Dark Souls 2: YOU DIED HARDER

plz to report back. I got one half of my Amazon order (records & CDs today) but no DSII. Hopefully by the end of the week...

bummer. looks like my Amazon order is being shipped through UPS and is marked as "out for delivery", so mine should arrive today.

reviews seem solid so far. DS1 range. hard to rate a game like this without proper exposure to multiplayer though.

I'm in the UK, so I think it's due to ship slightly later over here. I'm away at the weekend too!

amazon telling me that game and STRATERGERY GUIDE are on the way; i am wondering if i need to sleep/eat/work for the next week... and more importantly should i finish DS1 first.

mine should arrive today, won't have time to check it out but i'm considering taking the day off tomorrow to get my car fixed and play it. :)

forks, if i were you i would play some DS2 while it's hot so as not to rush through the end of DS1. maybe switch back when you hit an impasse?

yep. plus it's way more fun to play it when it's new and everyone else is playing it in and DYING over and over.

mine comes in the mail today, but i won't have time to play it until friday at least.

man it's crazy how much is already on youtube (not that i watched any of it, i want to go in as blind as possible now that it's here [except for this thread])

this is the tull one i think

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_A-tl-pJAR4

intrigued by the idea that I can take a break from Dark Souls and come back to it later; I guess they don't seem very mechnically different at the basic level

not sure if ploughing through and trying to do Sif, Nito, 4Kings and Bed of Chaos in the next two days would satisfyingly get it out of the way or drive me insane and make me not want to play DS2 for another year

I think the everyone in the same boat day 1 you died hijinks are probably the key factor either way tho

i loved demon's souls, never got into dark for no real reason, i was resisting this but fuck you people. into the great unknown. faith based build here i come.

this is demons souls-ish in a lot of ways, judging by the beta test i played. you know you want to give in!

I'm thinking I might go for a magician build this time round

i have no idea what i'll do. in games like this i always make the (boring) mistake of not specializing in anything and having fairly balanced stats, although i tend to go for dexterity. i guess it's because i'm not likely to play through the game multiple times with different character builds, so i want to be able to try out most of what the game has to offer in my single runthrough

my strength build seemed to work for me in DS1, i think i need that margin of error that comes with being able to block big attacks without consequence, but i feel like i should at least try something different this time.

Nice thing about this one is you can apparently completely re-spec your character (not sure how this works) a few times per playthrough.

yeah, i'm gonna jump in while it's hot (if only to be able to discuss with you guys) and put DS1 on hold until this gets beaten. it might be 2016!
my understanding is that the respec is a very expensive and very rare item
early reviews are universally positive and most writers mention "after 60 hours of play..." so i think this is gonna be fucking awesome
http://www.metacritic.com/game/playstation-3/dark-souls-ii/critic-reviews

the respec thing seems most appealing for NG+...that's what i wanted to do in DS1, to use all those spells and gear that i acquired but couldn't use because of my build.

Pre-ordered this and have it on my PS3 HD waiting to be unlocked at midnight on Friday. I'm both excited and apprehensive.

goddamit UPS, I was here what is this "an attempted delivery has been made" shit

Delivered
Delivered on: Tuesday, March 11, 2014
Package was left in or near the front door

:)

what are the fundamental differences between demon's souls and dark souls

yeah, i'm curious about that as well since i've never played demon's souls.

demons = 5 worlds connected by hub and stages are unlocked by beating bosses, checkpoints before each stage, healing items accumulated while playing
dark = continuous open world, bonfire checkpoints scattered throughout, healing flask which resets at bonfire

from what i can tell ds2 is a combo of all of the above minus the locked stages

so did you have to do the worlds in a specific order, or was it more like a mega man game?

no you can skip around the 5 worlds but the progression between stages is done in order

mega man is not an incorrect way of looking at it.
demons souls is a less complex and fully realized game but still excellent and it has totally the same aesthetic

Lol, there's gotta be like a dozen bloodstains in the main hub area showing people launching themselves off of the surrounding cliffs.

so dark is just less linear? is that more satisfying?

dark is put together like a puzzle. everything in the distance eventually comes to the foreground. the faraway mountain, the castle over the hill, the seemingly bottomless pit are not only actual places but interconnect to the world you are painfully familiar with in ways that, as each connection is illuminated, make you feel like you've discovered a hidden door in your living room that goes back to your fourth grade classroom. that's the secret truth behind dark for me is that it is not so much an adventure game or a fighter as it is a series of complex logic puzzles and games played out at rapid speed while you explore a giant jigsaw world trying to figure out how to connect the pieces so that you can see the final solution.
demons is, again, a bit more like megaman that holds your hand. You do some backtracking but the worlds are separate boroughs, generally unlinking. There's been some worry that 2, with its interlinked "bonfires" or warps leans closer to demons than dark and that's a real concern but most of the reviews i'm hearing suggest that you can actually hoof it from place to place and that interconnectedness is still there... the bonfires seem to primarily be for greater ease of use and less grinding. or maybe not. i won't know until UPS DELIVERS THE FUCKING THING, very annoyed about this.

i died

this is gooood. managed to squeeze in about 6 hours. time for sleep.

me too, got my ass kicked over and over and haven't even reached a boss

so dark is just less linear? is that more satisfying?

― socki (s1ocki), Tuesday, March 11, 2014 7:37 PM

totally, but demons souls level design often outdoes dark souls as far as mood and all that. particularly some of the latter half of dark feels rushed in design

so do i need to warp to the bonfire in majula every time i need to level up?

yep

interesting

i unlocked the blacksmith, hes kind of a dick

if you're checking for traps, don't hit chests more than once. you can destroy some of them and whatever's inside is turned into rubbish. i've done this more than once, hopefully i didn't miss out anything too awesome.

unless there were actually traps in there and "rubbish" is what you get from a destroyed trap chest idk honestly. enjoying the total mystery of this right know.

did pretty well out of the gate, definitely challenging but i'm holding my own. went with a warrior class and will probably go STR because those are the weapons i'm finding. killed the first boss on first attempt but the second one destroyed me roughly 12 times in a row. decided to go off and explore other places and come back to him later.

combat doesn't seem as snappy as it did in DS1 (not a criticism, it still feels great), but i think that's because there's now a stat (Adaptability) that controls the quickness of a lot of your movements. i was a little bummed with the bonfire warping at first, but i'm minding it less and less bothersome. there's still plenty of the shortcut-discovering that i really liked about DS1.

no multiplayer encounters yet. i see soapstone markers and bloodstains, but i haven't seen any invasions or summon signs. don't know if there's a server issue or there's something i need to do or if From set it up so multiplayer is mostly off limits at the beginning.

i was wondering that too about the multiplayer. i did notice a message on loading that mentioned ps3 server maintenance. i think i may have been playing offline, no invasions or summons but i was seeing player ghosts and bloodstains everywhere hmmm

i've noticed some framerate stutter too which is disappointing, giving me flashbacks to skyrim on ps3

mention of frame rate issues here
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2014-dark-souls-2-face-off

yeah, i wish this looked and ran a little better. not terrible in my experience, but the last gen machines are really showing their age. PC version will probably look great. also holding out hope for a next gen release somewhere down the line.

glad they brought back a sorta hub world, it's nice to have somewhere to go chill in this crazy dark world we live in.

fucked with a faith build for a hour or 2 but decided i didnt want to venture that far into the unknown so rerolled a STR character. forgot how much swearing goes in to playing these games.

getting the special edition in the mail and opening it i felt like i was 'unboxing' a fedora

circa, agreed i'd srsly consider a ps4 if it came out for it. theres no blighttown level lagginess so far at least.

game is beautiful btw, having a hard time concentrating at work cuz i just wanna be playing

i really wanna "unbox my fedora"
/posts taken out of context

xp otm

IT IS HERE
this strategery guide is GORGEOUS, not planning on reading until i beat the area it details but omg
http://www.amazon.com/Souls-Collectors-Edition-Strategy-Guide/dp/0744015472/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1394652357

The bit in Lost Bastille where you need to roll a barrel and then blow it up felt very non-Souls in a fun way. More like a Mario reference or something.

haha yeah. i wouldn't have guessed you need to do that without a hint. there's a bit in Fallen Giants area that's a bit like that. The Pursuers are nails though. I had to literally clear a whole courtyard of enemies until they stopped respawning to make that even close to a fair fight

Skeleton Lords toppled on second try (although I got a bit of help from Creighton and the Large Club). Man that was a fun boss fight! And I enjoyed the Huntsman's Copse even though it was VERY SCARY! More than once, I thought I'd totally cleared an area when one of those hooded thieves would sneak up behind me - and they hit hard!