On a recent podcast @vinny mentioned that he would like an option in the Dark Soul's universe to be able to summon in friends specifically, suggesting that a covenant could be joined to allow you to do this. In principal, I'm against the idea because I like the desolation and loneliness that comes from having to play on your own, only relying on strangers to help you (I think it'd be even better if they removed the gamertags of the people you were playing with to make this even more effective).

However, I thought it would be cool and fit with the theme of the game on one condition: if there was a second covenant you could join to invade all of the players in the cooperative one whenever you wanted (like how the Darkwraiths worked in the last game - using the Red Eye Orb whenever you pleased). These are two covenants where the concept of relative level ranges could be wiped away; meaning, if you could summon a friend to your game no matter how high a level they are, then you could also be invaded by someone no matter how high a level they are.

Playing with friends would make the game tremendously easier, so there must be an inherent risk there to balance it out (especially if level restrictions were removed for friends). I think this would be a really fun way to level the playing field, and also make multiplayer covenants still viable to players who want to max their level out, and not cap it at an arbitrary PVP limit.

Would you play in either of these hypothetical covenants? What other covenant ideas would you like to see implemented?

I'd love for it to have Journey's "multiplayer," but an option to play through it with a friend would be a lot of fun. Like you said, they'd have to rebalance things, but I'd love to set up ambushes with a buddy.

yep this is probably why FromSoftware will keep it random: to avoid promoting the already annoying ganking. On the paper it looks good for people who have fun in cooperation, in practice it is just giving fire power for people to plague others gaming experience by ganging up to ruin any competition.

@announakis: Oh, I meant ambushes for Black Knights and such, luring enemies into backstabs, that sort. I'm not a fan of the PvP multiplayer in Dark Souls (I stayed hollow throughout much of my three playthroughs) which is why I'd much prefer a silently co-operative PvE multiplayer environment.

They just need to add a Book of the Guilty style item where you can add already summoned players to a list for summoning later.

This already happens and is fucking awful so legitimizing it would just be much worse.

I doubt they'd ever do something like that, but you have the right idea in that there would have to be consequences. There are always consequences.

Honestly, I'd prefer it if they just had a Halo Reach type thing where you can select your preferred playstyle - free-for-all, new player/exploration, speedrun/grinding, etc.

How about you can only summon a friend if you are both are doing new+? So you HAVE to finish the game the "old way" but when you have done this and want to fight that impossible dragon with your friend? Go ahead, give it a shot.

I personally would like the option to just invite a friend. I dislike playing co-operatively with strangers and would rather play alone, having some unrelated ghost-man make a boss easier for me feels like a cop-out anyways.

But after a couple of playthroughs, it'd be nice to be able to do some dumb runs with friends, preferably hassle free. Co-op runs over skype is some of the most fun I've had with the original.