The first alpha-version game?

[Catinkontti]

Hey everyone. I'm a huge fan of sacred series and I remember playing it the first time on my 13th birthday after a week of its relase in 2004. I have a clear image that the game was somehow different in that era - there was a lot of bugs of course but I also remember some side quest and features in inventory which were deleted after the game go an huge patch called "Sacred+" I wouldn't bet on it but I have a feeling that the enviroment were also modified.
I might be crazy and stupid even just creating an discusssion like this here, but I would like to know that is there someone who have same kind of thoughts about early history of "Sacred".

[DedZedNub]

I did not quite follow the game that far back. But, there were basically three key versions of the game, that much I do know.

Summary:

Sacred base game actually has at least three different versions:

1) Sacred before the Plus patch
2) Sacred Plus version of playing the base game Sacred
3) Sacred Underworld version of playing Sacred by using it to play the base campaign using the Sacred Engine of Underworld. Via Underworld's engine you can play both the Sacred base campaign and the Underworld Campaign, you select which.


First, they released Sacred. It had its way of doing things. If you read all the patch notes, there are comments in there that describe some quests having been perhaps changed during development.

Second, eventually they came to a key patch that was meant to finalize the newer way of playing Sacred that had been around a while. That was Sacred Plus.

Now after that they went about developing an add-on, which was basically Underworld. But there were two ways of playing Underworld. If you had an existing installation of Sacred Plus, you installed Underworld, now what it did was install a second Sacred folder, let's call it SacredUW and it had all the same files as Sacred folder, but many had been modified. It left the original folder untouched, that was your original Sacred or Sacred Plus installation folder (it may have brought that folder automatically to Sacred Plus level or else Sacred Plus patch was required first to install it).

So, Sacred Underworld folder could play Sacred base game two different ways. The first way was by using the Sacred folder version of Sacred etc. The other way was by using the Sacred.exe etc that were in the Underworld folder. Understand I'm not talking about playing an Underworld game. The two Sacred.exe's were different and they were for playing Sacred.

One key way you can tell the difference, was the graphics settings and how many of the kids and people were running around. These atmospheric settings were different in each even if you chose the same level of atmosphere. That's a cosmetic change, but there were others.

I'm sure you can find some more info on it at this sites:

http://sacredwiki.org/index.php5/SacredWiki

http://darkmatters.org/forums/index.php

Beyond that during its history there were something like 24-28 Sacred patches or version numbers. That probably doesn't include all the beta patches. Then you have to add all the Underworld versions, that is probably another 8 or more, off the top of my head. So, yeah, your memory is probably right.

[Vengyr]

I've played beta-demo (2 characters, only up to lvl 6 each; limited zone), but don't remember any "special" features.

[Catinkontti]

Wau - I'm glad to get answers this quick. It's wonderful that other people have also noticed the game's heavy develeopment after its relase also. Thank you. =)
PS: I hope that the Vampiress makes a comeback for Sacred 3.

[Whispers of Winter]

afaik Sacred 3 won't be similiar to Sacred at all