Dark Souls 2 PC - April 25, 2014

Domingo said:
I like the figurine...but I also like having everything tied to Steam and the convenience of no disks, too.

That's actually something I wish Steam could do. They have our addresses - why not toss in some special offers that can also ship out physical goodies like this?
Click to expand...

The only version of Dark Souls II PC in the U.S. is the steam version. No matter where you buy Dark Souls II PC, it will be a steam code.
 
Everything you need to know before playing Dark Souls 2...

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/ev...now-before-playing-dark-souls-2/1100-6418150/

some interesting aspects:

-Your maximum health is reduced when you die, down to a maximum penalty of 50 percent. Going from an undead (hollow) state to a human state reverses the effect (why would anyone choose to remain hollow in DS2 if you lose health + can be invaded??)

-You can now be invaded while hollow

-Traditionally in the Souls series, enemies have respawned when players rest at a bonfire. In Dark Souls II, the majority of enemies stop respawning when killed a certain amount of times (not sure I like this)

-Merchants have limited amounts of supplies, so don't expect to buy 85 titanite shards whenever you fancy it

-Rolling has been changed. It is now much, much harder to evade horizontal attacks without taking damage

-Characters now stagger backwards and are unable to move for a moment if their stamina bar runs out while holding up a shield (love this)
 
chameleoneel said:
The only version of Dark Souls II PC in the U.S. is the steam version. No matter where you buy Dark Souls II PC, it will be a steam code.
Click to expand...

Oi, you miss the first page or something? America is getting physical copies now.
They even have the PC links up on darksoulsii.com now. Buy from Namco or Gamestop. Supposedly Amazon may carry it closer to release.
 
LeviathanZERO said:
Oi, you miss the first page or something? America is getting physical copies now.
They even have the PC links up on darksoulsii.com now. Buy from Namco or Gamestop. Supposedly Amazon may carry it closer to release.
Click to expand...

Hmm, all I'm finding is steam key versions. Can you direct link to a physical US non steam version?


Kain said:
http://www.amazon.com/Dark-Souls-II-Collectors-Edition-Pc/dp/B00IVHQ1L6/
Click to expand...

Yeah, still just the placeholder I posted last page. Hopefully it gets updated soon.
 
As an Amazon Associate, HardForum may earn from qualifying purchases.
rsbennett00 said:
Hmm, all I'm finding is steam key versions. Can you direct link to a physical US non steam version?




Yeah, still just the placeholder I posted last page. Hopefully it gets updated soon.
Click to expand...

Actually I take it back, it's only the Collectors Edition.
And there is no disc in the box. There's a steam code to download.
So, that means, there's still no true physical release of this game in NA. Damn it...
 
LeviathanZERO said:
Actually I take it back, it's only the Collectors Edition.
And there is no disc in the box. There's a steam code to download.
So, that means, there's still no true physical release of this game in NA. Damn it...
Click to expand...

Bummer. I avoid steam (and the rest) anytime I can.
 
I wish that they had removed the backstab mechanic entirely from PVP. After hundreds of hours playing online I've come to loath the "endlessly strafe around each other in circles" routine of certain opponents trying to go for nothing but backstabs.

Or at least change it so that if you're wearing plate armor the damage is reduced by a huge margin, and if you have your shield slung across your back then you are immune to backstabs.
 
As an Amazon Associate, HardForum may earn from qualifying purchases.
rsbennett00 said:
It's got images now and the main image is dated correctly while the listing still says 12/31. I'm going to go ahead and pull the trigger just in case.
Click to expand...

I tried to resist buying it but that statue is too awesome and I like maps and soundtracks. At least there are no other games coming out in April that I plan to buy.
 
Holy shit, they made an online portal for this game!
World information, Deaths, clears, lost souls, a SL ZONE MAP!?
Network status for all platforms, an information console with maintenance messages and ... events!? Oh this shit just got real.
BEYOND THE BONFIRE
http://farfire.darksoulsii.com/pc/index.html

Found it off darksoulsii.com
 
Not that it means all that much, but IGN accidentally posted the review earlier and rated it a 9/10.

For reference they rated Dark Souls 1 a 9/10 as well.
 
I read the IGN review ( http://www.ign.com/articles/2014/03...+twitter&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social )got me so hyped, but just like I was worried the <health each time you die they say makes you less apt to want to "explore" beceause it seems so heavy handed.

Just like how when you'd get "cursed" in Dark Souls (I haaaaaaated that), I mean the game was already hard enough, why make death easier on losing souls (Since you can spend them and fast travel now) but then make it harder on your health? Makes no sense.


Also one good thing is that it seems like Dark Souls 2 is more open in terms of offering more routes and things to explore and take that are viable rather then like say Dark Souls 1 where you really wanted to go to the right (and not the graveyard) because things were quite tougher that way and there really wasn't a real "choice" in what way to go (unless you were just running through it to get somewhere else that you knew beforehand).

Also loved this part of the review (Covenant spoiler warning for below):

"The role of Covenants is also expanded and made good use of for multiplayer. For instance, joining the Rat Covenant gave me the run of an ancient tomb, including control of where to place poison pools, enemy rats, and other devious booby traps for the next non-Rat Covenant player that happens by to deal with. Think Tecmo&#8217;s Deception, and you&#8217;re pretty close to the new dynamics that From Software has created here. It&#8217;s an extremely satisfying way to express my inner evil genius."
 
Hmm, I hope they don't add too much more mulitplayer stuff, some of us disable network cards to avoid what there is...
 
Not sure if you played Demon's Souls, but in that game you lost 50% max health on death.

As far as I'm aware they're just bringing back a mechanic that was curiously missing from the first Dark Souls.
 
Damn.

GameInformer: 9.75/10
AusGamers: 9.6/10
M!Games: 90%
Famitsu: 9/10/9/9
IGN: 9/10
Gamespot: 9/10
Destructoid: 9/10
Polygon 9/10
EGM: 8.5/10
OXM: 8/10
US Gamer: 5/5
Gamesradar 4.5/5
Escapist: 4.5/5
HardcoreGamer: 4.5/5
Rev3: 4/5
 
I was secretly hoping it will be bad to avoid alot of smash-keyboard-into-monitor moments... But looks like no such luck. Hopefully no spear launching archers on a ledge in this one :)
 
I can guarantee that you wont beat Dark Souls 2 in 10 hours. I have about 400 hours on DemS and DarkS1 combined.

Kain said:
http://www.amazon.com/Dark-Souls-II-Collectors-Edition-Pc/dp/B00IVHQ1L6/
w.png
Click to expand...
Added this to my Amazon Whistlist
 
Last edited:
As an Amazon Associate, HardForum may earn from qualifying purchases.
Pardon my ignorance, but would someone mind explaining what exactly makes Dark Souls so great? I'm not trying to bash the game, its just one that I'm not familiar with at all. And with the recent updates to Diablo 2/imminent release of Titanfall, I don't want to overlook this title if it has potential!
 
polonyc2 said:
Everything you need to know before playing Dark Souls 2...

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/ev...now-before-playing-dark-souls-2/1100-6418150/

some interesting aspects:

-Your maximum health is reduced when you die, down to a maximum penalty of 50 percent. Going from an undead (hollow) state to a human state reverses the effect (why would anyone choose to remain hollow in DS2 if you lose health + can be invaded??)

-You can now be invaded while hollow

-Traditionally in the Souls series, enemies have respawned when players rest at a bonfire. In Dark Souls II, the majority of enemies stop respawning when killed a certain amount of times (not sure I like this)

-Merchants have limited amounts of supplies, so don't expect to buy 85 titanite shards whenever you fancy it

-Rolling has been changed. It is now much, much harder to evade horizontal attacks without taking damage

-Characters now stagger backwards and are unable to move for a moment if their stamina bar runs out while holding up a shield (love this)
Click to expand...
All of those changes look to favor increasing the role of PVP in the game in one way or another, although I really don't understand being able to be invaded while Hollow. I especially don't like the idea of enemies that will stop respawning. This will either force players to move on to the next NG+ level or PVP to continue gaining soul levels.
 
thm1223 said:
Pardon my ignorance, but would someone mind explaining what exactly makes Dark Souls so great? I'm not trying to bash the game, its just one that I'm not familiar with at all. And with the recent updates to Diablo 2/imminent release of Titanfall, I don't want to overlook this title if it has potential!
Click to expand...

It is a great action adventure game (Think of say, Rune, Die by the sword, Severance, etc) those styles of classic games.

However it is also quite a difficult (but fair) game, just like we used to get back in the 80's/90's.

Because of the difficulty and systems it's one of the most "rewarding" games out there in terms of playing it and feeling like you've accomplished something when you get past a boss and discover things.

The main crutch of the difficulty comes from the main resource that Dark Souls uses, which is Souls. When you defeat enemies they drop souls, you then pick them up. These are used to upgrade your skills, buy things, etc. If you die you drop your souls where you died and you have a single chance to get back to that area and pick them up, if you die a second time those souls are lost. The second game is a bit easier then before those as you now have fast travel from a bonfire to others from the get go, but at the same time in this new one if you die you lose a % of health unless you use certain items to replinish it.

Speaking of the actual gameplay, one of the things it pioneered (and other games ar estarting to use/take notice of) is the mulitplayer.

It weaves the mulitplayer into the single player in various ways. As you play hte game you come across stains on the environment, you can touch these and it will show you had some other (real) player died, these help you perhaps see upcoming dangers or just get a laugh out of someone doing something stupid (IE accidentally falling off something).

Then you also will come across little "notes" which other players can leave in the game world, these notes anyone can leave (including you as you play) and they have a limited amount of things you can say (you don't actually type the notes, rather they just have a list of phrases and things to say). These can be helpful, like someone pointing out a secret, but they can also be tricks (like some people leave a "jump here" note on the edge of a ledge and you think there's a secret hidden underneath you can't see but nope, they just did it to see if you'd jump. Players can "rate" the messages up or down, rating messages up gives the player who wrote them humanity.

Apart from those two things you then have the more direct multiplayer. In the game world you can place signs (which you get from having certain items) which in turn can summon people to your game world and you can co op a boss and they can help you.

On the flip said other players can "invade" your world while you play and fight you.

Setting this up are "covenants" which are basically like factions, throughout your play experience you will come across certain characters which might unlock a covenant to join, some can be quite hidden. These might allow you to do certain things, such as invading anothe rplayers world, invading a certain part of the game world when a player does something, or invading a pkers (IE a player who invades and kills other players) world , think of like being a "good" guy and invading the "bad" players worlds to deal out some justice.

So to sum it up, it's a singl eplayer focused game with an interesting twist to some multiplayer elements woven around it with good combat, great atmosphere, punishing but very rewarding gameplay that harkens back to how games used to be.
 
Armenius said:
All of those changes look to favor increasing the role of PVP in the game in one way or another, although I really don't understand being able to be invaded while Hollow. I especially don't like the idea of enemies that will stop respawning. This will either force players to move on to the next NG+ level or PVP to continue gaining soul levels.
Click to expand...

I think part of the reason for hollow players being able to be invaded is because a lot of people would simply play through the game in hollow form and never really the other way, there were players that never (knew) about the invading and such (as in they don't red the manual or wiki on the game).

So now everyone that plays can be invaded, regardless of being hollow or not.
 
Stiler said:
It is a great action adventure game (Think of say, Rune, Die by the sword, Severance, etc) those styles of classic games.

However it is also quite a difficult (but fair) game, just like we used to get back in the 80's/90's.

Because of the difficulty and systems it's one of the most "rewarding" games out there in terms of playing it and feeling like you've accomplished something when you get past a boss and discover things.

The main crutch of the difficulty comes from the main resource that Dark Souls uses, which is Souls. When you defeat enemies they drop souls, you then pick them up. These are used to upgrade your skills, buy things, etc. If you die you drop your souls where you died and you have a single chance to get back to that area and pick them up, if you die a second time those souls are lost. The second game is a bit easier then before those as you now have fast travel from a bonfire to others from the get go, but at the same time in this new one if you die you lose a % of health unless you use certain items to replinish it.

Speaking of the actual gameplay, one of the things it pioneered (and other games ar estarting to use/take notice of) is the mulitplayer.

It weaves the mulitplayer into the single player in various ways. As you play hte game you come across stains on the environment, you can touch these and it will show you had some other (real) player died, these help you perhaps see upcoming dangers or just get a laugh out of someone doing something stupid (IE accidentally falling off something).

Then you also will come across little "notes" which other players can leave in the game world, these notes anyone can leave (including you as you play) and they have a limited amount of things you can say (you don't actually type the notes, rather they just have a list of phrases and things to say). These can be helpful, like someone pointing out a secret, but they can also be tricks (like some people leave a "jump here" note on the edge of a ledge and you think there's a secret hidden underneath you can't see but nope, they just did it to see if you'd jump. Players can "rate" the messages up or down, rating messages up gives the player who wrote them humanity.

Apart from those two things you then have the more direct multiplayer. In the game world you can place signs (which you get from having certain items) which in turn can summon people to your game world and you can co op a boss and they can help you.

On the flip said other players can "invade" your world while you play and fight you.

Setting this up are "covenants" which are basically like factions, throughout your play experience you will come across certain characters which might unlock a covenant to join, some can be quite hidden. These might allow you to do certain things, such as invading anothe rplayers world, invading a certain part of the game world when a player does something, or invading a pkers (IE a player who invades and kills other players) world , think of like being a "good" guy and invading the "bad" players worlds to deal out some justice.

So to sum it up, it's a singl eplayer focused game with an interesting twist to some multiplayer elements woven around it with good combat, great atmosphere, punishing but very rewarding gameplay that harkens back to how games used to be.
Click to expand...


Sounds cool! Will have to check it out sometime in the next few months. Makes me feel a bit bad that I never played the original, even though a few of my friends mentioned how good it was/is.
 
Stiler said:
I think part of the reason for hollow players being able to be invaded is because a lot of people would simply play through the game in hollow form and never really the other way, there were players that never (knew) about the invading and such (as in they don't red the manual or wiki on the game).

So now everyone that plays can be invaded, regardless of being hollow or not.
Click to expand...

Anyone know yet if you can simply keep the console offline and still play? Obviously we'll have to wait for the pc version to make sure it works offline. I lot of us don't do pvp.
 
Armenius said:
All of those changes look to favor increasing the role of PVP in the game in one way or another, although I really don't understand being able to be invaded while Hollow. I especially don't like the idea of enemies that will stop respawning. This will either force players to move on to the next NG+ level or PVP to continue gaining soul levels.
Click to expand...

I really don't like the non-respawn aspect...that's one of the core elements of Dark Souls...I guess it depends on the number of times you have to kill the enemies in an area before they stop respawning...it needs to be a large number
 
The respawning thing doesn't bug me as much as the limited resources. One of the fun things about the first game was powering up different weapons for the hell of it. Seems like you have to choose well this time. For the first pass that's no big deal, but by pass #2 or 3, I'd rather things be wide open.

While "fair," I think the first Dark Souls seemed to revel in making tedious activities deadly...and therefore frustrating if you didn't feel like playing at your best for the 30th time through an area. This will alleviate some of that. Plus, per one of the reviews I read you can alleviate this feature with an item that resets things.
 
Domingo said:
While "fair," I think the first Dark Souls seemed to revel in making tedious activities deadly...and therefore frustrating if you didn't feel like playing at your best for the 30th time through an area. This will alleviate some of that. Plus, per one of the reviews I read you can alleviate this feature with an item that resets things.
Click to expand...

I think that's what they meant when they said Dark Souls 2 would be more 'accessible'..it doesn't mean they made the game easier or the enemies less difficult...I think they just made the gameplay and story easier to pick up...things that were unnecessarily complicated in the first game will be more streamlined...so they did away with infinite respawns, made warping available from the very beginning etc to make the game easier to play
 
There's also an item that makes the enemies in an area stronger.

Unless you're totally desperate to play right now, I'd say you guys should just wait for the PC version. Playing the PS3 version right now, it struggles to mantain 30 FPS, there's a distinct lack of lighting in certain areas, looooong loading times when you die (and in this kind of game, you definitely get tired of it), and some annoying lag when opening menus.

It's sad that they chose to release it for this console generation because just from the first areas, the game world seems to be much more ambitious than the first Dark Souls and with proper lighting (and higher res textures of course), it would look incredible.

I'm guessing (or hoping, rather) that the PC version will suffer from none of that.
 
AceCR42 said:
There's also an item that makes the enemies in an area stronger.

Unless you're totally desperate to play right now, I'd say you guys should just wait for the PC version. Playing the PS3 version right now, it struggles to mantain 30 FPS, there's a distinct lack of lighting in certain areas, looooong loading times when you die (and in this kind of game, you definitely get tired of it), and some annoying lag when opening menus.

It's sad that they chose to release it for this console generation because just from the first areas, the game world seems to be much more ambitious than the first Dark Souls and with proper lighting (and higher res textures of course), it would look incredible.

I'm guessing (or hoping, rather) that the PC version will suffer from none of that.
Click to expand...

I'm using a hybrid SSD and playing on ps3 and havnt had any noticeable slow down from fps lag during game play and loading times are not nearly as bad as you make them sound lol.

That being said, I truly hope the PC version looks a bit better graphically. You can tell the graphics have been updated for DSII but Imo it almost makes it look worse than DS did on PS3. Kind of weird I know but eh just my opinion.

Fuckn awesome game so far though. Been playing 8 hours off/on and still lost as all hell haha..
 
Well no shit the loading times aren't as bad on a Hybrid SSD, they cut it down nearly in half.

On the stock HDD, it's a ~40 second load screen every time you die.
 
Region locked in Southeast Asia and Latin America on Steam, and I have to pay US rates for that!

Probably will buy this later from GMG when it's on sale, and only if it's a region free US key.
 
rsbennett00 said:
Anyone know yet if you can simply keep the console offline and still play? Obviously we'll have to wait for the pc version to make sure it works offline. I lot of us don't do pvp.
Click to expand...

I played Demon's and Dark Souls on the ps3 and never played online and it worked just fine. I just turned off the wifi on the ps3. I wanted the single player experience and didn't want to deal with being invaded.
 
Man... don't know how you pc guys are holding out. Played for four hours on the 360 last night and it was f'n amazing!

As for the enemies not respawning rule, I believe it is set at 12 deaths. However, there is supposedly an item that you can consume to make all non-respawning enemies return, stronger than before.

I did kill the first 2 bosses and made it up to the third (which was 1:30am by then!) before I decided to call it quits. Received zero achievements. Does this mean that I have to have xbox live gold to be able to rack up achievements? When I played through the pc version of Dark Souls, i received achievements without issue.
 
Tzzird said:
Man... don't know how you pc guys are holding out. Played for four hours on the 360 last night and it was f'n amazing!

As for the enemies not respawning rule, I believe it is set at 12 deaths. However, there is supposedly an item that you can consume to make all non-respawning enemies return, stronger than before.

I did kill the first 2 bosses and made it up to the third (which was 1:30am by then!) before I decided to call it quits. Received zero achievements. Does this mean that I have to have xbox live gold to be able to rack up achievements? When I played through the pc version of Dark Souls, i received achievements without issue.
Click to expand...
The item is called Bonfire Ascetic, and it makes the enemies in the area be 1 new game level stronger.
 
Tzzird said:
Man... don't know how you pc guys are holding out. Played for four hours on the 360 last night and it was f'n amazing!

As for the enemies not respawning rule, I believe it is set at 12 deaths. However, there is supposedly an item that you can consume to make all non-respawning enemies return, stronger than before.

I did kill the first 2 bosses and made it up to the third (which was 1:30am by then!) before I decided to call it quits. Received zero achievements. Does this mean that I have to have xbox live gold to be able to rack up achievements? When I played through the pc version of Dark Souls, i received achievements without issue.
Click to expand...

It's hard to hold out. I just have to keep telling myself not to allow these scum to double dip me.
 
rsbennett00 said:
It's hard to hold out. I just have to keep telling myself not to allow these scum to double dip me.
Click to expand...

I'm going to wait for the Holiday (probably next Christmas) sale to pick up DS2 for really cheap. So not a full on double dip. ;)

Armenius: Thanks for the spoiler. Does a description like that really need to be spoiler tagged though? I'm asking so I don't cross any lines on this thread.
 
leh18621 said:
I played Demon's and Dark Souls on the ps3 and never played online and it worked just fine. I just turned off the wifi on the ps3. I wanted the single player experience and didn't want to deal with being invaded.
Click to expand...

I think people vastly overestimate how often they would be invaded. I played Demon's and Dark Souls on release, both online the entire way, and was invaded about 3 times each. And they were just regular dudes that felt like slightly smarter enemies.

In each game there are very specific areas where PvP is common, and worst case scenario you can just disable your internet for those areas.

Even without the PvP, I feel like the online adds a ton of atmosphere to the game.
 
Tzzird said:
Man... don't know how you pc guys are holding out. Played for four hours on the 360 last night and it was f'n amazing!
Click to expand...

it's easy for me to hold out...I don't own a console :D ...this is the PC Gaming sub-forum right?

but even if I did I wouldn't taint the experience by playing on console first :D ...PC Master Race...but honestly it's only a 6 week wait...at least that's what I keep telling myself :cool:
 
Tzzird said:
Man... don't know how you pc guys are holding out. Played for four hours on the 360 last night and it was f'n amazing!

As for the enemies not respawning rule, I believe it is set at 12 deaths. However, there is supposedly an item that you can consume to make all non-respawning enemies return, stronger than before.

I did kill the first 2 bosses and made it up to the third (which was 1:30am by then!) before I decided to call it quits. Received zero achievements. Does this mean that I have to have xbox live gold to be able to rack up achievements? When I played through the pc version of Dark Souls, i received achievements without issue.
Click to expand...

it's tough... i want it and I want it now! lol
I finally started up demon souls so that should keep me going until then.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top