I'm totally getting this! <3
Been wanting to play Sacred for a long time, as I heard it's pretty similar to Diablo. Anybody played it in the past? How's the co-op mode?

Sacred was a beautiful game when it came out, I'll be getting it again as well. The MP is good but I don't know how many people still play Sacred.
It had great graphics when it came out, but some quirks in it. Hopefully the version we get will be as bug-free as possible.

Found it just over a year ago on CD in a bargain bin. I thought it was great for the little bit that I played it....unfortunately it just stopped working after a while. Never bothered to reinstall it.....maybe I should try.

I've had Sacred Gold from a local publisher. The sad thing is, it refuses to acknowledge any patches. I'm definitely getting this one (eventually :) )
Also, the Battlemage is awesome.

At $9.99 this is a great deal, Sacred was the Diablo 3 of its time.
I can't wait for this to be released on GOG! I'm all giddy like a school girl on a first date lol.
I'm really impressed with the fact that GOG is willing to get the licenses for the great games, and Sacred will not disappoint if you enjoy open-ended gameplay and action rpg elements. MANY more quests than Diablo or Diablo 2 ever had. I'm going to say this is a must have off the bat esp. for the cheap price.
-Cym

It's a good hack 'n' slash: the game world is gigantic (it took me 30+ hours to finish the game, and I still only saw about 35% of the map), and a couple of the character classes - Vampire and Seraphim - are pretty unique. Lots of good loot/weapons/spells as well.
My only real complaint is the monster spawning, which is ridiculous, and there are still some bugs - including a real game-breaker near the end - even after a series of patches.

For what it's worth, I have played this game through on Windows XP and had no game-breaking bugs at all. That's not to say you shouldn't save often, though.
With regards to Diablo, I find the game to be satisfyingly different, and for me, *better*. In some ways, it's a bit like an isometric 3rd person Morrowind rather than Diablo, follow the main story or follow your whims; either is good (but the latter might hit more bugs!).
As for character classes, I personally found that battle mage was the way to maximise fun. I had a good few hours in the undead desert charging around on my horse flinging fireballs everywhere while something not short of 100 zombies shambled around after me. It doesn't matter if you 'die' in this game, but it's pretty hard to do so unless you're being absolutely careless. By the end of the game half of my inventory was full of healing potions, which might have been a little *too* careful on my part. Still, compared to games like BG2 (which is a nightmare if someone gets killed) it's easy to have fun.
Overall I would say this is a pretty underrated and overlooked game. I've not played Underworld, so I'll be having a bash at that.
One last thing; the voice acting in this game always seemed really odd, in the way I typicallly associate with foreign games. Not saying it's bad, it just felt really odd, and frequently brings a smile to my face.

I played it in coop, from beginning to somewhere near the end.
I liked it, but i don't think it can really compete with Diablo II. It's more a rival to Titan Quest oder Silverfall, both are "nice"; but not "great" or even "awesome".
I don't think the character classes had something unique. Sure, you do not see a seraphim that often, but it's not like it had any influence. If you get some glowing wings or so, if there are, you may notice a difference, otherwise, it's just a spellcaster/melee combination, depending on what you prefer.
And Vampire.. every necro has some life leech skills and so. Nothing special, too.
As i said, i played it in coop, with a friend, and our chars where almost never on par, which takes away from the fun.
It's not like enemies would have been a problem, most times. Especially bosses where way to weak. Some giant dragon or spider, and a few seconds later he is dead. Hordes of orcs or stuff where far more annoying.
The free roaming was, well, it was a nice idea, it allowed for many quests, but also you had no line you could follow and so. Most quests where simple, retrieve this or that or kill 10 orcs and so.
It is not the amount of quests that counts, it's wether the quests are real quests ,and not something your neighbour could do, if it had any "impact" on the world/story. And with dozens of quests, you just can't do that.
Also the skill system is different from most games. And with that many possibilities, it is most likely that you will skill wrong.
Also the map was that big, because they did not make "levels", but a real map. But that leads to much not release used space. Wether i'm in a wood in the southeast or in the middle north makes no difference.
Also there where some annoying mountains with only one entrance. You had to do a lot of stuff nearby, but you had to go all around if you wanted to get to the other side.
It is fun, but i think they wanted to achieve to much. They wanted a different skill system, different characters, more skills, more quests, more areas to explore..
There is only so much you can do without repeating yourself.
Diablo I and II had several different areas, all completely different from the one before. You just don't notice the area really in Sacred.
It is fun, especially in coop, but it's not as polished as Diablo II. If you like hack & slash like in Diablo II, and free roaming like in Morrowind, it's nice. There is also a demo for both Sacred and Sacred 2 if you want to try it before you spend money, even if it's not that much around here.

I've only been playing Sacred for a couple of days, but I completely agree with Aurion. I want to like this game, but due to a lack of a real narrative and the repetitive nature of the quests and zones, I'm finding it very hard to motivate myself to play further. What good is thousands of quests when they're all pretty much the same in nature and have no impact on the game world whatsoever.
Also, I'm really hating the voice acting in this game. There are a couple of decent voices, (wood elf comes to mind) but as I'm playing a battle mage, I feel like ripping my hair out every time he says anything. And I've also died a few times due to me being stingy with items, (I'm like this in every RPG) and resorting to Spiritual Healing whenever possible. Unfortunately, sometimes when I am rapidly right-clicking somewhere on my character to get him to heal himself rather than sit there dumbly as he's getting wailed in the face, some spazzy goblin shaman will be freaking out all over the place and preventing it from happening, or maybe some part of the terrain, (grr, bridges) or some dumb NPC. (Farmer "What do you want?" Me "I DON'T WANT TO DIE!") Dying might not have a huge penalty behind it, but it is rather annoying if you respawn somewhere really far away from where you were.
Maybe the multiplayer mode will change my mind about the game, but I'm still waiting for my CD Key in the mail.

Yep pretty much my view of the game as well - though I think its got a fun factor to it - but its just not cut out for a long slog - shorter bursts of play I find work well.
As for healing don't be afraid to use healing potions - if you click on any well or fountian in the game you get a free health potion (only once) so you can get some from there and then buy them from shops. Starting out money is really tight, but after a while you quickly build up an impressive hord of gold (if you can stop buying things of course ;))
Also try to avoid death as much as you can - you have a survival bonus and the longer you stay alive the better drops you get from creatures - I think there might also be some other bonuses as well - but stay alive :) If you die the counter goes back to 0 and it takes a long while for it to build up

Ah, thanks, I didn't know about that. Luckily, I've just been saving every couple of minutes and reload if I die for whatever reason. Actually, on the subject of drops though, I read somewhere that some people make a vampiress to farm runes, apparently because she only needs one to be effective and the drop rate of runes is higher if you've used less of them to convert them into combat arts. Is there a way to transfer items from one of your characters to another? I'm assuming it has something to do with exporting the rune farmer and importing it into a multiplayer game or something?