rocketboot

@myrmicus: Let's disregard the Bastille/Asylum part of this for a second, as I don't think it's a very strong indicator for Lordran and Drangleic sharing a common location. And I would also like to restate that my opinion is not that these two lands are identical, I mentioned a theory on the last page of this thread that I feel carries much more weight. More on that later.

Let's instead focus on the more profound connections between DkS/DkS2 and subsequently Lordran/Drangleic, connections that I believe nullify portions if the director's comments. To name a few: the Old Dragonslayer, the four lord souls, the broken shards of the Lordvessel, the Heirs of the Sun covenant and the altar you interact with, the origins of Nashandra, Sublime Bone Dust, Black Knight weapons. Need I go on? All of these are much stronger connections that "That guy Pate is sure a reference to Patches!" These are DIRECT connections. And the director said there are no real connections between settings.... Hmmm. See what I'm getting at here? It may seem unlikely to you but you cannot say with authority that Drangleic certainly is or isn't Lordran.

I brought up some talk about dimensional tearing and alternate universes in an earlier post, and I feel like this describes what it going on in Drangleic. Whether it is a creation of parallel universes colliding or folding into one another, or an amalgamation of worlds that have been affected by the abyss, I'm sure that many things in this land do not belong. Above Heide's it appears there is just a hole in the sky, or a tear of some sort. You get to Drangeic via Things Betwixt, that's a pretty strong suggestion in itself.

Based solely off of this differences vs similarities of the settings I feel like this theory makes the most sense, and I've spent time on both sides of this argument. That said, nothing is very certain in the lore of this game and I can't dismiss the possibility of many other theories just because this makes the most sense to me.

@myrmicus: Augh, I noticed you went and added a bunch to that post. All your "similarities" you edited into your post are not at all comparable to those between Dark Souls and Dark Souls 2. I don't even think I need to mention all the direct cross overs, and even the more looser connections are more obvious than "2 blacksmiths that upgrade with flame materials."

@myrmicus: Haha ok. I find it pretty funny that you cite the specificity language in your argument and then completely misread what I was saying about ruins and sea level. I may be wrong but I believe it is the ruins of Puma Punku in Bolivia which is thousands of feet above sea level now. The ruins contain structures appearing to be docks used to harbour ships, despite being so high above sea level. These aren't fossils in the mountains, they are man made structures at a high altitude. It has nothing to do with tectonics but with the variance in sea level. In fact they say right now the sea level is rising due to global climate change and the melting of the ice caps. This process can go both ways, the sea level will rise and fall as thousands of years pass.

Look at it this way: think of any island in the ocean. Now suck all the water away. What does it look like now? A mountain.

Now let's get back to these developer comments. If you want to be very specific with what the director said let's go to his actual quote: (in response to a question asking about continuity between the two games)

"I can't completely answer this question, but the two settings are connected, yes. However, I wouldn't say there's a direct connection as far as story is concerned. The game is set in a different part of the same planet -- to put it another way, if the first game was set in the North Pole, this one would be in the South Pole; that sort of contrast. 'Time' is one of the central keywords we're keeping in mind as we create this. I can't give concrete details about this yet, so hopefully you'll be able to use your imagination for now."

So yes, it obviously suggests that the two games are set in different places. But the wording is as vague as the pendant comment! He basically says the settings are polar opposite, followed with a comment about giving focus to the concept of 'time.' Now if you think about space and time as they are in the Souls games, it wouldn't be a stretch to say that when a person says "This place is here and that place is over there" that they might mean something more abstract.

All I'm trying to get at here is that there are very solid arguments for and against Drangleic and Lordran being the same place. Just as I can't say "Heide's Tower of Flame is certainly Anor Londo" you can't say "The Lost Bastille is certainly not the Undead Asylum."

@haniball: Fair enough. I think we're at a point where "etiquette" doesn't mean much when invasions occur. If you want fair PVP you have to do it in the arenas, or if at all possible with an organized fight club. It sucks, because Heide's is probably my favourite place to fight. Luckily Befry Sol is another favourite and I run into a lot less dinks up there.

@myrmicus: That was meant to be a concession, I know I can argue for my ideas most of the time but I'm not afraid to point out the flaws in them when I see them.

On this discussion about the Bastille/Undead Asylum: there are definitely a lot of parallels. To me it comes across as more of an implication that many times, over and over again, rulers are seeing the undead as a threat and locking them away. Although they could very well be the same place. I don't see the director's comment on location as "word of god." Maybe I just don't trust the people at From based on past trolling...

When you mentioned the geography as proof that the locations are separate my ears perked, as I now have an excuse to say something I've been thinking about. In the past few years amazing discoveries have been made around the world proving that civilization is not as young as we thought. One in particular tht comes to mind is some ruins in South America high above sea level containing what seem to be docks or piers. Knowing how often real life architecture shows up in the Souls universe I don't think it's a stretch that they would use real world geographic material as well. The land that Lordran inhabited thousands of years ago high above mountain ranges may now be at sea level. In fact who even know if it's "thousands" of years that have passed? It may be much more than that and landscapes change drastically over time.

@haniball: Yeah I guess it could go both ways with those guys. You could get invaded buy multiple Bellbros or if you're invading you can spawn into a bunch of gankers. I think it's best to just hang out in the belfries and get invaded. A lot of the time you'll be dealing with 1v1, and even when another guy invades they likely aren't coordinated enough to pull off a solid gank.

@myrmicus: Agreed. I would rather PVP in the gank-centric Belfries than tangle with hex spamming Blue Sentinals. The Bellbros seem a lot more confident with their power in numbers and auto-invasions, and must not feel the need to launch a million spells for you to roll through.

I've come to realize this is really my only issue in DkS2: the means for ranking up in the Red and Blue PVP covies more or less pigeonholes ambitious players into this spam to win play style. I never had as big a problem with running into a few of these guys here and there in the previous games but like 90% of Blues that I'm fighting in NG+ play this way.

It's my own fault I guess, I made a PVP character with the idea of gathering as much sin as possible (ie killing all the npcs) before travelling to NG+ an wearing the String that Titchy Grenade sells so I could practice PVP without having to invade. I'm getting invaded a dozen times per area and seeing the most barbaric PVPing I've ever encountered in a souls game. *sigh* Kids these days... I seriously should have just stuck to the Belfries if I wanted to host invasions easily lol.

@haniball: One of my favourite moves in Dark Souls 1 was to chug all my estus when I got invaded and do the "Well what is it" gesture. I almost always got my ass kicked after or even while chugging but it made me feel like a man damnit! I think now that more people are doing that I have to start taking my shirt (err chest armour) off before fights.

@myrmicus: @development: The more I think of the geography of the Dark Souls world the more I think there's some kind of dimensional clashing going on. I think Drangleic is possibly the creation of worlds colliding, or a junction between parallel universes. Things Betwixt is a way of accessing it. The Abyss also connects worlds in its own way.

A major point that suggest this to me is Heide's Tower of Flame. There is something very odd about the sky here. It's dark and you can see some swirling texture, but it doesn't look like a cloud in any way. You can kind of see stars in the darkness, and there is blue sky in every direction. It almost looks like there is a big hole in the sky directly above you. Or a tear in the universe, as if the submerged building beneath you just fell out of space and time. Haha another wild idea for ya!

Back to the whole "kinship" thing, I think it does have power. You've gained parity with the giants, proven through great feats that you are an equal. Therefor it makes sense that you can interact with golems or some similar constructs in a way that the average human or undead can't.

Concerning souls, there is a lot of precedent to see souls as items or something that you can consume throughout literature and pop culture. Not only that but the "soul" doesn't really have a contemporary definition in the way that "kinship" has, giving a lot more room for interperetation. Sure the idea of a soul is more abstract than the idea of kinship, but that is probably why it's easier to interperet as a source of power or progression. "Kinship" is more comparable to "humanity" as a term.