Dark Souls(Demon's Souls successor)

[Squid Division]

So are they going to be shutting down the Demon's Souls servers (in the US)? I just got it, but wasn't going to mess with it until I beat Dark Souls.

[Yasawas]

No, Atlus announced a date for it a couple of years ago but then reversed their decision before the date came around. The official word is they are now up "indefinitely".

[N1njaSquirrel]

New Dark Souls II Trailer. I am excited for this game.

 

 

EDIT: This month's EDGE magazine has an article on DaS2. One new feature they've revealed is that when you die as a hollow, you lose a slither of max health, which restores when you turn human. I don't know how I feel about this.

[Bjorn]

Did you play DeS?  You lost HALF of your health when in hollow/soul form.  It's one of the changes they made in DaS that minimized the value of going human. In 2, if you die a bunch, your max health will steadily degrade.  It's an interesting compromise between the two previous games. 

[Reyturner]

This month's EDGE magazine has an article on DaS2. One new feature they've revealed is that when you die as a hollow, you lose a slither of max health, which restores when you turn human. I don't know how I feel about this.

That's kind of cool within the fiction established in Dark Souls (i.e.: Undead go more and more crazy the longer they are hollow). This will force people to spend more time in Human form and make the multiplayer better (especially if they do something that makes passive co-op happen).

This is the fate of the cursed

Still better than having to go back to New Londo Ruins.

[Bjorn]

Woah, that trailer showed a Black Armor PC edition at the end of it! That's the first time they've shown that I think. 

[N1njaSquirrel]

Yeah, I'm playing DeS right now. You do get a ring fairly early on in the game that meant you only lost a 1/4 of your health in hollow form. Makes it a bit more bearable. I'm more worried about how far the degradation will go. I fear that people might quit if they have only a tiny sliver of health because they died 1000 times and didn't have any humanity.

[Roderick]

As long as I can still firebomb bosses from outside their gate, I'll be good with anything they put in the sequel.

[Bjorn]

I'd be surprised if they broke balance that much and there wasn't somewhere relatively early with a decent chance of getting humanity.  Since it only takes one humanity to fully recharge your health, it's not like you would need dozens of humanity to counteract dozens of deaths. 

[Roderick]

No, you clearly don't understand that this limited piece of information we have proves that the designers have no idea how to balance their game in a meaningful way.

[N1njaSquirrel]

Yes, exactly.

 

 

Woah, that trailer showed a Black Armor PC edition at the end of it! That's the first time they've shown that I think. 

 

I've had the Collector's Edition for the PC pre-ordered on shopto.net for months now. Going back to an earlier topic in this thread, the release date for the PC is the same as the 360 & PS3 now. Or at least it is on the various retailer websites.

[Bjorn]

Most of the advertising I had seen showed Black Armor only for the console releases, and Amazon has never had a boxed PC copy for sale, only a Steam code.  Unfortunately no change on release date.  The Namco YouTube account clarifies in the comments:

 

Dark Souls II will be available on Playstation 3, Xbox 360 on March 14th. PC version will be release soon after.  For more information and preorder offers, please visit the official website

 

 

Oh, and that's the European YouTube account, so dates may be slightly different in other regions.

 

Edited to add: The official DaS2 site only shows preorders available for PS3/360, and the official Namco store does not have an option for a PC pre-order either.  Not to say that you can't preorder it, but so far I hadn't seen a reliable source say that there was even going to be a boxed PC release.

[SGP]

just noticed Dark Souls 2's release date is the day my baby is due. Prepare to LIVE, baby!

 

I guess I'll pick this one up on a holiday sale...

[N1njaSquirrel]

Huh that's weird. It says it's delayed on the japanese website too, yet in all the EU sites it has a confirmed release date. Namco EU need to clearly get their shit together.

[Bjorn]

Didn't Namco botch the release of DaS1 with some confusing info, or by changing the Collector's Edition at the last minute or something?

[Yasawas]

I remember ordering the limited edition because we were promised a hardback book which sounded like the one that came with DeS and was actually good, then at the last minute they changed it to a PDF with a handful of pages about the opening area. Boo.

[BadHat]

Watched about half that trailer before I had to force myself to close it. Exposed myself to way too much media before Dark Souls, I want to go in as blind as possible this time.

 

Did you play DeS?  You lost HALF of your health when in hollow/soul form.  It's one of the changes they made in DaS that minimized the value of going human. In 2, if you die a bunch, your max health will steadily degrade.  It's an interesting compromise between the two previous games. 

 

Also seems like it's subtly balanced towards PvP, which meshes with a lot of the other changes they've mentioned, like the way they changed parries to have a slight wind-up and made backstabbing harder.

 

Yeah, I'm playing DeS right now. You do get a ring fairly early on in the game that meant you only lost a 1/4 of your health in hollow form. Makes it a bit more bearable. I'm more worried about how far the degradation will go. I fear that people might quit if they have only a tiny sliver of health because they died 1000 times and didn't have any humanity.

 

The way I read it, you lose 10% maximum health on each death and it caps at 50%. Your character also "looks" more hollow the more you die without restoring to human. I'm totally behind the change, I'm more worried about the cheap unavoidable deaths a bunch of people were talking about in the beta.

[Trip Hazard]

I think Simon Parkin mentioned that he couldn't kill a particular NPC (a shopkeeper, I believe). Hopefully in the finished product we'll be able to slay anyone and everyone we wish, even if it's a terrible idea

[N1njaSquirrel]

I really hope you can. The fact that you could kill everyone in that game was a particular highlight for me.

[BadHat]

I like the idea in theory, but I won't be totally torn up if I don't have to be overly careful about how close my fingers are to the triggers around vendors.

 

Paying the sin dude like 20,000 souls to be forgiven on my first playthrough was kind of a bummer.

[Trip Hazard]

Oof! That is a kick in the balls, BadHat. Who was it you angered?

 

There's a new mechanic where if you kill an NPC, by accident or design (presumably), a gravestone is formed where you'd usually find them and they can be revived temporarily for a certain amount of souls. Not sure how I feel about that. I liked that there was no going back if you'd killed an NPC (you dope)

[Bjorn]

Huh, that's a massive change, but it is also one that feels like it fits thematically with the Souls games.  Other possible solutions would be to get a unique soul for NPCs that you can still have limited interaction with. 

[Reyturner]

My only objection to the permadeath of NPCs is that the first time is happens, it is never on purpose and the mechanic for absolving sins is both pretty deep into the game and very unclear. I know I killed Andre once because i'd punched him by accident, ran, rested and the bonfire in hopes of resetting him and then returned to find him still aggro'd. 

 

At that point I figured he would be hostile forever and killed him. It was only after reading the wiki to figure out how to resurrect NPCs that I discovered the concept of "sin" and how it affects NPCs (and how you can't resurrect them and fuck now I have to spend 30min killing the Fire Drake again). 

 

Killing an important NPC is virtually the only way you can ruin your playthrough in Dark Souls (I don't count losing Souls or Humanity since those are infinite given time). The fact that it was also almost guaranteed to be accidental with no recourse didn't feel in step with the rest of the game's firm but fair ethos. 

 

Also, all these mofos are undead, why don't they come back to life  

[N1njaSquirrel]

Also, all these mofos are undead, why don't they come back to life

Only those branded with the mark of the undead come back to life. The NPC's you meet do not have this mark, and therefore die, and as we all know:

 

On a separate topic, playing through DeS, and damn - fall damage is nothing in this game. Fell down like half a castle tower to lose barely any health

[Bjorn]

When I fell, it was usually off a cliff. 

 

One of my favorite things to see in DaS was a ghost walk/roll/run off an edge to their death.  Cracked me up everytime.  Hopefully when it happened to me, someone else was there to get a smile out of it as well.