Sounds like Dark Souls to me.- According to Shibuya, one of the co-directors, the player's ability to parse meaning from subtle hints or clues will determine the difficulty of the game and the challenges that are there to experience.
Sounds like Dark Souls to me.- According to Shibuya, one of the co-directors, the player's ability to parse meaning from subtle hints or clues will determine the difficulty of the game and the challenges that are there to experience.
What proof do you have? Terrible PR that had to be done through a translator and then spruced up with videogame journalism. There is nothing that they've said that you should or could get worked up over because the details are so small.
Oh wow, they're going to make it more accessible! Are they cleaning the UI up? We may never know.
seriously though, how terrible at playing video games are some of you people?
"covenants are poorly explained". you speak to the npc at firelink like three times and he asks you to join his covenant so he'll sell you miracles. you just learned that covenants exist, they are usually entered by speaking with an npc and there are covenant specific rewards and benefits. oh and the dialogue says something about abandoning any other covenants you've entered so you even learn that there must be more, and that joining on isn't permanent.
"kindling/hollowing/humanity is poorly explained". a message tells you that you can level up and kindle at bonfires the instant you reach firelink. anyone with the slightest bit of common-sense goes to the bonfire then tries to "kindle", is told they can't kindle while hollow. so they select "reverse hollowing", and are told they have no humanity. then they go to their inventory and use the humanity they got for killing the first boss, sit down again and try to kindle at which point they will be told they can't kindle that flame further without learning how.
what do you know? you just learned what humanity does, what hollowing is and what kindling does, and it took all of 30 seconds and the deductive reasoning of a three year old.
"but it's all trial and error!" well aside from the fact that's bullshit, who gives a fuck if there are places in the game which require a bit of experimentation? it's a video game for crying out loud, if you make a mistake it's not the end of the world. sure dark souls might mess up your unbroken streak of 100% completion runs but if that's why you're playing games then might I recommend stamp collecting instead?
"but but world tendencies!" even from software realised that they'd done a poor job of explaining that and removed it from dark souls. why you people keep bringing it up when it's actually an example of correctly identifying and removing an obscure gameplay mechanic is beyond me, but if you think it supports your argument then it indirectly explains why you had such a hard time following dark souls.
I'm still waiting for someone to actually identify anything you need to reach and defeat the last boss which you can't learn easily without going outside the game.
"but it's all trial and error!" well aside from the fact that's bullshit, who gives a fuck if there are places in the game which require a bit of experimentation? it's a video game for crying out loud, if you make a mistake it's not the end of the world. sure dark souls might mess up your unbroken streak of 100% completion runs but if that's why you're playing games then might I recommend stamp collecting instead?
've fun
http://www.abload.de/img/ds2_comparison1porg.png[./IMG][/QUOTE]
[B]Update:[/B] it seems that this phantomatic "[URL="http://media.edge-online.com/wp-content/uploads/edgeonline/2012/12/Dark-Souls-II-01.jpg"]real time grab[/URL]" is actually prerendered. Sorry, my fault :'D.
The quote from Edge:
[QUOTE]While the images on this spread are based on in-game models, they are in fact prerendered. What we saw demoed did not quite achieve this striking a level of hyper-realism, but it came tantalisingly close.[/QUOTE]
[IMG]http://www.abload.de/img/_bmuploads_2012-12-0743uxl.jpg
Well fucking said. Especially the bolded.seriously though, how terrible at playing video games are some of you people?
"covenants are poorly explained". you speak to the npc at firelink like three times and he asks you to join his covenant so he'll sell you miracles. you just learned that covenants exist, they are usually entered by speaking with an npc and there are covenant specific rewards and benefits. oh and the dialogue says something about abandoning any other covenants you've entered so you even learn that there must be more, and that joining on isn't permanent.
"kindling/hollowing/humanity is poorly explained". a message tells you that you can level up and kindle at bonfires the instant you reach firelink. anyone with the slightest bit of common-sense goes to the bonfire then tries to "kindle", is told they can't kindle while hollow. so they select "reverse hollowing", and are told they have no humanity. then they go to their inventory and use the humanity they got for killing the first boss, sit down again and try to kindle at which point they will be told they can't kindle that flame further without learning how.
what do you know? you just learned what humanity does, what hollowing is and what kindling does, and it took all of 30 seconds and the deductive reasoning of a three year old.
"but it's all trial and error!" well aside from the fact that's bullshit, who gives a fuck if there are places in the game which require a bit of experimentation? it's a video game for crying out loud, if you make a mistake it's not the end of the world. sure dark souls might mess up your unbroken streak of 100% completion runs but if that's why you're playing games then might I recommend stamp collecting instead?
"but but world tendencies!" even from software realised that they'd done a poor job of explaining that and removed it from dark souls. why you people keep bringing it up when it's actually an example of correctly identifying and removing an obscure gameplay mechanic is beyond me, but if you think it supports your argument then it indirectly explains why you had such a hard time following dark souls.
I'm still waiting for someone to actually identify anything you need to reach and defeat the last boss which you can't learn easily without going outside the game.
One of my favourite part of DS and DS (muahaha) has been discovering detailed information on the lore, NPCs, items etc away from the game on the game's wiki. It's got that old school charm of learning about the game from multiple sources.
Hopefully, they aren't going to corrupt that aspect.
"covenants are poorly explained". you speak to the npc at firelink like three times and he asks you to join his covenant so he'll sell you miracles. you just learned that covenants exist, they are usually entered by speaking with an npc and there are covenant specific rewards and benefits. oh and the dialogue says something about abandoning any other covenants you've entered so you even learn that there must be more, and that joining on isn't permanent.
Covenants are too obscure. You join one first and then you have to figure out how it works and what its benefits are. That information should come beforehand.
seriously though, how terrible at playing video games are some of you people?
"covenants are poorly explained". you speak to the npc at firelink like three times and he asks you to join his covenant so he'll sell you miracles. you just learned that covenants exist, they are usually entered by speaking with an npc and there are covenant specific rewards and benefits. oh and the dialogue says something about abandoning any other covenants you've entered so you even learn that there must be more, and that joining on isn't permanent.
"kindling/hollowing/humanity is poorly explained". a message tells you that you can level up and kindle at bonfires the instant you reach firelink. anyone with the slightest bit of common-sense goes to the bonfire then tries to "kindle", is told they can't kindle while hollow. so they select "reverse hollowing", and are told they have no humanity. then they go to their inventory and use the humanity they got for killing the first boss, sit down again and try to kindle at which point they will be told they can't kindle that flame further without learning how.
what do you know? you just learned what humanity does, what hollowing is and what kindling does, and it took all of 30 seconds and the deductive reasoning of a three year old.
"but it's all trial and error!" well aside from the fact that's bullshit, who gives a fuck if there are places in the game which require a bit of experimentation? it's a video game for crying out loud, if you make a mistake it's not the end of the world. sure dark souls might mess up your unbroken streak of 100% completion runs but if that's why you're playing games then might I recommend stamp collecting instead?
"but but world tendencies!" even from software realised that they'd done a poor job of explaining that and removed it from dark souls. why you people keep bringing it up when it's actually an example of correctly identifying and removing an obscure gameplay mechanic is beyond me, but if you think it supports your argument then it indirectly explains why you had such a hard time following dark souls.
I'm still waiting for someone to actually identify anything you need to reach and defeat the last boss which you can't learn easily without going outside the game.
I agree with most of your points, but I don't think that anyone has trouble figuring out that covenants exist, or how to join them. It's in the way they work. For example, don't you have to give the spider woman's covenant like 30 humanity to open a shortcut which lets you complete Solaire's path? That's pretty obscure. And it's not like the spider woman NPC tells you about it, because she doesn't even speak English. You have to trade a random item to a random invisible bird to get a ring that lets you talk to her, and even then I don't know if she tells you.
Just things like that. Entering into covenants and obtaining certain benefits from them is easily figured out if you are halfway decent at exploring, but there are undeniably aspects of it that are needlessly complicated. Do you need those things to beat the game? Of course not...but more people might enjoy them if they were slightly less vague.
I agree with most of your points, but I don't think that anyone has trouble figuring out that covenants exist, or how to join them. It's in the way they work. For example, don't you have to give the spider woman's covenant like 30 humanity to open a shortcut which lets you complete Solaire's path? That's pretty obscure. And it's not like the spider woman NPC tells you about it, because she doesn't even speak English. You have to trade a random item to a random invisible bird to get a ring that lets you talk to her, and even then I don't know if she tells you.
I agree with most of your points, but I don't think that anyone has trouble figuring out that covenants exist, or how to join them. It's in the way they work. For example, don't you have to give the spider woman's covenant like 30 humanity to open a shortcut which lets you complete Solaire's path? That's pretty obscure. And it's not like the spider woman NPC tells you about it, because she doesn't even speak English. You have to trade a random item to a random invisible bird to get a ring that lets you talk to her, and even then I don't know if she tells you.
I don't get why this is a bad thing, the fact that it's in the game and that the community discovered it is really fucking awesome if you ask me.
We need more games with obscure hidden secrets like this, not more straight-forward, less subtle ones.
Update: it seems that this phantomatic "real time grab" is actually prerendered. Sorry, my fault :'D.
The quote from Edge:
Update: it seems that this phantomatic "real time grab" is actually prerendered. Sorry, my fault :'D.
The quote from Edge:
Trying to think back to that trailer to be honest. I think TJ wrote several version of the scripts. We gave them the in-game character models, sets, and weapons and they built new high-res versions and did the animation, effects, camera, rendering etc. The breathed a lot of life into the concept as it was at the time.
But really it was us giving a script (that they then worked with us on) and assets, and them taking all of that and making something awesome with it.
I agree with most of your points, but I don't think that anyone has trouble figuring out that covenants exist, or how to join them. It's in the way they work. For example, don't you have to give the spider woman's covenant like 30 humanity to open a shortcut which lets you complete Solaire's path? That's pretty obscure. And it's not like the spider woman NPC tells you about it, because she doesn't even speak English. You have to trade a random item to a random invisible bird to get a ring that lets you talk to her, and even then I don't know if she tells you.
Just things like that. Entering into covenants and obtaining certain benefits from them is easily figured out if you are halfway decent at exploring, but there are undeniably aspects of it that are needlessly complicated. Do you need those things to beat the game? Of course not...but more people might enjoy them if they were slightly less vague.
the trouble is, and I say this while at least partly agreeing with you, I don't think that covenants exist solely to give players stuff. they exist so that the online aspect of the game involves roleplay, it's more of a side effect that there are rewards for leveling up in one. and I think they're pretty well designed from the perspective that the rewards they give you suit the roleplay they encourage.
Marilyn Manson, Linkin Park or bust.That's a really good point.
Back to Dark Souls 2, I do hope that Silent Comedy gets to have their music in one of the commercials.
Neon Knights by Black SabbathThat's a really good point.
Back to Dark Souls 2, I do hope that Silent Comedy gets to have their music in one of the commercials.
except the daughter of chaos. honestly that shit is just weird, and the roleplay so non-specific, that I think they just never finished work on the faction.
seriously though, how terrible at playing video games are some of you people?
"covenants are poorly explained". you speak to the npc at firelink like three times and he asks you to join his covenant so he'll sell you miracles. you just learned that covenants exist, they are usually entered by speaking with an npc and there are covenant specific rewards and benefits. oh and the dialogue says something about abandoning any other covenants you've entered so you even learn that there must be more, and that joining on isn't permanent.
"kindling/hollowing/humanity is poorly explained". a message tells you that you can level up and kindle at bonfires the instant you reach firelink. anyone with the slightest bit of common-sense goes to the bonfire then tries to "kindle", is told they can't kindle while hollow. so they select "reverse hollowing", and are told they have no humanity. then they go to their inventory and use the humanity they got for killing the first boss, sit down again and try to kindle at which point they will be told they can't kindle that flame further without learning how.
what do you know? you just learned what humanity does, what hollowing is and what kindling does, and it took all of 30 seconds and the deductive reasoning of a three year old.
"but it's all trial and error!" well aside from the fact that's bullshit, who gives a fuck if there are places in the game which require a bit of experimentation? it's a video game for crying out loud, if you make a mistake it's not the end of the world. sure dark souls might mess up your unbroken streak of 100% completion runs but if that's why you're playing games then might I recommend stamp collecting instead?
"but but world tendencies!" even from software realised that they'd done a poor job of explaining that and removed it from dark souls. why you people keep bringing it up when it's actually an example of correctly identifying and removing an obscure gameplay mechanic is beyond me, but if you think it supports your argument then it indirectly explains why you had such a hard time following dark souls.
I'm still waiting for someone to actually identify anything you need to reach and defeat the last boss which you can't learn easily without going outside the game.
Covenants are too obscure. You join one first and then you have to figure out how it works and what its benefits are. That information should come beforehand.
Neon Knights by Black Sabbath
Considering it's probably the closest we're going to get to a song about Dark Souls:
"Circles and rings, dragons and kings
Weaving a charm and a spell
Blessed by the night, holy and bright
Called by the toll of the bell!"
"Phantom figures free forever
Out of shadows, shining ever-bright
Neon Knights!"
That's an amazing amount of information to infer from three or four lines of dialogue, and a notice that you've joined a covenant, whose benefits you won't know at that point. The next covenant you'll come across as a player is the Warriors of Sunlight, who used to have a 50 faith requirement to join - but there is nothing on the location, or the broken statue, itself to indicate this. Some of the covenants were obfuscated to the point of non-functionality; stuff like the Gravelords weren't usable for the first few months of the game, and even now there are many who've never had their worlds infected or have had black phantoms spawn. They are poorly explained - the requirements are cryptic, the rewards even more so - and even worse, most of them are useless and thus go ignored.seriously though, how terrible at playing video games are some of you people?
"covenants are poorly explained". you speak to the npc at firelink like three times and he asks you to join his covenant so he'll sell you miracles. you just learned that covenants exist, they are usually entered by speaking with an npc and there are covenant specific rewards and benefits. oh and the dialogue says something about abandoning any other covenants you've entered so you even learn that there must be more, and that joining on isn't permanent.
Any guesses on when we can expect some new information? Especially gameplay?
reading..and then:
are you fucking serious!?
they will look similar but don't expect anything even close to the quality of the what was in the trailer,Edge staff were just in exciting-mode me think.
seriously though, how terrible at playing video games are some of you people?
"covenants are poorly explained". you speak to the npc at firelink like three times and he asks you to join his covenant so he'll sell you miracles. you just learned that covenants exist, they are usually entered by speaking with an npc and there are covenant specific rewards and benefits. oh and the dialogue says something about abandoning any other covenants you've entered so you even learn that there must be more, and that joining on isn't permanent.
"kindling/hollowing/humanity is poorly explained". a message tells you that you can level up and kindle at bonfires the instant you reach firelink. anyone with the slightest bit of common-sense goes to the bonfire then tries to "kindle", is told they can't kindle while hollow. so they select "reverse hollowing", and are told they have no humanity. then they go to their inventory and use the humanity they got for killing the first boss, sit down again and try to kindle at which point they will be told they can't kindle that flame further without learning how.
"but it's all trial and error!" well aside from the fact that's bullshit, who gives a fuck if there are places in the game which require a bit of experimentation? it's a video game for crying out loud, if you make a mistake it's not the end of the world. sure dark souls might mess up your unbroken streak of 100% completion runs but if that's why you're playing games then might I recommend stamp collecting instead?
We're at the point of every single one of these "debates" where the opposition to the obstinance in the Souls design feign ignorance of widely documented information about these games' history matching the willful ignorance of widely documented information about the game's play.
Where do I go to find other covenants? Why are they not mentioned in automatic pop-up message I get, what if I do not talk to anyone? Also, what are the benefits? How much +dmg do I get?
I think some dissonance here comes from people not accepting/understanding, that DkS is meant to be played more than one time.
I mean, if there wasn't a strategy guide, saving Solaire could've become one of those great myths, like saving Aerith.
No, not in any shape, way or form. This is developed by the same company, and I'm sure many of the same people are involved. Just not the director. FWIW though I'd be really interested to see what Sony would do with a hypothetical "Demon's Souls 2".
Basically, as I said before, I think people greatly overestimate the impact of individuals. It's a romantic notion, but not -- in my opinion -- a very applicable one.
That's an amazing amount of information to infer from three or four lines of dialogue, and a notice that you've joined a covenant, whose benefits you won't know at that point. The next covenant you'll come across as a player is the Warriors of Sunlight, who used to have a 50 faith requirement to join - but there is nothing on the location, or the broken statue, itself to indicate this. Some of the covenants were obfuscated to the point of non-functionality; stuff like the Gravelords weren't usable for the first few months of the game, and even now there are many who've never had their worlds infected or have had black phantoms spawn. They are poorly explained - the requirements are cryptic, the rewards even more so - and even worse, most of them are useless and thus go ignored.
Awesome post. If you don't mind, I will use this next time a friend bothers me about Dark Souls being too <something something>.seriously though, how terrible at playing video games are some of you people?
"covenants are poorly explained". you speak to the npc at firelink like three times and he asks you to join his covenant so he'll sell you miracles. you just learned that covenants exist, they are usually entered by speaking with an npc and there are covenant specific rewards and benefits. oh and the dialogue says something about abandoning any other covenants you've entered so you even learn that there must be more, and that joining on isn't permanent.
"kindling/hollowing/humanity is poorly explained". a message tells you that you can level up and kindle at bonfires the instant you reach firelink. anyone with the slightest bit of common-sense goes to the bonfire then tries to "kindle", is told they can't kindle while hollow. so they select "reverse hollowing", and are told they have no humanity. then they go to their inventory and use the humanity they got for killing the first boss, sit down again and try to kindle at which point they will be told they can't kindle that flame further without learning how.
what do you know? you just learned what humanity does, what hollowing is and what kindling does, and it took all of 30 seconds and the deductive reasoning of a three year old.
"but it's all trial and error!" well aside from the fact that's bullshit, who gives a fuck if there are places in the game which require a bit of experimentation? it's a video game for crying out loud, if you make a mistake it's not the end of the world. sure dark souls might mess up your unbroken streak of 100% completion runs but if that's why you're playing games then might I recommend stamp collecting instead?
"but but world tendencies!" even from software realised that they'd done a poor job of explaining that and removed it from dark souls. why you people keep bringing it up when it's actually an example of correctly identifying and removing an obscure gameplay mechanic is beyond me, but if you think it supports your argument then it indirectly explains why you had such a hard time following dark souls.
I'm still waiting for someone to actually identify anything you need to reach and defeat the last boss which you can't learn easily without going outside the game.
Something tells me the development of this game will make an interesting article 5 years from now.
Neon Knights by Black Sabbath
Considering it's probably the closest we're going to get to a song about Dark Souls:
"Circles and rings, dragons and kings
Weaving a charm and a spell
Blessed by the night, holy and bright
Called by the toll of the bell!"
"Phantom figures free forever
Out of shadows, shining ever-bright
Neon Knights!"
Indeed, maybe even a good metaphor for gaming in general.
Fives years later, the ambiguity destroyed, their freedom of design gone, the last remaining members of FROM submitted to mainstream and commercial authority in Tokyo, Japan. The great dark fantasy RPG maker of exploration, depth and difficulty was gone, and the great gaming frontier as a whole was soon to pass into history.
They also did this on purpose imo, to encourage players to use the messaging system. You have to admit, though some of the covenants are hard as hell to find. Take the darkmoon and darkwraiths covenant, not exactly easy to find those.seriously though, how terrible at playing video games are some of you people?
"covenants are poorly explained". you speak to the npc at firelink like three times and he asks you to join his covenant so he'll sell you miracles. you just learned that covenants exist, they are usually entered by speaking with an npc and there are covenant specific rewards and benefits. oh and the dialogue says something about abandoning any other covenants you've entered so you even learn that there must be more, and that joining on isn't permanent.
"kindling/hollowing/humanity is poorly explained". a message tells you that you can level up and kindle at bonfires the instant you reach firelink. anyone with the slightest bit of common-sense goes to the bonfire then tries to "kindle", is told they can't kindle while hollow. so they select "reverse hollowing", and are told they have no humanity. then they go to their inventory and use the humanity they got for killing the first boss, sit down again and try to kindle at which point they will be told they can't kindle that flame further without learning how.
what do you know? you just learned what humanity does, what hollowing is and what kindling does, and it took all of 30 seconds and the deductive reasoning of a three year old.
"but it's all trial and error!" well aside from the fact that's bullshit, who gives a fuck if there are places in the game which require a bit of experimentation? it's a video game for crying out loud, if you make a mistake it's not the end of the world. sure dark souls might mess up your unbroken streak of 100% completion runs but if that's why you're playing games then might I recommend stamp collecting instead?
"but but world tendencies!" even from software realised that they'd done a poor job of explaining that and removed it from dark souls. why you people keep bringing it up when it's actually an example of correctly identifying and removing an obscure gameplay mechanic is beyond me, but if you think it supports your argument then it indirectly explains why you had such a hard time following dark souls.
I'm still waiting for someone to actually identify anything you need to reach and defeat the last boss which you can't learn easily without going outside the game.
December 2012: Dark Souls II declared such a big disaster that we'll all remember how terrible it turned out to be in 2017.
so who found the dragon covenant without a guide?