Is From Software Straight Up Killing Early Dark Souls Players?

In order to invade a player's game in Demon's Souls, you had to be within a certain level range of that player. Seems odd that Dark Souls would be any different. And how would you know what level the Black Phantom was, anyway?

@Vinny said:

Patrick, you should totally play it! Seriously!

Yea don't be a wuss.

@david1890 said:

@Vinny: why dont you just shove the game up his face? you're in the same office.

Another good way to go.

Come on Patrick, dont be a pussy, play demon souls, then dark souls BE A GOD DAMN MAN!

Play it ya big sissy!

Dark Souls, you are giving me a boner. Hurry up and come out <3

@TotalEklypse said:

@Vinny said:

Patrick, you should totally play it! Seriously!

Yea don't be a wuss.

@david1890 said:

@Vinny: why dont you just shove the game up his face? you're in the same office.

Another good way to go.

Or Endurance Run Dark Souls :)

I know I know, "not another ER suggestion!" But it seems so perfect. None of them have the intention of filling their busy schedule with Dark Souls for a timely review and it could very well push them to the limits of their endurance and test their patience!

Demon's Souls takes a little while to "get it". I was put off because I kept dying over and over on the first stage and I gave up for a little while. I then went back and finally managed to conquer that first boss.. and it felt good. I kept playing and it eventually turned into my favorite game of this generation. Everything about it is just right, the challenge, the skill, the level design, all brilliantly crafted.

Don't let all these tales of difficulty push you back from trying it. It's almost never unfair or arbitrarily hard. It is skill-based hard, something you rarely see nowadays. Once you get the hang of it you'll be destroying everything in your path, but you'll still be harshly punished if you let your guard down.

It's a game that marketing would never allow to be made, but it's a game people should appreciate that exists in this current gaming climate.

Apparently the developer's might be using enemy skins for their black phantoms and beefing them up to lvl145. It's goddamn incredible. Here's a screencap of one of these phantoms character screens. http://i.imgur.com/A8udL.jpg

I really hope they confirm it, it's such a deliciously devious thing to do. One thing that concerns me, though: in Demon's Souls you could only play with people of a similar level, so how are players being invaded by guys of levels like 140? Are they also that insanely leveled-up, or is the multiplayer level-lock gone in Dark Souls?

What kind of whackjob stories are keeping people away from this amazing game? It isn't even that hard you fools. It's epic with some of the most ingenious multiplayer options.

I actually love this form of retribution.

Doing this to the average Joe who got his hands on a copy before street date is cool, but what if they keep killing off characters of legitimate reviewers? I doubt it'll have a positive influence on their judging of the game.

I fear that, in an attempt to deal with people breaking street date in a "funny" way they might be shooting themselves in the foot when it concerns reviews.

@ Kazona, I don't think From gives a shit about you or your precious reviewers. From Software hates you. And you'll buy their game, out of some perverse psychological need we all have to harm ourselves.,

Fellow gamers, reviewers - Stop shying away from a genuine challenge. Pick up this game.

This could be a good way to instill bit of the pvp-fear back into the grizzled veterans. I don't think a competent reviewer would mistake it for the real thing.

@Kazona said:

Doing this to the average Joe who got his hands on a copy before street date is cool, but what if they keep killing off characters of legitimate reviewers? I doubt it'll have a positive influence on their judging of the game. I fear that, in an attempt to deal with people breaking street date in a "funny" way they might be shooting themselves in the foot when it concerns reviews.

Amazing.

Demon's Souls was a game one had to devote themselves  to, submit completely to its blessings and its cruel twists of fate, and the experience - for the right people - was magic.

Dark Souls isn't a game I can see any of the GB crew getting behind - it's an enormously deep RPG, but one that requires the attentiveness, reflexes and precision of an action game, while ALSO requiring a significant time investment for the real payoff.

Imagine Diablo's game design, God of War's gameplay (sans QTEs), and EverQuest's death punishment.

Quicklook it while you can!!

@phanatic: you die. you lose your souls (your money / items used to level your skills), you are in ghost form which makes you play with basically half life till you resurrect yourself which is either by killing the boss of a world or using one of the few stones you find. when you die, shit gets harder essentially.

@mdnthrvst said:

Imagine Diablo's game design, God of War's gameplay (sans QTEs), and EverQuest's death punishment.

Well, less God of War and more Monster Hunter. GoW is a little too fast hack and slash. In Demon's Souls you have to time your strikes and manage stamina much like Monster Hunter. Unsurprisingly, the GB crew doesn't like/get MH either, an already fairly niche game here in the west.

@McShank: I've seen alot of people talk about how awful it is too lose all your money/experience, but I feel that I need to express to everyone how easy you come across money in this game. You get tons of souls for lots of stuff and while it's punishing to lose the souls you've collected, it gives you incentive to spend your souls instead of hoarding it. There's only a few things you want to spend souls on apart from leveling anyways and repairing is usually insanely cheap anyways. Don't think that this game is as prohibitive as people say either. It's a tough game and its generally unforgiving, but if you spend a little time trying things out, you can break the game over your knee pretty quickly. I'm sure Dark souls will be the same way.

The stories about Demon's Souls' difficulty are seriously exaggerated. The game IS hard and FromSoftware hates you, but as long as you are not running around thinking it's God of War, it's just hard enough (the New Game+ is fucking insane, though).

But man, from what I've seen on that early stream that some japanese dude did yesterday, Dark Souls is waay harder, even with the checkpoints. And that's why I can't wait to play it! And I would really love to see Vinny and Dave playing this the same way they do with Daggerfall.

I would love participate in a Game Club thing with the GB crew where everyone agrees on a game to play for a week whether its a current release or whatever. It would be awesome to see how these guys are doing in a game like this while playing it myself.

@Rexicon: true :D

Demon's souls is hard but if you dont run in balls to the wall you will be fine. You will die, but how many games can you play through without dieing a few times. Souls are easy to get since you can farm worlds to your hearts content but that just means things get stronger as you go since the game pretty much levels with you. And NG+ does things to a ridiculous level.

note: from the 8th playthrough onwards, the difficulty will not increase further

@phanatic: Assuming it is like Demon's Souls (and I find myself as lazy as you when it comes to looking up what the penalty is in the sequel) you lose any accumulated/unspent "souls" (aka XP). Lost souls could be recovered if you make it back to your corpse ala old-school MMORPG-esque retrieval, but only one corpse will linger, so die again before you touch it and the first corpse is gone.

Personally I think this is hilarious.

I want to hear stories about people playing these games, without the pressure of figuring out the total nightmare on my own.

Sounds about right.

Killing players? Uh, no. Killing player characters, maybe.

@Delta_Ass said:

An Endurance Run of Dark Souls would definitely sell me on a paid membership.

That's a great idea. It would be a really good game to see an Endurance Run of.

Nah it's not because they're early players. This is totally in the final game... Probably

If anyone's wondering CT is Character Tendency, which is your sort of... good vs. evil rating. If you kill lots of Players by invading or killing human NPC's (even hostile ones!) will drop your CT which makes your max HP decrease but your attack power increases and you get a set of 'bad dude' quests, while increasing your CT makes your hp get higher and your attack power increases when you're in dead form.

I would like to note that this retarded system is completely gone from Dark Souls.

@Timing said:

Anyway, I don't get how level 99 in every stat now equates to overall level 145. In Demon's Souls the highest level was 712, with all the different stats at 99. Perhaps in Dark Souls the overall level just caps at 145 while you can still raise the other stats individually up to 99.

Or you can't raise them all to 99, or the stats don't go all the way up to 99, or you get more points to assign on each level, or 145 is just the max level of enemies in the game.

@gladspooky: I think any 2/3 to a retard could figure out they meant killing players in game.

This is the best idea ive heard in a wile.

I miss Otogi. *sigh* I bought Demons Souls when it became a greatest hit. I'll probably get this when it's one as well.

@Draxyle said:

Demon's Souls takes a little while to "get it". I was put off because I kept dying over and over on the first stage and I gave up for a little while. I then went back and finally managed to conquer that first boss.. and it felt good. I kept playing and it eventually turned into my favorite game of this generation. Everything about it is just right, the challenge, the skill, the level design, all brilliantly crafted.

Don't let all these tales of difficulty push you back from trying it. It's almost never unfair or arbitrarily hard. It is skill-based hard, something you rarely see nowadays. Once you get the hang of it you'll be destroying everything in your path, but you'll still be harshly punished if you let your guard down.

It's a game that marketing would never allow to be made, but it's a game people should appreciate that exists in this current gaming climate.

Well said, there has never been a game so deeply satisfying as Demon's Souls to me, and I normally despise games that are too hard.

"from software" ? thats the name of the developer? >_>

One of the most funny and awesome news for the past year.

Though game is already officially out in Japan.They could have acted this way a bit sooner.

This is simply BRILLIANT! Can't wait to get my copy of the game. And yeah the game is defiantly worth getting Patrick.

@patrickklepek said:

apparently developer From Software is messing with anyone who's managed to get their hands on an early copy by dropping in as "Black Phantoms" to nastily kill them as they journey on.

You made my year Patrick. I wish PSN wasn't down today. Makes me wanna go and invade people on Demon's Souls. Tool away From Software. Tool away.

Once I got into Demon's Souls it quickly became one of my all-time favorite RPGs and I've spent my fair share of time sitting infront of the tv sweating and screaming curses as I do my best to escape from a horrid black phantom.

This game is going to one badass game.

Yes, surely this exclusive content for early people is somehow a deterrent and not the complete opposite.

"from software" ? thats the name of the developer? >_>

@RockmanBionics: Based on this

@Rexicon said:

Apparently the developer's might be using enemy skins for their black phantoms and beefing them up to lvl145. It's goddamn incredible. Here's a screencap of one of these phantoms character screens. http://i.imgur.com/A8udL.jpg

your fourth suggestion seems the most reasonable.

@SirPsychoSexy said:

@gladspooky: I think any 2/3 to a retard could figure out they meant killing players in game.

Doesn't make it any less of a stupid title.

Killing players? Uh, no. Killing player characters, maybe.

I wish more developers would do things such as these. Like have events where super-powered devs go out to either help or destroy the players. It would be cool too if in multiplayer games, once in a while (rarely, of course) they would randomly super power a player.

@gladspooky: I think any 2/3 to a retard could figure out they meant killing players in game.

Demon's Souls takes a little while to "get it". I was put off because I kept dying over and over on the first stage and I gave up for a little while. I then went back and finally managed to conquer that first boss.. and it felt good. I kept playing and it eventually turned into my favorite game of this generation. Everything about it is just right, the challenge, the skill, the level design, all brilliantly crafted.

Don't let all these tales of difficulty push you back from trying it. It's almost never unfair or arbitrarily hard. It is skill-based hard, something you rarely see nowadays. Once you get the hang of it you'll be destroying everything in your path, but you'll still be harshly punished if you let your guard down.

It's a game that marketing would never allow to be made, but it's a game people should appreciate that exists in this current gaming climate.

I keep trying to convince myself that Dark Souls is something I want to play, but every time Vinny talks about the game's madness, that idea disappers.

Really, fuck everyone who played Demon's Souls and sells it like an e-peen experience.  It's the ultimate case of the fans ruining the band.

DEMON'S SOULS IS NOT LIKE CONTRA. IT IS NOT AN UNBEATABLE MASOCHISTIC GAME EXPERIENCE
 
Demon's Souls simply asks you to experiment with a variety of mechanics and apply them to novel situations without the benefit of in-game tutorialization. It is completely up to the player as to how you navigate the game's obstacles, and there are MANY strategies for dealing with each seemingly intractable problem. If you are persistent and creative, you will find Demon's Souls really rewarding.
 
 

@SirPsychoSexy said:

@gladspooky: I think any 2/3 to a retard could figure out they meant killing players in game.

Doesn't make it any less of a stupid title.