Dark Souls & Other Souls-Likes

You haven't by any chance been in undead burg have you?

No. Was just wondering if you were the one bending me over.

rarely ._.; been playing other stuff

pm me if yall want to duel or coop on xbox. i try to pop on every couple of days to remind the hackers in the forest that they cant beat an endless abyss.

Ahh finally some entertainment tonight!

That cracked me up so hard when that fat rolling guy fled from you only to end up on the black knight's tower.. with the black knight still there lol why can't I invade people like this

Too much checking messages! I want to watch you fight stuff.

Dark Souls 2: Unorthodox Multiplayer and Level Design Detailed
The director of Dark Souls 2 Yui Tanimura had a lot to say about the game's unorthodox game design.

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GameReactor spoke to Dark Souls 2 director Yui Tanimura at the recent Global Gamers Day event, where Tanimura had quite a bit to say about the game, elaborating upon the design decisions he made for Dark Souls 2.

He stated that he felt encouraged to hear that a lot of people are interested in Dark Souls 2, but that he also feels a good sense of pressure to delivering a great game—one that has much to live up to in its predecessor.

Tanimura stated that whereas most game developers often tack on new features with sequels, he believes that because Dark Souls was a fairly complete game in itself, he doesn't think adding features in itself is the best way of proceeding. He believes that his task as director is to enhance and try to deepen the core essence and try to deliver a more challenging experience so that they can further enjoy the underlying concepts of what existed for Dark Souls 1.

In regards to the game's multiplayer aspects, he states that the key characterizing features such as the blood messaging, the invasions, the summoning, the phantoms—all of these will be carried over to Dark Souls 2. These are core elements that are important to the Souls series. However, because the upcoming game is going to be server-based, the developers feel that there will be more connections and players will be able to sense the existence of other players in the world, and we feel that itself will enhance the connection—a loose connection—that the developers intend on portraying with Dark Souls 2.

Like the multiplayer implementation, the game's boss battles and level templates are far from orthodox. The director stated that he wanted to try to get rid of the orthodox template of game formula, which typically plays as follows: by starting at the beginning of the stage, going to the end of the stage and defeating a boss, and starting at the beginning of the next stage.

To that end, Tanimura wanted to get rid of that orthodox procedure and provide players with a little more freedom to decide on their own with how they want to conquer the stage. This includes having the boss appear mid-way through and allowing the opportunity to defeat the boss even if you're not at the end of the stage. It also includes things like branching off of certain levels, depending on the concept we want to portray in those levels so that we can give a little more freedom to the player whether the player wants to go left or right, or whether the player wants to fight a certain boss versus another.

In effect, this would break the template of regular game procedures and provide players with infinitely more freedom to progress through the game.

Namco talks Dark Souls 2 marketing: "we're treating this as a massive, massive triple-A title"
Would like to attract Skyrim players, but series fans are the focus

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Namco played it safe with the original Dark Souls marketing budget, and with good reason - this, after all, is the game that takes pride in being inaccessible. According to PR director Lee Kirton, however, the publisher has no qualms about blowing the bank on Dark Souls 2.

"The good thing this time round is we're investing more in it from a marketing perspective," Kirton told OXM at a preview event in London today. "With Dark Souls and [PS3-exclusive spiritual predecessor] Demon Souls it was very focused, small-scale. We're treating this as a massive, massive triple-A title."

"We're going to go guns-blazing with it, and hope to God that it works," he continued. "We're going after people who love and adore Dark Souls, while hopefully widening the net a little. I'm not saying that every Skyrim player's going to be jumping on Dark Souls, but it would be nice if some of them did. It's a different game, sure."

Aoife says that Dark Souls 2 is considerably tougher than the original. Her recent feature also suggests that the time-honoured aphorism "the only good dragon is a dead dragon" doesn't always hold water.

Rather amusingly/unnervingly, alternative titles for Dark Souls once proposed by developer From Software include "Dark Race" and "Dark Ring" - thanks to CVG for the insight there.

all of my lols

Anyone got tips for a newbie at the beginning of the game >_>?

I've just been soul farming for stats cause i have no idea what im doing >_>'

Master the riposte...

Decide what weapon you want to use before you spend too many points and find out it's mods. If you want to use the Balder Side Sword for example it has E str and A Dex so you would want to favor dex over str. You will notice their are only a couple high str mods which is because weapons get a bonus to their str mod when 2 handed.

How much Vit and End you want varies from person to person, 25 should be plenty for being new though so I wouldn't go past that. It's also worth noting that 120 or 100 is the standard levels people will cap themselves at for PvP unless something has changed. It's not necessary but it is your best bet if you want to do much of that.