I'm not sure how I feel about an NPC punishing you for doing 'evil' things. I like that in Dark Souls, the game sorta doesn't globally judge you for your actions. Yes, you get labelled a sinner and are targeted by the Darkmoon covenant, but I attribute that to the players rather than the game itself.
Dark Souls II (PS3/360/PC) - Edge Magazine details (Prepare yourself)
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synchronicity
Member
Yes, despite all the other reasons to love this series, FROM are truly special in this regard with 'Souls'. They are the only developer to really "transport" me, if that makes any sense.
Yeah, I think this is really the only news that makes me uneasy. I absolutely hate games with binary "morality meters", going all the way back to Ogre Battle on the SNES and continuing through Infamous and Mass Effect. It really pulls you out of the game and makes you start thinking about the way the designers expect you to behave in order to unlock specific abilities, rather than just progressing in a natural way for yourself.
I hope they choose to expand on the covenant model in this regard, where if you are "loyal" to a certain covenant you unlock those specific abilities, rather than some kind of overarching paragon/renegade system throughout the game.
Console players should be a bit worried. FROM is pretty technically inept. I can understand the 360 version of Dark Souls not running so hot. But they had more time with the PS3 engine and that ended up just as bad.
Hopefully they have some help this time around. Especially with the PC version.
Manmademan
Member
eh...no. I like how the storyline in the souls games are subtle and understated, but theyre a far cry from "most interesting." Nier and Alpha Protocol for instance have them beaten here pretty handily. Edit: oh god, and telltale's the walking dead just knocks it out of the park re: story. The souls games aren't even in the same league.
this sounds needlessly pessimistic. there are still lots of very good games with very good stories.
I'm going to guess that with the vehicals statement that we can look forward to a dark souls x armored core experience, giant mecha fantasy!
Seriously though ill wait to see what comes of this before I throw a fit, I have loved the games since demons so I'm not willing to give up on it yet until I see real evidence that they are making changes in the wrong way. Couple of things are concerning, but there are some positives in it as well.
Personally as a fan of from for many, many years I'm just glad to see them finally get some recognition, they might be one of the biggest success stories of this generation of consoles imo.
Seriously though ill wait to see what comes of this before I throw a fit, I have loved the games since demons so I'm not willing to give up on it yet until I see real evidence that they are making changes in the wrong way. Couple of things are concerning, but there are some positives in it as well.
Personally as a fan of from for many, many years I'm just glad to see them finally get some recognition, they might be one of the biggest success stories of this generation of consoles imo.
I'd love a fantasy FPS in the vein of Heretic or Hexen. I hope he sticks to dark fantasy.
Yeah, they really are the Japanese Obsidian, so honestly they probably should have stuck with a updated Dark Souls engine and improved it. But hopefully they'll get better technically with a bigger team and probably more cash flow.
But the actual game does it too. If you kill Gwynevere('s illusion), the Darkmoon Blade NPCs will spawn and attack you in Anor Londo. No, they don't roam like this concept, but it's pretty similar. You sin, special enemies come after you. Even the firekeeper tries to kill you for it.
Lost Fragment
Obsessed with 4chan
The morality thing could be cool if it acts as a way to balance low-level peeps with twinked out gear invading people who are just progressing through the game normally.
eXistor
Member
As nice as "hugely improved graphics" sound (although I was happy the way they were), they bring a lot more development costs to the table as well as the supposed doubled staff of course. They need to sell a lot more copies and I'm just not sure they can manage that unless the game is severely dumbed down. I'm keeping an open mind though, more Dark Souls is always welcome and From Software have never really made a mainstream game anyway (as far as I know that is).
Also very curious to see what Miyazaki is working on next.
Also very curious to see what Miyazaki is working on next.
Manmademan
Member
I think the concept has some merit. Think of the NPC like "death" in persona 3- shows up after you sin too much, or spend too much time doing certain things (invading other players, maybe?) and you have no choice but to run like hell while it stalks you.
eventually you'll become powerful enough that tackling the enemy that's been a thorn in your side for 40+ hours is feasible, and the showdown is just epic. Resident evil 2 and 3 had a similar enemy that was your nemesis throughout the game and those handled it pretty well also- though of course those scenarios were heavily scripted.
It could be great here if done properly.
El_Presidente
Member
Well damn, thought Dark Souls was the best game I've played in years and it sounds like they're going in a different direction.. hmm Still will buy day 1 
That's a little different than a global morality system. In that case, you slighted Gwyndolin and he retaliates*. It's limited to that covenant's NPCs. As soon as you step out of Anor Londo, the world is the same. It's not so much that you did something deemed 'bad' it's that you pissed off a group.
*it's kinda weird that actually killing Gwyndolin doesn't break the facade and his NPCs (other than the fire keeper) don't seek vengeance.
FROM had nothing to do with the 360 version, it was ported by Namco.
Also the bigger team and the support from Namco will probably mean better graphics and performance this time around for the console versions.
Sounds good to me, the last thing people need is a rushed Souls game.
Self_Destructive
Member
I hope they don't screw this up, but I can't wait to see more!
We already have hugely improved graphics on the PC
Eh, while some of the game looks great, it lacks a bit of fidelity. The style I love so I hope they maintain that.
You play with Durante's stuff?
XANDER CAGE
Member
Durante is a wizard but running the game in a higher resolution isn't the only thing they can improve. Better animations in particular have me interested.
Sax Russel
Banned
Officially joining Doom Club. Full membership package plzthx.
I couldn't care less if it came out on consoles or not -- I'm a PC-only kind of person. I'm just sad that I might have to wait over a year before release.
Yeah me too. Actually, I came to view the people in Dark Souls to be the ones who were actually evil and causing harm to the world. At the very end I ended up going on a killing spree taking out everyone except for the Smiths. It felt right in a cleansing the world of corruption sense. The sense of grey morality is one of the things that made it seem so great.
FEARS DEFEATED
Is there a complete digital edition of EDGE, and how would American like me go about buying it?
I dunno, I kinda like how it sounds
I've played some of Nier, and some of the short stories/side quests are great. Haven't played it for awhile though.
I have Alpha Protocol, but I haven't really played it.
The overarching plot of Lost Odyssey is also incredible.
I suppose I should have said "among" the best stories, but the most immersive, and by FAR the best/most original presentation of a story.
Walking Dead game is more like a visual novel as opposed to a game, though. They had to opt for limited, and rigid gameplay mechanics to tell the story that way I suppose.
But the main point here is, Dark Souls told a story like a *game*. And it is a game -- instead of trying to replicate the Hollywood experience, or "style" of storytelling, it told it in a unique way that only games can, and made it awesome -- I felt it told the story like a game is supposed to.
It also showed the incredible potential of the type of stories (And immersion.) that games can bring to the table that is unique to games -- if only developers stop focusing on the Hollywood formula of storytelling.
I wish I could say that I have confidence in From as a developer, but they aren't perfect. Dark Souls might be the best game I've played this generation, but even with their (former, I guess?) flagship series Armored Core, there were tons of ups and downs. Just recently 5 was a huge disappointment to me even though I figured there was no way they could screw it up...it looked like everything I wanted from an AC game.
The thing that worries me is that this isn't a writeup of what Edge saw, these quotes are directly from the developers. They know what kind of games the Souls are, and they don't need to say anything (they could just talk about how great it's going to be), so specifically talking about making it more accessible, changing the combat and how the story is presented means these are their design philosophies
Same. The whole idea of an NPC punishing you for doing 'evil' things could be pretty interesting if they work it right. Maybe that is leaning towards a world tendency thing like Demon's Souls. Would be fun to have your morality effecting what enemies try to kill you or if they try to avoid you.
yeah he did a lot more than just changed to resolution
TheBryanJZX90
Member
I wouldn't put too much stock in translated quotes from Japanese developers. They may or may not have meant what people are afraid of when they say they want to make the next game "accessible." By the same token, I wouldn't put too much stock in the idea that the developers understood what the western gaming world likes about Dark Souls and are going to try and keep that in the sequel.
This seems to imply the direction things were going was set in stone before the game even came out. I dunno if that makes this better or worse, but hopefully better; if they were bracing themselves in case the game really WAS too hard/inscrutable to sell well, only to do very well still, maybe significantly better than Demon's Souls at that, then they probably will more hesitant about serious departures or so I hope.
Yup.
-Resolution options
-Supersampling options
-AA-implementation SMAA/FXAA
-Different types of Ambient occlusion/SSAO, HBAO, VSSAO, SCAO
-In game renderoverrides like DOF-override
-FPS options
-Tons of Hud options
-Save backups
-Other fixes etc etc
I'll bet my nuts that DS2 won't have half of the above settings out of the box.
So yeah, Durante basically fixed the release and turned it into an actual pc-game.
I also bet nuts that Durante will have some of that stuff working in DS2 as well.
For the sake of both our babypouches let's hope you're right.
My hype just died a little after the crap that was ACER.
I will give them the benefit of the doubt. They have one chance to either make Dark Souls 2 even more awesome, or mess it up and From has to wrestle it back to awesometown. As long as the core of DS is there, then they hopefully won't go too far wrong.
Animations were stunning in DkS.
Though lighting and character models could be improved, ofcourse.
Let's hope they ditch that Oblivion style character creation in favor of something with better looking results (although some of the hilarious results were priceless).
Let's not forget that most of the mechanics are already in place AND the rest of the team is all still there.
After reading the actual issue, instead of bullet points, the fears have been mooted a bit, though not completely eradicated.
XANDER CAGE
Member
Right, I wasn't trying to make light of Durante's work, I was just pointing out that there is plenty you could to to make a Souls game look better.
And I gotta disagree on stunning animation. There's some great work, but plenty of room for improvement.
And I gotta disagree on stunning animation. There's some great work, but plenty of room for improvement.
Sadly, I can use that same analogy for ACE. ACE 1-3 were exceptional and set the bar very high, then ACER came out and it made me cry because I honestly love the series.