Llama8

Yeah, but that's just a pricing decision, doesn't change the fact that both the expansion & "Super Special extra mission which unlocks the level 200 Super Awesome Sword of Ultimate Stabbing and Pain +10" are new content that you (usually) pay for. There's a significant price difference between a Porsche & a Trabant, but they're both cars.

That's a very limited view of DLC. I've always taken the view that DLC is any additional content that you can download, regardless of whether you pay for it or not. So for Sacred, both the Plus patch & Underworld (for S1) & Ice & Blood are DLC. Selling a "level 200 Super Awesome Sword of Ultimate Stabbing and Pain +10" would also be DLC, though there's a mighty big gulf between the two.

Those games are an aweful lot closer to release than S3 (by several years probably, though I've no idea what Bethesda are working on now post-Skyrim)...

So that's the 5 original professions plus Engineer, Thief & Guardian (yes, I have been ignoring GW2 for several years). Edit: Apart from the Monk...

The wife has ok'd some expenditure so I was thinking of getting this, since my C: drive is ####e (it's a 37 Gig PATA drive, probably a good ~10-15 years old & it has a "windows experience" of 3.9). What I would like to know is whether there's a free way of moving my current C: drive over to the new drive without having to re-install windows (& everything else). I've got Win7 Pro.

Yup & Morrowind (the other Elder Scrolls game I've played) was the same, no idea about Skyrim as I've not played it. From the sound of it what you're describing is only different in degree (ie, taking several days of in-game time for one thing) rather than in concept. You're proposing an Elder Scrolls levelling system but making it a lot slower to try & remove the likelyhood that it encourages bad behaviour.

Which is exactly how Elder Scrolls does it. It drives "bad" behaviour in Elder Scrolls (the jumping till you're dizzy as you mention) & it would do the same in Sacred as well...

Incredibly so. Gogo, do they state the charges when you get it, in advertising, etc?

Sorry to hear you were made redundant mate, it's happened to me once or twice & it's never fun. In the UK (in the accountancy market at least) agencies cover the majority of the job market at all levels, most job adds online are put up by agencies. So apart from the first job I've always met with recruitment agents & they've dealt with the employer pre-interview. One of the benefits is that you don't need to bother doing cover letters.

Best 3 & worst 3? Hmmmmmm... Best 3: It's Diablo. It definitely has that feel of D1 & 2, the same fast paced combat & while it's not as "grimdark" as D1, it's nowhere near "unicorns & rainbows" as was being complained about previously. There's a lot of colours being used which is makes for some nice & varied backgrounds to killing demons. IMO, it's pretty polished already, though Blizz are farting around with runes at the moment & I'm not sure I like what they're doing with them (currently runes will drop as "unattuned", ie, colourless, & they only get "attuned" when you socket them and you can't then use that rune in a different skill, so if you're looking for a particular rune be prepared to go through several unattuned runes before you get the colour you're looking for). Worst 3: Online only/no "proper" SP or modding. I like mods & I know a lot of people want to play it offline, but you can't, which sucks. Such a limited amount of content in the beta & no runes (which wouldn't drop that early anyway). It's really frustraiting that there's only ~1 hours worth of stuff for you to go round unless you're exploring every nook & crany (ie, your first play through), then there's ~2-3 hours worth... Yes I know that's only 2 each.

I'm taking Xmas-New Years off for the first time (ever, since it's usually very quiet in the office & you can get in late & leave early...) Is that common in the US? Over here you can usually take some holiday over into the following year.

Sorry, it's a 4890, a 1 Gig HiS HD4890 to be precise. As to bugs, I've not seen any major ones, just a few things that didn't really seem right (such as the Demon Hunter's Entangling Shot entangling a skellie that was climbing up a wall & wasn't normally targettable, but the ES killed it).

I think you mean Rotluchs Gogo. To my mind, they would have to change Mythos from the previous incarnation, otherwise they would have to expect it to suffer the same fate.

Thanks guys. I've got an Intel 8600 (I think) (3.2GHz), 4 gig of ram & an ATI 4890 gfx card (with 1 gig of ram). It runs fine on max settings, as one would expect, since Blizzard don't do games that require a monster PC. IIRC, I get 60 FPS (it never goes higher, so it might be capped) with lows of ~54 when there's lots happening on-screen. I would assume that you would see lower FPS later on in the game when you're in fights with more monsters. If you can run Sacred 2, you'll be able to run D3...

Very bizarre Rotluchs! Let us know what it's like.

Glad you finally got some time off Knuckles.

It's probably only for the quests you've already completed on that character, so you probably wouldn't be able to bring a new character into a game where they're just about to start the final quest to rush them into the next difficulty... Gold is shared between all your characters now (like the shared stash, there's no regular stash), which I like. So my new Wizard can spend any of the 4k of gold my level 11 Demon hunter's accumulated. Though if you don't like twinking you'll hate this change.

I'm in the beta & it's growing on me. It definitely feels like Diablo & the main thing that I don't like about it is that there's not much content in the beta at all... The graphics are nice (not shiney & rainbow-y at all, though they have used more than grey, black & brown), the difficulty starts very easy & ends fairly easy (given that the first act/difficulty servers as an introduction to the genre/game for non-addicts, this isn't surprising) & I like the Demon Hunter (didn't like the Witch Doctor, haven't tried the others yet). Oh & one peculiarity of the way they've done things is that you can choose to start a new server/game/whatever at a particular point in the main quest, so if you're in the beta & "just" want to level up your character to the max (level 13), you'll only want to fight in the end bit of the beta content, so you can choose to start a new game on the final quest in the beta.

I've been in the beta for a month or two & it's managed to convert me from a staunch anti-subscription stance. Unfortunately the cost of childcare for 3 kids in Surrey is cripplingly expensive (& that's not going to change much until September & it won't significantly decrease until the September after that)... I'm in the D3 beta too.

It's not going to be quite like that Claudius, for you to be able to buy a Kaldur, someone else has to find one, decide not to use it & sell it instead. Blizzard won't be selling you an item, another player will. All Blizzard's doing is providing you a secure manner in-game in which to trade with another player. The only difference between the real money auction house & the gold auction house is the currency used.

Yeah, I spotted it fairly early on but could never remember where it was...

I'm with DB on this, I don't think the release is going to be any time soon...

Yeah, Sims must have sold really badly. Good thing they didn't waste any money on an expansion pack, or a sequel... Eeee, wen aah were a yung 'un, ah used to 'ave to walk to school up 'ill. Both ways! Bay eck as lahk, them's yung 'uns doon't knor 'ow good they's got it!

I think that if you like the build possiblities in Sacred you'll probably like PoE. The builds are defined by what skill gems (random drops + quest rewards) you use, connected support gems, passive skills (generally add small bonuses to the usual stats, damage, HP, attack speed, armour, etc & the passive skill "tree" is insane (proper bat-FECAL MATTER! insanity, not your common-or-garden insanity), it's circular for a start & you can cross from one part of it to another if you pick skills that head in that direction) & items (which have the sockets that you put skill & support gems in). My Ranger started off with Split Arrow (fires x extra arrows in a cone, with a small damage reduction), was doing ok with it. By the start of act 2 you'll start to see the support gems dropping, so I dropped an "adds +% fire damage" gem in & Split Arrow's doing a fair bit more damage (physical + fire), then I found an "adds x-y ice damage" gem, but didn't have any sockets for it on my other item, so I got a second item with connected sockets, dropped a Split Arrow gem in there with the +Ice damage & now my Split Arrow's doing a fair bit more physical, fire & ice damage. The game really starts to shine when you get high enough to have the support gems dropping. The fire animation is awesome when you crit with fire-damage, you set the target on fire for 4 seconds & the animation is probably the best I've seen, especially on the larger monsters. They've also done something very interesting with the currency, instead of using gold, there are various droppable/stackable items that are used as currency with the vendors & as consumable items, eg, Scrolls of Wisdom (ID items), Portal Scrolls (a TP, obviously), Jeweller's Orb (randomises the sockets on an item), an item that converts a white item into a blue item, an orb that adds a pre/suffix onto an item (if the item has enough "space") & loads more, and since people are using the items for their intended purpose as well as for trading, that should keep a lid on inflation (or at least mitigate the effects somewhat). The Devs definitely have their heads screwed on & have put a lot of thought into their decisions (not that I necessarily agree with them all, but it's clear that they've definitely been thinking about things).

At least those other flavours of PC would be able to connect to the same server so they'd be able to play with "us". How much does it cost to port to the Mac/Linux/Unix? I can't imagine that there would be much more than a handful (or a few handful) that would want to play Sacred. I do know that Sacred Underworld was ported to Linux, but I've no idea how much it sold.