The Big Question

[Orateck 0]

Ok, I bought Sacred 2 Fallen Angel collactors edition a LONG time ago, but at that time I was playing games like WoW, LOTRO, AoC, and several others and I only had a limited amount of harddrive space, so never got to installing Sacred 2. Now several years later I thought what the hell and installed it, but I seam to have missed the good times of online play now that Ascaron went bankrupt.

My question here is, should I bother with geting Ice and Blood and trying to find 3rd party program to play online with of just say hell with it and wait to see how Sacred 3 turns out, as it is I like Sacred 2 but not sure if its the kind of thing I want to spend more money on if noone plays online on a regular base

[lujate 578]

Welcome aboard!

 

Online play was at death's door before Closed was taken down. I&B recently being available on Steam may have breathed some life back into it, but I cannot say for certain.

[Little Faith 24]

According to what few tidbits we have been told Sacred 3 is going to be very different from it's predecessors, though still in the over-all genre.

More focus on combat tactics over character development. A system where combat arts cast by different players can "synergize" somehow (single players get a mandatory AI partner to play with), but sadly no huge continuous map to explore. Art style and fluff seem very different as well.

 

It might turn out to be really good, but I wouldn't buy it on name recognition alone.

[wolfie2kX 528]

Ok, I bought Sacred 2 Fallen Angel collactors edition a LONG time ago, but at that time I was playing games like WoW, LOTRO, AoC, and several others and I only had a limited amount of harddrive space, so never got to installing Sacred 2. Now several years later I thought what the hell and installed it, but I seam to have missed the good times of online play now that Ascaron went bankrupt.

My question here is, should I bother with geting Ice and Blood and trying to find 3rd party program to play online with of just say hell with it and wait to see how Sacred 3 turns out, as it is I like Sacred 2 but not sure if its the kind of thing I want to spend more money on if noone plays online on a regular base

 

First off, Welcome to DarkMatters!

 

Let's get a couple of things sorted out here. First off, you've likely got the North American version of the game - distributed by CDV. The Ice and Blood expansion was created and released by Ascaron just as they were going under. What was left of the company was bought out by Deep Silver - the distributpr to the rest of the world. The two versions of the game play identically, but they are not the same - mainly due to where they install themselves to your hard drive. As such, Ice and Blood will not install itself over the CDV release. Why? Ascaron never got around to it as the company went "glug glug glug" as it sank beneath the ocean of red ink.

 

For the record, Deep Silver bought everything regarding the game - the code, the multi-player servers, the web sites, etc... They kept those servers up and running for about 4 years after the game was released - until the people playing got bored, moved on or whatever - so as Lujate said, the online servers were sitting idle for the most part when they pulled the plug on the game.

 

So if you DO want ice and Blood - you will likely need to buy the whole thing over again. That's the bad news. On the positive side of things - Steam has now gotten the Ice and Blood version - from Deep Silver. It's also got the advantage of NOT having the Securom DRM crap built into it. And it's now selling for the low, low price of $19.99. Ok.. Now I'm starting to sound like one of those "As Seen on TV" ads. My apologies.

 

So what are the benefits of Ice and Blood?

 

- Two brand new areas.

- One brand new character to play.

- Increased compatability with Windows 7.

- access to the goodness of the CM Patch.

 

The CM Patch, aka the Community Patch - is a package that can only be installed on top of Ice and Blood. It offers the following:

 

- Fixed buggy quests within the game that Ascaron never got around to fixing.

- New content such as weapons, armor, and new quests!

 

The sort of bugs that got ironed out are the kind that would drive you nuts. As a for instance, there's a quest in the Human realm where you meet up with a guy in a bar who wants to give you a business proposition. If you're playing on the light side, you follow him out to a field and the quest just ends. Huh? Where's the business deal?

 

If you're playing the Shadow Campaign, the guy asks you to whack this other guy - his business partner. You then get the option of getting revenge by talking to the guy you killed's brother or some such who wants you to take the original guy out. Ahh.. Ok. It finally makes sense - real Evil sort of quest stuff.

 

None of this quest chain is no longer available for the Light Campaign, so you don't have to figure out what you missed.

 

The $64,000 question - is it worth it? To wit, I'd have to say YES! The bug fixes, the new content (armor, weapons and quests) give you more meat to chew on.

[Orateck 0]

So is there still a lot of people here who use 3rd party programs to play online on a regular basses? a game like this is alot funer when you can play it with other people, and if I'm going to spend $20 on steam I want to know that there is still an online community to hang out with and play with online

[Dragon Brother 619]

So is there still a lot of people here who use 3rd party programs to play online on a regular basses? a game like this is alot funer when you can play it with other people, and if I'm going to spend $20 on steam I want to know that there is still an online community to hang out with and play with online

People have tried to organise playing via hamachi and tunngle, but I don't recall hearing about any more than 20 or so players at any one time across all possible games via those programs and that was back when there was more interest in the game, now...? I'm not sure how much luck you are likely to have....

[Saphalond 0]

Well, answers my question. I have never had Sacred leave my HD as I get on again, off again urges to play. Was hoping some people would be interested in playing with Skype and Hamachi, but guess I'll keep plugging away on my Gold Single Player campaign.

[Dragon Brother 619]

It may still be worth a try. There are a thread or two on here with some tunngle settings I think for a set of servers that may or may not be still operating.

[Wolf470 1]

So is there still a lot of people here who use 3rd party programs to play online on a regular basses? a game like this is alot funer when you can play it with other people, and if I'm going to spend $20 on steam I want to know that there is still an online community to hang out with and play with online

I have no real idea as far as multiplayer goes. However if you're asking if Ice and Blood is worth the trouble to download? I would say YES! I had Sacred 2 for 3 years before I could install it and by the time I did Ice and Blood was already out. I recently downloaded Ice and Blood from deepsilver directly as I won't use steam, I've heard to many weird things about what they put on your computer. So If you go the deepsilver route you can get the Sacred 2 Gold for 12.99 in pounds that translates to about 19.99 US. However you need to be aware that the download is 7 1.9 GB file with another over 600 MB. My DL came out at 14 GB total. So if you have a lack of storage you'll need to transfer thoase files to CD or DVD backups.