Epiphanies are beginning to slow now as Tiffany and I have a pretty good foundation in the game's conventions. There were a few surprises today, though.

We just learned that the skills menu has multiple pages! I almost took the riding skill on a recent level-up, but I was afraid it wouldn't do me much good since my partner doesn't have the skill. There's nothing more frustrating than moving to the edge of the available screen and being unable to move further. I can imagine increasing my movement speed would exacerbate that problem to near-maddening levels.

We were far from Sloeford having just completed a side-quest. We both needed to sell some loot and restock on potions. I thought we could teleport back to the monolith there. It was at this point I learned that monoliths do not do teleporting; there is a separate object called a "teleporter" that takes on that responsibility. Who knew?! Unfortunately, we had not activated the teleporter in Sloeford and had to travel back on foot. I am also now discouraged to learn that teleporters are even more sparse than monoliths. Oh well. Traveling by foot in this game is certainly not the worst thing I have been forced to do in the scope of my gaming career.

We also had our first opportunity to see what the Runemaster is all about. We had been forgetfully (or lazily... or both!) selling our runes at the shop. I remembered running the runemaster "tutorial" quest and realized we could trade unwanted runes to him for those we could actually use. I took four runes that were of no use to my Inquisitor or Tiffany's Dryad and traded them along with 500 coins for a very nice Inquisitor rune I had not yet acquired. (For anyone curious, it is the one that creates a doppleganger--very useful.) Tiffany had one rune she wanted to trade away. She got that trade set up before realizing her trade would cost 125,000 coins! We are both newbies and are sitting on 2,000-3,000 coins each. Needless to say, this was out of the question. We found that trading two runes brought the price down to 25,000. Apparently, you are intended to trade four runes each time as the prices for the other trades are outrageous.

We are becoming much more proficient at combat. We didn't wipe a single time during this session. In fact, we only had one death between the two of us which is a slight improvement over last time.

One more annoying bug reared its head this session. We traveled to complete a side-quest called Pesky Pirates. The world map showed the quest objective in a cave. We entered and cleared out the cave and found nothing. I opened the world map from inside the cave and noticed the quest objective had moved much further southwest! I suspected we had uncovered something in the cave that revealed we needed to be in a different place to complete this quest. Upon exiting the cave, we checked the map again. It had placed the objective marker back on the cave we just exited! We decided to save and trying again later. The game is definitely buggy, but it says something for it that the bugs, although numerous, are not enough to push us away.

It feels like we are nearing the end of the learning curve. The game's approach to teaching has brought a question to mind: Which way is better? Is it more effective to run through a tutorial at the beginning of the game that holds the player's hand through manipulating all the game's various systems, or is the Sacred 2 approach of, "Here are the tools. Now, go to it!" more effective. I feel a greater attachment to the systems since I feel I have discovered them mostly on my own. I'm beginning to wonder if that will make them stick better. I have played plenty of complex games with comprehensive tutorials that have left me forgetting how to use certain functions soon after the tutorial is complete. Perhaps this dilemma instead points to the fact that the game is overly complex to begin with and could stand some revision. What do you think?

Epiphanies are beginning to slow now as Tiffany and I have a pretty good foundation in the game's conventions. There were a few surprises today, though.

We just learned that the skills menu has multiple pages! I almost took the riding skill on a recent level-up, but I was afraid it wouldn't do me much good since my partner doesn't have the skill. There's nothing more frustrating than moving to the edge of the available screen and being unable to move further. I can imagine increasing my movement speed would exacerbate that problem to near-maddening levels.

We were far from Sloeford having just completed a side-quest. We both needed to sell some loot and restock on potions. I thought we could teleport back to the monolith there. It was at this point I learned that monoliths do not do teleporting; there is a separate object called a "teleporter" that takes on that responsibility. Who knew?! Unfortunately, we had not activated the teleporter in Sloeford and had to travel back on foot. I am also now discouraged to learn that teleporters are even more sparse than monoliths. Oh well. Traveling by foot in this game is certainly not the worst thing I have been forced to do in the scope of my gaming career.

We also had our first opportunity to see what the Runemaster is all about. We had been forgetfully (or lazily... or both!) selling our runes at the shop. I remembered running the runemaster "tutorial" quest and realized we could trade unwanted runes to him for those we could actually use. I took four runes that were of no use to my Inquisitor or Tiffany's Dryad and traded them along with 500 coins for a very nice Inquisitor rune I had not yet acquired. (For anyone curious, it is the one that creates a doppleganger--very useful.) Tiffany had one rune she wanted to trade away. She got that trade set up before realizing her trade would cost 125,000 coins! We are both newbies and are sitting on 2,000-3,000 coins each. Needless to say, this was out of the question. We found that trading two runes brought the price down to 25,000. Apparently, you are intended to trade four runes each time as the prices for the other trades are outrageous.

We are becoming much more proficient at combat. We didn't wipe a single time during this session. In fact, we only had one death between the two of us which is a slight improvement over last time.

One more annoying bug reared its head this session. We traveled to complete a side-quest called Pesky Pirates. The world map showed the quest objective in a cave. We entered and cleared out the cave and found nothing. I opened the world map from inside the cave and noticed the quest objective had moved much further southwest! I suspected we had uncovered something in the cave that revealed we needed to be in a different place to complete this quest. Upon exiting the cave, we checked the map again. It had placed the objective marker back on the cave we just exited! We decided to save and trying again later. The game is definitely buggy, but it says something for it that the bugs, although numerous, are not enough to push us away.

It feels like we are nearing the end of the learning curve. The game's approach to teaching has brought a question to mind: Which way is better? Is it more effective to run through a tutorial at the beginning of the game that holds the player's hand through manipulating all the game's various systems, or is the Sacred 2 approach of, "Here are the tools. Now, go to it!" more effective. I feel a greater attachment to the systems since I feel I have discovered them mostly on my own. I'm beginning to wonder if that will make them stick better. I have played plenty of complex games with comprehensive tutorials that have left me forgetting how to use certain functions soon after the tutorial is complete. Perhaps this dilemma instead points to the fact that the game is overly complex to begin with and could stand some revision. What do you think?

Hmmm, well I do find this series of blogs extremely helpful in that I now realize that Sacred 2 is not a game for me. A lot of the difficulties you have described in your three blogs just aren't the kind of stuff I have a lot of tolerance for.

I'm sorry, but a lot of the problems you've been mentioning in the three blogs on this...they just don't match my own experience.

I'm in love with your blogs for some reason.