Dark Souls - Prepare to die.

[X Knight]

I beat it! Killed every boss, including optional ones, and am now 1 boss into NG+ (which is much easier than I thought it would be).

Game time was a little over 50 hours, beat it at Soul Level 84.

hey!! Congrats!!

now that you've beaten the game and spent time with it, would you recommend this to a casual player?

 

[Soapy]

I'm still slowly, but surely making my way towards the end of Demon's Souls. Last night I killed the archdemon Maiden Astraea. Well, actually, I killed her bodyguard and then she killed herself. Anyway, after she died, the Nexus just plays creepy organ music now. I wonder if that's significant?

 

[ProjectPat2280]

You really shouldn't waste too much time farming. As you progress you'll get more than enough souls (and way better farming areas).

At level 20 you should be able to head to the church and take on the gargoyles, which is unfortunately one of the more annoying fights in the game. Have you even made it to the blacksmith? He isn't far from where you are and upgrading your equipment is pretty important.

Also fyi, much later in the game the Taurus Demon becomes a regular enemy.

Ah, good to know.

Yea I haven't met the blacksmith yet, haven't even crossed the bridge with the dragon, just went under it to get the Drake sword.

And Taurus Demon, regular enemy? W. T. F

 

[Soapy]

Well, I've done it. I conquered Demon's Souls. Though I accidentally got the bad ending in the process. :/

 

[Majmun]

I bought this game a couple days ago. So far, I've beaten the black knight and the taurus demon. I made it to the bridge and got roasted by the dragon. I decided to try a different place, so I went back to the starting area, took a different path, and fought a lot of skeleton warriors, inlcuding a couple of giant ones. I found an underground world, and decided not to go in there yet. Now I've read here that you can get past the dragon at the bridge, so I will do that tonight.

I played through Demon's Souls many times and loved it. I loved the online aspect of it, where you can invade or be invaded, or help out as a phantom. The thing I've noticed about this game, is that I haven't seen one single blood stain. I haven't seen one soul sign where I can summon help while in human form. I was never invaded by a black phantom while in human form. I have seen ghost players who were in the same vicinity as I was, but that's all I've seen as far as multiplayer aspects of this game. In Demon's Souls, I was always getting invaded, or co-oping with someone, blood stains everywhere, etc. What's going on with the multiplayer?

 

[ProjectPat2280]

Yea man, iv noticed the same. The game doesn't feel nearly as populated as demons souls was

 

[X Knight]

I bought this game a couple days ago. So far, I've beaten the black knight and the taurus demon. I made it to the bridge and got roasted by the dragon. I decided to try a different place, so I went back to the starting area, took a different path, and fought a lot of skeleton warriors, inlcuding a couple of giant ones. I found an underground world, and decided not to go in there yet. Now I've read here that you can get past the dragon at the bridge, so I will do that tonight.

I played through Demon's Souls many times and loved it. I loved the online aspect of it, where you can invade or be invaded, or help out as a phantom. The thing I've noticed about this game, is that I haven't seen one single blood stain. I haven't seen one soul sign where I can summon help while in human form. I was never invaded by a black phantom while in human form. I have seen ghost players who were in the same vicinity as I was, but that's all I've seen as far as multiplayer aspects of this game. In Demon's Souls, I was always getting invaded, or co-oping with someone, blood stains everywhere, etc. What's going on with the multiplayer?

Yea man, iv noticed the same. The game doesn't feel nearly as populated as demons souls was

see. this concerns me. the online aspect of the game is one of the unique selling points. and it was an area I was looking forward to experience.

I was reading about this issue the other week. Alot of people were complaining about it. I guess it has something to do with the servers ( or type of servers ) they chose to use in Dark Souls?

I hope this issue is fixed in the future. and that's one reason why I'm glad I waited before picking this up.

 

[Majmun]

I bought two copies so that I could play with my son. Looks like that's not going to happen. May have to take one back.

 

[ProjectPat2280]

I bought two copies so that I could play with my son. Looks like that's not going to happen. May have to take one back.

Well to be fair it's not really that kind of co op game. They don't reslly want u teaming up with ur buddies. It's why they took out party chat in the 360 version.

 

[Majmun]

Well to be fair it's not really that kind of co op game. They don't reslly want u teaming up with ur buddies. It's why they took out party chat in the 360 version.

I understand that, yet in Demon's Souls, the "prequel" to this game, we did that exact thing with no problem...and had a good time.

 

[Majmun]

I've been reading more info about this game, and I found that you can do a plunge attack from the tower at the Taurus Demon. I didn't know that. I meleed him and hit him with firebombs. I also beat the black knight with my short sword by blocking his attack then counter attacking. I don't have any weapon enhancements yet, haven't found a blacksmith.

This game is a little confusing on where you should go, where Demon's Souls was pretty easy to figure out.

I wish that I would have started off with the Master Key as a special gift.

Also, I didn't notice that I got any kind of award after I beat the Taurus Demon. Should I have?

In Demon's Souls, you always got a demon soul after defeating the demon of the level, and maybe some special stones or something.

 

[StrainedEyes]

I've been reading more info about this game, and I found that you can do a plunge attack from the tower at the Taurus Demon. I didn't know that. I meleed him and hit him with firebombs. I also beat the black knight with my short sword by blocking his attack then counter attacking. I don't have any weapon enhancements yet, haven't found a blacksmith.

This game is a little confusing on where you should go, where Demon's Souls was pretty easy to figure out.

I wish that I would have started off with the Master Key as a special gift.

Also, I didn't notice that I got any kind of award after I beat the Taurus Demon. Should I have?

In Demon's Souls, you always got a demon soul after defeating the demon of the level, and maybe some special stones or something.

You just get souls from the Taurus Demon. There are plenty of bosses that you get their specific soul as an item, which can be used to craft unique weapons or for a good amount of souls. But there are also smaller bosses like the Taurus Demon that don't net you an additional item.

You'll meet a blacksmith before the next boss.

 

[Majmun]

Thank you sir.

 

[Majmun]

I don't know if this has been mentioned before, but if you are helping another player, you can't use your estus flasks to heal yourself. The only way to do it is if you have a healing spell.

The human that you are helping CAN heal you by drinking one of their estus flasks. But, if you are helping a guy like I did yesterday, you may never get healed.

I summoned a phantom and drank a few estus flasks, even though I didn't need them, just to help out my phantom helper. By keeping his health up, he helped me get through the undead church level and smoke the two gargoyles. I've never played that level before, but apparently he has, and he helped me breeze through it.

So my point is, help out your phantom by drinking your estus flask, even if your health is at 100%.

 

[Soapy]

Dark Souls 1.04 Patch Notes

- Some magic effects have been revised. (Magic Shield, Greater Magic Shield, Tranquil Walk of Peace, Ring of Fog, Iron Flesh)

- Elemental enhanced and Stat enhanced weapons have been rebalanced.

- Some slight adjustments have been made to other weapons, equipment, and magic. (Pyromancer's Flame's magic adjustment)

- Matching and multiplayer conditions have been adjusted.

- Defeating a boss in multiplayer will now reward the host with the full amount of souls from the boss.

- When failing to invade a player's world using the Cracked Red Eye Orb, the item will no longer be used up.

- Adjustments to the amount of suols dropped by enemies.

- Adjustments to the item drops from enemies.

- Some bosses will drop Humanity and Homeward Bones now.

- Increased Drop rates for certain Covenant items and Equipment Enhancement materials which had extremely low drop rates.

- Adjusted the Item Discovery increase rate which scales with Humanity levels.

- Item lists in shops have been adjusted. (Bottomless Box added to Male Undead Merchant. Bunch of arrows added to Female Undead Merchant, Andrei, Domnhall, Giant Blacksmith, and Vamos. Domnhall will sell the Master Key after he moves to the Firelink Shrine. Giant and Vamos both sell the various equipment boxes. Giant sells a bunch of shards now. Vamos sells Titanite Shards. Ingward sells Transient Curse.)

- The amount of Faith required to join the Sunlight Covenant is now 25 instead of 50. The formula for reducing it with multiplayer remains the same.

- Paying for your sins is now cheaper. The formula is Level x 500 souls, instead of Level x 2000 souls previously.

- Equipment Weight adjustments.

- Lock-on behavior has been adjusted.

- Fixed certain cases of game freezing.

- Changed the way souls are displayed in the Level Up Menu.

- Fixed the exploit with infinite weapon/magic usage.

- Fixed the 1 second delay during certain attack animations.

- Fixed the bug where Solaire isn't in New Game+.

- Fixed the shard bug with Frampt which took away all your shards if you had more than 99.

- Fixed getting stuck in certain parts of the map, being unable to progress.

- Fixed various English translation errors in the overseas version of the game.

 

[Soapy]

Petition to get Dark Souls released on PC

Over 40,000 signatures. And unlike most petitions, this one actually has a chance of success. Someone who works for Namco basically gave fans the idea for it, so if you have a few seconds to spare, please sign it.

P.S. - I've been playing Dark Souls recently, and of course I love it. Can't continue until I replace the Blu-ray drive in my PS3 though.

 

[StrainedEyes]

I actually started a second character just after Christmas and have subsequently gotten to NG+ with him. I think on reflection this was my GOTY, it's so engrossing and well made. I stopped playing Skyrim around the holidays due to technical issues and general boredom, but Dark Souls keeps pulling me back in for more.

 

[ProjectPat2280]

Petition to get Dark Souls released on PC

Over 40,000 signatures. And unlike most petitions, this one actually has a chance of success. Someone who works for Namco basically gave fans the idea for it, so if you have a few seconds to spare, please sign it.

P.S. - I've been playing Dark Souls recently, and of course I love it. Can't continue until I replace the Blu-ray drive in my PS3 though.

Eh, PC users will just steal it any way.

I think on reflection this was my GOTY, it's so engrossing and well made. I stopped playing Skyrim around the holidays due to technical issues and general boredom, but Dark Souls keeps pulling me back in for more.

I felt the exact opposite. I loved Demons Souls and loved Dark Souls when it came out, but neither game could hold my attention for very long. The overall lack of narrative killed it for me. It seemed as tho it was just one mindless battle after the other, albeit those battles were really cool, but i rather do more than just fight monster after monster after monster. Still a great game though.

 

[Why Are You Crouching Spock?]

Eh, PC users will just steal it any way.

Looking at sales figures for dark souls, particularly the xbox360 it would suggest console gamers aren't all interested in hardcore games. Hardcore games purely on the pc with basically no PR machine and a huge piracy problem still tend to sell significantly more. It's also the same with indie games that have literally no marketing, supermeatboy for instance oblitorated xbox360's sales within a week. This would suggest (aside from being the most hardcore gamers) pc gamers to be the most open minded and free thinking, not consistantly tied to the PR machine gaming basicaly is now. For that reason I wouldn't be surprised if it easily over-took the xbox360's sales count and possibly the ps3s, as long as it was a decent port.

 

[Soapy]

I felt the exact opposite. I loved Demons Souls and loved Dark Souls when it came out, but neither game could hold my attention for very long. The overall lack of narrative killed it for me. It seemed as tho it was just one mindless battle after the other, albeit those battles were really cool, but i rather do more than just fight monster after monster after monster. Still a great game though.

I wouldn't say either game had a lack of narrative. Both games have stories, they're just told implicitly rather than beating you over the head with hamfisted dialogue and cutscenes. I for one really appreciate that.

Anyway, a rumor popped up recently stating that DLC or some kind of expansion might be in the works for Dark Souls.

 

[Solidus]

To me I could care less of the narrative of the games, I do not understand the obsession with every game having a huge massive fleshed out story. Games are called games because the entire core of it, especially from the 70's to the late 90's was mainly about gameplay. I have no qualms with having narrative (if its good) in a game. But if a game has an amazing enough of gameplay that is all that matters to me, not every game needs cutscenes after cutscenes. Some do it very well, but Dark Souls and Demon Souls have no need for it, even though it is there, it is subtle and you have to read things and figure it out more so, as Soapy said.

And to all the hardcore stuff Spock is talking about, PC gamers are not always the most hardcore. I mean ya from 1989-2002 PC was my main platform that I played I did SNES and PS during that time as well, but I had more PC games than anything. But console games especially in the 80's and 90's had just as or sometimes way more so difficult hardcore games. So many of my friends that were console only from the 80's till now, love hardcore games themselves. I think the sales of Dark Souls has been good and its only been out for a while. I don't mind if PC gamers get a taste of it though. But no need to start this kind of talk that PC gamers are the only hardcore ones. And hell I use to be a huge PC gamer back in the day.

 

[StrainedEyes]

The loneliness and mystery is what makes Dark Souls really intriguing.

 

[Soapy]

Totally agree.

 

[ProjectPat2280]

I wouldn't say either game had a lack of narrative. Both games have stories, they're just told implicitly rather than beating you over the head with hamfisted dialogue and cutscenes. I for one really appreciate that.

Anyway, a rumor popped up recently stating that DLC or some kind of expansion might be in the works for Dark Souls.

Yea i understand there is a story there, but its thin, no argument otherwise. That's fine tho as the games dont set out to be a Mass Effect or Elder Scrolls. I prefer games with deeper narratives. It's why iv always hated Mario games.

As for any DLC, the devs stated before Dark Souls shipped that there would be no dlc and that what was on the disc was it.

 

[X Knight]

so, has the online component been fixed?

I remember when DS 1st came out, quite a few people were complaining about the online play ( like it was hard to interact with other players or something )......

has that been fixed now?