Official update on Sacred 2 (US) DRM, CZ/HU versions, and Elite Textures

[Professor Pew]

Deep Silver community manager here. Some more info below:

By now, the US version of Sacred 2: Fallen Angel should have been replaced with/updated to the DRM-less version like the European versions were. For US users this means that if you own Sacred 2 on Steam, you should no longer have any trouble with the Securom activation malarky. Steam will automatically download the different files of the build to update your version to the latest DRM-free version. I cannot test this myself from our European office here, but if it has not been updated for you yet, please let me know in this thread.

I saw reports that the Czech and Hungarian Steam storefronts showed that Sacred 2 Gold was not available in those regions. This was a mix-up, and it's available for these countries too now.

I've looked into the option to offer the Elite Textures from the Sacred 2: Fallen Angel Collector's Edition on Steam. Unfortunately we won't be able to offer these officially without the developer (who went bankrupt) available to guarantee stability with the Gold version. We won't stop anyone who wants to mess around with the Elite Textures from offering them as an unofficial mod or something of the sort, though. While this texture pack added some minor extra graphical fidelity, you won't miss out on any of the core experience without them.

If you already own the Steam version of Sacred 2 (this excludes other versions of the game that do not register on Steam), there should have been a 50% loyalty discount when purchasing Sacred 2 Gold. This doesn't work at the time of writing! Valve is working to resolve this issue, and hopefully this should be fixed soon and at least within the current week. If you missed the Steam sale over the holidays, and own Sacred 2 on Steam already, I recommend waiting until we can confirm the issue has been resolved.

If you haven't seen any of the other threads on these Discussion boards yet, there is a Community Patch that fixes a lot of remaining bugs and adds extra content: http://xmas.ancaria.net/patches/cm-patch0140hf.zip

The Community Patch should work with this Steam version of Sacred 2 Gold, and consists of two executables for enabling and disabling the patch. Run the game once before installing it to counter any initial errors you may receive. (I tried it myself and kind of broke the game in the process, but don't let that stop you because I tend to break everything I fiddle around with.)

Finally, I want to thank the Sacred 2 veterans who have been providing support and help in the Discussions over the holidays! I'm really glad to see the Steam Sacred 2 community springing up into action, and once again I'm sorry it took so long to get the game back on Steam.

[Aristar]

Glad to see you guys finally brought Ice & Blood to the US. I have boxed copies of Fallen Angel (en-US) and Ice & Blood (en-UK) that required lots of hacks to install together. I'm looking forward to getting this on Steam for ease of re-installation, whenever it goes on sale. Too bad the multiplayer servers were shut down though, but this is still one of my favorite games of all time.

Also regarding elite textures, the only OS I've got them stable on was Windows XP (32bit) all others have memory issues and crash frequently. Would be nice to see elite textures officially available for download to everyone though, because there was always legal/copyright issues if you didn't own the CE.

[Hiyoooo!!]

Awesome, I had Sacred 2 listed on my wishlist for a while. However I never knew there was a Gold version available and that it was on sale this past Christmas sale. :( Do you guys anticipate this going on sale again in the future? Granted I might have to buy it now, in case it gets removed from steam.

[Professor Pew]

I sincerely hope it won't get removed from Steam ;). If there is another seasonal Steam sale like the holiday sale, where almost all Deep Silver titles are 50% off, it will probably be a part of that again. But no idea when that would be (and if I did, I couldn't tell you or Valve would portal me to wherever they store Half-Life 3).

[Aurablacklight]

Does anyone know if this supports Windows 8?

[belgarathmth]

I'd like to know the answer to that question myself! Has anyone successfully played Sacred 2 on Windows 8?

I'll never voluntarily change my operating system, but, sometimes you get forced to when your cpu bites the dust, and your preferred operating system has been planned obsolete out of existence.

[UABBlazers]

Are other versions, such as the version on GamersGate, also DRM-free now?

[tovie]

i have the boxed copy but i wanted to have it on steam,so this is very nice.just sad theres no more closed net servers

[Pangolin Legends: Arceus]

Thank-you for doing the right thing with regard to the DRM.

[weberto]

Nice, I own the steam version of sacred 2, I don't see the loyalty discount yet, hopefully that gets fixed as it would be nice to get the full version with the expansion

[Professor Pew]

Windows 8 is not officially supported. Neither is Windows 7 technically, but it works for most people out of the box on there. Sacred 2 came out before Windows 7 was even released, and there is no longer a developer who could fix something like this I'm afraid. That said, I'm seeing some reports on German forums that it does work on Windows 8, but that you have to reboot after installation before starting it up for the first time.

The DRM-free version is primarily for Steam. The separate Sacred 2 core game and the expansion don't work nice together when they are both DRM-free versions, so other digital stores would have to choose to offer Sacred 2 Gold DRM-free and find out a way to allow customers to upgrade to it for a reasonable price. In the end it's up to those digital retailers to decide what they want to do.

[Facetious Sage]

Thanks for releasing this game. I originally played it on the Xbox360 and was always a bit disheartened that the expansion was not released in the US. I had considered getting it before on Steam, but since I already had the US version on my 360 (and being rather comfortable with how it was tailered to the gamepad...honestly well done for a game of this sort) I figured I didn't need a PC copy.

I still kept it on my wishlist, however. When the game was removed, I shrugged my shoulders and forgot about it. When I saw the game was available again...and I noticed it was the GOLD version, I hesitated...thinking that perhaps it was some kind of goof. I thought maybe somehow an item from an overseas store ended up here. I checked around to see if it was actually a release intended for the US and also that the horrible DRM nightmare was removed...so I quickly bought it.

So, thank you for doing what you could to make this game available for us all. With the original developer being out of business, I realize that there is only so much you can do...but the game is running fine so far on my Windows 7 rig after clocking in some hours on it. I also upgraded to the Community Patch which also seems to be fine. Now, if you will please excuse me, I am going to go back to playing the game.

[Aristar]

speaking of gamepads (from the above post) I've always wished the PC version had gamepad support too, although I know there's no developers anymore since ascaron is gone. I hope Sacred 3 will support gamepads, I hate gamepad emulation software. Not trying to open up a keyboard/mouse vs gamepad debate, just saying some of us do prefer it. The Xbox360 version of Sacred 2 did it VERY well.

[Motoki]

Origineel geplaatst door UABBlazers:

Are other versions, such as the version on GamersGate, also DRM-free now?

I have the Gamersgate version of Sacred 2 Gold and it still has the crappy DRM. This is after patching up to 2.65.2 and applying the latest community fix too. I guess we are just stuck with it forever which really sucks. I don't think we should have to buy a game again to get rid of the DRM.

I WOULD have bought it on Steam but it wasn't available here at the time.

[FuZzNuG]

Sacred 2 Gold on Steam is 100% playable on Windows 8.

[Shiny_Smile]

God, I hope that update fixes online play. Thank you so much for posting this and giving us all insight about Sacred 2 and it's developing company.