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Dark Souls 2 (Dark Souls successor (Demon's Souls successor))

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

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I'm probably going to have to play this on low as my rig was good in 2009, hopefully DeadEndThrills has the beautiful stuff covered for this.

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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.

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I'm probably going to have to play this on low as my rig was good in 2009, hopefully DeadEndThrills has the beautiful stuff covered for this.

My PC isn't great either, but if figure that if it runs on PS360 it'll run and look okay on my machine too. The min specs are E8500 / 9600GT, so a 2009 PC should be fine.

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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.

Saw that too,so ready.

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Since we're only a few hours from PC release, are there any things you wish you knew when you first started (not necessarily spoilers on the level of the Drake Sword or how to fight a specific boss, but just things that aren't explained super-well)?

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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.

 

It's showing 2 hours on steam, but 8(!) days on my physical pre-order at shopto.net

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Since we're only a few hours from PC release, are there any things you wish you knew when you first started (not necessarily spoilers on the level of the Drake Sword or how to fight a specific boss, but just things that aren't explained super-well)?

 

 

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.

 

 

It's showing 2 hours on steam, but 8(!) days on my physical pre-order at shopto.net

 

The physical edition got delayed in the UK for a week due to some production issue.

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The physical edition got delayed in the UK for a week due to some production issue.

 

That explains things. Guess I'm waiting then ._.

 

One other thing that's important for beginners - when duel wielding weapons, if you hold Y and attack you'll get different attack animations. You have to hold Y, not press it. Also it's dependent on your weapons you have equipped. some won't provide you with unique attack animations.

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Booted it up. First impressions: menu system is nice? Info screen is weirdly glitched. Eh, can't wait to play it anyway. The PC Gamer review for the port is glowing, although it doesn't really say much specific about this particular version of the game itself.

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Well, time to first death: about an hour and 36 minutes. It's weird being back with a level 1 character after going through new game plus with Dark Souls 1. The starting sword has so little range, the endurance bar refills so slowly, and it seems like rolling in general is less powerful. And the "your shield is always raise thing" is super strange to me.

 

Quick question about the thing that killed me:

 

I made it through second bonfire in the Forest of the Fallen Giants in the tower area. I climbed up to this big platform and a floating shiny knight guy dropped down. No health bar or anything so I don't think it was a boss battle. Weird. I'm not actually supposed to kill that with starter gear and no Estus, right?

Also, I hope I get to level up soon.

No matter what, I'm glad to have more Dark Souls to play.

Praise the Sun!

 

EDIT: Found where I could level up, but still too freaked out to fight shiny guy. Oh well.

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This blows, I can't get it to run on my machine, crashes instantly.  Apparently quite a few people are having the problem, though its working for the vast majority.  May be tied to audio to audio over HDMI, no one is sure yet.  Been screwing with this for the better part of two hours.  I can do a work around to make it run windowed with no sound...yeah, great work around.

 

Trying AMD's beta drivers now to see if that works.

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This blows, I can't get it to run on my machine, crashes instantly.  Apparently quite a few people are having the problem, though its working for the vast majority.  May be tied to audio to audio over HDMI, no one is sure yet.  Been screwing with this for the better part of two hours.  I can do a work around to make it run windowed with no sound...yeah, great work around.

 

Trying AMD's beta drivers now to see if that works.

 

 

Sorry to hear it, everything's running buttery smooth on high on my hd 7970. Enjoying it very much so far!

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So I guess VAC bans are global so my friend who got banned from CS:Source in 2006  can't go online in this, meaning no PvP.  I always assumed VAC bans were only for the particular game and then all source games were together, but I've never been banned so I dunno.

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That's the way VAC bans are supposed to be.  Namco put up an official post in the Steam forums a bit ago about the various issues they are investigating, and that was one of them.

Sorry to hear it, everything's running buttery smooth on high on my hd 7970. Enjoying it very much so far!

Thanks, I've got an HD 7950, but I don't think the GPU is the issue. It actually seems like it is more likely tied to audio somehow, based on a lot of the reports that have come in. I've got it copying over to my other machine right now. Much older video card, but significantly different audio setup. We'll see how that goes.

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So it is VAC secured though?

It's also completely through steamworks? No additional logins or anything?

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Yes on through steamworks, no need for some other account like GFWL. 

 

As for VAC...who knows?  No where on the store page does it list VAC, which I thought you had to do if you were using VAC.  But obviously it is tied into the system somehow if people banned in other games are unable to play online in DS2. 

 

The crash people are having is weird as hell.  It runs fine on my work desktop, which has a screaming fast 9600gt in it (go go 2008 technology!).  But on my gaming rig, I could only get it running on my TV by hooking up a second monitor with DVI, disabling the HDMI TV, starting the game on the DVI monitor, then re-enabling the HDMI TV and disabling the second monitor.  And then I would have no sound. 

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Stayed up to midnight to wait for the unlock just to see it boot and kill the starting giants. It was crazy seeing the total deaths on the obelisk at only 10k.

I took off two days next week when the kids are at daycare. Dark souououuuuuuls.

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Stayed up to midnight to wait for the unlock just to see it boot and kill the starting giants. It was crazy seeing the total deaths on the obelisk at only 10k.

 

It was even crazier to see how quickly the death count grew. When I first got out of the tutorial, the count was around 50 thousand, and after I finished the first boss it was around 750 thousand.

 

Random question: How sparing is everyone being about using effigies? I've lost about two chunks of health, but I hesitate use an effigy because I still don't know how hard they are to come by.

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I was similarly cautious and relied on other means to regain Humanity once I discovered them, but I'd estimate the total number of effigies available throughout the game (to be found or bought) is 50ish.

If you've played DS before, or are generally pretty handy, I wouldn't worry too much about conserving them. I'm just a bit shite at games.

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I was similarly cautious and relied on other means to regain Humanity once I discovered them, but I'd estimate the total number of effigies available throughout the game (to be found or bought) is 50ish.

If you've played DS before, or are generally pretty handy, I wouldn't worry too much about conserving them. I'm just a bit shite at games.

Yeah I used one already as well, got to the first boss but didn't beat him yet, will do after work today.

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You can get humanity back by aiding someone in coop. Since I enjoy doing that anyway, that was my method of choice for my 2 playthroughs on PS3.  Effigies are also not that rare. You can buy them from several NPCs and you get some from time to time, if go back to the Old Ladies you meet for you character creation. 

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Got this loaded over night, woke up early and then wasted my time just messing with the character creation.  Is that petrified stone gift just in there to fuck with me? The gifts seem a little less impressive this time around.  What gifts are you guys taking?

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Petrified can be traded at the "Slot Machine Birds", if you get a good drop, it can be amazing. Best gift for beginners is definitely the assortment of healing items. There is no super OP gift, like the Master Key was in 1.

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