Dan Ryckert is Playing Dark Souls

I thought we could make a thread to discuss him streaming the game if people are watching. I'm not even the biggest Dark Souls guy but I have really enjoyed the GB streams of the Souls games. In the first two episodes Dan's has been fun to watch.

He is taking some help from the chat at times. Other times, especially in this second episode he pretty smartly cheesed the game in a couple ways. He isn't all cheesy though, not like he got the Drake Sword even.

He is seeing some mean parts of the game. I thought it was funny when he had a "I don't give a fuck" attitude about getting poisoned then realized how long it goes on. But as I said he is dodging some others. I didn't ever try or think you could get the Black Knight to chase you so far.

Seems like he is going to keep streaming as long as he likes the game and he seemed to be really liking it after the second episode. I am interested to see how his play style develops as he goes on and what gear he goes with. I think he is playing it a bit like it is Bloodborne fast paced given what weapons he has but maybe he will go with the faster weapons instead of sword and shield like I always tend to (two handed weapons with armor is fun though Vinny style).

This seems promising.

"Deadlier than an STD Bomb?! WHAT?"

That shit had me rolling!

The problem I had with streaming that game was that there are a lot of people who really want to tell you the "right" way to play it; what build to use, where to go at all times, etc. Got mildly annoying and I just kind of stopped when Vinny picked it up.

@rorie: Games become pretty boring when we are all just in a race to optimize our play style and only play one way devoid of choice and variety. I might as well just watch salty bet. Now that I mention it...

@rorie: I love all the Souls games but you're 100%. If you don't do things the "right" way or, God forbid, you summon someone in for fun they lose their crap. One of the annoying parts of being part of that community, honestly. I loved summoning people in because it was fun.

Yeah, hopefully he doesn't use chat as a crutch. He's asked the key questions about mechanics and such so hopefully he's going to figure the rest out without too much trouble.

2016's old game of the year.

@sammo21: I've played a shitload of Bloodborne and no one has ever given me shit for summoning, though admittedly I only do it very occasionally or if it's the optimal way to fight a boss. Now if the player summons on blind attempts at new bosses or on every single boss I think there's cause for concern. Of course in the case where the player is almost exclusively reliant on other players I think it's fine to "write them off" as it were, a good reliable source of income for From Software who is not in fact actually a player of a Souls game in any way shape or form.

so how wrong is he playing it?

The dumbest part about it is allowing different play styles/secrets/multiplayer randomness etc is part of why the games are so good.

I like how slowbeef's using summoning in his Dark Souls II SOTFS playthrough as a consequence free-ish practice run for a boss. I beat all the bosses in Dark Souls and Bloodborne solo but I'll gladly summon if it seems a viable way to save time.

I've seen the Black Knight thing before but walking up to the Drake not to aggro it is something I've never seen. That's why I'll watch people play this game. I'm still seeing something new at some point.

I was wondering about that myself. I thought 100% he was going to get smoked. I was preparing to laugh at him.

Really? I thought it was pretty common knowledge that you could avoid triggering the Drake based on how you move. i could have sworn that was something I learned from one of the GB team's playthroughs here. Huh, that's the cool thing about Dark Souls though. There's always something to discover.

I find it easy enough to ignore the back seat gaming but the most annoying thing about Dark Souls players is talking about how you may as well not play if you're using shields and masturbating in front of everyone over how they didn't summon anyone, and anyone who does is a loser.

As much as I adore the Souls series, the community are the worst backstreet drivers of any gaming community. I've been watching Pat at Two Best Friends do an LP of Old Hunters, and I'm glad he went with a "screw it, I'm using summons" attitude.

With that out of the way, Dan's LP is making me want to play some more Dark Souls. And I swore I was going to take a break until III so I didn't burn out in advance. But my Steam Link can now stream Souls to my upstairs big screen...

I really enjoyed streaming it. Kind of lacked off as I don't like using the PS3 controller anymore. Hoping they add the first one to BC for Xbox One and I'll play it on there.

What amazes me is how cautious he seems to be. Even with a Souls game under his belt, he's tip-toeing through things and taking enemies on. I got to a point where, if an area was bossing me, I'd sprint for items, shortcuts or whatever and then figure out the rest of the level. I'm looking forward to the rest of this and I'm playing through it again with the hope of finally playing the DLC.

Thank god it's also up on Youtube. Tried watching the stream on Twitch and since I can't choose the video quality the video gets buffered every five seconds.

I really REALLY should go back and finish dark souls already... Demons Souls is one of my favorite games ever, couldn't stop playing that thing once I started till it was finished yet Dark Souls didn't have even a third of that grasp on me for some reason, I really can't say why.

I've played through myself and watched at least five other people do the same, and yet I keep coming back when someone else starts streaming it. This damn game.

I'm really enjoying watching Dan play. He's a good person to stream it too as he specifically doesn't give a shit about the stuff Rorie mentioned being the constant issue for Souls streams. He'll read chat and if they tell him stuff that's not going to bother him but if they don't, he'll work it out for himself. If he has a question, he'll ask. He summoned for Taurus but aside from (presumably) killing the two archers his summon didn't do much and Dan did the whole fight without getting hit so I think he'd probably have aced it by himself anyway. He's just having fun with the game and not concerning himself too much with people telling him what and what not to do, which I think is going to make this a ton of fun to watch (and I'm glad he seems to be really enjoying playing it).

Oh jeez, have you ever seen Brad play a Souls game? I mean a real Souls game, not Bloodborne. He's plays so scared it's aggrivating. Watching him take on an enemy is like the videogame equivalent of Hugh Grant stumbling his way through a sentence.

My first time through any Souls game I take it super careful and make it a goal to kill everything, do everything, loot everything, because it's a good idea. Second time and on it becomes a sprint to the tools I need. I'm past Gascoigne in under five minutes of Bloodborne whenever I make a new character. It's easy when you know things and have confidence.

I would love to throw a goofy gimmick invasion Dan's way, one that makes him laugh rather than impede his progress.

@hippie_genocide said:

I personally also play like this and get some kicks out of it, though I've always been fascinated if rather than use that Hugh Grant -analogy I became the videogame equivalent of Hugh Grant swinging a claymore to cut a screaming snake lady in half. Oh well, maybe Wild will give me such an opportunity.

@shindig: Dark Souls 1 DLC is arguably the best part of the entire game. Great boss fights.

Dark Souls is my GOTG and one I always love seeing played through again :)

After watching the second video I do think it's kinda a shame that he's constantly looking at chat to tell him where to go though and all sorts of advice in general. The most beautiful part of that game is the frantic search for the next bonfire through uncharted territory where you don't know what's around the corner, but do know that can probably kill you. I do think going in blind or at least semi blind (since there's a good number of mechanis that just isn't explained well in the game), improves the experience quite a bit.

@probablytuna: Finally, someone else knows my pain.

Watched the first episode. Dan's doing pretty well, but then he played II and Bloodborne so it makes sense. Those skill definitely carry over. More appreciation for Dark Souls on the staff is always welcome, and it was just weird that by far the best game of the series was so underplayed on the site, since Brad didn't beat it. So at least we got Dan on board with DS1 now. I'd buy three years of premium to have Jeff play through Dark Souls and say, "you know what, yes, this actually is one of the best games ever made and not crap. What the hell was I thinking." It's nice to have dreams, ya know?

lol yeah Jeff is never going to do that but dreams are nice.

I hope Dan sticks with it and doesn't let the backseaters/complainers bring him down. I totally get the hatred for the Souls community, but the series still contains some of my favorite games ever. Honestly, it's funny how many people complain about people playing the games wrong, because I actually see a fair amount of other people on reddit and elsewhere pining for more blind LPs to re-experience the games vicariously. Anyhoo, I'm excited to watch Dark Souls played Ryckert style when I have the time. I actually like seeing people play the game differently.

@davidh219: I'll die if Jeff doesn't validate my love of Dark Souls

I wrote off Dark Souls too but now it is one of my favourite games ever. Just curious though, has anyone played through Bloodborne and liked it but hates Dark Souls?

Awesome I want to tune in for at least a bit. I love this series, there's no right way to play it - the people that complain about that are ridiculous.

I'm interested to hear his thoughts about it compared to Bloodborne when he's done. A lot of people like to hate on Dark Souls 2 and put 1 up on a pedestal, but as someone who put a couple hundred hours into 2 and Scholar, playing through 1 for the first real time is a frustrating and quite disappointing experience.

@animathias: Just out of curiosity, what part of it disappoints and frustrates? For me its been the opposite. Trying to play 2 after playing 1 first is more disappointing.

Everyone concedes Capra's box room is a terrible boss area. He doesn't carry a lot of health but he has decent range in a small area. I usually just throw firebombs over the fog wall til he's dead or spam plunging attacks. I've not had a problem with Gaping Dragon's hitbox beyond his tail being a fiddle to hit when you've a small-ranged weapon. I mean, if you want to complain about bad hitboxes, they're all over Dark Souls 2. Gaping Dragon's probably the first boss I die to these days if I get greedy.

Nito should be a challenge. A challenge at that point you should be ready for. Its a big boss area and he carries plenty of minions with him.

Dark Souls 2 changed so much of the basic mechanics for me that it was hard for me to adapt. Stamina costs in that game are really high and they pit you against multiple enemies from the start. You feel kinda useless and your prior knowledge of the series takes a dent when what you've known is so skewed.

I hear ya. It pretty much sounds like what happens when you play as the tank or the healer in mmo's. All of a sudden everyone becomes your very own, personal Prima Guide Book.

New one up! Dan Plays Dark Souls (1/8/2016)

He's doing pretty good. He kinda suffers from too much Bloodborne (bad at using the shield), but it's still early on.
EDIT: Dan + alcohol = Brad Souls (/sarcasm).

Watching the new one. Nice to not be looking up Dan's nose the whole time!

EDIT: yeah you can tell he's a Bloodborne guy because damn so far he is almost never blocking with a shield equipped.

Summoning's arguably the most Dan Ryckert way he could deal with things.

His streams are fun to watch. He doesn't care what chat wants him to do, but he asks about details, explanations for systems and directions when he needs them. So he isn't stuck for hours, but he's not lead by the hand either. The latest stream was a journey. Dan became a bigger heel the more drinks he had. He summoned phantoms and ran and hid as far away as he could. It's like watching the Joker play Dark Souls.

You're right about in the game but he was having fun.

I am actually really interested to see Dan this year because between this stream and his podcast with his dad, he is seeming to try to abandon some of his heelness, at least the aspects based on being willfully ignorant and insulting at times towards others tastes.

I'm not one of those who cries in chat whenever it happens, but honestly, I get waaay less interested in watching his stream when he summons people for bosses. It's just boring to watch for me... and that's fine, I don't have to like everything.

So after watching this last stream, I don't have high hopes.

I like watching people play Dark Souls because it's fun to see how other people improvise to overcome the challenging scenarios that the game presents. Summoning one person often (but not always) trivializes those challenges, and summoning two people is just waste of everyone's time. And the "helpful" chat exacerbates the problem by throwing all sorts of unsolicited advice at the streamer and ruining the surprises that the developers have included in the game.

Part of the reason why the Demon's Souls feature on this site was so great was because you had Brad playing and Vinny monitoring chat. That way the chat couldn't be too annoying to Brad or exercise undue influence over Brad's playstyle. But at the same time, Vinny could ask the chat questions if Brad wanted advice. Same with Rorie and Ian on Vinny's Dark Souls playthrough. On the other hand, Dan's twitch chat has more or less been a lengthy string of "here's a step by step guide on how to beat this boss really easily," and he's summoned on both bosses as well. So I think I'm out.