Be Excellent To Each Other

This game hates you, there is no love in this game, it is a game made from bile and the souls of tortured kittens.

They should put that on the back of the box.

Incredibly. It's probably the greatest online system I've ever played. Why?

Because Dark Souls forbids things. You can never hear someone speak. You can never play with a friend. You can never chat with friends, even in an unrelated party. You have soul signs and a handful of gestures and the ghosts of others.

The invader who burst unannounced into my game and took me to within a slither of my life. until I managed to scrape a victory, was A Giant. A torment. Someone who was better than me.

What he wasn't was a ten year old boy. Or a racist. Or a twat. Or even just a guy from norwich. And I never once came across as a the boring geek that I am.

Immersion is preserved at all costs. We are undead souls together.

I've summoned warriors akin to God, and I must have looked like one to some of the people who summoned me too. (I got pretty decent at killing Quelag for people).

Party chat would open the game up to much easy interaction, friends replacing summon signs until they show up in their friends world and such like. The moment any too people are co-oping together with voice chat (which Party chat could be abused for) then the games balance is fucked.

And balance comes first.

I commend FromSoftware so highly for having the guts for cutting it. To be honest I wish more games experimented with voice. Left 4 Dead et al should break your voice chat if you stray to far.

If struggling with a boss Chomp a humanity and look for someone to summon. It's not cheating, and has lead to the most rewarding parts of the game for me. If you don't have humanity drop your summon sign and help people try and take the demon on. If you win you get humanity and souls.

Also for Taurus Demon I know a cheaty mc cheaty way, thats close to a glich if you get really really stuck.

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Buyer beware I used that method and I think it meant I didn't have the training needed to take on the next guy (Capra) so it took me forever.

On NG+ I ran up to the TD and took him toe to toe, without losing a life. True Skills Learnt, not levelled.

Is there anywhere I can sell stuff? I've found fat man who sells miracles, stupid nasal skinless man and a blacksmith behind some bars so far.

After you have there is a character at who will 'buy' stuff off you. But there is no real need. I never did at least.

I just saved my 'souls of a brave knight' and so on, for when there was something I couldn't afford that I wanted, or to top up my souls to the next level or something.

EDIT: Oh and if you buy a bottomless box you can off load junk into storage. (The only benefit of which is having your menus easier to navigate when in the middle of a battle),

That's certainly what I need to do - offload a load of stuff I'm never going to use. I've had the bottomless box for ages too and not put anything in it yet.

Enjoying Anor Londo at the mo although some of the heights are a bit dizzying. Bit annoyed with myself for losing a load of souls against one of those grey demon things though and failing to retrieve them.

I hate this game, I have been playing since 5:30 and I am still at the same bonfire!

You must be warm now at least.

Best idea ever.

Glad you've given it another shot, Dimrill.

Aye, and I think Bobby's getting drawn in too.

Highs and lows guys, highs and lows.

Also: Summon.
Also: you don't need to be human to be summoned. only to summon others.
Also: you can get a bitchin' sword by buying a bunch of arrows (>50) and shooting the shit out of the big red dragons tail.

Drawn in? hardly. This really is utter dogshit. After witnessing the braying earlier in the thread I very nearly traded it in.

Another case for the prosecution: you can't aim crossbows.

Awesome! Someone's just invaded my game and killed me. This really is fantastic.

Crossbows are auto-aim only, yeah. You can aim normal bows in first person view, though.

There's a first person view?
Also, "be human to summon", what are you talking about? I am an undead pyromancer who can't aim properly, and takes so long to summon fire that the skeletons I am fighting come to life, adjust their bones, have a cup of tea and walk over and slash me from chuffing miles away and kill me in one/two hits. I can't respond as moving cancel my fire spell (as does being hit), so I have no recourse but to use my weapon. Oh it is an axe, I have a third of the reach of the skeleton, oh I'm dead again.

You can't kill skellingtonsuntil much later in the game (ones you have made a divine weapon) so don't go that way.

On humanity:

So occasionally in killing something the number in the top left of the screen will increase by 1. This is your humanity. You lose it like souls on death, but can pick it back up.

You can also find an item called humanity too. That's a solid bit of humanity that you can use at any point to increase your number by one too,

You can use your humanity points in 2 main way:

1) you can "reverse hollowing" for 1 humanity and become human again. This lets people invade your game (which can be bad) but also let's you use white signs on the floor to summon other players to help co-op bosses with you and is very good.

2) whilst human you can soen another 1 humanity to kindle a bonfire. This increases the number of estus flakes you get by 5 from that bonfire for ever. This is a great thing to do.

Not just for the bosses but entire levels (I know you know this Lave, im just saying just for the wider audience) AND for invasions too.

I got invaded and had enough time to summon two people to help me kick the invader back to his own world. I was in the right spot obviously, but if you get know where the summons signs congregate you can often leg it to get help.

But where does the game tell you any of this, I have read the manual and it doesn't mention any of these things. Have I just not go far enough yet?

The pleasure is in discovering these things. This game is full of surprises. And death.

Mwaaaa ha haaaaa, MWAAAA HAAAAA HAAAAAAA HAAAAAAAAAA!

I've clocked it.

Dimrill, you don't have to kill the Red Dragon at all. I did but much later on in the game when I was a right old tough cookie.

What is a very good thing to do is

Stop trying to get him into it he obviously doesnt like it. Getting the drake sword would only be a temporary repreive (albeit a very welcome one).

Might as well flog or trade it, let someone get some lovely lovely use out of it.

Seriously, its meant to be hard and difficult to get into, and not spoon feed the player. This was well known before anyone buys the game, so where the suprise is, I dunno. calling this peice of art a smelly pile of crap is just ignorant.

Yeah, but he was like this with sensual rimming too. He just needs the right guidance.

Something that I've just remembered from earlier in my game...

Oops. I also killed the chubby bloke at Firelink (in that room of vases) at the start of the game when I was finding out if you could hit the NPCS.

Yeah, I got the Drake sword last night, hence whinging about crossbows. While doing so a twat invaded my game and killed me, hence whinging. I wish there was a thread of something to follow in this. Just something to get me to continue playing. At the moment it's just following the path of least resistance for no discernible goal or reason.

Your goal is to ring the bell!

Are you enjoying it any more than before? I know it's not a game for everyone and there have certainly been plenty of times where I've felt like packing it in, but then I get a little further and it keeps me going again - thankfully not in a grinding sense either. There have been plenty of times where I've gone for a wander back through the Undead Burg/Parish just for the fun of it.

No, I'm not. Grinding souls for levels can fuck off. This isn't a job, this is supposed to be fun. And it's not. At all.

I never grinded in the game, bar one arguable moment when I was waiting to be summoned for the fun Quelag boss and so killed a few monsters until I was summoned by someone... I got no more than half a level that way and I was level 100 by the end.

It seems rather ill suited to you Dimmers. Sorry...

I grinded but only so I could used some spells that I wanted, but didn't actually need.

It was still fun as I was tonking big bastards who had handed my arse to me previously.

Dimrill: You find out the 'story' as you play along, for now all you know is that the two bells need to be rang.

Sorry to hear you're not enjoying it. It's a brutal game and certainly not for everyone, if it hasn't given you the urge to continue by the first bell I'd jack it in. Or jack it in now I suppose, your shout really.

I can handle brutal difficulty, it's the brutal boredom that's getting the better of me.

I thought you were whining cause you kept getting killed. Sounds like the difficulty is too much for you, although difficulty and boredom aren't mutually exclusive.

Best just leave it for us that are überacebest at video games.

Fair enough. Shame though as I thought you'd love this.

Don't. I don't think anyone here grinder souls for levels.

The actual improvement between levels is rather deceptive. (you're generally better off spending souls on upgrading weapons)

Had to. The Drake sword has a minimum 16 strength requirement.

Don't listen to Dave, he rushed through it.

If you used it 2 handed, it's much less. I had to for a while.

There are quite a few weapons that you'll need various requirements to use and you won't be able to use for a while (at least in my case), so it's case of using other stuff in the meantime as your character grows stronger. I've not got round to killing that dragon yet as I'm avoiding ranged combat and magic so I want to be able to fight him outright when he jumps out into the middle bit. The fire tends to rather wipe me out pretty quickly though, so I'll go back later with better stuff equipped.

It will be great to pick up a cheap copy of this down the line to play through again and make different choices. Looking at the Wiki there are loads of things I missed out on.

oh my fucking god! I finally, finally beat that Taurus demon, and meet some saint geezer, see a load of bad guys on a bridge, cautiously inch towards them, then without warning get killed instantly from 4/5ths health by a fucking dragon! No warning, nothing! Fuck you game you fucking piece of scrotum sucking bastard crap.

Horrible, isn't it? By the time I met Mr Shit Draggin I'd got metal armour on, so I was less flammable. Still damn near killed me though.

No warning aside from the whacking great big dragon you can see peering at you, you mean?

Edit: Well, that's curious. He apparently isn't always there.

It gives you no warning when he appears for the first time. He does a fly-over from behind before perching up there.

It's not even fun(ny). No option but to get killed, lose all you souls (I had almost 10k) and you can't retrieve them as you get roasted. Brilliant.

This isn't Skyrim, Dragons are, well, Dragons.

And yeah, erm, how can you miss the bloody great big dragon (that is foreshadowed a few mins earlier by flying over your head)? It's sitting there filling the best part of the entire screen and roaring!

I think maybe you stuck in the normal-game mindset that 'ooh that will trigger a cut scene' where you need to be of the mindset 'shit, I've not been here before and THERE IS A FUCKING DRAGON!' and then inch forward terrified.

This is a game all about patience. Running forward to meet 3 guys on the bridge is suicide. Running forward to meet 3 guys on the bridge when there is also a DRAGON is suicide. Assuming the Dragon will wait till you've finished is suicide.

Because, it is a Dragon.

There are safe zones either side of the battlements. The one on the right has a set of stairs which'll be your only way forward that's not filled with draggin. It'll lead to a ladder you can kick to get back to the bonfire.

Because when he does that, he roasts the entire battlement. If you're not looking directly upwards (and who would be when there's men approaching you with spears), you get toasted.

In thats the case it's basically a test to see if you have learnt that you never, ever, run towards the bad guys. You walk. Shield up. Sizing them up. Patience. Patience. Patience.

Then the dragon flys overhead and kills them forward.

This isn't a game where you can repeat what you did last time, but this time it will work (which is how I play about 95% of games, so took me a long time to shake the habit). You have to work out what you are doing wrong. And stop doing it.