Sacred, new competitor to Diablo?

[gronbek]

Hi,

The game is released in Europe (tomorrow) 19th of March.
Seems like a very good Diablo type of game.
Anyone willing to share their impressions of this game?

Regards, Anders

[Yrrek]

Maybe you could give more information, or what you think about the game first. That was a rather....short....post. And I for one, know nothing about that game. Is it even going to be released state-side? Give me some info! :)

[Kevin]

Looks to be this: http://sacred-game.com

Which looks like D2 with newer graphics and larger multiplayer (up to 16 it says). But it looks very D2 influenced.

[Assur]

Hi

Sacred is like DII, but with a few new twists ( you not only get to ride a horse, you can attack from it). It's been produced by a German company, but GameStar, the best German PC-Games magazine compared it to DII and DII came out ahead!

good karma

[twolf]

While Sacred may be a welcome alternative for single players, the multiplayer part seems to be severely lacking. I think many a Diablo player who gets this game, will return back to good old Diablo when he has played it through a couple of times. :)

Cheers

[Lord_Olf]

Hail Gronbeck,

all that I have heard and read about the game so far is that, at least right now, it still has a lot of bugs, especially in Multiplayer.

Bottom line, the quotes pretty much read like "This one is practically an open beta test, and it's not really a finished product yet".

I don't know if that's true, mind you, since I haven't played the game yet and won't do so in the near future, as my PC is lacking in power quite a bit...

Hope that helps!

Take care,

Lord_Olf

PS: I could have added quotes or links, but since everything I read on the game so far is in German, it seemed to make little sense. If you would like the links, tell me and I will psot them!

[Selby]

It's got a downloadable demo to tryout before buying, might be worth the time on the download to prevent monetary loss =)

Even still, it looks like it has potential to be a fun single player game (ala Divine Divinity) but whether it will have any staying power beyond a few runs through the game remains to be seen.

[LochnarITB]

OK, I've played the demo for a few hours and this is my conclusion:

It's Diablo 2 with better bunnies. :lol:











Well, maybe just a few impressions:

- The graphics are nicer but, at least in the demo, there is no way to raise the resolution. The screen feels somewhat cramped to me.

- The character models are better. As I said, better bunnies. They are little brown hares with good detail rather than white cottontail fluffballs. The other animals are nice too. I sat for a couple minutes watching a deer wander around grazing. You could see the muscles moving in its hind quarters as it walked. You get to ride a horse that really opens up the game and is also nicely detailed. I think there are even different breeds/color patterns to choose from at some sellers.

- I am playing a gladiator right now and he is very overpowered. He dual wields swords and kills pretty much everything in one or two swings.

- There are quests given to you by npc's. None of them yet have been difficult. They have been fedex or kill the foozle quests. Just go and do it, no thought required.

- Path finding is pretty bad. If there is even a shrub in the way, you will get stuck.

- The merchants need a try it out option as it is often hard to tell if what you are buying is actually better than what you have. Buying something and selling it right back nets you only 25% of your original purchase price (I think it was 25% but I didn't check the numbers to be exact).

- The mini-map, opened in the middle of the screen when you hold the tab, is nicely detailed, as is the world map. The mini-map is fully detailed rather than just an outlline overview. You can still move behind the map when it is open too.

- They have included the day/night cycle in the game, much to my chagrin. I have never liked playing "outside" when it is dark. I expect dungeons, etc. to be dark and haunting but I tend to think I would camp/sleep when it is dark outside so that is what I tend to do in games too, if the facility is available. It does not seem to be so in Sacred. There is no stopping to sleep, no rest options, no inns to stay at. Hit points regenerate, at a fairly rapid pace, so rest is pointless.

- So far, it has primarily been outside, other than stepping inside small buildings. The closest thing I've had to a cave/dungeon was walking through a cave mouth to find houselike rooms inside.



As I said, this was just the demo but I think I will probably be picking up the game. I don't know what multiplayer is like but this seems to be a one player game at heart.

[gronbek]

Hi,

Picked up the full version att the shop yesterday.
And so far i like the game, actually as much as i liked Diablo2 when it was released.
I for one was a little sceptical about the game mechanics, stun lock, hit recovery and so forth.
But it works to my liking :).
I have only tried the wood elf, rogue type character.
And it's nice to se the enemy getting stun locked so they can not advance to my position when hit by arrows.
The recovery animation is very quick, so they advance slightly but not quick enough to reach me before they die. Of course, the game is not perfect and so is'nt Diablo either. But i got no major complains.
And i have examined the math of physical damage, total avarage damage, elemental damage with character bonuses. And it all sums up very well.
So, don't hesitate to buy this game, it's much more bug free compared to D2 when it was released.
Mind you i am talking about single player.
Multi i have heard is buggy as hell :), not quite so much but still buggy.
It will be patched very soon.
Superb support by the Ascaronians also :)

Regards, Anders

[Haider]

It is no competition to Diablo II:

- it is made for single player, multiplayer is more an (very bugged) afterthought
- the rewards are uninteresting, the items unbalanced and mostly not anything you really hunt after
- it is bugged beyond comprehension
- the character development is weak
- there is no balancing it seems

[gronbek]

Hello Heider,

Yup, multiplayer is bugged and will hopefully be fixed.
Yes, i agree that the awards are better in D2(so far), but i can't really say yet. I have not completed the game yet.
I have not yet seen any bug in single player. And it is absolutely not bugged beyond comprehension.
So early after it's release i find it less buggy then D2 was at release.
I hope the characters are weak so it can offer more challenge than D2, in Sacred we have 4 different difficulty levels.
I can only speak for single player, thus i find it positive that the characters are not evenly balanced. If it is more difficult with a Battle mage, good. Maybe even more of a challenge.
The characters don't have the be balanced in my oppinion.
The game is not perfect, but good enough to buy and give the developers a chance to correct misstakes.

Regards, Anders

[Haider]

Well, I had the "fun" of quests not solveable, because either an indigrent was missing, or the guy necessary for the quest solution, weapon speed, running speed, damage, a lot is bugged. Looking into the Sacred-Forum, I am not the only one having such problems. A typical Ascaron game in this regard.

[Whiggles]

I got the game on Saturday after playing the demo. I've played for about 20 hours now, so here are my current impressions:

- So far I've been primarily playing the Wood Elf, who is essentially a Rogue-style character with some rudimentary skills in melee and summoning. I would say that ranged combat is a bit flawed, as enemies generally move way too fast for you to successfully target them from a distance and keep the pointer on them as they run towards you. You can shoot on horseback as well, and that has the advantage of allowing you to retreat from enemies, firing arrows as you go. When you're on horseback, you fire much more slowly and seem to have a lower hit rate.

- I've also played a bit of the Battle Mage, and I played the Gladiator (basically the Barb from D2) and Seraphim (essentially an angel with a mix of magic, ranged and melee combat) in the demo. I would say that melee and magic work better than ranged.

- The world is huge, and as such can be quite daunting. Cities are extremely spaced-out, often requiring a great deal of time to travel between them. There are waypoints as such, but they are quite spread out and are not always in the most obvious places.

- So far I have amassed a ridiculous amount of gold and have little need for it. The items you can buy from merchants don't tend to be particularly interesting, and the stuff you pick up from enemies' corpses doesn't tend to be any different.

- The stat system is intriguing. Every time you level up, you gain a percentage of each stat's starting value, and get one point to put into a stat of your choice. You also get a certain number of points (based on level) to put into passive bonuses.

- There is no mana as such. Instead, combat moves and spells are on a timer. The amount of time between casting actually increases rather than decreases as you level up spells, which means that adding points to a spell might not always be the best idea.

- You can save whenever you want, but if you die you respawn in what I assume to be the nearest city, with no penalties (except losing your horse if you had one). Enemies to respawn D2-style, which is annoying if you want to quickly run through an area you've already visited.

- Overall I'm finding the game enjoyable but daunting. I find myself playing for very long stretches at a time (i.e. several hours), something I don't normally do with games. It's addictive but not always completely thrilling: there's more a desire to complete your currently available quests than a genuine interest in finding out what happens next. I would say that it lies somewhere in between DIABLO and BALDUR'S GATE. There's not enough depth in the story and missions to make it an interaction-based game, and the fighting system isn't refined enough to make it a combat-oriented game. Still, it makes a nice change from endless reruns of D2, and if you enjoy it I would say this should appeal to you.

[Leah_heartsword]

To me it looks awsome! Also to me it looks like they also got alot of the design and story from Baldur's Gate and other AD&D based games. *cough* Dark Elf story *cough*, *cough* Drizzt Do'Urden *cough* :ph34r: . I'm sorry, had a little attack there... but any who, looks great, planning to buy it.

[kandrathe]

Someday I might. I've no time now. I just picked up Dungeon Siege (+LOA) last week (I know, blasphemy), and I'm enjoying it with a small(4 players) LAN group. DS is very much like DiabloII, maybe better in some ways.

[Drasca]

Not blasphemy at all. Lots of lurkers liked and got all hyped up about DS when it first came out. Except eventually, the game got worn out, threadbare and its weaknesses began to show. Beautiful? No doubt. Bug free? Yep. Interesting system at first? Yes. Except really not replay-able.

Have fun while you can! I won't spoil what's so wrong about it. That'll happen on its own, but enjoy the game while you can.

[Kevin]

I've looked at the official site and see no demo linked from there. I found it from File Planet, but that's because I search File Planet for it. Please tell me I am blind and there is a link for the demo somewhere off the official site (which is as far as I know: http://www.ascaron.com/gb/gb_sacred/index.html

[kandrathe]

Yeah, I figured it would be a once through game. Not enough changes in the world.

[DeeBye]

The translation in this game looks horrible. I laughed out loud when I saw this screenshot (does that make me evil?):

[Selby]

It's probably not the translation. European games are a bit more "mature" in subject matter as they aren't subjected to the PC police and self censorship that US games tend to have. I've played a few games recently and they were definitely a bit more mature as far as dialogue between characters (as in not afraid to curse or talk about whores).