And I think casting meteors at a 1.5s interval, while the 12 meteors do 2.3K dmg each, helps a lot. Even if the HE is at level 94 and Holos was at level 103 because of SB. Did more exploring and had fun wiping out the wherewolf army at the Twitty Tister, despite it was a challenge as you're very outnumbered by champions. So I continued, ended up to the spot where I had to kill the Garganthropod, went in, brought it down to about 50% health, retreated because it spawned those t-mutation scorps; which do lots of magic dmg and thus weaken you for other damage types; killed the offspring, went back in, removed the other 50% health and killed the three new offspring as well. And all while drinking 5-6 health potions maximum. So.... of to the jungle it was. Didn't have many problems there, although the panther champs were able to forcing me hitting space every once in a while. Went in to see Krall; who was at the time 11 levels above me (105 vs my 94), killed him with using two potions and the few things after that managed to get me to level 95. To finish the area I had two (or three) more quests to do. One was the spider queen, the other one the boathouse and clearing the islands connected to that. So I went into the dungeon, killed the champ spiders spawning there with a single meteor strike (still at 1.4s regen, but now doing 2.4K dmg), talked to the spiderqueen and decided to kill her, instead of the seraphim giving you the final quest. Not smart, perhaps, considering my HE does the shadow path; not to mention I know that bitch is tough; but I never expected to happen what happened now. Turns out the spider queen is FAR stronger as the campaign bosses. She was level 106, compared to my HE's level 95; but still. She's able to heal up to full health as soon as she's down to 70% health, unless you're able to hit her hard enough to get below that. And around 30% health she's got this dreadfull healing spell as well. She's also able to debuf you, making you a lot more vunerable to her spells, plus that she's doing 4 kinds of damage, making you pretty vunerable to one kind as you can only fit 3 orbs in the sockets. And on top of that she's also able to summon multiple kinds of spiders. Plus, I'm pretty sure she got something like WIDD, seeing what happened next. I was able to survive all of that, until I got her down to 25%. At that point she hit me with a magic spell killing 70+% of my health, followed by a similar spell doing the same amount of damage the moment I hit my space bar. The end result was a dead HE in that dungeon and me cursing in all the languages I know. After the respawning - thank the Sacred gods I was playing softcore!!! - I finished that boathouse quest; explored the island, killed the earth lord with some difficulty as he wasn't vunerable to fire and physic dmg was low at him (makes sense, since he's got high phys resistance), but wasn't happy at all. Main reason: I lost over 50 Survival bonus, also means all spawns are now at my level or one level above me. It also means I'm getting basically crap items right now (my level, instead of 11 levels above me), XP is crap because all is at a similar level and the entire challenge because of the SB is gone. And that made me wonder; why is it, that mini-bosses in the CM have become far stronger as the campaign bosses? If it's for "fun", then I don't see the fun of it. This game is suposed to be a challenge, but with minibosses having higher resistances and doing more damage as campaign bosses, the balance and fun is gone. I had fun killing the wherewolf army at the Twitty Tister. I had fun killing the Garganthropod and Klar the Flying Demon. I had fun killing Holos and the Earth Lord, I had fun when kiling the Harpy Queen and I even had fun when I didn't pay attention and 6 of those large green scorpion champions tried to kill me (and almost succeeded) and I even had fun killing another boss I aparently had forgotten. I didn't have fun when encountering the overpowered spider queen. Any opponent should be able to down - fast or slow, that doesn't matter - if it's confronted with a hail of 12 meteors doing 2.4-2.5K in damage each and which is cast every 1.4 seconds. Yet, that spiderqueen doesn't and in fact only seems to get stronger. So here's my request / comment: Perhaps it's time to check mini-bosses to make sure they won't be overpowered compared to the main campaign bosses. The latter should be hard, not the former. Especially now there are more mods to make the game harder for those who want it, it may be time to keep the CM patch for what it is, to make sure the community gets their share of fun, not just a group of players who like challenges. As right as it is, that spider queen isn't a challenge, but a certain way to have your char commit suicide. Thorin PS: yes, even a day later I'm still piffed off about this. So imange how I was like yesterday. Edit: this is what happens when I encounter a poison lord (who's got more phys resistance as poison resistance) And the dmg my meteors do: And don't start about being underpowered, as the level 96 champ turtles go down with 1-2 meteor strikes.

And for the same reason I've never been able to try a Daemon in HC. Too busy building Dwarves. Same thing happened with the other characters. I've been busy with a Seraphim quite some time, tried a Gladiator for a Clan-DA challenge (before I got kicked out) and eventually tried a WE and BM as well, in which the BM was the one I had most fun with. Surprisingly, I followed the same pattern a bit in Sacred 2. Started with a Seraphim - and she's still may favorite character - then a Shadow Warrior, Dryad and eventually HE. I never managed to get into the Inquisitor or Temple Guard; so I guess real hybrid buildings are just nothing for me. And yes, I still miss playing these great games in MP. The HC community was great until the point S:UW hit the bargain bins. At that point the item beggars entered the servers, which was a pitty. But considering that I spent more time in these two games as in most other RPG's I got, combined says a lot. Closest may be ESO, but I'm not even sure about that. Thorin

Thx Gogo, but being the "ullti-dwarfer", I dunno. Other's have been posting Dwarven builds at this forum, while I never have. Just running around killing things with some builds I tried. And some failed misserably. I used to have fun with the little fellow, tried several builds with his and found the CA / Flamer to be the one having the best pay-off between damage and staying alive. I've had in mind to write a guide at some point, but as usual, the moment I start with that, I forget to write down when to put points in which skill until I've leveled 3-4 times and realizes I have to do that as well. I do know that I kept trading at a max at all levels in this build I posted that screenshot off. I began using +xWL items (and +y RSM) pretty fast to overcome the lack of skill points in WL. When I finally was able to drop more points in skills (meaning 3+), I maximized WL even before working at Dwarven Lore and Weapon tech. I also remember I've been dropping all atribute points in Phys Regen for faster health regen and higher HP. Constitution is adding to that later, but I think I'll just drop point every 4th level or so in it. But what I found out about being more important: DO NOT focus at getting complete sets, unless it's for trading / forging. Instead, use the set pieces which are giving the best bonus for your build and use normal items if they boost one of the important skills more as a set piece does. So for the build of that screenshot, a summary: - Keep trading maxed out from the start. It'll help you make money and it'll help you getting that yellow item with that high WL boost. On top of that, there's Bravemart............. - WL is one of those skills you keep maxed as well. Early on with maxing trade it'll be hard, but as soon as you got your 3rd skill point, bring it up to max, then keep adding points every level. It boosts both CB and Flamethrower as well as your hand weapon. Being that a single handed, 2-handed or ranged weapon doesn't matter. - Dwarven Lore: One of the essential two skills to reduce regen of your CB and Flamethrower. Drop any left points in it the moment you got your trading and WL maxed. AFter getting more skills, drop one point in it every x levels. (will explain later) - Weapon Tech: the other essential skill to reduce regen. And just like with Dwarven Lore, drop some left over points in it every x(levels) - Armor, Constitution: those two are essential. Either to make the use of higher level armour easier - and you will need it as when all goes well you fight monsters 10+ level's above you because of SB - and to boost your health points. - Forge Lore, Axe Lore: While one of these skills can be useful to smith the Dwarven runes into your armour and weapons ,the other one can be used for a faster attack speed of your main axe. Being it a single handed or a 2 handed weapon, that's even. For those of you who like a sword, simply use sword lore and take all the benefits of that prototype sword you can find at some point. And just as with the above, add points every x levels. As for the atribute points; simply drop them all in Phys Regen. It'll boost your health and will reduce the regen of that Attack CA you started with. One you won't be needing (much) if all goes well. What I mean with every x levels is, that you will have points left after putting them in WL and trading. First it'll be one point, later 2 (and I believe even 3). What I do is spreading the remaining points over the remaining skills. As a result some won't get up as fast as they probably should, but in return you get an pretty balanced build. And the advantage of this, is that you can skip dropping points in Armour and Axe Lore at some point, the moment you're able to get the maximum benefits of it; only to drop point in them when you need them again. I won't do a full equipment list here, but four things are important to know: 1) Near Mascarel is Thain's Axe; a unique that boost WL (and fire dmg) a lot. When doing the campaign in SP, you'll need to move from Mascarel to the north and from there to the desert where you find lots and lots of skellies and undead. Who are VERY vunerable to fire.......... 2) With trading as a skill, equip a weapon and a shield with 3-4 slots in one of your weapon slots and fill those slots up with +x trading or +y skill amulets or rings. it will help you boosting your trading skill a lot 3) and in addition to that, Thar Erross armour is giving you a boost to trading. Whenever you find that piece, keep it for your trading suit. The entire set will give you a boost to forging as well, while the gauntlets are having a very high amount of LL. So whenever you can, use those. 4) Life leech is your friend in this game and that's true for this Dwarf too. While you may not need it with CB, it's very useful when needing the flame thrower. However, with the setup of this game compared to Sacred 2, having 20-25% LL is enough to keep you alive. Thorin

First of all: a - very belated - welcome from me. I'm quite certain you're going to find all you need about these two great games over here or at the Wiki. As for "solid" builds, in Sacred: Underworld a cannonblast / flamethrower combo Dwarf is able to rule them all. It'll take some time to get the build going, but once you manage to get that CB close to 1 second regen and your flamethrower close to duration (which starts at 3 sec, if not mistaken), your little fellow is able to kill most opponents in 1-2 hits. The three key skills for him are Weapon Lore (= damage output), Dwarven Lore and Dwarven Tech (both cutting on the two CA's regens). I'm running an occasional game with a build having that and am enjoying it for the easy killings. Even dragons went down in 4-5 shots maximum. Just to give an idea about the dmg he does: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1518131747 A Fire spiral BM using meteor as backup spell is working well as well. I had lots of fun in MP when casting flameskin on myself, then run around to lure all the monsters to one spot, before casting firespiral and vavorizing them all in one go. As for Sacred 2: it's been a while since I played that one, but I still got very good memories about my pure melee seraphim, a Fire High Elf and my Dryad. Especially the Dryad can be fun once you got her build going and using the blowpipes as they have the instant hit bug / glitch. But no matter what you choose, make sure you install the CM-patch for Sacred 2 before playing the game. It'll add wonderful new items, some new quests and removes quite some bugs Ascaron never got to kill because of their bankrupty. But most important: No matter what you do, keep enjoying those two great games! Thorin

It's been a while since I faced the GC with a char, but if I'm not mistaken the trick was to destroy the rocks he throws at you. These rocks boost your damage output, making it a lot easier to kill him. Another trick is to lure the GC up to the stairway until he's at the 2nd or 3rd platform. That way he won't be able to use the leaking T-energy to heal himself and his shield. When you're able to stand a bit above him, you're able to take him down with ranged attacks, while he won't be able to hurt you. Good luck! Thorin

I checked it with another dungeon today and noticed the same pattern. With a level 38 char I encountered level 40-41 monsters first, followed by a spawn of level 41-42 and a level 44 miniboss, followed by a level 42-43 spawn, followed by a level 39-40 spawn. My character is having about 50% SB, so minimal level 41-42 spawns should be normal as an enounter. It's what I encounter outside dungeons too. So it looks like the merchants and dungeons use the same spawning system. Several times going up in level, followed by a reset point where you're facing monsters close to your own level. This already makes me wonder how much I can level once getting to the Orc Cave. Thorin

A long time ago, when Sacred: Underworld was still "hot", I'd spent some time checking how the merchants of Ancaria worked with their offering of items. More about that can be found in this particular thread. Today I've spent quite some time with two of my characters in the Undead dungeon near Faeries Crossing. I remembered it was one of those spots ppl in MP liked to level a lot. Similar to the Orc Cave in the Khorad Nur desert. After a few runs I noticed something odd. Monsters that were level 32 in a previous run, were level 35-36 in the next one. And that was without leveling up my character, as that would automatic increase the monster level by +1. So I decided to do a run with another character and I've experienced the same thing. The level of the spawns change every time you exit and enter the dungeon to have them respawning. Visiting the merchant or blacksmith to adjust gear doesn't matter; the level changes nevertheless. For what I've seen - and I intend to do some more testing, including by adding some other dungeons to the test as well - the spawns will be level to your character's level, then go up a couple of times according to your SB, before "resetting" again with a dungeon close to your character level. That also means that at level 32-ish your XP will vary from 1.5K to 2.5K, depending at the monster you're killing. Not to mention, it certainly is a nice spot to grind a few levels before continuing the main campain in SP. Thorin

You're not the only one doing that. I've seen more comments in the Sacred Underworld section referring to Sacred: Fallen Angel instead. I doubt you're also the last one making that mistaken. In general content: I've found and added the link to a page explaining how to change the colour of your character's name when creating one. It turned out Night Wolfe's site is still up, having that very important information. The rest of the site might be very useful for players as well, I think. Thorin

For a lot of the old players, MP was the only thing there was. I've played SP for a while, the moved to MP, kinda abandonned the game when Sacred 2 was in devellopment and I joined the BETA-team, played it a bit every once in a while until a Win10 upgrade made that possible and only recently have returned to the game. IMHO, playing SP gives you a much better insight of the game, because you're lacking sets and often the char special uniques. Some items, like Thar's Axe, are available for all characters, helping you with builds, but even that one is limited to one per difficulty, unlike MP where you could do a run every time you log in. I'm just hoping this little guide of mine will help some players returning to (imho) one of the best games of the past 15 years. Yup, that's most likely the biggest disadvantage this game has compared to its successor. Fiding that one single piece you so desperate need at another and unable to give it to that character. However, if I'm not mistaken, you could load both characters in LAN and use the starting island to switch items; although I'm not sure if you also did safe them in the progress of doing that, or if you needed to export the character. And thus forcing you to start all over again. Thorin

There were a few players who'd use the "undead army glitch", then teleport to the island to be safe and logged out. Leaving those zombies around for some reason and killing anyone trying to enter the island. Either by logging in, or to move quickly between two spawnpoints. That island can be entered by some characters having a jumping, teleporting or flying CA (not skill, Podgie ), but the underground area with all the portals can't be accessed in SP anymore. Still, having access to a smith, combo master and trader very early in the game and before you've unlocked the first two through their quests can be very useful. Reason why I mentioned it. It should still be accessable in LAN-games and perhaps I'll check that at some point. Might be a good time to rewrite that MP starter's guide I did a long time ago. Thorin

Introduction: Since a lot of the members here have experience with Sacred in MP, I thought it might be a good idea to create a guide for this game in Single Player. Yes, that’s right, the “dull” version. The biggest difference between SP and MP – other than the lack of someone joining your party – is that you’ll going to miss the support of other players. A lot. I even dare to say, an awful lot even. And that changes the entire gameplay, as completing and using sets is making things a lot harder as well. To counter that, you need to rely on unique (golden) and rare (yellow) items a lot more as you did in MP and often that killer-build you used in MP isn’t possible because of that. However, at the same time this offers a far more challenging gameplay as MP had; despite that in MP the enemies got stronger the more players had joined the server. Then there’s the fact that SP is done in Soft Core. I don’t think I need to explain that, do I? The next difference is that you won’t be able to use the starter island portals to get to several spots in Ancaria, giving you access to easy to do quests and XP. Instead you start at some fixed spots near Bellevue, depending at which character you choose to play. That also means, that depending at your starting position, you got an easy (Dwarf) or a hard (Seraphim) start. The good thing about this, however, you’ll be starting in Bellevue, meaning you got an abundancy of merchants to visit. That is, if you got the gold for it. The last difference is that you’re able to pause the game. That’s right, you can pause the game. And although it sounds useless, it’s a very useful feature when you must go AFK for a bit. We all remember from MP all to well that the “safe spot” we were using turned out to be not that safe after all, making us loose our character. Starting your game: Before we launch the game, we're going to adjust one thing and change another for that smoothier game experience. First thing done is to open up explorer - or any other program designed to browse your game folders, and head to C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Sacred Gold\*.* This will open up and show all files in the Sacred Gold folder, of which you're going to work with two. First we're going to launch the Config.exe file. This file lets us choose an on/off option for some settings. Right now, the only thing we have to do is making sure the box in front of "32 Bit Color Depth" is checked. Click at [OK] after that to safe the settings and it should auto close. Second thing we do is opening the "Settings.cfg" file. This can be done with Wordpad or Notepad, so it's not a real biggie. In this file we'll find a line close to the top, reading DEFAULT_SKILLS : 1 Replace this by DEFAULT_SKILLS : 0 and then safe the file. What it does, is changing the two default starter skills from the ones the Dev's have set, into the option to choose those skills yourself. Which in turn gives you the ability to choose for instance Trading as a skill for your Dwarf or getting rid of that non-used Magic Lore at your Melee seraphim. When you've changed the skill setting, safe the file and close it. You're now safe to launch the game. Another one of those things I don’t think I have to tell you, is what to do next. It’s simply choosing a character, give him / her a name, select difficulty and go. I did a little search for the colour coding of the names and came up with something that is in fact far more useful: Night Wolfe's Sacred Site. It contains lots of good info, including how to use the colour and symbol codes. For that, use this link: Colours and symbols in your character name What is important is the difficulty. I know Bronze is considered “baby mode” because it’s so easy. Yet, bronze is the difficulty we choose because it’s easier. Starting at Silver is challenging, perhaps very challenging and I dare say, most likely too challenging. And since you start with only 3 health potions, bad weapons and no armour, death is waiting around the corner. In both ways of speaking in some occasions. So, Bronze it is and when that’s set, start the game. Depending at the character you have chosen, you start at different spots. - The Battlemage starts north of Bellevue at the stone circle. His first fight is pretty hard and demands a lot of running around and waiting for a spell regeneration. On top of that, after his first fight he’s got to deal with quite some goblins nearby, making the first trip to a merchant (west of his location) or picking up a quest not that easy. Yet, once he gets rolling, he’s able to survive the starting area easily. - The Dwarf, Wood Elf and Dark Elf start close to one another at a location to the Southwest of Bellevue. The two Elves at the plateau, the Dwarf a bit more to the Southwest of that plateau. Although being confronted with opponents soon, it’s one of the easier starts because the opponents are in general far away from each other. - The Deamon starts at the graveyard near the old manor, east of Bellevue. She can have an easy start if you don’t open the graves immediately. If you do, be prepared to fight a trio of undead at some point. It would be better to keep the graves as they are, since one quest would take you back to this location anyway. - The Gladiator starts in the Arena. The first fights are easy, the next one a bit harder, but after that he’s free to roam Ancaria. He’s also the only one basically starting next to a merchant, making his life a bit easier too. - The Seraphim starts to the north of Bellevue at the monastery. She’s got one of the harder starts, mostly because her starting quest is asking to kill quite some opponents. Fortunately for her there’s an easy to do side quest nearby ànd she’s close to a well, giving an additional health potion. However, one of her starting foes lurks near that well as well, so expect a fight over a health potion. - The Vampires starts at the old manor slightly to the northwest of the graveyards the Deamon starts at. Which gives her more or less the same starting method; do the personal starting quest, but don’t open up any graves….. yet. Exploring and leveling: As said, we start in Bronze difficulty because it’s easier. So, after we have entered the game and done the personal starting quest some of the characters have, it’s time to start looking around. That means walking a lot, picking up and completing quests, gathering loot, selling items and buying better stuff and visiting any dungeon possible. With the exception of doing two quests, there’s absolutely no reason to cross the bridge to Silvercreek right now. Those two quests are “the Messenger” quest and "Book of Wisdom", the quest given to you by the combo master. The first because after completing that quest, talking to the quest giver will reward you with an additional amount of XP. The second because of RNG. Depending at the character you play, you may want to exchange a couple of runes for a jumping, flying or teleportation rune, which can be used to enter the MP starter island and use the merchant, combo master and blacksmith at that spot. For those of you thinking: “But when playing this game in SP I won’t need them after leaving Bellevue”, yes, you’re correct. However, we won’t stay in Bellevue for long. Or better said, in Bronze. Once you have been exploring all in Bellevue and have been leveling up, you’re most likely level 5-6. This is enough to end the game here, by exporting your character first and closing the game after that. A fresh, and harder, start: Now you’ve played a bit in Bronze and created a slightly better prepared character, it’s time to move to the real part of this game: Silver difficulty and beyond. Your adventures in Bronze gave you enough of an understanding of this game - again for some, I think – and how everything works. So once again we’re going to start a new game, but instead of creating a character, we’re going to import one. It’s quite obvious how to do that, so I won’t explain it. When the imported character is chosen, select the SILVER difficulty before starting the game. Otherwise you’d be doing a Bronze game again, something we don’t want to. Let the intro movie play and do everything you just did in Bronze again. Except, this time we will cross the river to Silvercreek and we will venture more north, west, south and east of where we started; depending at where the main quest takes us, that is.. Keep in mind that by changing difficulty, your health potions all the sudden heals up to 60% of your health, instead of the full 100% they did in Bronze. Not to mention that the monsters now scale to your level, thus hitting you harder and occasionally be more annoying. It may be therefore a good idea to change some of the settings, for instance by setting the warning level to 41%. Also keep in mind that once an area is unlocked, you can return to it using the teleporters. While it won’t be necessary in Silver, it may be in Gold. And now I mention it, make sure you export your character before doing the last boss-fight. If I remember it correctly, the game asks for it, however it’s always better to do it yourself as well. As soon as Gold is unlocked, you can import your character to it and start all over. By now you should know how. 😉 Thorin

Yup. *Mhuahahahahahahahahahaha *cough cough* ha! And yes, it's really been that long. In fact, I think it's even been 14 - 15 years, as I just discovered some old saves dating 2004!! It actually surprised me too, I've got to admit that. Another thing that surprised me, is how active the game still is at Steam. There are a few guides out over there; although not the best kind of guides, if you asked me. But then, just like those who wrote the guides, I think I'm a bit biased. There are also quite some questions about how to run this game under Win10, often being replied with lots of tech stuff about downloading programs and such, while the tip Tipsterdad (and this really is a case of what's in a name!!) posted over here works well enough for me. But yes, so many fond memories about this game. And a few that weren't. Death of chars you worked hard to get to that level is something no-one likes at all. I think the only two times I was really upset about it, was when I lost my Seraphim because of Clan RUS monsterspawners and the Dwarf I had build up somewhere close to level 120, which died in the Nuk-nuk forest. And not even because of my stupidity, but because I handed my partner in crime in that game some of the flowers you could pick up for a mission. Turned out she never had received any flowers from any men before and she was so perplexed, she forgot about the game. Which; given that some of those buggers in that Nuk-Nuk forest had WIDD in extremis; wasn't a good idea. I chopped my way through them, she didn't support me with her Vamp and before I knew it, it was goodbye one hitter Dwarf. I was in fact so upset about it, that when creating a new character, I forgot to click at the skull-symbol. And thus created a SC instead of a HC char. Another nice thing I remember, all the island drops a group of players - and it includes a lot of the older forum members here - dropped at the lower level starter islands. With some luck you'd manage to get several full sets for your MP-chars within a few days. Partially with your own finds, partially with what other dropped. And with lots of luck, you'd be able to collect the same set for the next server level as well. As for my attempt to level a char to 216; that's a lot harder as expected. I've done several restarts before it felt "right" and even then things aren't easy. One problem - and it's the biggest one as well - is the lack of support of other players like we had in MP. Drops are terrible; well they were in MP as well, but with 100's of players around in multiple servers you didn't notice it that much; meaning you have to rely a lot at white, blue and yellow items. After a few tries, I remembered the trick to reset the starting skills and that made my life a bit easier too. One of the chars I started was a cannonblast / flamethrower Dwarf; who's first chosen skills were shopping and WL. At some point in the game I had twice the amount of WL as I had invested points into it, doing tremendous damage with both CA's at a "reasonable" regen. Meaning about 1K at the cannonblast vs 1.5s regen and 5-600 dmg at the flamethrower and a regen of 4-5s with a char level around level 20 and after picking up Wilbur. Which means I'm able to snipe most of my opponents now and those who're foolish enough to venture close to me are all the sudden at an unexpected BBQ. Unfortunately, the Dwarf died at the Goblin Lawn, so SB is quite low. And being a cannon-sniper, it might remain quite low as well; which is both an advantage as a disadvantage. But then, having shopping maxed out starts to show it's profits in getting better gear in the shops. And I'm going to need it. The Seraphim I created was having a lot more problems. Her start is already a bit harder compared to the Dwarf; especially since her starting weapon is just a piece of rust. So it took me a few times to get her rolling again; but it seems she's finaly able to chop some things up now she's close to level 20. Biggest problem for her is that she isn't able to get good gear. I was forced to do the entire Goblin Lawn with weapons being 5-6 levels below my char's level. And since she hasn't died yet, her SB is well over 40%, meaning a lot of spawns were 2 levels above her. Meaning the difference between the weapons and the spawns were 7-8 levels. Almost as if you try to tickle someone to death. It's one of those occasions you're happy a seraphim has RBoL (Rotating Blades of Light for those who haven't played her) to help you doing additional damage; although it always seem to run out the moment you're encountering a large group. Combined with 12% LL from Vamp runes, death isn't happening that early. Based upon my experiences in SP, I've set up a small guide about how to start. Including how to get rid of the preset skill and use your own skill choices. It's not that difficult; biggest problem are the different starting points, giving some a far easier start as others. A long time ago I had written a nice MP-starter's guide I think I posted either at the SIF or the DA-forum. Or perhaps even both. With the former gone and the latter unavailable for me, I'm not sure if it's even out there. But the SP guide will be posted here. Tomorrow, after I got my sleep. Thorin

A long time ago, but not in a galaxy far, far away, I used to play a game called Patrician III, made by Ascaron. Because of that game, I became a member of the Ascaron International Forum and learned of an ongoing project called "Sacred". At first glance, I wasn't a fan of the game. I'd tried RPG's before but never really liked them; however, what I saw looked good and somehow the environment as well as the few things of the storyline looked interesting. So, when the demo was released - a few days prior to the release of the game, if I remember it correctly - I decided to download the demo and give it a try. if I didn't like it, I can delete it, if I did, I could give the game a go. Well, the rest is; as they say; history. My first attempt was the Seraphim as I liked her looks (after all, MMORPG means "Many Men Online Role Playing Girls") and the idea of combining magic with the use of weapons. However, her start was quite hard due to her location and after a few deaths I was about to give up on the game. Still, I decided to give the Gladiator a go as well, since he was the other "main" character of the game. He too died in his first fight, but by now I began to understand the mechanics, so a new attempt kept him alive. After that, the next fight was a bit easier, escaping from the arena a piece of cake and off to explore I went. With a better understanding of the mechanics, it became easier to face and kill the amount of goblins you encounter. Crossing a brook into another part of the first area was a piece of cake and soon other enemies were lying in the dirt, playing dead as well. Not much longer I began to realise that a blue item was better as a white one, a yellow better as a blue and that extra bonus at those weapons often had a positive effect of what you do. I also learned the hard way that it wasn't a good idea to eat too many runes, since regen time went up a lot faster as the damage modifiers did. So off I went, from Bellevue to the area around it, then accross the bridge to Silvercreek and beyond all the way into the first area. I learned lots of interesting things, exchanged info with some members of a Patrician III board I had joined and of whom I knew they were trying the demo as well, learned even more and realized I had begun to like that demo. In fact, I liked it that much I'd decided to actually buy the game. And so I did the first weekend after the release. And only then because of work making it hard for me to buy it at release, otherwise I'd had it a couple of days earlier. I played if for a couple of days in SP to get a better feeling of the game, the controls and the atmosphere - which is still an important thing to me - and at some point joined some ppl of that Patrician board to do an MP game. We had our fun, but for some of them the game wasn't what they thought it would be, so they bailed out. I decided to keep playing and because of knowing it would be more fun with a community as at a private server, decided to join the Sacred MP community. SC was my first attempt, it was nice, but somehow after reading so many comments at the SIF - or Sacred International Forum - decided that HC would be more challenging and certainly more fun. Or perhaps it was more fun and certainly more challenging? Well, fun it was indeed. I still remember the wolves showing torches at nightfall. I still remember how players died, decided to run to Porto Vallum before logging off and ending up with creating another 20 or so characters because they kept dying in the first part of the game. I remember how Ascaron released a huge patch for free, calling it the "plus" upgrade and changing the name in Sacred Plus afterwards, which solved quite a lot of bugged quests and other bugs. I remember how nice the HC community was and at some point having Gogo run a bank to support starting characters with gold. Usually gold he picked up at the starter's island which was dropped by other players. I remember the item drops and so many other things. And most of them are fond memories, although "Clan-RUS" always left a bad taste in my mouth with their monster-spawn killing of players as I lost 2 of my chars to them as well; including one level 115 seraphim that just had received a few setpieces of another player. But games slowly fade away and with Sacred it wasn't any different. I think I played more hours of that game when Underworld was released and I had a blast! Especially with my Cannon Dwarf. So when Ascaron asked players to sign up to their Sacred 2 beta test, I did and was accepted. I had a good time in that Beta period, even when knowing the existence of Ascaron was about to end if the game failed at launch. And it did - very unfortunately - because Deep Silver pushed for a release, while the bank demanded money. Using another publisher for the NA release certainly didn't help Ascaron either. I've played quite some time in Sacred 2, never did much of multi player mostly because of what happened at Clan DA and I had that clantag in my name, but also because I had to change my lifestyle a bit. Yet, even then I kept playing Sacred: UW and enjoying it. That was, until I upgraded my computer and began using Win7. I tried to run the game, but somehow it always failed at launch and eventually I just uninstalled it, hoping to be able to play it again some day. When Steam had the game for sale at some point, I bought it, knowing that the Steam game was said to run better at modern OS as the old disc versions. And it did, until I upgraded my system to Win10. Same problem I had before appeared, being the game locking at loading the fonts, forcing me to reboot my PC or laptop. So I had kinda given up on the game, fearing the only solution to run it would be using an old PC or - after buying a new one - downgrading the curent one to Vista and run the game on that. That was, until I decided to look at this forum and found this post at the forum: Today I tried the fix and it worked. For the first time in ages I was able to play the RPG I liked so much, which brought me into contact with some great players and a nice community. And while playing the game I realized something else. It's been 12-13 years ago when Sacred was released. I've been playing this game for multiple times in the past 12 - 13 years and usually I have been enjoying every bit of it. Just as I've been enjoying Sacred 2 for the same reason. In those 12 - 13 years I've been playing Diable 3 and although I like that game, I do miss something in its atmosphere. In those 12 - 13 years I've been playing Morrowind, Oblivion, Skyrim and Elder Scrolls Online. And although I enjoy(ed) all these games, I still missed something in it. I think that "it" is the atmosphere and humour of the game. In both Sacred and Sacred 2 you know you're in a gloomy area because of the atmosphere. Marshes had that gloomy, dark look over them, other area's were people were happy, are bright and light. But it was also the outfit of what you encountered. Sakkara priests wearing dark habits and sickles to harvest the souls of their victims. The comments they made when you encountered them, the things Goblins yelled when encountering them. The inscriptions at tombstones, menhirs, signs or what people said. It was all part of what the Sacred experience made special. For me, Sacred is like that first love you once had. Every now and then your thoughts return to that person and you wonder how (s)he's doing. Perhaps you're even in contact with that person and occasionally doing nice things with him / her. It's been 12 - 13 years since I began playing Sacred and somehow I got the feeling I'll be playing Sacred 12 - 13 years from now. And I'll be enjoying every minute of it, I'm certain of that. And now, if you excuse me, I've got a Seraphim to level to 216. Thorin

THIS!!! Has made my life so much better. I usually was playing Sacred: UW / Gold at my laptop when visiting my parents. And usually that game started or froze; there simply was no other option. And the latter happened a lot more as the first, occasionally making my gaming experience a hell. Having the same problem at my PC, I didn't even care to hope to play this game again. However............. I changed the settings today, tried to launch a game at my PC and it ran flawlessly. In fact, it seemed the black bars at the side were even a bit smaller as they used to be before upgrading my system to Win10. I've been running around a bit in Ancaria, playing a Dwarf of which all of you might guess the name and the game ran without any problems. Looks like I've got some very long nights ahead of me in the future as well as the certainty that I'm able to play this game when visiting my parents, when we're trying to enjoy our various computer games. Thorin

I remember this bug and I also remember there was a non-cheating solution to it, although I can't exactly remember which it was. Big problem with this is that both the International Sacred Forum has gone for a while now and Deep FECAL MATTER!ters never cared about the fanbase in the first place. Meaning chances are they don't have much or even anything about this game at all at their forums. I think - and this is a bit of speculation - that the moment you crossed the (invisible) line between the ramp and the desert at the bottom of the ramp, the quest triggered as completed; no matter where the questgiver was. She would walk a bit afterwards, but usually stopped moving halfway the ramp and thus blocking access to the lava plains. In MP it was a lot more easy as you just formed a party, one person went to the desert and the one accepting the quest teleported to the one in the desert, instantly moving the questgiver to the desert as well. What some players did in SP, was slowing down when they were at the ramp and when moving down, making sure the questgiver kept close to them to avoid her blocking the path. Others solved it by using the "teleportation / jump cheat" by actually moving a bit to the side, jump or teleport down (seraphim, Glad and BM could do this for certain) and walk up the ramp again to get the quest trigger working. Or in case it didn't work, use the same thing to jump over the quest giver and continue the main quest. I hope that the solutions I posted here help you to solve this problem in a future game. Thorin

Out of all ppl I thought you might've remembered this best, Gogo. After all, it was you who kept running around in pink underwe..... erm armour quite a few times. Thorin

Pitty that the invunerabilty of escort NPC's isn't added, but then, with the extra teleport options we have now, it's barely needed anymore. With the exception of a few quests, that is. I guess that the only solution is running around with one thumb at the spacebar, in case I have a few NPC's in tow. Thx for the heads up. Thorin

I've been away from this game for a while, so I might be mistaken, but..... I seem to remember that in one of the previous versions an attempt was started to make sure all followers got a "protective" state, meaning they won't be attacked by monsters. If this project was abandoned, never mind my post. If it wasn't, I lost a few followers - and thus failed quests - in the Desert area because my followers were attacked by monsters. First quest was the soldier who got his sword stolen near the southern end of the desert, more or less between the archaeological site and the entrance to the jungle. The second quest was the one where you had to take a person and a lamb to another city / camp in the desert to end a long lasting feud. I can't remember both quest names for now, but will check and edit my post after playing a bit more. Also, wasn't there a special console command to bring up the codes of quests and / or items to make it easier for those working at the patch to solve the bug? If there is, please mail to to me in PM, so I can use those codes to speficy the bugged chars a bit easier. Thorin

Although this isn't really an introduction, as the title says, it kinda is, considering how long I've been away from this site and Sacred 2: I&B. Yup, it's true; being one of the very first persons to ever play it - way back when even Windows 7 wasn't released yet (Damn! I'm getting old. And distracted ) - when the game was in Beta, I now have the intention to be one of the last persons to ever play it. Although by the looks of things, that might take a while. I guess we all know the feeling of having played a game for so long you get bored with it; even if you don't want to. That happened with me and Sacred 2:I&B. Somewhere in 2014 I got bored with having 3-4 chars running through the same part of the map, doing the same quests, hearing the same screams of death, the same comments etc. I forced myself to finish Gold with my Seraphim, even managed to do a bit more in Plat, but gave up when she had too many problems with her gear that certainly wasn't powerful enough to deal with red circled monsters. I really needed my shopping HE at that point, but just couldn't bother anymore to level her. And thus, Sacred 2:I&B slowly died. Occasionally I tried to lanch the game, but too often the steamversion just played in the background, meaning closing it with taskmanager before doing something else. And something else I did. Over the years I've been playing Skyrim with all its add-ons, Skyrim special edition with all the add-ons - and both with mods to increase the joy of those games, Ovlivion and Morrowind were played too, though not as much as Skyrim, I ventured along in The Elderscrolls Online (Euro-server), all Dragon Age and Witcher games, some Assassin's Creed and even Diablo 3. Yet, from time to time when visiting my parents, Sacred:UW was started and played. That is, if the launch didn't freeze when loading the fonts. And with that old game, another old Ascaron game kept my interest as well: Patrician 3. The last two years I've been spending most - and sometimes all - of my time in Wurm Online. I won't explain exactly what kind it is, but basicaly it's a similar game as Minecraft, except with a skill tree and less pixelated graphics. Notch - the dev of minecraft - used to work at Wurm Online before starting his own game. Anyway, while playing WO, someone brought up a quote from Patrician 3; which made me wanting to play that game. I tried a lot of things, but it didn't work out. At that point, I thought it might be nice to start Sacred:UW again, just to have some other experience for a while. Unfortunately, that game froze when loading the fonts, so eventually I decided to give Sacred 2:I&B a go. However, knowing that game would run in the background for some reason, I searched the steam forums for a solution. Which led me to - surprisingly - the latest version of the community patch. I have to admit I was a bit surprised seeing a new version of the CM patch. But more important, it also sparked my interest. I remembered we had some contest for new weapons which were implemented in the CM patch, but I never found any of those. Or at least can't remember I found any. So now I had some desire to play the game; however even the new CM patch didn't work. Eventually I managed to get the game running, after changing it to Win7 compatibility and running as admin. I was asked to test the settings; resulting in playing the game for about 10 hours. That's quite some test, eh? In those 10 hours, I managed to do some quests in the desert with my Dryad, as well as mapping some spots and kiling the minotaur boss. But I liked it and the next day I played the game again. And the day after it again. Today's the 4th day since I managed to get the game running and I'll start with my Dryad at her home island, 6 levels above the one she had when I left her about 4 years ago and I'm determined to have her finish all quests an enter platinum as well. If I'm still in the mood after that, my bargaining HE will be next, since both my Dryad and seraphim will need better equipment, not to mention that I still got a SW needing to enter plat as well and......... OK, I got some work to do. As said, I'm back............................ sort off. Thorin