[analogos]

i have 4 VGR and it's probably gonna stay that way so RIP for a while.

[OffalAl]

doubtless there's another way around. sure is one inviting pit though
_________________
♟♟
♝♞

[Ronnoc]

[OffalAl]

[analogos]

ok nvm. some combination of unhollowing and rings and equipment got me down there fine. probably hadn't tried as recently as i thought. 4 vgr 4 lyf

[Ronnoc]

On a related note, does respecing cost anything?

[analogos]

[remote]

yeahhhh, so tonight i spent a very short while dinking around with the rat covenant before finding my way down to the gutter, which is totally the valley of defilement/blighttown of this game, though the constant pulsing sound reminds me of the giant heart in latria... man oh man

i also found the sunbro altar! it's in the weirdest place and idgi but... ok!

after that i finally started doing stuff in the network test area. man, that skybox with the birds fluttering around over the forest! and i joined the blood cult. did a bunch of invasions in that area, plus some duels. i just want to say that right now the old sun ring is hilarious and kind of stupid and i LOVE it.

oh god what am i doing awake
_________________

letterboxd | last.fm | steam

[Felix]

Looks like we're all pretty much in the same place today, that's neat

[boojiboy7]

man i am behind y'all, but that is OK. i've been running lots of co-op, which is good times.

[BotageL]

Down the well is one of my favorite areas. >:)
_________________

http://www.mdgeist.com/

[apfEID]

[Felix]

[ChairTax]

Went into the pit in Majula. Made my way all the way down to The Gutter but missed the first bonfire when a floor broke out from under me, totally cutting me off from reaching it at all. I then had to fight and leap valiantly all the way to the second bonfire and I was pretty pleased that I'd managed to pull it off. Was also the first time I used a butterfly torch item thing and was about the fourth/fifth time where I've felt that the game gave me the exact sort of experience that I desired.



Still haven't been dying much to bosses.

[Felix]

so uh hey is the expectation that each of these semi-linear-semi-intersecting paths eventually going to terminate in one of the four "great souls" or what have you? because so far the game's dropped more hints about the last game's narrative than it has about its own.

I have a lot of work to catch up on today.

[DJ]

This thread is terribly amusing for me to read (in a truly good way) I'll just have you guys know. I never got to see the full completed game for the first time (my first exposure was long ago and in pieces), so living vicariously over here.
_________________

[GcDiaz]

Is there any particular reason why http://farfire.darksoulsii.com/pc/players/index.html would show such a discrepancy between consoles? FIVE game clears on PS3 as opposed to almost FIVE THOUSAND on xbox. Is that a true reflection of sales between the two? Do you think the name-engraved ring and it's co-op facility had something to do with it?

I know when I bought OG dark souls I chose the 360 version due to what I had assumed to be a larger player pool. Looking back I don't think that actually mattered at all, but maybe habits are hard to break.
_________________
Steam/PSN/Xbawks: GcDiaz

Let's bring sexy back!

[Felix]

my thinking is that either the testing folks counted toward the total on 360 and not on PS3 due to inconsistent APIs OR the series has caught on among achievement-loving, large-amounts-of-free-time-having, finish-the-AAA-game-inside-of-three-days folks to a much greater extent than expected, and these people disproportionately own 360s.

in terms of visuals what I've heard is that the 360 framerate is actually parked around 30 most of the time (as opposed to the PS3's wild swinging from 15-50, which doesn't bother me that much), but it has the tearing issues we see now and then on 360 games. I've been seeing plenty of messages on PS3 and have been invaded multiple times so no worries there!

[remote]

i find it sort of odd that i have not been invaded once (by a blood bro (the belfry and the rat king stuff took me by surprise!)), especially since co-op has been so fast and easy, and while i started doing invasions of my own last night they were nearly instantaneous once i used a cracked red eye orb or put down a red sign.

on that note, i feel like invasions in huntsman's copse are going to be the new forest pvp.

btw, lag: the only time i seem to notice is when it takes a moment for a hit to register on my opponent's health bar. once it was even bad enough that i thought for a moment that someone had already found a hack (because they kept moving and attacking while their health bar caught up, or something). aside from that, though, really no issues with lag and the overall pvp/co-op system is so much smoother than before. i mean, gosh, remember when summons constantly failed in the first game, and we still loved it to death...?!

lastly, once again: oh man, the old sun ring is totally the best pvp ring right now.
_________________

letterboxd | last.fm | steam

[Joachim]

I haven't been able to do any PVP yet. I've only been able to connect to the server for a total of 3 hours.

Also, how have people been doing with item drops? I slew one of the knights in the Flame Tower early on and it dropped its armor, which had a ridiculously good total defense of 800 something, with a standard defense of 180.

The Lost Sinner was surprisingly trivial.

Does anyone know where to get more Titanite?
_________________

[remote]

lost sinner is just a slower artorias tbh
_________________

letterboxd | last.fm | steam

[Felix]

I've actually been winning invasions unlike in Dark Souls, probably because I don't insist on using gear that's terrible for PvP once everyone's already at high levels

[Felix]

[remote]

oh, so: i mean, i'm 23-ish hours in and this game feels huge. am i right in thinking this must be bigger than demon's and dark combined? like... much bigger?
_________________

letterboxd | last.fm | steam

[Felix]

I dunno. I think it might be more deceptively-huge relative to the way Dark is paced and structured than actually-huge.

that said I'm like 15 hours in and the massiveness is definitely the most exciting part at the moment.

[rye]

There is just zero wait for summons. It's getting addicting.

Fighting The Pursuer, it's amazing how many people have killed the host by not checking their line of fire.
_________________

[Relevant]

I made it to the area past the Shrine of Winter last night, best looking area in the game so far. You'll come across a large door with two statues kill a few mobs next to them so the statues will absorb their souls.. This took me over an hour to figure out..

[Toptube]

It reportedly has a lot more bosses. So it seems to be a large game!

[remote]

[ChairTax]

Remote, I've got 25 hours logged and I'm at the point where, regardless of how big the world actually is, the implied size of it when I look through my notes and all the places I've been to and conquered or bounced from is staggering. Like, I can't really fathom how big it is--it just feels REAL BIG.

And that's a joy.

Edit because I can't grammar.

[BotageL]

I was talking with mauve about this the other night; I think DkS2 is a lot worse at creating a sense of place compared to DkS1, but is better at creating a sense of vastness. It's a feeling of a grand, sprawling adventure, rather than feeling like you're exploring a relatively contained, and somewhat cohesive, structure. Both approaches have their benefits.
_________________

http://www.mdgeist.com/

[Felix]

I would agree with that!

[rye]

I think From has, quite intentionally, really shaped the Souls series so each game has kind of a different flavor. There are always going to be parts of the others you enjoy more for different reasons. They're all still viable to play and fun to return to; no one game 'replaces' the other, just offers a differently tuned experience around similar themes.

They might be my favorite developer right now!
_________________

[mauve]

beat the gargoyles third try. would've been second but a loud noise outside distracted me at 95% and i died. insert fist shaking here

i really like how much is open to me at any given time, I can just wander about forever and keep finding new things. definitely agree with botage about the structure; it's less interlocked but more wandering.

found the claymore and, yep, it still has its awesome stabbing r2s. too bad i'm not finding any damned large titanite anywhere, so i'm kinda stuck with the weapons i have. why is the game even stingier than ds1 was? aggravating.

edit: it just now occurs to me that, if the ore thing is pissing me off, i should probably go to where ore usually comes from...

[another god]

I am really liking how some shortcuts change your entire approach to certain enemy encounters.
_________________
interdimensional

[analogos]

[rye]

Has anyone noticed some enemies close to bonfires will stop spawning after a while?
_________________

[remote]

last night i actually noticed two pop up right by a bonfire where they hadn't been before
_________________

letterboxd | last.fm | steam

[analogos]

[Broco]

[analogos]

10 seems about right. kind of think it should've been a case-by-case basis instead of a uniform number, but it's hard to entirely tell the consequences of this yet