How and What to upload for Sacred 2 Downloads

[Furian67 15]

From a previous post I took some of the info and am trying to post it here so we can get a full comprehensive clue as to how we go about using the downloads section. If nothing else maybe this will help my A.D.D. jumbled brain. And once we get all the info down we can repost and pin it for all to get started in.

 

 

I was wondering how we go about using these files and not messing anything up.

 

My suggestion for best practices for this sort of thing:

 

To Upload a Character

 

Make a zip file and include the following:

 

1.) The heroXX.sacred2save file

2.) The heroXX.sacred2stats file

3.) A text file with a description of the above 2 files that has a description on anything you included in the inventory file (buff suits, for instance) and maybe a short description on the play style you use (melee, ranged, invisible, whatever) - including what CAs you use frequently and how you use them. That way a newbie can pick up the game file and say "Ah HA! This makes sense!" Don't assume that anyone downloading the file will automatically know what you know.

 

If you've already posted the build on DarkMatters somewhere - it's a simple matter of maybe copy/pasting the info there into a text file and maybe cleaning it up a bit.

 

To Download a Character

Just change the name to heroXX.sacred2save where XX is a game number that doesn't exist in your ...\Saved Games\Ascaron Entertainment\Sacred 2 directory.

 

Did I get this right? I myself have not tryed to download and use a file yet.

How do we go about making a zip file to include all the needed info for an Upload? What do we do with the .zip once we download it.

 

Also what does each file really do? I know for the download that the heroXX.sacred2save file is needed. But what is the heroXX.sacred2stats file for? What does it contain?

[wolfie2kX 528]

[bIG SNIP]

 

Did I get this right? I myself have not tryed to download and use a file yet.

How do we go about making a zip file to include all the needed info for an Upload? What do we do with the .zip once we download it.

 

Also what does each file really do? I know for the download that the heroXX.sacred2save file is needed. But what is the heroXX.sacred2stats file for? What does it contain?

 

It's good for starters...

 

Now then... As far as making a ZIP file goes. That may be a big can of worms - mainly because there are a LOT of ways to make 'em these days. It used to be rather straight forward - you wanted a ZIP file, you used PKZip and PKUnzip. But that was back in the MS DOS era. Since Windows has killed off MS DOS, there have been numerous means to make a ZIP file. There's PKZip for Windows, WinZip, WinRAR, 7Zip, and a plethora of other programs that people can download that'll do the job. Even Microsoft's gotten into the act with their built in support for the format in Windows XP - with Compressed Folders. A rather huge volume could be written just on the various programs and such.

 

The heroXX.sacred2stats file isn't really needed. It will be autoregenerated after you open the heroXX.sacred2save file in Sacred 2. As for what it is... It's as the name suggests - a file containing the statistics for your character. The .Sacred2stats extension can be associated with Notepad and you can open the file to get a quick idea of which character you're looking at. For instance. the stats file generated for your Furian's Wrath character might look something like this:

 

v2.65.2 build: 1837
Hardcore
Name: [D.a.r.k] Furian's Wrath '
Type: 3
God: Tasta
Alignment: 1
Gold: 136666133
Map revealed: 17.15
PvP kills: 0
Respawn: 0
Survival Bonus: 0.42
GameWin: 0,0,0,0,0
Graves opened: 0
Books read: 5
Dungeons entered: 1
alivetime: 15797.14 sec
fighttime: 15797.14 sec
sessiontime: 98377.20 sec
playtime: 98377.20 sec
leveltime:  692.28 sec
specialmounttime:    0.00 sec
difficulty0-time:   38.75 sec
difficulty1-time: 73194.48 sec
difficulty2-time: 24512.13 sec
difficulty3-time:    0.00 sec
difficulty4-time:  642.66 sec
HP: 3788
HP.max: 3788
ES: 0
ES.max: 0
level: 55
XP: 15800087
STR: 208
DEX: 156
INT: 160
STA: 219
VIT: 291
WIL: 206
armor.phy:3072
armor.mag:1252
armor.fir:1387
armor.poi:1387
armor.ice:485
speed.run:55.00
speed.walk:240.00
speed.cur:240.00
speed.att:1.32
speed.cast:1.22
Kills Of Subfamily SUBFAM_LIFE_PLANT: 117
Kills Of Subfamily SUBFAM_LIFE_ANIMAL: 889
Kills Of Subfamily SUBFAM_LIFE_ANIMAL_ATMO: 0
Kills Of Subfamily SUBFAM_LIFE_HUMAN: 374
Kills Of Subfamily SUBFAM_LIFE_HE_HUMAN: 0 
...Etc... 

 

So from this, we can tell it's a hardcore shadow warrior, playing on the light campaign, who worships Testa, and has 136+ million odd Gold. Reading further, we can see he's killed 889 animals of various types (wolves, boars, bears, rats, cats, etc...), killed 374 humans and 117 plants.

 

It's probably best to keep the two files together - simply so someone can look at the stats file to see exactly which file they've got without going through a lot of contortions. The whole heroXX.sacred2save and heroXX.sacred2stats naming convention is just too bleeping cryptic.

 

A note about the "type" field above: Each character has a unique number:

 

Seraphim        = 1
Dryad           = 2
Shadow Warrior  = 3
Inquisitor      = 4
High Elf        = 5
Temple Guardian = 6
Dragon Mage     = 7 

 

The text file should contain any and all pertinent information needed to use the character file successfully. To continue using your Furian's Wrath as an example, the file should be called [D.a.r.k] Furian's Wrath.txt and should have all of the important bits - like what the requirements are (Ice and Blood and CM Patch version 0100 or later), any equipment included (buff suits, in this case) and a brief bit of info on how to use them and most importantly why they should be used. There's no real need to include everything on how the buff suit concept came about. Keep it simple but informative. Maybe include a link to the Holos Brothers' guide to buff suits thread.

 

It'd be also a good idea to include the play style - melee, ranged, etc... Give the end user an idea on how they should be playing the character.

 

If I think of anything else, I'll post more later on.