Background
The past year brought us a lot of great games and has led some people calling it one of the greatest years in gaming. One of the games it brought us was Bloodborne and I had no intention of playing it. For whatever reason, the Bloodborne aesthetic did not capture me like it did so many others but it did something else. It reminded me of my past Dark Souls experience. A frustrating one where the first thing I did was brute force my way through an area I was very under leveled for. I kept telling myself “This is Dark Souls, it’s supposed to be hard,” and kept going. It wasn’t until I just about gave up that I searched the web and realized there was actually a path new players were suppose to follow. My experience immediately changed from pure frustration to enjoyment. Unfortunately it was cut short because life just became too busy.
Well here I am, back three years later and ready to jump back in because of the debates about how Dark Souls should be played (in reaction to Dan Ryckert’s stream). It has led to me thinking a lot about the game and realizing how badly I wanted to play it again; I mean, it IS sitting in my steam library. I also heard a lot of people mention how much they enjoyed watching others play the game, sometimes to vicariously experience the obscurity of the game. Because of this, I decided to stream my playthrough on twitch as well, which will be my first time streaming any gameplay.
I’ve decided I’m going to try and spec a simple character and try not to get to fancy. The playthrough is going to be pretty blind. Besides my limited prior knowledge of the game, there are certain design decisions in video games that tend to give me slight anxiety, consumables being an example. Dark Souls takes this to the next level by making everything obscure but that’s also part of the experience. It is the blind long term commitments that I dislike and as such, will gladly take advice at least on joining covenants. Besides that, I will still be interacting with the chat. I have written more about my interactivity with my viewers and chat later in this blog.
Let's Just Do It!
My inaugural “Welcome back to Dark Souls,” was the inviting boulder that slammed me back down the stairs I was climbing. Mind you, this was during the tutorial; the game wastes no time in letting you know what it is and what you are in for. Lesson #1: Expect the unexpected. We continued past the tutorial, taking no time in defeating the Asylum Demon, and continued towards the Firelink Shire.
If there’s one piece of advice an experienced Souls player might tell you, it would probably be to always learn from your deaths, otherwise no progress will be made. Well the lessons continued to pile on as mistakes were made. The first death was a consequence of dodging sporadically and falling off of a cliff. Lesson #2: Maintain your composure and always be aware of your surroundings. The second came to the Taurus Demon, our first real boss encounter. Here, it is not just the death itself that teaches and helps us progress but rather the whole fight. It is hard to expect a win going into a first encounter with a boss, so instead we focus on analyzing. How do they move? How do they attack? How do they react? This is the collection of knowledge that greatly increases your preparedness for the next encounter. Lesson #3:Analyze your enemy.
After my first death with the Gargoyles, I decided to take advantage of the game mechanics to help me analyze. I placed a summoning sign near their entrance and helped another player defeat them. Even if I had died, there would be no consequence for me which essentially makes this free knowledge. With the tools I needed, I dove back into the flames. During this fight I realized that the more I conservatively I played, the less openings I found. As long as I was safe and knew where both enemies were, I could close the distance and be more aggressive. Lesson #4:Sometimes the best defense is a good (and smart) offense.
The Gargoyles were done and I had the biggest grin on my face as I climbed towards the first bell. After hearing the chime over and over from other players achieving what I had not, I finally had my moment. It was finally me who was ringing the bell and knowing that other players would hear this exact chime made it special. “This is it; this is why people love Dark Souls,” I thought to myself. The game might not be the hardest game out there but it certainly knows how to make you feel accomplished, and I can’t wait to continue the fight as I make my way towards the second bell.
*Highlight of the night at 2:37*
First Time Streaming
This was also the first time I had streamed at all to twitch and it certainly made playing the game more enjoyable. Sure, I don’t have hundreds of followers, actually I had none prior to this (okay, I had one after I posted my anticipatory blog) and the most unique viewers that popped in was somewhere just over ten, but it was the five that stayed for long periods that made the experience special. Knowing that I had viewers who had invested multiple hours into this run with me made me feel as if I was not just playing for myself, but that I was playing for them as well. There was no feeling of pressure, though, just excitement. It isn’t exactly like playing with a friend on the couch but it comes somewhere close.
Interacting with the viewers made the play-through unique. So instead of searching the internet for answers to my questions, I had experienced Souls players help guide me. I traded the possibility of being over informed by web searches for the possibility of being spoiled by the viewers. The thing about streaming, though, is that you can be as specific as you want with your questions and you can explain the kind of answers you want. An example of this was when the first covenant offered me membership.
Blind commitments that have unknown long term effects give me just as much anxiety as consumables when it comes to games. I explained this to the chat as I denied the offer and one of my viewers was quick to tell me that there would essentially be no consequences for joining this particular covenant. I thanked him and I quickly joined. Sure, I still have no idea what I’ve gained but I no longer have the lingering anxiety of the offer. Chat was able to give me a quick nudge and did not spoil anything. The second example here is the chat hinted me about a nearby bonfire. Sure, you could say this might be too much but it is the context that’s important here. I had been preparing for a fight with an enemy I was not sure I could defeat (Berenike Knight & Channeler) and had been running from a bonfire far away. Almost all of the enemies along this path were basically fodder and served only as a nuisance at this point. A viewer simply told me there was a nearby bonfire and I took to exploring instead of taking on the fight straight away. There were still enemies to get through along this new path but the path was much shorter. Is the unnecessary frustration of the longer path part of the Souls experience? I’ll leave that up to you but I think you by now you understand where I come from at this. The benefits of streaming and having experiences with others (even virtually) are certainly more enjoyable than going through the pure solitary Dark Souls experience.
Let's Wrap It Up
So there we have it, day one of my first full run of Dark Souls and my first streaming experience is in the books. There was hardly any frustration and almost all of the deaths and cheap design of the game made me laugh more often than not. The goofy grin on my face on my way to the first bell exemplifies my excitement to jump back in and work my way towards the second bell. The interactions with my viewers made the whole experience that much better and I am definitely going to continue streaming the rest of the run. This might even lead to me streaming other games as well. Here's my question to you all: have you ever streamed onto twitch and what was your experience with it? Whether it was short, long, a series or a one-off, I'm curious to hear about the experiences of just everyday people streaming their gameplay.
To finish it off, here is a compilation of all six deaths.
The archives of the full run are only temporary on twitch so they are indefinitely archived on YouTube as well. Included in my channel are most attempts at the boss fights (thus far), most encounters with larger enemies, and highlights. I’ll most likely be including death compilations only in these blogs and will make a full death compilation available on my page once I finish the game. Below are the links to my pages if you want to subscribe and follow along.
YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtJjnxQwdCO6L2FbmytTGqA
Twitch Channel: http://www.twitch.tv/flashflood_29/
Thank you for reading and watching!
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