Dark Souls

  On 11/8/2011 at 6:18 PM, alpaca said:

i liked this article

 

http://www.gameranx....-time-to-grind/

Yeah, that article really nails the atmosphere of the game. My housemate and I were talking about the sense you have of being in purgatory and enduring cyclical punishment, and how wonderful it is... at the risk of sounding pretentious, it brings to mind Dante's Inferno (not the game), The Third Policeman and Jorge Luis Borges.

I made some progress last nite, taking out that invisible lady in the Painted World (before losing the souls in a really stupid way, as per.) Right now, I'm stuck on Ornstein and Smough, but it's just a matter of time until I take them down. I was just too tired to do it last night. When I got up for work a couple of hours ago, my housemate triumphantly told me how he managed to defeat them. He was cooking tortellini at 7.30am. He'd been playing all night.

  On 11/9/2011 at 10:10 AM, Iain C said:

My housemate and I were talking about the sense you have of being in purgatory and enduring cyclical punishment, and how wonderful it is... at the risk of sounding pretentious, it brings to mind Dante's Inferno (not the game), The Third Policeman and Jorge Luis Borges.

This really sells the game to me. But unfortunately I'm just too much of a pussy to get into this kind of hardcore adventuring.

Rent it for a weekend and see if you're not hooked!

Yeah i rented it from redbox, was hooked instantly. I think with all the guides and wikis online you can kinda of tweak how hardcore you want it to be.

I can imagine the game being much easier for boss fights if you could summon online players...I dont have xbox live gold though so haven't been able to try it.

Im only in blighttown now but I always get distracted and just walk around for hours. Only other console game I did that with was Shadow of the Colossus.

so...do you not need xbox live gold to summon/be invaded? Got invaded twice and then summoned the same person twice to try and take down quelagg but don't have xbox live gold.

  On 11/9/2011 at 10:10 AM, Iain C said:

  On 11/8/2011 at 6:18 PM, alpaca said:

i liked this article

 

http://www.gameranx....-time-to-grind/

I made some progress last nite, taking out that invisible lady in the Painted World (before losing the souls in a really stupid way, as per.) Right now, I'm stuck on Ornstein and Smough, but it's just a matter of time until I take them down. I was just too tired to do it last night. When I got up for work a couple of hours ago, my housemate triumphantly told me how he managed to defeat them. He was cooking tortellini at 7.30am. He'd been playing all night.

Hah yeah a friend of mine did that a few weeks ago. He started playing at around 5pm(his first time), I went to bed at 1am and he was still playing... when I got up at 10am, he was still playing the game and hadn't stopped. He had just gotten to Sen's Fortress when I woke up.

I finally beat Laurel and fucking Hardy last night after days of struggle. In the end, a cheesy Iron Flesh strategy took care of the beanpole, meaning I had plenty of fireballs and estus left to take down fatty - all I had to do was learn his moves and only attack after rolling out the way of his jump-smash attack.

Game of the year!

It's really hard for me to play this game more than once. I put so much hard work and time into completing the game, that I just feel burnt out of the second playthrough. I play for awhile to, I try to kill all the bosses, and all that jazz. I think my Demon's Souls game had 100+ hours, because I did so much grinding. It's the same case with Dark Souls.

giant dog with sword is such an asshole.

  On 11/10/2011 at 10:10 AM, Jur said:

It's really hard for me to play this game more than once. I put so much hard work and time into completing the game, that I just feel burnt out of the second playthrough. I play for awhile to, I try to kill all the bosses, and all that jazz. I think my Demon's Souls game had 100+ hours, because I did so much grinding. It's the same case with Dark Souls.

I found the second and third run throughs in Dark Souls much shorter and more rewarding than the first one - once you know where things are, where to go, etc. it makes the sometimes frustrating tasks set before you less intimidating - I'd only recommend going through it again (and again) if you're trying to get 100% achivements/trophies.

  On 1/11/2012 at 12:15 PM, pigster said:

giant dog with sword is such an asshole.

Sif is indeed a badass. Use a lighting-based weapon on him.

  On 11/10/2011 at 5:17 AM, alpaca said:

so...do you not need xbox live gold to summon/be invaded? Got invaded twice and then summoned the same person twice to try and take down quelagg but don't have xbox live gold.

Fat chick with the butchers knife is a bot.

hey. can someone explain how to reinforce a shield to level +6?

when talking to the smith in anor londo, the option to reinforce a shield to +6 disapears at +5.

help appreciated ^^

you have to go to andre in the parish. give him the large ember, which can be found in the depths next to the first butcher. he'll then ascend the weapon to +6. you can then reinforce the weapon up to +10 with any blacksmith, including yourself. though if you want to go up to +15, you need the very large ember, which can be found in (drained) new londo ruins. it's in the room where you encounter the first big blob thing that spawns exploding heads. god help me i have an unhealthy obsession with this game.

thanks! (haven't tried yet, currently in anor londo and it seems only way out is forward)

I got my PS3 back so I picked this up again. I think I messed up something though. The first time I did Undead Parish that giant rat scared me and I saw a thing on the floor to spawn in a friendly player. The guy I played with rushed through pretty much the whole level and I think he killed Knight Lautrec (the guy in the prison cell with fancy ring), but I didn't loot him and he's not at Firelink Shrine. Is it possible the summoned player killed him? If so, I guess I can't get that ring anymore? :( Also within that same run a red ghost backstabbed and insta-killed me. I guess this was an invader? Did I accidentally touch a marking on the floor to do PVP, or can they just invade if I'm in human form?

it's possible knight lautrec escaped without your help. if he's not in firelink, he might have gone to the catacombs, but you won't find him there. he's got some kind of plot with petrus. planning to kill reah or something. he'll soon kill the girl at firelink when you ring the second bell. you'll get a chance to fight him in anor londo using the black eye orb. you'll find the orb in firelink outside the girls prison cell.

btw only you can see or interact with npc's in your own world.

  On 1/21/2012 at 1:19 PM, pigster said:

thanks! (haven't tried yet, currently in anor londo and it seems only way out is forward)

After you've killed the boss in Anor Londo you'll be able to fast travel to different bonfires. Fast travel to the Firelink Shrine, take the elevator up to the Undead Burg or whatever it's called and you're pretty much at the the blacksmith.

By the way, as far as I know some shields can't be reinforced beyond +5, so you might want to check the DS wiki page on that.

DS has killed my ability to enjoy other games. I got the second and third Uncharted games, but I can't stand them now. All I want is more DS. Fuck.

yeah. i'm having trouble with the fatty + dragon slayer double bill boss fight at anor londo.

managed to kill the quick guy on one occassion and brought the fatty down to smidgen of health bar left, before getting slammed and murdered on account of a dumb mistimed error on my behalf. this was at around 12am on sunday night before work and all round pretty horrible experience :)

i tried having a break from dark souls to play a bit of shadows of the damned. which seems kind of fun on a resident evil 4 but incredibly more retarded and ridiculous kind of way. but i got absolutely nothing from it.

dark souls is easily the best gaming experience i've had in recent years.

So I decided to make a sorcerer int based char last night, out of boredom. Its fun, more challenging then a dex/str char.

Just curious, any WATMMer's go down this route? How'd you do against the capra demon and gargoyles? I'm a bit worried that since I don't have an enchanted weapon yet that this might be a pain trying to shoot dogs with soul arrows.

If anyone cares...

I've determined the Estoc is the best weapon for a starter Sorcerer. It has the lowest leveling requirements, you can use it while wielding a shield, and its quicker then most enemy weapons out there. I'm slowly leveling it to +5 so I can make it magical then enchanted.

Tonight I took down the Gargoyles, the Capra, and the Gaping. The Gargoyles were a pushover with magic, seriously OP. For Capra, I had to fight that mofo 3 times after figuring out his patterns again. The Gaping Dragon is kinda a pain with Sorcery, especially since I remember how easy mode pyro + str build was. Once you remove his tail, its easy mode.

I'm crossing my fingers that once I obtain Soul Mass that I'll be in easy mode for the rest of the game. Still got to go through Blighttown and half of Sen's before that will happen.

  On 1/26/2012 at 10:21 PM, acid1 said:

So I decided to make a sorcerer int based char last night, out of boredom. Its fun, more challenging then a dex/str char.

 

Just curious, any WATMMer's go down this route? How'd you do against the capra demon and gargoyles? I'm a bit worried that since I don't have an enchanted weapon yet that this might be a pain trying to shoot dogs with soul arrows.

I got bored and made a Pyromancer. I'm stuck on Smough & Orstein. It's going to take so much skill and luck to take them down. I want my +5 black knight sword back. I do love how easy it is to just rush through some of the mobs with magic/pyromancy. The bosses are a different thing though...

Fuck Blighttown/Depths, man. I skipped most of it on my Pyro. Took the shortcut from New Londo Ruins, completely skipping the Depths. That place is like 5-1 all over again. Gives me nightmares.

Don't have any advice. Magic is tough... especially when you've probably been playing melee the whole time.

man, i was stuck on smough + orstein for a good few days just recently.

spending day after day of going in and getting my ass kicked, not really working out the strategy all that properly.

then one monday night, woke up at 2am and couldn't get back to sleep because of summer heat. finally got out of bed, turned on PS3, calmly and cooly destroyed smough + orstein on my first attempt without taking too much damage, before crawling back to bed to sleep at 3am & getting up in 3 hours to go to work.

2am half asleep + warm and uncomfortable dark souls gaming is the shit :D

Just reached the Painted World of Ariamis.

Holy Fuck, i just realised something. the games art design (which is one of the highlights, a little overshadowed by the games difficulty at times) totally reminds me of Zdzislaw Beksinski. give him a search in google images if you're not familiar with his style and the results instantly look like the hard to open Dark Souls Lmt. Edition Art Book.

The problem with Ren and Stimpy is that you can't really lose track of either and Ren goes on a complete rampage the entire fight, swiveling your lock on camera everywhere. I still think if you can take out Ren, the easiest way to deal with Stimpy is with a cross bow. Might be the best way to deal with both of them really.

And although I completed the Depths, I'm seriously considering skipping most of Blighttown besides getting the Crimson armor and sorcery spells. The Depths weren't that bad last night until I fell into a frog trap, got attacked by 3 rats, and got invaded by Kirk all at once. Good times...

The thing with Orenstein and Smough is if you want Orenstein's armour, you have to kill him first, leaving Smough, who becomes more powerful and more dangerous.