Flix

Watched the gameplay video. Looks like one to keep an eye on. I like the tone.

New character designs: The Amazon New portraits by Silver Fox. In fact he deserves all the credit for turning the Dryad into the Amazon. Amazon has lighter skin tones, blue eyes, and different face than the Dryad. Default hair is black but can be turned to blonde or white or anything in between. Fallback equipment is the minimalist leather that the Dryad wore minus the leaves. The Amazon also has a completely new selection of hairstyles: Ignore the weird skin tones on that last one, that was just when the new skin color was a work in progress. The Amazon also has some new circlets, as seen above. Here all the variants: The four on the bottom row replace the helmets from the Generic standard armor. The gold one with the red jewel is a recreation of the D2 unique helmet Griffon's Eye: The Amazon also now has headbands, which replace the hats from the Magic standard armor. Those hats disabled hair but did not cover the back of the head. So every Dryad who wore it became a dark-haired gal with a sort of afro-braids. Now they are headbands instead: Finally there is the new full set of armor. It is a recreation of M'avina's Battle Hymn, with some adjustments (no bow since there is more armor pieces). There is also an alternate shoulder armor piece that was made to more closely the original Amazon armor. We used the model for the Helgrotha statue. It can be found as a random rare. New Amazon Armor Re-textures These were made by Wardust for his mod, to great effect. The Dryad had very bright and loud colors. They were further adjusted by Silver Fox to get the skin tones right, and by me to make sure the metal shaders weren't being applied to the skin (as was the case in the original mod). Crystal armor: Leaves and Twigs set (focused on Amazon Magic aspect) on far right Ivy armor: Detheya's set (focused on Huntress Talents aspect) on far right Leafs Armor: Daerwain's set (focused on Storm Combat aspect) on far right Cloth Armor: Magic Armor: Caps replaced with headbands by Silver Fox, as mentioned in a previous post Special Armor: Mutation set on far right The following sets were not changed: Generic (only the masks were changed to circlets as mentioned above) Iron Leather

Shadows: Heretic Kingdoms might be the dungeon crawler for you. I mentioned it earlier but I don't think I mentioned it was isometric.

Well, if we push back your cutoff year to, say 2005 or so, then there's a few more isometric ARPG's I could mention that have some value. Silverfall + Earth Awakening Expansion The Chosen: Well of Souls Legend: Hand of God Loki: Heroes of Mythology (a poor man's Titan Quest) Din's Curse + Demon War Expansion Kivi's Underworld (same devs as Din's Curse, don't bother with one if you didn't like the other) Inquisitor (actually recent but has an older 2D look) They can all get kind of grindy, and aren't exactly stellar in quality, otherwise more people would know the names. But I've passed many an afternoon with them and gotten some enjoyment out of it.

The really recent ARPG's tend to be going with the WASD, over the shoulder style games, rather than point and click style. The exceptions are the ones you've listed there. That being said, I recommend Kingdoms of Amalur to anyone who will listen. HUGE game, and criminally underrated. You should also try out Shadows: Heretic Kingdoms, which is a very recent sequel to an older ARPG from about 15 years ago called Heretic Kingdoms: The Inquisition (also a good one but a bit dated).

Revered Tech is on the horizon, eh? Hmm, well call me when Dragon Magic is the new up and coming thing.

Here's a download link for it. While I was at it, I updated it for the latest CM Patch, 1.50. Sacred 2 Survival Mod Download Both versions are included: the old installer for CM 1.40, and the new one for CM 1.50, which I made to be used with the Generic Mod Enabler (installation instructions in the ReadMe). Just choose the one that corresponds with your CM Patch version (everyone should have 1.50 by this point, but for completion I put both). Compatibility: Mod is compatible with CM Items Mod 1.2a, both undressed Mods, and Wardust's Serious Textures. NOT compatible with anything else, although Enhanced Spells and Diablo 2 Fallen both have difficulty modes that replicate most of the features of this mod.

New Creatures Update #1 One of my "works in progress" has been changing up enemies and bosses. Dragons have got a few retextures and rearrangements in Diablo 2 Fallen. Ascaron actually did a great job in giving almost every dragon a different skin, however there are a few duplicates. So now they are all more unique. Grunwald Cave Dragon This dragon was originally identical to Magmadur (yellow and black). Now it has a new skin based on the original Dragon Strike texture. The first pic is his normal look, but he likes to cast the Iron Skin buff on himself, so the second and third pics show how he'll look for most of the fight. Magmadur Originally he was identical to the Grunwald Cave Dragon. In fact he shares the same creature entry ("Dragon_huge_mountain"). I think this was an oversight because there is a totally unused creature entry called "Dragon_huge_fire" that has its own set of spells and red textures. I suspect this was intended to be Magmadur and it got a little mixed up during development. So I switched Magmadur to use the "fire dragon" creature entry, and while I was at it I gave him some more sinister textures. The fire dragon red textures were almost identical to Mer-Kil, just a little brighter and without the black lines. So they'll remain unused and Magmadur will have a new black and red look. Magmadur is a wicked dragon, perhaps the most evil of all dragons since he's a Seraphim-slayer. His look now reflects that (texture by Wardust). You may wonder since I changed both of the yellow and black dragons, will any dragon have that texture anymore? Well, the Gyvrim Island Dragon actually has that texture too, plus some cool armor. Bengaresh Desert Dragon This dragon was originally a washed out red-orange. It was essentially identical to Mer-Kil but with a more drab palette. Now it looks exotic and majestic. This texture is the old Dragon Form skin from Ice and Blood, since the Druid's Dragon form has a new unique texture. Loromir and Nimdruail These two friendly dragons are actually identical (green with red stripes) but since Loromir only appears to the Barbarian and Paladin (class quests), and Nimdruail only appears on the Shadow Campaign, I left them alone. Only a shadow-path Barbarian would ever run into both of them. Xanthiar, Ordaurcil, and Orphas These are the three blue dragons (all actually a single creature). Xanthiar appears on the Light campaign and Ordaurcil on the Shadow. After some thought, I decided to combine these two into one character. They are actually the same creature in all but name (same itemtype, same creature entry, they even ask you to do the same thing - hunt down 20 slaves). For story-telling purposes I made this a single dragon named Xanthiar who you just deal with differently depending on alignment. Orphas was the quest giver Dragon for the Dragon Mage's class quest. He no longer exists, since the Druid gets his quest from the Elder Druid Cathbad. Finally, I changed up the spells and buffs that all the Dragons can use. All of them still use the fire breath and flying fire breath, but otherwise the spells are more varied. Some examples: For Dragons that have fireballs, they now home in on you (just like the little dragons), so beware. The Swamp Dragon has more poison oriented spells and can root you. The Grinch now has an ice nova. Xanthiar can cast the red lightning attack that leeches life (like the Flying Eyes). Magmadur now has a Flameskin buff. The Grunwald Dragon now casts a Blazing Tempest-like spell. The Desert Dragon casts Meteor showers. And so on... be prepared to face different challenges according to the Dragon you're fighting, instead of just fighting the same Dragon over and over in a different skin. So there you have it. Dragons with more unique designs and spells. In the future I plan to revise all the bosses somewhat and eventually add even more bosses and unique monsters. There are many inactive spells that could be adapted for enemy use to make the game more interesting and challenging.

Would they change the language on the texture for each localization, or just make everyone read German? I prefer signs where there are fake characters written on the signs like the Witcher, but the actual text is shown with a hover tooltip text.

I think I had a detection too. A false positive most likely. Personally I'm going to try deleting the updater because it's always saying I need to download the newer version (probably a consequence of all the mods I have). If it still says 1.40 on the start screen I don't think it's installed properly though. List of CM Patch changes is always documented on the Wiki.

Thanks a lot, that looks really great. I think some forum functions aren't available on here until you hit a certain post count (5 or 10 or something).

Thanks man. I appreciate the interest and praise, and especially for spreading the word. If I had a Steam account, I would be publishing my mods there too. As it is, I only have a GOG account, so I maintain a mod list there (and on SacredWiki). If you want to copy over that list or a link onto the Steam forums I'm sure players would appreciate it. I put Enhanced Spells on ModDB but it got rejected with no explanation, so I gave up on using that site for publicity. Regarding backwards compatibility, I don't foresee any problems. The only possible thing may involve quests, IF I change any to a sufficient extent. Basically, let's say you're in the middle of a chain quest, and I rearrange it, adding or removing quest phases, it may break the chain (for that character only, and only on that difficulty level). That MAY be an issue in the future, but for the upcoming release, there's no such quest editing going on. So if you have the current release, you should be able to plow on ahead if you get the next release in about a week. I'm the type of modder to always post if there will be any issues when updating to a new version.

New Character Designs The Druid Those are the new Druid portraits made by Silver Fox. Here is the new character appearance: The dragon tattoos are gone, and the red eyes are now green. The red and black color scheme on the clothes is now brown and green. He now has red hair and a small red chin beard. The skin color selections remain the same. When you start the game, he will be equipped with some additional starter equipment: a random furry shoulder pelt and a wooden staff. Here are the new animal pelts (helmet and shoulders are separate). They appear as new custom rares that can be shopped or found. Helmets have +aspect bonus, shoulders have aspect regen bonus, both have a silver socket and two random bonuses. Spirit Mask and Spirit Mantle (Bear Pelt and Shoulders) Nature Summons Oriented Wolf Head and Wolf Tail (Primal Magic Oriented) Brown Variant: The brown shoulders can be found as rares just like the grey ones. The brown wolf mask, however, exists only as a recreation of the D2 unique, Jalal's Mane. Antlers and Deerskin Cloak (Elemental Magic Oriented) Aldur's Watchtower (New Set) The final set of pelts is that of a Ram. They exist only as part of this set, a recreation of the D2 set Aldur's Watchtower. Dragon's Nemesis You may remember that this bow turns the Dragon Mage into a Dracolin if he tries to use it. The Druid has no such problems, so he can safely use it. It also has improved stats (racial damage against dragons and ice damage %) Druid's Class Quest The Druid is the first character to get a rewritten class quest. It's only about half the length I ultimately plan for it (remember the Dragon Mage had a very short class quest compared to the others), but it still follows a complete story arc in the current version. Here are some shots at the beginning: Serious Textures As a feature of the mod, I list "custom version of Wardust's Serious Textures Mod built in." What does that mean? Well, mainly that means we incorporated the things that worked and fit in, and discarded or corrected those things that did not. It's best explained with pictures. New Druid Armor Re-textures Most of these are Wardust's changes, however I also worked on some of them, to get them looking a little more consistent. Silver Fox also deserves all the credit for the "Special set" changes (adjusting the torso to remove all the clipping issues, removing the neon glow, and removing the dragon tattoos). Some of these don't work quite so well as ensembles anymore, but since they're all random pieces of armor in-game, you'll be wearing random mismatched pieces anyway. Cloth Armor: Leather Armor: Iron Armor: Magic Armor: Dragon Magic Armor: Pyx's set (focused on Primal Magic aspect) on far right Special Armor: Torik's set (focused on Nature Summons aspect) on far left The following armors were not changed: Generic Commander Kha-Beleth Dragonscale Armor: One final thing I've added is this dragon armor from Skyrim, made by Pesmontis. There are two skins: The dark red skin can be found or shopped as random rares. The green skin I made into a set, but it's not really finished. For one thing, it's much more of a Dragon Mage set than a Druid one. I named all the pieces after the DM's class quest, which is now much different for the Druid. Also the bonuses are just copied over Kha-Beleth's set as placeholders. It may drop for you, but I made it extraordinarily rare until I can get it completed, so you probably won't see the green set.

Release coming in ~1 week or less. Right now I'm trying to get a good draft of the Druid class quest finished for the release. Quest writing takes longer than I expected, so the other characters will have to wait until future releases.

Ok I looked into everything you mentioned and luckily I was able to fix it all. Battle Orders "War Song" modification now works. Changed so that it only increases weapon damage (it was the only solution). "Implacable" modification now works and doesn't deactivate after casting. This CA and its "Fortify" modification now give hitpoint regeneration instead of max hitpoints. This change was based on previous feedback where the CA was causing party members to be unable to heal. Natural Resistance "Fortitude" mod now increases the Barbarian's max hitpoints instead of giving hp regen. I swapped in this modifier since it's not a party buff. Iron Skin Base Defense Value and Block Chance: Projectiles modifiers now work and don't deactivate shortly after casting.

I for one am glad to see a Dragon Mage build that focuses on the Dragon Magic Aspect. In my mind there's really only one way to mod the Berserk: Fury-Steal Life-Blood Frenzy. Actually most of my thoughts about the Dragon Berserk are on the Wiki page, since I filled it in. I'd consider Toughness and Enhanced Perception/Bargaining. If finding good items isn't an issue, then I'd say either Spell Resistance or Ancient Magic are good choices for the final skill. You'll know by that point whether you're having an issue with either survivability (take Spell Resistance) or spell damage (take Ancient Magic). Since the only time you'll be in melee range will be when you're transformed, I'd think Combat Reflexes wouldn't be much use. Runes of Protection offers a nice chance to block spells (even more with the gold mod Runes). And Familiar gives a huge boost to Willpower. I think the DM is actually in pretty good shape without Spell Resistance. And with the damage mitigation from Toughness, the only thing that will really slip though is Life Leech.

I really appreciate the feedback and support. There's just so much to test, I'm not surprised some things slipped by me. I'll look into it and see if I can fix it. Buff effects that fizzle out are usually due to a "duration" parameter that shouldn't be there.

Thanks for trying out the mod. I hope you get lots of enjoyment from it. Let me know if there are any bugs or imbalances that haven't been caught yet. As to the meat of your feedback, I'd say that's all a matter of personal preference. You are of course free to change anything to your liking. Everything I used to make the mod is available to any user.

Overview of Gems, Jewels, Charms and Potions in Diablo 2 Fallen Gemstones Gemstones replace Relics in D2F. The change is mostly just superficial. The graphics, names and sound fx are changed. The modifiers found on them is the same, and the hierarchy is the same, going from normal on up to legendary-tier gems. One difference is that the Magic Find bonus on Perfect (Legendary) Gems no longer requires the Magic Find skill to unlock it. If you're lucky enough to find a perfect gem then you should get the full benefits of it without needing a special skill. Hint: Fight the elemental lords to get perfect gems as rewards.The Sigils added in the CM Patch remain unchanged in the mod. Just to be clear, these items function like Relics. They cannot be socketed or combined to make higher-quality gems. ============================ Jewels Jewels are the new Damage Converters. They replace lava chunks, poison fangs, magic pearls, and ice crystals. The change is cosmetic. They function the same. ============================ Potions New graphics aside, potions have undergone a few changes. The healing potion cooldown is a bit longer now, and in the Inferno Edition it will be very long, meaning spamming health potions will not be as effective. Remember you can now use Mentor Potions without worrying about XP per Kill bonuses on gear or Combat Arts conflicting with it. Antidote Potions now give a second bonus in addition to DOT neutralizing. They now can also provide multi-channel DOT protection for a short duration. This bonus is unlocked by the Alchemy skill and scales with it: Merchants will now also have Stamina and Antidote Potions in their stock. Mentor and Undead Death potions must still be found. Durations of all the potions have been reworked to make a little more sense. From Easy up to Hell difficulty, these are the durations of potions: Light Potions: 80s, 80s, 70s, 55s, 40s Normal Potions: 90s, 90s, 90s, 90s, 75s Strong Potions: 100s, 100s, 100s, 100s, 90s As you can see, most potion durations are consistent and then start to drop off at the highest difficulty level. Remember the durations can be extended with the Alchemy skill. ========================== Charms Charms are the new consumables that replace the old Trophies. The general concept and rules are the same. They tend to drop from certain enemy types, require the Alchemy skill or Energy Shield Lore to unlock their power, and can be placed in the potion quickslots for single-use. However some charms may (very rarely) also be sold at merchants in their potion stock, or drop as random drops from non-specific enemy types. See list below for availability. High level in Trading/Magic Find and Alchemy will result in seeing the charms more often. Their brief duration is balanced by extreme power. They start around 20s, and with Alchemy mastery can last just over 60s. Alchemy Charms Availability: Charm of Inertia - Drops from Plant-type enemies. May also be found as a random drop. Charm of Regeneration - Drops from Demons. May also be found as a random drop. Barricading Charm - Drops from Amazon-type enemies. May also be found as a random drop. Stoneskin Charm - Drops from Monster-type enemies. May also be found as a random drop. Charm of Avoidance - Drops from Humans. Can be found at traders and as a random drop. Charm of Concussion - Drops from Undead. May also be bought from traders. Spellshield Charm - Drops from Mechanical enemies. May also be found as a random drop. Charm of Courage - Drops from Orcs. May also be bought from traders. Charm of Acceleration - Drops from Humanoid Monster-type enemies. May also be bought from traders. Charm of Vitality - Drop from Wild Animals. May also be bought from traders. Four-Leaf Clover Charm - Drops from Plant-type enemies. Energy Shield Charms These two charms are unlocked by Energy Shield Lore instead of Alchemy. They can only be used by the Paladin and Sorceress. Availability: Charm of Mana - Drops from Traps. May also be found as a random drop. Charm of Energy - Drop from Mechanical enemies. May also be bought from traders. ========================= Runes Runes have been redesigned to look more like the runes from Diablo 2. They also have new sound effects. Otherwise, there are no changes, and all the same strategies apply. So I'm not going to picture them all here. ======================== Trophies (for the Amazon) Because the Amazon is not a voodoo headhunter, her Shrunken Heads have been redesigned as "Trophies," proud tokens that signify defeat of enemies. They will be shown in a later post. Shrunken Heads will go the Necromancer as a type of shield. Expect both Trophies and Shrunken Heads to get more updates in the future.

Resurrection spots have nothing to do with text modifications. It's a separate issue. Are you saving at ressurection stones (the big glowing monoliths)? If not, you'll always respawn at the starting point of the game. Saving only saves your character. Though, they can put you back at the spot you last saved, but only if the manual save (by that I mean hitting the hotkey for saving) was the LAST thing you did. For example, if you save, and then run around for a while, and then exit, you'll still start back at a resurrection stone, or in your case, the beach, because it doesn't sound like you've used a monolith. If you hit the save key and then exit immediately after, you'll start back right where you were standing.

Remove your changes that you made to the fonts yourself. Try the file I uploaded again. Also try editing your posts so you don't make a long string of posts in a row.

For more detailed info on Philios and his Divine Gift Redemption, check his SacredWiki page. Lore of the Nephalem Book 4: Philios - The First Paladin Philios, according to legend, was a bold and powerful first-generation nephalem, who lived in the early days of Ancaria. After a love affair with the angel Lycander he became the first Paladin of Ancaria. Origins Philios walked the world with a power unrivaled by any except for Rathma. The angel Lycander felt drawn to him and the two fell in love. When Lilith massacred Ancaria's renegade angels and demons, Lycander fled back to Heaven, though maintained contact with Philios through an artifact in his possession called the Sightless Eye. However, she ended the romance after her fellow angels discovered she was communicating with someone outside Heaven, and insisted that Philios hide the Eye so that Heaven and the Creator would not learn of Ancaria's existence. Philios grieved, but nonetheless obeyed, hiding the Eye on Dyr-Lain. The eye remained hidden for centuries until it was discovered by the daughters of Helgrotha. Legacy Philios continued to aimlessly adventure throughout Ancaria for years. One day while visiting a cabal of monks known as the Akarat, Philios was struck with a series of apocalyptic prophecies, perhaps brought on by his prolonged use of the Sightless Eye. In these visions Philios saw the Prime Evils, great and powerful demons, let loose upon the world, and cataclysmic battles between the forces of Heaven and Hell that would rend Ancaria apart. The monks recorded these visions, and thus Zakarum, the religion of the Light, was born. During the mid-twelfth century, after the Church of Zakarum had gained prominence in the East, the Church decreed that the visions of Philios would be spread throughout the known world in order to redeem the masses. Thus, the Church selected a group of its most charismatic and devoted priests and sent them on a mission to proselytize the people of the West. Unfortunately, the Church had not prepared these men for the rigors of travel nor the hazards of the world. The priests who survived their missions recounted tales of harsh weather, inadequate supplies, attacks from bandits and even encounters with horrible monsters. To ensure the success of future missions, Philios himself set about training holy warriors, Paladins, to accompany and safeguard their missionaries. In practice, these "Protectors of the Word" proved to be more successful at converting the native peoples than the Priests that they were assigned to defend. Impressing the locals with daring deeds, powerful weapons, and martial prowess was far more convincing than the condemnations of a soft-spoken monk. However, once the Word had been spread to every major city of the West, the "Protectors of the Word" faded from public view, and indeed Philios himself, now active for centuries, seemed to vanish all too quickly into legend. The Inquisition Some decades later, Paladins were again called into service. During the height of the Dragon War, the Church commenced a second campaign of conversion. This time, however, Philios had long since faded into legend, and the unconvincible were deemed evil heretics. The Inquisition spread through the lands like a tempest, laying waste to all suspected of demonic possession or corruption. Leading this crusade was a new generation of Paladins, known as the "Hand of Zakarum." These Inquisitors swept through the lands, expunging the taint of demonic contamination wherever they found it. In the midst of this bloody crusade, a rebellion arose within the ranks of the Paladins of Zakarum. The rebels condemned the methods of the Inquisition, proclaiming that the new Order of Paladins should honor Philios's words by protecting the innocent, and that the evil corruption was rooted in their forebear's failure. They resolved to fight the true source of corruption, the Prime Evils. And so, these rebellious Paladins left their Inquisitor brethren and ventured out into the word to stop the demonic forces. The more powerful Inquisiton itself eventually came to praise Rathma and Trang'Oul over Philios and the Light, thus leading to a schism throughout the mainstream religions of Ancaria. =================================== Divine Gift: Redemption Philios casts a blessed circle around the hero which annuls all enemy spells and fills most with a righteous terror which causes them to repent their evil ways and flee. Those who refuse to repent and remain within the magic circle are destroyed. Banishes most enemy spells 40% Chance to Block Combat Arts Slows enemy run speed by 100% 60% Chance for Fear Magic Damage: 30 + 15 per level Bonus Magic Damage against Undead and Demons: 124 + 42 per level Duration: 12 s Cooldown: 400 s (~6.6 minutes) This Divine Gift bears little resemblance to the D2 Redemption. Instead, it is like casting a huge, extremely powerful Expulse Magic circle around the character. ================================= Statue Clicking on Philios' statue will partially regenerate his Divine Gift, Redemption. Statue built by Pesmontis. This is the final update of the gods. I hope reading this lore will help tie everything together in terms of the new history of the races, nations, and factions of Ancaria. There are more alterations to be found in the Geography books as well, so don't hesitate to peruse some of the old books if you find them. You might find some new surprises.

The story is this: Dimitriy made 1 new mount for each character: heavily armored versions of each of the 7 normal mounts. These were the original intended "elite mounts." Of these, all that have been revealed are the Mobiculum, the Draconicon pictured above and (in other threads) the armored Hellhound and Spider. The armored Wind Serpent, Battle Monitor, and Tiger have not been posted (though the Tiger is mostly complete). Lazy Tomcat made new textures for most of these mounts, but didn't finish. A bit later, Pesmontis began doing his own work making new mounts. He tended to experiment with making brand new creatures rideable. This is where the Dragon, Griffon, and Nameless Guardian came from. He also continued work on some of Dimitriy's projects, like the Tiger. So it all merged together and became the big "Elite Mounts Project" that Silver Fox made this thread for. The Lonely Hippocampus is just a happy accident. I discovered that it was intended at some point to be a mount. Its files are actually in the same folder as the Wind Serpent. It had all the necessary bones and animations for riding. It even had an icon for the mount slot. All that was needed was to make a saddle that looked right. As to the balance of mounts/characters, I don't anyone had that in mind beforehand. It was basically just how things developed - experimenting. The plan was to possibly make a 4th special mount dealer that sold that the extra "oddballs."

Ok, don't use that anymore then. Sorry it crashed your game. It was worth a shot. Probably some font size was increased too much.

I attached a file for you with increased font sizes. Unzip it, and put the "fonts" folder into your Sacred installation directory, in the folder called "pak". fonts.zip