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Good Bye to Sacred as we used to love it.


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Well so far the biggest problem with Sacred3 that makes me definitely not interested in buying it is linear gameplay and lack of open world. THAT is the defining aspect of Sacred to me, the ability to wander off and find my way through the world. Not being forced to walk someone else's path with no option but do as I am told. Even Titan Quest/Immortal Throne, which was a close relative of Sacred was so limited by the linear path we HAD to follow that it could not compete. Sacred franchise is ARPG, what DS has shown us is consol arcade, as in amusement arcade and ranks along side the usual amusement arcade machine games. Two dimensional. linear, lacking in choice and totally not any form of RPG. Basically just a bog-standard arcade beat'em-up that would sit happily beside Streetfighter or House of the Dead in any amusement arcade.

Edited by podgie_bear
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Sacred franchise is ARPG, what DS has shown us is consol arcade, as in amusement arcade and ranks along side the usual amusement arcade machine games. Two dimensional. linear, lacking in choice and totally not any form of RPG. Basically just a bog-standard arcade beat'em-up that would sit happily beside Streetfighter or House of the Dead in any amusement arcade.

Afaik the "us" is very limited right now. Some press at gc and some visitors of PAX east last year. That's it. And there were not few sites / magezines providing false information. So, DS has shown "us" next to nothing. Screenshots and some second hand info via press. Plus some interviews with producers.

 

What I'm saying: I've seen the presentation at gc12 and even I don't think that is enough to judge the game just yet. Yes, I've wrote in my preview that it doesn't "look" like much of a Sacred game. But I wouldn't go so far to just say it's something like Street Fighter.

We know so little about so many aspects of the game that judging it right now isn't worth the bytes. Being sceptical about it, yes, criticising DS for not communicating, yes, saying what we don't like of what little we know, yes. But dumping it before further information?

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Sacred franchise is ARPG, what DS has shown us is consol arcade, as in amusement arcade and ranks along side the usual amusement arcade machine games. Two dimensional. linear, lacking in choice and totally not any form of RPG. Basically just a bog-standard arcade beat'em-up that would sit happily beside Streetfighter or House of the Dead in any amusement arcade.

Afaik the "us" is very limited right now. Some press at gc and some visitors of PAX east last year. That's it. And there were not few sites / magezines providing false information. So, DS has shown "us" next to nothing. Screenshots and some second hand info via press. Plus some interviews with producers.

 

What I'm saying: I've seen the presentation at gc12 and even I don't think that is enough to judge the game just yet. Yes, I've wrote in my preview that it doesn't "look" like much of a Sacred game. But I wouldn't go so far to just say it's something like Street Fighter.

We know so little about so many aspects of the game that judging it right now isn't worth the bytes. Being sceptical about it, yes, criticising DS for not communicating, yes, saying what we don't like of what little we know, yes. But dumping it before further information?

Looking at the stats at the SIF, I think "us" is a lot more as some press and some visitors:

 

 

Official Int. Sacred Forum Statistics stats.gif
Threads: 30,814, Posts: 316,646, Members: 76,610

 

"Sacred" - und "Sacred 2 - Fallen Angel" Forum! Statistiken stats.gif
Themen: 61.218, Beiträge: 900.166, Benutzer: 135.697

 

And that's with some German members also being a member of the international forum, but I doubt that's more than one hundred. Meaning there are over 200K registred Sacred / 2 players out there, about the same number is just lurking the forums, making it a tad over 400K players visiting the forums and that's probably about 10% of those who actually bought the games.

Meaning the "us" you mention are at least 2 million people playing either Sacred / UW, Sacred2, Sacred2: I&B or all versions of the games. And that's not even included those owning an illegal copy of the games.

That's a lot of "us" that can't be ignored anymore. Giving those players 5 screenshots - in various order - and more or less the same preview of the game in several magazines and on-line pages is a kind of disrespect I haven't seen in a very long time. But seeing how DS treats the members of the SIf, it isn't surprising me. We got 4 or 5 community managers over there, of which two - if I'm not mistaken - had the politeness to introduce themselves. IMHO not the best way to tread your future customers.

So, how to treat your customers? Well, let's look at some personal experiences.

 

When I bought Sacred, I only knew Ascaron from another game they'd made. Considered it was - and in fact still is - a quality game, made me expect Sacred to be a quality game as well. What I didn't know at the time, was that Sacred originally was developed by another studio; which went bankrupt and Ascaron buying the rights. Little did I know that Sacred as we know it, was a half-finished game which got redone by Ascaron turning it into a slightly different game.

Fact is, I liked the game and played it on-line with a few pals I used to play the other Ascaron game with. When Sacred got released, it wasn't finished; thus after a while Ascaron released a large patch - they called "plus" for free. Funny thing about that patch, was that suggestions made by forum members were taken into account; especially about the random quests.

Same happened with the add on "Underworld", where suggestions of both the German and the International community were taken into account and added to the game.

When Ascaron developed Sacred 2, they asked the community to their suggestions for the game. One of the threads came up with silly messages to "cover" the loading screen; the other were suggestions for tomb-stones for the various amounts of graveyards. Another one was to improve riding a horse compared to S:UW. Even during the Beta-test, suggestions at the forum were added to the game when possible. Unfortunately, Sacred 2 got developed for windows XP and Vista as primary system, while a lot of players switched to Windows 7 the moment that one got released.

Ascaron tried to solve the problems with Windows 7, but never managed completely to do so. The game got bad publicity, the company got bankrupt and DS had to sponsor the last project, the add-on Ice & Blood. The add on got finished, a patch and a hot-fix were released, but there wasn't a good solution for the Win7 problem. In fact, the work-around forum members found and posted never got an official support of DS.

 

Meanwhile the core of former Ascaron formed a new company with Kalypso Media. That company is called Gaming Minds; who have released a game called Patrician 4 and a game called Port Royale 3 and are currently working at Rice of Venice, which is due to release somewhere near the end of the year. Meaning, they have released 3 games, where Keen games hasn't released a game at all.

And since Patrician 4 is released using a new engine, it is possible to do so; especially considering Kalypso Media is just a small fish, compared to Deep Silver.

In the same time, DS released "Sacred Citadel". I won't post here what I think of it, but it isn't Sacred. It's a lot more like those Gameboy games I used to play 25 years ago.

 

When looking at the games I've played since Sacred, I think I can make a conclusion too. After Sacred, I got "plus" and Underworld. After that I bought Dungeon Siege II and DS II: Broken World; before I got Sacred 2 and Sacred 2: I&B. I liked all of these games and I'm still playing them.

More recently I bought Dungeon Siege III, played it for about a month and un-installed it - for as far as possible that is with Steam - because it was a linear game which had removed a lot of good things of DS II.

After that I bought Diablo III - the "game you should have played!" - and disliked the linear way of playing, the terrible loot and the lack of a lot of things both Sacreds did had.

So I switched to TES: Skyrim, which became a game I actually like. And that's because of the open world, the good story line(s), the various builds you can try, the nice rides you got and a lot more. In short, TES: Skyrim has a lot of things I liked about both Sacred(s). Not to mention, Bethesda is listening to its customers by taking parts from the un-official patches into their official patches.

 

So, Birne, when a company announces a game, and keeps it mouth shut for over a year and a half after releasing some screenshots from an Alpha version, when a company not even mentions a "we're working at it, but can't release any information right now" when fans ask for it, don't you think that at some point those fans think and later say "I smell something fishy"?

I've been giving DS the benefit of the doubt for a very long time. Right now I've come to the point they won't get that anymore. I too smell something fishy and I don't like it at all.

 

Thorin.

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Sacred franchise is ARPG, what DS has shown us is consol arcade, as in amusement arcade and ranks along side the usual amusement arcade machine games. Two dimensional. linear, lacking in choice and totally not any form of RPG. Basically just a bog-standard arcade beat'em-up that would sit happily beside Streetfighter or House of the Dead in any amusement arcade.

Afaik the "us" is very limited right now. Some press at gc and some visitors of PAX east last year. That's it. And there were not few sites / magezines providing false information. So, DS has shown "us" next to nothing. Screenshots and some second hand info via press. Plus some interviews with producers.

 

What I'm saying: I've seen the presentation at gc12 and even I don't think that is enough to judge the game just yet. Yes, I've wrote in my preview that it doesn't "look" like much of a Sacred game. But I wouldn't go so far to just say it's something like Street Fighter.

We know so little about so many aspects of the game that judging it right now isn't worth the bytes. Being sceptical about it, yes, criticising DS for not communicating, yes, saying what we don't like of what little we know, yes. But dumping it before further information?

Hey, if DS wants to sell the game to me, they prove to me I want to buy it. The benefit of the doubt and the urge to buy it have been eroded by poor communication, a dismal load of third hand kitty-litter named Sacred Citadel, and what information they have allowed to be released about the game puts me off rather than attracts me.

 

Sacred addicts are not brainless juveniles who will buy any crap DS puts out because of a title, flashy advertising and because it is fashionable. They are discriminating gamers who expect intelligent, well written games that can't just be wandered through by following a predetermined path and button mashing arcade style action. Bear in mind that there are plenty of F2P MMOs out there that are offering a hundred times more than what we have seen and heard so far, let alone games we can buy to replace Sacred if it turns out to be an inadequate crock of......! If they want our money they had better be prepared to offer us something worth buying!

 

They may not have a baying mob waving torches and pitchforks outside their door, but with the internet, we don't have to physically congregate there to lynch them. Our words can do a lot of harm, more than a few paid reviewers can do good. That is not a threat, that is the reality of communication and word of mouth because of the modern miracle that is the internet. We don't just talk to a few mates at the local coffee house the way gamers used to, we talk to thousands of fellow gamers worldwide, every hour of the day and night.

Edited by podgie_bear
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Looking at the stats at the SIF, I think "us" is a lot more as some press and some visitors:

Official Int. Sacred Forum Statistics stats.gif

 

Threads: 30,814, Posts: 316,646, Members: 76,610

 

 

"Sacred" - und "Sacred 2 - Fallen Angel" Forum! Statistiken stats.gif

 

Themen: 61.218, Beiträge: 900.166, Benutzer: 135.697

 

 

You're missing my point by an inch :)

It's not about the amount of fans overall. It's the number of people that actually saw the game. Not screenshots, not previews on gaming sites or in magazines. I'm talking about first hand (hands-off) footage of the game.

And that's with some German members also being a member of the international forum, but I doubt that's more than one hundred. Meaning there are over 200K registred Sacred / 2 players out there, about the same number is just lurking the forums, making it a tad over 400K players visiting the forums and that's probably about 10% of those who actually bought the games.

Meaning the "us" you mention are at least 2 million people playing either Sacred / UW, Sacred2, Sacred2: Ice and Blood or all versions of the games. And that's not even included those owning an illegal copy of the games.

That's a lot of "us" that can't be ignored anymore. Giving those players 5 screenshots - in various order - and more or less the same preview of the game in several magazines and on-line pages is a kind of disrespect I haven't seen in a very long time. But seeing how DS treats the members of the SIf, it isn't surprising me. We got 4 or 5 community managers over there, of which two - if I'm not mistaken - had the politeness to introduce themselves. IMHO not the best way to tread your future customers.

Well ... no.

I don't know how many copies of Sacred / Underworld / 2 / Ice&Blood were sold, maybe it were 2 mio maybe less. Whatever it is that number is not of importance right now.

Because how many of those 2 mio are "fans" really carring for the franchise? A mere fraction of that.

I can't speak for the SIF but the german board has an active user count of 183. Meaning in the last 30 days 183 different users logged into their accounts. I doubt the numbers at SIF are much higher.

Not everyone visiting the forums logs in just to check out if there are news. Right now 70 Users are reading the german forums. Minus some search engine bots, let's just say there are 60 people.

And this is were actual calculation stops. You can't go on from here without a huge amount of speculation up to a point where it's just geussing. I don't know whether, tomorrow at the same time, if there are again 60 people, those are the same or others ... and so on. I'll ask around to get some google analytics data but even then ...

 

Again, as I said above, the "us" was not referencing every fan ... but just those who actually saw Sacred 3.

So, Birne, when a company announces a game, and keeps it mouth shut for over a year and a half after releasing some screenshots from an Alpha version, when a company not even mentions a "we're working at it, but can't release any information right now" when fans ask for it, don't you think that at some point those fans think and later say "I smell something fishy"?

I've been giving DS the benefit of the doubt for a very long time. Right now I've come to the point they won't get that anymore. I too smell something fishy and I don't like it at all.

I get that. I do ...

But there are some things to consider: Back in the day when Ascaron was still around we were talking to the developers. Now we're trying to talk to a publisher. That is a huge difference. Additionally, Ascaron was small. DS might not be big, but bigger than Ascaron nonetheless.

Ascaron didn't so much care about PR and such on the forums. DS has soem kind of masterplan and sticks with it. Although I don't like that I can at least understand their motivation.

 

edit:

As I see this is an emotional topic and even I don't like to argue in DS' favor because I actually don't like some to most of their decision either, maybe we should give this thread a rest? All we can do right now is speculating anyway. Which leads to nothing but high blood pressure.

After all we'll have to wait and see what's ahead of us. Maybe there's news at gamescom ...

I just don't see any good coming from just speculating and getting worked up about it :)

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They may not have a baying mob waving torches and pitchforks outside their door, but with the internet, we don't have to physically congregate there to lynch them. Our words can do a lot of harm, more than a few paid reviewers can do good. That is not a threat, that is the reality of communication and word of mouth because of the modern miracle that is the internet. We don't just talk to a few mates at the local coffee house the way gamers used to, we talk to thousands of fellow gamers worldwide, every hour of the day and night.

 

Very true... We even have a real world example of the power of the resonance chamber on the Internet.

 

Windows Vista.

 

When it was released, there were a few things Microsoft could have (and in all respect SHOULD have) fixed before it was released. But they were under the gun - they needed to release something before a deadline where some of their contracts were set to expire. To keep them from expiring and not being renewed, they released Vista.

 

Mind you, the issues with Vista at the time were minor. It was a tiny bit slower than XP and had a lack of available drivers. When you did a clean virgin installation, it was a perfectly adequate OS.

 

But something amazing happened. The cry online was "VISTA SUCKS!" Everywhere you turned, you would see people saying how utterly horrible it was.

 

I was on the Beta team for Vista and for the longest time I scratched my head and asked WTH was going on - mainly because while Vista wasn't perfect, It was OK - and it certainly did NOT suck...

 

Then I met with a client who had a brand new laptop - with Vista on it. And my questions were instantly answered.

 

Lenovo, the maker of that laptop preloaded the laptop with no less than 50 bits of what we in the business like to call 'crapware'... Crapware consists of "free" apps, trial versions of other apps, and a bunch of stuff that NO ONE in their right mind would need to install and have running in the system tray - certainly not all at once. That's right - there were no less than 50 icons running in the system tray. The idea behind such is that Lenovo added these items as a "Value Added" thing. The value is only to Lenovo - as they are the ones who are getting paid to install all the crapware on their systems.

 

There were toolbars, no less than 2 antivirus apps (McAfee and Norton), Picassa, WinZip, and I can't remember what the rest were - but NONE of them were needed.

 

The laptop ran like a slideshow. It was slower than molasses in January at the North Pole. NO wonder people got the impression that Vista Sucks. The way that laptop was configured, it did, in fact, suck rotten eggs. But the fault wasn't entirely Microsoft's. In this case, the problem clearly was Lenovo's fault.

 

Even after it was all sorted out and such with Service Pak 1 - Vista still has a stained reputation - one Microsoft did it's best to get as far away from when they released 7. It's also why they called it Windows 7. What most people don't realize is that Vista is Windows 6.0 and Windows 7 is actually version 6.1.

 

That means that Windows 7 is based on the same code as Vista - it's just streamlined and cleaned up.

 

The point of this example - the internet can be a very powerful thing when it comes to damaging reputations. What's the first thing that comes to mind when you hear Vista? I'll wager is "It sucks"...

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Ok, I'll have to doublepost here :S

 

I just came across a link to a Polygon article about Ride to Hell: Retribution. A game published by DeepSilver just recently and a game recieving extremely bad reviews. Metascore of 20 / 100, userscores between 0.9 and 1.6 ... Look it up via youtube, it's kinda hilarious.

Anyway, the article is from end of May, before the game was released and so before those reviews came out. In the article DS creative director Guido Eickmeyer gives a little insight into what DS is trying to do with its small franchises.

"The most influential franchises for a company like ours might be comic franchises, Marvel franchises, which is very inspiring for us in how they realize the significant content for completely different audiences. From my position one thing that should inspire us and drive us forward as well. I believe that."

"For us we always thought let's try to have a direction. Take a risk financially, creatively, take a risk, do something very dedicated for audiences and platforms."

And finally

Eickmeyer highlights the release of the next addition to the Sacred title as an example. Sacred 3, he says, is an idea that users will "buy into."

"Because it is dedicated to this audience, dedicated to this platform, dedicated to player habits. [...] We try to deliver best possible experience visually and gameplay-wise for that specific gamer-type."

I'm actually a little stunned by this. What I read and heard about Sacred 3 and its direction I always thought they needed and wanted to appeal to more than just the old audience because from their point of view there wasn't much left anyway. But reading this ... they were actually trying to aim Sacred 3 at its core audience? Wow ...
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Ok, I'll have to doublepost here :S

 

I just came across a link to a Polygon article about Ride to Hell: Retribution. A game published by DeepSilver just recently and a game recieving extremely bad reviews. Metascore of 20 / 100, userscores between 0.9 and 1.6 ... Look it up via youtube, it's kinda hilarious.

Anyway, the article is from end of May, before the game was released and so before those reviews came out. In the article DS creative director Guido Eickmeyer gives a little insight into what DS is trying to do with its small franchises.

"The most influential franchises for a company like ours might be comic franchises, Marvel franchises, which is very inspiring for us in how they realize the significant content for completely different audiences. From my position one thing that should inspire us and drive us forward as well. I believe that."

>

"For us we always thought let's try to have a direction. Take a risk financially, creatively, take a risk, do something very dedicated for audiences and platforms."

And finally

Eickmeyer highlights the release of the next addition to the Sacred title as an example. Sacred 3, he says, is an idea that users will "buy into."

"Because it is dedicated to this audience, dedicated to this platform, dedicated to player habits. [...] We try to deliver best possible experience visually and gameplay-wise for that specific gamer-type."

I'm actually a little stunned by this. What I read and heard about Sacred 3 and its direction I always thought they needed and wanted to appeal to more than just the old audience because from their point of view there wasn't much left anyway. But reading this ... they were actually trying to aim Sacred 3 at its core audience? Wow ...

 

 

OK.. This guy sounds like he's babbling on.. SMALL franchises - like Marvel Comics? Seriously. SMALL? Marvel is one of the biggest franchises when it comes to their comic book universe. Let's see. there's been umpteen movies made based on the comics, there's the comics themselves, then there's the animated series that go along with the comics. And let's NOT forget the toys, action figures, and the crap they stick in Crappy Meals at McDonalds, Burger King and other similar kiddie meals elsewhere. And that's only from the past decade.

 

And does this mean we're going to see Spiderman swinging through some jungle in Ancaria? PLEASE SAY IT AIN'T SO!

 

The funny thing is - he thinks we, the Sacred universe's fans will 'buy into" Sacred 3 - I gotta wonder what makes him think that? The resounding response based on what little they've told us about the game says the opposite.

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I don't think the article was referring to Marvel as a small franchise as opposed to Marvel being a big influence for DS' small franchises... but, yeah... catering to the hardcore audience, huh?

 

...

 

...

 

...

 

I can't even come up with anything other than how wrong that was.

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Oh.. I can... Simple answer...

 

Deep Silver's execs are all on LSD... That's the only way I can think of how they might be hallucinating that what they're making - as it has been described thus far - is going to satisfy ANY hardcore - (or even softcore players)... Maybe been smokin' a bit of some really potent weed as well.

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If not mistaken there's also a music-style called Hardcore. Perhaps he was talking about that:)

After all, when that "music" kept pounding your eardrums - and little brain you got left - all night long and doing GHB or XTC all night long to "enjoy" that "music" - hmmm, hope I won't run out of brackets ;) - the only kind of game you are able to play is a simple one. Games like Sacred: UW and Sacred 2: I&B are just way to complicated for persons doing so.

 

 

Thorin :)

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Eh. Not so sure about GHB or X.. Neither one of them - from what I've heard - rots your brain. GHB - the date rape drug - makes it so you wanna get it on - and then promptly forget all about it. (Sorta like Millennium Weed Lite :D )... Maybe if you mean a hard core porn soundtrack then yah...

X - or Ecstasy - or XTC - is a drug that makes you simply like everyone around you to an unnatural degree. With X, you're probably better off with something really mellow - like The Carpenters.



Just as a side note... Check out that hideous suit on the drummer behind her.. GAG!

At any rate, Hardcore metal doesn't really go with either one. It's just the wrong vibe.

More like the short attention spans programmed into people by TV and such make longer games (Like Sacred or Sacred 2) something that is undesirable... Edited by wolfie2kX
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Just as a side note... Check out that hideous suit on the drummer behind her.. GAG!

 

 

I had a pair of pants something like that around that timeframe.

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  • 3 weeks later...

when a PR group goes from releasing tidbits to total blackout silence? it means they're planning to release a bad game everyone will hate and they're hoping to keep it quiet and release quite a few copies anyways.

 

if a team is going to redesign a game to meet the fans desires? they're going to want to stay in touch so that hype can by build by word of mouth.

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Deep Silver may have bought Ascaron's leftovers and saved Sacred and Sacred 2 from oblivion, but they didn't buy Ascaron's heart and soul.

 

 

Here here friend!

:hugs:

And Wiki's alive, it's heart set abeat, if we're still hanging onto the heart of this present game, there's always going to be hope for the REAL game

let's all go to a campfire and smoke some popcorn!

 

:dance:

 

gogo

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Ideally, the solution would be a compromise of sorts - gamers AND bean counters working together to make something that everyone could be happy with. Gamers with the vision to produce something exceedingly cool and bean counters to keep them on a short enough leash so they don't spend themselves into oblivion.

This is why I think Grinding Gear Games has been so successful. Although the team is smallish (I think about 25 people), they have had tremendous success, especially for only having one free to play game. It's unfortunate that more game companies don't have the best of both worlds as you mentioned :(

Edited by Ryanrocker
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Deep Silver may have bought Ascaron's leftovers and saved Sacred and Sacred 2 from oblivion, but they didn't buy Ascaron's heart and soul.

They didn't even save Sacred and Sacred 2 from oblivion.

Sacred 2 got one add on, one patch and a hotfix and that's it. Despite the comments at the official forum the game was still broken. The CM patch fixed a lot more bugs as the 2.65.x patches.

The MP servers were closed pretty fast, despite players still playing MP; a possible server-merge - which was asked for to increase the mp experience like in the S:UW days - never happened.

There have been half a dozen community managers at the official forum, but the name of the last CM I can remember was Caroline Hacker; meaning none of the DS CM's have made a lasting impression to me.

 

So the right comment would be:

 

Deep Silver may have bought Ascaron's leftovers, but other than the Sacred name they left the rest to die and rot.

 

 

Thorin :(

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I personally think Deep Silver should have worked something out with Gaming Minds Studios. (Majority of Ascaron's staff after the closing of Ascaron created this studio)

As was stated numerous times in this discussion. If you aren't going to handle the series properly, the it would be better off it wasn't handled at all or at least let someone who is going to take care in doing so.

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Short answer - don't call it "Sacred" (3). Give the game some other name.

If Diablo 4 is suddenly released as a FPS in a WWII setting, I'm certain that won't go down well with the Diablo community, right?

A game with no open world, no limitless character development, no means of equipping multiple CAs, no huge amount of side quests,no immediately equip-able yellow shinies certainly does not match up to a game worthy of being labelled "Sacred".

 

EDIT: I remember waaaay back when Sacred 2 was announced. No hype about any other game came close for me. I spent hours just searching for every new tidbit of info I could find anywhere on the web. And every so often I would find it! Something new, some new screenshot, something to speculate about. And Ascaron joined in amongst all the speculation and supplied some answers even.

The community was alive and a beehive right up until the game was released. And to top it all off, all those years of waiting and speculating paid off because Sacred 2 was (and still is) a great game. Granted there were bugs, but look beyond that and the community pretty much got exactly what they wanted.

Sacred 3 is meh. What do we have, some generic copy/paste review on about 6 sites with 5 screen shots. All this in 2 years? My hype-o-meter is getting rusty.

nyb72q.jpg

Edited by Scleameth
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I personally think Deep Silver should have worked something out with Gaming Minds Studios. (Majority of Ascaron's staff after the closing of Ascaron created this studio)

 

That would've been impossible, as Gaming Minds is part of Kalypso Media. And I doubt DS would let a competitor allow to have one of its studio's work at a title they don't own.

In a way that's very unfortunate, because GM is formed by the core of Ascaron (about 15 ppl all together); thus the largest part of Sacred knowledge is stored there as well. Perhaps one day we might be able to convince Kalypso Media to purchase the Sacred branch and have GM work at it, so the name and fame of Sacred might be restored,

 

Thorin :)

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I personally think Deep Silver should have worked something out with Gaming Minds Studios. (Majority of Ascaron's staff after the closing of Ascaron created this studio)

As was stated numerous times in this discussion. If you aren't going to handle the series properly, the it would be better off it wasn't handled at all or at least let someone who is going to take care in doing so.

 

Who knows.. They probably DID talk to them - briefly. And the guys @ GMS probably told them what it would cost to do it right and Deep Silver's people probably had a good chuckle and told them to go pound sand.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPfcim_p38w

 

Short answer - don't call it "Sacred" (3). Give the game some other name.

If Diablo 4 is suddenly released as a FPS in a WWII setting, I'm certain that won't go down well with the Diablo community, right?

A game with no open world, no limitless character development, no means of equipping multiple CAs, no huge amount of side quests,no immediately equip-able yellow shinies certainly does not match up to a game worthy of being labelled "Sacred".

 

EDIT: I remember waaaay back when Sacred 2 was announced. No hype about any other game came close for me. I spent hours just searching for every new tidbit of info I could find anywhere on the web. And every so often I would find it! Something new, some new screenshot, something to speculate about. And Ascaron joined in amongst all the speculation and supplied some answers even.

The community was alive and a beehive right up until the game was released. And to top it all off, all those years of waiting and speculating paid off because Sacred 2 was (and still is) a great game. Granted there were bugs, but look beyond that and the community pretty much got exactly what they wanted.

Sacred 3 is meh. What do we have, some generic copy/paste review on about 6 sites with 5 screen shots. All this in 2 years? My hype-o-meter is getting rusty.

nyb72q.jpg

 

Yeah... BUT.. "Some Other Name" would require starting from scratch. It wouldn't have an existing fan base, there would be a need for FAR more effort as far as selling people on buying it goes.

Edited by wolfie2kX
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