Support NeoGAF

[Kai Dracon]

Ya it doesn't bother me in the slightest either but I think games are becoming complex enough that their should be more settings available such as that. However it would royally mess up the ability to get achievements and trophies as some have to do with particular things that if 2 people had the game at the same time 1 using quick travel would have an advantage. Maybe thats why more options aren't like this in games.

I would love to hit the "Game" option in most games and be flooded with options to really curve the experience my way. Someday perhaps.

How about, for open world adventure games like this, a set of options when starting a new save file character. The options you select affect certain attributes.

For example, 'hardcore exploration' disables instant fast travel, but grants a perk such as increasing frequency of gatherable resources or affects the exp rate from enemies.

 

[burgerdog]

I wouldn't worry too much about the lack of fast travel initially. There is an achievement for getting 10million gold and you can buy the stones for 10k.

 

[Vamphuntr]

I have like..half a million without selling anything.

It will probably cost that much to buy all of the pieces

I'm still at the beginning at around level 26 and I'm so poor.

 

[joe2187]

....I'm ....I'm going to go fight the drake...I dont have the skills, the equipment, the items or the level to do it...

I'm going to go fight it though.

 

[Lach]

Anyone else having troubles connecting to the servers? Had a few timeouts just a few minutes ago...

 

[Dorfdad]

So yesterday I was wondering around and found the dragon (drake!?) tried to fight him at level 21 what a mistake! snuck around him and never looked back!

Im so loving this game, and I just found some fast travel stones (any idea where to get more?!?!?) also does anyone have an interactive map or something for this game on the net??

 

[abundant]

Does anyone else get the feeling of, "God I hope that he does not see me" every time you go down the path where you can see him through the trees walking around over in Devilfire Grove? I sure do, lol. But I am going to save my game right before that point tonight and try to get a get good look at him before he kills me. I know at my paltry level 26 I am going to get squashed, but I want to bask in the glory of his destruction before I come back later when I am actually able to tackle him.

I always think that. My last visit through Devilfire Grove, I saw it behind some trees, so I run the opposite way and got into a fight with the goblin horde. One of them sounds the horn and the drake comes crashing down right by me, spewing fire. I said "Holy shit" out loud, then run for my life. I was level 26 then.

 

[Karak]

How about, for open world adventure games like this, a set of options when starting a new save file character. The options you select affect certain attributes.

For example, 'hardcore exploration' disables instant fast travel, but grants a perk such as increasing frequency of gatherable resources or affects the exp rate from enemies.

I completely agree with this kind of thing. I think that options, especially on games like this, allow for people to create a game that fits them. Lets be honest some of us are fickle bitches and 1-2 things can make us dislike a game enough to not get it. The ability to adjust those options is an extra sale for a company.

IMO.

 

[Karak]

Anyone else having troubles connecting to the servers? Had a few timeouts just a few minutes ago...

Funny but I usually get at least 1 failure per gameplay session if not more. I am always hoping that means they have a high demand because its selling well. I will be VERY interested in the NPD's this month.

 

[Vamphuntr]

I was angry at the lack of fast travel at first but now that I discovered some rest camps around the map I don't care about it anymore. I mean they even let you buy/sell/learn skills at camps so I think it's pretty fair.

 

[Wind's Howling]

So, guys. Question. I am a Magick Archer and my main pawn is a melee based one. Which vocation is best suited for him? Warrior or Fighter?

 

[Ganondorfo]

A very stupid question, because I dont know nothing about this game.

Is it an epic single player adventure game like dark souls? (with a story in it). Or is it more like world of warcraft?

Please help me with this answer.

 

[Fine Ham Abounds]

Man this thread is really moving. Glad to see the game getting some appreciation.

I'm really enjoying myself, but damn if this isn't a strange, strange game. So unique and bizarre, I can easily understand why a lot of people get turned off trying to figure out what exactly the hell they're playing.

 

[slaughterking]

A very stupid question, because I dont know nothing about this game.

Is it an epic single player adventure game like dark souls? (with a story in it). Or is it more like world of warcraft?

Please help me with this answer.

There's nothing epic about the story. Neither was there anything epic about Demon's Souls story, so I'm not quite sure where you're making the distinction here.
As far as mission design goes it is much closer to WoW, though. Go somewhere and kill stuff and/or collect stuff.

 

[Machine]

So that was a Drake. Here I was at about level 21, wandering around. I started fighting some Hobgoblins and suddenly out of nowhere I get fire blasted. Turn around fast enough to get a quick look at it and then run the hell away with about 25 hp left. Once I got to safety, I chickened out and used a ferry stone because my supply of healing items was exhausted. My main pawn survived but the two hired pawns didn't make it back. [Now I know why my pawn sometimes comes back with nothing to show for the trip - when they are lost instead of being released, you don't get a chance to give a gift and they don't go back with anything.]

 

[Deified Data]

....I'm ....I'm going to go fight the drake...I dont have the skills, the equipment, the items or the level to do it...

I'm going to go fight it though.

In tried in your same situation. The fight didn't last long.

 

[ironcreed]

I always think that. My last visit through Devilfire Grove, I saw it behind some trees, so I run the opposite way and got into a fight with the goblin horde. One of them sounds the horn and the drake comes crashing down right by me, spewing fire. I said "Holy shit" out loud, then run for my live. I was level 26 then.

LOL, that's great. The fact that there is literally so many possibilities for those 'holy shit' moments is what makes this game pure gold. It shines in the areas that matter most to me.

- Pacing
- Feeling of growth
- Immersion
- Sense of adventure
- Epic encounters
- Fun as hell and varied gameplay
- full of little details that are constantly surprising you

This game nails all of that in spades. Personally, I think these aspects far outweigh any rough edges and warts that may be lingering on the surface. As it really goes much deeper than that.

 

[Baconsammy]

I agree with this. A tiny bit more flexibility would add some ease of tedium for those who want to use it and yet still make most of the journey required.

They could have come up with some reasonable reason why fast traveling requires sunlight, and thus if you're stuck out at night you cant use it, but for gods sake let me use it during the day. There's a solution for this that can make the game more palatable if the devs had bothered to try.

 

[slaughterking]

So that was a Drake. Here I was at about level 21, wandering around. I started fighting some Hobgoblins and suddenly out of nowhere I get fire blasted. Turn around fast enough to get a quick look at it and then run the hell away with about 25 hp left. Once I got to safety, I chickened out and used a ferry stone because my supply of healing items was exhausted. My main pawn survived but the two hired pawns didn't make it back. [Now I know why my pawn sometimes comes back with nothing to show for the trip - when they are lost instead of being released, you don't get a chance to give a gift and they don't go back with anything.]

You can also choose to give nothing if you send a pawn back properly. That's what I usually do. Don't really know what could be considered genuinely useful, so I just don't bother.

 

[Deified Data]

So that was a Drake. Here I was at about level 21, wandering around. I started fighting some Hobgoblins and suddenly out of nowhere I get fire blasted. Turn around fast enough to get a quick look at it and then run the hell away with about 25 hp left. Once I got to safety, I chickened out and used a ferry stone because my supply of healing items was exhausted. My main pawn survived but the two hired pawns didn't make it back. [Now I know why my pawn sometimes comes back with nothing to show for the trip - when they are lost instead of being released, you don't get a chance to give a gift and they don't go back with anything.]

Reposting my last drake encounter, as it is now more pertinent:

I've had my most epic adventure yet.

Spoiler

I decided to undertake the quest to escort Mercedes to the Shadow Fortress - an unexplored territory. I set out at dawn from the Encampment. The second I step foot out of explored land (southern Gransys), I'm ambushed by a raging Chimera. I have to leave or risk harm to my charge, so I instruct my pawns to beat a retreat. The Chimera, perhaps feeling charitable, lets me leave and runs back into the forest of its own volition.

I travel on a bit until I hit a crossroad. On the left, a dark forest. On the right, a winding road that seems to lead away from my destination - on top of that, I see human silhouettes in the distance and assume they're bandits. The choice seems clear, so I delve into the dense forest.

I'm travelling through the woods, almost to the Shadow Fortress. No enemies so far. Then, I see a gray hulk shambling through the trees between me and my destination. I see a vague outline of a tail and wings - I've stumbled across a wyrm. I do my best to go around him as quietly as possible, I know I can't take him in open combat. This strategy soon falls apart. Once he catches my scent I break into a sprint through the woods, foolishly thinking I could outrun him. Any concern for Mercedes is replaced with my own sense of self-preservation. I clamber over a pile of rocks and scree. Surely this'll stop the monster.

It doesn't. He takes wing and begins dive-bombing my companions. I lose an inconsequential pawn, no matter, I keep running. I run into a legion of hobgoblins, avoiding them when I can and killing them when I must, with the wyrm constantly at my heels. The Shadow Fortress is in sight - I limp towards it with the last of my stamina, and complete the quest.

That is only half the battle, of course. Night has fallen, and my only route back to civilization is through the path I already took. The coast is now clear, so I experiment with alternate routes back home. I see a road to my left (the forest now being on my right), and travel down it. It's night, but my party is strong and goblins are weak. I run into some random, out of place Saurians far from water. I can barely see the small path I'm taking, but stick to it figuring it must lead somewhere. I'm right.

I stumble across a small rest camp, with a travelling merchant and a makeshift inn. I stay for 100 gold and wait for morning. After I've bought a new longbow and a new set of armor for my ranger, I set off for home, and come across a familiar sight. The crossroads where all of my trouble began. The realization dawns on me. The road I saw that curved away from the Shadow Fortress did so because it circumvented the wyrm and the goblins. The human silhouettes I saw weren't bandits, but a helpful shopkeep and innkeeper.

I feel dumb. I could have taken that route from the offset and saved myself a lot of terror. But, if given the option of doing it again, I wouldn't change a thing. Running around in the dark like a chicken with its head cut off is the essence of Dragon's Dogma.

PS - I went back and killed that chimera. I saw a cyclops sleeping peacefully in the grass off the road and decided not to disturb his rest.

Just an example of how a simple escort quest can evolve into something grand.

Guy's no joke.

 

[Auto_aim1]

I can easily understand why a lot of people get turned off trying to figure out what exactly the hell they're playing.

Yeah, it just takes a few hours to understand how exactly the gameplay mechanics work. That Tome quest early on took me hours to finish because I went to a wrong bandit camp, but I also managed to level up a lot and it was worth it in the end. The game does have its annoying quirks though, which will frustrate many people. It depends on how much you are willing to ignore that to enjoy the game for what it is.

Does anyone else feel bad about killing the rabbits? They seem so unafraid of you that it's hard to slaughter them. Sometimes I let a few escape just to feel better about myself. It's not my fault you drop loot little guys! I really need the money!!

I picked one up and threw it. Never again.

 

[Manmademan]

A very stupid question, because I dont know nothing about this game.

Is it an epic single player adventure game like dark souls? (with a story in it). Or is it more like world of warcraft?

Please help me with this answer.

the game is more like dragon age than either one of the games you cited. it's entirely single player- you will not come across any other players during the course of your game. you tackle the game as part of a "party", but all other members (up to 3 additional) are AI controlled.

you DO have access to AI controlled partners created by other players called "pawns" though, and you will see these pawns walking around towns and countryside to give the illusion the game is more populated than it is. you can hire pawns you find wandering about.

 

[MotionBlue]

Since many people haven't seemed to realize this yet: The abandoned quarry and mine can be cleared, and becomes a shortcut between the capital and Shadow fort.

 

[Machine]

Since many people haven't seemed to realize this yet: The abandoned quarry and mine can be cleared, and becomes a shortcut between the capital and Shadow fort.

That's actually how I ended up encountering the drake. I found the quarry, wandered through it, and wondered what was on the other side.

 

[Ganondorfo]

There's nothing epic about the story. Neither was there anything epic about Demon's Souls story, so I'm not quite sure where you're making the distinction here.
As far as mission design goes it is much closer to WoW, though. Go somewhere and kill stuff and/or collect stuff.

Ok thx a lot, and how long is this game? Is it as long as skyrim, or is 15 hours in lenght like your average capcom game?

 

[Yopis]

Gonna pick this up after I finish dark souls and last chapter of Witcher 2 next week. Just a few questions though. Can you quicksave in this game? Also whats the deal with the black bars people keep talking about? (have plasma tv) Thread is moving fast glad people like the game.

 

[slaughterking]

Ok thx a lot, and how long is this game? Is it as long as skyrim, or is 15 hours in lenght like your average capcom game?

Looks like most people need about 30 to 40 hours for their first playthrough.

 

[abundant]

Ok thx a lot, and how long is this game? Is it as long as skyrim, or is 15 hours in lenght like your average capcom game?

Long like Skyrim. There's a lot to do. Even just exploring is fun because of the random monsters you bump into.

 

[GuitarAtomik]

The Bersek items are so expensive :S 50k for the armor and something like 30K for the Cloak, ouch!

I love that one of the preset bodies is totally Guts. One closed eye and all.

 

[Machine]

Combat is different, but I'm getting a real Xenoblade Chronicles vibe from this game (another game I loved) in terms of exploration. I'm not even interested in moving the story forward right now, I'm just wandering around fighting monsters and mapping as much of the world as I can.

 

[Karak]

They could have come up with some reasonable reason why fast traveling requires sunlight, and thus if you're stuck out at night you cant use it, but for gods sake let me use it during the day. There's a solution for this that can make the game more palatable if the devs had bothered to try.

Yes that is a very good point.

My first playthrough for those wondering about length was somewhere around 40+ hours and I most assuredly didn't do close to all of what I could. I would say, just from what I skipped and so forth. I did about 1/4th of the quests and additional content.

 

[1stStrike]

I need to go and find some harder shit to fight soon. Cylclops/Orgres are just way too easy at level 31 at this point, and all the goblins/wolves/dire wolves/harpies are really easy.

 

[Karak]

Gonna pick this up after I finish dark souls and last chapter of Witcher 2 next week. Just a few questions though. Can you quicksave in this game? Also whats the deal with the black bars people keep talking about? (have plasma tv) Thread is moving fast glad people like the game.

Yes there is a quicksave and an autosave.

The black bars are a slight cropping of the game to offer a bit less resolution. Most likely to offset the technical issues the game has. Its pretty hard on the systems.

 

[slaughterking]

I need to go and find some harder shit to fight soon. Cylclops/Orgres are just way too easy at level 31 at this point, and all the goblins/wolves/dire wolves/harpies are really easy.

True, even though it's still kinda awesome to blast ten arrows at once into the eye of a cyclops with my Archer and see him go down in a matter of seconds.

 

[MagicWithEarvin]

I just had an EPIC escort mission from Gran Soren to

Spoiler

Shadow Fort

- it was for Mercedes. This all happened in 30 minutes:

Started it off at night time, had some run in with zombies. It was dark as hell and couldn't see very far, but good thing my Magick Archer had the Magickal Gleam skill - it's very useful for lighting pathways, damaging the undead as well as blinding your foes.

Go up and around the mountain pass and on my way back near the Encampment. I had to head west from there. So, westward we go! Had run-ins with a few

Spoiler

Saurians

, then a

Spoiler

Chimera

showed up as well as more

Spoiler

Saurians

. It started to get hectic and day was just about to break out.

After the battle, I was about half-way there but then more goblin mobs showed up as well as an

Spoiler

Ogre

- it starts to get a little feisty

Spoiler

swinging its club around

, but ultimately was toast.

Bah, what the heck. I captured all this footage and it's being uploaded to YouTube right now, but it's going to take about 2 hours to upload and process. I'll post the link a little later, but you guys might enjoy this little adventure I just had. =)

As promised:
http://youtu.be/8j_JDx7WVUo

If you got 30 minutes to spare, check it out.

 

[AgentOtaku]

LOL, that's great. The fact that there is literally so many possibilities for those 'holy shit' moments is what makes this game pure gold. It shines in the areas that matter most to me.

- Pacing
- Feeling of growth
- Immersion
- Sense of adventure
- Epic encounters
- Fun as hell and varied gameplay
- full of little details that are constantly surprising you

This game nails all of that in spades. Personally, I think these aspects far outweigh any rough edges and warts that may be lingering on the surface. As it really goes much deeper than that.

Agree with most of the above but man does the world/progression feel stitched together. I just went into the

Spoiler

dungeon below the Pawn Guild

, ran into a troll and still don't feel like I know what the fuck i'm doing =(

 

[Baconsammy]

Servers appear to be down.

 

[1stStrike]

I'm just a bit worried about a 2nd play through. If enemies don't scale, then won't NG+ be insanely boring/easy since none of the challenge will be there?

 

[burgerdog]

Where is the lever for the fortress besieged quest?

 

[RPGCrazied]

Woot, mail came, its here! Anyone else get a mini guide? It's inside a plastic sleeve and not the game case. Maybe comes with every new game?

 

[owlbeak]

Surprisingly I just found out you can just hit start and then hit the back/select button and save your game. You bypass the menu that asks if you want to save and continue, quit without saving, etc and you just have to click "Yes". So it's a "quicker" save option.

 

[Astra]

I'm just a bit worried about a 2nd play through. If enemies don't scale, then won't NG+ be insanely boring/easy since none of the challenge will be there?

Damn, is that true? I was hoping that NG+ enemies would get a boost in difficulty a'la the Souls games.

Woot, mail came, its here! Anyone else get a mini guide? It's inside a plastic sleeve and not the game case. Maybe comes with every new game?

I didn't get a mini-guide, or anything of that sort. I did impulsively buy the Brady Games guide, though. First guide I bought in years.

 

[Knux-Future]

I love that one of the preset bodies is totally Guts. One closed eye and all.

I've been rolling with someone's created Guts/Gatsu the entire time now.

It's the only way to play.

 

[MagicWithEarvin]

Woot, mail came, its here! Anyone else get a mini guide? It's inside a plastic sleeve and not the game case. Maybe comes with every new game?

I didn't get that. Where'd you order from? And enjoy the game!

 

[deim0s]

So that was a Drake. Here I was at about level 21, wandering around. I started fighting some Hobgoblins and suddenly out of nowhere I get fire blasted. Turn around fast enough to get a quick look at it and then run the hell away with about 25 hp left. Once I got to safety, I chickened out and used a ferry stone because my supply of healing items was exhausted. My main pawn survived but the two hired pawns didn't make it back. [Now I know why my pawn sometimes comes back with nothing to show for the trip - when they are lost instead of being released, you don't get a chance to give a gift and they don't go back with anything.]

I tried... Level 26, changed my vocation feom Fighter to a Strider, so its a good way to experience chucking arrows.

It took me two nights of fighting to peg two bars of its health. :/

So while I'm still breathing, I ran away in defeat.

*shakes fist*

 

[RPGCrazied]

I didn't get that. Where'd you order from? And enjoy the game!

Walmart. Looks like it just talks about the classes, color and cardboard stock. And thanks, I will!

 

[Delio]

My poor little guy cant handle swinging a giant sword/hammer. Switching him back to fighter once he gains a few skills.

 

[slaughterking]

Surprisingly I just found out you can just hit start and then hit the back/select button and save your game. You bypass the menu that asks if you want to save and continue, quit without saving, etc and you just have to click "Yes". So it's a "quicker" save option.

Yep, that's one of the smart things this game does. Would be even better if you could just hold down the back/select button and it would automatically save without pausing the game at all. But even without that it's very convenient.

 

[BeeDog]

So, did the PS3 version turn out to perform better than the demo?

 

[1stStrike]

Damn, is that true? I was hoping that NG+ enemies would get a boost in difficulty a'la the Souls games.

That's what I'm wondering because there's been no information that I've seen on NG+ for DD. All I know is that the enemies don't scale to your level, period. It may be that they get boosted in NG+ but there's been nothing to allude to that yet.