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Hello!

 

I have just found ouy about the past of Sacred. So this was supposed to be armalion right? I saw the trailer and I was beyond amazed!! Lots of content was cut from the final game (I also saw them saying that the game was about 76% finished before being cancelled)

 

What I remember is:

 

-there are male/female variations of heroes (but I found this boring as they are your stereotypical rpg heroes, the heroes we have now are far more uniquie imo)

-the gameplay is a lot slower and it kinda looks like it would have been kinda final fantasy ish with the way they move to another area

-ANIMATIONS WERE EXCELLENT!!

 

THERE was a scene on the trailer where the glad and woodelf were trying to balance themselves on a pole whike trying to escape. Each of them has a different animation. Another clip showing the thief class pickpocketing an npc. Another one shows a dwarf sneaking behind the 2d walls of the houses. My fave one would be the two warriors climbing the walls of another building. Oh sacred could have been more fun :/

 

I also saw some pics and there are actually specufic death animations. When a giant kills you , they will lift you up and throw you. Another one I saw is a floating monster pulling the warrior away from her team mate. I would like to post pics but Im using my sh*tty android phone right now haha.

 

Tl:dr I would have loved Sacred More if it has those animations back and wished it wasnt cancelled. But if it never got cancelled, we wont have the vampiress and the seraphim....

 

Discuss pls!! Are there any other sites that showcase Sacred 1.0? XD

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I played the demo version again and again and have fallen in love with the Seraphim since then.

bought the release version and never get it running on my PC. had to use a "no-cd-exe", so MP was out of order for me.

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Apparently Armalion was originally an offshoot of the wildly popular German tabletop franchise The Dark Eye.

 

sCEBrM8.jpg

 

Visually, the computer game would have been quite similar to the Sacred 1 we know today, because as was mentioned, a vast amount of the game resources were already completed when Ascaron acquired them.

 

eZdjobt.jpg

"The next attempt at a new TDE game was Armalion, a license to the TDE wargame offshoot, as the title reveals. The computer game, however, was supposed to become another Diablo-esque action RPG like LMK. Other than Larian Studios' game it was conceived with an Aventurian setting to begin with, and showed off some interesting features like mounting horses. Unfortunately, it shared the same fate as the aforementioned project when the developer Ikarion went bankrupt.

Not all was lost, though. The resources had been bought by Ascaron, formerly one of Germany's most venerable software houses, and completed without the Armalion license under the title Sacred, which has also become a successful series in its own right. Keen eyes have spotted fragments of the originally planned scenario in Sacred, like remaining symbols of the Aventurian gods."

j0unLOv.jpg

 

Here's the IGN preview blurb from back before it was canceled:

 

"Armalion is a fantasy RPG with a new twist. With a clear focus on entertainment value instead of character stats the game mixes the best of role-playing experience with strategy and action gameplay. In-depth charater creation shows the attention to detail, while an easy-to-use interface takes all the pain of boring stats away. The real-time mode of the game can be interrupted at any time. During the game the player will even command small warbands of up to 40 warriors to fight for his goals. Choose from 12 playable characters, encounter tons of quests, detailed landscapes and beautiful 3-Dimensional characters. Play over a LAN or WAN co-operatively with some friends or melee with up to 40 characters. Get ready for another great fantasy role-playing game."

aWdqVg0.jpg

 

H6qR0Vd.jpg

 

I first heard about Sacred 1 just after Ascaron acquired the rights, so there were already screenshots being posted in threads on the Divine Divinity forums, though most of them were very early shots like those above. I remember the big buzz being around mounted combat at the time.

 

You can't help but wonder what could have been.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5ZrqObd2dM

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Hello!

 

I have just found ouy about the past of Sacred. So this was supposed to be armalion right? I saw the trailer and I was beyond amazed! Lots of content was cut from the final game (I also saw them saying that the game was about 76% finished before being cancelled)

 

What I remember is:

 

-there are male/female variations of heroes (but I found this boring as they are your stereotypical rpg heroes, the heroes we have now are far more uniquie imo)

-the gameplay is a lot slower and it kinda looks like it would have been kinda final fantasy ish with the way they move to another area

-ANIMATIONS WERE EXCELLENT!

 

THERE was a scene on the trailer where the glad and woodelf were trying to balance themselves on a pole whike trying to escape. Each of them has a different animation. Another clip showing the thief class pickpocketing an npc. Another one shows a dwarf sneaking behind the 2d walls of the houses. My fave one would be the two warriors climbing the walls of another building. Oh sacred could have been more fun :/

 

I also saw some pics and there are actually specufic death animations. When a giant kills you , they will lift you up and throw you. Another one I saw is a floating monster pulling the warrior away from her team mate. I would like to post pics but Im using my sh*tty android phone right now haha.

 

Tl:dr I would have loved Sacred More if it has those animations back and wished it wasnt cancelled. But if it never got cancelled, we wont have the vampiress and the seraphim....

 

Discuss pls! Are there any other sites that showcase Sacred 1.0? XD

You're right...the animations ARE excellent...in fact, I was shocked. How did sacred become the way it is they had those kinds of cartoonlike silky smooth moves in the game already... guess it a matter of balancing out?

Love your topc btw Sev, all this old origin stuff of this game is thrilling

 

:)

 

gogo

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Ah, thanks for the trailer Flix...I can't stop looking at how smooth the animations were... guess they needed resources for Sacred's insane sounds, dirty jokes and Seraphims!

 

:lol:

 

gogo

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  • 1 year later...

Hey everybody! Recently, I've been trying to learn more about Armalion content that was carried over to Sacred. If you do not know, Armalion is an unfinished game that was bought by Ascaron and was used as a base for Sacred.

If you look at Armalion's playable characters, you will surely recognize that all of them were used in Sacred either as playable characters (Battle Mage, Wood Elf) or as enemies/NPC. At the moment, I'm trying to figure out how the Sacred developers used these characters. In particular, I'm interested in Female Mage, Male Elf and Male Druid.

I know that Female Mage is Anya from Castle Mystdale, as well as one crowd NPC, also from Mystdale.

Male Elf aka Elven Sorcerer can be found near Bellevue as a crowd NPC, in the Elven camp in Tyr-Hadar as a merchant, and as part of the Ilim Zhurag-Thalir quest as an enemy. Also this model was used for Wyn'gar Snakeblade in the quest "A Dish Eaten Cold".

Druid seems to be present only in two locations: as a crowd NPC in Mystdale Castle and as a combo master in the Elven camp in Tyr-Hadar.

What I wanted to ask is does anyone know whether these characters can be found in any other places in Sacred, other than in those that I've mentioned? Not counting texture swaps, of course, like all the male dark elves (who are basically texture swaps of the same model as the Elven Sorcerer) or Underworld dryad druids.

Edited by Inspired
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Thanks for posting this topic.  I like fantasizing about Armalion and what it could have been, as an isometric RPG set the world of The Dark Eye.

I don't have the characters memorized all that well in Sacred 1, though I certainly recognize most of them, I can't place them all.

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Thanks for the replies, guys. I'm glad there are still people who are interested in the history of Sacred.

I've been able to find some info on my question. There is another female mage as a crowd NPC in Braverock Castle in a cage in the market square and there are two more druids in the Underworld as quest NPC for quests Hunting Druids and Insect Blood for the Healer.

On a side note, I've also found an interesting text regarding druids in the game text files. I do not remember it actually being used anywhere. Here it is:

Quote

This is an old ritual site of a druid group. There were innumerable such groups, all more or less secret. No one knows any longer what they did exactly. Today they have disappeared.

Does anyone know or have any guesses on where this text is used in the game and whether the site it refers to is an actual location?

Edited by Inspired
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On 10/13/2017 at 1:45 AM, Inspired said:

Hey everybody! Recently, I've been trying to learn more about Armalion content that was carried over to Sacred. If you do not know, Armalion is an unfinished game that was bought by Ascaron and was used as a base for Sacred.

If you look at Armalion's playable characters, you will surely recognize that all of them were used in Sacred either as playable characters (Battle Mage, Wood Elf) or as enemies/NPC. At the moment, I'm trying to figure out how the Sacred developers used these characters. In particular, I'm interested in Female Mage, Male Elf and Male Druid.

I know that Female Mage is Anya from Castle Mystdale, as well as one crowd NPC, also from Mystdale.

Male Elf aka Elven Sorcerer can be found near Bellevue as a crowd NPC, in the Elven camp in Tyr-Hadar as a merchant, and as part of the Ilim Zhurag-Thalir quest as an enemy. Also this model was used for Wyn'gar Snakeblade in the quest "A Dish Eaten Cold".

Druid seems to be present only in two locations: as a crowd NPC in Mystdale Castle and as a combo master in the Elven camp in Tyr-Hadar.

What I wanted to ask is does anyone know whether these characters can be found in any other places in Sacred, other than in those that I've mentioned? Not counting texture swaps, of course, like all the male dark elves (who are basically texture swaps of the same model as the Elven Sorcerer) or Underworld dryad druids.

This topic fascinates me. I've always been intersted in the way back origins of this game.  I'd known about Sacred's basics "bones" coming from Armalion, but always wondered about how this time frame affected Sacred's development...  is it possible that the reason that the original game was so "good" was because the early dev work was bought at a less expensive price on the dollar which resulted in a game with twice as much development with a lesser true cost?  As well... if we look at what the trailer states for the release... 2001 ? :o ... how long was this game actually in development before  that projected date.. to then get to the final release of  2004 when we all started playing it here?  ... is this one of the longest games in development ever? :o   I'm sorry not to have more feedback for you Inspired regarding the characters... but just felt like chatting about this ultra nostalgic era about the beginnings of all of this and your topic seems to be going someplace awesoem... are you planning on making a mod or a write up? 

 

Fascinating!

 

gogo

 

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22 hours ago, gogoblender said:

I'm sorry not to have more feedback for you Inspired regarding the characters... but just felt like chatting about this ultra nostalgic era about the beginnings of all of this and your topic seems to be going someplace awesoem... 

No problem, gogo. Like I said, I'm glad there are people who are interested in the history of Sacred and I'm always happy to chat about it :drinks:

22 hours ago, gogoblender said:

are you planning on making a mod or a write up? 

No, not really. I make small personal mods for myself, but they are not connected to my questions here. I'm just trying to find more information about Sacred and its development.

22 hours ago, gogoblender said:

This topic fascinates me. I've always been intersted in the way back origins of this game.  I'd known about Sacred's basics "bones" coming from Armalion, but always wondered about how this time frame affected Sacred's development...  is it possible that the reason that the original game was so "good" was because the early dev work was bought at a less expensive price on the dollar which resulted in a game with twice as much development with a lesser true cost?  As well... if we look at what the trailer states for the release... 2001 ? :o ... how long was this game actually in development before  that projected date.. to then get to the final release of  2004 when we all started playing it here?  ... is this one of the longest games in development ever?

I used to think the same until I found an interview with Michael Bhatty, the lead game designer for Sacred. It can be read here. I speak very little German and had to use Google Translate to read it, so if anyone here speaks German, correct me if I'm wrong. But from what I can understand, Bhatty says that when Ascaron bought Armalion, it was very unfinished, basically it had only one small location and one quest. So even though they used Armalion as a base, most of the work on Sacred was still done by Ascaron.

It sounds a bit hard to believe considering the number of character models made for Armalion and all the different locations shown in the trailer and screenshots. But still it is not impossible considering that game developers often show staged screenshots and videos from their games before actual locations and/or features are fully developed. That might have been the case with Armalion. Besides, I don't see a reason for Bhatty to lie, so I'm inclined to believe him.

By the way, that interview also has some very interesting info on Bhatty's plans for the expansion for Sacred. Those plans were later scrapped in favour of the Underworld campaign and Bhatty himself was removed from working on the game.

Edited by Inspired
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Quote

This is an old ritual site of a druid group. There were innumerable such groups, all more or less secret. No one knows any longer what they did exactly. Today they have disappeared.

I've found where this text is used. Or, rather where it was supposed to be used since I do not remember it actually being used in the game. Looks like this was supposed to be one of the remarks playable characters make when they enter an area or approach an object in the game world. For Dark Elf the number of the corresponding .mp3 file in the sound.pak is 16970. I haven't bothered to check but I'm sure all the other original playable characters have the same remark recorded for them. I guess the devs wanted it to play when the character approached one of the several stone circles of Ancaria? Maybe the one in Bellevue? I guess now we'll never know for sure.

There are actually other lines recorded and placed in sound.pak but not used in the game. I wonder why the devs decided against using them.

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  • 3 years later...

Blast from the past regarding Sacred's predecessor, Armalion.  Some dedicated users have resurrected the classic Armalion site from way back before Ascaron acquired the assets:

Quote

We are proud to finally be able to release the original ARMALION developer website after it was previously lost for over 20 years! Unfortunately, archive.org stored an incomplete version.

Have a look: https://armalion.sacred-tribute.com/

 https://armalion.sacred-tribute.com/ECTS

One notable thing is that there were originally male and female genders for each of the character classes.

 

This is part of a larger "Sacred Tribute Project" that some fans are putting together.  Here is the quote I saw from their posting on GOG:

Quote

The Sacred Tribute project is dedicated towards preserving all kinds of media for the Sacred gameseries.

Here is a description for the Sacred Tribute Project:
https://sacred-tribute.com/about-us/

You can also find us on Twitter where we post interesting lesser known facts:
https://twitter.com/Sacred_Tribute

... and on Youtube where we upload trailer, pre-release footage, development showcases and more:
https://youtube.com/channel/UCglcbYUtZ1snpYWUeEr-rOA

You can find us on Discord if you want to contribute or just talk to us. See you soon!
Have fun in Ancaria!

 

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wow... i love the idea of a Sacred Tribute project... this game keeps evolving and every time I think its about to wind down, someone puts new ingredients into the pot!

I LOVE looking at the first game play from Armalion..even though the game looking uncannily good and realistic with the way its characters moved within the new famous ultra-detailed  ( at least for it's time!) environment

:dance2:

gogo

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My little sister had Armalion as tabletop. They played it at students home. It came at a time when I was already engaged and I never played it.

There was a 500MB demo announced but some month later it was called dead (2001?), Was when we finished university, bought a house and needed all our time to work on it because we had to save money.

But - I have the first releases from DSA , Das Schwarze Auge, The Black Eye still stored somewhere in the barn :)

https://www.youtube.com/hashtag/armalion

 

 

 

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  • 6 months later...

Here's never before seen gameplay footage from the Armalion days.

I don't know if it's the music, or the slowed-down, thoughtful pace, but the game demo'd here just oozes atmosphere and mystery.

 

 

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On 3/3/2022 at 7:38 PM, Flix said:

Here's never before seen gameplay footage from the Armalion days.

I don't know if it's the music, or the slowed-down, thoughtful pace, but the game demo'd here just oozes atmosphere and mystery.

 

 

Its the music, and sound!

The guitar, and melodies of the battles are a little more adventurous than Sacreds IMO... but its delightful to see where our game comes from.. I still dont get why its so fluid more than Sacreds

I saw this go up somewhere on Facebook.. anniversary celebration right?

:dance2:

gogo

 

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