Dark Souls(Demon's Souls successor)

[I_smell]

Argh I must've missed this thread. I got Dark Souls just over a week ago. I've never played anything like it.

I'm up to Sen's Fortress and my opinion on the whole game is split down the middle.

On the one hand: making it SUCH a high-stakes game is VERY INTERESTING! It's makes items extremely valuable, every enemy is very dangerous, and giant roaring boss monsters are more than just a cutscene, they're actually terrifying and intimidating.

It brings back all the exciting tension to games and is a really ballsy design direction. For the first couple hours, this was my favourite game in the world.

HOWEVER!! If you block an attack dog, then your Z-targetting will end up looking straight downwards.

If it misses you, even worse, you'll end up looking behind you and straight down.

Why put a 10ft boss in a 12ft room? And then why fill it with trees!? Having the camera slide around the top of my head is just an awful experience, and then putting dogs in there aswel (I guess they thought the boss's AI was too easy to deal with on it's own?) just makes the camera problems even worse.

Hiding checkpoints? Removing the FireLink checkpoint? Zero direction on where to go next? I died in New Londo Ruins for like 3 hours til I looked up a guide and found out I was playing "end game content" by accident.

Dark Souls is great game to learn from, cos it presents a unique direction that nobody else is really going for, but then completely fucks itself over in some new way every hour.

I'm at Sen's Fortress and I missed the checkpoint where you have to jump off a cliff.

EDIT-- Now I'm at Anor Londo and I'm back on-board again. That was a great high-point.

[George B]

It was funny to hear the guys talk about diagetic and non-diagetic music in games a couple casts ago because I was in the midst of working on a video game inspired mixtape.

I have been so head-over-heels for Dark Souls that I made a Cohen bros style sountrack for it. If that tickles your interest, or if you just want some good music, you can get more info and listen to it HERE.

Enjoy!

[Sno]

The trick about the lock-on is knowing when you shouldn't be using it.

Activating it so you can orient your shield towards an enemy to block a big attack, and then quickly disabling it so you can, for example, attack a boss's leg instead of swinging wildly at a lock-on point somewhere around their out-of-reach crotch.

As for the hidden checkpoints and secrets, that's part of why it's important to play online so you're seeing your game be populated by player messages, blood stains, and player ghosts. It's a cool vibe, seeing the results of so many players struggling against the game. Its also important, because you can essentially learn from their mistakes and otherwise be pointed in the right directions. (You are playing online, right?)

I mean, and you can also do co-op summons for those tough areas/bosses. I don't know which version you're on, but i suppose this far out from the game's release, it might be hard to find summons. You also need to be human to summon people, but being human also opens you up to the various forms of invasions, which are also a great thing to experience.

[bd_monkey]

Dark Souls 2.....

[Sno]

Some of the scarce details floating around: Apparently they're going back to a dedicated server architecture for Dark Souls 2, akin to Demon's Souls, instead of the unreliable P2P infrastructure of Dark Souls. People have also been going around saying that it's set in a new world, but the direct quote from From doesn't exactly reflect that. There's a new lead on the game, the creator of the first two games will stepping aside to a more supervisory role. They're also promising more innovative multiplayer twists, whatever that will entail.

[Saline]

The new director, Tomohiro Shibuya is apparently from Digital Artist Guild Inc., a 3D modeling and animation company.

There's massive forum drama all over the place with people looking at the guy's Mobygames page and assuming he personally created Resident Evil Outbreak and Monster Hunter because it's so hard to click through and research what he actually did on those games (CG and additional character modeling, surprisingly enough).

[Sully907]

There's also been talk about making the game explain itself better and being more straight forward. Which is totally fine with me. I've seen a lot of souls purists complaining they are going to make the game less complex, but that seems dumb to me. They can tell players how the stats and upgrades work better, while still maintaining the inherent complexity of the combat system and difficulty.

[melmer]

They can tell players how the stats and upgrades work better,

Yes please, it became a massive turn off when you hit Lv60 in dark souls and i would pump an experience point in to strength or dexterity and none of my fucking stats would change!!! fuck you from i need to see numbers change to feel a sense of a achievement (preferably with a little jingle or fan fair)

[Sno]

My hope is that the specifics of the mechanics would be better explained while leaving the world mysterious and confusing. (IE: Not trying to design out the aspect of people accidentally throwing themselves at end game content because they don't know better, making it a more guided experience would be the worst possible thing for this game.)

I mean, but i'm sure we all saw people invest points into intelligence thinking that it would affect their pyromancy.

Or even just how ambiguous all of the multiplayer components are, the co-op summon stone is even a missable item, isn't it? Stuff like that only makes for a shallower pool of players using those systems to interact with eachother.

[Squid Division]

Because I'm slow I've been playing this the last few weeks. I want the soapstone mechanic in every 'singeplayer' game now.

[SGP]

It was funny to hear the guys talk about diagetic and non-diagetic music in games a couple casts ago because I was in the midst of working on a video game inspired mixtape.

I have been so head-over-heels for Dark Souls that I made a Cohen bros style sountrack for it. If that tickles your interest, or if you just want some good music, you can get more info and listen to it HERE.

Enjoy!

Bookmarked for future listening! I really enjoy "movietapes" and must recommend this mix for you to check out.

Let's hope the sequel is as magical as the previous games. Dedicated servers will help a lot!

[ysbreker]

I finally found time to play Dark souls and it's been both super statisfiying and super frustrating at the same time. The lows are really low. But when you do finally win that boss fight you feel like you just conquered the world. It's the best.

 

Currently playing as a level 34 knight and I just lost 16k souls and 10 humanity due to me being stupid. Which is another thing I love about this game. This game is hard. Sometimes it just seems unfair But every thing that goes wrong is a direct result of you making a mistake. So you really can learn and become better at this amazing and crazy game.

 

If they manage to explain things better and keep the same level of punishing honesty I can't wait for the sequel. Especially since it's getting a simultanious PC release. Luckily GFWL is dead so here's me hoping they'll switch to steamworks.

[singlespace]

There's also been talk about making the game explain itself better and being more straight forward. Which is totally fine with me. I've seen a lot of souls purists complaining they are going to make the game less complex, but that seems dumb to me. They can tell players how the stats and upgrades work better, while still maintaining the inherent complexity of the combat system and difficulty.

 

I really don't like that notion. When Hidetaka Miyazaki was a child he used to voraciously read western fantasy stories. However, due to his age and his level of english compression, he couldn't understand large portions of the novels which left him with these amazing bits and pieces of stories with these expansive confusing gaps to fill with imagination.

 

That wild sense that there's so much more left unsaid is exactly the kind of experience he was trying to create with Demon's/Dark Souls and I feel like if they made the systems less anachronistic, if they made things more straight forward and comprehensible, they'll loose that weird sense that you're never quite seeing the whole picture. It's a feel that permeates the design all the way down to the stats.

 

A lot of people comment on the difficulty of the Souls games and how the constant threat gives rise to real sense of skill and accomplishment, and while that's true I think it's important to remember how the immense amount of restraint the developers had in all things effect how we feel about the games.

[TurboPubx-16]

I feel like if things were explained a bit better then maybe I could play through the game without ever using a wiki. For example: "Would you like to join the dragon convenant? (Yes/No)" Seeing as how I have zero information about what that means, I think I'm going to look it up before I potentially ruin my character.

[Scipio]

How did I miss a thread for one of the best games ever made...

 

 

I really don't like that notion. When Hidetaka Miyazaki was a child he used to voraciously read western fantasy stories. However, due to his age and his level of english compression, he couldn't understand large portions of the novels which left him with these amazing bits and pieces of stories with these expansive confusing gaps to fill with imagination.

 

That wild sense that there's so much more left unsaid is exactly the kind of experience he was trying to create with Demon's/Dark Souls and I feel like if they made the systems less anachronistic, if they made things more straight forward and comprehensible, they'll loose that weird sense that you're never quite seeing the whole picture. It's a feel that permeates the design all the way down to the stats.

 

 

I basically agree with this. I think if you changed DS so, say when you first arrive at firelink, you had the same lack of understanding of the narrative stuff, but knew what humanity was, how kindling worked, etc. It would have a fairly big impact on the game. It wouldn't be worse, but it would be a different game.

 

That level of restraint that you point out becomes really impressive when you realise how good the multiplayer system is, (well, in design anyway, not when it's being hamstrung by all of the technical problems). I honestly think that if From had explained and pushed the online system in game and when talking about the game, you'd see a lot more designers mentioning it now as an influence. Choosing to obscure it to create a game with an incredibly strong theme is so cool. (Maybe it wasn't a choice to hide the online like that, maybe it was translation issues or whatever, but I want to believe)

 

Also, while there is that quote from the lead about being more straightforward, I've also seen one from him talking about the grand sense of melancholy that you get when looking at the sea. Which is exactly the sort of stuff I want to hear out of a Soul's game designer.

[tronhound]

I feel like if things were explained a bit better then maybe I could play through the game without ever using a wiki. For example: "Would you like to join the dragon convenant? (Yes/No)" Seeing as how I have zero information about what that means, I think I'm going to look it up before I potentially ruin my character.

 

Are you saying that as a bad thing or a good thing?

[TurboPubx-16]

It is a bad thing that the game has situations where, from my perspective as the player, either outcome of a yes/no option is potentially very dire. It makes me feel irresponsible for not looking at a wiki. I use the dragon covenant as an example because that's the first time I looked at a wiki.

 

"The dragons are bad guys, right? If I refuse he might kill me. He might even curse me! But if I say yes, maybe the dragon will kill and curse me because I dared to assume I was worthy to hang with dragons. Besides that, what does it mean to join a covenant? Is this a permanent decision?"

 

This internal dialouge went on for literally fifteen minutes before I relinquished and went for outside help. Once I broke that seal, I discovered what all those ugly little icons mean, how crafting worked, how co-op worked,  how equip burden worked, etc.

[tronhound]

The things you're describing are the reason I love the series. When Dark Souls was first released it was fantastic, those wiki's you looked up were in the early stages of being written and to a degree no one really understood how certain aspects worked. There was so much speculation about certain aspects of covenants and certain shortcuts, it was brilliant to be a part of all the discovery that was happening.

[TurboPubx-16]

That sounds awesome, and if the PC version of Dark Souls 2 comes out the same day as the consoles then I will seriously consider a day-one perch. But what if I want to opt-out of that experience? I don't feel like there was an option to play the game without ever visiting a wiki. There's even a built-in system to get a certain amount of "playground knowledge" that, if extended further, could solve almost all those problems. Things like incomprehensible icons next to a weapons stats are just bad UI.

[darthbator]

I feel like the game is intentionally opaque. From what I understand the Dark $thing series is based on the designers experiences reading western fantasies without being able to fully understand the English language. So from what I understand a lot of that is him attempting to tell a mechanical story about how masked that experience was to him.

 

I will admit the game does a LOT to cultivate a very specific kind of feeling in the player and I feel it really succeeds. I'm still playing through it and I have still refrained from touching a wiki. However that's lead to multiple instances of me putting it down for months t at a time. I'm thinking I'll print myself a tshirt if I ever finish that thing. 

[melmer]

12mins of dark souls 2 gameplay tomorrow

http://www.allgamesbeta.com/2013/04/dark-souls-ii-world-gameplay-premiere.html

That was out of the blue

[Scipio]

12mins of dark souls 2 gameplay tomorrow

http://www.allgamesbeta.com/2013/04/dark-souls-ii-world-gameplay-premiere.html

That was out of the blue

 

http://uk.ign.com/videos/2013/04/10/dark-souls-2-gameplay-reveal-12-minute-demo

 

Its here its here its here its here

 

(It looks p. cool)

[LazerBeast]

Looks good to me.

[melmer]

Meh, I didn't see anything particularly exciting. Although its probably a very different story when you are playing it.

I'm glad they've added a torch. The torch was fantastic in tomb raider and I thought it would make a great addition to dark souls.

[ysbreker]

Oh man it looks pretty damn amazing. This might make me buy a PS3 and/or PS4 if it isn't getting a simultaneous PC release. Can't wait!