mike57

Real Life has kept me from gaming for some time and a crash of my eldest PC. Which means I've got to start all over with my Sacred 2 tests. Well, :eek: happens. But I'm back now and the global situation will give me lots of time for doing things. As I am retired my suffering is smaller than those that have to work and earn a living. Now to everybody here: stay healthy and have as much fun as you can get!

I checked the smith arts on every character I run. While Flix version gives the advertised abilities, your version gives randomized abilities. Workaround for me is to put something in and if it is something I don't like, I rinse and repeat before finalizing it. I added the difference in both versions for making it easier to find the source (at least I hope it will help). Something else I've discovered happens to both additions. Thus I believe it might be a problem from the game. I run this on one laptop and the other version on a second PC. The laptop has a second screen attached (the original screen is not big enough for me). This second screen is acting very strange only during this particular game. Sometimes it goes dark for some seconds and returns some time later. Sometimes the picture gets cut into stripes that makes playing difficult. Switching the screen off and on again fixes that strange behaviour for some time. - Maybe there is some explanation for it.

yes

PowerPyx was running the RAD website. I was there - not very often, but every now and then. We spread to other games as well: Guild Wars, Rappelz - just a lot of different games. Some were to be explorers in the world of gaming and they introduced us to that games or commented on it. Often we created our own guilds in those games. But many moved on and that seems to have happened to this website as well. I was defaulted to be leader of our Guild Wars 1 guild because of game mechanics and because of other members not showing up for years. --- Life happens. Well, I'm single and retired. Beside my real world projects to meet with real people, I've got plenty of time to play. My philosophy is that I can play as long as my eyes, my mind and hands are working. If I get or have some problem (like the flu), gaming is still possible. Others may use a phone or TV, I use PC, games and the web to stay in touch with like-minded people. I was considered a "nerd" before that term was invented. I never cared. I know RL is important and I always did what had to be done. Now I'm free of that, but I still prefer real people. I'm a human and I need that. But when playing I prefer fun. I don't like to work hard. Puzzles or the jumping tasks in Guild Wars 2 are not the things I'm fond of. Endgame content to collect special items for exchange into uber-items --- just not my way of playing. Function is more than fashion. But if I am playing I prefer to look at a female (just remember I'm a guy). In fact it does not make any difference - within the games I'm playing any female is dressed decently. (In Grim Dawn there is almost no difference between male or female chars.) Games like Sacred 1 + 2, Grim Dawn, Star Trek Online, Star Wars the Old Republic or the Lord of the Rings take a long time to play for me. I like to play any class, race, anyway through every story. Usually I run them at about the same level and area in order to make conclusions about which char or abilities are fitting me best. And of course I switch between gaming, reading or RL - often my taste is changing. Getting back into games with special keys will be a bit more difficult (SWTOR had an update 2 weeks ago and they have a lot of keys and actions to memorize). Sacred is not using standard keys either: I for inventory is not in Sacred. All of that was important for me and I found a lot of that at RAD. I'm sad I lost it, but I wasn't there every day either, thus I don't complain. Just a feeling of loss about something that I was proud to be a part of. Not in any leading capacity, but just in participating with like minded people. We were of different backgrounds and different age or gender, but we met for gaming and Sacred was the starting point of all that. Remember, I did not have ANY multiplayer experience but those people dragged me along and I had a lot of fun. I remember those times and people very fondly. Most of us were in their 30s or 40s and I already belonged to the eldest age group, but we all stayed young while playing. I hope I will continue to stay young as long as possible. I'll try and I'll game on.

I had some minor problems. - Temple Guardian - Battle Extension - the animated sounds of this battle skill were played either twice (creating an echo) or delayed. In any case it played after the animation was done. - Smith (at least in Sloeford) - the name of his skill don't do anything for me (I do not recognize them for what they might be), but the description shown off at the smithy is not the description that is put into the item slot. I'm still around Sloeford (which I play with all chars simultanously) thus I cannot say more. The above mentioned problems don't bother me much. Gameplay is not affected and at the smithy I check what is shown in the slot before forging - thus I can do as I wish.

I only played the game in German, but I remember him well. He was standing on the south bridge leading to Porto Draco. It's an auto-starting quest. He challenges you for a fight to get past him. You might kill him, but NOT to kill him is the answer to solve the quest. A lady is coming from the Porto Draco side and she talks to you and thanks you for not killing him, because he is a bit confused. That's it. Maybe you will be able to find and check / produce a log with this information. I'm not sure but it could be that the quest will vanish, if you take a northern access to the town. Which might be the reason you did not find it.

I'll take the risk and I have started already. For now I have added the vanilla drop to the 160 patch. As I have not progressed so far with my current roster it might not have any weird results. For taking the full EE I'll finish my current runs, but that will take a lot of time. On the other hand I switched to english on the GOG loader and that may have screwed up my installation for the Addendum. GOG did a new install, I should have switched to English ingame. I thought nothing of it first. I reinstalled the 160 patch and was told that some files were missing (musiqch2, if I remember right). After that I reinstalled the Addendum. Then I started 7 new characters (1 of each) and I saw the intro video. I had the video but no speech in that video. - I currently don't know, if my procedure caused that particular file to get lost or if it is a genuine bug. As I'm at the beginning I don't know if there might be further implications. At least it looks to me as if the rest is behaving according to the definition. I add this comment for (1) give notice of my intentions (2) give feedback to problems. I will comment on further developments in the approbriate topics, but as the rest was discussed here, I would like to give a final status report of my plans here. I am very grateful for both remaining patch companions for all their work and their continuing efforts! (Big shoutout to every helper who may have been involved in this effort too!)

Then I will try the vanilla drops for now. I understand it to take effect after installation and that no new game has to be started. About the changes: Well, I read the descriptions and the way I understand it, the Addendum fits my current desires more. Therefor I put my preference there. In the end I might have to check for myself and try different installations. That is possible for me, because I have 2 machines that can run the game. Thus I take one for the Addendum and one for the EE. Is the EE compatible with German? Can I add the vanilla drop to it? Will I have to start anew? If the answer to those questions is yes, yes, no - I might start testing that right now. --- The other machine will be switched to English and the desired changes will be made. Thus I can compare it. My final judgement might take some time any way. As I said, I'm in no rush. But I will surely report about the results or problems I will face. Although I have been a programmer and I'm trained for a sense of understanding in programming issues, I don't know about game programming and I don't pretend to have a lot of knowledge. Thus I see your descriptions and not what is behind the wall for the people involved in programming or modding games. I'm just a consumer with a better kind of understanding at best. BTW German is not easy - not for none-native speakers and for native speakers as well. I'm fond of telling other people that the rule in German is the exception. The programming languages I have learned (mostly COBOL) are languages that are more familiar with English than any other language. Most of it came from the US anyway. Thus in order to read the referrals from IBM, you had to learn English. On the other hand professional language has often nothing to do with the normal spoken language. If you are parsing normal words, it is best to use a very regulated language. And that fits English more than any other language I have ever seen. (I've learned some French in school.) The French and Italians often complain about German - their second complain hits English. They never loose their accent in German or English. Although I'm trained I still believe that I have an accent in English as well.

What languages are currently supported or will be supported when finished? I'm playing in German now. I could play in English without any problems. Currently I tend to like the Addendum more than EE. I prefer bug fixing and not making the game more difficult or look different (that is done more in EE, but in the Addendum too (like mounts)). For any installation instructions I would like to know how to switch off or reduce the fan drops and how to increase the char specific set drop. That would make things perfect for me. - It is not necessary to get anything done according MY wishes, if I just know how to do it myself (without killing the game myself). - I guess that you will receive lots of questions about "How to tweak....?", after you have finished. Be prepared for it!

I am a male and I was born 1957 and my real name is Michael - thus you have anything that you can derive from my username explained. I was a professional programmer (for host with language COBOL and for an insurance company). I was a gamer right from the start when PCs were introduced. The job was ended - I'm retired now, but I will never retire from gaming. As a German I was introduced to my first Multiplayer game via Sacred, Sacred+ and Sacred Underworld. I joined a community that was called RAD community. The abbreviation is a "bike" in German. But it was shorthand for "rüstige alternative Daddler" (spry alternative gamer). Some of our members had good connections with Ascaron people and our website was hosting patches for some time. We joined for dragon hunting online in some multiplayer games while that was still possible. Sacred 2 came late, a bit late for the survival of that game company. But the connection to some of the people survived. Now that website seems to be down for months. Some time ago I found the current game versions on GOG (among several dozens of old, but very interesting games). The DRM were off and it was adjusted to current OS - which is fine by me. So I bought Sacred again. And recently I caught the Sacred flu again and I needed to play some more of it, to get rid of my itching - I suspect that that itching won't be going away. I loved the game years ago and I still love it today. I knew that GOG is open to patches but does not serve them. (I guess it has to do with mony, rights and such boring topics - but those are the rules we have to accept. I'm playing on GOG and if somebody wants to find me there? I'm Michael1957 there. Another game I'm doing there is Grim Dawn - another of the Diablo family branch (or similar games). Currently I don't like Blizzard, thus I turn more to my GOG games. Outside of GOG I'm playing SWTOR, Star Trek Online and some Guild Wars 1. Some other games are tried. As my interest is fluctuating up and down, I switch to other games often. I've got time. I'm in no rush. I like good games with interesting stories. I'm not so much into endgame of current games. That looks like work, but I want fun (SWTOR will be finished as soon as I finish chapter 3 of each character - currently 3 of 8 are done.). I guess you got my complete story on gaming. Now I'll add just a little bit of private information: divorced, 3 kids. Still living in my hometown at the banks of the river Rhine. It's the area where people get absolutely crazy in spring by dressing as fools and doing stupid things on purpose. Beside gaming I read a lot of books and surf the web for fun and information. --- Well that's all of me! Now, let's have fun and go back to gaming.

I'd like the fixes most of all. Before anyone is going to start changing things, I would like a very high priority on stability. (As a former programmer I would add that changing programming is not considered to be a very safe operation by me.) Secondary would be my wish to get more vanilla stuff (in order to get those full sets) and removing fanmade items (just because I like good items, but I don't like overpowered items). If the drops would be more char-aligned I would like that too (not every player likes to play any char - although I do). If these secondary changes could be made without touching the code - I'll prefer and appreciate it. As I hate work that isn't necessary (I'm just lazy) and I hate possible problems even more. I currently have the CM patch applied and nothing else. I would prefer to be able to get just 1 patch (even if some files are copies). 1 for the patch as it is, 1 for the fixes plus vanilla (the way I explained in the part above). Thus I could select just one patch and be done with it. That would be my vote. As there are conflicting interests by the former patch partners, I would not like to mess with the current patch (especially not in coding issues). I guess it should be kept as it is - should reduce possible tensions as well. And I would not like to take sides. All people involved have made a remarkable contribution and made the game more playable. Thank you!!!!!!!

oh, don't worry. I'm a German and I played the game and it's predecessor quite a lot. I just had some problems to get it running under the new Win systems and with the DRM. When your harddisk fails, you just have no way to remove the DRM automatically. And although I'm a professional programmer of 30 years on host computers, I'm not a technical geek. At the same time my first stop to get help (the RAD community) is out of work currently. I was a member of that community for several years and played with some of them on Ascaron's servers when multiplayer was still offered. It was some funny time. Thus I'm just returning to one of the games that got me into online gaming (back in the days). It's still attractive to me. Even now or maybe because of now!?

To me that sounds like there are 2 solutions: 1. Wait for the next patch (I don't know any schedule for that - thus this does not work for some time) 2. Refresh the game (as it happens after switching chars, this would refer to a new start of the game - worst would be a restart of the PC) --- I can live with that. Final observation: it's good to know a reason.

I'm running the GOG version and used the CM Patch on a Win 10 machine. When I'm playing for some time I experience some lag. The lag is like entering a new zone (like a dungeon) and than it takes several seconds for the enemies to spawn. Or like a new shadow warrior getting out of his crypt and the graves cannot be touched. Then suddenly for some short time I can touch some graves. Then it switches those graves off again. (BTW I played another character for some hours before creating this one.) What may cause this and what can I do to fix it or circumvent it? - I don't like to tweak the installation much. Although I should be ok with it. I'm not without any experience in gaming (and I played Sacred 1 and 2 several years ago).