Hello, I'm also back, having fun with Sacred 2 again

[belgarathmth 21]

Hello, all, I'm back playing Sacred 2, this time with a lightsaber dragon mage, up to level 25 after about a week or two of spent leisure time. I'm using Tactics Lore, Sword Lore, Elemental Lore ("Force Push"), Elemental Focus, Combat Discipline, Armor Lore, Shield Lore, and I'm thinking Constitution, and ? and ?. Maybe Mentalism Focus, since I'm using Protective Runes for my one buff, and either Concentration or a green (EP or Bargaining) for the last.

 

What's different for me this time is that I'm not taking a green skill (EP or Bargaining) at early levels, choosing instead to focus on combat abilities. So far, I've discovered that simply clearing map shroud meticulously seems to yield just as many set pieces and special finds as building a green skill.

 

Also, I'm coming back to Sacred 2 with a new perspective - I bought a Blizzard account and spent some time with World of Warcraft as a first multiplayer experience. Now I can see all sorts of Sacred 2 game elements, that used to bother me, as being there for multiplayers (e.g. extremely fast respawn rates and low (for single players) regional level caps that can make most of the game get too easy ( for single players who are meticulous about clearing map and doing sidequests in silver level). That is, most multiplayers see to be in it for the competition with other players' builds, equipment, and DPS rates. Sometimes they get rather aggresive about "being the best". They also want to "hurry up and level, go, go, go," so that they can join friends that they've made online. It seems to me to be a constant problem in multiplayer situations that someone starts a new character, meets a group of "level 85" people that they want to be friends with and play with, and then become obsessed with leveling as fast as possible in order to join their new "friends" in play.

 

Single players, by contrast, are more likely to want to casually explore map and do quests. They couldn't care less about hurrying up or competing with other players. My opinion is that Sacred 2 does a most excellent job of meeting the needs of both kinds of players. Wow does virtually nothing for single players, barring them from a huge percentage of game content and equipment drops, and combining that with a glacially slow combat pace (press rotation button 1, wait five seconds, press rotation button 2, wait five seconds, press rotation button 3, if lucky, enemy number 1 drops. Start again with enemy number 2. If more than 2 enemies, prepare to die for the umpteenth time and navigate your ghost back to the encounter.)

 

I must say, Sacred 2 is a far superior game to WoW in almost every way - graphics, general gameplay, timing and pacing of combat, incentivizing drops (in WoW, you will NEVER get a good drop as a single player), and most especially, friendliness of the community.

 

That's just my opinion, btw, in comparing the two games. If anyone is a huge fan of both, please do not take offense.

 

Anyway, sorry for the anti-WoW rant; it's just that I'm so happy and relieved to be playing Sacred 2 again.

 

Thanks for listening.

[gogoblender 3,071]

belgarathmth, welcome back!

 

I'll always remember that amazing insight you had into the notes of one of the uniques as playing with magical hit notes, genius. I enjoyed your analysis of the WOW moment in your life. It's too bad about WOW being so attenuated to MP only, but in all fairness, I guess Blizzard was looking to simply create max revenue flow with their art, the best gaming universes created..possibly?

 

Happy with your words about Ascaron's gem, I'm in love with our journey with it as well, and feel fortunate that, during that time in my life when I was newly coming into the internet, twas Sacred and the SIF that showed me everything fresh.

 

Welcome back to DarkMatters!

 

 

gogo

[JKtheWonderguy 3]

Dang if you ain't straight about that Belgarathmth

 

I stopped playing MP altogether because of my experiences with D2 and EverCrack (primarily, other games too)

Even though I'm a fanatic with Sacred One and Two, I didn't wanna taint my experience with the game with MP garbage

Gotta be in a clan, gotta watch monster characters smashing you and walking away, if you're not on nineteen hours a day you're a poser, blah, blah, blah.

 

Peops on this MP are the best MP players I've met.

Everybody tries to support each other.

'Hey, I got a level 177 smith, you need some help with your equip?'

'I can get you to gold man, let's roll'

'I gotta level 65 Tendrils of Time Chest piece man, sitting my box, you need?'

'Hey, you want me to take you off map, push your level to 35?'

 

I can also roll by myself, and not hafta worry about 'evil clans' dropping in and pulling stuff, like you experience in other MP's, so if I want I can leisurely level this guy or that guy, and feel safe doing so.

 

Point is, like you said, I don't hafta play a certain way to succeed, and if I don't play that way I don't hafta fear big uglies running around like thugs to take what I worked for.

 

It's why I'm addicted to MP here.

[Phoenix 0]

You know, I also just came back to playing Sacred 2. I stopped because it was too addictive. Gets in your head and eats up your time. I started again for the same reason.