[Talbain]

[sarsamis]

Yeah, who plays the PvE? I just go straight into multiplayer (what???).

(For the record, most of my DS2 complaints are pretty minor. I haven't played 157 hours so far because I hate it or anything.)

***

Guys, I really like the level design in this DLC so far. Just been taking it slow because lazy and getting invaded a lot.

[Talbain]

[misadventurous]

so people (on the internet) say the dlc has good level design. confirm/deny?

dks2's levels, for the most part, make me yawn sadly

[mauve]

completely unrelated to anything gameplay

http://imgur.com/a/JoFIZ https://www.tumblr.com/blog/vesvespaa emerald herald cosplay
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twit

[mauve]

i didn't realize this until talking to a friend and hearing how disappointed she was in the female npcs and generally available female equipment (there really is no reason for the desert sorceress gear, amongst other things)

people who've been digging around the data files have pointed out that there's going to be an evil queen in literally every dlc in addition to the main game

that's actually fairly offputting if i think about it
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twit

[CubaLibre]

[Talbain]

[diplo]

As good as the Souls series typically has been with not making its female characters objects to ogle, there have always been some problems. I think the most obvious one in Demon's Souls is the gender-exclusive equipment. This hit me hardest recently when I finally did what I needed to do to get to Old King Doran and found out that his armor was MAN ONLY. I really don't consider the Maiden in Black to be pandering, and the moe~ criticism doesn't work that well for me because the basis behind moe~ that is that literally every single pathetic characteristic is fetishized. It's a criticism with its place but it can be misguided since it can target legitimate female characters because they have vulnerabilities. Pretty much all of Dark Souls' female character have no proactive role and are reticent or have some damsel dynamic going on, so Lucatiel was a nice introduction in 2. But yeah, there is a very weird strain of "women going crazy and doing evil things" theme in DS2, plus the introduction of the "seductress" with the description for the SeXXXi Exposed Back witch shirt and the desert sorcerers' Makeout Attack (and you also have some of Gilligen's comments about "women HEH amirite" (although!! we should always try to be careful to distinguish the makeup of a character as expressed by their dialogue in contrast to genuinely held beliefs of the creators)).

[Talbain]

I would say it's not so much as the fetishization of everything but mostly the passivity of the character with regards to pretty much anything a character does to them. It's a sort of, "that's ok, even if it's terrible" reaction to anything, especially males. There's also a visual factor which I certainly think a lot of the characters in the Souls series meet the requirements of, justified or not. I would say that the problems for each of the Souls series regarding female characters is uniquely problematic, but I do believe there is a general fetishism of both untouchability and a strange, monstrous quality to them. I'm not really sure where that comes from, but I do know that it's off-putting to a lot of people who play the games, especially women. Anecdotal, but I'll say that one of my friends put it down after the arachne fight, and another was really troubled by how constantly uncomfortable the characters made her.

Does Kay ever make mention of it in her playthroughs? Haven't had time to sit through them.

This quote still troubles me, which was in the Design Works for Dark Souls 1:

[CubaLibre]

There's always been some problematic elements, but passivity and damselness isn't exclusive to female NPCs in Souls games - that basically describes every NPC. The whole dreamy atmosphere of the game is buttressed by the fact that the NPCs don't really seem to be living in the world but rather a part of its decoration. The only exception I can think of is Ostrava. Even the assassin characters work completely offscreen. In Demon's, arguably the most satanic, self-interested manipulator - Mephistopheles - has a completely mysterious gender.

I was more talking about the character design itself. DkS2 just has a lot of conventionally attractive female characters, usually in flattering outfits and without any kind of head coverings that obscure their pretty faces. Consider Milibeth, Chloanne, Rosabeth, Licia, and the Milfanito. One of them you even play god damn dress up with. The reward for building up your S-Link with Lucatiel? Seeing her face. (There's also something to like about this, but it's also evidence of a trend.) It's less actively offensive and more boring. Consider Demon's by contrast, where the Maiden in Black has had her eye sockets burned out and covered in what looks like melted wax and Miralda is a homicidal maniac with a burlap sack on her head. The only "problem" there is Yuria.
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Let's Play, starring me.

[Talbain]

I don't really think passivity is a problem with every (or even most) NPC(s), but the point at which they are uniquely in the frame as actors is certainly an issue.

At the point of debating dress, aside from Rosabeth, most of the characters are pretty inoffensive. I would say that things like wax over one's eyes or a bag over a characters head, while perhaps more interesting, still promotes a pretty specific fetishism. I don't disagree that such straight-laced characters is a less interesting world design, just that it's neutral.

As for the S-link stuff, I would say that comes off a lot more strongly in Dark Souls 1 than in 2.
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[diplo]

[mauve]

http://imgur.com/a/HCqv6 we have to make sure the women have shorter skirts otherwise nobody will know they are female

the characterizations in demon's or dark didn't really bother me or even any of the women i know, but i have been hearing complaints about ds2 and i think it's understandable. chloanne's outfit doesn't even make sense for someone who's supposed to be digging up ore in the midst of things that can kill even the chosen undeadbearer of the curse pretty easily.

though i think we can all agree the best npc in ds2 is shalquoir

maiden in black always struck me as otherworldly more than anything else, she existed to keep your dumb soul ass in one piece and it was hard not to respect her for it. emerald herald seems much pushier with telling you where to go every time you talk with her and is much less endearing for it.
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[CubaLibre]

[misadventurous]

dark 1 had sieglinde and the anor londo fire keeper and that hollow moss lady! and there are only three really scantily clad women, and two of them have a giant horrible spider for legs and the other wears a sack on her head and tries to chop you up with a giant butcher knife. i think the first dark souls is doing ok as far as gender parity goes (in videogames).

also, yeah, just about every npc has a "damsel" element. people in dark souls 1 whom you have to free, rescue and/or help, roughly in order: lautrec, griggs, laurentius, rhea, dusk, logan, siegmeyer, logan again, sieglinde, siegmeyer again, siegmeyer a few more times, dusk again (if you have the dlc), solaire. rhea and dusk are the most traditional "damsels", the rest are a lady knight and a bunch of dudes.

shout out to the hormone slider

[diplo]

Rat King, c'mon.

[Broco]

The Embedded? For making explicit the basic nature of item quest NPCs

[Talbain]

Bell Keeper Puppet
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[Rud31]

The Rat King is benevolent and kind.
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[8128]

long live rat king
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[Brooks]

Every NPC in Bloodborne should be a cool beast

[Oh God Spiders No]

Okay, I think we should actually examine these claims of Damseling and Moe-ifying with some actual hard numbers instead of just one-off anecdotes.

Here's my quick breakdown of gender representation in Demon's Souls. It would be interesting to see how this changes in Dark and Dark 2.

Overview
Males (20)
Blacksmith Boldwin
Blacksmith Ed
Patches the Hyena
Saint Urbain
Disciple of God (vendor)
Sage Freke
Stockpile Thomas
Biorr of the Twin Fangs
Crestfallen Warrior
Acolyte of God
Ostrava of Boletaria
Yurt, the Silent Chief
Dregling Merchant
Old King Doran
Filthy Man
Scirvir the Wanderer
Lord Rydell
Graverobber Blige
Satsuki
Garl Vinland

Females (10)
Yuria the Witch
Maiden in Black
Mephistopheles
Worshipper of God
Executioner Miralda
Once Royal Mistress
The Monumental
Sparkly the Crow
Filthy Woman
Selen Vinland

Women are under-represented 2:1 by males. This could probably be considered a problem, given that not every character we meet is a warrior. There are lots of magicians and vendors and such and other roles that could be reasonably filled by women even in a historically “accurate” portrayal of a medieval war scenario.

Recue Missions
Urbain
Freke
Biorr
Ostrava
Yurt
Rydell
Yuria

Males in need of rescue outnumber women 6:1. In our 2:1 male:female population this means that men, in fact, are disproportionately OVERrepresented as being in need of rescue, by a large margin.

Ruthless Warrior Badasses.
These can be people we rescue, but their characterization is that of a generally competent, fearless warrior. I’m ignoring the actual “power” of these characters here, and focusing more on archetype and personality. For instance, Scirvir’s Black Phantom is probably the hardest humanoid enemy in the game after Doran, but his characterization is that of a nebbish hoarder. This list is subjective:

Biorr
Ostrava
Yurt
Garl Vinland
Doran
Mephistopheles
Executioner Miralda
Selen Vinland

Perhaps surprisingly, the genders are rather evenly matched here, 5:3 male:female. If you struck Ostrava from the list for constantly needing the player’s help the ratio would actually be 4:3. Women are again overrepresented given our population.

Passive Characters
Let’s look at generally passive, timid characters. This doesn’t mean they need rescuing or help, or that they’re actually weak combatants, but that their demeanor is shown in dialogue to be passive or submissive.

Yuria
Maiden in Black
Stockpile Thomas
Scirvir
Crestfallen Warrior
Sparkly the Crow
Worshipper of God (F)
Acolyte of God (M)

The ratio here is 1:1. Again, men are OVER represented in our population as being weak of character, hopeless, and passive.

Evil Characters
Let’s break our evil characters, those that have objectively bad, murderous character. This does not include rude or angry people like Ed or the Filthy Woman. It also does not include the sanctimonious hypocrites of the Godly Nexus Crew.

Patches
Yurt
Satsuki
Garl (debatable)
Mephistopheles
Executioner Miralda

Evil characters are presented in a 2:1 male:female ratio, which given our 2:1 population is perfectly balanced.

There’s probably more breakdowns that could be held but this is taking a long time.

CONCLUSION:

In Demon’s Souls there are far fewer female characters than male characters, but the game is otherwise admirable in how it portrays each gender in a wide range of archetypes, job roles, and personality types.

It would be great to see more women characters in general, though.

I personally think the weird moe fetishization of characters like Yuria can be blamed on fans, not the developers themselves.
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[mauve]

i have never met anyone who disliked yuria, ever

when i looked at japanese demon's videos, the most moe character was widely agreed to be ostrava

also, counting garl but not astraea?

(also sorry but i blocked your sig image because it's huge)

[Talbain]

I still think Demon's Souls is the best overall game in the series. But then, you also had a magic bar and I love feeling like an old-timey fantasy game spellcaster.
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[Oh God Spiders No]

Ah, Astraea was left out because she's not technically an NPC, just a Boss Demon, so I guess she didn't appear on the list that I pulled from.

I suppose I should put King Allant on that list then, too. I'll do it later, maybe.
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[Mikey]

[apfEID]

Yuria the Witch bothered me a lot when I played Demon's.

One of the things that made Dark Souls so special to me (and it was my first encounter with the series) was that it was the least sexist/male gaze-y mainstream M rated console game I'd played in ages, Quelaag and Gwynevere aside.

Even the stuff that I'd typically expect to be done in poor taste is handled reasonably well. If you follow the correct set of story branches, Petrus implies you could do anything you want (i.e. rape) Rhea, but even that is delivered in a way that makes it feel like he's a despicable shit and encourages the player to kill him (which is beneficial to the player, actually.) The only stuff I find really gross is user messages about "amazing chest ahead" and the devs aren't directly responsible for that one.

This contrasts with Batman: Arkham City, which I have been playing for the first time this past week, wherein random thug dialog involves rape threats or implications often enough that I find it really distracting. (Not to mention the constant unnecessary use of "bitch"; game is trying so hard to be grim dark it's failing to realize it's absolutely fucking ridiculous. I'm glad I got it through PS+ rather than paying money for it. It's otherwise reasonably fun.)

When I went back and played Demon's for the first time, the Maiden in Black and Yuria bothered me; the MiB is a pretty cool character in reality/once you read more into it, but in game I wish she had more depth in her dialog throughout the game, and Yuria's attitude towards the player and herself, with her magic being rooted in emotion and Sage Freke's being rooted in reason are really lame. Your mileage may vary and I'm not saying *everyone* should feel the way I do, they were just a bummer compared to Dark.

In comparison to both, on this topic, Dark 2 fucking blows. Starting you off as a dude every time instead of randomizing the body before the character creation? A dress up game, seriously? An ore merchant only having "one thing to offer"? that they didn't block "woman ahead, weakness: hole", among other sexually threatening user messages, isn't surprising but they should have; there was a while where I stopped looking at any of them because it was so annoying and immersion-breaking to be 4chan level trolled in game.

OTOH, the sex change coffin rules.

I'm a hetro dude who loved P.N.03, so i guess only have so much room to complain, but on this aspect (and on a couple other less socially important but game design lines) DkS2 was a big disappointment, but at least that fucking ridiculous outfit from the initial reveal (not the assassins, the young woman one) didn't make it into the final game.
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Te Occidere Possunt Sed Te Edere Non Possunt Nefas Est
http://ageoffire.tumblr.com

[mauve]

yuria was pretty obviously the precursor to pyromancy to me, given she had firestorm and other assorted things, and, well.. i actually thought that duality is funny, because it was very clear that freke was the emotional one(seriously, listen to him talk just before you go visit the old one, he's nuts) and yuria was the rational, controlled one. i should check the japanese but i felt like willpower would have been a much better word choice than emotion. she struck me as completely sane and sympathetic with a completely rational way of managing in a crazy world; wouldn't the player be infinitely more insane for trying to do the things that he/she does?

always felt like i was paying a debt to the maiden in black. hi i'm a stupid adventurer who got punched to death by a dragon, thanks for keeping me alive

[Oh God Spiders No]

The sex change coffin was cool, though I wish it were tucked into some obscure corner of the world instead of presented obviously right there in the tutorial dungeon.

Kinda subversive, interesting that the only thing they allow you to alter about your appearance is your gender, and not your features, tattoos, or even hair.
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[mauve]

edit: okay the official translation sucked. I redid it and revised things here.
there's new patch notes, i retranslated them. yay.

summary, in no particular order:
- rip buff stacking
- not one word about monastery scimitar. (if they don't re-nerf it, hahahhaa no game is fucking done goodbye.)
- riposte/backstab damage 'balanced' in multiplayer, long overdue.
- basically all offensive magic has reduced poise damage. no complaints here.
- clear bluestone ring +2 nerfed for no apparent reason since there was nothing really wrong with it.
- stone ring buffed, now making poise a pretty useless stat in general. probably done to counteract the magic nerf.
- spell parries buffed, yay?

ugh this game. i don't agree with most of this.

re: sex change coffin. character creation protip is to switch genders after you make everything to see how you look then and can tweak it so you can switch any time you feel like it!
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[mauve]

yes.
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twit

[Rud31]

please pair with this
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[rye]

MAX CHAIN
MAX CHAIN
EXCELLENT
MAX CHAIN
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[Iacus]

[Iacus]

Fwiw, the Corrupt Evil Queen Theme of DS2 seems to me like an inversion / attempted subversion of the Corrupt Evil King theme in both previous Souls games (given that there's also a disgraced king, mentioned at the very beginning of the game in relation to your ultimate goal, but revealed to be just a mindless hollow and not the final boss)

It's not very interesting that they did the same thing for the DLC, but the DLC itself it's a thematically-linked trilogy, so it at least makes sense.
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Guayaba 2600

[Joachim]

I don't think dreamlike is necessarily incorrect, I just think it implies something far more interesting and with far greater potential than was realized.
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[mauve]

this is a thing.

also patch came and there's no nerf to monastery scim. ggs

i am told there is a white blacksteel(whitesteel?) katana in the majula chest now for the nobody that cares
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twit

[mauve]

all the new items/weapons in the iron king dlc. an old friend shows up at the end

also those new long swords have a moveset that looks REALLY STRONG. like maybe new top tier strong. balder side sword fans rejoice
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[Rud31]

what did they do to the netcode to make it laggy and bullshit?
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[mauve]

it's always been that way.

the network programmer in me silently rages every time i play because i know it doesn't need to be as bad as it is.
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twit