Hello!

So I haven't my copy of the game yet, since I live in Sweden, but I have a couple of questions regarding the online aspects of Dark Souls.

• If I'm online on XBL, does that automaticly put me as playing the game online and subject of potential invasions?
• Does playing online (and thusly subject of invasions) have any benefits, such as better loot, more souls, etc?
• If someone invades me and slaughter me, do I get pushed back to the latest fire I visited, like when I die to the AI?
• If playing offline mode (if there's an option), can I still read/leave messages?

I like the aspect of PvP and such, but can also see massive opportunities to griefing by idiots. I don't want to be fighting a difficult mob or huge boss, only to have someone invade my game, kill me, and push me back to a checkpoint.

• If I'm online on XBL, does that automaticly put me as playing the game online and subject of potential invasions?
  

• Does playing online (and thusly subject of invasions) have any benefits, such as better loot, more souls, etc?

• If someone invades me and slaughter me, do I get pushed back to the latest fire I visited, like when I die to the AI?

• If playing offline mode (if there's an option), can I still read/leave messages?

@wemibelec90: @Timing: Thank you for answering!

@Cincaid: It should be mentioned that you have to have XBL gold. You probably meant that by saying "I'm online"... but just in case, since you can be online for free on XBL as well.

@Cincaid: Also, a player can't invade you, or if one has invaded you they will be kicked out, once you've entered a room with a boss encounter.

Fun stuff: I didn't know this while playing Demon's Souls but enemies won't attack an invading player. Keep this in mind if being invaded as your foe will definetly try to make use of it (and make use of it yourself while invading other people's realms).

@CptBedlam: Ah, cheers for the heads up, but yeah I have gold. :)

@RockmanBionics: That's what I mean! Griefing at its finest, haha. Good to know they can't invade during boss battles though.

I could be wrong in this but from what I hear the higher humanity you have the higher the chance that enemies will drop loot so that's one of the incentives to play in human form. Also, being in hollow form gives a slight penalty to your stats. I haven't played it yet since I live in Europe so I can't confirm.

I have a question, but not gonna open a new thread.

Can you invite your friends to help you out with bosses, or is the player summoning completely anonymous?

@CptBedlam: I actually don't think this is true. I am a silver member, and I've been able to summon a white spirit / ghost / w.e its called to help me out. I am also able to see other ghosts walking around and read messages on the floor. Maybe it's a bug or something? I don't have any more humanity to try and summon another white spirit but I can definitely use all the other online features.

@plop1920: Wow, really? I'm excited to finally get my hands on a Souls game but I'm not going to renew my gold just for it.. at least not right away. That would be awesome but it just can't be for real.

@plop1920 said:

@CptBedlam: I actually don't think this is true. I am a silver member, and I've been able to summon a white spirit / ghost / w.e its called to help me out. I am also able to see other ghosts walking around and read messages on the floor. Maybe it's a bug or something? I don't want to use any more humanity to find out lol

I heard you can summon AI controlled phantoms to help you. That's how the game works when it's played offline - and probably also when played with XBL silver. Also, the developers have put messages in the game as well for offline play.

@CptBedlam: I'm not sure if it was AI, I mean the guy had a pretty bad internet type nickname for his character. Also as soon as he got in he started to do random stuff like trying to hit me/ kept spamming taunts.

And the messages I see all have ratings and they're just too specific to be put there by the developer, one of them was off on a ledge that you could only get off to by falling, but I didn't want to get it cause there was no way back up lol

@ervonymous: Yeah, I only tried the co-op once and we immediately died on the boss so I don't have any humanity to try it again lol

I have a question, but not gonna open a new thread.

Can you invite your friends to help you out with bosses, or is the player summoning completely anonymous?

@Daiphyer said:

I have a question, but not gonna open a new thread.

Can you invite your friends to help you out with bosses, or is the player summoning completely anonymous?

If it's like Demon's Souls, a player that wants to be summoned places a mark at a specific point in the level, they can only do this while dead/hollowed and you can only see these while you are alive/human as well as being within a level range of 10. From the mark you will be given a little bit of information, among this is the players name. This means that it's technically possible for a friend to place down a marker and the other to choose to summon him or her by accessing the right marker.

I haven't tried this myself though and I don't know if all markers are visable to all players at all times. I've definetly seen bloodstains and messages fade in and out over time while playing Demon's Souls.

@plop1920 said:

@CptBedlam: I'm not sure if it was AI, I mean the guy had a pretty bad internet type nickname for his character. Also as soon as he got in he started to do random stuff like trying to hit me/ kept spamming taunts.

And the messages I see all have ratings and they're just too specific to be put there by the developer, one of them was off on a ledge that you could only get off to by falling, but I didn't want to get it cause there was no way back up lol

Interesting... are you sure you don't have gold by accident or anything? If this is true, that'd be awesome.