Elden Ring
 

Collaboration between George R. R. Martin and From Software. It's basically an open world Souls game.

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Looks really awesome, even though Im not a fan of Martin and only played Dark Souls 2, but will deff pick this up.

It gave me a huge boner


Did not care that G.R.R. Martin was involved.

I just cared that is was From

That means the last act of the game is going to suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck

the last act in all of his books are great. Storm of Swords has one of the best climaxes of all time.


he didnt write the show.

Yeah, in fact the drop off in GoT happened after they ran out of source material, and the space cadets that sewed Deadpools mouth shut started writing everything.

TRUTH

Never watched a single episode of GoT. Tried, but couldn't make it through.

I'll be playing Day 1 ( 2-25) on PS4. I think Elden Ring is cross platform for PS4 PS4 Pro and PS5.


Who's playing where? Anyone thinking about Co-OP?


I think i'm rolling an Astrologer

Gonna play on series x

well seriesly suck my balls

Only played for a couple hours. Starting area is gorgeous. Horse combat feels good.

I imagine this will be my next game after I finish Horizon, which is gonna take awhile methinks.

Hey George R. R. Martin, how about that next Song of Ice and Fire book? I wonder if he even still has any interest at all in finishing it....

I'm still very early in, but I'm not even really seeing any influence from Martin. Still feels 100% like a Miyazaki game.

George R. R. Miyazaki.

I can't remember where I read the article, but there was an interview with some of the creators of the game a few weeks back and they said that they altered A LOT of the characters in the game from the way George had envisioned them. Basically took his ideas and then gave them that uniquely twisted, mutated and exaggerated look they are famous for. Probably makes it a lot harder to see his influence.

Is this game supposed to be done solo or multiplayer for the bosses? The intended way.

Solo seems really hard. Takes forever to kill a boss. But the same is super simple with 2 people. No middle ground.....

What boss?

Some will be easy while others will still be challenging even with two people.

Killed about 5 bosses so far, by myself. Haven't gone up to the castle yet.

If solo seems really hard, here's a tip I discovered very early on, that the game doesn't tell you

Fuck I thought Curtis was back :(

This game is pretty wicked!
I found an awesome axe in a wagon with a 30 STR requirement. Finally put all my points and am now a and Slayer.
Yet to go up through the Storm Gate.

I am so happy they've put save points near bosses in this, similar to Sekiro. The long grueling run back to the boss you died at is the only aspect of previous souls games that felt more like an artificial challenge. It didn't necessarily add that much to the difficulty, but just made it so much more tedious. The run to Seath the Scaleless can go fuck itself.

I've put in around 8 hours so far. All of it has been in west limgrave. Given the sheer amount of content ive experienced, I figured it had to be a large portion of the map. Maybe even a quarter of it.

Just saw a pic of the full map and holy French fried titty fuck, no. It is most definitely not a large portion of the map. This is insane.

I'm trying not to look at anything! I've now beaten the first boss and explored everything south/south-west of the castle.
Gone down a massive lift to the east and am currently fighting some cheeky clay nasties.

Fucking 10 bosses I've found in the starting area. And 2 AI invaders. Nuts.

jesus, they've scaled up eh

Just found another one. 11.

12. I THINK that's the last one. 12 bosses in the first area of the map.

what's your death counter look like.


I'm still stuck in Sekiro.

I dunno where to look for that stat but...a lot.

That said, after 20 hours in I finally went up to fight Margit and beat him in about 5 trys. Stormveil feels like a classic dark souls area.

I've put 40 hours into this game. I'm not far. I've gotten my head beat in repeatedly. And... this is one of the best games i've ever played.



Everything feels worth it to me. Every boss, every mob, every thing i pick up.

Yeah, it doesn't matter what you're exploring, but whatever boss you're spending 20 minutes on is guaranteed to drop something useful. Maybe not specifically for your build, but I've not encountered any trash rewards so far.

There are even some items that I'd label a necessity for any build that are hidden away in optional caves. Everything is worth looking into.

Also, strolled into Caelid, and my God someone activated a behelit. Serious blight town vibes in terms of the tonal shift.

Walked out to one of the greatest views I've ever seen in a video game. You'll know it when you get to it.

Sounds like something a maidenless scum would do.

This maidenless scum took down Margit and Godrick with relative ease thanks to all that exploring.

Where is ECG? I thought he might make an appearance for this.

Perhaps he was lured away by the maiden of touch.

ugggghhhh...... hype starting to bite. Been watching clips and kinda wanna play.


Only From game I've owned is Sekiro....... still not done with it. Did not care for the "clunkiness" of Souls I and II - so I didn't play III.

I'm finally playing it on PC. It's kinda clunky because the buffering system they programmed is freaking whack and designed so low end systems can play it. No matter what I put the settings on, every minute or two its gonna hitch up for a couple seconds as it loads in new assets. So dumb restricting the amount of memory for the buffer, should have made it variable ffs. I should be able to use the extra RAM/VRAM I have like in every other game. Really fucking sucks when you're fighting a boss and oops rando freeze for a second and then you get mauled.

I'm still in limgrave at this point but it's ok so far. I don't get all the hype though. Controls still have that trademark clunky feel that all From games have (they do it intentionally or whatever they say), graphics are good but nothing special, just feels like every other souls game so far except I guess open world and not quite as hard (it has to be easier, I'm not great at these games and I managed to actually beat the "impossible" first boss all these games have). The score is really really good though. I'm assuming the game must pick up or something and it gets better because so far I just don't get the hype. It's a very good game, for sure. But that pedestal it's being put on seems a bit of a stretch at this point.

For anyone wanting to beat the tutorial boss and score the nice sword and shield I got that I cant even use lmao, just dodge dodge dodge and occasionally go in for a single strike. Took me some time but it worked.

For being the boss you are supposed to lose to, he wasn't shit compared to this other guy I ran up on like 30 mins later. Found this random glowing circle that took me to the gaol or something. Just an enclosed area with this one enemy who absolutely mauled tf out of me. If they seriously meant for you to lose the first boss battle they should have thrown him in the tutorial. Anyways, I'll come back there later. Way later.

The hype has to do with how the open world is designed, and how nothing is seemingly wasted. The geography and enemy placement are carefully thought out to present asmany unique challenges as possible. It breaks the mold from typical open world games where large portions of the map are just regurgitated assets used in the same way, over and over.

Im not sure clunky is the right word, because they are responsive and even smooth, once you get into the rythem of the dodge/attack/block dynamic. Its just a much slower, more tactical approach to combat, as youre locked in once you attack, so you have to be very deliberate.

PC got fucked when it comes to performance, no doubt. Glad I got it on series x.

I read somewhere that controls on PC can have wonky response times as well that don't happen on console. Delayed presses or presses not even registering. So I'm probably experiencing extra PC jank. Really did get shafted here for performance.

Haven't seen the greater open world yet so I'll have to wait until I get there to judge it. I swear to god the first area after I leave limgrave better not be a poison swamp >_<

Was wandering around the storm hill area and found a way to bypass the first castle and go to Liurnia I think? Big lake area. Was walking around trying to find some loots and enemies I could potentially tackle. Got violently pegged by a dragon instead. Neat.

Gotta say this giant castle sitting on the cliffs in the middle of the lake with the giant erd tree behind it is a hell of a sight though.

Yeah, I heard you can bypass the castle. Glad I didnt though, cause the view when you come out the other side is incredible.

And im pretty sure youll still have to go back to it at some point to fight Godrick.

Castle was surprisingly easy to bypass, just hugged the base of the rock face near the bottom and kept working around it while looking for little secret dungeon entrances. Ended up turning into this narrow path between 2 rock walls that opened up into a cliff path with a clear place to jump down at the end. Kept walking for awhile not even realizing I had done it until I eventually found some grace and opened the map. I kinda just rode up one side of the lake at that point and popped a couple more points of grace along the way and then teleported back to limgrave to wander around part of that I hadn't explored. Now I'm in some dry canyony area to the east in a little town next to what I think is a poison swamp :/ lol really need to prob go take on the castle and get some direction on where to go.

Also found an elevator that took me down to some wicked underground city that looks like its in space. Couldn't hang around there long though. Will most def have to go back later.

The further east of limgrave you go the stronger the Bersek influence gets.

lol damn these 1 inch wide ledges and crazy platforming paths luring me to my death in the hopes there might be a hidden item around the next corner.

I usually just spawn in one area and kill as many as I can and go back to home base to spend runes.

Grinding.

No idea how people are speed-running easy victories on this game.

running to certain areas while avoiding everything and grabbing specific gear/items that make things significantly easier. Look up the Sword of Night and Flame.

Also apparently several areas where you can speed farm high rune targets.

Also hacks really. I saw a video and caught a glimpse of the guys level and either he grinds this game 24/7 or he's hacking. Was level 598 I think.

running into some of that obtuse soulsborne chicanery

oh yeah def dont need to worry about the boss there, anything other than fodder still one shots me. The jobbers take 2 hits to yeet me to space.

Oh God it's even worse at the northern end of that area. Done with Berserk: The Game for now. Gonna see whats across that bridge to the south of Limgrave. Maybe I won't be a glorified sacrifice to the elder gods down there.

The weeping peninsula is south of Limgrave and is much easier than Caelid. I honestly beleive youre meant to explore it before going to Stormveil castle.

Well sounds like I'm gonna go czech that out

Thats it, this is my favorite open world of all time. Most other open worlds are fairly predictable. Even if they have varied enviornments, they're pretty standard like forest, tundra, desert, etc. With Elden ring, enviornments feel much more unique. Even areas that are closer to common tropes have details and atmosphere that make it stand out.

Randomly got teleported to a place called Crumbling Farum Azula.

Holy shit.

I just got sent to some little side area where you can see the proper place from a distance apparently. Just 2 enemies up here and a talisman to loot. No way to get to down to the main area. Damnit.

I farm runes Sellia Crystal Tunnel. There are a few heavy enemies though but as long as you don't go too far it's a great place to battle a few with magic blasts and gain runes for leveling.

It's just not really fun grinding like that. More like MMORPGs-post main story is finished.

I'd like to share my absolute disdain for these stupid giant assholes and their stupid giant stone arrows they shoot at me from 7.2 kilometers away with surprisingly amazing accuracy considering I dodged like 8 times to the left between them shooting it and it hit hitting me square in the face almost every time >_<

I'm gonna get to you one day you big bastard. I'm gonna sneak around you somehow and then stab you in the back of the knee. And then run really fast in the other direction.

Theyre actually pretty easy once you get in close. Gotta try and use whatever cover you can find to get there.

Was on a roll and beat three bosses in row on my first try. Would have been 4, but i got greedy on the Raya Lucaria boss.

Yeah I just found this place and noped the fuck out after seeing the piddling damage my giant upgraded boss ax did to the enemies there.

It honestly is one of the coolest looking places I've ever seen in a game, especially from that birds eye perch eye got from the teleporter.

Was knocking around in the Weeping Peninsula earlier and opened a chest and got teleported to the capital city I guess. Also a very pretty place, especially with the erd tree dominating the sky. Found the nearest grace and left though. I still haven't worked through Liurnia up into Altus (assuming thats next from the dialog). Something about some volcano or something.

getting bit by the hype train a lil. Tried playing DS2 when it was out but it was a demo and the controls felt awful. I don't mean the deliberate, dedicated actions, got used to that with Monster Hunter World. Did not care for the controls at all.



It sounds like every fight is like a Monster Hunter World Black Dragon fight, which is awesome.



The visuals are AMAZING in this game and it ticks the boxes I love of character building and what not.....


Just worry about the little time I have to play and how it would probably cause me to enjoy the game less.

Well theres no live service bullshit here, so even if it takes you a year to beat it, you wont miss anything.

BuT ViDeOgAmEs CaNt Be PrOfItAbLe WiThOuT FOMO aNd MiCrOtRaNsAcTiOnS

On a scale of 10 Sekiros, how hard is it, lol.


That's why I haven't finished it yet. There's only so many times I can be beat into oblivion and that soul sickness or whatever fucks you up so bad where it makes the game even harder :D

i dunno where I'd rank it on that scale, but it's the easiest soulsborne game imo just because of the freedom. You can always just go somewhere else where you aren't a puss in this game and get stronger and come back to whatever was mauling you before. And there's always other ways around if you are just plain stuck on something.

I think I've died more times to fall damage than combat. A lot more times.

The loathsome dung-eater.

I gave in last night. Actually found the combat tutorial. Feels good so far, controls MUCH better than the older ones, so I'll dig it.


Buncha maidenless messages though.....

Told my wife about the difficulty of the game.




She said "Good, you turn through them so quick, it'll be good for you to be challenged on something for a while."

Erdtree Burial Watchdog aka Creepy looking fire breathing cat statue.






Fucker is fast.

haha! shouldn't have went there first. got distracted by pretty lights from touching a statue.




Curious, what class did you guys start with? ALmost went warrior, but it was dual-blades and I figured blocking will come in handy. Figured I would be able to wear a shield but wasn't 100%.


I went with the first choice, vagabond I think?


Also tried an Astrologer, but didn't care for casting too much. Maybe when I get more comfortable with the games systems.

Starting class isnt a hard line for what you can use or build. It just gives you a boost to particular stats. I started out with samurai so I could balance between strength and dex, but changed my mind and went high strength and endurance so I could weild colossal weapons and great sheilds together.

You also can respec later on.

Fought General Radahn and god damn if that isnt one of the coolest boss fights of all time.

Think I finally found the way I'm supposed to be going. Right after I got the horse, I had to go toward Stormgate. There was a fucking giant.... thing, that jumped down so I took that as the queue to mount up and GTFO.


Later, my wife saw me die to a "regular" mob and called me a noob as she walked by. She's happy there's a game I'm not steamrolling.

You can run past that blockade, and there are other ways around it as well.

Ah yeah, I definitely trucked through there, fuck that, lol.




This game is fucking great man. I love that every encounter can go wrong any moment. Went through some barracks ruins and had these god damn goblin statue things ambushing me, making me bleed. That shit was hard, but I got through there.


I kinda wanna start over and play a bandit. I heard the knife builds up bleed damage, and I love dodging, striking, and evading. Been playing through the ruins right outside of that blockade a few times to get more used to combat and improve. I've gotten some decent pieces of armor from it too, which I either equip or sell and level up.


Figured I needed to level up because Margit fucking wiped me before I could even blink.


I love this game. It almost feels like the very first time I fought Nergigante on Monster Hunter World. I was stuck on that fucker for a couple weeks man.

lmao i managed to fast travel out of a fall death somehow. You aren't getting my runes this time random slippery cliff.

Was talking to Fignuts last night and learned the hard way that one of my controllers has stick drift. Had cleared a group of 4, walked away to help one of my kids, and then I hear SILENCE from the main room.


Character casually walked off a cliff - that was not cool.




Think I'm level 14? Messed around with Margit a bit, got him down to almost 50%, but definitely going to have to level up more and come back with better stuff.

Is there a trophy for dying a googol times? I feel like there should be.

its crazy man. got my ass handed to me by a group of 4 mobs, multiple times. Then, when I beat them, I was like water man - they didn't touch me once.

And then you get cocky, and hours later, they randomly kill you again lol

So I reached the northern most part of the map, and its really tough, but Ive managed to hang with the enemies. Even beat a field boss. Then I unlocked the secret are nearby and oh god my poor asshole. It will never be the same.

NO! NO NO NO NO NO!

Imagine spending hours throwing your battered corpse against an unsurmountable enemy, finally winning, and then immediately being tapped on the shoulder by that monstrosity like "Hey, you, I know you're SUPER excited right now but that was just the warm up honey."

>_<

LJFGLKIUJFSHJ:KSFH:OKJLSDF ONE MORE HIT

A pox on this bitches house.

Update: F a pox, I burned that assholes house down.

this game is so god damn amazing. gets better the longer i play. took down a few bosses now, I'm lvl 27 I think?


Holy SHIT at the scale of this game man. Also, I found a mace, and leveled it. Blood damage is fucking lethal man. 3-4 shots on most things and BAM, blood explosion and death.


I cannot even imagine what its going to be like when shit gets real and I actually can live long enough to hang with the demi-god bosses. Lookin at you Margit, you ugly bastard.


Really enjoyed the Longboat boss in the flooded town. Just got my flask last night, after nearly 50 hours in, lol.


I keep getting the itch to start an alt. I found a whip. A fucking whip. No one told me I can go Simon Belmont on their asses. Kinda wanna make a dex build after mucking about with a dagger that had "sidestep" on it.


I can see an assassin type being VERY difficult to play, but also damn fun.

I have become Elden Lord

Going to fight the couple of super bosses and upgrade some weapons before I start a ng+

There's a NG+ ?????


Fuck me, I'm not getting away from this anytime soon.


Fuck those giant dog things that spread rot. Those fucking things man! Barely got 2 shots in on the first one.

I did take the dragon in Sellia down to half health before he decided he was done toying with me, lol.


This game is ridiculous, and I can't possibly imagine what the "big boss" fights are going to be like.

Im fighting her now and I might need to respec. Pure strength build is way to slow to fight her with.

You mean to tell me that after all this time those stupid little stakes in the ground have a freaking purpose? >_<