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[Spoilers] Official Dark Souls 2 Thread - Prepare to Die... again.


aceluby

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Kicking this off as the release is TOMORROW! I sank about 500 hours into Demon's souls and well over 1,000 on the original Dark Souls. Going to peruse my local stores today to see if any are putting out a copy today and will check to see if there is a Titanfall release at midnight at my local GS to see if I can 'pre-order', otherwise it's up and early at 8 tomorrow to hit up Target and snag a copy.



This thread will be filled with spoilers as we continue down this dark path, so be forewarned and continue at your own peril.



I'll be getting this on PS3, feel free to send me a friend request and we can co-op! PSN: AceLuby


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So fucking psyched. I'm trying to see if there are any midnight releases. I'm sure places are doing it for Titanfall -- would they care if I went to get to Dark Souls 2 instead lol?



ETA: Also I think it would be nice if people tagged crazy story/boss/ending spoilers at least for a little while. This is different from most games where it's just a straightforward, play through it once and you'll see everything. I mean it can take weeks (or even months) for some people to beat the game.


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So fucking psyched. I'm trying to see if there are any midnight releases. I'm sure places are doing it for Titanfall -- would they care if I went to get to Dark Souls 2 instead lol?

ETA: Also I think it would be nice if people tagged crazy story/boss/ending spoilers at least for a little while. This is different from most games where it's just a straightforward, play through it once and you'll see everything. I mean it can take weeks (or even months) for some people to beat the game.

I think that's a pretty good suggestion. Put story/lore stuff in spoiler tags for a while, build, skills, invasion, online stuff is fair game.

If you can find a place that has a titanfall midnight release I'm sure you can get Dark Souls at the same time. Most places allow stuff like that. I'm going to check my local gamestops to see if it's an option.

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If you can find a place that has a titanfall midnight release I'm sure you can get Dark Souls at the same time. Most places allow stuff like that. I'm going to check my local gamestops to see if it's an option.

Gamestop is doing midnight releases for both games here in NYC. I'm sure it'd be similar elsewhere.

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Do you have to have played DS 1 in order to play DS 2? Ordered DS1 the other day and Amazon sent me one that doesn't seem to work on my XBOX (which is stupid since it says NTSC all over it and all my other games are the same). I'm a bit lazy and would rather just buy DS 2 than deal with getting DS1 again unless it's necessary to have played it.


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It's definitely not necessary. The story's are supposedly only loosely connected, and even then most people don't really get into the story of these games (it's very vague and cryptic, you kinda have to "work" for the story). I'd say just go ahead and play DS2, since if you really like it then you'll probably end up wanting to go back and play the first one.



Anyways, I put in a few hours last night. I think it's pretty great so far. The graphics are an enormous step up for me. Character customization is SO much better...I was able to make a character that actually looked like a normal human being! For those concerned about difficulty -- to me it's just as hard as the first game so far. I went with a Knight, despite being scared about not starting with a shield, but I managed to find one pretty quickly. Combat feels great, even deeper than before. The starting areas are so damn cool. Very enigmatic and intriguing. Not much more to say at this point, I gotta spend more time with it. But so far I'm very pleased.

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It's definitely not necessary. The story's are supposedly only loosely connected, and even then most people don't really get into the story of these games (it's very vague and cryptic, you kinda have to "work" for the story). I'd say just go ahead and play DS2, since if you really like it then you'll probably end up wanting to go back and play the first one.

Excellent. Thanks. I'll pick it up later today or tomorrow.

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Pre-bought mine on Steam the other day, the game looks a whole lot more fluid than Demon's Souls or Dark Souls were.



It's also the first time I'm going to try the series on PC, wondering if I should get a gamepad for it... any tips from a fellow Souls PC enthusiast? :dunno:


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Picked up my copy at lunch today. Will be diving in later tonight.



I agree about putting story spoilers under tags. The game is supposedly going to take around 80 hours to get through, and I don't have an abundance of time to give. I'm sure it'll take me at least a month to make it through.



This will be a good commiseration thread.


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Spent a little time with it. Didn't really do much. I want to be more mindful of the story and lore than I was with the first 2 games, so I mostly spent most of my time listening to dialogue and reading item descriptions.



One thing I've noticed though is that messages are out of control. In the first 2 games messages were generally helpful. Or, in Demon's Souls, requests for help. In this, pretty much every step is mapped out in messages. "There's a chest on the right." Yeah, it was pretty hard to miss. "Enemy ahead." You mean that guy standing out in the open waiting for me? Granted I'm not very far in, but I've already stopped reading them. I'm almost ready to go offline just so I don't have my own exploration ruined by even seeing them. You only get one first playthrough. I want to savor it, not have it spoiled by seeing a stack of messages every time something is going to happen.



Not that I'm blaming anyone. Demon's Souls had a much smaller player base, and Dark Souls didn't have dedicated servers, so you just didn't see as many. Everyones just trying to be helpful; I just don't want help.



For those who have gotten farther in... How scarce are Human Effigies really? All the pre-release stuff says they're rare, but I've barely started and already have 3. And I could really use one. So, what do you guys think? Hoard them, or are they abundant enough to not worry too much over it?



Also, has anybody found a Scythe or Lucerne yet? (Not a Great Scythe, the one that looks more like a Halberd.) The Mace I started with isn't really my style.



End of day 1 and the global death count was already at 2 million.


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Am I the only moron who used all his starting healing items because he thought they would regenerate at bonfires?

No, I've been struggling with that as well. I bought all the lifegems from the vendor in the Forest of Giants and used up every gem I had so I'm fully reliant on Estus now. Up to 4 uses for it so it isn't too bad. Haven't found another vendor with lifegems yet and I'm not finding them as loot very often.

Has anyone managed to find any large titanite shards yet? My weapons are at +3 but they feel so damn weak and I need some to upgrade them further.

Bet I'm the only one who died before even making a character? Ran off the cliff, right next to the bridge without seeing it. :blushing:

:lol:

I got killed by the pack of small animals running around in that area >.>

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Pre-bought mine on Steam the other day, the game looks a whole lot more fluid than Demon's Souls or Dark Souls were.

It's also the first time I'm going to try the series on PC, wondering if I should get a gamepad for it... any tips from a fellow Souls PC enthusiast? :dunno:

The first Dark Souls was pretty much unplayable with a keyboard + mouse. I'm glad I only spent a few bucks on a Steam sale.

Edit: It was also unplayable because of Games for Windows Live. I'm not sure what DRM they have now. I switched to the PS3 version.

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So far so great! Better (and harder) than the first so far.... except in one aspect...



The Boss design is not as strong as this time around, most of the bosses seem to just be heavily armoured knight/humanoid creatures, instead of the varying demonic designs of the first game.



Multiplayer is SO much better... Im getting summoned and summoning players left in right! In the original I only managed to successfully summon a white phantom once.


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Coming back to this thread after 2 nearly full days of playing since I took the last couple days off:



First Impressions: Just like the original you're plopped in the middle of nowhere with almost no guide. Graphics are absolutely gorgeous, however there have been some noticible bugs, though they have not impacted gameplay. Started off as a Sorcerer, my typical first playthrough class, and boy was it a doozy starting off. There was quite a learning curve after literally just playing Diablo 3. Died quite a bit in those first hours because of it.



Spent the first three hours trying to figure out where I wanted to go first, what my options are, and how in the hell I was supposed to level up. Eventually got through the first boss in the Giant Forest without levelling up, though I did die a ton in doing so. Only took a couple tries to take down the boss. Went back to Majula and thoroughly searched everything, getting killed by the pigs twice, before finally finding the girl to level up. Immediately put levels into attunement to get some more casts of soul arrow.



After the heart thumping battle I can honestly say this iteration brings everything that Dark Souls is supposed to bring, and is surprisingly harder than the first.



Things of note: Going down to half health as a hollow brought me right back to Demon's Souls days. Everything one shot me, but I got pretty good at dodging.



Backstab windows seem much smaller than in previous iterations. LOVE this and can't wait to see how this impacts PvP.



Spent the next few hours exporing the Giant Forest and I started noticing something odd. As I farmed/died and regenerated at bonfires I noticed that enemies stopped respawning. I actually like this as a feature because it made travelling between a bonfire and boss just a hop skip and jump with no need to keep wasting casts on enemies you kill over and over.



Pressing triangle at a bonfire lights your torch. Took me FOREVER to figure this out. You can set enemies on fire and light torches throughout the way, though you only have limited time with the torch.



Human Effigies are pretty common. I think I have around 15 right now and use one once every level or so since I'm not dying nearly as much as I was in the first few hours.



Make sure to check what you can burn at a fire. There are things that make your Estus +1 as well as powders that make the world easier or harder, seems to be akin to the white/black worlds in Demon's Souls.



Item degredation seems to not be working. It will say my sword is almost broken, but then when I go to fix it the blacksmith says there isn't anything to fix. Only once it's actually broken does it have the option. Not only that, but when I tried using the repair powder (which is rare and expensive), it didn't work and my sword was still broken.



Online: Have only been invaded twice, once when I was AFK, and once as a white phantom where they tried bating us into enemies and we sniped from afar. I did get the White Sign Soapstone, so as I entered a new zone I now go as a white phantom first, learn the level, see if there were any tricks or places I missed, then using that info I would take on the level myself. As I went through it I would sometimes put down my white sign again to fill up my spells.



I spent 2 hours trying to beat the 2nd boss in the Giant Forest and eventually decided I should explore elsewhere since you can't summon anyone for that fight.



One thing that's great right now is there are a TON of players. I drop my sign and it's picked up within a minute, so I spent a good amount of time helping people with the Dragonslayers and the Pirateship boss. Even after levelling up quite a few levels I still get summoned fairly quickly.



Currently: Right now I just finished the pirateship boss and have moved on to the next level where I'm stuck at some VERY tough big enemies in a sewer that have 1,500 HP. I'm rocking a +5 catalyst and a +3 fire longsword, both of which are impacted by INT which I've levelled up to 40 (pretty much the only thing I've levelled), but only do 100-200 damage. Haven't upgraded my armor yet because I don't want to waste the few titanite shards I could buy. Currently have 6 estus flasks that are +1 and like 50+ health items. When you can be one-shot by almost everything health is rarely a concern, playing carefully so you aren't surrounded is far more important.



Part of the Way of Blue covenant, but I haven't been summoned once to help out. I'm sure this will change as people figure out the invasion system (took a few weeks for Dark Souls).



All in all... everything I want in a Dark Souls and more. The only complaint is that the bosses are kida... samey. Other than that it's been great so far and I look forward to knowing the game backward and forward, just like the last one.


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Has anyone managed to find any large titanite shards yet? My weapons are at +3 but they feel so damn weak and I need some to upgrade them further.

I've found 3 total, all after the Dragonslayer(s) level. There quite a few hidden areas after that level that have large titanite shards. Plan on doing another search in this area tonight.

There is a bonfire at the bottom of a staircase in that level that you need to get the big guy at the top to roll the fire barrel at you, miss, and roll all the way to the bottom to destroy the wall. There is another blacksmith here as well, though he needs an ember to make anything

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