wolfie2kX

Another book that "could have been" - had Prince Valor lived long enough to put it out there. Green Ancaria A quick note to all of the heroes running around the kingdom these days... PLEASE pick up all of the stuff that your enemies drop when you kill them. In the wake of the recent undead uprising, there have been a lot of casualties and consequently, the kingdom has become cluttered by lots of useless swords, axes, armor and other gear that quite frankly, is becoming an eyesore.

There are a lot of books in Sacred, but you gotta think there could have been a few more... Like this one: Oblivion Armaments The Oblivion Armaments initiative was an experiment by Comrade Chancellor Vladimir DeMordrey during the reign of Aarnum III. Chancellor DeMordrey, being typically power hungry as most of his lineage, decided to bring together all of the blacksmiths, sword, bow and armor makers to flood the market with cheap weapons and armor in a bid to raise an army to take over Ancaria. The sales pitch for these products was: “Our Weapons Will Send Your Enemies to Oblivion.” While it is true the weapons and armor were inexpensive, quality suffered as the various smiths were in such a rush to get these arms made, they ceased putting any care into the finished product. The Chancellor DeMordrey was summarily executed following the failed coup attempt as his troops, unable to put a dent in the royal guard’s armor fled in terror and were mowed down by the king’s cavaliers. Much of the weapons and armor made by the group now renamed Oblivion Armaments was seized by the royal army and melted down, however, the sheer number of weapons and armor that was created made it impossible to collect all of this misbegotten junk. In addition, many of DeMordrey’s soldiers who were killed in battle were buried with their weapons and armor as a sign of their shame. The smiths involved in the creation of these abysmal weapons were all sentenced to ten years hard labor for being willing accomplices to DeMordrey’s treachery and production of such substandard items. The smiths collectively argued that this was their plan and that DeMordrey had gained their cooperation by taking their families hostage. The jurists were moved by this argument and as such the sentence was reduced from being drawn and quartered to the one given. The jurists’ counterargument was simply this: “All it would have taken is just ONE of you to have the stones to have put a flaming arrow in Vlad DeMordrey’s eye socket to have ended this farce before fifty thousand people died needlessly.”

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...

So.. I came across another use of the word schniepel today... Seems there's a schniepel that has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame... Who knew..? FWIW, they claim to be a "grindcore" band.

True. But I only had their voices to go by. Google wasn't much in the way of help on the spelling front.