Yeah I don't feel disappointed by that. What they're removing is probably areas that may feel cheap. The director said he doesn't want this to be a game that relies on player reflexes or luck and he wants this to be harder than demons souls.


Also:



New details on the expanded multiplayer features.

- As for the "mutual role playing" system, he wants to create a feeling where other players interact with each other throughout the game even as each player plays their own game. While there are elements of this in Demon's Souls, this system specifically wants to take both co-op play and PvP play to the next level.

The example he gives here is Lord of the Rings. In LotR, Frodo discovers the One Ring, which is a valuable item, and he is tasked to keep it and protect it. That is his role. On the other hand, there are the black riders who have long searched for this valuable item throughout the world. When Frodo possesses the ring, their roles clash because of contradicting objectives. If the black rider happens to defeat Frodo and attain the ring, then he is a fortunate player who managed to get what he wants, the player who loses the ring because he failed to protect it is unfortunate...



http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=421142


Yes!

Thanks for another great update pentahedron:

Excerpt from the excerpt of the interview:

Improvements and expansions to the Demon's Souls format.

- In terms of content and play time, Miyazaki says that Demon's Souls takes players on average about 30-40 hours to complete, and contains about 40 enemy types or so. For Dark Souls, he expects the game to last about 60 hours on average, and there will be close to 100 different enemy types.

- Miyazaki outright admits that he feels that the weapon customization/upgrade system in Demon's Souls was somewhat of a failure. He says that while Japanese players seemed to be okay with the complexity and vagueness of the system, overseas players sent many feedback letters which suggested that the system was too complicated and obscure for its own good. This is bad because players cannot fully utilize the system due to their failure to properly explain things. It will be improved in Dark Souls and they are considering this aspect very carefully.

30-40hrs ? The first playthrough took me much longer than that. If he is estimating 60 hrs on avg, I estimate it I'll be in the 80 hr range, easily.

Interesting comment about the weapon upgrade system from demon's souls. I have to admit I was one of the dumb westerners perplexed by the system. But when I finally did find out about the system it was really exciting because it is pretty hidden. And though I'm no farming fan, there's a great level of satisfaction when you finally collect all materials for a great weapon.

I'm gald PVP has been confirmed by the producer/director. Interesting LOTR reference because he makes invasions seem to revolve around some type of concrete task, like recovering an objective, not just stealing body form or causing mischief. But who knows how literal we should take this.

I hope the bosses are harder this time around.

My first one took 42 hours, and 40 is about the average among DS players, as far as I remember. Should be a good guesstimate. ^_^

Mine was around 60 hours because I fell asleep a few times when playing through the early hours. One time a BP killed me as I dozed.

Also spent a while grinding for spiderstone on 2-1 to get a Sticky Long Compound Bow+5 and souls with Stormruler killing Storm Beasts on 5-3 to be harstone/sharpstone. Really hope Dark Souls' upgrading system is less convoluted.

Over at gamespot, (not sure if has been ABP'd):

http://www.gamespot.com/ps3/rpg/projectdark/news.html?sid=6298175&mode=previews&tag=topslot;thumb;4, development director.

And, according to the interview, no voice chat has been confirmed. Yippee. :celebration:




That's why I don't get why people complain about the difficulty. I'm not a very good action gamer, and if I got through DS anyone should be able to. Did you do all the tendency stuff on your first time through? I keep wanting to attempt a speed run now but I think I would just piss myself off.

Here's a 54 minute speed run by a player named alternal

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWi6t8Psv9w
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsUzM4rIATQ&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGAESIqgC08&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Z6bm27VTis&feature=related

Some pretty hot moves in there. Interesting thing to shoot for once you've enjoyed the game on normal playthroughs.

I am looking forward to this. Though I never played Demon Souls.

Most of the tendency things, yeah. White first, then killing folks to please old Ms Mephisto. It really isn't hard, it just needs attention. People forgot how games actually work, it seems. But I repeat myself. ^_^

Best thing I've read today. I hope it's not just a theory of yours lol even though it makes lots of sense. If there's a game I hope Todd :bowdown: took inspiration from, it's Demon's Souls (and Mount & Blade obviously).

Demon's Souls combat (and controls) were amazing. The whole game simply amazing.

Dark Souls is my 2nd most anticipated game by far (no need to name my 1st :celebration: ).

More info and screens:

http://translate.google.com/translate?js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&sl=ja&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.famitsu.com%2Fnews%2F201103%2F03041005.html&act=url

Nice find.

Lots of good info. Looks like the campfire will be something of a movable restart point, I wonder how they will limit this. Also glad to see that enemy climbing a ladder. Really liking all the new screens, that armor is looking great!

So, we got ourselves some more interactive environments, eh? Nice to know.

I'm both looking forward to and dreading fighting http://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&sl=ja&tl=en&u=http://www.famitsu.com/news/201103/images/00041005/MA5F233M1WL97D94sp2G1qj6wi651p65.html&prev=_t&rurl=translate.google.com&twu=1&usg=ALkJrhgMtl3n4Oav1PrpbamsV4zKwz8Flw.

Hopefully they make the armor useful this time lol.

And I know, all the bosses shown, except the rat, look intimidating!

Since the other thread got locked I'll just carry on the conversation here.


Yeah you're telling me, and since the difficulty is higher I've died enough times to have pure black tendency, which mean black phantoms everywhere. I beat 5-1 though, but the worst is yet to come, I still have to go through that swamp area, but by the end of tonight I'll probably be done with this playthrough and be starting my NG++ playthrough at 148% difficulty.

And to Seti18, if you think Demon's Souls is hard now just wait until you beat it and start NG+.... they increase the difficulty by 40%, and then another 8% every time you beat it after that.

Oh god! Pure Black Valley of Defilement is a nightmare! First time I went there, I got stuck on the tail end of the Valentines Day week event, with Pure Black tendency. Can't count the number of times I died to those damned Giant Depraved Ones (especially the Black Phantom variety). :cold: You're in real trouble, now, buddy!

Well, I guess it could always be worse...Pure Black Shrine of Storms seems [censored] impossible...I've yet to conquer it.

Yeah the giant depraved black phantoms are making this a very tedious process, not to mention I'm doing this playthrough on Guts mode, and judging by your avatar I'm guessing you know what I mean. I had pure black tendency in world four for a minute there and yes, it seemed impossible, but I got invaded a few times and won so my tendency evened out in the end.

Agreed... Definitely one of the most fulfilling Platinum's I have ever gotten. That being said, DS was not as hard as everyone made it out to be. It was just a matter of figuring out the enemies tactics and memorizing them all.

Guts Mode, eh. Lemme guess...Dragon Bone Smasher, Gloom Armor, a crossbow, firebombs, throwing knives, and Fireball to simulate the arm cannon, or Cursed Weapon for the Berserker Armor. And if you can swing it, http://img705.imageshack.us/img705/7029/dsguts2.jpg.

I actually didn't have too bad against GDOs with him. Helps to have a slab of raw iron that's sure to knock 'em on their ass with each swing. :shifty:

I'm currently playing Demon's Souls (my first playthrough). I like the game, but sometimes the difficulty is just infuriating and they claim to have made Dark Souls even more difficult, which worries me a bit. I'm not done with Demon's Souls and I'm still greatly enjoying it, but I do believe there should be a limit on video game difficulty and that limit for me may or may not have been Demon's Souls' level of difficulty (I'll reach my concensus by the time I'm done playing, I'm sure). Without the online feature, the game would too difficult, at times (To come back to life, I must spend either one of the limited stones of ephemeral eyes or kill one of a limited number of bosses), but I'm keeping my eye on Dark Souls. I love Demon's Souls and, even as a result of the difficulty, I love the feeling of accomplishment I get from getting past a challenge. I also love the combat, the customization options (seems to me like Skyrim is copying Demon's Souls with the weapon/spell/shield dualwielding and other action features), the game's sense of scale (in other words, the boss fights), and the online play (which is, admittedly, the first online gameplay I've ever actually played, due to the way it intrigues me and leaves me actually wanting to play with it all the time and not just for an hour or two like every other online video game mode I've experienced; the way it's subtly inegrated into the gameworld and single-player campaign is fantastic and I've rarely, if ever, had a more thrilling fight than I have against another player in the form of a black phantom), but again, there are definitely limits, for me, on game difficulty (or rather tedium that gets mistaken as difficulty, at times) that I don't want to see passed.

Demon's Souls isn't completely overwhelming and a sequel just as difficult would work fine for me, from what I've seen of the game so far, but I'm truly worried Dark Souls may be too much more difficult. One thing I don't like about Demon's Souls is how constantly dark and depressing it is, though. I know it's meant to be a dark game at its core, but some brightness and/or the occasional break from the darkness with some vibrant or somewhat sunny areas would really make me happy.

i wouldn't mind at all if they made it a bit harder,
the difficulty really made the game intense for me, and it's rare when that happens nowadays,
the same goes for the gloom,
you don't get that level of dark anywhere else, it's a precious resource, not to be diluted.

It's too monotonous (consistently shrouded in lonely darkness), in my opinion. I don't want much in the way of lighter areas, but a few towns where I can rest a bit or some area with just some living foilage and a bit of sunlight (albeit a deadly area) is all I need, but Demon's Souls consists entirely of five, enclosed, entirely dark levels that just relentlessly pummel the player with doom, gloom, and danger. The only respite from that is the Nexus and it's just too dark, small, enclosed, and boring, for me. Darkness is fine by me, but can't the game have 2-3 populated towns (don't have to be bright and happy) of decent size for us to roam about and maybe even accept some quests to kill something here and there... just to break up the monotony and sense of loneliness a little bit? I'm excited by the implication of a more open gameworld, on that matter.

No. The isolation is kind of the point. The population of Boletaria has been decimated, with most everyone killed, driven insane, or turned into the very demons responsible for the chaos, and she's been twisted into a mere shell of her former self. And due to your binding to the Nexus giving you a form of immortality, you're pretty much the only one that has a prayer's chance at defeating the Old One, so you gotta' do it alone. With few exceptions, only the many, many, many spirits of other fallen heroes (the various phantoms) can directly aid you.

I know this isn't about Dark Souls, but I have a question or five regarding Demon's Souls.

1. I was glad I read about this on the wiki beforehand, but



2. Did that fight count as a boss fight? I read that a glitch making the game unplayable past a certain point may be triggered by dying at the same time as a boss and I died at the same time as my enemy in the fight previously mentioned.

3.

4. soul tendency - When I first started playing, I didn't know how world tendency worked or if the sides of the spectrum had any relation to character morality, but the wiki seems to indicate that it is based around character morality and that the white side of the spectrum is the good, selfless side. It's probably the online mode doing something strange, but is it a bit of a random feature or how did my goody two-shoes, noble knight get a a slightly black world tendency for an area and should I just ignore world tendency? My character's not doing a mix of behaviors, only acting as noble as possible, but somehow, it's not even on the white side of the spectrum.

5. Are bosses affected by world tendency?

Answers in red.

1). You missed the Rune Sword and Rune Shield. The gimmick of both is that they increase your Magic Defense, but are otherwise not particularly noteworthy (the shield, in fact, has the lowest durability in the game). If you still want them, however, just leave the level and come back, and make your way back to where Ostrava appeared; you should see the items there. Both items can also be found in the second part of the Tower of Latria.

2). No, he's just a Black Phantom. You should be safe.

3). Don't feel too bad if he's giving you trouble, he's one of the more infamously difficult bosses (I've never understood why, though :shrug:). Here's a tip, equip yourself light enough to roll. If you see Allant rear back and look as if he's about to grab you, stop what you're doing and roll the [censored] away, he's about to use the Soul svcker which saps you of you Soul Levels. Generally put, keep a distance away from him and wait for him to approach charge you, and roll out of the way of his slashes. Get a few attacks in while he does this, and then widen the gap. And if you see him stand still, stab his sword into the floor and start glowing GET AS PHYSICALLY FAR AWAY FROM HIM AS YOU CAN! He's going to summon a blast that will engulf much of the battlefield, and it's unlikely you'll be able to survive.

4). World Tendency doesn't exactly change based on your morality. Worlds will darken if you:

-Die in body form.
-Kill a named NPC (like a vendor)
-Invade another game as a Black Phantom and kill another player.

And they'll brighten if you:

-Kill a boss
-Kill a Primeval Demon or named Black Phantom (both of which usually only appear at pure black tendency)
-Kill any Black Phantom invaders
-Summon Blue Phantom players to assist you
-Be summoned as a Blue Phantom in another player's game and successfully kill the boss.

Additionally, while online, the tendencies will be base themselves partially off of the average of all other games (so they'll usually shift toward gray). And sometimes, during holidays, special server events will occur that set the tendencies either towards Pure White (such as during Christmas) or Pure Black (during Halloween).

5). Yes, in the same way as all other enemies. Darker world tendencies make them hit harder but yield more souls when killed, whiter ones make them easier but yield fewer souls.