And I may just have gotten Dark Souls twice...
How you may ask?
Well I saw an aution for Vanilla DSs on Tradera for a good price somedays ago.
But then to night I saw a buy it on for the Prepere to Die edition for about the same price and cheeper then getting the DLC for the other one.
SO FUCK IT I SAID!
I can give the other one away as a julklapp or something.
Hmm, my sister boyfriends birthday is coming up too...
Eh, I will probably get sniped at the last moment anyway.
GG

>>185999
I wouldn't mind taking it off your hands if you win it.

Prepare to prog folk!

Dark Souls 2 Locomotive Breath Trailer

Beat the first boss!

It's so weird playing one of these right out of the gate after playing DeS years later with all the documentation and DaS having actually SEEN most of the game.

>>186002
But I didn't, but dont worry, the p&p from sweden would probably have made it not worth it.
Am sure you can find it cheaper somewhere else.
And if all goes well I will have my copy today or tomorrow.

>People joining Covenant of Champions trying to figure out what it does and playing through large portions of the game that way

This is actually one of the saddest things I've ever heard.

>>186116
>Look up what you are talking about
*pfffth* AH-HAHAHAHAHAHA!

Also I got Dark Souls the same day as I said, I just dont have anything to say about it...
Yet.
Still great game though.

It's a damn shame the lighting system was gutted, and more of a shame they didn't advertise the retail version at all, showing footage from preview builds that still had lighting intact (as in >>185977). The game looks washed out with a gray filter or something in most areas to compensate for the lack of needing the torch, with the exception of maybe two areas.
Area designs and cohesiveness from one to the next also don't seem to be as good as Dark Souls 1, which admittedly could be because the game world is more sprawling rather than interconnected like the first. There are some visually interesting areas like Drangleic Castle, Iron Keep, Heide's Tower of Flame, but a lot of areas like Harvest Valley, Shaded Woods, Lost Bastille, The Gutter seem subpar.
PS3 also has framerate issues, and because of the increased brightness you can sometimes see enemies spawn from midair. There's input lag as well for both systems.
It's still fun despite the flaws, but I wish From had bothered to mention the changes they made and not used old footage for the ads. Maybe PC version will have the original lighting system, but I'm doubting it at this point.
As for actual gameplay it's pretty much the same as Dark Souls, but enemies seem to hit harder as a way to make up for letting you carry around more healing items.
TL;DR game is good, worth the price but could have been better

Aaaaand DONE. Didn't do all the side stuff but did do a fair bit of shitting around in the Grave of Saints/summoning myself off to help with various bosses, pulled in 45ish hours. Last boss is a joke, she didn't even hit me as I piled magic arrows into her face. Her weird fog things cursed me a couple times when I strafed near them but at that point who gives a fuck? Ending was uh... something. Game feels like there's a lot less of a story than in Dark Souls 1, but that could just be because the internet hasn't had time to pull the game apart and figure out the real story yet. Also its not like I actually did any character sidequests unless I happened to run into them, which I guess was enough to get the scotsman and that dude whose headless body I found after the spider as coop buddies against the Throne guards, not that I used them because NPCs are dumb.

So what is your favorite armor thus far? lotsa cool and fun, dorky ones in this.

>>186144
The problem with the lightning is that it fucks people who are going strength and dual wielding. It makes it impossible to go though the game like that while blinded and needing a torch. I am mad about how magic was changed from the beta.

>>186350
Didn't Dragon's Dogma have a lantern you attached to your belt?

>>186351
Yes, it did.

So I've been playing through Dark Souls for the first time (I'm about to head into Blighttown - wish me luck) and I just finished killing Havel, after like a dozen failed attempts to take him on head-on, by kiting him with poisoned throwing knives and letting the poison wear him down. And while I was thinking about that, I had a minor revelation.

When you start up the game, you expect that eventually, you'll become Guts. Unstoppable killing machine, mighty of arm and mighty of weapon, mowing down all cannonfodder in his path and killing seemingly unkillable demons. And there's a little bit of truth to that. But that's not really who the game teaches you to be.

Serpico's not usually the strongest, fastest, or toughest guy around. He'd be outmatched in a direct fight against many of his enemies. But Serpico never starts a fight he can't win, and he'll use any and all elements of his environment to give himself an advantage. Other men might call him cowardly, but he doesn't care, because if he was courageous, he'd be dead.

Dark Souls doesn't want you to be Guts. It wants you to be Serpico.

>>186422
The best boss in the game totally IS Armor Guts though. He's in the DLC/Extra PC Content, which I guarantee you will not find on your own.

I sure did just finish writing a 20-page paper on Dark Souls for a graduate-level literature class.

>>186744
What's your thesis?

>>186768

That Dark Souls, because of the way both its gameplay and narrative are structured, serves as a perfect example of the opacity of digital texts as compared with traditional media.

Really, the paper is about that opacity and its implications for scholars trying to study games as if they were books or film, but Dark Souls is the way I approached the issue.

>>186771
So basically that Dark Souls makes strong use of its medium to tell a story rather than relying on the structure of mediums before it?
I'd like to read that paper.

>>186775
Seconded.

I've been looking up game mechanics while waiting for the PC release of II, and it seems they changed the way spell damage works. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Dark Souls: You have a magic adjustment stat based on your int and catalyst, faith and talisman, or Pyromancy Flame and its level. The attack strength when you cast a spell is the magic adjustment times the spell's base damage.

Dark Souls II: Attack strength for a spell is base damage + Dark/Fire/Magic/Lightning BNS*Parameter BNS for the flame/chime/staff you're using (the same way weapon damage works).

If this is true, then are all damaging spells covered by one of those categories? How do the BNS stats affect healing spells, buffs, or damaging spells that don't have a clear element, like Wrath of the Gods?

>>186775
>>186783

I don't want to post it publically because I think I might be able to turn it into something publishable later, but if you email me I'd be glad to send you a copy.

>>186796
Will do.

>tfw getting greedy in a Souls game

So goddamn happy they added beards. You get to look like incredibly badass now.

>Brightstone Cove Tseldora
>Spiders
>Spiders everywhere
>They deal a TON of damage and always seem to manage to sneak in a hit as you kill them
>And then there's spider-fied hollows, who have everything terrible about the spiders plus enough health to tank a couple hits
>AND THEN THERE'S THE ASSHOLES WHO SHOOT HOMING MAGIC AT YOU NONSTOP
>AND THEN THE BOSS FUCKING SPAWNS SPIDERS FOREVER

Fuck Brightstone Cove Tseldora. This place is about a thousand times worse than Blighttown ever was.

>>187081
The game has way more complete bullshit bits than both Demon's and Dark 1 combined. Let me save you some headaches, if you wanna get spoiled on how to progress more easily: Poison arrows are your best friend.

>>187090
You're only going to get 40 of those before a really late-game area.

>>187091
He's in Brightstone Cove, that means he can buy them by now. Gavlan sells them.

>>187092
Oh, wasn't aware he was talking specifically about someone that far along.

Was the multiplayer name censorship as ridiculous on the console version as it is on the PC version? It seriously blocks out even two or three letter sequences, resulting in common words/name like "Thomas" or "night" being almost incomprehensible.

>>187151
Yeah I went full neckbeard on my character's name, giving him some kinda cryptic and mysterious name. Only to later realize that the censorship made me look like a complete buttmuncher every time I invaded/co-op'd.

>>187151
Is there a list somewhere of what gets blocked? I'd hate to spend all that time gearing up only to look like I named my character Mad Cunt, Destroyer of Worlds.

Reminds me, a few of my pokes got renamed through the transporter. I don't even remember what I named them other than I name the guys I intend to use after food.

>>187159
It's just a google search away, son. Also, don't even try. Your name will have censorship in it. It's the most ridiculous list I've ever seen. What the fuck kind of swear word is "ead" even?

>>187162
> It's the most ridiculous list I've ever seen.
Holy crap, he's not kidding.

http://mod.gib.me/darksouls2/ngword/

>bag
>bang
>block
>brothel
>bush
>but (no, I didn't forget the second t)
>cleveland
>dog
>domination
>donkey
>dook
>dumb
>ead
>fart
>fetish
>flog
>finger
>forked
>gay
>hand
>hell
>heroin (note this will make "heroine" into "******e")
>hick
>ho
>hot
>jap (but because it blocks partial words, this means "japan" is also screwed up)
>jack
>jis
>job
>lap
>lesbian
>lez
>lelo
>mack
>masochism
>master
>muff
>nig
>nude
>nudity (but not nudist, mysteriously)
>nuts
>oral
>perve
>phat
>phile
>pie
>poon
>poop
>poot
>pud
>qq more
>rump
>satan
>screw
>scrog
>sex
>sko
>slave
>spank
>suck
>teez
>throat
>tit
>transexual
>transvestite
>urine
>waffle
>wang
>whip
>whiz
>whoe
>woof
>xx

The amount of things that are obscene, but ridiculously obscure (ufia? Never heard of that before) is also impressive.

>What the fuck kind of swear word is "ead" even?
>(Old English) "ead": n. (poetic) happiness, prosperity

For extra points, see how many people give their name obscene meanings regardless of the words contained: I remember someone using the name PhallusEnlarge.

>>187163
This is the game with all the blood and death right?
Seems silly to block bad words.

>>187164
Not to mention that even NPCs swear in the game. It's utterly perplexing.

>>187163
>cleveland

>>187164
There's actually extremely little blood--that and the ragdolls no longer being dragged around by your feet let the game get away with a Teen rating. Most of the more horrifying stuff (like the Rotten or the spider people) are more weird than graphically violent, which is the same reason most Castlevania games are only rated Teen.

Still, quite a few of these are words that wouldn't even prevent a E10 rating (For fuck's sakes, "poot" is literally the [i]baby[i] version for people who didn't want their children saying "poop"), and are far less harsh than some things said by NPCs.

>>187167
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=cleveland%20steamer

>>187172
"Cleveland" is on the list, yet "steamer" isn't. Strange.

>>187163
Saw someone named C*U*N*T too the other day.

>>187178
Yeah, and some harmless RPers get shafted.

>>187180
At least that's better than this one guy on reddit who just found out why he shouldn't have used the name "DeadMeat".

Oh, and "ead" is there for being short for "eat a dick"; it just happens to be an actual word (and a part of a large number of other words, like "dead" and "head"). Yes, it even bans a large number of anagrams, like stfu, rtfm, snafu, bfe and the aforementioned ufia.

>>187187
It's not M-rated, it's T.

>>187188
Deleted my post when I double-checked and realized my mistake on that. Somehow the fact that they'd tone shit down is worse to me than an M rated game with idiotic multiplayer censorship.

>>187190
They didn't tone down anything really, the game is the same in just about every way sans that weird walking on bodies physics.

These weird multiplayer censorship things are the only thing the T-rating changed, plus it allowed for greater sales.

It's more just something weird and embarrassing than something to get steamed about.

Holy crap, NG+ does NOT fuck around! The true Dark Souls 2 starts here. They've added so much new stuff. You'll never feel safe, even though you already know the area.
Gif related. It's my face when I got to Flexile Sentry.

>>187235
Most of it is "Hey, you like black phantoms? Have a billion everywhere with no real thought put into it."

>tfw soul memory starts to really become a thing for me.
>also phantom range, santier's spear, havel's armor, dark magic, avelyn etc. etc.
This is it. I'm actually getting mad at video games now. I am for real mad at video games as of this moment.