belgarathmth

Good news! I just played all last evening (Friday) and all day today (Saturday) without a single freeze-up or crash! I started with both Loco's 4 GB patch and the grass details turned off. After I noticed that the freeze-ups had stopped, I turned the grass detail back to full, with all the other graphics settings on "very high". Still no freeze-ups! It looks like Loco's patch has solved the problem for me! Hooray!

Hello, I've been maxing Enhanced Perception (EP) on my current character, and I just noticed that the %chance to find valuables (%cfv) that I am supposed to be getting from the skill does not show up in the summary window. I have been giving priority to socketing jewelry that gives %cfv. Those bonuses show up in the summary, including the map revealed bonus. However, if the bonuses from various sources are of different colors (white, blue, yellow), they show up separately in the summary window. My experience has been that the summary window takes the first listed bonus line of the same type and ignores any others. And, as I said, the EP bonus doesn't show up at all. Am I getting the sum of all these different %cfv sources, or am I wasting slots and/or skill points?

About the DeMordrey name: Are there not still some classical Greek and Latin surnames still in use in modern Greece and in French- and Spanish-speaking countries? Also, over 2,000 years, the language would have evolved into unintelligibility between the historical speakers and the modern speakers, so we can assume that all language in Sacred 1 is translated to be the same as in Sacred 2 for convenience's sake, including proper names. About the continuity problems: These things usually arise due to carelessness on the part of a new team of writers and art people who don't pay enough attention to the materials created by a past team. So we could just write off discrepencies as simple human error from the writers. I guess it's more fun to try to create story bridges that resolve the errors, but the problem with that is that it is an act of creative writing that may or may not be accepted by other players and readers. It is very hard to get fans of a specific mileu within a genre to agree on a "canon" among themselves, especially in fantasy and sci-fi. I've read and participated in a lot of very heated discussions over on the official Dragon Age boards where people would start to argue very emotionally over their interpretations of what was "canon". The fans here at Dark Matters seem to be able to share ideas about the lore in a very congenial manner, though. About the darkside campaign: I have finished it with an inquisitor, and it doesn't shed any new light on the nature of the Great Machine - (mild spoiler?) all that happens is that instead of getting rid of it, your character becomes a T-energy being with the power to do whatever he or she wants. End of story. With both the light and dark campaigns, the writers left the telling of the details very, very vague, leaving it open to speculation and extremely different interpretations by different players. Many people have criticized Sacred 2 for not having a well-written enough or well-thought-out enough main storyline. I still love playing it, though. I play for the addictive gameplay and the beautiful art, colors, and graphics, not for the story. When I want a good story, I play a pure RPG instead of an action RPG. They're not quite the same genre.

@Fogeltje, thank you so much for writing this essay! I have been wondering exactly the same sorts of things! It has always bugged me that a lightside character is expected to destroy the Great Machine. Why not find a way to repair it? I also noticed that the elven civilization was powered by T-energy. What is "good" about destroying an entire civilization because its primary energy source needs repair? It would be like destroying all coal, hydroelectric dams, and nuclear plants in our world because they can harm the environment. Talk about radical environmentalism! More like environmental insane nuttiness! Dangerous insane nuttiness! Was the story written by Timothy McVeigh? As someone who almost always plays the goodside in games, I would have become the T-energy being myself before I would have destroyed civilization. Thus, I would usually play the so-called "darkside" in Sacred 2 if I could stomach the evil sidequest paths, which I can't. I wish you could play one side or the other up until the ending and then choose at the very last scene whether you would destroy the Machine or become its embodiment.

@loco: I happened to scroll down and see where you've addressed this issue before. I downloaded the memory increase utility you linked there and applied it to the Sacred .exe. I also turned off the grass details. I'll have some long playing sessions this weekend. I'll let you know if it solves the crashes, or at least reduces them. It might not be a bad thing to merge this thread with the other one. Also, enough people are having this problem that a sticky might be in order. EDIT: Here's the other thread: http://darkmatters.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=15625

I'd like to know that too, Stormwing! I have the same random crashes every hour or so and have never found a solution. It did it on U.S. Fallen Angel, and now that I've switched to U.K. Ice and Blood plus CM, it still does it. In my case, the error message says "cannot connect with game client/server" or something like that. (This is in single player.) It usually happens at an area transition or during an attempted telelport. Sometimes it happens when there are too many spell effects at once on the screen, so it could be a graphics card issue, or maybe it has to do with my firewall.

Marcus, thanks, but that doesn't work, which is my whole point! Clicking on the character quest page in the logbook does NOT reset the compass pointer, at least not after the first few times you do it. It always crashes and stops working just a few steps into the character quest. What's worse, the circles for the character quest stop appearing on the world map, too. I'm playing a Shadow Warrior right now whose character quest is completely crashed. I know I could work around it, probably, by looking up the location of General Wunderlich and finding him manually. Although, this particular step of the SW quest involves an involuntary teleportation to an underground area, so it may be completely messed up. I guess I'll try it later. EDIT: Okay, I left what I was doing and backtracked to Winderlich's location, which I had to look up on the Wiki. From there, the quest was in fact repaired, with the needed blue circles reappearing on the map and the journal working again. I got it up to the Seraphim's undead dragon without having a problem. I believe the tracking crashes occur when any step of a character quest triggers too close to one of the added blue circles. In those cases, all you can do is find a walkthrough outside of the game that tells you where to go next. I am still interested in knowing what happens if I talk to all those people with the blue circles along the way and as I go. Will it mess up the later quest that these circles are supposed to help with? 2nd EDIT: The journal and the compass just crashed again after teleporting out of the undead dragon arena. I have no idea where to go next without looking it up.

I'm pretty sure that viking god dude you fight after the ice hydra can debuff you just like the harpies outside his cave. Sorry, I don't remember his name; I only fought him once. I might be misremembering, so don't quote me on it.

Thanks, guys, your answers are better than I could have hoped for. @Chattius, I especially appreciate the scientific charts and the videos. I really want to figure out some way to filter the mount through my imagination into something cool, because I love to play shadow warriors, and I am starting to love mounted combat. I do still wish they had gone with a traditional looking canine, though. A direwolf or werewolf body template for something we're calling a "hellhound" would have been awesome!

Shadow Warrior? Can be light or dark, toughest tank available, has the "god-mode" power, I.e. Shadow Veil. Although, Shadow Veil is rude for multi-player - your friends wouldn't appreciate it.

@lujate, well, I know I could look up where to go, but that would require exiting the game and restarting, which is very inconvenient. I'd rather have my compass arrow back.

Some more thoughts after some more playing... I'm finallly starting to get attached to the big guy a little more. I wonder if the art designers for the hellhound were thinking of brachycephalitic (flat-faced) dogs like the bulldog and bull mastiff. That would also make a connection to the much-loved Mabari from Dragon Age. Maybe they were thinking of making the hellhound like a giant, rideable Mabari. Or maybe something like a Wookie, or the Hoth ice monster. Those images help me get into him a little more, but I still think I would have preferred a more traditionally canine appearance, such as a scaled-up wolf like the kobolds and goblins ride. He also looks and moves a bit like a small Rancor monster, but, ewwww. I'm still interested in other people's thoughts about this.

Hello, I'm having trouble with all the purple quest points added by the CM. As far as I can tell, they are meant to help with the Epic Office Quest. But I'm nowhere near the jungle and nowhere near ready to start that quest. In the meantime, those extra quest points all over the map are wreaking havoc with every character's character quest. The compass pointer just doesn't know what to do. My current Shadow Warrior has no idea where to find General Wunderlich, so I've just given up on his personal quest. I'm way off in the orc region now. Should I click on all those office quest people along the way hoping to clear the map of purple circles so the quest pointer will work again? All they say is "can't help you right now." The personal quests don't work at all with the CM after a certain point - the quest book will not advance and the purple pointer will not appear on the compass. In many places, while it is still trying to work, the pointer points toward one of the bogus office people instead of to the actual character quest. What were the CM creators thinking when they added this? It has spoiled an important component of the game - no more character quests unless you already know exactly where to go, step by step.

Hello, I've just recently gotten into playing with mounted combat. I love my dragon mages' draconicons. I like how my current Shadow Warrior's hellhound plays, (faster movement, more maneuverability, defense and hp bonus), but the biological design of the animal is bugging me. For starters, this beast is clearly not a canine. Its body structure most closely resembles that of an ape - high forehead, in-line jaw with no snout, massive upper body, less massive lower body, hip design is one evolutionary step away from walking erect. So, should I think King Kong? Then, what kind of mammal moves like that? It hops with both hind legs and then lands on its forelimbs. The only mammal I can think of with that kind of motion is the rabbit - hardly a cool mount for a warrior! Even worse, the only animal in the entire animal kingdom I can think of which moves exactly like the hellhound is the frog! A giant, furry frog? Again, not cool. The ends of the forelimbs appear to be in armor, but are those paws or simian hands in there? They're awfully small for a creature that leaps into the air and then lands with its entire body weight slamming into those forelimbs. And what is it with those feet? Again, they look more froggish than mammalian. And furthermore, the beast looks too top-heavy. Its preferred method of locomotion is to hop and jump. Any creature which behaves that way ought to have hindquarters which are more muscular in relation to the upper body, not less. Has anyone who uses hellhounds imagined some way to think of it as a cool companion? It can't be a canine as the name implies - no snout, no long tail, and it doesn't move or behave right. So could it be some kind of bear? Or is ape the best way to think of it? I considered werewolf, but there's that missing snout again. Really, I kind of wish the Shadow Warrior had a cooler and more appropriate mount!

I think it's a really cool post. I wonder if biologists might be interested in this particular animal, especially since one managed to sire offspring, as a piece of evidence in the study of speciation through evolution. I guess it would need to be shown that it can survive in the wild, though. I had no idea that lions and tigers could interbreed. And, more on topic, in my opinion, the woman in the picture may not be a perfect Seraphim, (does any real life woman actually have those proportions?), but I bet her photo is as close as you're going to get to a live Seraphim-on-tiger pose.

Ah, that's the secret I was looking for - I didn't know those rocks could be attacked, much less that they were healing Gar by being allowed to sit there. I did notice that he healed every time he cast the rocks, but I thought he was doing something to me. I never in a million years would have thought to attack the rocks!

Hello, I've just been fighting CM patch Gar'Colossus for the first time with a Shadow Warrior. My Dragon Mages were able to defeat it by using Destroyers over and over. However, what's happening with my melee SW is that the new Gar seems to be using Life Leech. For whatever damage I can hit it for, it just heals itself over and over. I have no idea how to get past this with a melee character. Do I have to disable the CM patch? Can it be done temporarily and then reactivated? Thanks. EDIT: Sigh. Okay, I just went back in and beat him. The only thing I did differently was to change weapons to do 30 points additional damage. Only 30 points. Both times I was using light sabers with physical and fire primary damage. I am still interested in why this tiny change made the difference. The first weapon had Life Leech in it. Was the Gar reflecting my own LL? Or was it that its own LL was recharging it for exactly 30 points and that tiny amount made all the difference?

Okay, I've gotta have it! Curse the addictiveness of this game! Every time I get a character to level 50-70, something else comes along that I need, that I absolutely must try, necessitating yet another build! I just started a new SW build where I'm maxing Enhanced Perception. Maybe I'll find some more set pieces for my other characters along the way. I think I'll still be playing when I'm 80 years old without ever finishing Niobium or reaching level 200.

What an awesome-looking Shadow Warrior, Furian! Is that a set he's wearing, or something you've pieced together? Oh, and where did you get that cape? I've never seen one in the game before. You're making me want to build a Darth Vader inspired lightsaber SW.

Absolutely! It makes me facepalm and laugh and cry all at the same time at how ridiculous they are! It's like they are actually trying to die! I keep screaming "No, you idiot! Stay behind me! Don't run towards those spiders over there, we were 10 paces from the village gates! The road is over here - no, don't run into that skeleton army! AUGH!"

I figured out one somewhat inconvenient way to do it, at a cost. Take one of your developed and rich characters and buy a whole bunch of junk at a merchant. Then put the junk into the shared part of the chest. The new character can then sell the "junk" for an amount that will be a lot of money for a new character. What was "junk" to the advanced character is actually quite valuable to the new character. Oh, and I second the gripe about the escorts. If I smell "escort" in the quest description, I say no, huh-uh, no way, get lost, solve your own darn problem! I only deal with them now when I pick them up by accident, they get forced on me ("Holdup"), or I know there's a great reward with a good chance for success (Mary Anne, Orpheus, and the Underworld).

Silver, thank you so much! I have my delicious contrabass lightsaber sound back, and I'm so happy! I tried the second way you mention first, and I couldn't get that to work. I'm probably not doing the pathing correctly, but the problem in part is that the files from both ...hq and ...lq have the same names, and my WinRar didn't want to extract two sets of files with the same name without copying one over the other. However, the first method you mention was extremely easy and successful on the first try. Since there was nothing in the ...hq4 and ...lq4 folders except the unwanted soundset, all I had to do was move them out of the pak folder out into their own special little folder on my desktop. Now all I have to do to get the movie sounds back if the mood strikes me is to move those two .zip folders back into the pak folder, and voila, I practically have a toggle switch at my disposal. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

My understanding was that Ice and Blood is incompatible with U.S. Fallen Angel. I thought you had to have U.K. Fallen Angel installed first, and then Ice and Blood, so that's how I did it.

I agree with Gogo, at least partially. The main replayability and fun of the game, other than trying different builds, is the drops. I like to compare playing Sacred (and Diablo, Titan Quest, Dungeon Siege, et al) to playing the slot machines in Vegas, only without risking any of your money. You get the flashing lights, the luxurious environment, the pretty colors and pictures, the spinning "wheels" (in this case the camera and the enemies), and the thrill of "hitting the jackpot". The question becomes whether providing a slight chance of finding a unique or a set item at a merchant by investing huge amounts of points and equipment choices in Bargaining would take away from the fun of the game. I'm not sure it would, really, if the chance were small enough, say if uniques and set items were only in tier 12, and used the breakpoint system as set out by Antitrust. I know that when I was playing Fallen Angel, and my only hope of getting lightsabers was through opening tier 12 through Bargaining, I had the same thrill of "hitting the jackpot" upon finding a lightsaber at a merchant as I get through getting a set item through a drop.

Hello, I find that I prefer the old, lower-pitched soundset for lightsabers over the new soundset from the movies that was added with the CM. Is there a way for me to put the old lightsaber soundset back in without uninstalling the CM? It would be nice if there were an option on install that allowed the user to replace the lightsaber soundset or not.