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Dark Souls: PTD sells 300,000 on PC, better PC dev. promised, DS2 was debuted on PC

Cyrano

Member
... You do know people are playing the game at 60FPS, right? It's not unplayable. It just has a few small problems, like quickly descending ladders.
Yes, but these small few problems would certainly mean that there may be an extensive amount of recoding necessary to get the game out to market. Obvious bugs that make you fall through objects aren't going to be seen as acceptable by players. Delaying its release once it was announced just would have made fan reaction worse, not better.
 

morningbus

Serious Sam is a wicked gahbidge series for chowdaheads.
That's a far cry from being unplayable and it could have been fixed. Jet Set Radio is unplayable at 60fps (the way the engine works it literally double the speed of the game).

Again, I understand why they left the 30fps cap on. They didn't want to bug test and fix any problems that 60fps introduces. But it isn't unplayable.
 

JaseC

gave away the keys to the kingdom.
Steamworks isn't nearly as bad as GFWL. There are a lot of Steamworks-supported games that you're free to buy on other services that don't have Steamworks. There are even plenty of games with DRM-Free versions that use Steamworks in their Steam versions. The same isn't true of GFWL games, which always must have GFWL embedded in their game. So I dunno why you guys are acting like it's either-or (though it's unlikely From will release a completely DRM-free version of Dark Souls 2 because, come on).

I'll also add that Steamworks integration doesn't inherently make a game DRM-protected; client tethering (Custom Executable Generation) is completely optional. Scribblenauts is a recent example of a game that utilises Steamworks when run from the Steam client but is otherwise DRM-free -- if you're not one for Steamworks features, you can sign into Steam, download the game, back it up for safe keeping, and never worry about Steam again.
 

Bit-Bit

Member
Ugly games are unplayable? Or does his mod actually change gameplay in some fashion?

I sit like 10 inches from my PC screen. That shitty ass resolution gave me terrible migraines. So yes.

Not to mention other mods fixed the in game button prompts and kb/m controls.
 

Cyrano

Member
That's a far cry from being unplayable and it could have been fixed. Jet Set Radio is unplayable at 60fps (the way the engine works it literally double the speed of the game).

Again, I understand why they left the 30fps cap on. They didn't want to bug test and fix any problems that 60fps introduces. But it isn't unplayable.
Alright, but if you understand, then why is it an issue? I mean, if people only want 60FPS games, that's fine, there are plenty of them, but getting angry that a game isn't 60FPS seems unconscionable. It's like complaining that a game doesn't have better graphics (hint hint Drakengard 3 fans, style is a choice for graphics).
 

morningbus

Serious Sam is a wicked gahbidge series for chowdaheads.
Alright, but if you understand, then why is it an issue? I mean, if people only want 60FPS games, that's fine, there are plenty of them, but getting angry that a game isn't 60FPS seems unconscionable. It's like complaining that a game doesn't have better graphics (hint hint Drakengard 3 fans, style is a choice for graphics).

Except it could be fixed.

It's like not adding salt to food.
 

morningbus

Serious Sam is a wicked gahbidge series for chowdaheads.
what if it couldn't

Considering how someone without access to the source code was able to nearly fix it completely in a matter of weeks, I doubt it.

They didn't want to put the effort into getting 60fps to work. I understand it. I'm not going pretend that it wasn't for a lack of effort, though.
 
ZNc8EI7.jpg
 

Acerac

Banned
I sit like 10 inches from my PC screen. That shitty ass resolution gave me terrible migraines. So yes.

Not to mention other mods fixed the in game button prompts and kb/m controls.
Wow, video gaming must have been incredibly rough for you up to the very recent past.

It's odd, all these years I had never known that crappy resolution actually gave people crippling pain. Guess you learn something new every day.
 

Risette

A Good Citizen
Considering how someone without access to the source code was able to nearly fix it completely in a matter of weeks, I doubt it.

They didn't want to put the effort into getting 60fps to work. I understand it. I'm not going pretend that it wasn't for a lack of effort, though.
what if that almost couldn't be fixed
 

morningbus

Serious Sam is a wicked gahbidge series for chowdaheads.
what if that almost couldn't be fixed

If we're going to continue down this path, you'll have to explain how it couldn't be fixed by a person with access to the source code when someone without access to the source code made a version that is 100% playable if you don't hold B while descending a ladder.
 

Durante

Member
That image above is a lie, I'll gladly take both cash and kudos! PM me for my mail address if you want to send cash ;)

I just don't expect it, and I don't feel comfortable seeing people demand it for me.
 
Wow, video gaming must have been incredibly rough for you up to the very recent past.

It's odd, all these years I had never known that crappy resolution actually gave people crippling pain. Guess you learn something new every day.

Playing a 720p game on a fullscreen 1080p PC monitor is absolutely nothing like:

Playing at 720p on a TV screen

Playing 720p on a native-res monitor

Playing 480i or thereabouts on a CRT monitor
 

RedSwirl

Junior Member
1080p/60fps to start with. That's the absolute bare minimum that every PC game needs to have, and 99.999% of games use it. I'll add good mouse+keyboard controls too for other PC people although I can work without it.

I understand your wanting the money to go directly to Durante instead of From, but I still prefer to understand the circumstances the port had to go through.

For starters, this was the first PC game From Software had EVER developed. They probably weren't aware of the most basic unwritten rules of the platform for western gamers. Conventional PC gamins is almost nonexistent in Japan, and whenever a Japanese developer does make a game for Windows they are commonly locked at very low resolutions (several games on Steam exemplify this).

On top of that, there were hints that From Sofware wanted more time with the port but that Namco was rushing it out.
 

antitrop

Member
I'm just amazed that these changes make the game go from unplayable to one of the best games of the generation for SO MANY PEOPLE. Granted, I love the changes it brings, but holy shit that's a lot of hyperbole.

I've never played the console version, is it locked in at 720p with 30 fps? Is this version unplayable? Or is it fine because it's on a console?

Count me among those people, Dark Souls on PC is one of the best games I've played in the last 8 years. I never would have touched it without Durante's fix.

As for console gamers, different standards. Ignorance can be bliss, a lot of console gamers don't even know what the games look like running at insane downsampled resolutions with all the latest wizz-bang effects. Some people just don't care, which is fine, too. Not everyone needs eye-bleedingly gorgeous visuals and they can appreciate the game in it's most basic form. Nothing wrong with that.

But it's nice to like pretty things, too.
 

Acerac

Banned
Playing a 720p game on a fullscreen 1080p PC monitor is absolutely nothing like:

Playing at 720p on a TV screen

Playing 720p on a native-res monitor

Playing 480i or thereabouts on a CRT monitor
Fair enough. Thanks for the info, I wasn't aware that there were such large innate differences. :)
 

Zeliard

Member
People who donated to Durante don't know that they secretly funded (awesome) Kickstarter games :>

And by extension funded by Namco, unwittingly bringing that oldschool cRPG revival.
 
So according to this:

c_l1365732815_11umso0.jpg


and the quote in the OP

and the assumption that most sales on PC were digital
and the assumption that almost nobody bought the PC version in Japan
(or alternatively that the physical PC sales and the Japan PC sales cancel each other out)

we have than in the west:

DS:pTD sold 300k on PC alone
DS:pTD sold 255k on PS3/360 combined

or with no assumptions this time, but for total (all regions) sales:

DS:pTD sold 300+ k on PC alone
DS:pTD sold 392- k on PS3/360 combined
 

Risette

A Good Citizen
Playing a 720p game on a fullscreen 1080p PC monitor is absolutely nothing like:

Playing at 720p on a TV screen

Playing 720p on a native-res monitor

Playing 480i or thereabouts on a CRT monitor
just spin around a lot, you'll never notice it with the terrible LCD motion resolution
 

Cyrano

Member
Playing a 720p game on a fullscreen 1080p PC monitor is absolutely nothing like:

Playing at 720p on a TV screen

Playing 720p on a native-res monitor

Playing 480i or thereabouts on a CRT monitor
Agreed, and this is always why videogames have bewildered me. Has a videogame designer ever considered an optimum setting for playing their videogame in, in the same way a movie has a theater to display it in?

I've always wondered if game designers think about it.
 

SJRB

Gold Member
Only 300,000 copies sounds pretty shocking to me. The game is in the top 30 best selling list of Steam pretty much nonstop, not to mention it's on sale extremely regularly. Considering its popularity I imagined it would've sold over a million by now.

Does this include both boxed and digital copies?
 

morningbus

Serious Sam is a wicked gahbidge series for chowdaheads.
Only 300,000 copies sounds pretty shocking to me. The game is in the top 30 best selling list of Steam pretty much nonstop, not to mention it's on sale extremely regularly.

Does this include both boxed and digital copies?

Digital only. Though the boxed copy was only released in Europe, I believe. Still, the number are higher.

They're great numbers for a super-cheap, late port that had some negative press around it at launch due to its technical problems.
 

The Crimson Kid

what are you waiting for
It's surprising to see the PC be the lead platform for DS2 considering how the PC version of DS was treated as such an afterthought.

Aside from the glaring lack of graphics options, Dark Souls on PC was actually not a bad PC port. It was optimized well enough and wasn't full of glitches that were unique to the PC version.

Wile the Dark Souls port is not highly ranked when compared with other PC ports. There have been plenty of more busted PC ports released in the past several years, many of which never had their issues fixed. To name but a few: Prototype 2, From Dust, Saints Row 2, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, Resident Evil 4, Assassins Creed 2, Devil May Cry 3, Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath. I also had a ton of issues personally with The Walking Dead, GTA4, and Space Giraffe on PC. To act like the PC version of Dark Souls is some unprecedented affront to PC gaming is ignorant of history and comes off as shameless, elitist, and hyperbolic to the extreme.

It's a great thing that Durante fixed the PC version as well as he did, because otherwise I wouldn't have ever gotten it. However, because I didn't want to reward bad PC ports, I bought it at $20 instead of full price. But even though I didn't want to reward a bad PC port, I wanted to show that there was demand for a sequel on PC, as well as re experience a great game in 1080p and play the new content, which is fantastic. Therein lies a necessary compromise.

Considering how they are responding with the sequel, I'd say the message I sent, along with what hundreds of thousands of others said, got through pretty clearly. Namco realizes there is significant demand for a well-made PC version of DS2, which they didn't know of before launching DS on PC.
 

Snuggles

erotic butter maelstrom
I remember when they laughed at us. It was a pipe dream, internet petitions are a joke, get over it PC fanboys. Now look how far we've come.
 

Rootbeer

Banned
YES! So incredibly happy. Glad I supported the PC version of DS1. That's how we got to this point :3

Now if only DS2 would use steamworks...
 
Why would you tie your render cycle to your simulation loop?

It needs to be 100% identical across all machines, every frame needs to be displayed exactly the same in the same order preferably at the same speed (I would rather slow the game down than drop rendered frames). I need to be able to display these exact sequence of frames at any arbitrary speed as well. Also, any machine can run this game and the games animation gains no benefits from interpolation.

Basically I want to show these 60 frames to you and I am going to show you these 60 frames. Your machine will have no impact on what I show you.
 

Portugeezer

Member
Only 300,000 copies sounds pretty shocking to me. The game is in the top 30 best selling list of Steam pretty much nonstop, not to mention it's on sale extremely regularly. Considering its popularity I imagined it would've sold over a million by now.

Does this include both boxed and digital copies?

Steam top sellers is usually not that high, especially all the way down to top 30, so when people think a game must be selling thousands of copies a day, it's probably hundreds of copies.
 

Cyrano

Member
The reality is that Dark Souls is still very much a niche title, and is largely appreciated through accretion, rather than promotion. Or, NeoGAF is not nearly the largest sector of the population for those who typically buy/play games, and using it as a yardstick to determine popular (rather than critical) success isn't really helpful.
 

Bit-Bit

Member
Wow, video gaming must have been incredibly rough for you up to the very recent past.

It's odd, all these years I had never known that crappy resolution actually gave people crippling pain. Guess you learn something new every day.

Hahaha, what's funny is that this is actually true! You have no idea how bad the N64 and Gamecube era was for me. I had to ration out my gameplay into one hour blocks because my head would hurt too bad.

Childhood was rough man.
 
I dont know, should I be sad, those graphics looked far too good for current gen and I guess we were right.

The new lighting engine will be on every platform, and if the first game looked good to you on a console then I think you'll be pleased. Or you could just get a decent PC!
 

Oemenia

Banned
The new lighting engine will be on every platform, and if the first game looked good to you on a console then I think you'll be pleased. Or you could just get a decent PC!
Fair enough, expecting the lighting and the extreme detail is a bit much. And hopefully the DSA feel my computer is old enough to give me a new one!
 

Genki

Member
Digital only. Though the boxed copy was only released in Europe, I believe. Still, the number are higher.

It was easy to find in my country, and still is. Good physical package that should make it attractive, especially since you can optionally activate it on Steam.

It's far from done selling too, it's in the top 40 on Steam right now full price.

The most important thing for DS2 PC is definitely avoiding GFWL\Windows 8.
 

zkylon

zkylewd
congrats to durante, he should get like 1 buck per copy.

also amazing news.

edit: just read all his posts asking people to drop it. fuck you durante, be a man, accept all the glory
 

Lain

Member
I only bought it because of Durante.

Same. Though I waited on that nice Amazon 15$ sale this past November, because even if Durante's fix is awesome, From still didn't deserve full price for the kind of port they put out, as far as I was concerned.
 
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