Androdion

It's probably better to ask @Flix, because I'm not sure how easy it is to change the portrait without changing something else as well.

If the graphics pak is of a number above 20 it should relate to HD textures, or any form of added custom textures. For a more technical explanation please refer to the maker of the mod.

It's not available yet.

Happy holidays gang! I've been really busy between work and trying to spend some time with my family these days, but I hope everything is going great with all of you.

Alright, thanks for pitching in. Any word on Char Editor interaction? Do it at my own risk I guess?

Now I just need to find myself some time to play with it, ha ha. Between two (three actually) hellish weeks at work with barely any time off and my first Grim Dawn toon at Ultimate it won't be easy. I'll try though. Any pointers on compatibility and installation order? Like: Sacred 2 Gold clean install -> Trimmed Elite Textures -> enable Purist Pack with GME -> play? I just keep mentioning Elite Textures because I've grown too accustomed to playing the game with HD textures, so that's something I'm not ready to part with. How do you feel the patch will react if I start a new toon and then twink it to be a blank level 75 toon with Character Editor? Never caused any fuss with any other iteration of the game as far as I can remember, and I'd prefer to just start at Platinum and mastery level for a bigger uphill challenge, instead of going Silver->Gold->etc. The idea is to do treat Platinum as Silver/Gold, play the toon well above level 100, and then get up to Niob and do the entire game content in the highest difficulty. I love the early progression into a full blown power char, but nowadays time is so limited that I fear that I won't be able to run through four different difficulty levels in a single toon. Two seems much more feasible, and it provides an added challenge since I'll get a much harder start. But I think it'll provide some interesting challenges, like using General skills more right from the start. Think for instance of looting with a mastered Enhanced Perception from the start. I may have to reactivate my Utility BFG Seraphim concept, with Enhanced Perception, Bargaining and Blacksmith.

Ayeh! And the taste is unreal. They leave each pot there for at least 6 to 7 hours. Those images are from a natural park that you can visit, and that specific area has different holes for each restaurant that is allowed to use those grounds for that kind of cooking. It's a very specific cultural cooking that is only prepared like that in that particular island. Really it's something to try at least once in a lifetime. Do an image search for "caldeira das furnas" and "lagoa das furnas" in São Miguel island in the Azores archipelago. The landscape is incredible!

Yeah, "staves" vs "phasers". But it's more of a loose reference than a specific one, design-wise.

It's kind of funky though that the SW can sport the two-handed "Stargate" energy weapons but not the "Star Trek" energy pistols. Go figure!

This looks absolutely decadent! Gogo, this is "cozido das Furnas":

As per this guideline table, nope!

Valid point, in Niob. OP is in Gold though, and hitting the Blood Forest in Gold with a sub-par char is pretty much suicidal. It's not an easy area and should only be approached when your char is fully developed, but afterwards it does provide a steady and hefty amount of XP that few areas can. It's a mix of huge density of mobs, lots of champions, several bosses, and a huge chain quest spanning the entire area. The best areas for grinding XP are usually harder than the rest of the game's content, like Southern Hissil'Ta in the Swamp region. You have such a huge density of mobs, and some are so deadly, that if you get there casually you'll end up dead. But if you have a proper build then you can easily grind several levels on your way to mastery level. At Platinum and Niob difficulties you can easily grind a million XP in that region in what, 30 minutes?! Just head Southeast from the village and into the Swamp dragon's lair. It's great grind!

There are actually some different variations of the traditional "cozido". The typical and most known variant is boiling the meats; belly, stomach, ears and all those parts along with "morcelas" which are a special kind of sausage in a pressure pan, then use that cooking water for boiling the carrots, cabbage, turnips and potatoes and have them taste of the meat and the fat of the meat. It's quite literally a caloric bomb, it's very very intense, and if you dislike the taste of boiled pork you won't really like it since the taste is everywhere. You have other variants where the vegetables are cooked in separate waters, so there's more of a contrast between the boiled meats and the veggies. Some people use different meats, with less fat, some with more fat, some with rice "morcelas", etc. But pretty much the only one I can eat is the truly epic "cozido das Furnas", which is made in the steam furnaces in one the islands in Azores. It's absolutely brutal in its simplicity, as they put every part of the the stew in layers in a single pot, lay it down inside the earth near the thermal furnaces and just... leave it there! After several hours they unearth the pot and serve it as is, barely any water in it and everything steam boiled in its own fat and juices! It's unbelievably good and it barely has any taste of that typical pork fat, so it has all of the good things in a "cozido" and none of the bad. Really, you guys have to try it at least once in your lifetime.

For mutliplayer nowadays try this thread. I don't know how alive it I though, as I haven't been following it on recent times.

This looks so much like "Cozido a Portuguesa" that it's not even funny! Nice variant of a very similar dish.

I bought Fallen Angel back in 2009, played it like hell, even without understanding much of it at the time because of so many standalone patches and modifiers. I eventually tried the 2.43 patch which introduced the dreaded memory leak, reverted back to 2.40 and played some more, only to somehow forget about the game for a few years. Then all of a sudden I saw Sacred 2 Gold on Steam for less than 4€, and since I was never able to buy I&B physically (I tried!) I went for it. I clocked well past the 1000 hours this time, discovered this community, worked with the CM Patch team at the time of v.1.60 and then played some more. Tried some of the mods and then went on a hiatus. I should make a return to it in the coming future with the Purist Pack though. Why do I always get back to it? Old school game with a sort of new school vibe and look, extensive game content and a love for the open world grind. Oh, and all classes actually feel different, much like the races on Starcraft vs Command & Conquer, if you will. The best way to level up in lower difficulties is to grind in populated areas. Depending on your skills and ability to do crowd control you should probably avoid some of them, the Swamp for instance where you have loads of deadly critters. You can do mini-boss runs depending on how much of the game map you've discovered, or you can just grind the Orc Cave if you want a simpler route. Quests don't give that much XP in lower difficulties that you'll notice much advance in char level, more often than not you'll notice that you get more XP from killing everything in the path to do the quest than from the quest itself. If you're in Gold you probably don't want to rush the main quest that much, stay a bit in some of the more known areas of the first few areas, and when you get your ninth skill (level 50) you can go to the Swamp and Desert areas and have a bigger challenge with a greater return. Alternatively if you don't want to grind the main quest you can just head East from Thylisium all the way to the T- Energy pools and then head South, so you can enter directly into the Bengaresh Desert without passing through the Swamp region. As for chars, well, it really depends on your play style. Can't say much more than that. My fan favourite ones are definitely the Shadow Warrior, High Elf and Seraphim classes.

Don't be, as natural gas is pretty much inexpensive when compared to electricity. Induction boards are really expensive, and the extra cost of the electricity is just brutal. So yeah, a good gas burner gets a lot of mileage here. The oven must be electric though, gas burner on the oven doesn't make roasts as good. @chattius Those are some big big cales mate! Do you do sauerkraut with them by any chance?

I assume that you're using this AI to re-optimize the texture packs, so does that mean anything in terms of the size of the archives or just in terms of their expected performance gameplay-wise?

So, is this pack undergoing an update until then? Sorry D. but I'm out of the loop.

I'd say, throw him in the Orc Cave!

Very nice, and I wasn't even aware of this kind of instrument. That looks just like the actor who played Smeagol in LotR, ha ha. By Jove, now I can't unsee it!

Nope. The fix is hardcoded so there isn't a simple workaround. Flix is working on a "purist version" of the CM Patch though, which should be online this month. Check its thread.

Yeah, when there's political interest nobody wants to be the one saying "we have to do things this way". I think that one of the major issues with vaccination was the message that it was a solution, and furthermore how that was passed down from the government(s) to the population(s), which resulted in a false illusion of being able to get back to a regular normal life as if Covid didn't exist anymore. It was the way that my government found to have nearly 90% of the population vaccinated, the downside of it being that people no longer cared much for all of the prior containment rules. If it was made mandatory from the start and people were told that it was only a first step... But... political interest!

History does tend to repeat itself as it's usually said. The question we all should be asking is "why?". My very general opinion on this matter, and I really don't want to spur a very political discussion here, is that there was a total loss of authority from every national government when they said out loud that Covid vaccines weren't mandatory. I mean, the world literally shut down to a halt, and vaccines aren't mandatory:) I've been saying it for almost a year now, that the fact that Covid vaccination wasn't made mandatory from its inception would cause a divide among the population and create first and second class citizens, those being the (privileged) vaccinated and the (ostracised) non-vaccinated. I've said it so many times and no one ever took me serious... until these past few weeks. Sometimes I hate being right all the time...