Larian Studios Forums General Chat RPG Chat Sacred Underworld

Has anyone ever played this? Is it worth getting? I do like the original game.

No, I havn't played yet. Going to Buy it, maybe. Should be good.

<img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/puppyeyes.gif" alt="" />i don`t think my pc is good enough for this good game. ( if it is, i think i`ll buy it maybe.)

The best one to get right now would be Sacred Gold. It has the original Sacred, Sacred Underworld, and something called Sacred Plus(not sure what that is, added content perhaps?), all in one box! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

I got it for only $29.99(Canadian) from www.amazon.ca . Awesome price, and I will probably try the game out as soon as I am finished with Beyond Divinity.

Sacred Plus was kind of an minor add-on that is also downloadable. It contained a *lot* of fixes.

It appeared before Sacred Gold (and was later incorporated into it) and before the "real" add-on.

Thank you, Alrik. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

At least I know what it is now. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/biggrin.gif" alt="" />

I am currently playing Sacred +plus+ and enjoying it, picked it up for £3.99, cant go wrong with that sort of price can you!! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wave.gif" alt="" />

I play Sacred Underworld online how's the SP story btw? Never tried it because i think it will pretty bad, am i right?

Yes. It's a pretty basic & straightforward Diablo clone with added horses. If you're looking for something with an actual story, this is not the game for you.

It's not a terrible game, mind, but one for those odd moments when you are between better games, IMO.

Very large world, but the entire game consists of walking or riding around and hitting things. It's rarely very challenging, either.

Really? That's a real shame. I'd actually wanted to play it. Then again, looking the graphics: it's nothing appealing either. The only things that'd make me play a game even if the gameplay is godawful are the music, graphics and something more innovative.

And I heard the original developers went bankrupt and had actually wanted to create a game full of quests and stuff. Perhaps that's why the story isn't there: it's been thinned down?

More like completely removed. You can see the hints here and there of what could have been a very good group-based RPG, complete with other party members, romantic interests, etc. But none of it is left in.

Ouch... the former developers must've been crying. Then again, that's what happens when you lose the rights to your property: the other party is fit to do what they want to. Though, I can say that having a huge explorable gameworld sounds a bit too expensive to produce, for a single game. I'd have instead, broken up the game into various episodes or add-ons with a few sequels or some other format which would ensure that the gameplay is consistent yet is financially profitable.

Sacred was formerly developed by Ikarion, of which you can still see the logo in some in-game pictures hanging on walls.

The game Ikarion developed was "Armalion", and it was designated to be an RPG for the Dark Eye RPG system.

Ikarion went bancrupt, and I heard that pleas to several companies remained unheard, so they just went bancrupt, and Ascaron just bought the remains of Armalion.

Their first intention was to develop an full-blown, classical RPG, like Armalion without its Dark Eye RPG license, but at one point someone changed their minds and decided to male an action game out of it.

I remember having read one of the original devs actually being totally shocked over this decision, as he wrote to the rest of the Armalion fans (known as the "Order of noXQs"), so much he couldn't work on it for a while. It must've really been a shock to too what has become of what he had been working so long for. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/disagree.gif" alt="" />

The interesting thing is, that the decision of turning this "classical" RPG into an action game was apparently influenced by German magazines not stopping to compare the "classical" RPG with what Blizzard did, because Blizzard's works were (and still are) considered kind of an "industry standard" by them. They still do: No single RPG review is without at least a small hint reading like "this is like..." or "this is unlike ..." Blizzard's action RPGs.

Another very interesting and to me unique thing is, that from the time on as the game was marketed and announced as an "action RPG2, a whole lot different kind of folks poured into the official Sacred forum (which was then still part of the overall Ascaron forums, and not saparated as it is today).
The talk and the topics ceased to be deep and serious, and became much more ... flat, so to say.

I have never ever again experienced such a shift of the member-base of a forum again.

And if you want to learn more about Armalion, ask Rei (she's in the game as Sisaya), she knows much more than me about it.

Oh, and RPGDot still has screenshots of the game. Me, I have a copy of the whole Armalion web site minus the forums (alas !), made with HTTrack for historical reasons.

You can have a glimpse on it via this link:
http://web.archive.org/web/20020329094138/http://armalion.de/

In English:
http://web.archive.org/web/20020202040501/www.armalion.de/English/index2.htm

Well, then it means that Ikarion was probably playing it safe: if the gaming magazines are reflective of the local gaming market, then it meant they'd likely go bankrupt too if they went against the flow. Perhaps they actually wanted to go ahead with the plot but they didn't have the finances to do so?

Also, if you look at what happened with Armalion, it appears that the various local companies weren't interested in supporting a game of such a genre. This makes me wonder why they didn't try to approach a foreign company instead or why they didn't establish themselves in another country which was more receptive to non-action rpgs. That way, they could've earned themselves more chances to survive.

No, I think you misunderstood a few things.

Ikarion was developing Armalion.

About 80 % from release they went bancrupt. No-one wanted to give them money.

Ascarion bought the remains.

First, they just wanted to complete this game, more or less, without the official Dark Eye RPG license.

Second, they turned at one point and did an action RPG out of it - Sacred, as we know it today.


And about asking foreign companies : Who actually knows the Dark Eye RPGs ? Aldso, they should have a license then.
Of course other companies could've developed it, too, but seemingly no-one wanted to.

Oh it was Ascarion who was playing it safe, then. And sorry about the confusion. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Damn... 80% from release. Why didn't they just cut out some things and thin down stuff a little? Would that not have been an easier thing to do? At least the game would've been released. Though it wouldn't have been the best, yet the product is out on the market.

Then again, there're tons of games which're always shown at ,say, E3 and some have had lots of work being done at that point. After a while, you never hear about them again which is a typical scenario of many companies: work is done on product but company or sub-company/project runs out of funding and goes bankrupt. They'll go "but it was like 95% from release date. If only we'd more time and money!"

Hmmm... you're right about foreign companies not wanting to invest since they haven't heard about the game. So, does this mean there wasn't much international PR being done before the game was completed? Hmmm... that seems kinda fatal. These days, even certain indie(commercial and freeware) games try to generate as much press as they can muster. Especially for a commercial project, you always run the risk of running into financial difficulties, no matter how well-funded you might be. So, a lot of visibility won't hurt.

Well, given that the market (at that time?) was mainly geared towards action-rpgs, I can see why other companies refused to lay their hands on it. Btw, what do you mean by "Aldso, they should have a license then."? I thought Ikarion owned the game license before they went bankrupt?

Yes, but I assume they gave it back or it automatically went back when they went bancrupt.
To Fantasy Productions (FanPro), who seemingly held the license back then.
(Nowadays it's Chromatrix, which might be somehow connected to FanPro - or not. I don't quite know.)

Ahhh... I gotcha. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/biggrin.gif" alt="" />

Still, I wonder about the plot: don't mind me but I've always disliked games with overly convoluted plots 'cos in order for certain characters and certain sub-plot to evolve, parts of the plot and the other characters have to remain static.

If it's a really evolving plot, damn shame! If it's not, oh well... my condolences.

Edit: Btw, why the heck do some people like Lynn have puppets in their avatars? Looks like Sesame Street.

Muppet Show! That's Gonzo The Great <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Lynn's avatar is Alf, I believe, who had his own show.

Ooh I see. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> They look kinda cute.