Bjorn

Don't agonize over the gift, there is no "Master Key" level of utility this time. Exhaust every NPC's dialogue, completely, and periodically talk to them again. You use Human Effigies from your inventory to become human, don't burn them in a bonfire (a bunch of people wasted Effigies not realizing this). You no longer hit basic hidden doors to open them like DS1, you now just use the interact button, and the hidden door opens. I've seen hosts deep into the game still obviously not know this (as I would point out a hidden door to them, and they would just smack the wall a few times before giving up). Though there are other types of hidden doors as well now, but I'll leave those to you to discover. Durability! Items now have their durability refreshed whenever you rest at a bonfire, successfully co-op or successfully invade. You only need to repair items if they break. As such, durability degrades much, much, much faster than previous Souls games. You'll want to carry a backup weapon. All rings can be repaired, even those that break on use or removal (unlike the Ring of Favor and Protection in DS1). There are few characters who won't talk with you without a minimum stat (mostly Intelligence). You can raise your Intel, talk with them to open up their dialogue and merchandise (if they are a merchant), and then respec out of Intel. They will still talk and sell to you even with the lower Intel then. Joining the Company of Champions covenant prevents all forms of co-op (this is one of the first 2 Covenants you find). There is nothing in game that warns of you this, and a lot of people early on thought that online play was broken because they had joined. You can leave covenants at no penalty by talking to a particular NPC you meet quite early. That covers a lot of the different or easy to confuse early stuff. The physical edition got delayed in the UK for a week due to some production issue.

Gawd, I really want a Hitman: Kidz, Assassin's Creed: Kidz, Gears of War: Kidz or something. It would be hilarious to take a bunch of the most violent, ridiculous video game characters and make them 8 year olds running around together. You know it would be awesome.

I see what you're saying about hacking. It's kind of like a Swiss Army Knife, it immediately compensates WHATEVER your weakness is. No matter what your strategy is, Hacking will compliment it in a way that almost no other tool will, with no real downside. I don't think I've ever actually run out of drones. I've gotten low, but never run out. And there are only two counters to it, defense drones or hacking the enemies hacking station. Even if you have those systems, if you only get one shot to deploy them to counter. All that said though...it's so much fun! Sealing crew in or out of rooms, poisoning the medbay, draining oxygen, stripping shields before a massive barrage. I guess one way to balance it would be to increase the functional cost of a hack. Make each drone have an increasing chance to burn out, like 25 percent chance on first use, 50 percent on second use, etc.

It's the thread equivalent of PBR and trucker hats.

Don't die? Sorry! I only fought him with one character, and remember it being tough and feeling slightly lucky when I finally pulled it off.

bundlesofwiresthatlooklikeducks4life

That conveyer belt was one of the previously broken puzzles years ago, where the speed of the conveyer was tied to your CPU speed.

ducks4life Nice wall plates as well.

No, the diminishing returns are brutal, as in usually not worth the points. But I meant keep pumping the ones that aren't at 40 yet. Unless you're farming, you're unlikely to soft cap all the stats that are useful to you before finishing the game. Taking all 4 of the physical stats to around 40 should put you over level 100.

I slightly disagree with that. There are some fun and useful low Intel spells that really mix the game up, like hidden body and hush (which I used heavily in one build to run through areas and for quick backstabs). But for the more powerful offensive stuff (especially weapon buffs for melee characters), you're looking at dumping 30+ points into Faith or Intel to get to the good spells. But its not necessary at all, you can just keep pumping into the physical stats and you'll be fine.

I haven't seen that in probably 20 years, but remember really enjoying it. I'd be curious to watch it again, particularly remastered. I just watched The Station Agent last night, which was Peter Dinklage's breakout role. Fantastic movie, and similar to something like Sorcerer, it shows how much a movie can do with sparse dialogue. Great introspective character study. And an interesting contrast to something like American Hustle, which I watched this weekend. Both movies are essentially examining a pair of deeply flawed, even damaged, people. The Station Agent is engaging and charming from start to finish, even with extended scenes of no dialogue. Whereas American Hustle was full of some astoundingly good individual performances, but is ultimately a rather boring and average movie that fails to deliver either a good con or a good character study.

And the archers never bothered me. My first time through Anor Londo, I waltzed right past those guys and didn't even know they were a brick wall for most people. But at the bottom of the Catacombs

Congrats on the honeymoon! Hopefully it didn't have an Dark Souls moments in it.

You actually could finish the Catacombs, there is no harm in it and the skeletons/sorcerers are manageable even at low level. It's just that it's rather pointless backtracking, since you would just have to go back through it later on. But there are some items/secrets in there that can be really useful to you at this point.

Oh, shit, yeah, go explore other places. The Catacombs themselves aren't terribly difficult in terms of most enemies, but the next area won't even be able to be completed for awhile. I almost just spoiled some stuff about the Catacombs, but much better for you to find it yourself. For others who've played it:

Well, not going to lie, the area after the Catacombs is...difficult. The first time I ever reached there is the closest I have come to rage quitting the game. You really need to have picked up one of 2 items (or one spell) to navigate it. But the Catacombs themselves actually have a fairly straightforward path through them once you've flipped all the bridges and become familiar with the layout.

Just saw a comment somewhere else that pointed out they may have bumped up the release. Steam is now showing me that it unlocks in exactly 48 hours, which is Thursday afternoon for me. Previously Steam showed it unlocked sometime on Friday.

Aol launched a Joystiq themed gaming deal site today. My kneejerk reaction is just that it's plain gross to see that, but I'm not sure that it's a fair reaction.

Really, *********?

I'm doubting that my current rig is capable of downsampling from 4K.

This thread totally got me to listen to a bunch of Sir Mix-a-Lot this afternoon.

I kind of loathe talking about my diet, so avoid it at, unless it comes up as a matter of necessity or has a really strong bearing on a conversation.

Not fabrication, but perception. The events can be described, but without Cersei's inner thoughts, the description is tinged from skewing towards Jaime's point of view and thus can't be described as being "objective" to me. You're only getting two-thirds of the story there: Jaime's reaction and a description of the event. Without Cersei's reaction, it's still a subjective scene. Like I said though, I think they did it to be shocking. I'm just willing to buy that the original novel scene is much more ambiguous than I had originally thought. Edited to add: For what it's worth, grrm commented on the scene himself on his blog.

On the Media did an entire show on AI and Robots last week. Covers a pretty good range of topics, particularly for an audience that doesn't necessarily follow a lot of robot news.

I'd lean towards suggesting NG+. It's not the exact same. There are new enemies knocking about, some boss fights change, the treasure changes in some locations, and there are a few items that vendors only sell in NG+ or NG++. If you want a different experience, just spec into a different build with a Soul Vessel.