That’s a weird announcement, didn’t think Dark Souls was mainstream enough for TV. Regardless, my reaction was one of eager anticipation and a subtle, but palpable dread. Oh, and also splattering of breeches (gross).

I totally forgot the VGAs were even on this year until goddamn DARK SOULS II GOT ANNOUNCED.

@unmanneddrone The FUUUUCK?! I honestly had never heard of the Source mod until now but looks like something I’d always thought of – answering the question of how to make a medieval first person war game.

Personally I still think melee combat is still an advantage of the Japanese, but that’s arcadey beat-em-up combat. It’s nice that more people are trying to not imitate that route and go with something that at least vaguely resembles operating both a sword and shield. Ironically, the one game to do this the best in my eyes has been Demon’s Souls.

Other games did something similar earlier like the original Chivalry mod (which I will try out soon) and even Dark Messiah (which both run on Source actually), but Demon’s Souls was the first game I played that did it with precision. It took me less than 30 seconds to grasp that game’s combat system, and soon after I could appreciate the precise timing involved in the system. The best fights in that game are “human-shaped” bosses and invasions probably. I really hope Team Chivalry are looking at that game for reference.

It would be kinda badass if I could go viking in this joint though. The video says raid objectives are basically just that – raiding shit. Recently I’ve been reading comics – both western and Japanese, about vikings and just how fucked-up they were. Why the fuck can’t I roll up in a long-ass boat with some berserkers and just start tearing up saxony?!

The other thing I’m liking a lot right now is the move towards more realistic, or at least more authentic-looking medieval armor. To be perfectly honest the kind of armor you see in games like Elder Scrolls and Dragon Age are precisely what kept me away from western fantasy for so long – the art design just doesn’t look very interesting and is honestly a bit laughable, even in Skyrim. I know most Bethesda game mods basically amount to anime porn, but I’m seriously considering downloading this particular set of Skyrim armor: http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/21228 I just love that look of having plates on top of plates on top of plates. I’d take medieval Iron Man over the Dragon Bone armor any day. At least Dark Souls takes just enough artistic influence from Kentaro Mirua to look unique, yet still tries to make armor and weapons look plausible, if a bit stylish at times.

Lastly though, the reason I’m into Arx right now is purely for the dungeon-crawling, which I got back into for a bit. Maybe to get myself back in the mood for Dark Souls if some modder can fix the PC port. Either way I’ve already got Grimrock on deck. On the subject, is Ultima Underworld really that big a deal? People talk about it like it’s the greatest action dungeon crawler of all time. I think even Japanese RPG developers talk about that game. The screens on GOG look old as fuck though.

Hello friends,

I know have been MIA for a while, busy times and I just recieved a 5 day holiday (it’s the last day of Ramadan today and Eid follows) so I got a good chunk to do the things I wanna do. Lately I’ve been playing Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey on the DS but keep going and coming back on Valhalla Knights on PSP (actually, playing it on the Vita, found it for like $6 on a sale, which I think is still going on), VK didn’t get much praise critically, being it is kinda unpolished. It is a proper dungeon crawler with a more traditional RPG approach, the way it presents itself however sort of gave me a flashback to something missing in games nowadays.

I wonder if any of you played any of the Tobal series, Ehregeiz or a Japan-only title known as Abala Burn. I don’t predates it, but there was a handful roguelike side modes in some PS1 fighting games coming from RPG developers (Square-Enix, Tamsoft, etc.), these modes probably could have been my earliest experience with roguelikes as a kid.

(gameplay starts at 2:00)

I’ve been kinda wondering, why don’t they make these anymore? Or at least, has there been any notable ones in recent date? I would sure love to play one if there are any. I guess Demon’s Souls and Dark Souls could be a fair candidate as a full game of that kind of thing, but I’m thinking of something more randomly generated.

@bowlisimo I never talked much here about my own experience with Dark Souls. I don’t even think I ever mentioned here that I beat Demon’s Souls.

Getting the PC version of the second game would actually be a double dip for me as I forayed a bit into the 360 version. I kinda stopped at the Gaping Dragon though and intend to re-roll one way or another, ideally on the PC version.

This is interesting, an anonymous big gaming publisher employee is candidly answering Kotaku reader questions.

Although, nothing you couldn’t have guessed, really, but interesting to hear it straight from the horse’s mouth. All the trends you hate about this hobby are because of cold hard business.

@redswir1 Good luck with Dark Souls!

@bowlisimo I checked out the demo when I saw the flash sale (didn’t realize it was a flash sale and missed it) and I actually like it a lot.

Despite being on what looks like the vanilla Source engine the game still looks very atmospheric. The combat and dungeon crawling honestly remind me of Dark Souls with how objectively it utilizes the physics, just in first person. Might scratch that itch until Prepare to Die Edition comes out.

@unmanneddrone I pre-purchased Jagged Alliance when it wasn’t out but I never played it. As for the steam sale, so far I was only able to nab the Alan Wake collection and pre-purchase Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition.

@bluesforbuddha @bowlisimo Maybe It’s just me because I never actually made it past the Gaping Dragon, sort of regret buying the 360 version of the game, and may have fucked up my equipment so bad I was planning to re-roll.

Plus, I’m STILL stuck in Demon’s Souls, and probably won’t finish it before the servers don’t go down. I don’t know how I would’ve made it as far as I did without the occasional help from co-op partners and messages.

@redswir1 I’d like to go to Blight town and spin the camera in 60 frames per second with my middle finger out, and I like the idea of new locations and bosses, but I have to agree with @beige, I finished that journey. Maybe I’ll give it a second thought if DLC is released for consoles. I also kind of feel like standard co-op not with strangers detracts from the experience that game was so good at providing. Still, awesome that it’s coming to PC. More people should play that game.

Actually, yeah, more people should play Demon’s Souls before multiplayer dies, that game is just as good, if not better in some ways. I don’t hear its name evoked enough in Dark Souls conversations.

@impynickers I’ve said it before: Ni No Kuni is what a JRPG is supposed to look like in this day and age.

I was gonna get it day 1 anyway since I found out Joe Hisaishi was involved.

Anyone gonna be up for Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition? I was gonna re-roll anyway, but on top of new areas and bosses, the game will apparently add conventional co-op and PVP with friends.

Pete’s playing Dark Souls, Pete’s playing Dark Souls

Yeah I know petitions don’t work and eveyrthing, but Namco Bandai has actually started to take notice of increased interest for a PC version of Dark Souls. I would certainly double dip. There’s also now a Steam group.

@beige Holy shit, well that came out of nowhere. I don’t even know what Dark Souls DLC means at this point, unless it’s “Ok, just kidding you guys, now the pendant actually does something”.

On that Skyrim article (great title ^ ^), he’s right. I haven’t played that game yet, but based on my time with Oblivion, I’m not gungho to jump into Skyrim partially because of the problem he describes there. There’s a shit-ton of story telling, but none of it really worked for me.

Edit: Also, “More simply put, the stories of Demon’s and Dark Souls are told in a way that only video games can tell stories.” Yes yesyes ye sye ys yes yesyes.

@beige @shingro Some Dark Souls reading for you guys on Kotaku. This writer gets it. “What Dark Souls Is Really All About”

@squad If you still don’t understand why a few of us can talk for days about that game, there you go.

@beige The more I think about it, the more I feel that Dark Souls was as close as I’ll get (as of 2011) to living through a mythological epic or fantasy adventure as myself, as ridiculous as that may sound, more than any other game has before. It’s unique in that way. You can’t just space out and muddle your way through that game in a Saturday afternoon. Like you said, it’s tries to kill you every god damned step of the way. If you want to get anywhere, you have to immerse yourself, you have to focus and consider every move you make, you have to fail and you have to learn. It really ends up being more *you* in that suit of armor than just some random fantasy guy, and as a result, the arduous journey into the depths, the insane challenges you constantly face, the lessons learned, the amazing places you go, the players you silently meet, the high highs, the low lows, and everything in between makes for a very strong personal experience that puts Dark Souls far ahead of anything else I played last year.

Did Beige cover Dark Souls? Yeah? Then we’re good.

@feenwager Thanks for the impressions. Heard some weird things about the way dialogue works from a friend who was also in that beta. From what he said, when choices come up, everyone can pick, but only one person has final say. For instance, he said he was Sith and two players chose to kill an npc and one guy chose to spare him, so the guy was spared. Without any more context I’m not sure how I feel about that, but maybe it’s justified. God, multiplayer dialogue must be a nightmare, but it’s the only real draw for me.

Anyway, you’re better off. From my experience, it’s generally not a good idea to buy MMOs on release. On top of that I have my doubts about that 15 dollar subscription holding up in the face of F2P.

@cptcarnage lol, nice. That whole boss fight was absolute bananas. Beige’s stadium sized rage trap almost singlehandedly saved those top two lanes, too bad he didn’t get any credit. We’ll have to level you up and make another run one of these days.

@beige *Fist bump* Dark Souls 1.3 veterans.

Gwah, thanks for the heads up Beige, of course this puts me in a real nasty position, in order to avoid the update I’m going to have to finish the game in it’s original form as I’ve started I’m going to have to finish it COMPLETELY offline D:

Drat and bother, fortunately(?) Comcast screwed up my transfer of service to my new address so I’m without internet until the 29th… so… I guess I’ll have plenty of time? I hope I can still manage whatever that centipede thing you were talking about without additional help, we’ll see!

Also, I want to get in on the Dungeon Defendering, but I get a full crash on the demo before I see any game screen, was there an issue fixed in the most recent code? I’d rather not pull the cash trigger on something my home rig isn’t suited for.

Also: set my girlfriend up with a new computer, preloaded System Shock 2 (she’s a silent hill fan) and Zanzarah: The Hidden Portal. Any other good suggestions for ‘conversion’ games? She’s already a solid shooter and RPG gamer (She’s miles better then me at GoW and loves some JRPGs and suchlike) I’d like to expand her history though…

@beige Hahahaha you know it, I totally forgot that cosplay pictures are up I should definitely upload a select few to the boards, also Dark Souls is still cooking, and I still have some stories to tell, just been harder to get that long term push on it, I went back to poke at the painting last night, went okay. A friend of mine has been yanking me into long Borderlands sessions, (5 am last night! -___-)

Actually, for that Catherine cosplay the humor is is that I’m dating the Katherine and her younger sister is the Catherine. Unlike the actual Vincent though, I know better then to roam =P

@shingro I watched a lot of Greg Kasavin’s marathon and I’m actually kind of stoked for Skyrim…just not right now. I’m content to have caught the Souls wave of discussion this time around, so I’m going to sit this one out.

For me, it won’t be a lack of challenge, it’ll be getting bored with the Elder Scrolls combat system, which is the only thing I feel Demon’s/Dark Souls has really ruined for me (a little bit of Mount & Blade too). To be honest, I wasn’t too impressed with it back when Oblivion released either. This new one looks marginally more engaging in that regard.

No, with Bethesda games my course is very predictable. I’ll most likely dig real deep and lose myself in the world, then a point will come (30-50 hours in) where I get sick of the life of a ronin and jump back on the main quest for some direction, which eventually leads to The End…and then me asking myself, “what is the point of doing this now?”. The more things change, the more they stay the same, eh?

@beige I saw that email. Curious. Could be cool, sounds kinda Total Recall-ish, but without Johnny Cab and seeing Richter at the party.

Wheee, I’m back among the living, such as we are. It’ll take a bit to catch up on everything but I imagine the squad is enjoying some Skyrim possibly after Dark Souls and I wanted to poke at a question I had

So, I was watching the Giant Bomb stream the day before Skyrim came out and the guy was wandering an obviously spider rich cavern (judging by the amount of spider lounges strewn about.) He goes down a spiral route, takes a right through a passage and suddenly SPIDERS, SPIDERS EVERWHERE!! He kills two with a double handed swing each, but more are dropping from the ceiling, he misses a swing, a spider jumps, “You are Poisoned” flashes across the screen as more and more giant spiders rush around him bitting him constantly

My first thought is “Oh man, this guy is screwed, he is most certainly and irrevocably dead, he just doesn’t know it yet. There’s 6-8 enemies chewing on him, and even assuming he gets past that he’s too fresh into the game to have thought to carry anti-venom… no way he’s getting out of this one” So he flails around… and around and… huh, well he’s got half of them down… two thirds… uh… well I guess he managed to get out of that… but he’s got to be nearly de… *sees lifebar has lost barely 1/4*

uh… *barbarian two handed sword dude whips out a heal spell*

For a brief moment I saw a vast 300 hour experience of trivial challenges spread out before me and the thing that shocked me the most was how disappointed I was. Has Dark Souls ruined my taste for challanges in games? Is it like some crazy Jungle Survival experience where even once the guy gets back to civilization he never feels as alive as when he was fighting for life? Am I going to become a “Hard or bust” guy like @beige?

I dunno, was that an outlier? I loved daggerfall for customization and spellmaking, along with thousands upon thousands of areas… what’s the experience of Skyrim like difficulty wise?

Okay, a couple hours of a rental copy of Skyrim, my first Elder Scrolls game (but not my first Bethesda game). Game seems really great with a lot of content and even surprisingly good game pad UI. But, I don’t yet feel like my life depends on owning this game.

At what point do you guys get totally sucked into these games? For me with RPGs (Japanese or Western) it’s when I first see the world map and really get a feel for how big it is. So far I’ve reached River-something and cleared a fairly big dungeon along with a quest (the golden claw thing). Guess I’ll play for a few more hours and then decide how I’ll spend my free time next week, but I can still go towards another game at this point.

What I wanna talk about here is the controls. How different does Skyrim control from Oblivion? If it’s not the same then I suspect Bethesda took some pointers from Demon’s Souls when designing the combat. This game doesn’t feel too different from From Software’s games when played in 3rd person. How accurate is this assertion?

Anyway, between the “Great Three RPGs of 2011”, each one has it’s own advantages over the other two:
Skyrim – Probably as much content as the other two combined. Good enough gameplay.
Dark Souls – Tightest combat and gameplay of the three. Interesting story, world, and art.
The Witcher 2 – Best story, world, graphics, and art of the three. Good enough gameplay/combat.

Between Dark Souls, and Witcher 2 I can’t decide which one is pulling me in more.

@beige My answer to most challenges from Iron Golem up until the final boss (who said learn2play, Bowley), was “carry a big shield”. Do you have the Eagle shield? It’s a Roman legion looking shield you probably picked up on the way down to Blight Town that has low str/dex requirements, but high stability. You’re getting close to the end, so it may not be worth it now, but it was a good sturdy shield and easy to run out and buy titanite to level it up with.

@UMD Holy shit, that’s a little more complex than I was looking for! I do like the ship designs though, especially when they’ve got battleship turrets. Sins is missing that level of love and detail in the ships, but I forgive it as it makes it actually feasible to get hundreds of them on screen.

@Beige What’s next? Time to go after Seath the scaleless? “Only in a leap from the Lion’s head, will he prove his worth…”

Yeah, had a good time last night now that I can hear everyone. Dungeon Defenders is really awesome when you’re strategizing and defending with other people. My only gripe with fighting the “zugs” (as Beige has dubbed them) is that it can be a little spammy, at least for the squire. Even if not really needed, some different animations, combos, or a sword thrust or something would help break up the left click, left click, left click, left click, left click, frantic back and forth sword waving. But hey, that’s just me.

@beige Yeah, Bed of Chaos is a douche, although it’s unique in that it’s the only fight where your progress doesn’t reset when you die. Once you de-chain those arms on the sides, they stay de-chained. Do you have a shield with high stability? 70+? That should lessen the movement from the sweeping hits.

Even with that dumb fight, I still think Dark Souls wins the bossest-ass boss fights of 2011 award. Dead Space 2 and its glowing weak points (survivalist) are a joke after playing the Souls series. It’s like training with boulders strapped to your legs and then taking them off all of a sudden.

I’ll be around for Dungeon Defenders tonight.

Just so folks know, Youmacon is this weekend, so if any of the squad is attending a michigan based anime convention, we should totally talk some old games. Look for the person who lacks enough shame to cosplay Vincent. He’ll be accompanied by both a K and a C -athrine and look like a goofball. =P Pics will probably be posted, to the possible ruination of my good name and temperant appearance. Can’t wait!

As for Dark Souls, We should probably strike soon on that sidemission squadcast, while people are still involved and suchlike. Plus, I expect we could actually get a shout out on Weekend Confirmed if we brought the activity to Garnett’s attention considering the unfinished Dark Souls tales from Jeff/Garnett. It would also be an excellent lead in to encourage Jeff Cannata to weigh in with another Dark Souls story and form an excellent common base for them to discuss the weapon combat in Skyrim.

That’d encourage us to look at somewhere between the 7th and 10th (they record friday yes?) I suppose I could bring a microphone to Youmacon and try to manage through hotel internet, but I don’t think that’s exactly a winning proposition >_>

Naturally if we aren’t particularly needy of a new influx of Peoples or don’t want to inject into that particular WC discussion (which I expect Dark Souls will actually come out ahead considering the variance of the weapon combat styles, prereqs, custom move sets etc.) then we could do it afterwards and do our own comparisons, trouble is I don’t know what Skyrim penetration around the squad is so the discussion might be more limited. (I myself plan on maybe poking at a demo, but not being week 1 on it, got a limited game budget and DS sucked a fair piece of that away)

Just a random train of thought, what do people think?

Also: Quick Dark Souls update, Got past Four Kings and then Seath, finally acquired sorceries I’ll need to level some to use. Great fun! I guess now I get to see what’s past Ceaseless Discharge

Dungeon Defenders tonight anyone? Tomorrow? Pete said something about mid-week being good.

@beige You can dodge it, it’s just a larger AOE than you’re used to. Rolling backwards ~twice should get you out if you catch it in time, though fire resist is always good, obviously. Curious to see how Centipede goes for you. Looks like patch 1.04 is incoming, some nice changes in there.

Well, the wonderful adventure that was Demon’s/Dark Souls is now over. As it tends to be with video games, where one journey ends, another begins, but those were two games I’m not likely to forget.

For those that are still on the Dark Souls path, prepare yourselves for a final battle with an enemy that brooks no respite, none. @Beige, as far as I’m concerned, except for his soul level draining, King Allant doesn’t hold a candle to this guy in difficulty. Though Allant was just better overall, and more climactic.

There isn’t any fanfare, and the only build up is all the shit you’ve overcome to get there. He doesn’t even look like much, but that is a bad assumption! After stubbornly crashing against the rocks I had to retreat with my tail tucked between my legs, go back to the drawing board and upgrade a new shield, practice parrying, and learn his attacks and timings. One training montage later, I confidently walked down there and put up a fight.

Really impressed by their choice of music for that duel by the way, as for the actual ending itself…ummm, so that happened (???).

The most important reason why I (and I’d like to think a lot of us) like Dark Souls so much is because we’re surprised that we actually get to have a good old fashioned dungeon crawler on today’s gaming hardware with full production values.

Oh hey as a general dark souls question I need a suit of armor to upgrade, I think I cleared out most everything to AL and I have a giant stack of armors, but it’s really hard to tell what to upgrade, currently I’ve been using part of Havels for slow phys+ and the gold embroidered for “I need to move now plz” but I’m starting to get into that uncomforable place where I can get oneshot if hit with a bad combo, any advice?

@beige the irony is as a damn fine sorcerer with an int of 40 the person to whom powerful pyromancies is LEAST useful… is me my attunement slots are filled with all sorts of magic missiles and spears, and then I keep a utility slot (hidden body/safe fall/light, etc)

(Though running through an enemy choked area then Toxic Clouding them in a chokepoint is kinda awesome if you have the stamina for it)

Actually I’m currently still rocking the robes that are the Ceaseless Discharge trigger, they have physical resists that match and exceed most basic armors and top notch poison resist. Sure I look like a Ringwraith but that’s not such a bad thing right? Right??

Another great subtle sunlight moment is in Sen’s Fortress after climbing 5 stories of blood soaked steel and rock there’s a small connecting room with a window to the outside and a warm feeling to it, many messages of “Praise the Sun!” were there so I’m sure it wasn’t lost on people.

@unmanneddrone Hm! That’s quite a challenge for my musical basis, I’ll work something out though, too bad I already used samishi kunai mon, that’s all about the lights of the city and whatnot… hmmm 2 huh, I figured I’d drop IMPLANTA into this submission but it’s way out of tune with the theme… I suppose I should wait for something more condusive or ask for it to be one of the music breaks when I’m On The Record.

@angryjedi Idly curious, are you submitting music to the Squad Mix this time?

Anywho! Lets do one of these!

Okay, so since apparently the Depths weren’t far down enough the next area I find myself able to go is Blighttown, in for a penny in for a pound right? Wait, can I even say that as an american? Whatever.

So I meet some ogres and my encounters with them relieve my of all my souls “damn, this place sure has some high damage, but the psycho zombies aren’t very bad, surely I’ve seen the worst of it though…”

nooooo

Crazy basket headed dudes hiding among the forest of rickity wooden structures fire toxic, not poison you understand, no no, to eaaaaaaasy, Toxic darts which if applied has a fatality rate measured in seconds, not minutes. The area itself was insane, various tiny wooden platforms lashed to the rock of some great cavern set under the earth, nothing looks safe, there are possible jumps everywhere and the distance from every campfire are great enough as to permanently discourage you from veering off the path. This is one of the few areas where I actually needed help just to progress rather then fight the boss. so me and a comely white knight manage to climb our way down the nightmare treehouse with great difficulty to find…!

Vast stretches of a poisonous swamp overflowing with demon insects (more the former then the latter) and eternally respawning poisonous mosquitoes.

It was actually kinda funny, we both got to the ground, poked our foot into the swamp and went “Whoa! Surely we’re not supposed to be there, that’d be permanent, unending poison, a death sentence that kills you by halves!” So we turn and mill about, fending off overgrown mosquitoes, taking little bits of damage on our already stretched resources and generally poking at alternate possibilities. it took us shockingly long to finally admit “Yes, yes Dark Souls is going to ask that after that long and grueling climb that we willingly poison ourselves to progress, making every moment of time we take equate to damage.

Unsurprisingly with that setup the swamp might be the absolute largest most cavernous area in the entire game, it stretches out forever and only the fact that I’d carefully cropped so many trees kept me alive as I chugged anti-poison moss at various intervals, anywho, me and her explore the perimeter, finding all sorts of treasures I had absoutely no use for as a mage and a campfire! Praise the sun!

Oh right, can’t campfire it up if I’m in co-op

This makes exploring a bit tense since I’m sorta actually waiting for my benefactor to die horribly, I was spared the decision of whether to keep chugging estus for her since those were already gone completely naturally, but this ment I was seriously poisoned with no way to stop it, so I chugged those anti-venoms, subtly hung back a bit…

and then I was crushed by an ogre who literally ripped a boulder out of the ground and beat me over the head with it. Problem Solved!

forwarned of the dangers several hours later I managed to drag my broken body (sans souls or humanity) back to the bonfire, I get myself past the ogre linemen to wander down into one of the most wonderfully creepy areas I’d seen yet, the less of which is said, probably the better for those who haven’t traversed it.

So, before I got the game I’d heard from the Giant Bombcast that there were ‘eggs on the head’ and poked at various other informations in that local area, so I knew that she was a witch What *does* a witch look like anyway?

(-_- ). o O ( *Shingro vision*)

Huh, a sign on the ground, I wonder what that is… “Imminent amazing chest” huh… treasure I guess?

*BOOBS*

Guess so…

*mental note to +1 that dude for creativity if not accuracy* *fog* *instantly consumed by fire…* If I blame the boobs would you believe me? no? Oh fine >_>* so I set my chalk roadway sign up, head in again, and found my footing, came back, rolled out with a posse (who showed me a better path without ogres) and I was through the Chaos witch without a second thought. Next is her sister which is somewhere around here… so I get past the door guard who looks a bit worse for wear (Shingro vision does not apply to make characters) and then The Chaos Witch’s sister is there…!

(-_- ). o O ( *Shingro vision*)

Oh god, she’s SO ADORABLE! ;____; *equips Old Witch’s Ring, my initial Gift*
(Spidergirl) It huuuurts ;____;
(Shingro) AAAAAAAAA LET ME HELP YOU :<
(Spidergirl) Can I have the remaining humanity that resides in your soul? ;____;
(Shingro) Without a second thought! =D

*Convent Joined*

This is just the way Shingroes are =P

@beige I love it.

As I came to find out, the pay it forward aspect is strongly built in to the Centipede demon fight, but I’ll let you see for yourself whenever you get there. I’ll just say, that after finishing that fight I was like, “OH! That’s how!” and then walked out of there with the Back Hall music playing from Amnesia.

@beige Haha, nice. It wasn’t my only invader, just the only one I’ve fended off. I’ve had maybe 10 or 11 invaders (not including npcs), a bunch whooped my ass early on, I hid from, or escaped through boss fog from the rest. That last guy was the only one I actually had a fun duel with. In the catacombs I had spirits of vengeance invading, not sure who I pissed off there.

I really adore the wordless interaction, too. I parked myself right before Lost Izalith last night and stuck my thumb out in case any higher level passersby wanted a sellsword for the Centipede demon fight. Probably got summoned 6 times. 5 out of 6 times = me arising from the ground, exchanging bows with the host and any other summoned phantoms, casting spells, and charging into the boss fight, no questions asked (that last time the host jumped off a cliff and died). You know why you’re here, go make the host proud. Cheer/wave/bow, when your service has been completed.

Edit: Grats on Smoughstein. Ash lake is a dead end, worth visiting, but I wouldn’t want to live there. Dukes Archives, Demon Ruins/Lost Izalith, and the Tomb of Giants are your new open paths. Of course, there’s always New Londo. Go get those Lord’s souls to fill up that Lord Vessel, they’re punks.

Also, blacksmiths only take the embers they’re supposed to take (otherwise they say “naah dawg, it looks nice, but there’s probably a blacksmith in another castle…”. The one near Sen’s can get you to +10, the undead one in the catacombs is the one you want for fire and +15 (when you get the embers).

@bowlisimo Shit like this is why I’ve always wanted up set up a web site or some place where people can exchange gaming war stories, like that thread I started waaay back on the 1up Radio Boards.

More souls!

I love Dark Souls moment #56

At soul level 80, I finally fought off my first invading player, a watershed moment for either game. It took me about this long to do the same in Demon’s Souls (and there’s another good story in that one).

When you walk back to a bonfire that refuses to light, and there aren’t any monsters chasing you, it’s cause for alarm. It’s because at that moment, some guy, from god knows where, was tunneling into my PS3 with the sole purpose of murdering me, and sure enough, “The Dark Spirit XxJapaneseNamexX has invaded!” pops up on my screen.

I was stuck in a bad spot, because the bonfire was nestled one floor beneath a stone walkway covered in Capra demons, a previous boss @beige detailed that isn’t hard alone at this level, but add a human player to the mix and you won’t have a chance. Below the bonfire? More monsters, all of which could come crashing up the stairway at me if I didn’t keep a distance.

For those who haven’t played these games, the thing about invasions is that you never know who you’re going to get. Usually you get a more experienced player that trounces you with overpowered gear, other times you get a player that hides behind monsters and waits, sometimes you get a jackass who glitches you to death, and every so often you get a player who strolls up to you like a samurai and uses the *bow* gesture before attacking (for many Demon’s Souls players this was standard procedure). Despite my shitty situation, I got the guy who respects his prey.

So I bowed back.

Then we circled each other around a set of pillars, shields up, looking for a weakness, waiting for someone to over commit. He acted first by two-handing his lightning imbued uchigatana and lunging first with a heavy swing. Miss. I countered with a lunge and an upward slash with the longsword as he recovered, and his life bar dipped to half. I don’t think he was expecting a fire enchantment. He backed off and brought his shield up again. I did the same. We got in close this time, he tried to get behind me to perform a backstab to even the score, but I wouldn’t let him.

There was a small exchange of blows, but even though my hp was starting to drop, his was getting dangerously close to 0. I was beginning to sense victory. The invader backed off again, so I dropped my shield and threw a fireball at him. No good, too slow. This was the opening he was waiting for. He lunged hard, hitting his mark before I could bring my great shield to bear. My hp plummeted, but not as much as he was hoping for. If it’s one thing I have, it’s lightning resist, and I have it in spades. Too bad. With a poise ring, my character barely staggered and with a few (hands shaking on the controller) uncoordinated slashes, I finished him off. The invader fell to his knees, I bowed as he disappeared from my game and then collected his humanity & souls.

Back to business.

“Mastery begets progression”, right? A small victory, but how sweet it is.

The battlefield:

@shingro The Lord vessel only warps you to some very specific bonfires (come on, you didn’t expect it to be THAT easy, did you?). It’s usually bonfires where firekeepers are, covenants, or after some of the later bosses. Even with that restriction, it’s still incredibly useful. Hey, don’t want to trek all the way down to blight town? Here, warp right to the spider lady in Queelag’s house. Want to farm some twinkling titanite? Instant travel to the ass end of Ash Lake and kill some clams. I zip back to Firelink often because I’ve got the bonfire stoked to 20 flasks.

@beige the story is a bit muddled in my head, I remember the room the slime got the drop on me was the large one in front of the merchant with the single slime on the top, which yeah, is before the rampart area… hard to say! I know I hadn’t found the campfire yet though.

Actually in current progress I knocked off the Ormstien and Smough last night at midnight (part the reason that the Amazing Adventures was so late, the informal summon spot isn’t actually in the main room, it’s at the base of the first set of stairs near the lever that summons the corkscrew tower, the good news is with extra people the sunlight knights aren’t such a pain and can’t cast heal so much, the bad news is you want to fight the boss but people occasionally summon you to get past the ramparts run. No benefit for you really, but nice to help people out anyway =D

Now, don’t burn me as something unnatural, but actually Anor Londo was really good for me. After having listened to that musical tribute to Anor Londo more then most of my other music I really enjoyed the dungeon. It’s bright, soul return is high, my sparkly new Covetous Gold Serpent Ring ment that every enemy was full of potential goodness, got tons of armor, tons of weapons, no less then 4(3?) bonfires, and a very Shingro-esque message at the end at the end. (I believe it says “Imminent Amazing Chest”) Boss killed me a fair amount, but I had about equal trouble with the iron golem until I started rolling behind him instead of trying to keep away

Also: using invisibility for that is something I hadn’t even considered woulda made the madhouse run up the parapet about 6x easier and I think saved me 10k souls, will file that away for future tricks, currently my loadup is much more “The Honorable USS Total Annihilation”

Now that I got the lordvessel I suppose it’s probably time for me to see what’s in the CATACOMBS 😐

(not finding the moonlight butterfly until sen’s fortress really pinched my divine weapon thought >_>)

Also: does anyone know why I can’t teleport to any campfire? It seems to be a really limited selection

PS: Extra Credits is a great show, especially if you like to think about games and gaming in a more analytic way, I saw them when they came from The Escapist (escapistmagazine.com) which has a lot of pretty good video content. Unskippable is MST3K for game trailers, Moviebob does an interesting Big Picture (general ruminations of a comics/movie/game nerd) and Escape to the movies is a pretty good movie critique which tends towards the nerd movies (which is to say, the things I actually care about)

To say nothing of Zero Punctuation and Extra Credits having been there.

@unmanneddrone I was actually looking at that sale on steam, not sure what to do with it, I actually didn’t play Sins despite a love of Strategy and tech trees, (oh, and I dropped a lot of cash recently on games and rent is by a convoluted method jumping 130$) but would you say it’s worth it? I loved the homeworld-esque look of the trailers

My android distractions are the following, Game Dev Story, Grand Prix Story, and Pocket League Story for all your management sim needs (games, cars and soccer respectively) I’ve also been playing Shadow Era which is a free online CCG (though the card list is still fairly small, so your mileage may vary)

Still, don’t have a lot in that area, I tend to carry my PSP instead so I guess I’m “anti-modern” that way?

So, as that I’m apparently completely unobservant I spent my time after killing the goat demon+two dogs boss wandering the world, I went down to darkroot (died to hydra several times, completely missed the Moonlight butterfly) poking at the first unkillable skeleton of the catacombs (no butterfly, no divine weapons) and generally being unproductive, finding not much else to do I started hiring out to people needing help against the goat’s double handed triple team, got myself lots of souls and 13 humanity, and about 20 some levels making me feel like king of the world~ then… a revelation..!

… I got summoned into a world where people had walked down the stairs to the right of the boss room which I’d never known was there even after camping the area with my summon sign out… whoops >_>

So, when I get back from the demon doom posse, I venture down there, zombies! No trouble. Zombies with fire! not, bad exactly… takes an estus maybe…. hey this goes down a fair ways, floor sign points me to a secret place behind the crates, neat! it gets me to…. a place with no anything… for anyone… surrounding a pit with a giant rat in it. Oh! This is a free ranged spot to kill this sub-boss. As a caster the rat problem quickly goes away and… huh, that’s odd… no stairs, just gotta fall I guess.

So I go down… loot some things, explore a little and… huh, a waterfall, I guess I’ll check this… WHOA! I slide down the side of it… ah, well, okay, no way back up at the moment, and *explore explore… jump some pits, fall down another…

At this point I’m thoroughly lost and buried, I keep falling down, and even when I find a stair upwards it seems to be followed quickly by another fall, literally an hour and a half later I’m getting really worried, the soul shots are low, but instead of my haphhazard wanderings I’ve got a plan… I’ve started killing the meat chunk things as ‘you’ve been here before’ markers, and shortly I do find a new area

… with a new enemy, Slimes

Now, we gotta cast waaaay back to D&D 2nd Edition, do you remember Green Slime? The slimes that converted you to green slime? The stuff that once it touched you the only answer was *amputation* or *fire?* I sure do, because as a kid that was the scariest damn monster in the book. So with 1:30 hours worth of souls and 25+ hours into the game I KNOW these guys have a trick, some nasty horrible thing that’s going to ruin my “no estus left” ass and teleport me back completely destroying any concept of the terrain or the *LOCATION OF MY SOULS AND MASSIVE HUMANITY STACK* that I may profess to have.

So I poke it, ever so carefully…

in retaliation it just kinda quivers and lurches, veeeeeerry slowly

Not so bad, I’m still terribly paranoid though. what could it be? it puffed itself up and lurched once, but it wasn’t an insta-death grab or anything like those trees in the Basin, just a normal blockable attack…

So I poke, and stab and very carefully fight it, slaying it without actually too much trouble.

Hey! no problem! I guess I was worried over nothing, so I poke around a bit more, go deeper into the room, fight another one…

And halfway through this fight slime drops off it’s concealment on the ceiling and COVERS my character head to foot.

“!@#$%^!@” comes out of my head, not swear words, but the Q-bert noise from the nintendo era, my eyes flick to my lifebar, having run out of estus it was at half mast if that, the slime continues to consume my character as I mash franticly, the slime I was fighting also lurches itself at my ensnared form, (though fortunately locked animations means invincibility! <3) 1/5,1/7th, 1/10th…!

It lets me go with a minuscule sliver of life

me and my character both gasp for air and beat a hasty retreat to an overhang I can see, having no way to recover life I stab the slimes very very carefully from a distance.

Leaving me alone

in the Depths

With literally zero life

Interestingly enough, the story of my survival after that has a large part to do with finding an evil (didn't care!) relic that allowed me to feed on the life force of rats, slime and other native creatures to extend my own unnatural existence!

So thank you Dark Souls, thanks for being enough of a bastard to MAKE me do that, because in any other game, I'd have just popped the cork on a megaelixer from The Great Stockpile and been totally fine. Here though? Here I was out of my head with worry enough that I didn't particularly care if the game was tracking it in some sort of morality way. (which, as far as I can tell, it didn't, everyone still seems to like me at least)

@beige weird, my experience with the depths I was also put in mind of the “bury yourself” bit in the Silent Hill squadcast, was going to do all sorts of similarities in the Shingro’s Adventures element of it =P another great bit of the visual design as well is that parapet that you come out of and you see that you’re on the side of a castle somehow even though you went *DOWN* forever, great moment.

Currently I’m at the gates of Anor Londo, nothing too bad so far, except those people chucking stone lances filled with lightning was actually coming to the Box because I remember one of the squad stories covered it =P

@bluesforbuddha Yeah I tried going down the other ways. The dude slammin’ the dragon tooth made the Basin a no-go, and we all know about the skeletons and the catacombs. Come to think of it, you do start the game on what looks like the top of a mountain, or at least way above a DEEP valley.

Okay man I am knee-deep in the sewers DEEP man. Somehow I managed to get all the way to the bonfire without dying once – all the way past the crazy butcher, past the giant rat at which I took no chances, past the pitfall that led me to a room surrounded by poison gas frogs with half my heath chopped off, and through the labyrinth without so much as getting poisoned. This was after going into the garden and killing the butterfly.

After all this I still somehow feel that I’m only in this game’s equivalent of Act 1.

@beige ♪Annnnor Londo♪

Yeah, get your ass back to AL. You really need the Lord Vessel to continue. The main keep is where you want to go. I went through there before attempting Sif, so you should be able to handle it. I think my soul level was in the mid 50s by that time. Ornstein and Smough are waiting. My suggestion would be to summon a buddy for that one if you try it alone and fail (someone that doesn’t look like they’ll trivialize it for you, gear wise). It’s just a better experience.

After beating Sif, you have what you need to complete New Londo (not sure if you need the Lord Vessel too). If you don’t dilly-dally you’ll probably only need to go in with 2 or 3 transient curses before a ghost drops a few or you find some more. Once you do a certain thing, there’s a lower section with way less ghosts. I got whooped really badly by the boss there and haven’t gone back, but it’s worth it to plumb the place, especially for the firekeeper’s soul and an ember that allows for normal weapons to upgrade to +15.

Something to look forward to: Lost Izalith, magma chamber filled with DRAGON FEET, that stomp on you, like they’re putting out a fire. Real bad.

@redswirl Welcome to my world of pain :<

Nahhh just kidding, I just made a new convent! Stories inc later today

on the plus side it seems like it's going to be alright in the end if beige speaks truely

@bluesforbuddha @beige @shingro Don’t tell me… NO! The dude in the gold armor in the upper floor of the Parish?!

Anyway, I got a crossbow, but no bow. Nearly took out the Prowling Demon (coolest art in the game) full melee. Just a little more…

@redswir1 man alive, no range at all takes some serious guts, total credit to you. I found a crossbow by doing a running jump off a roof (scaffolding?) in the undead burg to reach a little broken walkway going into a window… but I haven’t found it as useful since you can’t do the bow sniper mode (which reminds me, I’ve rung both bells and STILL don’t have a bow, what am I missing?! Maybe I missed a merchant somewhere, I could really do with a sniper mode ranged weapon

Also: goddamn it I KNEW that guy was going to get me in trouble -___- on the plus side it seems to have developed into some sort of vengeance quest?

So I have a plan to deal with those goddamned Gargoyles at the top of the Parish. Yeah I’m behind but what the fuck ever.

See, I kinda wasted all those Gold Pine Resins I got earlier. Didn’t know what they were and accidentally used a couple. Well shit, guess those Charcoal Resins I got from the insane Irish zombie merchant girl in the sewer will have to do.

I’ve got three humanities and I think at least one summon stone thingy. I just gotta get up there and through the elite guard and that gaggle of zombie slave dudes without dying ONCE. That big-ass knight dude used to be there but disappeared after he knocked me off that narrow bridge. Huh.

After that I think I’ve already got two or three other bosses available to me.

Also, for some reason I have not encountered one arrow so far in this game. My entire time playing I’ve had absolutely no means of ranged combat. None.

I’m trying to use the guides and wikis as little as possible. This just seems like a game made to be discovered, not told.

Just started with Game Access (The Canadian Gamefly alternative), first test is Dark Souls.
Obligatory Dark Souls tale:
Not realizing I could run away from the tutorial boss until I get a weapon was my first mistake.
After I got a weapon though the game eased up. I got into a groove where I just breezed through enemies at a very solid but slow pace which carried me through. Patience pays off in this game.
The Undead Burgh has started to engrain itself into my brain now. Spear dudes were probably the biggest hurdle at first, and occasionally a flame bomb would get me. Nothing felt too unfair though until I got mercilessly flamed by a dragon. Yeah, I can make it across the bridge if I use a health potion … but I would prefer to have some skillfull way to make it across unscathed. Maybe I am missing something.
Now I am finding myself thwarted by poisonous rats that carrode my weapons. The reinforced club that has owned the show up to this point is now quite useless. I have died alot as a result. Time to deal with that crazy merchant. Will he sell my zombie kidneys on the zombie black market?
I really do need to look at a guide for this game. I often enjoy piecing things out for myself, but there is alot here that isn’t spelled out enough.. and I may be at an extreme disadvantage if I don’t do my research.

I tried the Dungeon Defenders demo, seems spectacular. I will likely pick that up at some point. Also the Missing Link. I am running out of free time with which to play all this though, especially with Uncharted and Skyrim looming overhead. Ill just pick a couple out of my growing list, and leave the remainder for the christmas holidays.

Ill put some thought into more music submissions. The thought of another mix is exciting.

You know the best thing is I’m preeeeetty sure that Anor Londo is the very next thing I have to tackle =D Gotta put that in a soft winamp playlist

@unmanneddrone I took a look at the submission link, where do I put the files? Do I have to use a third party hosting solution? I know our last email got a file scrambled and I don’t see any way to attach stuff in there

As for Dark Souls, well, this particular area is probably the most fertile ground for that watercooler talk and severe Dark Souls love, Many of us have been gamers forever and DS links into those old feelings of the game fighting you every step of the way, add that to the way we’ll tell stories for about damn anything and…

Well, if you don’t want the malaria, you might want to avoid the swamp during a mosquito bloom =P

(also: I totally bought the game today)