...I may have hit it. I've put in a little over 20 hours and I think I've been doing pretty well. The game can be very overwhelming at times. The world is freaking huge and the enemies seem impossible at first glance...but I persevered. I was running around in The Depths trying to get a feel for the area and run up on a soapstone message. "Be Wary of Fall". I was like, "Ok, another sewer drain I have to watch for. Nope, this guy put the sign one inch before the hole and I fell down into a miasma of curse spores from the frogs. I killed everyone of them but the last one and somewhat got caught in a highly concentrated cloud of the spores and died instantly.

Now I'm cursed with no Purge Stone and about 6k of souls at the bottom of a pit I can't seem to find a way back to without falling down the hole again which will kill me because of my newly aquired curse halving my health. I may have finally hit my limit. Argh!

P-Push it to the limit

The Depths is kind of hard to articulate in words. The fire I use in down a long hallway full of slims and two torch wielding undead. The exit from the frog area? You might be thinking of the other hole you can fall down thats a sewage drain.

You can get back up, when you get to waterfall there is a path beside it that leads up to the bonfire. The curse sucks because you must pay at least 3000 for the cure.

I'll take a look later. To prevent twisting my controller in half I had to stop for a bit. Hopefully you guys are right and I won't have to go far.

i'm cursed with 30 thousand souls in the middle of blight town!  pondering if i should go back to the church just to get rid of the curse... long walk though :(

@Marz: LOL, I'd feel unclean until I got rid of the curse. I'm OCD like that. If this wasn't the first time I'd ever been cursed I would already have been carrying around a few Purge Stones. Didn't know there was something capable of cursing in The Depths.

May I recommend pushing the limit?

You don't need to go to the church to get the purging stones, the undead merchant lady sells them near the entrance to the depths.

@Omega: Correct, though hers cost 6,000. The ones from the dude in the church cost 3,000, and it's really not that far off when taking the lift.

@Cincaid: I didn't know they were cheaper in the church. I guess I ended up paying a 3,000 soul convenience fee.

I heard that the ones from the church are a limited stock.

I'm no way near my limit in fact I just ordered Demon souls…I think I'll be playing this game for years.

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I'm proud to say that I eventually said, "Fuck it!" and went exploring again. I managed to clear out the entire bottom level of The Depths with half health due to my curse and get my souls back. Ah, there just aren't any games anymore that can give you that level of satisfaction. I was scared stiff when I finally found the path leading down to those frogs again but I bit the bullet and tackled it head out.

Managed to get the souls and fight my way way back up to Fire Shrine and then Undead Parish without taking so much as a single hit. Bought one purge stone to cure my curse and one for the road. I feel like a million bucks. :)

I think the thing that bugs me with this game is that there isn't much incentive to go on. So what if I beat this boss? What does that get me? Oh yeah, another 30 odd hours of complete torment.

If this game had a great plot, then I'd feel differently about it. Then I'd have a reason to push on, a reason to get past this bit that I've been stuck on for the past 4 hours. But alas, the story in this game feels almost non-existent.

There are parts of this game that I love, but there are also countless things that feel downright unfair. I don't mind a challenge, in fact I welcome it, but I want my challenge to be tough but fair. Dark Souls is just tough.

I'll push on for a little longer, I guess. But hearing stories such as this one make me wonder... what is the point? I may as well start slashing at my wrists with a kitchen knife, at least those battle scars will be there for everyone to see... rather than the mental ones that Dark Souls is inflicting on me.

Just wait till you hit Tomb of the Giants. That pissed me off to no end. I ALMOST threw my controller across the room.