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this looks awesome. what's wrong with bonfires again??
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I hate all kinds of music but I was not particularly offended by the music in this trailer. it was extremely cheesy but seemed to be more or less tonally in line with the look and feel of the game. at least there were no wubs.

the trailer did not do much for me one way or the other. I'm still excited for dark souls ii, but I don't feel like this really told me anything interesting about it.
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the PC release may give me enough reason to finally upgrade my processor
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woooo
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oh man oh man I'm so pumped I could play a trumpet with my cock
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not that this means anything, but amazon is listing the PC release to be may 31
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I'm not watching that

but we'll see if I can hold out an entire month

I was a little disappointed that classes didn't matter that much in dark souls. generally speaking, making you actually commit to things is one of the things that I like most about dark souls, so I'm intrigued by the approach they're taking. the only issue I have with giving you all these starting options is that without a detailed understanding of how the game system actually works, all these important seeming choices can make it too intimidating. like, I don't mind having to commit to something, but only if I've learned enough about the game to where I feel like I'm making an educated decision.

but honestly it took me a playthrough and a half to understand dark souls well enough to where I felt like I really knew what I was doing with my stat upgrades and equipment choices, so... I don't think I'll mind if the learning curve is even steeper this time around. especially because I'm going in with a strong knowledge of the basics of the game.
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do y'all think there will be any significant disadvantages to the 360 version? I'm ps3-less at the moment...
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I've mostly played on PC with a 360 pad, so that should be fine.

the footage I've seen seems to be overall... brighter in appearance. like, less shadows and more light, overall. maybe that's just a side effect of streaming compression, idk. I'm waiting to see it in person.
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bandit seems pretty tight
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what a babe
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so uh, who else is waiting for the PC release? it's gonna be hard but I don't think I can afford it until then anyway, I definitely can't afford to buy it twice
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;__;
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I still believe in dark souls, deej
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I'm assuming that at least you won't be able to warp to a bonfire until you light it, right? so it's not like oblivion fast travel where you can just go anywhere at any time...
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even with the lordvessel you still can't warp to a non-lit bonfire

I'm assuming that only certain bonfires will be warpable like in ds1, too
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I haven't (and won't) bother to read that whole thread but those comparisons seem more than a little suspect to me

it's hard to tell how much of the difference is a deliberate aesthetic thing and it looks "worse" (maybe) because it's a lower quality transfer or something
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idk it looks like it's an aesthetic thing to me, even if the second shot uses less resources. like the lighting is more extreme and dark and contrasting and so it's super dramatic in the demo, but ya know, it's just a frickin' hallway, so maybe it should look like a hallway? I don't think the second shot looks "bad" at all... and in animated gifs they show it still looks like there's a fair amount of pixel lighting or whatever you call it on the wall textures in the retail version. it just looks like they toned it down to me?
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except the original footage I thought was from the PS3 demo?
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yeah the downgrade is noticeable. I'm not gonna let it dampen my excitement tho
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I sure wish we could find more interesting things to obsess over!
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I never thought I'd say this, but I really wish don marco was here to slap some sense into toptube
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I was never a huge fan of the color correction in DS1, so I'm not that sad that it's gone here. I did notice in a lot of the gameplay footage that the game looks overall more... washed out, or something, than DS1. which is probably what that is? but I don't mind how it looks...
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the original dark souls was pretty darn inconsistent visually tho

even the really gorgeous areas like anor londo were also kind strangely sparse and often had really really rudimentary geometry

tomb of the giants is kind of a muddy mess, as is blighttown and the depths

and frickin' lost izalith/demon ruins are really really rough in spots

but even when the technical side of things isn't there, the art direction still sells it

I feel pretty confident the same will be true of this game



and BESIDES all of that, what I really like about dark souls, and what really sells the atmosphere to me, moreso than fancy lighting or geometry, or even the architecture or art direction, is the overall sense of level design. even the weirder jankier looking places are still well thought out design wise and feel like lived in places. every square foot "feels" real because of this attention to detail and layout

so I'm more concerned about that kinda stuff, since it tends to be what most AAA studios completely miss. and what I've heard about all that so far sounds pretty promising.
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the exterior of anor londo is beautiful. the interior of the church is just kinda oddly sparse. in a way it kinda makes sense tho
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I think it's a deliberate aesthetic decision that was not executed very well
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I just don't think anyone feels crapped upon. it's a bummer that it doesn't look as fancy as it did in earlier builds. but I mean... god of war this ain't, ya know? I just don't think anyone here really cares that much...
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PC version looks to look as good dark souls 1 did on PC. just on a technical level. sad that they didn't restore the really cool looking lighting effects but the lighting IS noticeably better in the cardinal tower/forest of giants area, which is a washed out muddy mess on consoles. watching the footage it looks as crisp and clean and dynamic as anything in dks1. at least to my eyes. and I know youtube compression has a way of killing contrast so I am feeling a little hopeful that it will look slightly nicer in person as well.

I think this game is often uglier than Dks1 but more aesthetically than technologically. and I still don't feel as if that's unintentional... there were areas of dks1 that were deliberately ugly (I'd count most of the undead burg, blightown, etc), which reinforced a certain atmosphere of being ramshackle and unpleasant. I don't feel that the forest of lost giants is that different in what they were trying to achieve.

the only technical problem I see that's still intact is repetitive textures, which I've only seen happen noticeably in a handful of places. and given how enormous the game is it's not surprising to me that there's some lack of polish in these spots... I could also imagine that possibly being fan-patched without to much hassle.

but I gotta say I'm really looking forward to the PC build...!
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