Dark Souls is on Steam

Plague_Injected said:
This is From's first PC rodeo. The two situations aren't particularly compatible.
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From a developer's perspective, it's not. From a customer's perspective, it absolutely is. Hopefully the game turns out well, but to me this port isn't worth $40 and I'm sad that From is getting any of my money. It's like getting a great meal with miserable service. Now, maybe if you tried to make it work but fell short on resources, I'll be forgiving of that. In this case, they clearly just didn't give a shit.

I got the controls running better with x360ce and made it past the Asylum boss fairly easily, and set up Durante's fix so it actually looks decent (still not good) but the lack of tooltips is definitely going to be an issue soon.
 
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Plague_Injected said:
Not sure if it's accurate, but Dark Souls is No.1 on the Steam Top Sellers. CS:GO is No.2

Good result in for From and Namco so far? In terms of sales, I mean.
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I've never believed that list. I reckon Valve gets money to put games on the list. I'm sure there's SOME truth to the list in that a game has to be selling to get on it, but I don't trust it for any accuracy. There's been times where I've looked at it and thought "seriously? there's no way that game is outselling X,Y,Z at the moment".
 
Derangel said:
You mean exactly what they said it would be from the get go? Why are people expecting it to be something they said it wouldn't be?
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It is nice they warned us. I will give them that. That is why I didn't buy it. Maybe during a 7$ sale.
 
I was ready to give up in frustration at the controls, graphics etc but decided to mess around for a few hours just getting the feel and layout of the game...it's a mess in the beginning (especially for those that havn't played the console version) because the whole layout and tutorial sucks...even simple things like equipping weapons, spells etc is so damn tedious in this game...I played as a Sorceror but never understood how come I could not get my Soul Arrows to work

finally got a hold of a 'Catalyst' and then it started working...if you're willing to give this game a few hours to familiarize yourself with the game things definitely become more enjoyable...having to choose between shields versus spells etc is fun but because of the crappy controls it's a major pain in the ass to switch back and forth...still not as good as some people claim but I'm still early...the port is one of the worst I've ever seen but the game is actually interesting and has potential

if I rest at a bonfire the bosses do not regenerate right?...just the normal enemies right?
 
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polonyc2 said:
I was ready to give up in frustration at the controls, graphics etc but decided to mess around for a few hours just getting the feel and layout of the game...it's a mess in the beginning (especially for those that havn't played the console version) because the whole layout and tutorial sucks...even simple things like equipping weapons, spells etc is so damn tedious in this game...I played as a Sorceror but never understood how come I could not get my magic ranged arrows to work

finally got a hold of a 'Catalyst' and then it started working...if you're willing to give this game a few hours to familiarize yourself with the game things definitely become more enjoyable...having to choose between shields versus spells etc is fun but because of the crappy controls it's a major pain in the ass to switch back and forth...still not as good as some people claim but I'm still early...the port is one of the worst I've ever seen but the game is actually interesting and has potential

if I rest at a bonfire the bosses do not regenerate right?...just the normal enemies right?
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When it comes to games like this and tutorials it's always interesting to see people's reactions. The game gives a very basic tutorial and I have to wonder if we really need more than that? We bitch and moan about tutorials all the time in games and when one gives a short, simple one that doesn't treat us like idiots we complain about that as well. I think we're all a bit spoilt by the games we complain about.

Just normal enemies respawn when you rest at a bonefire.
 
Yeah only regular, "weak" enemies regenerate. Bosses and minibosses like the Armored Boar or Black Knights don't.
 
 
Dion said:
It is nice they warned us. I will give them that. That is why I didn't buy it. Maybe during a 7$ sale.
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Yes, plenty of developers know their games are a bit dodgy when they get kicked out the door for distributing, but keep silent about it in fear of affecting sales. Some of them also spend the time in between sending it off and release on making DLC instead of getting a Day-One patch up and running.

From's honesty is amazing IMO.


Jaerb4 said:
From a developer's perspective, it's not. From a customer's perspective, it absolutely is. Hopefully the game turns out well, but to me this port isn't worth $40 and I'm sad that From is getting any of my money. It's like getting a great meal with miserable service. Now, maybe if you tried to make it work but fell short on resources, I'll be forgiving of that. In this case, they clearly just didn't give a shit.
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Incorrect. The issues with Dark Souls are due to inexperience, time and money...not because of not giving a shit. If you followed the press leading up to release you would know this. If you want to blame someone, blame Namco Bandai.
 
Derangel said:
When it comes to games like this and tutorials it's always interesting to see people's reactions. The game gives a very basic tutorial and I have to wonder if we really need more than that? We bitch and moan about tutorials all the time in games and when one gives a short, simple one that doesn't treat us like idiots we complain about that as well. I think we're all a bit spoilt by the games we complain about.

Just normal enemies respawn when you rest at a bonefire.
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there's a difference between holding your hand tutorials and ones that basically give you zero information...it's pretty much 'figure everything out on your own' in this game...I'll admit I havn't been reading all those messages on the ground which serve as hints/tutorial but either way mostly anything of use was discovered through my own experimentation

another thing that bugs me about this game is how it almost cheats in terms of the way you die...you're walking up stairs and without any time to jump or move out of the way a giant boulder comes crashing down on you...no way are you given a fair chance...you know about it the 2nd time but it pretty much cheats in killing you a lot of times and makes you learn what not to do afterwards
 
polonyc2 said:
there's a difference between holding your hand tutorials and ones that basically give you zero information...it's pretty much 'figure everything out on your own' in this game...I'll admit I havn't been reading all those messages on the ground which serve as hints/tutorial but either way mostly anything of use was discovered through my own experimentation

another thing that bugs me about this game is how it almost cheats in terms of the way you die...you're walking up stairs and without any time to jump or move out of the way a giant boulder comes crashing down on you...no way are you given a fair chance...you know about it the 2nd time but it pretty much cheats in killing you a lot of times and makes you learn what not to do afterwards
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If you're ignoring the hints the game is giving you you can't complain about them not being there. Either way, the game doesn't tell you everything and I like it. It expects you to think and learn and pay attention. If you can't do all three of those at once you will die, a lot.

The game isn't cheating at all. The boulder is perfectly visible BEFORE you go up the stairs. I saw it my first time and dodged it just fine my first time. You can't just run around everywhere. You have to be patient and take your time. Every trap is visible and avoidable if you aren't rushing and are paying attention to the game world. You simply have to remember that this isn't a game you turn your mind off while playing, you have to keep thinking and planning.
 
Derangel said:
If you're ignoring the hints the game is giving you you can't complain about them not being there. Either way, the game doesn't tell you everything and I like it. It expects you to think and learn and pay attention. If you can't do all three of those at once you will die, a lot.

The game isn't cheating at all. The boulder is perfectly visible BEFORE you go up the stairs. I saw it my first time and dodged it just fine my first time. You can't just run around everywhere. You have to be patient and take your time. Every trap is visible and avoidable if you aren't rushing and are paying attention to the game world. You simply have to remember that this isn't a game you turn your mind off while playing, you have to keep thinking and planning.
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hell no it's not visible the first time...the game is way too dark for that...you only learn to watch your EVERY step after playing the game for a few hours...it's becomes engrained in your brain to take it slow and steady...the game forces you to see things differently...not 1 person will ever make it through this game their first time and see all the traps etc and not die over and over

I was ignoring some of the the hints early on because I was practicing using different characters etc to get comfortable with it...I do plan on exploring everything during my 'real' run through which I think I'm ready to do

I thought after choosing the 'Master Key' as my gift that all rooms would be accessible but a lot of them are still locked...I guess it's not a real master key
 
Plague_Injected said:
Incorrect. The issues with Dark Souls are due to inexperience, time and money...not because of not giving a shit. If you followed the press leading up to release you would know this. If you want to blame someone, blame Namco Bandai.
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Is that why their mistakes are being fixed day 1 by community members?

This is a flat out lazy port. Not allowing proper rebinds is inexperience? I know they said it'd be bad, but that doesn't excuse releasing a shitty product. From deserves all the blame they're going to get. Again, "it's our first time!" is not a valid excuse in basically every business outside of food service and it's not even their first time.
 
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polonyc2 said:
hell no it's not visible the first time...the game is way too dark for that...you only learn to watch your EVERY step after playing the game for a few hours...it's becomes engrained in your brain to take it slow and steady...the game forces you to see things differently...not 1 person will ever make it through this game their first time and see all the traps etc and not die over and over
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You're talking about the first boulder right? The one in the prison? I saw that thing my first time playing the game. Mind you I did play Demon Soul's so I had already learned to pay attention to everything, but still it's not impossible to notice. Of course you're going to die due to not seeing things, that's the point of a well designed hard game. It makes you frustrated that you didn't see it but it also should make you realize why you missed it and teach you to keep an eye out for it in the future. With a game like Dark Souls pretty much every single death is the fault of the player, not the fault of the game.
 
Jaerb4 said:
Is that why their mistakes are being fixed day 1 by community members?

This is a flat out lazy port. Not allowing proper rebinds is inexperience? I know they said it'd be bad, but that doesn't excuse releasing a shitty product. From deserves all the blame they're going to get.
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From has NEVER developed a game on the PC. Not once in their entire existence. Both of their PC titles have been done by outside studios. They're a Japanese company. The extent of the PC game market is Japan is almost entirely dating sims, none of which are remotely taxing. They don't exactly have much experience to call on. They were given an extremely limited amount of time and money to A. Develop new content B. Make their engine work on a platform it was likely never designed to work on and C. port the game to a platform they never intended to put it on in the first place.
 
Derangel said:
Of course you're going to die due to not seeing things, that's the point of a well designed hard game. It makes you frustrated that you didn't see it but it also should make you realize why you missed it and teach you to keep an eye out for it in the future. With a game like Dark Souls pretty much every single death is the fault of the player, not the fault of the game.
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I disagree...I'm very early but already I get the impression that they are not playing fairly...I like a nice challenge but it needs to be fair to the player...saying that everyone will die at some point (probably a lot) is not playing fair...this game seems all about gaining experience from death
 
To be completely honest with you though, there's only like 2 boulder traps in the entire game. So you don't have to worry about that anymore.
 
Plague_Injected said:
Is the game that grainy when playing?
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Steam sampling adds "mud", and that's Undead Burg (not a great showcase). I'm not running any forced AA right now or anything. It looks better in game, but only a bit more clear. I'll play with larger resolutions tomorrow.


P.S. that boulder is definitely visible, so are 99% of that kind of trap. You do have to be looking at all times, so it is kinda tense.
 
Derangel said:
From has NEVER developed a game on the PC. Not once in their entire existence. Both of their PC titles have been done by outside studios. They're a Japanese company. The extent of the PC game market is Japan is almost entirely dating sims, none of which are remotely taxing. They don't exactly have much experience to call on. They were given an extremely limited amount of time and money to A. Develop new content B. Make their engine work on a platform it was likely never designed to work on and C. port the game to a platform they never intended to put it on in the first place.
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It

Does

Not

Matter.

It's an awful port. We get that you love the game and you love what From created, but they did a shitty job here. We can argue back and forth on whether it's inexperience or not (which, for a lot of these things, I don't think has anything to do with inexperience) but the end result is a really bad port that doesn't function unless you have a 360 controller. Now, the game they made is great but what we are judging is the port experience.

If you want evidence of how lazy it is, look at Durante's explanation of what the renderer is doing with the resolutions. What he did is not a complicated fix and it doesn't take much specialty. Do Japanese keyboards not have number keys (hint: they do) and that's why you can't bind them?
 
polonyc2 said:
I disagree...I'm very early but already I get the impression that they are not playing fairly...I like a nice challenge but it needs to be fair to the player...saying that everyone will die at some point (probably a lot) is not playing fair...this game seems all about gaining experience from death
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Everyone will die at some point, why isn't that fair? If you're citing that boulder trap still, up your gamma a bump. That staircase isn't exactly a tall one, you can see the top.
 
polonyc2 said:
I disagree...I'm very early but already I get the impression that they are not playing fairly...I like a nice challenge but it needs to be fair to the player...saying that everyone will die at some point (probably a lot) is not playing fair
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How is it not fair? Is it not fair because the game doesn't hold your hand? Doesn't treat you like a kid? Doesn't tell you all the answers? Forces you actually use your brain as you play? Forces you to learn from your mistakes instead of shoving solutions in your face with silly little text boxes? Everyone will die because you don't go into the game knowing how to play. That isn't being unfair, it's expecting you to think carefully and to learn when you screw up. You rush up a flight of stairs without thinking about your actions and you get crushed by a rock. The next time you remember the rock and are careful and learn that some stairs might be trapped. Not having a giant flashing neon sign saying "there is a rock up there" isn't cheating, it's expecting the player to use their eyes.

You will likely accidentally end up in areas you shouldn't be and die due to trying to fight enemies much stronger than you. Is that cheating also?
 
Jaerb4 said:
It

Does

Not

Matter.

It's an awful port. We get that you love the game and you love what From created, but they did a shitty job here. We can argue back and forth on whether it's inexperience or not (which, for a lot of these things, I don't think has anything to do with inexperience) but the end result is a really bad port that doesn't function unless you have a 360 controller. Now, the game they made is great but what we are judging is the port experience.

If you want evidence of how lazy it is, look at Durante's explanation of what the renderer is doing with the resolutions. What he did is not a complicated fix and it doesn't take much specialty.
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It functions on the keyboard and mouse, things are fully mappable on keyboard, but not the mouse. It not being that comfortable is due to needing to hold block alot. That simply works better on a controller, no matter what they did for keyboard. You also need to hold "walk" when you're taking it slow, which isn't something you'd have to do with an analogue thumbstick.

I don't see how you get around that without a controller.
 
Jaerb4 said:
It

Does

Not

Matter.

It's an awful port. We get that you love the game and you love what From created, but they did a shitty job here. We can argue back and forth on whether it's inexperience or not (which, for a lot of these things, I don't think has anything to do with inexperience) but the end result is a really bad port that doesn't function unless you have a 360 controller. Now, the game they made is great but what we are judging is the port experience.

If you want evidence of how lazy it is, look at Durante's explanation of what the renderer is doing with the resolutions. What he did is not a complicated fix and it doesn't take much specialty. Do Japanese keyboards not have number keys and that's why you can't bind them?
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It matters from the perspective of calling it lazy or not. I'm not even willing to call it bad as it seems like there are people who like keyboard and mouse control for it. I haven't bought it yet so I'm not weighing in one way or the other. From said at one point that they underestimated the challenge and were having a lot of problems, this was around E3. They've never been the greatest when it comes to the technical side of things, all of their games have problems on that end. So the fact that it seems like they managed to get this out with very little problems is quite surprising.
 
LeninGHOLA said:
It functions on the keyboard and mouse, things are fully mappable on keyboard, but not the mouse. It not being that comfortable is due to needing to hold block alot. That simply works better on a controller, no matter what they did for keyboard. You also need to hold "walk" when you're taking it slow, which isn't something you'd have to do with an analogue thumbstick.

I don't see how you get around that without a controller.
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not true...'fully' mappable means most if not all of the keys can be mapped...you can't remap a good number of keys such as the number keys or symbol ones

I remapped 'walk' to another set of keys while using the arrow keys for 'Run' as my default...the default 'walk' function is mapped to 2 keys together (Ctrl + wsad) which is crazy but can be remapped to 1...walking is too slow in the game while running gives you a better chance when facing a lot of the more difficult enemies and switching back and forth is too tedious as I already have the keys around the arrow movement ones remapped to my liking plus the lack of a 'fully' mappable keyboard makes keyboard button space valuable
 
Jaerb4 said:
It

Does

Not

Matter.

It's an awful port. We get that you love the game and you love what From created, but they did a shitty job here. We can argue back and forth on whether it's inexperience or not (which, for a lot of these things, I don't think has anything to do with inexperience) but the end result is a really bad port that doesn't function unless you have a 360 controller. Now, the game they made is great but what we are judging is the port experience.

If you want evidence of how lazy it is, look at Durante's explanation of what the renderer is doing with the resolutions. What he did is not a complicated fix and it doesn't take much specialty. Do Japanese keyboards not have number keys (hint: they do) and that's why you can't bind them?
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And we knew it was an awful port before release. They did not force ANYONE to buy this game.
 
Not everyone knew it was an awful port before release. It doesn't say on the Steam page "Our Bad Edition."

Ignorant as consumers may be, when you're led into a product that turns out this way, the company behind it is still at fault. When Best Buy leads people to buy overpriced, inferior products, Best Buy still carries the bulk of the responsibility, even though the information on their malpractice is all over the internet.

Derangel, I don't believe anyone likes kb/m in this game. Aside from the binding issues, there's really bad mouse smoothing and deceleration that makes Dead Space's port seem responsive. Even worse, the Windows cursor is on the screen at all times. That part's actually kind of hilarious.
 
I think it's pointless to try to convince anyone who doesn't like the game to change their minds. It's very much a nuanced game where people either like it or they don't . The PC port is fine for what it is, a port of a console game never meant to be on a pc. The devs designed the game with one target res and fps, and designed all the art and assets to that spec. It would take a bit more time and money to update and test everything. I'm sure the number crunchers found it was financially feasible to do a no frills port and nothing more. I have no qualms playing a PC game with a controller. I use an extra PS3 controller with motioninjoy and it works great, even wirelessly once you figure out its quirks. There's no way I'd play this with mouse/keyboard. Even tho it's capped at 30 fps, it does feel very smooth on my i7 ivy/GTX 670. This isn't a graphical showpiece game, nor a very PC centric game. It's a very specific game and the people who are into that kinda stuff already bought it for what it is instead of lamenting on what it isn't. As someone who played way too much of the *Souls games on PS3 and knew what I was getting when I ordered the PC version, I feel like I got my $40 worth. It is unfortunate that some people may either not buy it or not delve into it enough to enjoy it bc it wasn't designed for a more modern PC spec. Oh well, c'est la vie.
 
It could have been ported better with more time or a 3rd party port. The community at least came up with a few of their own fixes to make it more PC like, but I expect Namco to authorize a patch. The game is good and playable, but needs ease of use PC options.

I'd not ever expect it to play better on kb/m, so if you don't intend on using a controller, either reconsider or deal with the fact that the controls were designed specifically for analogue thumbstick controllers.

The only thing bothering me right now is that the high resolution render fix currently hides certain menu text, like floor writing messages. Otherwise, it's running well and looks quite a bit better than console with the mod.

GFWL is actually playing nice, and online seems to be working 100%.
 
Jaerb4 said:
Not everyone knew it was an awful port before release. It doesn't say on the Steam page "Our Bad Edition."

Ignorant as consumers may be, when you're led into a product that turns out this way, the company behind it is still at fault. When Best Buy leads people to buy overpriced, inferior products, Best Buy still carries the bulk of the responsibility, even though the information on their malpractice is all over the internet.

Derangel, I don't believe anyone likes kb/m in this game. Aside from the binding issues, there's really bad mouse smoothing and deceleration that makes Dead Space's port seem responsive. Even worse, the Windows cursor is on the screen at all times. That part's actually kind of hilarious.
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Do more research on a product you buy then. Thats why we have reviews.. and user input pages.. and this thread. oh.. and there statement.
 
The writing was all over the wall that this was going to be a pretty bad port. That's probably why it is $40 and not $50 or $60...(unless you are in Australia, where for some magical reason it is $70 instead of $40 or $100).
 
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I've run into the issue of my wireless dongle+ official wireless X360 pad (that works with pretty much everything else currently - playing Sleeping Dogs, Fable III etc..) not working with Dark Souls PTD. Bloody hell. Some say this is one of those "No other USB devices can be present or else it has a shitfit". Strange, the game actually shows the X360 button style on screen prompts, I can actually negotiate in the GFWL overlay with the pad, but I can't even "press start" and none of the buttons work!

What windows seems to decide are "game controllers" aside from the X360 pad, ismy Logi G13's joystick and the Wiimote (not connected) I have set up with bluetooth. Even unplugging the G13 doesn't seem to fix this, so I'm worried that this is going to be a driver-disable clusterfuck again. Anyone have a Logitech G13 and have no problems using a Wireless X360 pad with the title? I'm getting really fucking sick of these games where I have to uninstall or hack around in the driver manager because someone just programs their game to "pick the first thing that kinda sorta looks like a controller you find, and don't forget to have a shit fit if you find more than one!"
 
daemonmf said:
The PC port is fine for what it is, a port of a console game never meant to be on a pc
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that excuse is pure BS...the fact of the matter is that it IS now out for the PC...forget about what was originally intended etc...it's out for the PC and it should have been given better treatment or should have stayed on the consoles

playing it with KB/M is do-able (I'm trekking my way through with it)...first boss was not too difficult (Asylum Demon) as I was able to maneuver around pretty well...but it still feels like hard work and not smooth...luckily my Sorceror starts out with 30 soul arrows which also helps...lesser enemy melee fights are fine with KB/M once you re-map them properly using the shortcuts menu



 
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polonyc2 said:
that excuse is pure BS...the fact of the matter is that it IS now out for the PC...forget about what was originally intended etc...it's out for the PC and it should have been given better treatment or should have stayed on the consoles

playing it with KB/M is do-able (I'm trekking my way through with it)...first boss was not too difficult (Asylum Demon) as I was able to maneuver around pretty well...but it still feels like hard work and not smooth...luckily my Sorceror starts out with 30 soul arrows which also helps...lesser enemy melee fights are fine with KB/M once you re-map them properly using the shortcuts menu
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Namco has definitely cut some unacceptable corners to get the game on the PC as cheaply as possible. It should have been handled by a reputable third-party and not by a developer with no PC experience, and should have been given more resources to get the job done properly.

Believe it or not, there is one worse console port released this year...
 
So it took like 5 minutes for the community to make a mod to fix the internal rendering resolution, and yet this was an seemingly impossible undertaking for professional developers to achieve? Wow....I would be embarrassed to put my name on such a sloppy job.

Too bad they don't just release the source files, the community could have this game fixed up in no time.
 
polonyc2 said:
that excuse is pure BS...the fact of the matter is that it IS now out for the PC...forget about what was originally intended etc...it's out for the PC and it should have been given better treatment or should have stayed on the consoles

playing it with KB/M is do-able (I'm trekking my way through with it)...first boss was not too difficult (Asylum Demon) as I was able to maneuver around pretty well...but it still feels like hard work and not smooth...luckily my Sorceror starts out with 30 soul arrows which also helps...lesser enemy melee fights are fine with KB/M once you re-map them properly using the shortcuts menu



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You should be using the resolution mod. Makes the game look like this:






And don't attack the Raven :( You'll be completely locked out of an area later on.
 
Blight town runs smooth! That's all I needed to know. Making it a good port for all I care!
 
AceCR42 said:
You should be using the resolution mod. Makes the game look like this:

And don't attack the Raven :( You'll be completely locked out of an area later on.
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the resolution mod definitely looks a lot better but it apparently makes the text unreadable and as a newb to the game I need them...I'm not a complete graphics whore but geez the poor graphics are really getting to me...my eyes hurt...most things look awful...feels like I'm playing something on the Atari 2600

I didn't kill the Raven...after a few shots he just flew away...at first I thought he was an enemy :D

I don't understand the bonfires...if you use them then you lose all your collected souls but not any new loot or equipment you found before you died?...but don't you need to use the bonfires to level up etc?
 
You don't lose souls when you use a Bonfire.

Bonfires are safe points where you can level up, repair, modify equipment, and replenish your Estus Flasks. When you die, you drop all your unspent souls and Humanity and respawn at the last visited Bonfire.
 
It's probably bad that I can't wait to hear Totalbiscuit rip into this one.

There is no defense for the resolution and fps-lock situation. None.

Controls are one thing; if they believe a controller is how it's mean to be played, okay. GUI not scaling would be another issue we'd understand. Low quality textures -- explainable.

But to only support one resolution locked at 30fps is simply beyond the pale. It suggests the whole code base is built on quicksand, poorly designed and unmaintainable.
 
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