So I picked up 2 copies of Sacred 2 today, so the wife and I could check it out. This was a bad idea. I should have gotten it on Impulse if at all. Probably not at all.
So, I installed which took a good while for 12 gig to decompress. Then tried to run the patch updater. “Error - the file does not exist” is the result. So I went to fileplanet, download a 253 meg patch for 2.34. It says “The game is not installed on your system”. So I went to Ascaron’s website and saw there was a 2.31 and then 2.31->2.4 patch. Ok, downloaded both of those at 200+ meg each.
2.31 patch ran clean. Took an hour, but ran. 2.4 patch says “I need to sniff all your files before I allow you to patch” and it fails at 6% saying “MD5 Checksum failed - your files have changed, cannot patch”.
Went to Ascaron’s site again. Forum for tech support is a BLOODBATH. 18 page long thread - the third thread on the subject - about this very error. Ascaron has put out a “cleaner” app. Be careful, you might blow your activations though and have to repurchase the game. You do have to uninstall, reboot, run the cleaner, reboot, install, reboot and DO NOT LAUNCH THE GAME, then patch 2.31, reboot, install 2.4 and… shit it fucked up again… start over… uninstall. Reboot. Run the cleaner… etc.
Never make an installer that requires an MD5 checksum test to allow a FUCKING PATCH. Jesus Hussein Christ. Are you new?
When your official tech support answer is “keep reinstalling/redownloading those 12 gigs and it’ll work one of those times” you’ve LOST. Gross failure.
I’m certain your digital distribution partners are going to be THRILLED that you’re telling customers to just re-download that 12 gig wad a dozen times or so, eh?
You never patched Darkstar One to fix the stuttering on dual-core machines, you bitches. You’re dead to me.
Thanks for the warning…I was going to buy this soon, after playing Sacred Gold from GOG.
Apparently, as it has been said recently many times before, reviews and general interest in the type of game are no longer enough before buying a new PC game. One has to do due diligence with respect to DRM. That’s a shame. Another nail in the coffin for PC games.
Best of all, I’ll wager not a single person who pirated Sacred 2 has been affected by this at all. I wish publishers would just give up on the DRM shit.
EA games on Steam sans Securom DRM gives me hope for the PC gaming industry un-d0ming itself. I can live with Steam, itunes and other DRM but would prefer it without any of course but time will see if that is possible.
Fortunately, I did not know any of those issues before I bought the game and downloaded and installed both patches (which worked fine), but it does indeed sound like buying from Impulse would have been better.
I had similar problems installing and patching too. Took me 4-5 hours to get it installed in the correct way that the DRM didnt crap out on me. I think i must have had to install 3-4 times and patch the same number to finally get it working.
Ironically i called my nephew who told me how cool the game was, to ask how he fixed this problem, it seems my nephew decided to download it, installed, and the patch installed fine without all the hoop jumping and several re-installs my legit copy required.
So it seems the lesson is, DRM :- Want a smooth ride? Get the pirate version!
Seriously, when will they learn that making people who purchase jump through hoops having endless problems, is not going to stop people pirating these games, and as an added kicker the pirate versions dont have these issues!
Thanks for the warning, definitely not picking this one up.
It never ceases to amaze me how publishers manage to make their products stellar case studies in how NOT to do DRM - butchering the installed game so you have to reinstall a lot while having install tokens, inconveniencing legit customers while making it much more attractive just to pirate it, etc.
Well, the Impulse version has the patch contained in the download now. So that was their “fix” for it… don’t try to patch, just redownload those 12 gigs from Brad. I’m sure he’s happy about that bandwidth.
It’s really a shame that EB doesn’t take returns on open games anymore. I might have to print that thread out and give it a try anyway. Then I could at least buy a DL version if I still manage to give a shit by then.
Because they’re not saying to re-download the PATCH, man. They want you to re-download the FULL GAME each time. I assume it’s a 12 gig download or so, because that’s how fat the torrent (that I should have gotten instead) is on TPB. Since physically it occupies 2 dvds, and one of them says it has 7.1 gig of data on it when I happened to glance, I’d guess it’s about right if the second dvd isn’t completely full.
I no longer purchase games until I hear about the copy protection. Stories like the OP, unless thoroughly debunked, will put me off a game. So, no Sacred 2 for me.
(There are exceptions. If Dragon Age’s copy protection amounts to “Some guys in van show up at your house,” I’ll probably still buy that one!)
Same here; I picked it up on Steam sometime before the 2.34 patch, and I fortunately didn’t have a problem when it updated itself via the Steam client.
It’s inexcusable for the retail release to be having patches with this kind of issue. :(
That’s fucked up. I picked up the US boxed version and aside from having to reinstall once due to the bullshit “changed files” bug, it’s been a reasonably smooth ride. The game has crashed on me a few times when trying to save and exit, that’s really about it after many hours of play.
I just loaded it on my daughters’ computer last night and had zero problems, aside from it taking forever to install and patch. It’s pretty nice that they give you two activations, lets us do local multi with only one copy of the game.
As for the game itself, I’m having a blast so far. It’s the best Diablo clone I’ve ever played, and will probably be the only one I play until D3 comes out. I played Titan Quest up until Legendary difficulty, Sacred 2 has it beat hands down. I would say the only thing Titan Quest does better is the class masteries.
I did finally beat the “changed files” bullshit. Used winrar to crack open the .cab files and fished out the ones it was bitching about. Replaced them, then re-ran the patch. It was happy then. Of course it would only tell me one file per attempt. Took a while.
Second install went ok, because I just installed the game, then copied my patched files over to her machine overwriting the directory.
