Sacred, new competitor to Diablo?

[gronbek]

Hi good folks,

There is a patch coming this thursday for the english version.
And did i say this game totally rocks:)

Regards, Anders

[Whiggles]

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

I got mine here:

http://www.gamershell.com/search_go.pl?757...13d736163726564

[Lord_Olf]

Life is hard, DeeBye... especially with cows around *g*.

Anyway, I don't see anything wrong with that piece of dialogue. Sure, I don't have the game so I don't know the context of that bit of text, but so far, it looks pretty normal to me.

The problem with transtlations usually is if you do it the other way around and localize an English-language game for the German market, often with hilarious mistakes in them like idioms not understodd and translated word for word.

Well, what I just wanted to say is that the translation looks OK for me.

Take care,

Lord_Olf

[Nystul]

There are some subtle problems with that translation, although I think it could be a lot worse. The part that makes me laugh is "I would be sure to get a beating from my master". Somehow, I don't think that is what she really means :) Her first phrase, "It is wonderful that you..." is not very natural either. These sentences are too passive. A more natural English translation would be something like "I'm really glad you led me to my cows. If I had gone home without them, my master surely would have beaten me or sold me as a whore. Thank you!"

[Moldran]

The problem with transtlations usually is if you do it the other way around and localize an English-language game for the German market, often with hilarious mistakes in them like idioms not understodd and translated word for word.

The problem is the translator's native language.
Translating texts from a language you know relatively well into your native language is alot easier than it is the other way round (especially if subtle differences and language style are important).
Understanding a text is usually alot easier than phrasing one.
If you want a really good translation of a German game into English, hire a native English speaker who speaks good German. If you want a good translation from English into German, hire a native German speaker who speaks English well. As soon as game companies start to learn that, they will start making better localizations.

[Sal Paradise]

Ascaron put out "Port Royale" which is a very good Carribean Pirate game. Calling it a Pirate game isn't really fair, though. It is an economic management game with a pirate element to it (i.e. you can play as a pirate). It takes place in the 16th and 17th centuries and is wonderfully detailed in its mechanics.

I absolutely hated "Divine Divinity". It just didn't "feel" right the whole time I was playing it. It felt like a cheap Diablo 2 clone. "Sacred" so far doesn't look that way. In fact, it looks completely different and really fun. I hope it is more open-ended than Diablo, but less open-ended than Morrowind. Morrowind was a stinker because of its inability to really define which way the story is going. Some people like that, but I hate it. I like a controlled linear progression, but I also like numerous side quests and multiple paths for victory.

I am posting this mainly to bump the post in hopes that someone who owns the game will post a little about it. No one will remember me here, except Occhi, but I check in all the time, mostly to read the discussions. I am looking for a new game as most of the stuff I have been playing is pretty old. Hopefully, Sacred will be the one.

Currently Playing:

Neverwinter Nights: HotU
Command & Conquer Generals: Zero Hour
Battlefield: 1942 (I just got this one)
Freedom Force (again)

[Thecla]

I've been playing through the Sacred SP campaign with a wood-elf (aka a D1 archer-rogue, one of 6 Sacred classes), and am around lvl 25 in Act III at the moment. I haven't tried MP at all. I'd recommend "Sacred", but then I liked "Divine Divinity" so you may want to bear that in mind. "Dungeon Siege" was the game I hated...

I don't know that Sacred is more open-ended than D1 or D2. At least in single player, the plot is pretty linear and as far as I can tell there's one path to victory; so it's not like Daggerfall/Morrowind in that respect, or even KoTOR. But Sacred does have a much larger world than Diablo (at the expense of the map not being random). There are lots of side quests, though most of them do seem to be of the fairly routine "kill x and bring me y" category.

The combat system reminds me more of D1 than D2 (a good thing). For instance, you find runes that give you combat arts/spells, pretty much like spell books in D1, so you can eventually raise these to any lvl you want (the runes are class specific, but you can trade 4 runes of other classes for 1 rune of your choice for your own class). The trade off is that there is a time delay on recharging combat arts/spells (separate for each category), and the higher the level, the longer the recharge time. This limits the optimal level of combat arts or other attacks that you want to use in quick succession. There are also "combos", or sequences of combat arts/spells, which you can make at combo masters, though to be honest I haven't found them too useful so far.

You also have a somewhat limited number of skills you can select, and you distribute skill points gained when you lvl up among the selected skills. I guess the choice of skills is ultimately more of a distinguishing factor between different characters of the same class, though I expect that there is a limited choice of optimal selections for each character class. Attribute points go up on a percentage basis of your orininal stats, with a small number of optional ones that you can distribute. Overall it seems like a well-thought out and interesting system. For instance, wood-elfs get combat arts like multi-hit (multiple arrows fired vs one or more opponents), hard-hit (extra da), and spells like plant cage (functions pretty much like stone-curse in D1), and spirit of the woods (summon unicorn minion).

There are preset portals that you can activate once you reach them, but no equivalent of a town-portal spell. This means a fair amount of cross-country travel, some of which gets a bit tedious. You can buy horses to speed this up, and it's often possible just to run by enemies.

There is no death penalty in SP, but death can be a real nusiance: you're resurected at some previous quest point (with equipment, gold, xp intact), but it can be a long way away from where you died. My current ressurection point also has a fair chance of being full of Frost Giants. The game was very easy in the first act, but the monsters do get tougher and slower to kill (and there are 4 difficulty levels) -- so far I've died 7 times. The log book has a nice statistical record of resurection, no of monsters killed, etc.

Overall, I don't think Sacred will have the longevity of either Diablo, but it's still very well worth giving it a try.