The Dark Souls Discussion Thread

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No idea. While GFWL can be annoying I played DOW 2 and GTA 4 on it without any real problems except for need to wait for that stupid thing to load. It wont stop me from buying Dark souls if the game is good and I liked watching a lets play of it so looking forward to it being released.

That makes you a great authority on the merits of GFWL.

It's shitty. Crashes everything. Poor interface. Designed for consoletards. Won't even install correctly half the time unless you do it in the first 5 minutes after installing windows. Absolutely broken in online games from what I hear (of course it will be competing with DS's broken online capability so it could be a fair fight in this regard). Has a habit of deleting save games constantly because fuck you. Basically imagine Microsoft doing their best to make Steam but worse.

It's pretty much universally hated by everyone everywhere. The only time you will see "good" next to "GFWL" in a sentence is when it is preceded by "riddance".

Due to the Online feature, that's why, fegget. GFWL is known for broken patching system, corrupting savegames (Batman AC), being a memory hog, etc. If Dark Souls uses it's online features through GFWL, then good luck.

I can imagine GFWL corrupting dark souls savegames and fucking up multiplayer already

once again pc pirates ruin a struggling console developer's pure intentions

Probably the best we can hope for is that some sort of hack is achieved that lets us play online without GFWL. Though that might leave us with an unpleasantly small playerbase of people willing to use that cumbersome a hack.

Still, if I see any falling stars I'll wish they just change their minds and release without this bullshit.

How important is online play to the DS experience? In other words, is playing the DRM-free edition without GFWL and only single-player going to make for a less fun play?

When it works right the online capability is really, really cool and unique. But not needed, and (ab)using allies on the first playthrough takes a lot away from the sense of danger and exploration.

I'd honestly recommend playing the game offline your first time through anyways. It's certainly still an excellent game even without the online bits, and definitely worth at least pirating to try it out. That said, the online is really quite unique and does add to the game, which makes attaching it to this GFWL crap a travesty.

I edged along in pitch black looking for eyes in the dark and falling long distances. I died several times by falling before I figured out where to go to drop. When I finally found the Shield/Torch, it became much more manageable. Trial and error wise, it was a huge bitch. That pit with the ember is fucking over the top hard for a melee character. I jumped in, ran to the ember, and got beat to death almost instantly by like 6 giant skeletons. Haha! Lost like 5K souls and thought, "fuck those souls...." Haha ;P

Edit:
I'm surprised they aren't going to use steam for their DRM? It's pretty much the best choice of online distribution if you want stellar sales. Namco must have hired a non-gamer, dumbass exec who thought the GFWL was a good idea. Aha!

I don't want to go on about this, but I agree with everything everybody said THAT ACTUALLY PLAYED THE GAME!

Also, puzzles = non-necessary secrets to the game's plotline. Anything you CAN do, but is non-necessary to finishing the game, yet will net you necessary gain. I guess my interpretation of puzzles is more along the lines of exploration/discovery of secrets than the strictly Myst interpretive version of puzzles.

Oh yes, I don't know if anyone noticed, but (spoiler ahead) you can roll off the ledge in front of skellies throwing bombs at you, right by the bonfire you are at, Surf Dude, and grab the ring the black knight is guarding before dying to him. You will respawn at the bonfire with his ring, which may help you a bit before getting to the next area.

As far as Havel (big guy), yeah, backstab is the best way about it, though you can also kick him off the stairs repeatedly to kill him.

I do not know how they're going to port the controls to PC, but I have high hopes for this game.

And yeah, since it is the only dungeon crawl in effectively the last 11 years, best game in the past 11...

I'm not even going to argue, this is my favorite genre, bar none, and I may have joined the PC gaming community just a few years too late to appreciate any of the good early ones.

Regardless, this gives me flashbacks to Lands of Lore II, perhaps my favorite game of all time. And the Taurus demon is easy, use the falling attack from the ledge overhead to damage him, run past him, let him chase, roll behind him, crawl back up tower, and jump off and hack at him again.

Those are my main tips.

And yeah, grab a walkthrough. My general way of playing was to take each area solo, then go BACK through it, comparing and contrasting five different walkthroughs and a strategy guide, to make sure I combed the entire game first time through. I still missed about five items semi-options I could have completed, which leads me to believe this is an entirely amazing game, as not one strategy guide has discovered EVERYTHING about this game yet...

And yes, most of the game is told through you implication.

As with any good game, the plot makes you go on strictly on the "WTF?" value of the beginning, and the plot unravels as you go. Though the Japanese, subtle bastards, told this one entirely through symbolism, ala Silent Hill 2. Good game!

I do not like too much narrative, as it imposes on my imagination, and eventually starts corroding my creative vision of how the game relates to me. It almost "intrudes" on my gameplay experience. Sometimes, an unfolding experience is best...

I did the same thing first damned time through the tomb. You get the skeleton lantern later (which you can trade for something-something...), but I recommend using the "Light" spell anyway, which you get optionally from a character in game. The Sunlight Maggot is also an excellent choice... And a cool helm!

I did the same thing first damned time through the tomb. You get the skeleton lantern later (which you can trade for something-something...), but I recommend using the "Light" spell anyway, which you get optionally from a character in game. The Sunlight Maggot is also an excellent choice... And a cool helm![/quote]

I didn't even consider other methods to light the area. I just figured that it must be a solvable area via trial and error. If I kept trying, I would eventually defeat it, and after about 30 deaths, I actually did make it through like a blind person feeling around their environment in the day light. I'll have too try a different method next time when I play this on PC.

First time I went there I had the lantern but thought it was a weapon rather than a shield, and so couldn't figure out how to use it to produce light. I thought it was just bugged.

Didn't know that the Sunlight Maggot helmet existed when I played the thing so I used the lantern and fought pretty much blind and hoped that I memorized the area around me correctly to not fall to my death and to not attract any more enemies (god damn archers). It was kinda fun and at least they placed two bonfires in that area to limit the inevitable repeat visits.

If it's going to use GFWL, it's confirmed for piracy.

I guess giving people reasons to pirate your game is the popular thing to do these days. Surely the industry has to crash soon? There's no way it can remain sustainable if publishers and developers go out of their way to encourage piracy.

http://www.change.org/petitions/nam...uls-pc-edition-without-games-for-windows-live

Had 600 signatures within an hour.

Why waste resources on a PC port if you're going to accompany it with the most obtrusive bug ridden piece of shit DRM known to man? I wanted my PC brethren to bask in the glory of Dark Souls but this is a major dealbreaker.

So if main problem of GFWL is playing the game online, how will pirating, solves it?

I don't personally care about multiplayer at all.

Did you even read Average Manatee or Suicidebunny's posts?

It fucks up your savegames. It takes ages to load. If you make an online account you can't access your savegames while offline, and vice versa. It updates through Windows Update. It flat-out refuses to let you play the game until you have the latest version, and the update process is slow and often fails for no goddamn reason whatsoever, and when it does, it starts downloading again from the beginning. Also sometimes just crashes for no reason.

Except for longer loading I never had any other problems with GFWL, I would prefer not to have it so it is either buying a console or putting up with this. Hell I will even sign a petition for them to remove it but how often do this things work?

It's PC version of XBOX Live. Why would you like crap like that?


Send them physical letter. To Namco.

"Dear sirs I head you'd like to use GFWL in the game. GFWL is known to cause unstability, general problems, and is generally hated by theirs users.
...
It's also custom for quality companies in PC industry to remove Copy protection/DRM in reasonable time as a mater of convenience for theirs users (most of them do it in last patch, but some even sooner), for example Alpha Protocol removed DRM year after official release. I would like to know if Namco would be in the companies with passion, or companies which are believe in fast money grab."

Something like that. On line system would also be a disaster on a wheels, PC users have mouses and high end keyboards. Where console users can use theirs gamepad, PC users can use 4 and 5 button on theirs programmable mouse. (And that's even before some funny and interesting programs.)

I don't think the amount of buttons PC bros have will be a problem in terms of balance in Dark Souls. The combat is about precision, not how fast you are able to cycle through your spells, items, skills, whatever.

Not to be a downer, but From Software is not known exactly for their PC Ports. Without mappable buttons, using GFWL, and the probability the game won't see a large number of patches dampens my hopes for this. I'm not even going to comment on other issues of console-to-pc ports, we're all aware of them.