[LazyTomcat's Designs as new Armor Sets]

The chestplate of the Dryad's set has armor bonus that is frequent on set chestplates, and the amount of it is not higher than on others. If it's OP, than so are Chestplate of Time, the chestplate from Children of Asha set, and especially Velaria's Garment.

 

Damage Mitigation value of this item is actually smaller than on any other set chestplate (smaller than on Dry's Mormorin's Cage for example). DM's shoulders Torik's Spaulders have higher mitigation + two sockets + two blue modifiers and are not considered OP either.

 

If other people agree that the chestplate is too powerful, I can reduce the socket quality, but so far it does not seem to be more OP than other set pieces in game.

[Definition of DoT For Wiki Purposes]

Yes, I also noticed this. With the current definition of Multi-Hit we can include all Area of Effect CAs there, just because they send more than one damage number flying. My opinion about what defines Multi-Hit can be seen a couple of posts above, so I won't repeat it. Basically, I think that only CAs that can do only fixed number of hits at each CA level can stay there, so Area of Effect CAs that can damage any number of enemies should be excluded.

 

I either can't completely agree with removal of GOW from Area of Effect list. Yes, it has a number of flows and an enemy can get between them and stay unharmed, but it's not restricted to hitting one enemy with one flow, so the maximum number of hits it deals is not fixed. It looks more like an Area of Effect CA with more complex area shape than a simple circle.

[LazyTomcat's Designs as new Armor Sets]

Quite a long time ago, LazyTomcat's personal mod introduced several new armor designs to the game. However, as the time passed, this mod became outdated and no longer compatible with the current version of the Community Patch. LazyTomcat decided against updating his mod for the new CM patch, but permitted to use his designs in other mods.

 

The original mod used the new designs as the replacements for the original Fallen Angel aspect sets, but as was previously mentioned in the Item Mod thread, we wanted to make them into entirely new sets, with their own names and bonuses. The following posts would show the results of this work, all of which would be released with the next version of the Item Mod, and probably later integrated with the Community Patch,

 

The first of the LazyTomcat's designs to be presented as a new set is a "Jaguar" armor for the Dryad. It is themed around the big cats and has bonuses that benefit the Ranged Combat-oriented character.

 

The Wild Cat

Covered with furry pelts of feline predators, the Dryad Ranger becomes one the most effective hunters of the forest. She can notice the enemies from far away and run after them at amazing speed...

... reading the footprints to track them through the growth and finally shoot them down.

 

The set items were named after distinctive features of various big cats:

 

Helmet: Jaguar's Bite

Jaguar has the most powerful bite of all cats. Its jaws can pierce and crack open even the armored reptiles like armadillos and turtles. Chance for critical hits and Chance to pierce modifiers are unlocked by the Ranged weapons skill.

 

Shoulders: Lion's Mane

The mane is the best known feature of a lion. In practice, the lions use it as a means of intimidation - the mane helps them to trick the opponent and to appear larger than they are. While the mane makes the lions feel pretty hot, it can act like some armor, and the intimidation tactics causes some enemies to think twice before fighting the lion.

 

Arms: Leopard's Agility

Leopards are agile and elusive hunters, known for their abilities in climbing and being capable of impressive jumps both vertically and horizontally.

 

Chest: Lynx' Thick Fur

In mythology, lynxes are most known for their eyesight, but as the helmet was named after the jaguar (got to have a jaguar somewhere in the jaguar set), this feline was mentioned for its more mundane quality. Lynxes can comfortably live in the cold regions of Siberia and Canada thanks to their thick fur that protects them from the cold and the wind. This chestplate maintains the fur's qualities and protects the wearer from the elements.

 

Belt: Tiger's Tail

Korean and Chinese traditional stories oftenly feature tiger's tail - pulling or grasping this tail, as well as treading on it always leads to very dangerous situations. In some eastern countries there are proverbs and figures of speech with general meaning "as dangerous as treading on tiger's tail". Besides, the belt has tiger-pelt pattern. Opponent's chance to reflect: Ranged modifier is unlocked by the Ranged weapons skill.

 

Legs: Cheetah's Sprint

The first thing everybody remembers about cheetahs is that they are the fastest animals on Earth and can chase even the fast-running prey, so of course this feature gets a mention. Having the legs of the cheetah, the Dryad can move an great speed and chase down the enemies who try to evade her.

 

Boots: Cougar's Paws

Cats in general are known for their sharp claws that leave infected scratches, but Cougars have claws remarkable even for their kind. For one thing, Cougars are among the few cats that have retractable claws. They also have big front paws, which they use to clutch the prey. With the Cougar's Paws the Dryad can also use the benefits of having sharp claws in addition to her weapons (when unarmed, the Dryad fights with kicks, and with these boots the kicks may deal some good damage). Though Chance to open wounds and Chance to hit additional opponents modifiers are unlocked by the Ranged weapons skill, so only the ranger can enjoy the full bonus of this item.

 

The set bonuses:

Bonuses are unlocked for wearing 2, 4, 6 and 7 items.

 

Gallery:

The side view features the maple leaf pattern on the belt:

The back view with noticeable tiger stripes:

[New Uniques and Legendaries - Brainstorming]

It's been a while since this thread was updated. It almost looks like all Sacred players finally got enough unique and legendary items. Almost, but not quite. In fact, the development of the Item Mod still continues, though maybe not as rapidly as before. The temporary silence should be attributed only to the fact that making new things takes time - now that this time has passed, some new items are going to be revealed.

 

So far, the mod offered new armor for the Dragon Mage, High Elf, Seraphim, Shadow Warrior and Inquisitor, and class-specific weapons for the Dryad. Only the Temple Guardian hasn't yet got anything made for him, so today's small update would attempt to remedy this.

 

This new addition to the list of Sacred 2 Unique Items is based on designs from another action-RPG, namely Torchlight 2. Torchlight always had a very active modding community, with lots of items exported and imported into this game. So maybe we can also benefit from the trade, smuggling in a couple of exotic mechanical weapons made and used by Torchlight's Engineers (that's a playable class):

 

Axe-Bot 2525

A pretty faithful re-creation of the Torchlight 2 Unique of the same name, this mighty clockwork axe was "optimized" by and for Sacred's own technology-oriented characters. While this version might not have as great an amount of base damage as the original had, it can be wielded using only one hand, which makes it a good fit for the Temple Guardian... or anybody else lucky enough to find it.

 

Forgotten Technology

This weapon's design is similar not only to the previously presented Axe-Bot, but also to the Atomic Mobiculum, the Lost Fusion Guardians' preferred means of transportation. Not surprising that the Temple Guardians who found this weapon were quick to adapt it to their own needs. While other characters can wield the "Forgotten Technology Weapon", they are not likely to find it very useful, maybe because they really don't remember how to exploit complex mechanics.

 

More updates coming soon, including some items listed in the "wishlist" of the first post and some completely new ones.

[At Long Last... A Slicing Scythe!]

It's a great reference list, Flix. Maybe it can be placed somewhere on the wiki where all players can find it, as it offers a clear explanation about the probability of finding different items - if the item is on the list, chances of finding it are smaller. How about posting it as a page linked from the general Items page or from Unique and Set databases.

[Fixing appearance issues for custom skin colors]

I&B allowed players to customize their characters' appearance, including skin color, but those customized characters do not always display as well as their more default counterparts. I don't know why I decided to make a drow-like High Elf, but that made me notice that the game has quite a number of textures that don't work well with non-standard skin colors - the skin shade sometimes bleeds on the armor parts or alters the tone of things that are obviously not a part of character's skin.

 

In Sacred 2, application of the character's skin color depends on two factors: the "skin" shader applied in the surface.txt to surfaces of every items that show at least some skin, and the special h/hx textures. I looked at the scripts and textures to understand where the troubles with appearance come from, and it turned out that skin shader effect is generally linked to the alpha channel of h/hx textures, but some of those textures that were created before I&B don't have any alpha at all. So I quickly made a number of fixes that correct the hx maps and improve the appearance of some items for non-standard skin colors (the change is more noticeable with dark skins, but shows on all).

The first correction, albeit a smaller one, is for the h texture of the High Elf herself - the original texture did not have an alpha channel, so the skin shade was applied to the entire Elf. I changed the texture to prevent the skin color from showing on eyes and teeth (according to the look of h map, this is what the devs intended, but did not make). The effect of original h texture is pictured on the left, on the right is the changed texture:

 

And a similar correction for the Dryad:

The following changes correct the look of various armor sets. The pictures show only one color variation per set, but the actual change affects all color variations.

 

For the High Elf Diamond Set - the chestplate and legsplates got correct h/hx textures with added alpha channel:


For the High Elf Raven Set - the torso h map was corrected so that the skin color does not bleed on the shoulder plates anymore:

 

For the High Elf Leather Set - the torso h texture was corrected to prevent the skintone from showing on the back of the armor:

The last is the fix for the chest from High Elf Pearl Set. This one is trickier. The h map for this item was correct, but the neck still showed the unaltered skin color. This was because surface.txt entries for this part of the texture that includes the neck did not have the skin shader applied. This item was fixed by changing the script and altering the textures to accommodate the different shader. Alternatively, it could have been fixed by altering the UV-mapping of the model, but for me changing the textures was easier.

 

These fixes would be released with the next Community Items Mod, but if there is enough demand, I can post them as separate mini-mod.

 

Also, the skin color problems can appear on many Fallen Angel items (Dragon Mage and his wardrobe seem to be completely OK), and I don't think that I found all such issues. If any of you play as characters with customized appearance and noticed glitches with the way armor looks, you can post about these issues in this thread and I'll try to correct them.

[Definition of DoT For Wiki Purposes]

Тут просто параллельно упомянули страницу про умения, наносящие урон несколько раз (вот эту -Multi Hit). Огненный шар, метеоры и гнев архангела предлагается добавить туда, а не к ДОТ умениям. Было здесь предложение перенести туда все, что сейчас лежит на ДОТ странице, но ДОТом не является, но это, по-моему, уже перебор. На Multi Hit странице лучше оставить только умения, у которых число ударов хоть как-то фиксировано. А на ДОТ странице не нужно держать лишнего, туда надо только кинуть объяснение, что есть вот такие-то умения (и перечень), которые имеют продолжительность и пульсирующий урон, но ДОТом не являются.

 

To prevent the confusion, I'll repeat that Ancestral Fireball, Archangel's Wrath and Incendiary Shower are nominated for putting on Multi Hit CA page, not on DOT page at all. However, I do not think that putting Radiant Pillar on Multi Hit is warranted. I guess it should be left as just Area of Effect CA, and not figure on other pages.

[Definition of DoT For Wiki Purposes]

The headline definition of Multi Hit CAs is way too general, so many things can fit it. So was the headline definition of DOT CAs for a long time, which is why the DOT page got such excessive listing. From my point of view, what defines Multi Hit CAs is that they have well-discerned Hits, each hit behaves like weapon hit, dealing damage only to one enemy, and the maximum number of Hits is a property of CA - it is either listed in CA description (like Incendiary Shower and Glacial Thorns) or defined by animation (Pelting Strikes). The stationary Area of Effect CAs that do pulsing damage to every enemy caught in the pulse have the same trouble fitting into Multi Hit as they do fitting into DOT. They don't have visualization of each hit, nor any limit and way to define the number of hits, the number of times they hit an enemy is defined by duration, as pulses come every second (the same way true DOT pulses come), and number of enemies in the zone, so it's not a property of CA.

 

Speaking of Multi Hit page, what probably should be added here are Ancestral Fireball (with Fusillade mods) and Archangel's Wrath (with Salvo). They can't hit additional targets, but they can hit one target multiple times, which in case of AW can be used to trigger "per Hit" modifiers (RPH and Lifeleech) twice.

 

As for whether or not the beginners can easily say that this or that CA is not DOT... Well, the very first definition of DOT was made a long time ago (I mean DOT in general, not in Sacred 2). And at first it was very simple and broad - "DOT is a kind of damage that requires passage of time to be fully inflicted, as opposed to instant damage that comes at the same moment the hit is delivered", or something like that, I don't recall the exact wording. Then, as computer games became more popular and multiple, more variations of DOT and takes on the concept emerged - now we can see damage that gradually diminishes health and damage that comes in pulses, damage that sticks to the character and damage that is inflicted in fixed area, etc. Each game has its own way in which DOT behaves, and what definition each player has depends only on this particular player's previous gaming experiences.

 

What DOT wiki page needs is a detailed explanation made by someone who really knows the mechanics and CA description in scripts. It would define what DOT is in Sacred 2 and what should not be confused for it. I guess a couple of words should be added about secondary effects like Burn, Poison and Open Wounds, all of which stick to the character and damage him/her in pulses, but those are considered Detrimental effects, not DOT. And where should damaging Buffs go at all? They stay with the player's character, not enemies, they don't have a fixed amount of hits, and their damage is not technically DOT. Should they just stay as Area of Effect without any further classification of the damage dealing?

[Unique and Legendary Database Renewal]

High Elf Uniques page is now complete. All images were updated and all individual sub-pages got new formatting and info.

 

Most of Seraphim Uniques were done as well, I'll try to update the weapons and jewellery soon to finish this page.

 

And special thanks to Flix for supplying the "in use" images for other characters' unique armor pages.

[Definition of DoT For Wiki Purposes]

Well, Pelting Strikes never were on DOT page, as there is a Multi Hit for CAs like that. This page lists Incendiary Shower too, as my opinion about it is the same as yours - IS is multi-hit because there are many boulders each of which deals damage only once. However, Radiant Pillar and Raging Nimbus do look like DOT CA in conventional sense, as they hit enemies not only at the first touch but repeatedly over all the time the enemy stays in the effect area. The damage from those CAs comes in pulses, so it's not all that easy to tell them from true DOT CAs at a glance. The same with buffs - Incandescent Skin and Cleansing Brilliance have their damage described as "pulses" in CA tooltip, and this is usually a description of true DOT, but according to spells.txt they are not DOT CAs.

[Sacred Wiki - Latest Updates]

It's a great list of updates, which might seem not drastic from the first sight, but actually are a big step to completing the wiki articles, as well as making the wiki easier to read an navigate. And you totally forgot to mention some of your most interesting updates - the great pictures of Unique armor for 5 out of 7 characters.

[Definition of DoT For Wiki Purposes]

The general definition of DOT is just that - Damage over Time that does not end after one hit. That is what most gamers think when they first see the name in a game they just started playing. In Sacred 2 there is a DOT as damage type defined in spells.txt, but the player who just started to play the game won't know this detail and would go by general definition.

 

Therefore, removing the pseudo-DOT CAs means misleading the general community. The average player does not read spells.txt on a daily basis and does not know the definition of true DOT. Such player just plays the game and sees that a particular CA does damage not once, but several times over a prolonged period - therefore the player thinks that this CA is DOT. The way the page is now, many players would think that CAs they consider DOT are not on the page just because nobody bothered to add them.

 

The wiki is a general encyclopaedia of the game, it exists to explain the particulars of game mechanics to average player. So instead of just cutting the pseudo-DOT CAs out of pages and making these pages incomplete from the point of view of newcomers, we should place a description there, with this description explaining what the true DOT is, what the pseudo-DOT is, what is the difference between the two, which CAs are true DOT, and which are not though can be mistaken as such.

[Ice & Blood help removing quest markers?]

Are you playing with the Community Patch or without? The Epic Office quest circles started to show up with I&B, but it's the CM patch that turned them blue. If you are playing without CM, chances are that the silver circles you see really are the employees from the Epic Office quest. When you start a new game, the character automatically receives an invisible quest to talk to them all. In Fallen Angel, this quest was hidden, so there were no circles marking the targets you need to talk to. In I&B, it suddenly was revealed, along with other hidden quests and now the circles can be seen on the map. The Community Patch moves this quest to "character-specific" category, so the circles become blue, but without CM they are silver until you accept the Epic Office quest and green or red afterwards.

[Elite Mounts Project]

Thank you very much for making the videos, Flix. They show the new mounts well - they have everything that people need to see and nothing that is beside the point. I added links to them to the first post, so that they were easier to find in the thread and more readers checked them out.

[Elite Mounts Project]

Serving as a priest of half-forgotten temple is not a very interesting way to spend a life. However, the priestly way of life allows for pilgrimage to holy places and some priests spend considersble amount of time travelling around the world. One certain priest we noticed earlier tends to bring more that the Gods' blessings from his travels.

Quite a few days have passed since the first Elite Mount was revealed, so it's time for the update. Today's news are not about beasts, but about advanced Machines that were once created for the Temple Guardians, and would serve them again. TG's new mount is not so drastically different from the original as High Elf's, but the Elite Mobiculums are still a noticeable upgrade, both in stats and in appearance. They have the same speed as the standart Mobiculums, but got better reach and a mix of offensive and defensive modifiers. Now for the details.

When the Priest desided to pay a visit to his colleagues in the Wasteland Temple, his main intention was to offer them at least some company, as there are not many pilgrims coming to the Wastelands. However, the moment he arrived in this desolate land, he was astonished by the ancient power that can still be felt around the place and the remains of incredible battles that took place here ages ago. In the end, he spent more time walking around the Windswept Fortress than praying in the Temple. The result of his wonderings was that he found remains of the ancient battle machines, some of them still relatively intact. He took it on himself to restore one such machine, but was not able to figure out all of its features. He would gladly offer this devise to a hero fully capable of using it.

This is a Skirmish Mobiculum, a standart Military issue developed for Temple Guardians who defended the Great Machine during the ancient wars. As all standart issues, it is not geared for any function in particular, but does its main job well. The thorned frame of the machine allows to repel the incoming damage, and the fine tuned gears allow for better reach and enhance the driver's capability for fighting.




For his true pilgrimages, the Priest does not go to the big temples in the bustling cities. Instead, he visits the ruins of the ancient temples hidden in the Jungle, hoping to find some revelation that was forgotten by modern people. Nobody knows if he actually found a better way to communicate with the Gods, but in the Temple of Tears he found a machine that was used by the Guardians of this place, mysterious beings sometimes called "Watchdogs". Little is remembered about these guardians, except that their Devotion to the cause was truly remarkable.

From the Temple Guardian's class quest, we learned that there was a special substance hidden in the Temple of Tears and protected by Temple Guardians throughout the years. The Watchdog Mobiculum is probably a machine used by these Devout Guardians. It enhances the combat arts of the Devout Guardian Aspect and offers the same offensive and defensive stats as other Elite Mobiculums.




Another interesting thing that the curious Priest found instead of the Divine blessing, was a strange engine that uses a mysterious principle called "Nuclear Fusion". It was kept in the ruined building near the Temple in Ciria Delith. While the thing is obviously dangerous, it definitely produces a lot of power, so the Priest used it for one of the machines he assembled. However, he refuses to give the resulting Mobiculum to any other person, unless this person has some understanding of what the Fusion is and how it works.

The Atomic Mobiculum that uses the principles of Lost Fusion is available to all Temple Guardians, as they do remember the particulars of such technology. However, it would be most useful for the ones who choose the Lost Fusion as the main aspect.




The last machine the Priest built was not a restoration of a ruined Mobiculum he found somewhere, but a new experimental design. Like most machines in the modern Ancaria, it uses T-Energy as the source of power. With its very core filled with the dangerous source of technology and magic, this Mobiculum obtained properties that are different from that of the other similar machines.

The Energy Core Mobiculum is best handled by Source Wardens, who specialized in harnessing T-Energy for a long time. Being built on the same base as the other Mobiculums, it offers similar characteristics otherwise.




So these are the TG's Elite Mounts. The model is one of the Armored Mount models contributed by Dimitrius154, and modified by Pesmontis, so many thanks to them both for making this mount happen. Textures are by LazyTomcat (used with his permission) and by me.

Additional picture gallery:

[How do you choose your mount?]

Don't worry, I'm not going to add this idea to my list. I have quite an amount of other things I want to work with - starting with Elite Mounts and new items that are already in process, and ending with new quests. Just wanted to post a little explanation and warning for anybody who wants to try something with the mounts.

[How do you choose your mount?]

I always choose items and mounts based on the stats. If the look turns out to be too silly, I make a small texture mod that I turn on when I play this particular character. Of course, I don't make new textures for all chars, only for those that I like for some reason and play for a lot of time.

 

As for making the mod that would enable mounts to have random color, it's possible, but not as simple as you think. Unlike the items, mounts have one-to-one correspondence between looks and stats. If you know a bit about the scripts, I'll explain more: The looks of everything in game are defined in itemtype.txt. Every item, creature, building or decoration has one or more itemtypes. Items have one itemtype each. Mounts generally have three per head. Now the stats - for the items they are defined in blueprint.txt, and blueprints support multiple itemtypes. That is how item look is randomized: several itemtypes are added to the blueprint that holds the stats. For the mounts it's different: they have bueprints, but those are just placeholders to ensure correct population of the trader's stock. Mount stats are described in creature.txt and creatureinfo.txt. Neither creature nor creatureinfo entries support multiple itemtypes. To make mount look randomized, it won't be enough to just add the look description to some list. To have particular mount stats appear with four different textures, we'd have to implement four different mounts with exactly the same stats but different looks and then randomize the trader's stock so that only one of them was sold at the time. It's quite a lot of work that requires a lot of free ID numbers (which are possibly limited). Also, such mod would have to be enabled all the time, as you would lose the mounts created with it if you turn it off. I'm not sure if it's worth it to go through the motions of adding new mounts just for the sake of different color variations - in this case it would make more sense to come up with some new and interesting stats too.

 

Generally, without editing the scripts and actually creating a mount-randomizing mechanism, swapping a look of one mount variation with another amounts to swapping the texture files by extracting and renaming them. For example, to exchange the look of the tigers, you need only to open graphics02.zip, find the folder named "mq\maps\npc\ridingcreatures\Frosttiger" and extract the files "i_tiger-varX_d.dds" into a folder of the same name in the "pak" folder of the game. Exchanging the X numbers would effectively exchange the look of the tigers in game, for as long as you don't change the numbers again or don't delete the extracted files.

 

So I'm not sure if creating a big mod that does about the same as 5 minute work with the textures is worth it. Though it is possible to do if you want to.

 

By the way, I checked, and that is exactly how the horses are scripted - each look is implemented as a separate creature, and then the trader sells a random amount of random creatures, that all have similar stats.

[Mod: New Dragon Mage Sets [In Development]]

If you go through all steps of item creation except for the last one, you'd get a completely working item that would have a randomly generated name based on its stats (just like all non-unique items in game do). All the stats and looks would display exactly as you scripted them, so it's just the matter of having the right name. If the lack of proper name does not bother you, you can create as many new items as you wish.

[Elite Mounts Project]

Ok now that's amazing! Why does the HE get a dragon though? Why not the DM instead? or are you using the HE for testing?

Oh, now you are starting on the same topic Flix advocated for some time ago - to give the Dragon to DM. The special mounts are made specifically for the character - this is the way the game works. It is impossible to create an all-character special mount. It is possible to make identically looking mounts for different chars, but it's more interesting to give them different ones instead. Currently, the Dragon belongs to High Elf. This is why my screens and Flix' video show her. There are several reasons why it is so:

1. When Pesmontis contributed the Dragon model, he wanted it to be used for the High Elf's mount. The High Elf's Fay Drake's description likens this creature to the Dragon, which is probably why Pesmontis thought about making the Dragon as an upgrade to Fay Drake. From what I remember, he also did not want to give it to DM so as not to have "dragons everywhere" in DM's design. I don't think it respectful to take Pesmontis' creation and use it in the way other than he intended.
2. As it was announced, we plan to release Elite Mounts for all characters. In fact, a lot of work had already been done in this direction. We have 9 new mount models now, contributed by Dimitrius and Pesmontis, so there is some room for choosing. Simply put, we gave the Dragon to the Elf because there is another quite awesome model that can be given to DM.
3. The Dragon mount is quite small in size, and therefore is quite alike DM's Dragon Form. It makes it look like he is riding one of his fellows. While it is quite a good match, I don't think all people would like such allusion. After all, the Dragon Mages should be disciples and respectful followers of the Dragons, and it remains a question if riding one of their masters is a respectful and allowed approach.

I have an idea would it be possible to make anything mountable with a little editing?

It would be possible to make some creatures mountable with a lot editing. Only the creatures that are reminiscent of existing mounts in shape and size can be made mountable, because there is only one set of character animations to be used for the mounted combat. Making a drastically different creature into a mount not only requires tremendous amount of work, but would also render the original mount pretty unusable by throwing the animations off. Anything horse-sized and horse-shaped theoretically can be made into a mount, but it requires a lot of work editing models and animations of the new mount itself. I'm not sure if we currently have a modder around who is willing to undertake such a task.

 

Also, just to make it clear: We did not want to post a completely unfinished project here, so right now, the Elite Mounts have been in the works for quite some time already. Not only we have the models for all new mounts prepared, but all scripting work had been already done. As of now, every character has his sets of working Elite Mounts that can be bought from a special trader. All that remains is to create new textures for all mounts to represent all aspects and serve as appropriate color-coding. Texturing is a time-consuming work, so the project is not near the release, but it is already past the phase of preliminary planning.

 

That being said, it does not mean that there is no room for more mounts than those already in the works. For example, if there would be enough demand, we can make a set of Dragons for DM too, without taking them away from HE (I made such a thing for my personal setup, but as of now I don't plan to release it). If somebody offers a new mount model, we can consider adding it too. But the work that already started takes priority before the new ideas and wishes. We can listen to suggestions and add them to the plans, but they won't be implemented right away.

[New Uniques and Legendaries - Brainstorming]

The version 1.1 was released! Congratulations to everybody who participated in development and offered support and ideas!

 

Thank you very much, Flix, for all you've done to create this mod and see it through the first two releases, as well as for all the awesome items you made and awesome ideas you suggested. I hope you enjoy playing the game with all new stuff that the mod brought in. I also hope that playing the new version of the mod and maybe trying new characters would give you more great ideas, and you would return to implement them.

 

Also, I'd note that even though Flix said that he is going to take a break from modding, it does not mean that the mod would halt in its tracks. I'm going to stay here, listen to your suggestions and try to implement what I can, so the items listed as plans and currently developed projects are still making their way into the game. The mounts are being worked on either, so the version 1.1 is not the very final Item Mod, and new version of the mod would be released later.

 

And a small note about bringing in the items from other games: There is one issue with it, and that's the legal one. Many game devs hate seeing the models from their games extracted and appearing in the mods, and ask to take such mods down. We should be careful if we decide to use the models reminiscent of items from other games, especially now that we are planning to integrate the mod with the CM patch. As I remember, the CM devs took great pains to re-create the armor for the Scourge of Lordaeron set, and specifically listed in the disclaimer that it is an original creation and not the actual model from World of Warcraft. It was because Blizzard is known to demand that the modders removed the mods that use actual WoW models. The models we used in the mod so far were taken from the sites that offer free models, and were marked as created by certain people, not exactly extracted from the games. That removes any responsibility on our side - we can list in the disclaimer that the model was offered to public by some person and modified by us. If more models would be added, they should be selected carefully. From what I remember, Titan Quest and Torchlight devs do not mind their models being extracted, and support modding discussions on the official forums, but it usually is not so with the big developing companies.

[An Interview with Sacred 3 devs]

There is a lot of heated responses to all the news about Sacred 3, and I quite understand why. Maybe the reason is that Sacred franchise is an action-RPG? This sub-genre has quite narrow definition, and at the same time is densely populated. There are many ARPG titles, and they all are alike in most basic features. But it's not hard to notice that the franchises that survive the test of time and are remembered for years after the first release are the ones that have at least something different to them. Here, with Sacred 3, Deep Silver took such title, and easily removed most of the features that made it special and different from other ARPGs. The result is obvious - when you change the defining features of the game is such narrow genre, you risk making it less like its predecessors, and more like other ARPG franchises. And this is exactly what happened - the upcoming Sacred 3 looks much more like the next installment in Diablo or Dungeon Siege series than it does look like Sacred 1 and 2. But if people still hang on this forum and not go away to participate in numerous Diablo III communities, it means that they liked Sacred more or at least no less than other similar games. It's not surprising that such people won't welcome the fact that the game they liked more morphs into the game they liked less. On the other hand, people who are just the fans of the genre in general are still hopeful about the upcoming release, because they don't really mind Sacred 3 being able to pass for Diablo 4 for as long as it is the game of good quality.

[New Uniques and Legendaries - Brainstorming]

I wrote another letter to LazyTomcat, asking him a permission to use the sets design in the mod. Hopefully, he agrees.

 

As far as the suggestions, I'll probably ask to make the Dryad's set about Ranged Weapons, but not necessarily about Hunter aspect. She was supposed to be a ranger by the class design, but as the people played her, there appeared more and more melee and magical Dryad builds. Now she is not seen as a mainly ranged fighter anymore. As for the name, maybe "The Wilderness" or "The Wild Cat"?

About HEs - it's hard to imagine Ice Diamond to be anything but Ice-damage themed set, so it's general bonuses and Storm aspect. Maybe adding elemental armor and/or defensive elemental bonuses, either against ice or fire.

[Tips on squashing spider queen?]

I never came close to dying while fighting her, but I never fought her when she was much above my level - usually we were about equal, no more than 3 level difference. There is one thing that can be said about the Spider queen as she is in CM: It is easier to fight her when you don't approach her in close combat. She does not try to approach you either, so it's possible to fight her this way. Purely melee characters have harder times with her because of lifeleech and heavy knockback.

 

I defeated her with the Seraphims many times, but never with purely Exalted Warrior ones. That's just my personal quirk - I'm no good with purely warrior chars in any RPGs. I can play as a caster, ranger, or hybrid, but never as a pure melee fighter. It might be hard to fight her using only Pelting Strikes and regular swords, so I understand where your troubles are coming from.

 

So, with the Seraphim, my usual approach to her is getting a 2-handed sword or polearm with Lifeleech +% on it, keep the distance and hit her with Archangel's Wrath till she goes down. When she summons spiders and they approach me, I switch to the main weapon slot and unleash usual crowd-control CAs on them (for me it's usually Flaring Nova+Pelting Strikes combo, for you it may be something different). Then go back to the Lifeleech slot and use Archangel's again. Asmarael is weak agains fire, and with a 2-handed weapon equipped, Archangel's Wrath has good base damage. Lifeleech +% adds extra damage and keeps you alive. If you use only Archangel's, it does not matter whether or not you are any good with 2-h swords or polearms - this CA does not use attack speed and critical chance from weapons, so it's possible to use this tactics effectively even with Dual-wielder. Another recommendation is to use Dashing Alacrity (in combo with Divine Protection if possible) as a protection against rooting spell, and move continuously. Asmarael's Area of Effect CA has quite slow execution animation, so it's wise to relocate your character when you see her beginning to cast. Usually defeating her this way is not troublesome even if I get debuffed.

 

For a Celestial Magic Seraphim, I usually just spam a room full of pillars (with Hypnotize mod it is possible to keep her and spiders where the pillar is and cast the next one in approximately the same place, so the damage stacks), and also use Archangel's Wrath (for some reason I end up using at least something from Revered aspect for every seraphim).

 

If you do not use Revered Aspect and Archangel's is no good for you, try Lifeleech % shurikens (it's a universal anti-boss solution for many players), or Dual-wielding Lifeleech % fistweapons.

[Possible to mod Sacred 2 inventory?]

Well, I'm not a big part of the CM patch team, I participate in CM development only as a translator, but I know enough about CM and Sacred modding to say this much: It's a myth that CM devs have far superior tools denied to everybody else. The only editor CM devs actively use that was never released to general public is for in-game texts. All other things in CM and other mods are accomplished through editing the same txt and xml scripts than everybody else can access. The things that require disassembling and reassembling any dll and exe files are just as impossible for CM devs as they are to you. Which is why there are many known bugs that are repeatedly reported to CM bugtrecker and that remain unfixed, just because they are not in scripts and changing the hard code is impossible.

[What happened to the RPG while I became an old man?]

There is only one thing I can tell you, Munk, besides the fact that it was an awesome piece of gamer's rant. The lack of choice is now a general gaming tendency. It happens not only with RPGs, but with other games as well. You think that FPS haven't changed much - and the first thing that comes to my mind is that picture I found on one gaming forum some time ago:

They also became very short, but that's another general tendency. I guess that games that can be played for a long time are considered not profitable, because if you have a game you can play you won't be buying more. But now you also think twice before buying many games - Are the four hours of gameplay really worth the price?

 

In RPGs the lack of choice and customization is felt better than in other games, because these things were a staple of the genre. Action RPGs like Sacred never were much about choice of actions and plot advancement, which is why they require more choice and variety in character development to be interesting. And that is where many new games of the genre are lacking. Even though I'm a big ARPG fan, the only project I'm currently looking forward to is Grim Dawn - it might not have a huge world to explore, but it offers a very good variety of character builds and playstyles to try out. And even Grim Dawn is developed independently of big publishers, nobody wanted to fund the game despite Titan Quest being an acclaimed success.

 

The lack of good AI is also omnipresent. With Internet technology advancement, multiplayer games are becoming more and more popular. As a consequence, many developers consider singleplayer campaigns only as an addition to multiplayer engine, and AI only as a means of training before facing human opponents. They are partially right - it is impossible to create an AI that would be as good as a human, so it would never offer the same challenge. But looking at many of the older games, it is possible to notice that PvE and PvP can both be challenging, just in different ways. In Sacred 2, PvE and PvP builds are usually very different, because single human players and AI mobs and bosses offer different kind of playstyle. And then there are people who just don't like playing against other people - if the current tendency continues, they would have very few games to play.

 

Now it looks like the game development branched into big publishers who do modern graphics and physics and indie devs who make interesting or at least somewhat original game design and mechanics. Why is that we can't have the top-notch looks and interesting gameplay at the same time, probably no one knows.