Dark Souls

Except when I uninstall GFWL it just doesn't even get to crashing, it doesn't even run to begin with.
 
Well, now I feel silly, spent 2 hours messing with stuff and that was the solution. Thanks guys. Now off to mod the fuck out of it I guess.
 
All the more reason I much prefer playing it on my PS3... I've heard nothing but horror stories about how poorly and buggy the porting to PC of the game went. <_<

(And before anyone says, "Well that's why you mod it!" I know. But that's work on my part. It doesn't change that the game itself shipped with issues.)
 
Ah, but on consoles you have the dreaded Blighttown Framerate bug...

You also can't have a Dark Souls that looks like this....


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That's really a myth. I have never ONCE encountered that allegedly widespread bug, and I ran Dark Souls on BOTH an aging and dying fat PS3 and a new slim PS3! NEVER had lag or framerate problems in Blighttown! I don't know what those players are doing who experience this rare phenomenon, but it's just not as universal as people insist. As for the picture... barring that I don't OWN the DLC to get me that set, the game looks exactly like that to me! o.o Maybe slightly blurred? I dunno, I see no difference.

Speaking of which, man I REALLY need to get that damn DLC already. It's been, what, 3 years now? >_< I don't even know the details of the DLC (I mean how to unlock and traverse the various areas, and how it impacts the rest of the game, the new spells, etc) so I'm- if you'll pardon the pun -blissfully still in the dark about it, so I wanna avoid the wikidot and spoil myself when I finally DO get around to playing it. But yeah, I recognize that I ought to get it, but I still have yet to. PROBABLY better to finish that off before I move on to DkSII I suppose?
 
That's not exactly saying much in its favor. I still prefer Demon's Souls in that category, as well. =P

Bell Gargoyles got NOTHING on the Maneaters! Gwyn can suck it next to the False King. And Flamelurker? Ugh, that's SUCH a fun boss fight with no equal in Dark Souls!

Only area in terms of bosses where DeS MAY be outshone by DkS is that the final boss of the latter is actually a challenge, in contrast to the deliberately pitiful and pushover final boss of the former. But that was also intentional, to highlight and really bring out the tragic drama of what had become of King Allant. Even though it wasn't hard by any means, it was a far more moving and touching fight than tackling the shell of what was once Gwyn.

Uh... spoilers, I guess?
 
Any mods you recomend guys?
I beat the first dungeon with no deaths, then I got mauled by skeletons, got stuck on a tree, got mauled by ghosts and lost 1500 souls after falling to my death trying to recover them. Fun times.
 
Ah, the fresh "Dark Souls beginner" smell, complete with journeying to the end-game area at the beginning of the game and getting destroyed because it's accessible and you don't know better. Those were the days. XD
 
SnapSlav said:
That's not exactly saying much in its favor. I still prefer Demon's Souls in that category, as well. =P

Bell Gargoyles got NOTHING on the Maneaters! Gwyn can suck it next to the False King. And Flamelurker? Ugh, that's SUCH a fun boss fight with no equal in Dark Souls!

Only area in terms of bosses where DeS MAY be outshone by DkS is that the final boss of the latter is actually a challenge, in contrast to the deliberately pitiful and pushover final boss of the former. But that was also intentional, to highlight and really bring out the tragic drama of what had become of King Allant. Even though it wasn't hard by any means, it was a far more moving and touching fight than tackling the shell of what was once Gwyn.

Uh... spoilers, I guess?
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You're quite the DeS fanboy, aren't you SnapSlav?

I have to say, the Artorias bossfight is on another level, it simply tops all the others in the base game.And this is coming from a Dark Souls fanboy.

Any mods you recomend guys?
I beat the first dungeon with no deaths, then I got mauled by skeletons, got stuck on a tree, got mauled by ghosts and lost 1500 souls after falling to my death trying to recover them. Fun times.
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As long as you have DSFix, you're set.

Maybe install Sweetfix HDR if you want to spice up the graphics.

As to your deaths involving ghosts and skeletons, here's a hint: Talk to NPCs, and pay attention!

Failing that.....

Enter the large waterway/aquaduct next to Firelink Shrine, it leads to the Undead Burg.
 
Yeah I am in the Undead Burg now, having trouble with the Taurus Demon and that Knight guy, I don't get how Parrying works, tried to practice with the zombies butthe Knight's attacks have weird timing and even after leveling up I continue doing the same damage to him. Taurus Demon is pissing me off, the camera kills me half the time. So I guess I am just starting Dark Souls then.

Edit: Looked up a video on how to defeat the Taurus Demon.... I guess I was supposed to know how to do that? well gonna try it tomorrow, I think I have my quota of getting fucked in the ass for today. Any advice you can give me for the near future in the game?
 
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Walpknut said:
Yeah I am in the Undead Burg now, having trouble with the Taurus Demon and that Knight guy, I don't get how Parrying works, tried to practice with the zombies butthe Knight's attacks have weird timing and even after leveling up I continue doing the same damage to him. Taurus Demon is pissing me off, the camera kills me half the time. So I guess I am just starting Dark Souls then.

Edit: Looked up a video on how to defeat the Taurus Demon.... I guess I was supposed to know how to do that? well gonna try it tomorrow, I think I have my quota of getting fucked in the ass for today. Any advice you can give me for the near future in the game?
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If you're referring to the Tower/Jumping Attack technique...

You're not specifically meant to, but you can do.

It's equally viable to just take him one on one and roll under his attacks, I find the tower method to be "cheesing" the boss fight nowadays, but the tower method is very much recommended for a beginner.

Trust me, the actual first boss is a lot better than the Taurus Demon and the Asylum Demon.
 
AlphaPromethean said:
You're quite the DeS fanboy, aren't you SnapSlav?
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Not at all. I just played it first, on recommendation from a friend who didn't realize he owned the Asian version and that I needed THAT to play with him when I picked up the NA version, and it took me several weeks to start enjoying it because of the adjustment to its unforgiving-but-fair standards. I can't even say how many days I spent getting slaughtered on the steps of the Boletaria gates by Dregs (the beginning of the game) because I kept trying to be hasty. Like just about all first-time players, Vanguard killed me in one swing when I approached him, then I got instantly toasted by the Red Dragon on the archway, then again on the field beneath their perch, then once more on the King's Road. I didn't skillfully defeat Vanguard and then teleport to the "secret" Dragon's God Lair to be one-shotted by him, or even know that it EXISTED until I read about it online, and even then it took me several attempts and character recreations to beat Vanguard to find it. I didn't know how my repeated deaths were making my World Tendency darker and darker and thus making it harder until much, much later. I didn't learn about the game's intricacies much at all until WELL AFTER having played it for a long time. But when I finally did, that's what grew on me. The complexity of the combat system. The tough but not unfair level of challenge that the game offered. The delicious atmosphere of these haunted and once-lived-but-now-desolately-barren lands. The hidden secrets. The sidestories. The NPCs that underwent their own plot without waiting for you. I just learned to love that game.

I was very excited for Dark Souls when I heard about it, because I tried to get many friends to play Demon's Souls and largely to little avail. I was happy that it reached a state of popularity that its predecessor never enjoyed. But ultimately I just came to feel that it was lacking compared to DeS the more I played it. I loved it, don't get me wrong, but not as much as Demon's Souls, any more than you can't say that a 10 is a larger number than an 8 with an honest face. Like I've said several times, earlier, I recognized that Dark Souls just plain made universal improvements over the previous title. But an improvement doesn't really matter that much when taking one step forward is followed by one step back. The bosses were seriously underwhelming in DkS. They just don't compare to the bosses from FromSoft's masterpiece. The characters are pretty great, but neither Logan nor Siegmeyer really left me feeling as saddened as Ostrava did, and they BOTH included way more interactions with the player than Ostrava did, alone, not to mention combined! It's just that cumulatively, I find Demon's Souls to be the wholly better title. Not by a frightening lead, but not an inconsiderable one. I don't see myself as a fanboy for that reason. It's not irrational and hate-mongering, after all.

Walpknut said:
Yeah I am in the Undead Burg now, having trouble with the Taurus Demon and that Knight guy, I don't get how Parrying works, tried to practice with the zombies butthe Knight's attacks have weird timing and even after leveling up I continue doing the same damage to him. Taurus Demon is pissing me off, the camera kills me half the time. So I guess I am just starting Dark Souls then.

Edit: Looked up a video on how to defeat the Taurus Demon.... I guess I was supposed to know how to do that? well gonna try it tomorrow, I think I have my quota of getting fucked in the ass for today. Any advice you can give me for the near future in the game?
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Lubricant. Metaphorically speaking. All you can do to prepare for the future of the game is to realize how badly you've been pampered and that you're not getting ANY of that in this game. It won't coddle you, you'll have to man up and relearn Gaming 101 from scratch.

That said, yes and no to your first question. You were "supposed to know" about the dropping attack "trick" because you used it on the Asylum Demon at the beginning of the game, but you're not necessarily "supposed" to use it on the Taurus Demon at all. That's just one of the easiest ways to beat him. But frankly all you were "supposed" to know was that this was a boss fight, time to get serious and try your best and HOPE you can beat this asshole! Melee combat works perfectly well against the Taurus Demon, you just gotta know when to dodge. His combos are ridiculously slow, so it's easy to block his attacks (unless you have shit for Stamina and a broken board for a shield?) and followup with a prod or two. If you learn how to dodge, you can get even more hits off on him.

As for Knights, they're intended as a challenging miniboss, of sorts. Before the difficulty was dumbed down (yes, you're playing the EASY version of the game, so own your mistakes =P) they used to SOMETIMES offer drop rewards when defeated, but like all other drops in the game they needed to be looted from their bodies, so if you were to push that Black Knight off the edge in the Undead Burg where you find it, you'd miss out on any treasure it MAY give you. But now, with the easiness turned up a little, you ALWAYS get a drop from them, and the rewards are disembodied and automatically looted, so worry not if you should choose to be cheap and cheese them to death! Pfft...

Or were you referring to the "Knight Guy" at the bottom of the tower where you fight the Taurus Demon? XD

Parrying works how it sounds; you parry attacks. It's all in the timing. You gotta use your parry when the attack would land, not before, not after. Most shields have the same parrying animation, though there are weapons that have longer parrying animations which makes it easier to land a parry. There are MANY trolling PVP videos on youtube where people would invade another player's world completely naked, and proceed to punch the air harmlessly, luring the player to disarm themselves and join the air punching with them, then the invader parries one of the punched, quickly swaps to a deadly weapon, and ripostes the player fatally in one single counterattack. Getting parried has THAT long of a stun animation, so it's a very versatile skill to learn. Unless you intend to venture into ranged combat (which, unlike Demon's Souls is not as viable in Dark Souls, but still useful to some degree) you'll want to learn and ultimately master parrying and riposte attacks. They make very short work of enemies once you learn their attack patterns.

All that said, any difficulty in this game flies out the window once you do memorize every item location and every enemy spawn and every attack pattern. Increasing enemy HP and damage on successive replays helps to close the gap in player strength increase, but they can't undo that the mechanics are designed with the player's skill heavily favored. Once you know the game, that's it, it ceases to be a challenge. Unlike some other games that don't give a fuck what you know and prefer to throw bullshit you way to "make it hard". *COUGH* World at War *COUGH* =)

AlphaPromethean said:
Trust me, the actual first boss is a lot better than the Taurus Demon and the Asylum Demon.
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Which "actual first boss" are you referring to? Asylum Demon IS the first boss. =P
 
I consider the Gargoyles to be the actual first Boss.

They have their own cutscene.

This is how I order bosses:

Bosses: Bosses that have cutscenes and are the end of the area, Ornstein and Smough, the Gargoyles, Knight Artorias.

Mini-Bosses:Enemies that have a boss healthbar and are sprinkled throughout an area but do not have a cutscene. Generally they are easier than actual Bosses.

Nano-Bosses:Non-respawning unique enemies without a boss healthbar, Havel the Rock, the Hydra etc.
 
That's an unusual way to look at it. Bosses are bosses, and the health bars indicate that. Cutscenes are simply flavor which they inherited the same inconsistent use of from Demon's Souls. After all, Phalanx was the first boss of the game (excluding Vanguard) but didn't get a cutscene. You just cross the fog and the fight begins. The next boss of Boletaria, the Tower Knight, had a cutscene, but the immediately next available boss, the Armor Spider, did not. Flamelurker had a cutscene, but not the Dragon God. It goes on and on. FromSoft just didn't give EVERY boss a cutscene, and the same rule hols true in Dark Souls.

As for the rest, things like the Drake are a miniboss, because it's a special creature that you can only fight once in the game, but has no health bar. The Hydra is the same. Havel is a pseudo-boss NPC, because he's like Logan except you don't get to interact with him before he becomes hostile. Both provide boss-like encounters, and once you kill each, they're gone for good, but no health bars, and they're both human NPCs. But the Taurus Demons which appear later in the game, like the Capra Demons that share the same location specific spawn points, AND respawn rather than disappear once killed, are clearly just regular enemies at this point. They're not as strong as their boss counterparts, and they come in much larger numbers, so clearly they're not any kind of category of miniboss. But the latter Gargoyles? I'd say those qualify as minibosses, since they're gone for good once you dispatch them.
 
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