Dark Souls

[El Capitano Gatisto]

Anyone else got it?

I basically played Demon Souls right up until Dark Souls came out because I still hadn't done everything in the game and wanted to try out different character builds so I was a big fan of the predecessor. I've had this one since release and poured an unhealthy amount of time into it, it's ridiculously absorbing (can't see any reason to buy Skyrim or MW3 until I'm bored of this).

I'm pretty close to the end of my first run through but I can see myself going NG+ or starting out a new character so I can use some of the items that I haven't levelled up enough for this time round. I think I love both games because of the near lack of any kind of story, it's basically just running around in a constant state of tension, trying to chip away at the difficulty of the game.

The online multiplayer is inspired, I think, in terms of the co-op set-up and the invasion/duelling, although Dark Souls has toned down the invading a fair bit, which is disappointing.

[RoXer]

Requiem got it and has been telling me about it. I should be getting it in maybe a month or so.

[El Capitano Gatisto]

Good. Start off as the character who has nothing but a big club and a leather pouch over his naked bollocks. I wish I'd done that.

[G]

I'm next in line for this. Not sure if I will last though. I get frustrated easily and will probably move on if I get stuck and keep dying over and over at the same spot. I am excited to try it out, though.

[El Capitano Gatisto]

That could be a problem, I would urge you to stick with it though. The game doesn't fuck you over, you just have to be careful and a bit circumspect. You can't steam in and beat the shit out of enemies and expect to come out alive. The game isn't linear, so you can go to really tough parts of it right from the beginning, but the idea is to wander around getting levelled up and new items that chip away at the difficulty bit by bit.

The co-op is a big help in getting past tough spots.

[The Destroyer]

Sounds like it's the sort of game that would absolutely infuriate me. I've got a lot on my plate gaming wise right now, but I might give it a chance if I see it cheap a bit further down the line.

[Requiem]

Friend and I have been trying to play this. Haven't done much on my own but I have a feeling I would get more done.

We are pretty much just getting rocked at parts and are already tired of going through an area over and over again. Seems like the game WANTS us to grind and keep saving/respawning everything but idk if I feel like it. Some parts were absolutely awesome. There were times I had to commend the developers for doing something a certain way. Still.. ugggghhh, it is disheartening at times.

Gonna play some tomorrow by myself just to see if I can focus better and really get through some places.

[Funky Fly]

I heard this was also for 360. When I eventually get a PS3 I def wanna get Demon Souls.

[El Capitano Gatisto]

Friend and I have been trying to play this. Haven't done much on my own but I have a feeling I would get more done.

We are pretty much just getting rocked at parts and are already tired of going through an area over and over again. Seems like the game WANTS us to grind and keep saving/respawning everything but idk if I feel like it. Some parts were absolutely awesome. There were times I had to commend the developers for doing something a certain way. Still.. ugggghhh, it is disheartening at times.

Gonna play some tomorrow by myself just to see if I can focus better and really get through some places.

Well you do need to go to the bonfires often to level up and keep your spot in a level, but you don't have to grind if you don't want to. The combat system is pretty fair, you can beat any enemy as long as you are good enough and patient enough, but also thinking about the weapons you are using helps too. For the early game I found using a spear got me through the early parts because I could hide behind my shield, then I got the Drake Sword which smashes pretty much all the early enemies. I had to grind a bit, obviously, but didn't do any serious grinding until pretty far into the game.

The game may not be for you due to its fairly idiosyncratic style, but I think if you stick with it, it's a rewarding experience. It's a cliche to say it but it does remind me of old games, where you basically had no story, no cutscenes and you just had to keep trying to beat levels over and over. The game layout allows you to challenge an area but back out of it again if it's too difficult.

Use the wikis to help too, they contain good info. This game gives you virtually no instruction, so using the community is a big help, unless you want to play in a constant state of worry (which is good too). Lay down a soulsign to help other people, too, it's the best way to get souls and humanity and it gives you a risk-free dry run of bosses/levels. Then revive yourself and summon your own help.

The biggest thing is definitely patience, however.

[#BROKEN Hasney]

Probably pick it up when it's cheap. I didn't get on with Demon Soul's a great deal, but I also didn't play it when online, which is a game-changer I'm lead to believe.

I'd get it now, but I'm pretty stacked up until the end of the year now. Might even have to wait until after Mass Effect 3.

[El Capitano Gatisto]

Yeah you have to be online. It's unreal. The first time in Demon Souls that I was invaded by another player was incredible. It just appealed to my sense of bastardry that it was possible to go in uninvited and try to fuck up someone else's game up to your own advantage. You never know how it'll work out, the person you invade may be totally unprepared for your character build or they may be a fucking beast who one-hits you and then does a little dance as your corpse dissolves in front of them.

The co-op is great too obviously.

[El Capitano Gatisto]

On the whole invasion thing, when someone aggressively invades your game in this one you can "indict" them so their name goes into a "Book of the Guilty." Today I joined a covenant in the game which gives you a special item which, when you use it, randomly has you invade any player with their name in that book as a phantom of vengeance. It's fucking beautiful. I've spent the past hour invading these people and dealing out some reprisal for them being bastards. You get little tokens for beating them (plus some of the game's currency) that you can trade in for better weapons from the covenant. It's a guilt-free method of going in and shitting on someone else for a laugh.

Of course it's only a matter of time before I invade some guy with two other phantoms backing him up and they all kick the dung out of me.

[Funky Fly]

This game sounds so beautiful. :'(

[The Destroyer]

It sounds like a game for my inner bastard.

[Requiem]

K so on my own save file, I am doing much better. Think I have a better grasp on how this game works.

[Funky Fly]

Couldn't resist it. I came into a little extra cash and picked it up. If this is as good as you and one of my irl friends say, Skyrim might get put on the backburner less than 24 hours before it's even out.

[El Capitano Gatisto]

I'm close to the end of the game but I don't want to finish now because invading these guilty bastards is too much craic. I have a ring that turns me almost invisible (think it's gonna be patched soon to make it less dominant), so I'm running in and stabbing these bastards in the back and kicking their arses before they even know what's happening. They get a message flashing up on screen that I've invaded and most just start panicking and running for their lives.

One guy shat on me, though, he waited until I sought him out then cast a spell that turned himself invisible and proceeded to beat me to death. Can't argue with that.

I didn't know this before I started playing Demon Souls, but it's from the same developers as those who made the Tenchu games, which were my absolute favourite, alongside the Soul Reaver games, on the PS2.

[Requiem]

We started over with a new character, so that we had a game where we didn't kill the stupid merchant.

Already farther than we were, and we just got a rapier and gave it a +1 and it is rocking. So awesome because it jabs and lunges and doesn't hit a thousand fucking walls while we're fighting. Getting better at taking out those fucking Fencing Knights. We are AT the gargoyle right now. We are just able to get there regularly but we haven't tried actually fighting him. Just got killed a couple times to see what he was about.

[Funky Fly]

WTF this game gets frustrating after a while. Fun, but fucking hell.

[Boomer]

Demons Souls was such a fantastic game. I'm sad that I don't need to be buying anything right now. I'd kill to have some Dark Souls in my life.

[El Capitano Gatisto]

We started over with a new character, so that we had a game where we didn't kill the stupid merchant.

Already farther than we were, and we just got a rapier and gave it a +1 and it is rocking. So awesome because it jabs and lunges and doesn't hit a thousand fucking walls while we're fighting. Getting better at taking out those fucking Fencing Knights. We are AT the gargoyle right now. We are just able to get there regularly but we haven't tried actually fighting him. Just got killed a couple times to see what he was about.

You can open up a shortcut (if you haven't already) that by-passes the whole level to get to the gargoyles, it's the lift at the back if the church. It goes directly from the Firelink Shrine to the church. Also there's a bonfire opposite the side entrance to the church in a room at the end of a long lane to another building. That means you don't have to keep fighting your way through the entire level over and over. As frustrating as the game can be, you measure your progress by opening up these shortcuts to make life much easier. I didn't "get" Demon Souls at first until I realised that you just have to be very careful until you open up these shortcuts (or bonfires in this game).

If you can revive yourself to human form also, you can summon Knight Solaire (NPC) to help you with the Gargoyles if you spoke to him before, plus other online players obviously. That makes the fight a lot easier.

Just realised if you've upgraded a weapon then you've obviously found the second bonfire.

[Requiem]

Is Solaire the guy you meet before the bridge with the red dragon? Or is he the knight you rescue from the jail cell right before the gargoyles?

[Requiem]

Also, is it worth it taking the time to kill the Black Knights now? Or are they a huge pain in the ass and not worth it till you get better? We tried each of the ones we've come in contact with and they demolished us every time.

[El Capitano Gatisto]

Yeah Solaire is the guy before the dragon, he leaves a summon sign before the Gargoyles if you are in human form and will help with the fight.

The knight you rescued is Lautrec, I rescued him too but what you probably should have done is leave him there or kill him because he's actually a bastard. He goes back to the Firelink Shrine and sits at the part below it on the side of the mountain across from the silent woman in the cell who upgrades your Estus flasks. He kills her eventually while you're out adventuring and leaves, but it shuts off the bonfire at the Firelink Shrine. You get to take revenge on him later in the game and get the soul back off him so you can revive the woman (although I used her soul to upgrade my Estus flask and now the Firelink Shrine bonfire is gone forever).

As for the Black Knights, basically in this game you can beat any enemy at any point if you're good enough and/or patient enough at the combat, depending on your tactics. I beat them using the Drake Sword and a good shield and just avoiding their heavy attacks. You can't expect to beat anyone in this game if you take hits, but conversely if you avoid getting hit (or have the correct armour/shields) you can beat anyone. Stamina is the most important thing in the combat, probably even more important than high HP. Keep an eye on your stamina and remember that keeping your shield up slows recovery, while having low stamina means that you can get stunlocked or take damage even while blocking.

It's worth killing them because they drop their weapons and, if you have the stats to use them, they're pretty good. Get yourself the Drake Sword by buying a bow and 50-100 arrows off the first merchant, then shooting the dragon's tale from beneath the bridge. It takes about 10-15 minutes to do, but be patient and just keep hitting the tale with arrows and eventually it drops off and gives you the Drake Sword, which will one-hit the majority of the early enemies and make fighting the Black Knights much easier.

[Requiem]

We got the drake sword but we're not a strength based character. We use dex/advanced weapons so the drake sword is useless to us. :( Didn't know if it was worth it to even pump up Str right now if we're not going to bother with it at the higher levels anyways due to wanting to specialize more.

[Requiem]

Also, we upgraded our Estus Flasks already using the soul we got from the HUGE black knight in the Parish.

[Requiem]

Also, am I understanding 'equipment load/how fast you move' correctly? Keep it at half of your equip load and you will move quickly? Does this affect how fast you attack and such, or is that just Dex? Or does Dex even affect your attack speed? Just not sure on the intricacies of the game and how certain things affect you.

I know that by keeping your equip load under half of its max, you move quickly. That's how we got across the bridge with the red dragon. Just took off our armor and BOOKED IT to the stairway. But I'm not sure how movement works with everything else.

[El Capitano Gatisto]

I would get Strength up to at least 20 so you can use some equipment. I went for a melee build myself, so Strength/Dexterity basically both need to be upgraded to a certain extent to be able to wield stuff. Endurance is also very important. You may struggle a bit early game if you're focusing on Dexterity, the Eastern style swords (uchigatana, scimitar, falchion) get the best bonuses from Dexterity so get one of those and upgrade to increase the damage bonus.

I largely ignored Intelligence and Faith, as you can use Pyromancy spells without those, but there are some incredible spells if you focus on either of those (impossible to do both).

The Estus flasks can be upgraded to +8 I think, there are other NPCs that can upgrade them, though so it's no biggie when Lautrec murders the silent woman.

[Requiem]

Hmm, alright we will bump our Strength up a bit then. Yeah we have definitely made things harder on ourselves I think, but I think that's sort of the idea of this game.. they don't tell you these things and you just kind of have to figure out how to best approach it on your own. We pretty much only have our smartphones with which to look up information on, as he doesn't have internet at his place. So we typically don't rely on guides as much as I would like. It also takes away the online aspect of player hints and such.

[El Capitano Gatisto]

Also, am I understanding 'equipment load/how fast you move' correctly? Keep it at half of your equip load and you will move quickly? Does this affect how fast you attack and such, or is that just Dex? Or does Dex even affect your attack speed? Just not sure on the intricacies of the game and how certain things affect you.

I know that by keeping your equip load under half of its max, you move quickly. That's how we got across the bridge with the red dragon. Just took off our armor and BOOKED IT to the stairway. But I'm not sure how movement works with everything else.

Equipment load affects your running speed, endurance loss/recovery and your rolling speed. If you have over 50% equip burden your roll becomes basically a fat fall. But strong armour gives you poise, which means enemies cannot interrupt your attacks.

I'm not sure what effects attack speed to be honest, obviously the size of the weapon is a big thing, I think maybe that the major stat for each weapon class probably affects how well you can use it in terms of attack speed and damage eg. if you have a greatsword, strength will improve attack speed, if you have a falchion then dexterity will.

With bosses sometimes it makes more sense to just put on your lightest armour and evade them. In fact, in Demon Souls I always used the lightest armour possible because it's way better in these games to avoid getting hit entirely (and to have a good shield).

[El Capitano Gatisto]

Hmm, alright we will bump our Strength up a bit then. Yeah we have definitely made things harder on ourselves I think, but I think that's sort of the idea of this game.. they don't tell you these things and you just kind of have to figure out how to best approach it on your own. We pretty much only have our smartphones with which to look up information on, as he doesn't have internet at his place. So we typically don't rely on guides as much as I would like. It also takes away the online aspect of player hints and such.

I'd highly recommend playing it online yourself then, you miss out a major part of the game if you don't. The very best way to grind souls and humanity is by helping out other players, as it's completely risk-free, plus it lets you preview levels/bosses.

[Requiem]

Just made some massive progress. Well, massive for us at least. We tried the gargoyles a few times and failed, so we decided to just grind out some levels for enough strength to use the drake sword. Went in and ANNIHILATED both gargoyles first try. Rang the bell, and then went through opening up a crap ton of passages that connected a lot of areas. Rescued the guy down in the basement and found the demon with the dogs.

[El Capitano Gatisto]

That's basically what this game is about. It's not necessarily incredibly hard, it's just about finding the right gear and the right strategy to get through the levels and getting the shortcuts opened.

The Capra demon gives a lot of people serious trouble early in the game (level 20 or so). There's a stage later on where you have to fight 6 of them.

[Funky Fly]

K, I took that deprived guy because he had the most even stats and I figured I could test out what works and what doesn't early on... I get the feeling armour makes an incredible difference in this game.

[Requiem]

It's alright, because armor starts dropping pretty regularly. Not GOOD armor, mind you. But it is not terrible.

Also ECG, is there a place where I'll get to sell items for souls later on? Because my inventory is FLOODED with shit I don't need.

[El Capitano Gatisto]

Yeah...sort of. First of all, you can just drop stuff you don't want. Go to your inventory and select the item and it should give you an option to just drop it. You can also purchase a "bottomless box" from the blacksmith (I think) to transfer stuff you want to keep but don't want clogging up your inventory. Later on in the game, a giant talking snake appears at the Firelink Shrine where the crow is and you can feed him unwanted items for a very minor amount of souls.

[Requiem]

The blacksmith to the right of the parish? That would come in handy. Wanted to keep pretty much everything since there's no limit to how much we can hold. Figured eventually it would come in handy even if it does only give a small amount. It might add up with a good 75 items or so.

[Requiem]

Also, have beat 2 black knights now as of being able to use the drake sword. Definitely makes things SOOOO much easier.

[El Capitano Gatisto]

It does but that doesn't last long, it becomes underpowered for baddies pretty quickly. Don't bother upgrading it because there's basically no return in doing so, the damage increase is minimal. Keep any souls you pick up from bosses, don't be tempted to use them to bank currency souls to boost your levels because you can make pretty nifty weapons out of them later in the game that come in very handy.

[Requiem]

So we're in our 40's I think, and we're in Anor Londo. We left the Demon Ruins and decided to come back later (I did kill all 7 of the taurus demons before leaving though). So we made our way back up, and now we've actually upgraded the shit out of our main weapon. Have a +10 Uchigatana. Pretty great with the bleed effect. Have contemplated grinding some titanite shards just so we can do upgrades all around.

Not sure what has the best drop rate of titanite shards (I could look it up I'm sure) though.

[Requiem]

Discovered the benefit of stability. Using the eagle shield right now and would love to make it +10 for the added stability. (Shit, or was it +15?)

We've been using a pretty thorough guide I found on torrents and it has helped us a LOT. Pretty much blew through a couple places with its help.

[El Capitano Gatisto]

You can buy Titanite shards from the first blacksmith you encounter, think they are only 500 souls or something. You can get Large Titanite Shards from a merchant near the end of Sen's Fortress too, 4000 souls a pop I believe.

I haven't played in a while since starting Skyrim, I was quite near the end of the game but I haven't got time to play both. It's weird because I'm not particularly enjoying Skyrim in gameplay terms but I feel the need to progress through the world.

[RoXer]

Got it last week and played a few seconds just to see how it works. Might start off as Wanderer, Cleric, or Thief. Might even go as a Depraved.

I'll start tomorrow or Monday probably.

[Requiem]

Still haven't beaten this. We are in Anor Londo fighting the dragon slayer and his fat friend right now.

[El Capitano Gatisto]

That's a cunt of a boss fight. I helped multiple people fight them before I had a go in my own world and we lost nearly every time. Then I recruited a couple of phantoms and beat them on the first go in my world. Helps if you're lucky enough to get a balanced group with strong melee and ranged magic.

[Requiem]

Have used the Sun guy a couple times but I always get raped in the second phase.

Can get them to the second phase pretty regularly now but ugh.. Wish we had online.

[LoDownM]

Randomly decided to pick this up, I was not prepared. Died so many times to the first boss before I beat him.

[El Capitano Gatisto]

One tip for the bosses, and basically the entire game, is that agile evasion is way, way better than relying on armour. People seem to load up on heavy armour which offers big defensive stats but slows them way down, particularly at low levels, but most bosses (with a couple of exceptions) can one or two hit you regardless of armour. Being able to roll quickly is essential. A good shield with 100% physical damage reduction and high stability with good light armour is best (I go for Eagle Shield with the ninja armour, I also have the ninja-flip ring which makes evasion an even better tactic). You can basically beat any enemy or boss in the game at any level if you can evade their attacks and are patient enough.

[Requiem]

Yeah we stay below half weight at all times. We use a +5 eagle shield I think and we're still below weight and it's definitely the only way I could imagine playing.

[G]

What is the key to beating the very first "boss". The huge guy at the beginning of the game. I figured you weren't supposed to fight him the first time, so I continued on and I guess now I have to beat him.

[Requiem]

No real 'key'. Consider this your first challenge. He's pretty easy. The only 'key' to bosses are learning what moves they do so you can prepare for them. Many attacks, you can block. Some, you just have to get the fuck away from. Some will one shot you if you get hit.

Just a matter of learning them, and being precise enough to not get hit by them.

I'll give you a hint and say that the 'falling attack' is pretty helpful in some fights. You won't get many opportunities like that though, so don't think you'll have that ability every fight.

[Destor]

just beat moonlight butterfly and went into the tower next to the (evil pain in the ass cunt fucker) hydra and got two hitted by some goon. im level 20 should i go in there? thinking about going threw the sewers instead. save those bugs that curse you i was making good headway in there.

[G]

Should I start over as something else. I picked a warrior. I am having trouble taking on 2 skeletons at once. I keep dying in the graveyard in the 2nd stage after beating that giant.

[Destor]

dont fight the skeletons, they way out level you. from the fire head to your right and up the hill. the enemies that way ar ein your level range.

[El Capitano Gatisto]

Yeah don't go near the graveyard until you have levelled up a good bit. Just sprint through it a couple of times to pick up some goodies. There are Giant Skeletons that will shit on you until you have a fairly high level and a good weapon. Plus when you get through the graveyard, you simply enter the Catacombs, where the skeletons can come back to life unless you kill them with a Blessed weapon or find the guy who is raising them.

As for the guy in the tower near the Hydra, that's Havel. He can be tough to beat, as one hit can almost kill you. Just strip down to the lightest armour you have, or strip the armour off altogether, as he can one or two-hit you regardless. Then roll around him as he is fairly slow and try to backstab him when he swings for you and misses. He should go down fairly quickly if you do this, I beat him on a fairly low level. He is definitely worth beating as he drops a ring which boosts your equip burden limit by a large amount (you can get his armour later in the game in Anor Londo, but it's too heavy to use unless you have poured souls into Strength). This is the key to Dark Souls really, be ready to be patient, to avoid getting hit and to chip away at tough opponents. Don't be tempted into hitting them more times than you have to.

Taking on multiple enemies at once is always trouble.

[Requiem]

I would personally suggest downloading a strategy guide. There was a pretty good and very thorough one I found on demonoid. The main reason, is for the maps! Maps are soooooo helpful in this game. We played without them for a long while, and after not knowing where to go next for a long time, we got sick of wandering around aimlessly wondering if we were even supposed to be in an area or not.

[El Capitano Gatisto]

http://darksouls.wikidot.com/

I tend to use that if I am stuck. I think using Wikis for this game is fine because it deliberately doesn't tell you much about what to do, you can wander into really shitty areas early in the game, so using the help of the community who play it seems fair enough. I used the wikidot site for Demons Souls a fair bit to find out about good items to get, mainly to find out the best uses for boss souls for weapon upgrades and the like. There's also maps and walkthroughs on that site.

[Destor]

i have no idea what to do with this butterfly soul...

[El Capitano Gatisto]

Moonlight Shield. Find out how to make it from the Wiki, it was devastating pre-patch but I'm not sure what it will be like now. It's no good as an actual shield, but if you equip it as a secondary weapon, it was a magic projectile attack that can smash even the toughest enemies.

[Destor]

nice

[RoXer]

Starting right now. Deprived with the Pendant. Why not.

[G]

Was really enjoying this up until the Gargoyle roof fight. Pretty sure this is what makes me quit playing.

[RoXer]

Nah I just beat 'em. Rang that fuckin bell too. Fuck those bitches

[RoXer]

Reinforced my armor +2 and my shield +1. Threw a black firebomb and one last swing when the 2nd one spawned which took care of the first. Then carefully fought against the 2nd one.

[Requiem]

Gargoyles were the first REAL challenge, but it did feel great to kill them. The elevator back to firelink is a nice shortcut too.

[G]

Is there a way I can go without having to fight those stupid things. Or is it mandatory. Really don't want to. Maybe Roxer2010 can download my save and do it.

[Requiem]

It is not impossible. Just do it. If you don't want to fight these because they're hard, you should just quit now. The game doesn't get any easier.

[G]

Okay then I quit. That was easy.

[Requiem]

So I started another play through since RoXer picked this up. I don't know what it is, but I am absolutely blowing through this game now. Probably only died like 10 times total and I just beat the Capra demon.

Beat the Taurus demon first try. Gargoyles first try. Capra demon first try. Am level 30 with 4hr 38min played time.

Don't understand it. Maybe we just leveled up our old character wrong and made it harder on ourselves. I'm just running through it now. The only down side is that I'm not getting nearly as many item drops because I'm not doing sections over and over again. At this point in our playthrough, our inventory was crowded with like a hundred items.. at least 10 titanite shards and some larger pieces. Reds and blues, etc. I don't have shit on my new character. Like 1 shard and 1 chunk and that's it.

I also think my friend was making it a lot harder because he played really recklessly and would die a lot.

[El Capitano Gatisto]

Is there a way I can go without having to fight those stupid things. Or is it mandatory. Really don't want to. Maybe Roxer2010 can download my save and do it.

Use the co-op element. This is the best way to get through the game, both helping and using the help of other people. Help other people to get your strategy right for sections, to gain souls (you don't lose your souls when you die in co-op and you gain large amounts by helping clear levels and beat bosses) and to gain humanity. Use your humanity to revive yourself and then activate the soul signs you see lying around. You can have 2 companions, this makes most bosses much more managable.

You have to buy the white soapstone to be able to leave your own summon sign.

[El Capitano Gatisto]

My PS3 died yesterday so I lost all my progress in Dark Souls. Replaced it already and traded in a few games I didn't want, including Skyrim, to mitigate the cost a bit. I'm actually looking forward to starting again and trying a new character build in this, even though I was pretty close to finishing the game. All I had left to do was fight my way through the ghost city to the Four Kings boss, then fight the final boss. Probably would have been hard as fuck to do that really, but still, it took a while to get that far.

[RoXer]

Hurry up and catch up to where we're at. About near the swamps-ish.

[El Capitano Gatisto]

Fucking hate those swamps.

[RoXer]

Got to the spider queen Querlaag or whoever. The one that shoots fire and lava. So she kills me and I go back trying to reclaim about 10000 worth of souls but they don't show up. Pissed me off. She kills me again.

Respawn and as I'm making my way over to her, a message pops up telling me I have been invaded and I start to to panic. This is the first time I've been invaded and had no real strategy on what to do. My invader was an armorless woman wielding a cleaver. But, and this is what freaked me out, she was glowing orange. So I figured she's some super level and probably has some lava ring or something that gives her that aura and I start to panic again. But she gets dropped in the middle of the swamp and I don't think she was expecting that. Hit her 3 times and then parried her cleaver to kill her. Got 9500 souls and some item. Her weapon I think. I kept forward (actually I went back and saved) and she available to summon for the boss fight. Why not. So she helped me with that too. Except this time she wasn't glowing and I'm going to assume that the glowing affect if the "cracked red orb" effect or whatever just to indicate that that is another human player going after you and not some special effect.

Anyway, thank you armorless cleaver girl for the 29000 souls. I wish I could send you a message but this game won't even show you recent players in the dashboard.

[El Capitano Gatisto]

That wasn't an online invasion, it was a scripted NPC Black Phantom invasion. I can't remember her name, but you can summon her to help you fight the spider queen thing now that you've killed her in black phantom form. There's several of those in the game, one guy invades you 3 times and when you kill him the last time, you can pick up his thorny armour which does damage on rolling. Pretty sure it does show recently encountered players on the PS3 anyway.

http://darksouls.wikidot.com/maneater-mildred

[RoXer]

Ohhhh

[RoXer]

Fucking game. I can kill the Hydra but not the giant mushroom man or clam people things

[El Capitano Gatisto]

The Mushroom people are best left alone. I never went in to face the clams and Seath alone either, had a couple of companions.

[RoXer]

Should I not fight the Stray Demon yet when I revisit the Asylum? I've taken out the 2 black knights and that 1 dude no problem but the Stray Demon whips my ass. The guide says I need a shield that blocks 100% fire damage but the closest I have is the Black Knight Shield that is a 95. Then I put all of my best anti-fire equipment on but it still doesn't make a difference when he does that fire blast.

Do I have to wait until I'm leveled up a bit more until I go after him?

[RoXer]

And how valuable are Dung Pies? Because I'm just going to trade in all of mine to Hawk Girl for Demon Titanite

[El Capitano Gatisto]

Dung pies are pretty worthless because they harm you as well. If you join the covenant of the spider witch girl behind the secret wall after you beat Quelaag then get yourself infected with the egg disease, you can buy Poison and Toxic Cloud from her servant which do pretty much the same thing.

I spent two hours trying to fight the Stray Demon the other day then gave up, the key is just not to get hit, no matter what your armour is. Keep running behind him, but watch out for his big blast that also hits behind. Stay away from him until he uses it, then sprint in and beat the shit out of him while he is stalled. My problem was that I was using the Drake Sword and it was basically tickling him, so I would whittle his power down to his last quarter, then one lapse in timing and he would flatten me in one hit. It got annoying, I've picked up a Black Knight sword now but I might wait until I get the Lightning Spear in Sen's Fortress before I tackle him again. The Lightning Spear opens up a lot of the game when you get it, it deals with most strong enemies and you can hide behind a shield while using it.

I've just beaten Quelaag and rang the second bell, but I haven't went through the swamp very much yet. There are some goodies in it still to get.

[RoXer]

Yeah, I'm using the Drake Sword and I got him down to about half. He spams the shit out of that fire blast which I can't really shield against and it takes away 40% of my health. Even if I'm really close to him, he'll more than likely use the fire blast instead of that butt stomp move.

I can't imagine playing what I've played through WITHOUT the Drake Sword. I realize that your strength/dex ratings will eventually make normalish weapons more powerful than the Drake Sword but it seems like that's going to be a while.

[RoXer]

I guess it's off to Sen's Fortress then

[Requiem]

Also helps if you've been able to get +10 on a weapon you want. Maybe even ascended it. I'd say by the end of Sen's Fortress you should definitely have a badass weapon. You'll need it by the time you get to Anor Londo.

[RoXer]

And how valuable are Dung Pies? Because I'm just going to trade in all of mine to Hawk Girl for Demon Titanite

Oh. You can only do each item once.

I was so happy thinking I'd hit the jackpot and was going to turn my 12 Dung Pie into 12 Demon Tianite. :'(

[El Capitano Gatisto]

Sen's Fortress is annoying as fuck. Real chore to get through. Don't go there with many souls or humanity stored up. Fight the big snake guys by circling round behind them and back-stabbing, as they are pretty slow.

Once you get through there and to Anor Londo, as Requiem says you can start making some glorious weapons. Quelaag's Chaos Sword became my main weapon on my last playthrough, it scales with humanity and minces all normal enemies in 1-2 hits with 10+ humanity. It's made with Quelaag's soul and a +10 curved sword. There's a couple of spots for farming humanity later in the game.

[Requiem]

Gonna get a fire ricard's rapier and a lightning scimitar this time I think.

[El Capitano Gatisto]

I had a +5 lightning Iaito last time out. Bleed effect to the max.

The Gravelord Sword is a beast of a weapon as well. Gives toxic status to people after a few swings, great for PvP invasions.

[El Capitano Gatisto]

I'm co-opping with people to beat Quelaag repeatedly, going to level up in the covenant to get Chaos Firestorm and buy Firestorm then beat the shit out of that Stray Demon.

[RoXer]

I'm thinking of helping out in MP after Sen's Fortress and also specifically leveling up in that covenant since the guide claims an extremely useful shortcut will be opened up.

[El Capitano Gatisto]

The boss of Sen's Fortress is a good one to help out with, as he's fairly easily beaten with multiple people, gives out large amounts of souls and you get summoned there fairly regularly.

[El Capitano Gatisto]

God this game is fucking annoying at times. I was literally one hit away from killing the Stray Demon after half an hour of trying again (new fire spells are no good, Black Knight sword does do more damage however), I got greedy and had one more swing just as he flew into the air then he fucking flattened me with his fat arse, I got up and ran away trying desperately to get to safety to heal only for the cunt to smack me with one of his cheat AoE attacks. One more hit would have got him, but I got too fucking excited.

Edit: finally beat him. Quite quickly obviously, I toxin clouded him which didn't do much, then equipped my lightest armour and the Grass Crest Shield for stamina regen then two-handed the Black Knight Sword. The jumping attacks do 365 damage, so he's taken down fairly quickly with that.

[RoXer]

fuck this game sometimes

[RoXer]

omg

[RoXer]

So I made it to Sen's Fortress and fine, whatever I'm doing a decent job. There are times where I think it's glitched occasionally because sometimes enemies don't spawn and sometimes the boulder is rolling a different way than before but whatever, I'm doing a pretty good job making my way up there. The mimic killed me which made me lose souls and then I died again before I could recover. When I went to kill the mimic, the item it dropped fell down the elevator in that room. It looked as if there was a bottom to it, so I went after. There isn't. I died. I think the item was a Lightning Spear. Sounds useful. I will never know. Died again trying to make my way back and salvage souls because my controller is messed up.

Ok so eventually, I fall to the bottom on that first bridge and notice those 2 prowling demons and all the goodies behind one of them. Somehow I manage to put on the Rusted Ring and I book it the items, grab the items, and kill that one. That was pretty awesome. I walk back out to challenge the other one and those 3 serpents lighting me and kill me. Great. I tried to recover my souls but I didn't survive the fall. Great. Eventually, I manage to make my way down there and kill the other demon.

So I walk around a bit more and notice there are two more in the other room. They're directly underneath Big Hat Logan. Should be a piece of cake. But one of them takes me out.

This was days ago. I think Wednesday night. It's now Saturday morning. Anytime I spent between then and now playing this game was focusing on killing those other two prowling demons. I tried everything I could think of but I never even got the first one down to half strength and I don't know what I'm doing wrong. And if you walk too far to the right, you trigger the 2nd one and now it's 2 on 1 and there's no way I'm winning that. By the way, each time I go down there I have to somehow take out those 3 serpents. I'm sometimes able to plunge one and push one off but most of the time they hurt me pretty bad.

I spent way too long trying everything I could think of to take out those demons but this morning I said fuck it, just keep going. I make my way up there and got about 15000 souls. I need 18000 to level up. I'm using my shitty controller because I don't know why. I'm an idiot. I fall off a ledge and die. I go back to retrieve them and I dunno what happened, but I died. Lost more souls. And I dunno how, but I get it up to about 16000 and I say to myself "just use a homeward bone, go back, and level up". As finish that thought, I fall off and die. I go back to retrieve it and it's on that (I think) last pathway with the slightly different timed hooks. I run and it looks like the last one is about to get me so I roll to make and I roll past my souls, off the ledge, and I die.

I have lost so many motherfucking souls/wasted SO MUCH FUCKING TIME in Sen's Fortress.

WHATEVER THOUGH. A couple hours ago I'm like "Whatever. Just go up to the roof. Fuck those demons. Fuck trying to level up. Just see what's out there."

And I make it to the roof. I take out that black knight. I take out that guy and his rapier. I'm doing fine. Got about 17000 souls or so.

You know that bonfire up there? The one where you have to drop down. There was a helpful tip that said "try jumping" right on the ledge. It was rated a 3. No reason not to believe it. AS I WAS MOVING THE RIGHT STICK TO PROPERLY SEE WHERE I WAS GOING TO LAND, a big burst of fire engulfs me. I guess that guy is throwing fire or something, I don't even know at the time, alls I knows is I'm on fire so I should jump. I did not have time to see where I was landing and I decide to jump. I jumped so far past that bonfire you can't even imagine. Like I'm an Olympic long jumper and the bonfire is the line where you have to jump and I set a new world record.

Went back to recover my souls and one of the hooks got me because my controller was being stupid.

Decided to say "fuck this game sometimes" and take a break.

And then...

[RoXer]

(took about a minute for that post to load after I hit reply and I was ready to kill Triple A because I didn't copy it)

[RoXer]

So I turn the game on again. I'm using my good controller this time. I am ready and focused to take out any and everything. :)

I make it up to the roof with about 11000 souls or so, I dunno. The amount of souls I once had at certain points are becoming a blur. But as I make my way out, I take out two of the re-spawnable knights (I dunno what they are) who dropped some titanite shards and picked up the ring that boosts your fire defense. I run to the bonfire, drop down like I'm supposed to, and save. Phew.

I do some quick math and realize I can take out those 3 enemies, run to the bonfire and save like 3 or 4 times. And then I can level up. I'm fine with that. Seems easy enough.

I get to 17500. And I sit at the bonfire.

I have a bunch of "soul of a _____" that I could use to get me to 18500. I figured "eh, save them. This is easy enough, just save it for a time I REALLY need them."

And that was my decision. Take out those 3 dudes and I'm at 19000 souls.

Oh yeah, before all this I decided to become human to maybe get some more items from those dead knights. Which I actually did and it worked out nicely. I think I got at least 1 more titanite shard each timeout.

So I'm human. I'm at 19000. And I drop on down to my bonfire to level up.

And I can't save. It won't let me. I hit A and nothing. No pop up message. So I think to myself, "hmmm. Could be a bad guy in the area. I'll go back up and check."

Looked around, and everyone was dead. And then it occured to me what was probably about to happen and I actually said out loud "No. No. No. Please no. This can't be happening. Not now. Please don't do this."

I know exactly what's about to go down and I'm trying everything I could think of to some how prevent it. And sure enough... a blinking message.

"St0ned Ape has invaded your game"

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

I don't know what to do. I run around but whatever. I see him and he doesn't look too intimadating. Just has a big weapon. I roll away from his first strike but his 2nd one breaks through my guard, 3rd one kills me.

19000 souls lost.

I decided to send him a message.

"Prick."

[RoXer]

http://live.xbox.com/en-US/Profile?gamertag=st0ned%20ape

This guy. If everyone could message him calling him a prick that would be fantastic. Thanks in advance.

[G]

Pretty sure you did something similar to tough which made him delete/hate you for the longest time, only you screwed his game up on purpose. I think he then made a long post at aarp.com complaining.

[G]

I keep telling myself I'm going to give this another try but I always put in something else. So much bullshit sitting on my shelf waiting to be played. Never had a backlog before until now.

[G]

3 more chapters in AC Revelations then I can move on

[RoXer]

Pretty sure you did something similar to tough which made him delete/hate you for the longest time, only you screwed his game up on purpose. I think he then made a long post at aarp.com complaining.

ahahaha yeah, Left 4 Dead 2. It wasn't exactly on purpose. Well, kinda. Uintentionally intentional or something. He was on the last chapter on The Parish, the bridge part, and I joined mid game. I think we were all on the bridge and we got separated. Instead of all of us dying and starting over, I booked it for the helicopter because I thought we were trying to finish the game. He was trying to get the achievement for beating it on expert or something. It ended the game, he died and I made it to the helicopter, he didn't get his achievement, and I laughed at him.

Was off his friends list for a pretty long time

[RoXer]

OH SHIT I DIDNT LOSE MY SOULS

YESSSSSSS

[Fryza]

Ugh, this game and I didn't get along well.

Maybe when the price drops, I'll try it again- or rent it after Mass Effect 3 is beaten. But man, I was not a happy camper.

[RoXer]

Holy shit, I thought I was going to be stuck in The Painted World of Artimis forever but someone invaded me and instead of attacking me, dropped down and unlocked the exit. Whether or not that was his intention I dunno, but he is my savior.

[El Capitano Gatisto]

You can level up shitloads in the painted world. Did you kill the boss or leave her alone?

Anor Londo might drive you a bit nuts if you've been having problems with Sen's Fortress. There's one bit in particular that was getting on my fucking tits last week, a notorious bit where you have to run up to the massive cathedral on a narrow ledge past loads of gargoyles with two fucking pricks firing massive arrows that can knock you off even if your shield is up.

[RoXer]

I'm right there atm. Not really giving me problems, just made stupid decisions both times. Taking a break.

[Requiem]

You can level up shitloads in the painted world. Did you kill the boss or leave her alone?

Anor Londo might drive you a bit nuts if you've been having problems with Sen's Fortress. There's one bit in particular that was getting on my fucking tits last week, a notorious bit where you have to run up to the massive cathedral on a narrow ledge past loads of gargoyles with two fucking pricks firing massive arrows that can knock you off even if your shield is up.

That part made me want to cut myself. Finally just said fuck it and ran right up in the right one's face and almost died in the process but knocked him off the ledge and managed to get around.

[El Capitano Gatisto]

Once I got inside the main building of Anor Londo I burned through it in about 10 minutes with the help of two legends. One of them got killed during the bossfight unfortunately for him.

I'm at The Duke's Archives now, helping people take out Seath the Scaleless so I could get enough Sunlight medals to get the Great Lightning Spear miracle.

[RoXer]

I'm in Anor Londo, opened up the shortcut to the blacksmith, reclaimed the fire keeper's soul from Laurtec, and attempted the boss fight but didn't really do much there. I think that might require more people.

I used a Crystal Halberd I found against Laurtec. I can't repair it though and it has 20 durability (probably because it's made out of crystal). Can I ever repair it? When eventually ascend a weapon, will I be able to repair those too?

[RoXer]

Is it possible to beat this game with nothing but a casteus? Thinking about switching to that for shits and giggles

[RoXer]

Or to "have a laugh" in ECG's case

[El Capitano Gatisto]

Crystal anything cannot be repaired. You can repair ascended weapons as normal.

I think there's a vid of a guy on Demon Souls beating various bosses when bollock naked and unarmed using only his fists, but I imagine it would take fucking forever.

[RoXer]

I'm really starting to enjoy this game but it's going to take a back seat next week when Mass Effect 3, SFxT, and MLB 12 come out.

[RoXer]

FUCKING LIGHTNING WINGED SPEAR

Started off this morning trying to beat the stray dragon and would get to about half or so with the crystal halberd. So instead of risking it breaking on me I decided to finally ascend a weapon. Dunno why I decided on a Lightning Winged Spear but I did and I don't regret it. It is making life so much easier.

Went back to Anor Londo to get it made and on my way back, noticed a cage. Actually, I noticed it the first time but I guess I just forgot about it. It's a shortcut so you don't have to go through Sen's Fortress all the way through. Nifty. I remember seeing it on my first playthrough too but I guess I just forgot about it.

Grinded out an extra level, went back in to face the stray dragon. Using the anti-fall spell really helps since you don't take any damage falling through the floor. He killed me but then I decided to use most of Havel's Armor since it is very anti-fire. I think I went with Black Iron leggings so I wasn't over my equip load.

Kicked his ass. Suck my dick.

Grinded out another level and I don't know where I'm going to go from here. Might try those two prowling demons in Sen's Fortress that were giving me trouble. Might also help out with taking down some bosses with people. We'll see.

[RoXer]

Suck my dick.

Suck my wanged spear

[El Capitano Gatisto]

I'm going to pour all my lightning upgrades into the Iaito. Lightning damage + bleed effect. Quelaag's Fury sword is simply too good to not use though, as it's a chaos weapon it scales with humanity. I've got 22 humanity right now so it does 480 damage or something ridiculous. Think the scaling only works up to 10 humanity maybe but still.

[RoXer]

Stuck at the boss fight still in Anor Londo. Forged Quelaags Furysword to I think a +3. Have some good, light, anti lightning armor on with a +5 Eagle Shield.

Got my ass kicked twice. Beat one of them but couldn't do much with the other.

So I decided I would turn human and summon others, except my world got invaded. I maybe could have beaten him but I tried luring one of the royal sentinals out because I thought it could attack and damage him too but I guess it can't.

So I decided to throw down my summon sign instead and help others. I think I'm too high of a level though because it hasn't been matching up with anyone really. The first guy just ran in without really waiting for me and died because he was an idiot and already at half health when he ran in. The 2nd time was a 3 man gang and we stomped their ass. It gives me hope that I can probably do this if I summon people.

So yeah, only two summons in about an hour of waiting. I'm going to wait about another half hour to see if anyone joins for my lucky 3rd time. I have 38000 souls and I wonder if I lose them if I die in their world. I hope not. I guess I'm about to find out.

[RoXer]

Someone tell clox that that's how you make a mobile post.

[RoXer]

Cool. Just whipped their ass again. I now have faith that I can beat this game.

Gunna just stay there and help out except I decided to go level up so that might cause even more problems finding a game

[RoXer]

When the host heals himself, do I heal? And vice versa? Because I was getting healed without healing myself. Or is it like a "heal all" miracle that I haven't learned? And I do heal when he heals, is it only when he uses his estus flask or can I be healed by his heal miracle too? I'm pretty sure if I heal whenever he heals it doesn't matter what type.

[RoXer]

All I need now is a magic weapon and it occurs to me that I should have used magic on my winged spear so I could call it my magic wang spear AKA my "Magic Johnson".

[RoXer]

Pretty sure I won't be getting summoned again because my level is too high.

Or because it's 12:15 am on a monday.

Either way, I'm going to wait another 15 mins. If nothing happens than I'll turn human and beat them for myself tomorrow. And thats where I'll leave it for probably a month or two as I'll be playing other games.

[El Capitano Gatisto]

If you have been summoned, you can't heal yourself with Estus flasks. Only the host can heal you. And vice-versa obviously. You can heal yourself if you have miracles and there is an effective healing miracle that hosts can use on everyone but it's a very high level Faith to use. Some hosts are pricks and won't heal when you get close to beating the boss, for whatever reason. When that happens I usually hang back a bit and won't join back in if I think they're sitting back trying to get me to do all the work for no pay. I think some of them believe they get less souls if they beat the boss with phantoms, which is not true. The phantoms get half as many souls but the host always gets the full amount. You can't lose your souls if you die when summoned.

When you beat the boss of the Catacombs, he drops an object that lets you kindle bonfires 3 times so you can have a total of 20 Estus flasks, I recommend getting that at some point if you haven't already. Get a strong Blessed/Holy weapon for the Catacombs.

If you want to get summoned for the bosses at Anor Londo, leave your sign at the nearest bonfire rather than at the door. Cap your level at 120, however, as after that you're unlikely to get summoned anywhere. That said, you will get summoned by people on NG+ at those levels, so be wary, as most enemies will one or two-hit you in NG+ (but they drop loads more souls, that's the way you'll likely realise you're in an NG+).

[RoXer]

I put it at the bonfire below the twist screw elevator and not having any luck. Might go try it at that other bonfire where all the knights are.

Actually, I don't know what I'm thinking, I should just go beat it myself.

[El Capitano Gatisto]

The bonfire where the knights are in the big cathedral is best. I don't think I could have beaten those two bastards on my own. I think I've still lost more battles than won even with 2 co-op companians. If you forge the Crystal Ring Shield it may help a good bit. You need some sort of effective ranged attack for the powered-up boss part.

Once you beat those bosses, you can warp between some bonfires which makes the game somewhat better, rather than running everywhere. Also, the next area, The Duke's Archives, is a good one to get summoned for to level up as people always need help with the boss.

[RoXer]

Yeah, pretty awesome game.

I just realized that of the 3 times I helped beat the bosses in Anor Londo, 2 of them were in NG+ because I got 90000 souls those times. Still had better luck putting my sign down before the door itself.

I went human and some guy invaded me and killed me. But then he messaged me if I wanted help so it was cool. His summon sign was orange and he glowed orange which meant I had to look up what that meant after this was over. (Turns out, orange guys are just strong/leveled up versions of regular white summonable warriors I guess. Stay away from red as that's the one that you invade into.) And then recruited another guy (white guy) outside of the door. The orange guy died right as he took out Smough and then me and the other guy took out Giant Ornstein without too much of a problem. Went back down, leveled my souls, went back up and got the thing to warp between bonfires.

At first, I wasn't a fan of the multiplayer but it's kind of growing on me. In general, I'm not sure how anyone is supposed to get through any part of this game without the guide. How was I supposed to know about the Drake Sword? The brass ring for the swamps? Hell, how was I supposed to know where the brass ring was and that I needed to climb up to that raven to even get back there?

And how am I supposed to know what these covenants do? Without the guide, I would be fucked.

But I am a fan of the multiplayer. There are times where I wish I could just jump into a game with people on my friends list but after thinking about it, it kinda sucks the fun out of the game. I like the idea of having to assist others in order to move forward before you make that leap yourself and then once you do, you can call on others as they did with you.

Or maybe it is possible to all join up in the same game and I haven't really thought it through. For instance, let's say that we are all about the same soul level, could I tell message someone on my friends list "Hey let's meet up at Anor Londo" and my then friends would see my summon sign? But then that wouldn't be for the whole game, right? Only for a certain section? It would seem tedious to do that for every section of the game. And then if I stop playing for a month (as I'm going to do) and they keep going, would we ever be able to join back up since they'll most likely be a higher level than what I am?

I dunno. There are times when I like the multiplayer aspect (including forums, wikis, and guides) and times when I don't. Right now I 70% like it.


So tonight, I warp to go get some anti toxin, go back to the painted world of artimis, collect everything in there, and then put this game away for a month or two. Just when it's really starting to get good too.

[El Capitano Gatisto]

Orange guys are just people who are in the Sunlight covenant. They aren't any more powerful but you get a Sunlight medal if you beat a boss with them which you can offer at the altar of the covenant for miracles.

The whole point even of the co-op is to create a sense of isolation. Demon Souls had the same idea, basically no narrative and no real explanation of what to do or what order to play the game in, just turfed in to this hostile world with only ghostly hints to guide you along. The community helps alot. I think you can meet up with people in theory but the developers have tried to minimise. Also, most people, as I said, cap their level at 120 so the co-op or PvP stays available.

[RoXer]

This is most likely coming to the PC soon.

[El Capitano Gatisto]

I had a bit of a break playing for a few weeks, picked it up again yesterday and remembered I had been grinding souls to be able to craft a +5 Lightning Claymore. Crafted that then proceeded to beat my way through the latter part of the game fairly quickly. Opened up the end game area with the final boss but I'm going to have an explore through the Great Hollow and Ash Lake level as I haven't been in there yet.

[RoXer]

Probably going to start this again next week.

Here are some articles to read:

http://www.1up.com/features/dark-souls-generation-8-bit-game?pager.offset=1

http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2012/04/01/is-dark-souls-a-100-hour-waste-of-time/



Here is a sweatshirt that some guy on Reddit is making. (http://www.reddit.com/r/darksouls/comments/s8ujb/ive_finally_found_my_sun_first_prototype/c4c1sb7) It's a bit difficult to follow, but I don't think orders have been placed yet if you want to grab one. I'm thinking of getting one.

[Kris P Lettus]

I'm gonna get this.. I had never paid attention to it, but with getting close to the end of The Witcher 2, I typed in "best RPG games 360" on Google and this had a 9.5 rating and was ranked right up there with Fallout 3, Oblivion, etc..

[Requiem]

Do you know anything about it?

:lol: This game will eat you alive. That said, it is one of the best RPGs I've ever played. It will still crush you repeatedly.

[El Fangel]

I think I may be getting this tomorrow or sometime soon. Watch the News for any updates.

[Kris P Lettus]

Do you know anything about it?

:lol: This game will eat you alive. That said, it is one of the best RPGs I've ever played. It will still crush you repeatedly.

My little brother told me it was one of the hardest games ever made..

[RoXer]

Still haven't picked this back up again because I want to finish other shit.

But once I finish that other shit it'll just be this and MLB: The Show until Borderlands 2 comes out.

[El Capitano Gatisto]

I have 3 character builds all roughly near the end (Faith, Strength/Pyromancy, Magic/Dexterity). Still haven't beat the final boss, bit scared to take him on again because he is a bastard. It is entertaining enough invading other people's games as a spirit of vengeance with the different playing styles available.

[Requiem]

Think after I beat Deus Ex, I will play this more.

[El Fangel]

Holy fuck.

[El Fangel]

Its not so much difficult, its just trying to find those goddamn bonfires. I was running for my life with a black knight and a lancer behind me and found one. Never so happy to see a save/continue point in my life.

[El Capitano Gatisto]

I finished it today for the first time. Walked in with my Strength/Endurance build and smashed the end boss with a +5 Black Knight Greataxe and the Dragoncrest shield. Ended up being not a massive challenge.

[Taker it Easy]

I love this game by the way.

[Requiem]

Started playing again today. It is depressing to see a save file with WELL over 100 hours, and level 57. And then a level 34 with only 8 hours.

Rocked through Blighttown in a little under an hour, now I'm in the dafouiwfasdfasduofh swamp that I hate. Except this time I have the ring so I don't have to worry about it as much.

[Requiem]

Beat Qelaag my first try. Rang the bell. Forgot that I already killed douchebag Lautrec or whoever so he didn't kill Anastacia this time. Upgraded Uchigatana to +8, and started my rapier upgrading and it's like +4 now. Gonna do lightning Uchigatana like last time, and probably fire rapier. Or get Ricard's Rapier later and upgrade the hell out of it.

[El Fangel]

Was talking to Requiem when this happened earlier, had a good laugh at it.

http://i.imgur.com/ieaUS.jpg

[Requiem]

Actually, might do Chaos Uchigatana. ECG, what's the deal with chaos weapons? I've never used one before. Will the Uchigatana still have its bleed effect if I make it a Chaos weapon?

[El Capitano Gatisto]

Yep, bleed effect stays. Chaos Weapons scale with humanity i.e. the more humanity you have, the more damage that Chaos weapons or spells will do. Typically you need to hold about 10 humanity to get the top damage. I mean activated humanity, obviously, not just holding it in your inventory. This can be a bit of a pain in the arse if you die, as you suddenly have a weapon that isn't as powerful and maybe takes 3-4 hits to kill enemies when before it needed 1-2. If you can't retrieve your greasy death spot then you basically have to farm humanity to get the most out of it. The best places for doing that are the weird tentacle things in the Duke's Archives and the aborted baby skeletons just before Gravelord Nito's boss fight.

I deleted my old Faith build game and started a new one, just so I have 3 good variation options for PvP play.

[Requiem]

Damn, that seems pretty rough. So you recover lost humanity when you retrieve your souls? Guess I always assumed those were just lost for good on death. Might not do Chaos then. Hate grinding for things even though it does sound powerful.

[El Capitano Gatisto]

You can use a +10 upgraded curved sword with Quelaag's soul to make the Furysword, which is a Chaos weapons. It does a lot of damage at 10 humanity but has no bleed effect. So you could grab a Falchion or Scimitar from somewhere and upgrade it to that and upgrade your Uchigatana to +10 Fire or Lightning. That way you don't use up precious red or green titanite getting your Chaos weapon.

I think at 10 humanity, a +5 Chaos weapon beats a +10 Fire weapon in damage, so the humanity is important. And yes you do recover humanity when you grab your souls back.

[Requiem]

Also, different question. But have you done much with greatswords/greataxes? Some of the stats on them are CRAZY but I wonder how difficult it would be not being able to use a shield. Seems like they do some massive damage, but that the experience is much more difficult due to probably using heavy armor and never being under half equip load.

Just seems like it would be pretty badass to strut around with a MASSIVE fucking greatsword.

[El Capitano Gatisto]

I alternate between +5 Lightning Greatsword (does ~760 damage at my current stats) and a +5 Black Knight Greataxe in the Strength build I have. I managed ok, I mixed the armour around until I upgraded enough Endurance to go with Ormstein's armour and the Eagle or Black Knight Shield permanently. I actually lost Havel's Ring on the first playthrough because he killed me at the exact moment I killed him, so I didn't get his souls or ring, which made things more difficult. I made sure to get it on NG+, so now I'm set.

A fully upgraded Greatsword or Greataxe annihilates everything. The Black Knight Greataxe is almost a cheat weapon because the swing is so fast too.

[El Fangel]

Drake Sword is unbelievable in the first bit of the game. Had a bit of trouble with the Bell Gargoyles and with the Drake Sword equipped I had the first one down before I got hit.

[RoXer]

All I need now is a magic weapon and it occurs to me that I should have used magic on my winged spear so I could call it my magic wang spear AKA my "Magic Johnson".

Yeah, gunna go ahead and undo my +4 Lightning Winged Spear and make it a Magic Wanged Spear aka Magic Johnson.

Then going to make a Lightning Partizan because the difference between that and Lightning Winged Spear weren't that huge.

Considered making the Moonlight Butterfly Horn but it doesn't do enough physical damage if I'm reading the charts right.

[RoXer]

I think I understand the differnce between Magic and Enchanted and I'm just going to try for a +10 Magic Johnson instead of making it enchanted

[RoXer]

Any tips on starting the New Londo Ruins?

[RoXer]

Dickhead won't take my Winged Spear and make it magical. He descended it no problem, but I can't Magic it.

Fuck it, I'm goin to bed.

[RoXer]

So I go back to the Giant Blacksmith and he'll ascend my recently descended Winged Spear back into a Lightning Winged Spear.

The normal blacksmith will not offer to ascend it to a Raw Winged Spear. The blacksmith in the cell at New Londo will not ascened it to a Magic Winged Spear.

Are you telling me I cannot ascend a descened weapon into something else?

If that's the case what's the point of descending at all?

Please tell me I'm doing something wrong.

I'm going to bed.

[El Capitano Gatisto]

Magic weapons are ascended at +5/6 normal weapons, Lightning at +10. So you may have to descend it to +5/6 before being able to make a Magic or Enchanted weapon.

You need to give him the Large Magic Ember also before he will ascend to +10 magic.

[El Fangel]

Haven't played this since last week due to work. Cannot wait to pop this in later.

[RoXer]

Simply getting to the Four Kings can be a hassle. I decided to stop fighting my way there while cursed and instead just wield the Jagged Blade instead of my Talisman. That way, I can start from Firelink Shrine, take out the first two ghosts with the blade, walk a little to the right and drop down, switch to spear and take out Darkwraith Knights, switch back to Jagged Blade and take out a few roaming ghosts, wait at the door.

The other option would be start at that bonfire near Valley of Drakes but there are too many Drakes to deal with. I suppose I could just run right past them but that's kinda risky.

So that's where I'm at now. I collected everything (or at least I think I did) in New Londo and I've helped twice so far with the Four Kings except both times I forgot I was cursed and died pretty quickly

[El Capitano Gatisto]

Have you not been using transient curses? They do not half your HP, they last 5 mins or so and they are fairly easy to pick up.

[RoXer]

No, I havent even bothered because I thought they halved your HP. I will do that now since I have like 20 of them.

[RoXer]

Hey ECG,

Reqiuem and I downloaded a guide that says leveling up to +2 in the Sisters of Chaos covenant is extremely important as it opens up a crucial shortcut near the end of the game.

How important is this shortcut? How easy is it to level up her covenant?

[El Capitano Gatisto]

It's not hugely important, but it's helpful. Whether you open it or not also affects Knight Solaire's story arc and subsequently whether he's still around to help you with the final boss, should you wish to summon him. You need to offer 30 humanity to the Daughter of Chaos to be able to open it, so how easy that is depends on how you're farming humanity. I usually do it as soon as I get to her bonfire first time round, when I have 20 something humanity from the start of the game (to ringing the second bell) so it doesn't take very long. You also get a couple of strong pyromancy spells when you do all this.

[Kris P Lettus]

I'm at like level 6 but still haven't gotten a sword (that's not broken) or a shield..

[El Capitano Gatisto]

I just spent a couple of hours playing tonight being a complete dick. I have worked a Faith build up to level 91 and have all the best miracles. In this runthrough I also joined the Darkwraith covenant and got the Red Eye stone so I can invade as a red phantom at will when in human form. Funnily enough the miracles make for the most effective wanker tactics in the game. Tranquil Walk of Peace is a bastard, it slows people down (some miracle the giant stone knights in the forest cast) and Wrath of God and Emit Force do shitloads of damage. Wrath of God is bordering on the cheating actually.

But anyway, I had my fun.

[RoXer]

I am in the crystal caves and I want to play some more but decide not to. Maybe tomorrow.

Around level 106 I think. Dunno if I should go past 120 or not. I think I will.

[Taker it Easy]

I am in the 60's and just finished the Cystal Caves. Been having a harder time finding co-op. Also have been reworking my character towards a better str build. Doing Dark Knight Great Axe and sometimes Zweihander.

[RoXer]

I spent too long trying to hack off Seath's tail. Finally figured out what I was doing wrong and had to focus my attention on the tip, not the base. Wonderful advice.

But then I finally got it and then almost killed him but I did something stupid and died so that's where I'm at. He's not much of a problem now that I have the sword he dropped. Which isn't even that great but I still wanted it.

I kept dropping souls in his area and picking them up. When I realized I had 105,000 souls from doing this I figured now would be a good time to use a homeward bone and level up.

[Requiem]

Original character was level 58, Anor Londo, 164 hours 26 minutes (probably a good 50-ish idle hours)

On my 2nd character, my save file reads - Level 45, Anor Londo, 13 hours 26 minutes.

Suck it Dark Souls! Amazing what prior knowledge will do for going through this game. It's all just one big learning curve.

[El Capitano Gatisto]

I just invaded a load of people again last time. I've become fixated on being a prick.

I miss Demon Souls a little bit, I feel like I want to start playing it again. I wonder if the servers are still online.

[Requiem]

Yesssssssss, Dark Souls is coming to Steam when it hits PC in August.

[RoXer]

I've just beaten Seath. I have a quiestion about NG+. I have:

63 Titanite Shard
7 Large Titanite Shard
15 Titanite Chunk
2 Green Titanite Shard
20 Blue Titanite Chunk
1 Blue Titanite Slab
4 Red Titanite Chunk
2 White Titanite Chunk
32 Twinkling Titanite
8 Demon Titanite
10 Dragon Scales

If I start NG+, do I keep all of those? If not than obviously I'm going to have to use them before I finish the game. I would hate to save them and then start an NG+ to find they're all gone.

I haven't used much because I haven't really had the need to. Yet. All of my armor and my weapons do a pretty decent job. Once things start to get hairy is when I'll look into using them but right now they just sit in my inventory.

[El Capitano Gatisto]

You keep everything.

[RoXer]

Yesssssssss, Dark Souls is coming to Steam when it hits PC in August.

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[RoXer]

You keep everything.

Yeah I looked in the guide seconds after I posted that. Keep everything but embers, keys, unique lord souls and a few other special items you need to obtain by progressing a certain way through.

Speaking of lord souls, I should probably look into making those rare weapons.

When I first started, I thought it was ridiculous to even try to go 1000/1000 in this game (platinum trophy for PS3). Now I'm starting to consider it.

[Taker it Easy]

I just invaded a load of people again last time. I've become fixated on being a prick.

I miss Demon Souls a little bit, I feel like I want to start playing it again. I wonder if the servers are still online.

Yes, I read on reddit that the servers are still up. They were due to be closed nearly immediately yet I think due to the community response that date was removed and Demon Souls servers will stay active.

Can you tell me a bit about Demon Souls? I have not played it. Just fell in love with Dark Souls. It seems like something I might want to go back and play, what do you think?

[El Capitano Gatisto]

It has similar game mechanics obviously but is definitely worth playing. I think it's probably the better game but that could be the influence of coming to it cold originally and being scared shitless as I played it. The atmosphere of it is fantastic. There's a limit on how much you can carry, as well as an equip burden, which affects strategy a fair bit, plus the game is split into discrete areas with individual stages (that can be replayed over and over even after the boss dies) that you warp to from a central safe area, rather than a continuous map as in Dark Souls.

[Requiem]

Hope that this game series proves to developers that there is a market for difficult games. In US and Europe, Dark Souls topped 1.1 million sales as of May 8th of this year. That's not groundbreaking by any means, but I'm sure the studio is enjoying the profits. It's a concept that will probably never be mainstream, but it would be nice for other companies to not shy away from making challenging and deep games.

[RP]

Might look into this game, but I have like three games to finish right now.

[RoXer]

Don't

[RP]

Don't?

[RoXer]

You can't hack it

[RP]

Eat dik

[Sepholio]

Is this game as good as Demon's Souls was? If so I think I will finally go get it. Demon's Souls took me a dickyear to finally overcome. One of the biggest moments of accomplishment I have ever felt in my life.

[Requiem]

Having never played Demon Souls, I can say that Dark Souls is pretty fucking incredible.

[El Capitano Gatisto]

Is this game as good as Demon's Souls was? If so I think I will finally go get it. Demon's Souls took me a dickyear to finally overcome. One of the biggest moments of accomplishment I have ever felt in my life.

It's similar but different, as I said up there. I probably think of Demon Souls more fondly for many reasons but a major one might be because the experience was so novel, but this still a great game. Getting Dark Souls is a no-brainer if you loved Demon Souls.

[Sepholio]

Thank you kind sirs. I'll pick this up when I go in to grab The Last Story in a couple weeks.

[RoXer]

ugh. Lost 60,000 souls in the Tomb of the Giants. The guide clearly says "Hey, after you defeat Pinwheel you should probably just homeward bone back to the bonfire and level up because you will most likely die if you go any further" but I figured I knew what I was doing and decided to risk it.

Fell down, survived, got gang raped by giant skeletons, died. Went to retrieve souls, took a different path, took a wrong step, died.

[El Fangel]

I am going to go play this a little, keep an eye on the news for rampages in Nova Scotia.

[El Capitano Gatisto]

ugh. Lost 60,000 souls in the Tomb of the Giants. The guide clearly says "Hey, after you defeat Pinwheel you should probably just homeward bone back to the bonfire and level up because you will most likely die if you go any further" but I figured I knew what I was doing and decided to risk it.

Fell down, survived, got gang raped by giant skeletons, died. Went to retrieve souls, took a different path, took a wrong step, died.

A bastard of a level. I hate it, it and Blighttown are the fucking pits. You need the Sunlight Maggot to make things a little less frustrating. Fire weapons make short work of the skeletons, you should have unlocked the blacksmith who upgrades fire weapons on the way to Pinwheel.

[El Fangel]

Of for the love of fuck, died and then had to go past the bridge with the drake, he knocked me down with flames just before I got in the door. :mad:

[RoXer]

Layed down my summon sign at the bonfire in the Tomb of the Giants and helped some guy with just about everything. We beat Gravelord Nito which I think he needed my help with. Seems like it may be a hassle doing it by yourself so I'll have to summon someone. Good to know.

[Requiem]

Level 50 now, found out the blacksmith sells an unlimited # (I think?) of titanite shards and large titanite. So I just went nuts and started grinding souls and buying shards. Got a +2 Lightning Uchi now, a +5 Ricard's that I'm working on (even though it's not the most rape weapon, I just love the rapiers so I wanted to give it a go and make it a fire rapier) +5 eagle shield. Think he sells twinkling too (I forget) so I'm gonna grind for some of those and start upgrading the armor I have on.

Was something we never really got to do on the last character because we wasted a lot of our shards on stupid things, and we focused solely on weapons and didn't upgrade our armor at all. It is really stupid easy to grind in Anor Londo. Giants give 1500 souls a pop, can kill them in like 30 seconds or less. Found out the giants inside the cathedral drop chunks, so I'm also gonna go human and use that item finding ring to see if I can get a bunch to max out my Uchi.

Dunno what it is, but this playthrough has gone incredibly smooth. 15.5 hours on file now and just tearing it up.

Might use this time to try out multiplayer finally too. RoXer was saying how fun it is so I might just drop a sign and see what happens.

[El Capitano Gatisto]

I've got 3 games, level 98 (Faith-based), 95 (Magic-based) and 100 (Strength-based) on the go. All around 25 hours each. I'm on NG+ in the Strength build, and I've only got the last boss to defeat in the Magic one but I'm holding off so I can invade a few people. Same with the Faith build although I still have Bed of Chaos to beat and Ash Lake to clear but I'm having a whale of a time invading people has a black phantom.

[RoXer]

Layed down my summon sign at the bonfire in the Tomb of the Giants and helped some guy with just about everything. We beat Gravelord Nito which I think he needed my help with. Seems like it may be a hassle doing it by yourself so I'll have to summon someone. Good to know.

This is all I did over the weekend. Stayed at the 2nd bonfire and layed down my sign near the path where the Skeleton Beast is. That way, even if people who don't go to the 2nd bonfire can still see the sign on their way to the boss fight.

Must have beat Gravelord Nito maybe 10 times. Only died once because the host was an idiot weakling. So I would beat it, go back to my world, considered beating the boss myself, would make my way toward him and then get summoned. Just a non-stop supply of souls all weekend long. And then most of the time when summoned I would kill Paladin Leeroy also which is another 25000. And then spent maybe a little too much time killing skeleton babies but why not.

I was at lvl 116 maybe when I started? At 131 now.

Also helped out this snot-nosed squeely voiced teenage in PVP bragging about how he hacked the game to get certain types of armor and weapons. He was kind of a brat.

Req is doing multiplayer right now so I might hop in a little bit also. Not saying we'll get matched up, just feel like playing.

[Requiem]

Multiplayer is hella fun. Should have done it sooner. I got invaded a few times while helping people, and we always beat them except for one time when the host was a 2-handing noob and got worked in a couple seconds. But when I was by myself and got invaded, I got slaughtered.

Helped a guy beat O&S for the first time and that was cool. Wasn't that hard with people helping. Definitely gonna summon people when I do it. Tried a few other times and the host always got killed when it was SOOO close. Still didn't feel remotely like a challenge even though they totally destroy me when it's just me.

Some guy summoned me earlier and started giving me things. He said some guy summoned him and dropped everything he had. I'm not totally sure he didn't just hack and get all this stuff. He didn't have everything in the game, but there was a STUPID amount of upgraded stuff. He showed me all these random helmets that I didn't even know existed, but were pretty cool. I purposely didn't take as much as he was offering cause I didn't want to ruin it for myself. Took a lot of stuff I couldn't even use on this character so whatever. lol

Only took some awesome upgraded weapons and a few shields. He gave me some random titanite too that he didn't need. Figured that sure as hell beat grinding endlessly for chunks which is something I really just didn't feel like doing any more of since I had only gotten 2 since I started grinding them yesterday. He gave me like 4 of those.

So yeah.

Gonna do some more multiplayer later probably, and get a few more levels before tackling S&O for myself to finally move past this damn place.

[El Fangel]

Goddamn Capra Demon

[RoXer]

This is becoming a thing. (http://www.reddit.com/r/darksouls/comments/ulmah/surely_op_will_deliver_solaire_hoodie_update/)

I may buy one but I dunno. I live in the middle of a fucking desert so I may be able to wear it during one month of the year.

[El Fangel]

Req, post that convo from earlier.

[Requiem]

FA being happy he killed Capra Demon

mmfallenangel987 12:07:47 PM
One more try before I gtg

requiem2k4 12:08:03 PM
always wait for him to start up the stairs before you drop off too
08:18
cause when he drops, he pauses temporarily and that's your chance to hit him

mmfallenangel987 12:12:33 PM
yesssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss
12:37
motherfuickdr
12:39
w2oooooooooooooo

requiem2k4 12:12:40 PM
NICE

mmfallenangel987 12:12:41 PM
wooooooooooooooooo

requiem2k4 12:12:59 PM
lol nothing like getting it on your last try before leaving

mmfallenangel987 12:13:07 PM
it autosaves after the fight right?

requiem2k4 12:13:17 PM
yeah. it should. i would run back to the bonfire just to be safe

mmfallenangel987 12:13:27 PM
yeah, not much tiome

requiem2k4 12:13:31 PM
no way i'd risk it

mmfallenangel987 12:14:06 PM
homeward bone motherfucker!!!

mmfallenangel987 12:18:59 PM
That feeling of badassery
requiem2k4 12:19:07 PM

19:18
ok now that you've beat him, i want to tell you something.
mmfallenangel987 12:19:25 PM
I went in there and was all like, motherfucker this time
19:31
you die!!!
requiem2k4 12:19:31 PM
he's "technically" only a mini-boss, at best
19:34
lol

mmfallenangel987 12:19:49 PM
Dog lunged at me I slapped his head off
20:01
demonbitch is all like rawr
20:14
and Im all like nope
20:22
and he is all like OH noes

so i get up the stairs kill the other two dogs in one hit
20:54
drop down and drunk those dranks

mmfallenangel987 12:21:23 PM
went up and did that diving thrust into his face
21:36
then went to town on his ass
21:39
literally
21:53
all up in his grill ya know
22:44
went up the stairs again and hit him as he fell down and worked him over and when he was all low hp and shit I used the strong attack and cut that bitch good
23:00
and the was all like Aww yeah, fuck you bitch

[Requiem]

Also, JUST BEAT FUCKING ORNSTEIN & SMOUGH.

a;sfhjdaposufhaousanwocunawecanwe9pfuh2q9fp3hawe9pfuhjaw9efha9p2w3fhap9whfa9wehfa9pfh7ap97hfp9h2fp9h ewfa9p78whefpa987h

WOOOOO FUCK YOU DARK SOULS.

Was actually pretty easy since I summoned 2 people to help me. Killed Ornstein first, and during the second phase, I was at full health and took one hit from Smough that took so much health that I couldn't see my health bar. My character fell down when he got hit and I facepalmed thinking I died. But then he got back up and I was like FUUUUUUCK RUN. Popped a humanity real quick and went back at it. Was intense. Heart was pounding and felt like it was going to explode out of my chest.

[Requiem]

This is becoming a thing. (http://www.reddit.com/r/darksouls/comments/ulmah/surely_op_will_deliver_solaire_hoodie_update/)

I may buy one but I dunno. I live in the middle of a fucking desert so I may be able to wear it during one month of the year.

Just looked at that again. Definitely want one. He said there that he will probably sell them cheap as long as he can break even on them. Pretty awesome work. Said they cost like $16 to make, so that plus shipping. So, for like $25-30 I will definitely buy one.

[El Fangel]

Think I might get one.

[RoXer]

I think I finished Solaire's path but I'm not sure. I hope I did because that's what I was trying to do.

http://darksouls.wikidot.com/solaire-of-astora

Guaranteed way to Prevent Solaire becoming hollow:

Open the shortcut to Lost Izalith BEFORE fighting the Centipede Demon. This is done by offering 30 humanity to Quelaag's Sister and proceeding through the hole in the wall near the entrance to the Demon Firesage boss.

Slay all of the choas bugs here. You only need to kill the one with glowing red eyes that drops the Sunlight Maggot, but you might as well kill them all just to be sure and for the drops.

Note that Solaire will not be here yet. He's still waiting outside the Centipede Demon boss room.

Go back to the entrace to the shortcut and go through the fog door to fight the Demon Firesage

After beating the Demon Firesage, proceed past it and down the stairs to the Centipede Demon and beat that as well. If you're in human form you may summon Solaire to assist, though for me he just sat in lava and died.

Follow the wall to the left of the entrance to find the route out and the "normal" way into Lost Izalith. You'll find Solaire here.

Having spoken to him here he will then appear in the shortcut between the Demon Ruins and Lost Izalith where you killed the chaos bugs. He will not turn hollow.

Speaking to him here will lead to another depressing dialogue and then he'll disappear again. This should let you summon him for the game's final fight.



That's basically what happened but on accident. The guide I was using didn't really do too well of a job describing where the shortcut was. I wandered into it and killed all the bugs except I never got a Sunlight Maggot drop from any of them. Received 2 Sunlight Medals though.

And so that's where I'm out. Going to go through to Lost Isalith that way now and hopefully he'll be available for the final fight.

[Requiem]

So for the whole 3 people that play this game...

Right before the crystal caves now. This is all 'new territory' for me since Anor Londo was as far as I had gone on my old character.

Think I'm level 81 or 82 now, rocking a +5 lightning uchi, a +5 black iron armor, +5 xanthous leggings, havel's helm, and silver knight gauntlets, +15 eagle shield. started pumping points into faith so now i've got a heal, homeward, and a couple other miracles I can't really use yet. Thinking of going back and joining the Princess Guard so I can use these group heals for when I help people.

Most souls at one time was like 261k now, which I got after helping out at the Four Kings for a while, and then cashing in on all the saved up warrior souls I had. Was pretty pumped about that. Never imagined I'd actually hold so many at once, but I've seen videos of people holding like 9 mil at one time, so fuck those people.

[RP]

Get a fungi tunic

[RP]

Anyone playing this on PS3

[RP]

Got this. Gunna camp the Fungi Tunic in Sebelis.

[RoXer]

I am basically trying to level up in the Darkmoon Blade covenant to get the get the Darkmoon Blade Miracle to get the acquire all achievements miracle to get closer to 1000/1000 this.

I need 5 more Souvenirs of Reprisals and it is a bitch because I am nowhere near strong enough to defeat the characters of those I am invading.

The guide says try invading in the Tomb of the Giants. So that's what I'll do now.

[Requiem]

How close are you to 1000/1000?

[RoXer]

Not very. I have all the weapon achievements except for divine because I need another White Slab. I'm still on my first playthrough so...

[RoXer]

Ok, I got 10. Wasn't too difficult, just had crappy in the begining.

Might keep invading for the night.

[RoXer]

Ok so here is my little checklist I've created to 1000/1000 the game. Hopefully, I'm not missing anything.

Before starting NG+, go back and defeat Dark Sun Gyndolyn. Acquire his soul and create a unique weapon. You also need his miracle he drops.

Try to defeat Demon on first attempt at Asylum to get Demon's Hammer

The only tail I need to cut off in boss fights is the Bell Gargoyle to get the Gargoyle Tail Axe.

Talk to Quelana of Izalith in the Swamps and buy her pyromancies and upgrade your flame. Save Laurentis in the Depths. Talk to and buy pyromancies from Laurentis after beating Quelaag or sooner. Go back to Quelana after beating Quelaag and discovering Chaos Servant covenant. Expect to spend 100,000 souls.

Try to get the flip ring. Expect to spend god knows how many souls.

Rank up Warrior of Sunlight to +1 on 2nd playthrough and use Gwyn's Soul to get Great Lightning Spear and Sunlight Spear.

Talk to Rhea of Thorlund at the Parish IMMEDIATELY after saving her in Tomb of the Giants. Expect to spend 50,000 souls.

DO NOT PLACE THE LORVESSEL ON THE THING. Don't even talk to Kingseeker Frampt AT ALL. Join Darkwraith covenant after beating The Four Kings. Do not be a member of Princess Guard or Way of White before beating. You know what, just be safe and go to Carim and leave whatever covenant you're in and be covenantless.

These are the weapons I still have to create on my 2nd playthrough with the boss souls. Hopefully I can avoid having to play a 3rd playthrough by finding some cheating hacker who has a spare Soul of Sif and Gwyn's Soul.
- Chaos Blade
- Crystal Ring Shield
- Cursed Greatsword of Artorias
- Darkmoon Bow
- Golem Axe
- Great Lord Greatsword (3rd playthrough?)
- Greatshield of Artorias (3rd playthrough?)
- Smough's Hammer (MUST DEFEAT ORNSTEIN FIRST which might be a problem if I summon people. I'll just have to message them and let them know what the plan is before starting the boss battle)
- Tin Darkmoon Catalyst

Create a +10 Divine Weapon with a White Titanite Slab. Large ember and slab are found in the Tomb of the Giants.

Beat the game a 2nd time. Choose different ending from the 1st.

[RoXer]

Sooo.... yeah.

I dunno what to do. Might try PVPing a little more today, asking people if they have any spare Sif or Gwyn Souls. The guide says I should also use Dark Hand against NPC's and kill them to get certain unique weapons/armor. Might do that. I dunno.

I think I'll start NG+ tonight or tomorrow.

[Requiem]

Just beat Seath 2nd try. Got cursed/killed at the same time the 1st try and RoXer suggested using the cursebite ring which I didn't even realize I had. Totally worked him the 2nd time. Got my divine weapon ready for the catacombs. Just a shitty Divine +4 falchion. Only used it cause it was already upgraded to +5 due to having been an enchanted weap, so I degraded it back to normal so I could divine it.

[RoXer]

Once you kill the 3 (could be more) Necromancers you use normal weapons to kill the skeletons

[Requiem]

Good, cause this thing does like half the damage of my Uchi. lol

[Requiem]

I beat Dark Souls about 30 minutes ago. FUCK YEAH.

[RoXer]

Achievements (41/41) (http://live.xbox.com/en-US/Activity/Details?titleId=1313671226#) http://tiles.xbox.com/tiles/gO/Pf/1YCLiGJhbC9ADBtVGwxTWTNhL2FjaC8wLzY0AAAAAOfn5-rw45w=.jpg The Dark Soul
All achievements completed. Congratulations!
50 Unlocked on 7/4/2012


phew


... now what?

[RoXer]

... now what?

Oh yeah, the DLC.

So when does that come out? Are there any achievements? Any news on where we need to be in the playthrough in order to play it?

[Kris P Lettus]

This game is two hard for words.. I got like 2 hours in and still only have a fragment of a sword..

F this S in it's A

[RoXer]

Are you going the right way?

[Kris P Lettus]

Yeah, I can beat the bad guys one at a time but once I reached the area were there are multiple ones they destroy me..

My little bro said you have to utilize the block/parry funtion early and often which I usually don't do.. I will try again, one day..

[Requiem]

lol what, there is a starting weapon in the starter area. (not broken weap, you start with that. there is one that you pick up in the tutorial dungeon)

Did you even pick up the shield? You are doing something entirely wrong.

[El Capitano Gatisto]

The Deprived class starts with a broken sword I think?

Parry can be hard to time. If you're using parry a lot then you're also going to die a lot until you learn to time different enemies attacks. That means watching them a bit before trying to parry their attacks. I still find it very hard to time parrying the early enemies sword thrusts etc. The spear guys are easy to parry.

[Requiem]

Got this on PC because it's only $40 and comes with the DLC. Also because I like playing games on PC.

as;ldfahsdfadsfh not getting any rare drops. Neither of the black knights I've killed gave me their weapons or shields. Boar didn't give me the helm. Channeler didn't give me the trident. All I wanted was a greatsword. :(

[El Capitano Gatisto]

I would probably buy the DLC just for the new multiplayer stuff alone. If they fix up he match-making system and bring in new fighting modes, it'll give the game extra longevity. Making character builds that are good for PvP is a big part of the game.

[Requiem]

It is pretty good. Haven't made it to the DLC yet. Lot of people complained about the quality of the port because From didn't make any changes that were PC specific. It's pretty much the exact game from console, which I expected since they said they weren't experienced with PC games, and since they only did this port because a player petition asked them to.

There were some internal resolution problems that were fixed by a player before the game even came out with a little script fix he made. Graphics look even better now actually, with a really nice draw distance and textures that look even more high-res if you do the resolution fix. Details are crazy. Was standing in Blighttown looking down at the swamp and could see everything. Enemies, shiny loot, all the way from the great hollow, to the beach that leads to Quelaag's. On console, everything just kinda blurred out down there. Pretty nice.

I'm in ash lake right now on this new character. Just had my first real loss, which didn't even involve that many souls, but lost me 7 saved up humanity that I'd been building since the start of the game. Stupid giant mushrooms in the bottom of the hollow.

Invaded some people, which is pretty awesome with as many new people as there are. Stalked a couple people before killing them. Had a pretty awesome 1vs2 where I waited till the summon was engaged with some enemies before chasing the host away, then bolting back to the summon and killing him really quickly before fighting the host. Host actually knew what he was doing though and killed me after a pretty long fight.

[Requiem]

Forgot I took this yesterday. http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/938127448162496717/E37D86FF4E9D5B382464FFEBC328AF42CDFC6D49/

[Ultra Mantis]

I've been playing this since Monday, overall I'm not finding it as "hard" as Demon's Souls but I guess I can put that down to knowing what I'm doing right off the bat. That didn't help at all with Capra Demon though, took me about 20 attempts before I could even get a hit in on him. That tiny room is brutal. Gaping Dragon seems to way outlevel me so I'm currently in the catacombs looking for some miracle maiden. Pretty great so far.

[Requiem]

Nah gaping dragon is a piece of cake. Catacombs is way rougher than the depths.

[Ultra Mantis]

I've cleared the catacombs, wasn't too bad once I killed the mages. I took on Gaping Dragon with the two phantoms and I was pretty much doing chip damage to him with magic weapon / scimitar +7. He just kept squashing the other guys before I could even get him down to 3/4 health then kept whipping me with his tail breaking through my poise then squashing me too. Pinwheel on the other hand put on a totally pathetic display.

[Requiem]

Have solo'd gaping dragon multiple times, sometimes on the first go. Key is to stay behind him until he starts turning to come at you. Then, get far away and when he charges, just run to either side and circle behind him. You can get a decent amount of hits on him from behind before he turns again. Also.... 'try the tail' ;)

[Ultra Mantis]

Got him, was about 8 levels higher than last time. The tail method made him much easier, I should probably start putting some levels into strength by the looks of all these rare drops. Made it to the second bonfire in Blight Town, it's so much like the Valley of Defilement that I was bricking it the whole way down. Was so glad I found that bonfire after aimlessly wading through the swamp on my last Estus Flask.

[Requiem]

Str/Dex is really just based on what character you want to play. You're not required to use any of the drops to beat the game. You could, essentially, just use the items you started with and upgrade them the whole way through and only use them. Dex/Str is just a playstyle.

Now of course, if you ARE a strength build, then by all means, stack the shit out of that. I have 50 str on my first PC character so that I could use the dragon greatswords and the like.

[Ultra Mantis]

I'm sure some crazy people somewhere have beat the whole game with a broken sword hilt. I'm only DEX 21, STR is about 14. Just want to try out some of these ridiculous giant weapons really. Got the Meat Cleaver and i remember it being pretty useful in Demon's Souls.

[El Capitano Gatisto]

The problem with Strength builds is that you have to sacrifice mobility to be able to use those heavy weapons. You have to pour stats into Endurance to up your equip weight. I have a strength/endurance build and I still can't really use the massive weapons effectively. Dodging is much better than strong armour in Dark Souls, even taking into account poise, I think. They never really fixed that from Demon Souls. In Demon Souls I finished the game in the armour I started with usually. In Dark Souls I tend to mix and match the highest damage resistance I can get while still maintaining below 50% equip weight. Heavy weapons kill that.

That said, my Strength build is armed with a +7 Lightning Greatsword that murders everything in sight.

[Requiem]

The moment you put lightning/fire on a weapon, it negates the scaling you get from whatever attribute the weapon uses.

So putting lightning on a sword is going to make it not based off strength anymore and kind of negates being a 'strength' build so much as just 'enough strength to use the weapon'.

If you're going strength, you should really just go +15 on weapons.

My problem on my strength build is that I wasted my dragon scales upgrading dragon tooth and it turned out to not work as well as I wanted it to. Should have upgraded the dragon greatsword instead. Also didn't get lucky enough to get the black knight drops on this character so I just used a giants halberd for a while, which actually isn't that bad, but loses effectiveness pretty quickly.

Edit: I also use the fatty roll right now with my str build and it's actually quite effective just straight up blocking/tanking hits. I could wear full havels, but fuck that noise, so I do a combo of golem armor and silver knight's because it looks badass. Just upping my equip load at the moment to be able to actually use some of the beastlier great shields.

[Requiem]

I'm sure some crazy people somewhere have beat the whole game with a broken sword hilt. I'm only DEX 21, STR is about 14. Just want to try out some of these ridiculous giant weapons really. Got the Meat Cleaver and i remember it being pretty useful in Demon's Souls.

There are also some RIDICULOUS Dex weapons. The speed stacked with the damage some of them can do can be outright devastating. They also have some of the cooler movesets IMO.

[El Capitano Gatisto]

The stat damage bonus for the Greatsword is rubbish, fully Lightning upgraded does way more damage then a +15 normal weapon. Unless you're levelling up massively, I stay at 100-120 for PvP.

[Requiem]

Ah, yeah I suppose that works then.

[Ultra Mantis]

Exploring the Anor Londo area and kind of went somewhere I shouldn't and can't seem to get back. Totally marked out for the Tower Knight and Phalanx though. I love exploring in this game, it's just so much better than Skyrim.

[Requiem]

Exploring the Anor Londo area and kind of went somewhere I shouldn't and can't seem to get back. Totally marked out for the Tower Knight and Phlanx though. I love exploring in this game, it's just so much better than Skyrim.

The thing I love is that since death is meaningful, every new place is potentially terrifying. When you're carrying tens of thousands of souls between bonfires and have a couple active humanity, and have no idea where the next bonfire is, and suddenly come across a new enemy or area you've never been... It's a real sense of awe sometimes, especially with some of the visuals. With everything interconnected, they did a great job of giving you glimpses into the other parts of the world from some places.

Skyrim never gave me a sense of wonder at the world. It was big, and the graphics were gorgeous, but nothing really scared me. No sense of loss in most modern games just makes their worlds feel kind of... hollow.

[Ultra Mantis]

Yeah I agree 100%. Skyrim was just empty for such a vast world, you could clear 30 dungeons and not find anything new except some random sword you're never going to use. You can also never go the wrong way since everything scales and it just feels so pointless.

One of my favourite moments so far in Dark Souls was somehow getting all the way to fog gate in the Tomb of Giants, being told I can't enter yet and then realising "Oh shit, how am I going to get back?". Ended up having to just run for it in pitch black with several giant skeleton things chasing me until I figured out where to go.

[El Capitano Gatisto]

Homeward is a useful miracle to have for those kinds of occasions.

[El Capitano Gatisto]

But yeah Dark Souls blew Skyrim out of the water for me. The atmosphere of menace and loneliness is perfect. Demon Souls was a little better for me in that regard but maybe thats because itwasnew.Skyrimcould have been a great game though if it had a combat system like the one in the Souls game.

[Ultra Mantis]

Homeward is a useful miracle to have for those kinds of occasions.

I'd rested at the bonfire right before the fog gate and had no how to even get back to the catacombs from the first bonfire I found and rested at near Patches. I was so glad to see the bonfires I never even thought about how I'd get out of there.

[Ultra Mantis]

Got my hands on a Divine Murakumo +9 and cleared out the Tomb Of Giants with ease, even beat the boss on my first try. Sweet revenge.

[Ultra Mantis]

Finally beat Gwyn after so many attempts, only Capra Demon gave me more trouble. I absolutely suck on the timing for parries so it took me about ten minutes dodging and blocking his swings then getting a super weak hit in whenever he went for the grab. Felt so happy when he went down. Linked the fire and was all WTF until I read the flavour text on Gwyn's Soul, love how the lore is all there if you look for it. Might wait for the DLC to come out before I go again.