Sacred - Final patch announced

I think it is great what Ascaron has done to support this game since release. It was a mess and they rectified it, making it solid and very playable and releasing the Plus pack for free.

I hope that the next one is more engaging, but still have to applaud them for a job well done on the first one.
 
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I agree. Good to see that PC game development is still alive and well in Europe. It looks as if that's where most of the good games will come from in the future.
 
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I agree. Good to see that PC game development is still alive and well in Europe. It looks as if that's where most of the good games will come from in the future.

I don't care where they come from so long as they are made ... heck, I can live with the crappy translations ... I just hope that they continue to mature in terms of features / quality.
 
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I don't care where they are made either. Although I do worry about the selection we're going to have in the coming years if Germany and Western Europe are carrying the PC by themselves. North America has become so console dominated that the PC only gets about one or two unique great games a year. Much much less than four or five years ago, with almost every great developer either making cross-platform games or abandoning the PC altogether.
 
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It is an interesting market for PC games - RTS games are soaring, FPS are doing just fine, Civ-types are doing very well, adventures seem to be having a resurgence ... and RPG's are just scraping by ...
 
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You're right about RTS. FPS though, doesn't seem to be doing that well lately. RPG's are in the toilet. At least they were until Gothic 3 and NWN 2. But point forward, there ain't crap for a long, long time.
 
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F.E.A.R.? Prey? HL2:EP1? SiN Episodes? Not a bad year, really.
 
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F.E.A.R. came out last year (another mostly crappy year for FPS). HL2: EP1 was about four hours long, at most, and would have been a footnote in most other years. That a sub four hour game is considered one of the year's high points is a loud testament to what a shitty year it was. Prey was pretty good, but not spectacular. Definitely not spectacular in the manner that Far Cry, Painkiller, UT2004, Half-Life 2, and Doom 3 were when they came out in one incredible year. SiN Episodes had great graphics, but was average other than that, and also short to boot.

I can't speak for anyone else here, but I have spent less money on PC games this year than any other year in recent memory. Largely because I'm an FPS and RPG fan.
 
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I think you're right on the episodic content - if it is every 6 months it is one thing, every 18 months ...

Oh, and I was thinking of the F.E.A.R. XP ... just played that last week.
 
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I honestly just think we've started to expect too much, too often. Back in the days I could go ages between every good game, and when they got out they were tiny compared to todays games. We like to think about the old games as long and excellent, but the fact is - it takes five hours to complete Space Quest, Larry etc if you actually know what to do.

Some titles stand out, certainly, like Baldur's Gate and similar games, but there are not many of them. Most older games are extremely small, short and very simple compared to todays games, with the possible exception of certain RPGs.
 
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The first Alone in the Dark took only 90 minutes. I remember I solved it 3 times one afternoon. :D
 
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See, I grew up on the Ultimas and you couldn't complete them quickly!!
 
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I still suspect you can complete them a lot faster than you think yourself. I seem to recall spending ages completing games back then, but when I try again today it's over in the blink of an eye.

For example, I remember Kings Bounty(predecessor to Heroes of Might and Magic 1) being extremely long and difficult. It's not. The final boss is still a pain, but other than that I can complete most of it fairly fast nowadays. That goes for most old games, only a few RPGs are exceptions, such as the Baldurs Gate games. Even PS:T only takes a few hours now if you know how to solve the various quests.

I think it's because I'm less patient now. I used to spend hours just walking around, talking to people, watching the scenery, checking out stats on various items and so on. I never do that anymore, I jump into action as fast as possible and hack my way to the ending scene.

Take Monkey Island 3 as an example. How long does it take to complete it now, compared to the first time through it? I think I played that game every day for two weeks before completing it - now it takes me an afternoon. If a game as short as Monkey Island got released today, it would get butchered in the reviews for offering too little content.. yet we still call it a classic. I think our expectations today are not what they used to be, and that might be an explaination why we consider "old developers" better than todays'.. they are, in fact, the same bunch but in different companies, hehe. :)
 
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Hang on, MI is EASY to complete once you've played it and know how to solve the puzzles!! First time through is the only test!! I defy you to give the game to someone like VB and expect him to ever complete it without help!! :)
 
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That may be one of the reasons why they take longer to complete - I no longer have the patience to try every possible solution. Instead, I find a walkthrough or some forum and read what to do. Of course, I make a few attempts first, but in general it never takes too long before I seek help.

Back in the days there were no online guides to help out, so games like Space Quest were fairly difficult.
 
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Remember trying to free the prisoner in MI 1? Now that was a challenge!!
 
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I no longer have the patience to try every possible solution. Instead, I find a walkthrough or some forum and read what to do.
One can hardly blame the games for being too short then ;).

Tomb Raider 2 had one of the first "time keeping" mechanisms that I can recall and I clearly remember that the first time through the game took me a little bit more than 56 hours from start to finish. The second time only took about 14 hours because I knew where to go and how to get there.

Watching a movie will take as long the 10th time you watch it as the first time (unless you fastforward) but anything where figuring out how to proceed is a factor, it will always be quicker once you know how to proceed. I mean, look at the classic "Quake Done Quicker": Some guys finished the original Quake in 15 minutes and 17 seconds and recorded the whole thing as proof. Sure, what they did could hardly be classified as "playing" the game, but they DID finish every level in the game in just over a quarter of an hour.
 
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Exactly, but you can't complete Baldur's Gate 2 in under 10+ hours no matter what you do or how good you are. The main quest alone is just that long. That's why I constantly mention such games as an exception. In general though, I don't think games are getting shorter, they just feel shorter as old games were so slow in progression. You add todays hack'n slash combat to Fallout instead of the tactical one, and voila - game reduced by a huge amount of hours.
 
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