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Sometimes they keep coming back......................... Again


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On 8/25/2018 at 0:05 PM, Thorin Oakshield said:

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. :D

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. :D

 

Thorin :)

What a grand re-visit to nostalgia. I'm only sorry that I haven't responded to it earlier Thorin, as I'm a huge fan of your prose.  I think the one thing that stuck in me most of your writing is that special concept of "first contact" ... all the small things we noticed ( as a now noticeably aged community) that made big impact to us then.  Smaller simple things like... a fully functioning forum with all kinds of abilities like the SIF, the ability to place an archer on a horse and him "lock" on a target while you just yarn ball around him..  Yes...those torches in the wolves mouthes!  The game was so advanced at the time while being able to embellish upon the majesty of it's inspirer, Diablo and then taking it somewhere new, exciting and very sociable.

 

Has it really been 12 to 13 years? I think I keep dumbing down the numbers of years to ten...makes the years a big kinder :lol:  Thanks for the great retro gaze and good luck on your voyage to 216 friend.

 

:)

 

gogo

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By the way... and I dont know if this is obvious or not...  did you purposely mean to use your title to a very gruesome and spooky Stephen King Short story from I think... Graveyard
Shift?

 

:D

gogo

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12 hours ago, gogoblender said:

By the way... and I dont know if this is obvious or not...  did you purposely mean to use your title to a very gruesome and spooky Stephen King Short story from I think... Graveyard
Shift?

 

:D

gogo

Yup. *Mhuahahahahahahahahahaha *cough cough* ha!:D 

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. :D 

 

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. :drool:

 

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. :blush: 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 :) 

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