NocheEstrellada 4 Posted December 2, 2013 Share Posted December 2, 2013 Hola a todos, buenas tardes I have been playing Sacred since 2005. In truth, Sacred is the second RPG in PC that I played (Diablo II fue la primera).Back then, I just got my first PC. Sacred was given to me along with my first PC by my primo. At first, I thought this is just another game like Diablo II.Well, I was wrong.Sacred has so many differences in both gameplay and mechanics with DII. I have to admit that I came to enjoy Sacred more. Much more. Until now.Okay, the plot could not be more flat, and the quests could not be more (what was that word?) "same".But the real joy lies in (what was that word?) ajuste your stat, slaying a Dragon with one Hard Hit, increasing your power to unimaginable level. I could care less about the quests or plot when I found that "+19 to Hard Hit" gloves.When my first Gladiator finally achieved Platinum, I thought I already knew everything this game has to offer, so I stop playing on 2010.Again, I was wrong.I discovered darkmatters in 2012 (usually play solo before). I also discovered the fact that I have just only seen the tip of iceberg. This game still has so much secret, strategy, builds, etc etc for me to explore (I did not even know there was Niobium level before!). So I bought Underworld, make a Vampiress, and replaying Sacred, until now.But how could it be that this game be so underrated? I mean, here on darkmatters, there were threads that discussed about the deepest of game mechanics and secrets, and darkmatters is not the only forum. Believe me when I say that this game has so much secrets, even more than DII! The unique Combat Arts system is obviously well thought. Okay, there were some bugs, but no game is bug free. Why did this game become a dust collector? 1 Link to comment
wolfie2kX 528 Posted December 2, 2013 Share Posted December 2, 2013 I dunno... It's a question I've pondered on occasion. Thinking it never quite reached it's full potential mainly because it wasn't produced by a big name company - like Blizzard - that has more money for advertising and such. The game has had a bit of a resurgence of late.. It's been released on Steam along with Sacred 2. Mostly because there WAS a bit of buzz over Sacred 3 which is now.. well... we don't know what's up with that. Deep Silver's been quieter than a church mouse about it for a rather long time. 1 Link to comment
Popular Post Thorin Oakshield 260 Posted December 2, 2013 Popular Post Share Posted December 2, 2013 When Sacred got released, it was named "The only true successor to Diabo 2" by a lot of gaming magazines. However, the problem with the game was that it was released with quite some bugs (anyone remember the wolves using torches at night:)) and unstable MP servers. Ascaron solved both problems with the release of the (free!!!) Plus-packet 2-3 months after the release. And the package was large enough to be considered a full scale DLC these days.However, the damage was already done, as there was a general negative trend about the game at the various internet forums. Another thing that had a bad influence at the game was the fact there was a particular clan who's members were killing players by monsterspawning and despite countless complaints Ascaron didn't do much about it; until the moment there were several players of other clans deciding to do the same thing in return. At that point Ascaron banned the first clan from their servers and some of their members got a permanent ban; however, their slow response had chased a lot of the occasional players away. So by the time Underworld got released, only a hard-core group of player / fans was still found on-line. Underworld improved the game even more and those playing the game had a great time; especially those in MP. Several gaming clans (WNX, Dark Matters, Clan DA) always had members present at the servers; simply because they were the largest clans present. There was a large group of French players who'd were there about every night as well, so in general there were 2 servers in each difficulty filled to the brim. Only problem was, it made the servers quite unstable and occasionally a player died because a player in another server used a full weapon set. Out of memory it were the fireballs of Faldamar's axes, the lighting of Orla Aisling's staff and the burning footsteps of the Icon-set which caused that and for some reason Ascaron never managed to solve that. Eventually Ascaron decided to close the servers because there weren't that many players on them (that's about 4 yrs after the release) and they had Sacred 2 in development. Considering Ascaron had always paid the rent of the servers (an estimate of 45K Euro's a month), a move I can understand. However, it was the final blow for Sacred / Underworld as the only way to play the game on-line now, was by using Hamachi or any other 3rd party program to simulate a LAN-game. Still..... Remembering how close the MP group (and for me it was the HC community) was, I think Sacred certainly had its impact in gaming. It was the first and up to now the last time I saw players offer countless money, items, runes and even XP to new players without asking nothing in return. It also was the time where players enters a server, greeted anyone, opened their inventory and their chest, dumped all the items at the island, typed "Free Items for those who need some", occasionally replied to the question for which chars the items were and then left the server to drop items at another server. And those items weren't junk, but set and unique items. It was the time when a player said he'd kill the twin-Ice dragons and leave, because he'd to go to work in an hour, then had his char die and returned to the server with another char a few minutes later, saying: "I just called in sick, because those two dragons really are going to pay for the death of my char." Then after killing those dragons, went to bronze to create a new toon, so when you logged on the other night, he'd be there with a similar char, ready to take on the twin-ice dragons. Thorin 3 Link to comment
Dragon Brother 619 Posted December 3, 2013 Share Posted December 3, 2013 As said, bugs early on and minimal marketing probably were what did it. I had never even heard of the game but saw it one day in my local EB games and thought it sounded fun. Jumped in and was hooked! When I started playing online it was like Thorin said, the community was amazing and is what made this game so special for me. It's a shame that a wider audience didn't get to experience this, but then who knows, if they had maybe that experience wouldn't have been the same...? 1 Link to comment
Popular Post Flix 5,116 Posted December 3, 2013 Popular Post Share Posted December 3, 2013 Well in the U.S. at least there was almost no marketing. I only heard about it because we were following the development of the game on the Larian forums (and those were mostly European players). So of course we were on the lookout for any cool games that might be like Divine Divinity, and then Armalion comes along, gets sold off and redesigned to be less RPG and more action, the Sacred 1 that we know and love today. Sacred still gets remembered today as one of the best isometric action RPG's and one of the top 5 successors to Diablo 2, whenever anyone writes about the genre. 2 Link to comment
SX255 630 Posted December 3, 2013 Share Posted December 3, 2013 I never even heard of the Sacred series before watching a couple of guys make fun of the intro on the Escapist. And if then I was not intrigued by “It would be fun to play as the Temple Guardian”, like hell I would have started playing it. In no way otherwise I would have even known of the first games existence. In Estonia nobody ever heard of it. Nowadays the game market is flooding with so much “play once and move on” games that the gaming news move on way too quickly, making it harder and harder to dig out the youngest old gems of the industry. Guess the industry went too ADD for Sacred to thrive. 1 Link to comment
Popular Post Putrescine 11 Posted December 3, 2013 Popular Post Share Posted December 3, 2013 I'm not really sure, but I think a lot of it may have to do with the rather steep learning curve when it comes to CA's. And how you always ruin your first character the problem with the game was that it was released with quite some bugs (anyone remember the wolves using torches at night:)) and unstable MP servers. Heh! I found the wolves with torches rather hilarious. However, when it comes to bugs... My money goes to the Skeleton Mage resurrection insta-KO as the worst one of them all 2 Link to comment
Popular Post wolfie2kX 528 Posted December 3, 2013 Popular Post Share Posted December 3, 2013 Thorin - You know.. that sort of team spirit is something I find lacking in many game these days. Games like Wartune - which if you read my post on the subject, is an online flash based game. There's no sharing of items. once you pick something up, it's yours to do with as you want - use it, sell it or recycle it. Everyone in the party gets more or less the same crap items. The only items worth having are sets - and those are a royal PITA to get. Especially once you get to level 40 and beyond. Those items can be made "legendary" by collecting vast amounts of shards and junk and stuff and then a TON of gold for synthesizing, enchanting, and so forth. There's lots and lots of endless grinding at the same dungeons to get the bits you need. It can take months to get your armor together and legendary given there's maybe 10 or 11 items that drop per dungeon run and you can only do one per day and get your rewards. Things get even more complicated when they throw in double XP events which can last for days. The thing is, in order to make use of your level 50 gear, you should optimally be in your 50's. Once you hit level 60, you gotta start working on your level 60 set. The process repeats again at level 70. The dungeons you have to work give hideous amounts of XP - which in most other games is a good thing. But when you need to get your gear together, not so much. I've already gone from 50 - 55 and am still only half way done with my 50 set. With any luck, I'll be able to get it done before I hit 60... Not entirely sure I will be able to do that. At any rate... I've found that people there in that game are mostly out for only themselves. Team play just doesn't exist in the sense that it did in Sacred and for that matter, Sacred 2. Which makes me sad to think I missed out on all those good times. Unfortunately, I came across Sacred right about the time it hit the Bargain Bin at the local Target (It's a department store in the US and maybe elsewhere)... Sacred 2 followed shortly after - also from the Target bargain bin. By the time I felt I was ready to try Sacred 2 Online, the servers were mostly deserted and were being closed down. Just yesterday, the guild master of the guild I am in there and most of the players G-Quit and dropped the whole stinking mess in my lap. Whee.. Fun.. NOT... I don't really blame them for their actions. People weren't pulling their weight and helping out. They got sick of that sort of thing and decided to move onto greener (hopefully) pastures. This is one of the reasons why I wouldn't recommend Wartune for anyone except maybe a hard core masochist... But at least, Sacred and Sacred 2 is still pretty fun to play solo. 4 Link to comment
Popular Post Thorin Oakshield 260 Posted December 3, 2013 Popular Post Share Posted December 3, 2013 Wolfie, Yup, it's something I miss as well. I tried a D3 co-op about half a year ago and it ended up with one player running miles ahead of the rest, one player lagging miles behind and one or two players being about halfway the map.I tried to explain the other players that the goal of Co-op wasn't to get all the XP or to explore everything alone, but to work together to deal with the bosses you encounter as fast as possible. That didn't work out, so I quit playing on-line. What I actually tried to explain in my post, but what got lost because I got carried away a bit - or a lot - was, that there were two points of view about Sacred. The first PoV was done by the reviewers of all the gaming magazines. They played the game a couple of hours; perhaps they just tried the demo and that's it; and based their opinion upon that. Unfortunately even the demo was having a few - and very minor - bugs in it, making it a bit harder to review the game. So in general all the reviews in the magazines were positive about the ARPG which was released as it was a step forward compared to Diablo 2, but they were quite negative about the bugs they encountered. That wouldn't be so bad, if people didn't have the tendency to remember the bad things over the good things. So, the general opinion of the game quickly became "It's released too soon and bugged as h*ll". What most people didn't know was that Ascaron actually had taken a partially finished game of an bankrupt company, removed several idea's from the game and turned it into something else which was also possible. So it was logical there would be a lot of bugs. However, if they had mentioned this to the magazines when they got the interviews about the game, things would have been written different. Yet, the result was that a majority of the gaming community left the game as it was until it had less bugs or was cheaper. Last is something I see happening more and more often these days too, btw. However, at the same time another thing was happening. Somehow a group of D2 players got information about Sacred and they bought it.I hadn't bought an RPG game up to then, but I knew Ascaron from a few other games they'd made and I knew the quality of those games, so when word about Sacred appeared at their forums and a Demo became available, I decided to try it. And I got hooked from the very moment I had finished the demo, making me leaving my home and buying the disc the same evening. That particular group of D2 players used their own contacts to tell their friends about Sacred. And as a result a steady group of players appeared at the MP servers; as I described in my previous post. So........ to answer the question of the topic title: The game got so underrated because the reviewers tested a bugged version and didn't spend too many hours to the game. The game isn't underrated by the community, as there is still a large group of players of this game, thinking Sacred is a better successor of D2 as D3 is. It all depends at which group you're part of. Thorin 3 Link to comment
wolfie2kX 528 Posted December 4, 2013 Share Posted December 4, 2013 Nah.. I get what you're saying - people who played the game grok it, while those who haven't done much more than play with the demo, don't. 1 Link to comment
NocheEstrellada 4 Posted December 4, 2013 Author Share Posted December 4, 2013 Got away because of work, so surprised seeing some of the answers. When Sacred got released, it was named "The only true successor to Diabo 2" by a lot of gaming magazines. However, the problem with the game was that it was released with quite some bugs (anyone remember the wolves using torches at night:)) and unstable MP servers. Ah, si. At first I thought it was the fireball. Then I realized that the villager were holding the same thing as well. Funny enough for me.My favorite bugs is the black caballero (Korod-Nur? forgot the name). Kill him first, the horse should die first. But the horse persist and run away, but I still got XP and I have no Split.Seeing the old players' posts her give me one regret. I always play solo.When I connect to battle.net, the honesty would only last for few months. As soon as Buriza bowgun was introduced, fake items were flying around. If that was how Sacred multiplayer like, then I really regret not to play it online. The players were very nice and it will be like paradise had I played it online.Demo game is a good measure of how the game would be like. But if there were bugs, especially on demo game, then it is normal as the demo is not producto final. No game is bug free, how could people ask for bug free demo game? I'm not really sure, but I think a lot of it may have to do with the rather steep learning curve when it comes to Combat Arts. And how you always ruin your first character the problem with the game was that it was released with quite some bugs (anyone remember the wolves using torches at night:)) and unstable MP servers. Heh! I found the wolves with torches rather hilarious. However, when it comes to bugs... My money goes to the Skeleton Mage resurrection insta-KO as the worst one of them all But that where the fun is. If you have a game where you will always do correct from the first character, then where is the fun? Where is the challenge?Sometimes people give too little chance to this game. The charm is not in the plot or story, but in the gameplay itself!Btw, is there any way to play this game online now? I would like to play it if so, got bored playing solo. What s Hamachi?PS : Sorry for my English. Not really good in it. Link to comment
wolfie2kX 528 Posted December 4, 2013 Share Posted December 4, 2013 FWIW... I thought the story line in Sacred 1 to be rather quite good actually... Lots of plot twists and the like. Kinda tore me up the first time I had Wilbur die on me. Not so much that I lost him, but that he was actually dead dead.. Was like losing a friend for me. But I soldiered on and finished the game. The ending video was quite spectacular.. Compared to what was in Sacred 2, the story line in Sacred 1 was quite epic. In Sacred 1, there's Shaddar and he's evil and you KNOW he's evil. In Sacred 2, there's no real connection with the opposite side exactly. You don't interact with the shadow forces until near the end. You see elements of what the dark side has done, like the poisoned well in Sloptok. and on the dark side, you have the task of poisoning the well. But you never cross paths until the end. As it is, you're kind of running around in the dark - without having much of a clue as to what is actually going on. Noche - Hamachi is a tool that allows you to create a virtual LAN environment over the Internet. It can be found here... 1 Link to comment
Flix 5,116 Posted December 4, 2013 Share Posted December 4, 2013 FWIW... I thought the story line in Sacred 1 to be rather quite good actually... Lots of plot twists and the like. Kinda tore me up the first time I had Wilbur die on me. Not so much that I lost him, but that he was actually dead dead.. Was like losing a friend for me. But I soldiered on and finished the game. The ending video was quite spectacular.. Compared to what was in Sacred 2, the story line in Sacred 1 was quite epic. In Sacred 1, there's Shaddar and he's evil and you KNOW he's evil. In Sacred 2, there's no real connection with the opposite side exactly. You don't interact with the shadow forces until near the end. You see elements of what the dark side has done, like the poisoned well in Sloptok. and on the dark side, you have the task of poisoning the well. But you never cross paths until the end. As it is, you're kind of running around in the dark - without having much of a clue as to what is actually going on. Agree 100%. The story of Sacred 1 was far better. It had an urgency, a real connection to the events of the world (like undead showing up in the north when they weren't there before), plot twists (Shareefa anyone?), memorable characters (Wiiillllbuuurrrr! I"m sorry Wilbur! [-Tom Hanks, Castaway]). By contrast Sacred 2's story was "figure out what the great machine is, and then look for it." Yawn. In S1 you went wherever the plot dictated, even if it meant backtracking or going far away. In Sacred 2, you just went to the next region, because, well it was the next region. You also did lots of stuff that had nothing to do with the main story (everything in the Desert, for example - why not just keep going to the Jungle, you know that's where you need to go). 1 Link to comment
Popular Post Flix 5,116 Posted December 4, 2013 Popular Post Share Posted December 4, 2013 I never even heard of the Sacred series before watching a couple of guys make fun of the intro on the Escapist. And if then I was not intrigued by “It would be fun to play as the Temple Guardian”, like hell I would have started playing it. In no way otherwise I would have even known of the first games existence. In Estonia nobody ever heard of it. Nowadays the game market is flooding with so much “play once and move on” games that the gaming news move on way too quickly, making it harder and harder to dig out the youngest old gems of the industry. Guess the industry went too ADD for Sacred to thrive. Reading the comments for that video you linked...damn everyone really hated Sacred 2 didn't they? http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/6.374264-Unskippable-Sacred-2-Fallen-Angel I think it just goes to show how much presentation can affect the viewers' opinions of what they see. Hold a game up as trash to be ridiculed and mocked, and the audience goes right along with it. Kind of makes me want to punch the screen. 2 Link to comment
Popular Post tom.morrow 89 Posted December 4, 2013 Popular Post Share Posted December 4, 2013 . Reading the comments for that video you linked...damn everyone really hated Sacred 2 didn't they? http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/6.374264-Unskippable-Sacred-2-Fallen-AngelI think it just goes to show how much presentation can affect the viewers' opinions of what they see. Hold a game up as trash to be ridiculed and mocked, and the audience goes right along with it. Kind of makes me want to punch the screen. Exactly the reason why I dun give a fig about what reviewers say no more Usually when I see something of interrest I need a hands-on test-drive to make up me mind Sacred2: the most bug free sacred ever! 2 Link to comment
Gilberticus 374 Posted December 10, 2013 Share Posted December 10, 2013 I feel sad for people that have the type of mentality that needs to ridicule things. There is a difference between "ya know, I just couldn't get into Sacred 2" and "My God, Sacred 2 is a steamy cauldron of bubbling turds!" I have a theory, keep in mind that I only have a minor in psychology. But from my education and real world experience, I think that the mind and soul that mocks and has hate is a mind and soul that hurts and feels inferiority. In high school, I was a jock and a jerk; a total d-bag. Once, after freshman football practice, we found a group of kids playing Dungeons and Dragons under the stands that.... society might have labeled "dorks" or "nerds". We tormented the crap out of those poor kids for four years. I did it out of hate, because a fact from grade school that didn't follow me to high school (partly because grade school had been in another state) was that I was once one of the kids under the stands playing D and D. Long before I wanted to be the next Joe Montana and Vince Neil, my idols were Robert Boyle, Jacques Cousteau, and Gary Gygax. Giving those kids wedgies and swirlies made me feel better about the wedgies and swirlies I got as a kid. If I made those kids wear my sweaty jock strap on their heads, maybe my team won't see that I would have been happy to play D and D with those kids after practice, that I could fit in both on the field and under the stands. Now, I don't think that this theory covers everyone who's ever ridiculed, I don't like to make broad, sweeping generalities like that, but I feel that some of the haters in life are trying to ease the pain they once felt when they were hated. THAT makes me, because I don't think that hating anything is a productive way to bring about healing. Link to comment
wolfie2kX 528 Posted December 11, 2013 Share Posted December 11, 2013 That should be a Lukewarm Swill, with Lumps.. At least, it'd be game specific. Link to comment
Bezlonir 53 Posted November 20, 2015 Share Posted November 20, 2015 I want to make a video someday explaining exactly why Sacred and Sacred 2 are such amazing and unique games. Sadly, I don't think anyone will really watch it. But the thing that makes these games so so unique to me is that they are the only games I know of that give you total freedom to play your character the way you're meant to play it. Whether you want to play melee, range, or caster, there's no restriction or need to use a different play style for some areas because they all work based off the same mechanic, regeneration time. Almost every RPG ever severely limits casters by making spells expensive. Diablo 3 did later achieve a similar freedom for casters, but only by reducing the game to purely action status with no character building RPG elements. The other thing that makes Sacred and Sacred 2 really special and fun is also partly its downfall for hooking new players. The way the game works, your character continues to grow and the feel of your spells changes as you get higher and higher in level. However, doing this through animation speed and regen time resulted in a lot of low level characters that are just too clunky and hard to play with in the style you thought you were going to play (I.e. technology dwarf or moon magic wood elf). If you didn't know how good they could get, you might easily think the game was clumsy, impossible garbage. Combine this with a UI that isn't as clear as it could be and a host of mechanics with names that can be confusing, and new players can just be overwhelmed. (Try explaining to someone who hasn't played the difference between combat arts, skills, runes, regen special move, regen spell, etc.) I'm not going to say Sacred or Sacred 2 are perfect. There's a lot of things I wish were better. But, I mean, name a Diablo-style game that is perfect. It's generally a fun genre, and Sacred is a great entry into the genre. There are much more lackluster games. The biggest criteria for a game like this is that building a character up and finding loot is fun. So Sacred scores in spades. But, it's really not hard to see why it flopped. Back in 2004, people were still graphics whores. Think of how Might and Magic 7 and 8 killed NWC because they were too out of date for the time. Nowadays things have come to a point where people are willing to play games that don't have the most top notch graphics if they have good gameplay. Thus, you'd think this game could have a revival on Steam or Gog. I think people just need a port of entry for a game that doesn't do a good job of introducing itself. 1 Link to comment
Bezlonir 53 Posted November 20, 2015 Share Posted November 20, 2015 I'm very curious, now, about this Armalion business. I learned what I could from the first couple pages of Google results. It looks like most of the original backdrops were from Armalion. The original classes appear to all have been designed based off of characters from Armalion. If you look at the game, you can tell that the characters, enemies, and chests, barrels and other objects that can be interacted with all were rendered with a different engine or some such. The objects in the backgrounds have shadows at a slightly different angle, and the Sacred objects all have shadows with no smoothing. I briefly looked at world objects in the expansion, and they appear to have been drawn to attempt to match the classic world, but their shadows are not as consistent. In fact, a lot of things lack shadows and generally employ a confusing use of perspective. However, they do appear slightly more detailed. If you look at old screenshots of Armalion, you will see that the game appears to have been designed to play at what is in Sacred the medium level of zoom. If you zoom in farther in Sacred, the backgrounds become pixelated. If you zoom out, they become grainy and it's hard to appreciate the level of detail put into them. However, because of the speed of Sacred and the aggro range of a lot of mobs, I find that you really have to play on max zoom. Watching a trailer for Armalion, you can tell that characters moved much slower. Between watching that trailer and reading a description of what they were thinking of gamplay-wise for Armalion, it doesn't sound like it was going to be that good of a game. BUT, when you start looking at what was in the game from Armalion and what was added by Ascaron... I find a lot of the charm of the game was from Armalion. The gameplay itself is all Ascaron, I think. And it is a lot of fun. But it might feel more substantial if the classes really felt meaningful. As it stands, it feels like the game world and the story/lore exist in two separate universes. The lore and the story honestly feel like some kind of fan theory that was constructed from looking at the game rather than being folded into the game itself. Sorry, I'm kind of rambling. I'm fond of this game. But since I learned about this Armalion thing, it's hard not to pick the game apart. 1 Link to comment
Flix 5,116 Posted November 21, 2015 Share Posted November 21, 2015 Sacred is indeed a child with many parents. Makes you wonder if that's why Sacred 2, which was pure Ascaron (I'm guessing) seemed to be lacking some of the charm of its predecessor for some players. Link to comment
Bezlonir 53 Posted November 21, 2015 Share Posted November 21, 2015 Sacred is indeed a child with many parents. Makes you wonder if that's why Sacred 2, which was pure Ascaron (I'm guessing) seemed to be lacking some of the charm of its predecessor for some players. Yes! I was wondering that very thing. I love Sacred 2 as much as Sacred 1, but it does lack that coherence. What I love about Sacred 2 is the gameplay. There are certain areas that I find awesome, but the game world as a whole doesn't blow me away. And the class choices, although super cool individually, do feel like a bit of a grab bag. They were, perhaps, a bit more unified in Sacred since they were modeled off of a number of classes that were going to be available to the player in Armalion. But whew. I was just reading the lore page for Sacred on the Wiki. It's a real head scratcher. The biggest flaws I see are that they try to say that Shaddar is this huge, menacing Necromancer guy with a whole realm of terror out in the desert, but then he's never referenced as you go through the game. There's no sense of impending doom. And then they throw in the demon, who immediately kicks Shaddar's ass. It just doesn't make sense to have 2 villains. I was thinking that I wished I had the ability to mod the game so I could make the story better in all the quests and stuff and flesh out the world. It feels like there's a rich story in the gameworld, at least in that central plains area, but then all the actual text is just... blah. The biggest thing I don't get, and I want to understand if it means anything... is when they say "This world is Sacred." The lore page says that the Gods made the heart of Ancaria out of their own blood. But none of it makes any sense. That page also says the Dark Elves killed all the Dwarves. Which also doesn't make sense, considering you can play a dwarf. I feel like the world that they designed for Armalion has a sense of depth and weight. It has to have some kind of history, you feel. But the lore we're given is senseless. It feels like it was written artlessly, not with the kind of art that you can sense went into the game world. Mind you, I do feel like the gameplay that Ascaron designed is unique and special. You can tell that the team for Sacred and Sacred 2 had a real mind for unique gameplay and trying to give the player a deep customization experience. (Though I'd say that failed to put that depth into the enemy design somewhat.) But if there was a person or persons with a mind for story on the Armalion team, they must have not joined on with Ascaron. Link to comment
wolfie2kX 528 Posted November 22, 2015 Share Posted November 22, 2015 Sacred is indeed a child with many parents. Makes you wonder if that's why Sacred 2, which was pure Ascaron (I'm guessing) seemed to be lacking some of the charm of its predecessor for some players. Yes! I was wondering that very thing. I love Sacred 2 as much as Sacred 1, but it does lack that coherence. What I love about Sacred 2 is the gameplay. There are certain areas that I find awesome, but the game world as a whole doesn't blow me away. And the class choices, although super cool individually, do feel like a bit of a grab bag. They were, perhaps, a bit more unified in Sacred since they were modeled off of a number of classes that were going to be available to the player in Armalion. But whew. I was just reading the lore page for Sacred on the Wiki. It's a real head scratcher. The biggest flaws I see are that they try to say that Shaddar is this huge, menacing Necromancer guy with a whole realm of terror out in the desert, but then he's never referenced as you go through the game. There's no sense of impending doom. And then they throw in the demon, who immediately kicks Shaddar's ass. It just doesn't make sense to have 2 villains. I was thinking that I wished I had the ability to mod the game so I could make the story better in all the quests and stuff and flesh out the world. It feels like there's a rich story in the gameworld, at least in that central plains area, but then all the actual text is just... blah. The biggest thing I don't get, and I want to understand if it means anything... is when they say "This world is Sacred." The lore page says that the Gods made the heart of Ancaria out of their own blood. But none of it makes any sense. That page also says the Dark Elves killed all the Dwarves. Which also doesn't make sense, considering you can play a dwarf. I feel like the world that they designed for Armalion has a sense of depth and weight. It has to have some kind of history, you feel. But the lore we're given is senseless. It feels like it was written artlessly, not with the kind of art that you can sense went into the game world. Mind you, I do feel like the gameplay that Ascaron designed is unique and special. You can tell that the team for Sacred and Sacred 2 had a real mind for unique gameplay and trying to give the player a deep customization experience. (Though I'd say that failed to put that depth into the enemy design somewhat.) But if there was a person or persons with a mind for story on the Armalion team, they must have not joined on with Ascaron. I dunno. I find Sacred 1 to be more cohesive story-wise than Sacred 2. As far as the details in Sacred 1 being all over the place, I think that kind of adds to the charm. Remember, Sacred 2 is a PREQUEL - the events there happened about 2000 years before Sacred 1. It would seem that the world we find in Sacred is a world that is in serious decline. A sort of dark ages, if you will, compared to the bright shiny world of Sacred 2. The books, I think were conjured up by multiple sources, none of which ever really coordinated their efforts. LOL Too many cooks in the kitchen, so to speak. There's also a book that says the Dark Elves captured the 5 elemental stones and were wreaking havoc on the land and the Seraphim came in with BeeEffGee's blazing but got their butts whipped... and it was the Dwarves who came in to save the day and kicked the Dark Elves butts... Now, this is impossible. First off, the Dwarves have been missing since before Sacred 2 (2000 yrs before Sacred 1). The Dark Elves didn't exist in the time of Sacred 2 yet. The schism that split the High Elves into the Wood and Dark factions (as well as the others like the ice elves) hadn't happened yet. There's also a book claiming that Sophia, queen of the Seraphim is the mother of Aarnum I... Which would likewise be impossible. Humans and Seraphim are different species and since there are no male Seraphim in the game, we're not even sure they CAN reproduce. The bottom line - People have been known to make up some of the wildest B.S. and sell it as gospel truth. In a time where understanding and knowledge is at an all time low, people will invent stuff that sounds good to fill the gaps in those areas. Or to sell themselves as being more important than they really are. The bit about Aarnum I being Sophia and some dude's love child smells of just that - propaganda made to make Aarnum sound like a bad arse... Link to comment
Bezlonir 53 Posted November 23, 2015 Share Posted November 23, 2015 Sacred is indeed a child with many parents. Makes you wonder if that's why Sacred 2, which was pure Ascaron (I'm guessing) seemed to be lacking some of the charm of its predecessor for some players. The biggest thing I don't get, and I want to understand if it means anything... is when they say "This world is Sacred." The lore page says that the Gods made the heart of Ancaria out of their own blood. But none of it makes any sense. That page also says the Dark Elves killed all the Dwarves. Which also doesn't make sense, considering you can play a dwarf. I feel like the world that they designed for Armalion has a sense of depth and weight. It has to have some kind of history, you feel. But the lore we're given is senseless. It feels like it was written artlessly, not with the kind of art that you can sense went into the game world. Mind you, I do feel like the gameplay that Ascaron designed is unique and special. You can tell that the team for Sacred and Sacred 2 had a real mind for unique gameplay and trying to give the player a deep customization experience. (Though I'd say that failed to put that depth into the enemy design somewhat.) But if there was a person or persons with a mind for story on the Armalion team, they must have not joined on with Ascaron. There's also a book that says the Dark Elves captured the 5 elemental stones and were wreaking havoc on the land and the Seraphim came in with BeeEffGee's blazing but got their butts whipped... and it was the Dwarves who came in to save the day and kicked the Dark Elves butts... Now, this is impossible. First off, the Dwarves have been missing since before Sacred 2 (2000 yrs before Sacred 1). The Dark Elves didn't exist in the time of Sacred 2 yet. The schism that split the High Elves into the Wood and Dark factions (as well as the others like the ice elves) hadn't happened yet. I was just playing today, and I was going around the swamps, seeing some of the dwarf statues there. I'm not really sure, but I kind of feel like they intended to put dwarfs in the game. I think they might have just run out of time and then they had to fill the mines and stuff with dark elves, then they had to make the story based around that. There's a lot of dwarf stuff going on in the game, especially in those mines and underground cities, and in the swamp area. I get the feeling that a lot of the story had to be written quickly at the last minute. The opening cinematic was taken straight from the original development of Armalion, and the other cinematics are mostly patched together, with a lot of reused stuff. Like the short clip of undead marching in the Act 2 cinematic is from the ending cinematic. I am filled with so much curiosity for what they intended to do with this game, and what happened in the development. I can see what makes some people love it, and I can see many things that put people off the game. It seems probable that we can only speculate. Anyway, I've been playing recently, and I'm thinking I might try to get all the books so I can read all there is to learn, myself. Link to comment
Thorin Oakshield 260 Posted November 30, 2015 Share Posted November 30, 2015 The way I see both games, is that they're having a combined storyline, which eventually falls into place. And for Sacred 2, those storylines are more written for MP-coop as for SP. So, let's split things up a bit. In Sacred 1 your main char wakes up after a nightmare, showing Shaddar the Necromancer summoning a demon, who in turn breaks free. You don't notice much about it, but during your main quest, you do encounter the effects of it. Which mostly are the undead you encounter at several places; as well - if you did that particular side-quest - one encounter with the Sakkara demon summoning the undead, before leaving again. Then there's the main quest; which has been split in two parts. First part concerns Prince Valor and his father Aarnum, who's about to die. While looking for him, you notice the undead rising from their graves, but you don't have a particular assignment to find out what's happening. Instead, you are pulled into the civil war tearing Ancaria apart, until the moment you discover the prince; acompanied by a sorceress; who sends you on a mission to figure out why the undead are rising from their graves. Don't ask me why it's done before finishing the usurper, as that would have made a lot more sense. So you're off to the desert, where you discover the Sakkara horn, which in turn is taken to Braverock, where finally the usurper DeMordrey is overthrown. End of the 1st part of the main story-line. Now the second part of the story-line starts: the search for the elements. The sorceress sends you on a journey to capture all elements; which are needed to capture and destroy the Sakkara demon. Something you manage to do, but while doing it, Valor gets killed and his g/f the barroness kidnapped. It now turned out Shaddar has planned the destruction of the demon all along, just to make sure he could summon it again; and controll it this time. And as savior of the kingdom, it's once again your task to find the Necromancer and kill him; something you manage to do, but it just starts the "Underworld-story line". The Sacred-2 storyline are in fact 7 main storylines; which are all working together - or against each other - to get to the ultimate goal: to control, or the destruction of the T-energy. Some of those storylines quit before getting to the Great Machine, and some continue all the way to the point where you encounter that last Inquisitor, or to a point close enough to it, where human curiousity takes you to the last steps to finish the main quest. There are also some bridges between both Sacred; they just have to be seen. In S1 one of the scrolls tell about a great war between humans and demons, in which dragons were used. And what do you encounter in the Waste Lands: A war-torn countryside, with lots of dragon skelletons. In S1 you learn - when playing a Seraphim - that the Seraphim were actually articifial creatures. With the UW-expansion we also learned about the Ice Elves; while in the original game we already faced the Dark Elves. And while the Ice Elves are using a lot of Seraphim technology, the Dark Elves are led by one! In Sacred 2 we learn that during the war, Seraphim were ressurected and turned into "Dark Seraphim". When playing a seraphim you even have to encounter one. This is the bridge to explain parts of the Schifm of the Elves. Both the Ice Elves and the Dark Elves were led by a Dark Seraphim. And while one faction adopted the seraphim thechnology, the other one didn't. It's also very likely that the Ice Elves in fact did embrace the T-energy; as it would explain partially where their power came from. The schism of the Elves is a bit harder to explain, but here's what I think happened. There were in fact 2 (TWO!!) schism's. The first one occured not long after the end of Sacred 2, where the Elves using, and willing to keep, T-energy split from the faction who wanted T-energy destroyed. At some point the first faction got in contact with a Dark Seraphim and fled to a region they were safe, as the other faction was still stronger. Perhaps there were some sources of T-energy left in that icy region, I don't know. The other faction returned to the nature-loving ways of their ancestors. Perhaps under guidance of the Dryads, perhaps on their own, I don't know. But eventually something happened, splitting the community again. One group remained true to the ways they've lived for the last hundreds of years, the other faction turns to a darker path, led by a Dark Seraphim, and become the Dark Elves. As for the Dwarves; they are present in both games, but only from the side. As in: You see them, but you won't encounter them. In S-UW you're able to play a Dwarf and it turns out he's using quite better technology as the rest of the people are doing. The fact that his "Flying machine" - which is a Gyrocopter, I think - crashlanded; while its design isn't even known to Ensign Weston, explains some things. We also know the Dwarves used to live in some underground cities, which were captured by the Dark Elves; where most Dwarves were killed. What's left of the Dwarves fled and didn't set foot on Ancaria until the one we play in UW. So where were the Dwarves in Sacred 2 and the period between those two games: Simple: they were hiding under the mountains, minding their own business. There are only two pieces of evidence prooving that. 1st is a small book with a poem about a Dwarf; explaining how a Dwarf looks. But ingame all encounters show that no-one has seen a Dwarf. 2nd is that cave in Grunwald where you can kill a dragon. There's a huge sealed door at the end of the cave, mentioning something about Dwarves. Thàt's the entrance to their stronghold. Now, if I was a Dwarf and I got a huge dragon at my doorstep, I wouldn't be going outside for a while either. But of course, I would try to mine me another way out at some point. Leaves me one thing to mention: When comparing both maps, they don't match. Even when turing the Sacred 2 swamp into a large lake - as it will become since it's a lot lower as the rest of the country - the maps won't match. Unless.......... There are 2 explanations. 1st: The S1 and Sacred 2 parts of the map are at one another's oposite. Meaning the southsea at both maps is more likely a large inland see. However, according to some S1 scrolls, the first humans settled in the area along Silvercreek and Bellevue and they don't have a sea-coast line. And even sailing up-river from the southern sea isn't possible, since there's a mountain range between that area and the desert. 2nd: The two game-worlds are actually next to one another; sharing the same southern sea and the same mountainrange at their border. That'll mean the Sacred 2 map is actually to the east of the S1 map, explaining how the Dwarves got from one part of the world to the other - the hiden door actually leads to Verag-Nar - and the humans travelling East over the mountains, through the Gloom to the Bellevue - Silvercreek area. Thorin Link to comment
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