Lately I have been playing it and running people through Anor Londo for fun, having to defend the player from phantoms is fun but I have already come across one cheater. The funny thing is after I died (having backstabbed him twice with no effect) I went to report him and his live profile listed him as offline. Something tells me neither microsoft or steam can/will do anything about the cheaters.
Just picked this up along with Daphz. Y'all should try to painstakingly co-op with us. We haven't successfully done it yet but my handle on the GFWL is Akakami
After reading all the furor, and seeing before and after shots of the "fix", I decided to skip it and stick to the standard release. I've played through the game before on console, and this is maybe a sort of crazy notion, but super-crisp high-res graphics just wouldn't seem to fit the mood of the game. It strikes me as intentionally muddy, rough, and (in terms of visual definition) low-res. And not once in many hours of playing have I thought, "man, I wish I was playing this in a higher resolution instead".
I think that complaining about the game's resolution is a mistaken knee-jerk response. Now, for anyone who's been into PC gaming for a while it's a completely foreseeable and understandable response since for many games it WOULD be a major detraction. Let me stress that point; there's nothing wrong with anyone who was initially horrified at the idea of limited resolution in a PC game. It's a bit counter-intuitive. But the thing is, in this game it strikes me as intentional. I don't think Dark Souls would really benefit from rendering geometry or textures at higher resolutions, nor "higher quality"depth of field or what have you. Focusing on unlocking the greatest possible rendering clarity is missing the point here. This isn't the greatest analogy given the differences in how the images are processed, but it seems sort of like complaining about a Blu-Ray release of Blair Witch Project not having noticeably sharper visuals than the DVD version.
To quickly elaborate on that, I've noticed when playing some older games at much higher resolutions than were available at their release that it can make them feel kind of hollow, inconsistent and fake. Graphical tricks used to get the game looking good, though compelling at the time, become obvious, clumsy and distracting when exposed without the filtering lens of pixelation. Low polycounts become jarring instead of appropriate, card planes stand out like sore thumbs, and the blurry lines of limited texture resolutions contrast poorly with the unlimited crispness of high-resolution geometry edges. Dark Souls was built specifically for 720p; I have a gut feeling that many of the little tricks it uses to convey its visuals would start to lose their effectiveness at the high-end super-crisp resolutions that PCs can crank out now, let alone a few years down the line.
So anyway, just thought I'd post my, erm, rather different take on the Dark Souls PC resolution controversy since I'm not a big fan of the "it would have been too difficult/you don't know anything about game dev" stuff so many people have been posting. Admittedly it's not a great port (this genre really isn't suited to M&KB, go with a gamepad), but it IS a great game.
There are precious few moments in gaming I've had as thrilling as just barely surviving an encounter in this game and making it to the next safe zone, partly because there is no blathering NPC or flashing prompt telling me where to go or what to do. It's equally frightening and liberating, and I'd love to see more new games like it.
Finally ditched my strength build and made a new dex/int build, having the best of times now, everything is much smoother and responsive, damage output is lower but eh, it's all good anyway.
Major gripes so far is how unruly the MP is, both for coop and pvp.
Anyone still playing? Been getting back into the 360 version, can't stop now! I got to Anor Londo and been trying to take on Ornstein and Smogh, honestly hardest fight I've had so far, must've played it 100 times! I bet as soon as Dark Souls came out the sales figures for 360/PS3 controllers shot through the roof, given how frustrating it can be. (I recently found out Smogh has weakness to lightning and Ornstein weakness to fire, in case anyone was in the same situation.)
Then again I mentioned it to some mates and they said S&O are a walk in the park compared to Four Kings, have to wait and see :-S
Anyone still playing? Been getting back into the 360 version, can't stop now! I got to Anor Londo and been trying to take on Ornstein and Smogh, honestly hardest fight I've had so far, must've played it 100 times! I bet as soon as Dark Souls came out the sales figures for 360/PS3 controllers shot through the roof, given how frustrating it can be. (I recently found out Smogh has weakness to lightning and Ornstein weakness to fire, in case anyone was in the same situation.)
Then again I mentioned it to some mates and they said S&O are a walk in the park compared to Four Kings, have to wait and see :-S
Yeah I didn't have any problems with S&O but the Four Kings. SHEESSHH!!!
Anyone still playing? Been getting back into the 360 version, can't stop now! I got to Anor Londo and been trying to take on Ornstein and Smogh, honestly hardest fight I've had so far, must've played it 100 times! I bet as soon as Dark Souls came out the sales figures for 360/PS3 controllers shot through the roof, given how frustrating it can be. (I recently found out Smogh has weakness to lightning and Ornstein weakness to fire, in case anyone was in the same situation.)
Then again I mentioned it to some mates and they said S&O are a walk in the park compared to Four Kings, have to wait and see :-S
I fought them about 30 times... my problem was that I leveled my character and didn't upgrade weapons... don't do that! Equipement is more important than leveling. People usually fight O&S around 30 something level... I defeated them on around 70.
Love the game so far. I'm at Dark Root forest. Never played game like this before. It is not an adventure game. It is a definition of adventure. You only learn about this world through your own experiences. One of the best games I ever played.
Ohhh I play PC version. Ps2 gamepad with converter and DSfix and it's great.
Going to start a new character with the new content out on xbl now! excited
S&O are fun, awesome boss fight. Remember I fought them with 2 others, a pyromancer and sword & board guy, and I'm a light armor dodge-crazy 2handed weapon guy... was such a rush fighting them. Did it the 'hard' way first before soloing it the easy way in my 2nd play through to get both their armor sets.
4 kings were also fun, were much harder on my 2nd playthrough though. If you haven't turned the Lord Vessel in, don't talk to the bunny dragon in town (Frampt) and go kill the 4 kings first
excited to do the new content! Think im going to play either a Pyromancer or Miracle heavy character next.
Got all of the achievements on Xbox. I picked up the PC version 2 weeks back to see the new content (before I knew the content was coming to XBox) and am about halfway through the achievements. Plan to get all of the achievements on the PC version before playing the new content on the XBox version.
Doing the PC play through makes the 4th time I've played through the game (takes 3 play throughs to get all achievements). Starting with a new character, I'm amazed how easy the game is this time through just because I know what to do on each encounter. Really shows the brilliance of this game. Each encounter has a solution (if not multiples) it's just a matter of finding out the solution and don't get hit
Simply one of the best games I have ever played. I picked up the PC version when it came out and couldn't put it down since. Right now, I'm 130 hours in and been having a lot of fun doing PVP. Too bad that Township is filled with hackers and Dark Magic spammers.
Like Bobo, I noticed that after subsequent runs the game becomes too easy. For me, NG+ was very disappointing; the only boss that gave me any trouble were The Four Kings, while the rest of the run was pretty easy. I'm hoping, that if they make a sequel NG+ will be more challenging; I would love to see some different attack patterns and perhaps different enemy placement.
That said, I need to get a hold of my PS3 and get myself a copy of Demon Souls That should satisfy my Souls addiction for a while
God damnit I wonder now if that's what that player did to me. I invaded a game 2 nights ago and went EVERYWHERE looking for him. He had broken all the vases so I knew it was a set up for an ambush or something but I couldn't find him so I did what I always do when people piss me off, I raise the bridge at the start and leave the server.
I gotta hand it to this community, they are still creative even now. I saw this video of a guy who made a terrorist build aka Karmic Justice. It's a crap spell but this guy made it into a troll spell. I have to try it sometime, so funny to see the 3 v1's think they've won only for their dead invader to explode them all.
Also there was this video on youtube of a ninja hiding in the forest leaving items near a cliff. When the players invading went to pick them up he'd use the dragon bow to shoot them off the cliff. Thankfully I saw that video because one invasion a while back that I did was an exact copy of said stunt. I literally spawned next to the item and without thinking I ran straight at the tree with a spear and killed him in one hit. Most satisfying thing that night. I bet he was shocked
Oh and the new dark magic is stupidly OP. I have faced skilled players who could dodge it and kill me but 90% of the time I would get a kill within minutes of invading. All you do is summon pursuers and then spam that 5 shot horizontal dark orb spell. I hope they nerf it to be honest.
Oh and the new dark magic is stupidly OP. I have faced skilled players who could dodge it and kill me but 90% of the time I would get a kill within minutes of invading. All you do is summon pursuers and then spam that 5 shot horizontal dark orb spell. I hope they nerf it to be honest.
I used to complain about them at the beginning, but now I have gotten used to them. If you're fighting people in the Forest or Oolacile, they are quite easy to counter. You just need to find an area that has plenty of obstacles. Forest is good, because it is filled with trees, while Oolacile, has an area with pillars close to the main bonfire. Whenever I see anyone who uses Dark Magic I simply run towards cover and strafe left and right, while blocking with the Crest Shield, until they waste all their spells.
The funniest thing is, that once they run out of spells, most DM users don't really know what to do. That's when I take out my Balder Swag Sword +15 and go medieval on their asses :poly130:
That said, I'm doing an Indiana Jones build at the moment. Leather armor, paris hat, whip and caestus. Boy is it fun
Replies
I think that complaining about the game's resolution is a mistaken knee-jerk response. Now, for anyone who's been into PC gaming for a while it's a completely foreseeable and understandable response since for many games it WOULD be a major detraction. Let me stress that point; there's nothing wrong with anyone who was initially horrified at the idea of limited resolution in a PC game. It's a bit counter-intuitive. But the thing is, in this game it strikes me as intentional. I don't think Dark Souls would really benefit from rendering geometry or textures at higher resolutions, nor "higher quality"depth of field or what have you. Focusing on unlocking the greatest possible rendering clarity is missing the point here. This isn't the greatest analogy given the differences in how the images are processed, but it seems sort of like complaining about a Blu-Ray release of Blair Witch Project not having noticeably sharper visuals than the DVD version.
To quickly elaborate on that, I've noticed when playing some older games at much higher resolutions than were available at their release that it can make them feel kind of hollow, inconsistent and fake. Graphical tricks used to get the game looking good, though compelling at the time, become obvious, clumsy and distracting when exposed without the filtering lens of pixelation. Low polycounts become jarring instead of appropriate, card planes stand out like sore thumbs, and the blurry lines of limited texture resolutions contrast poorly with the unlimited crispness of high-resolution geometry edges. Dark Souls was built specifically for 720p; I have a gut feeling that many of the little tricks it uses to convey its visuals would start to lose their effectiveness at the high-end super-crisp resolutions that PCs can crank out now, let alone a few years down the line.
So anyway, just thought I'd post my, erm, rather different take on the Dark Souls PC resolution controversy since I'm not a big fan of the "it would have been too difficult/you don't know anything about game dev" stuff so many people have been posting. Admittedly it's not a great port (this genre really isn't suited to M&KB, go with a gamepad), but it IS a great game.
There are precious few moments in gaming I've had as thrilling as just barely surviving an encounter in this game and making it to the next safe zone, partly because there is no blathering NPC or flashing prompt telling me where to go or what to do. It's equally frightening and liberating, and I'd love to see more new games like it.
Major gripes so far is how unruly the MP is, both for coop and pvp.
Then again I mentioned it to some mates and they said S&O are a walk in the park compared to Four Kings, have to wait and see :-S
Yeah I didn't have any problems with S&O but the Four Kings. SHEESSHH!!!
I fought them about 30 times... my problem was that I leveled my character and didn't upgrade weapons... don't do that! Equipement is more important than leveling. People usually fight O&S around 30 something level... I defeated them on around 70.
Love the game so far. I'm at Dark Root forest. Never played game like this before. It is not an adventure game. It is a definition of adventure. You only learn about this world through your own experiences. One of the best games I ever played.
Ohhh I play PC version. Ps2 gamepad with converter and DSfix and it's great.
That pair and the bloody wolf....they vexed me so....hnnrrrrfffff
S&O are fun, awesome boss fight. Remember I fought them with 2 others, a pyromancer and sword & board guy, and I'm a light armor dodge-crazy 2handed weapon guy... was such a rush fighting them. Did it the 'hard' way first before soloing it the easy way in my 2nd play through to get both their armor sets.
4 kings were also fun, were much harder on my 2nd playthrough though. If you haven't turned the Lord Vessel in, don't talk to the bunny dragon in town (Frampt) and go kill the 4 kings first
excited to do the new content! Think im going to play either a Pyromancer or Miracle heavy character next.
Doing the PC play through makes the 4th time I've played through the game (takes 3 play throughs to get all achievements). Starting with a new character, I'm amazed how easy the game is this time through just because I know what to do on each encounter. Really shows the brilliance of this game. Each encounter has a solution (if not multiples) it's just a matter of finding out the solution and don't get hit
- BoBo
Like Bobo, I noticed that after subsequent runs the game becomes too easy. For me, NG+ was very disappointing; the only boss that gave me any trouble were The Four Kings, while the rest of the run was pretty easy. I'm hoping, that if they make a sequel NG+ will be more challenging; I would love to see some different attack patterns and perhaps different enemy placement.
That said, I need to get a hold of my PS3 and get myself a copy of Demon Souls
edit:
I might start doing this on my next run.
[ame="
[ame="
God damnit I wonder now if that's what that player did to me. I invaded a game 2 nights ago and went EVERYWHERE looking for him. He had broken all the vases so I knew it was a set up for an ambush or something but I couldn't find him so I did what I always do when people piss me off, I raise the bridge at the start and leave the server.
I gotta hand it to this community, they are still creative even now. I saw this video of a guy who made a terrorist build aka Karmic Justice. It's a crap spell but this guy made it into a troll spell. I have to try it sometime, so funny to see the 3 v1's think they've won only for their dead invader to explode them all.
Also there was this video on youtube of a ninja hiding in the forest leaving items near a cliff. When the players invading went to pick them up he'd use the dragon bow to shoot them off the cliff. Thankfully I saw that video because one invasion a while back that I did was an exact copy of said stunt. I literally spawned next to the item and without thinking I ran straight at the tree with a spear and killed him in one hit. Most satisfying thing that night. I bet he was shocked
Oh and the new dark magic is stupidly OP. I have faced skilled players who could dodge it and kill me but 90% of the time I would get a kill within minutes of invading. All you do is summon pursuers and then spam that 5 shot horizontal dark orb spell. I hope they nerf it to be honest.
I used to complain about them at the beginning, but now I have gotten used to them. If you're fighting people in the Forest or Oolacile, they are quite easy to counter. You just need to find an area that has plenty of obstacles. Forest is good, because it is filled with trees, while Oolacile, has an area with pillars close to the main bonfire. Whenever I see anyone who uses Dark Magic I simply run towards cover and strafe left and right, while blocking with the Crest Shield, until they waste all their spells.
The funniest thing is, that once they run out of spells, most DM users don't really know what to do. That's when I take out my Balder Swag Sword +15 and go medieval on their asses :poly130:
That said, I'm doing an Indiana Jones build at the moment. Leather armor, paris hat, whip and caestus. Boy is it fun