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 LATEST VIDEO: 48 - No Bonewheels About It I mean and I guess play it too...  So yeah, I recently got an itch to replay Dark Souls, and it kinda got me thinking about how I could basically talk about... anything in this game. And I decided gently caress it, let's record a playthrough and just talk about whatever comes to mind. And that's pretty much all there is to this Do we really need yet another Dark Souls LP? Nope, not even slightly. I don't care, watch it or don't Weren't you in another Dark Souls LP awhile back? Yep, and it's quite good imo; you can find it here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL1iwwMmsVqKOMes-ZAoWaS0iQKDcGk7Ln This was a blind LP, which is a really good way to experience Dark Souls, because it captures a lot of those fundamental "oh poo poo this game is so magical" moments, but I feel like I don't always see enough talk about why and how this game creates those moments for so many people. There's so much you can talk about with the way the game is put together, the way the game tells its story (both through item descriptions and through level design/item locations), I could just say so much So what will you be doing in this LP? To be honest, whatever I feel like. This is not going to be a 100% LP, and I'm not totally sure I'm gonna even show an entire playthrough of the game, but with this game it's possible I find something to say about basically everything. What I will be doing is playing through the game on a fairly normal path so that I can talk about how the developers built the game and what they expect players to see, so no tricksy poo poo with the master key. That said, I will be talking about things with knowledge of what comes later, and I will be pointing out ways you can subvert the "intended" path. I'll also be talking about the story itself, or really the many little stories and the way the game gets them across, and the way they create the overall "feel" of the world and themes of the game Things I won't be doing include: talking in-depth about the best builds or other min-max-y topics, or trying to show off several different builds or all weapons and combat systems. I'll try to vary them up enough to talk about the intricacies in the battle system, but for the most part I'm just recording a single playthrough of this game and trying out whatever seems interesting to me Also, I'm not going to pretend I'm the first, most brilliant person ever to take a deep dive into Dark Souls. I'll be bringing up a lot of different ideas from articles and other videos that I've seen and found interesting. I'll try to link anything I pull in because a lot of other good analysis has been done about this game, and I'm not always going to do justice to other people's ideas that I half remember while murdering a boss. What makes Dark Souls so good is that it's one of the few games with enough depth that it bears a huge number of interpretations, and that's probably the biggest reason it's one of my favorite games ever This LP is going to assume you have familiarity with the games, but if you're just interested in hearing me ramble I will hopefully provide enough info that you can follow along without being completely lost Anyway, enough rambling (that's for the videos) Videos: 01 - A Warm Welcome 02 - Asylum Demon 03 - Exploring Firelink 04 - Into the Burg 05 - Burgin' So Hard 06 - Taurus Drake 07 - PvPig 08 - Meet the Smith Dark Soils - 09 - A Pleasant Garden Stroll 10 - Battle on the (not so) Big Bridge 11 - Sword Bastard 12 - Gargoyle Rumble 13 - Rock Me, Haveldeus 14 - Goat Simulator 15 - Cleanup Time 16 - Into The Depths 17 - Out Of The Depths 18 - A Curse, of Course 19 - A Good Cutscene 20 - Oh, It's Blighttown 21 - Architectural Musing 22 - Swamped 23 - Gearing Up 24 - Fired Up 25 - Egg Head 26 - Taking Care of a Stray 27 - Grave Robber 28 - Combing the Catacombs 29 - Magic Coffin Ride 30 - Pinwheel 31 - Sneeple! 32 - Boulderdash! 33 - Big Hat! 34 - Iron! Tarkus v Golem! 35 - Anor Londo, At Last 36 - Through The Rafters 37 - That Archer Bit 38 - Mansion Hunting 39 - Cometh Soon 40 - Alright Bonus??? - gently caress You Lautrec 41 - It's Those Guys 42 - Lordvessel 43 - My Good Buddy Patches 44 - I Hate Dog Skeletons 45 - Snoozelord Nito 46 - Painted World 47 - Phalanx For The Memories 48 - No Bonewheels About It Related Reading/Watching: A Grandson's struggle with Alzheimer's and Dark Souls (Destructoid) Aevee Reviews The Destiny Flavor Text [not strictly Dark Souls but a good read about flavor text nonetheless] I'll be posting the videos both here and on Twitter, so if you'd prefer you can also follow me @Vicas3, whatever works I'll probably put another one up later today, we'll see. oh yeah, and before people ask (some more), I'm not currently looking for co-commentators. I might get someone in the future but I might just ramble all on my own this whole time. Either way, no need to ask Vicas fucked around with this message at 16:05 on Sep 19, 2016 |
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Dec 30, 2015 16:34
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Requesting a Giant Dad run. THE LEGEND NEVER DIES
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Dec 30, 2015 17:37
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boooooooooooring (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Dec 30, 2015 20:58
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Dooky Dingo posted:Requesting a Giant Dad run. Counterpoint: this is only ever entertaining when it's generating hatemail from pvp and is very boring otherwise.
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Dec 30, 2015 21:20
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Really looking forward to this. Dark Souls may be one of my favorite games ever, and I love crashing streams on twitch and hitbox to detail some of the fantastic details the game does with item placement, enemy placement, and the environment to tell a story without even touching that much on item descriptions. The implied stories that are neat to infer just litter this game, I could fill a book with them.
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Dec 30, 2015 22:22
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I'm loving this already, an indepth kinda-rambling, but highly informative look at Dark Souls is extremely my kinda thing. Please keep going into all the little details and speculations and "inferred storytelling" (or whatever you want to call it), I think it's great.
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Dec 30, 2015 22:38
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Dooky Dingo posted:Requesting a Giant Dad run. What is "Giant Dad"?
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Dec 30, 2015 23:23
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By the way, you never showed and read the description of the Estus Flask. It's kind of important.Claverjoe posted:What is "Giant Dad"? Giant Dad is a specific build notorious in PVP. It uses the Giant's Armor, the Mask of the Father, and the Zweihander. These are minmaxy items that let you flatten most PVE encounters while taking minimal damage and, importantly, Poise Damage. Poise determines whether you can be interrupted mid-attack, while the Zweihander has long wind-ups for its swings. The mask boosts stamina regen. So, these items compounded with the Grass Crest Shield, the cloranthy ring, and a green blossom, all stamina-regen-boosting items, make you very quick on attacking repeatedly. You become Giant Dad, as the meme of builds goes. It lets you attack through your opponents' builds, stagger them, then time your swings to stun lock them until they died. It was very commonplace for a long time in PVP because it was so effective, and even after balancing patches, still sees use because it is effective in shutting down people who aren't prepared to counter specifically high poise attacks which can ignore their attempts to stagger you. bawk fucked around with this message at 23:41 on Dec 30, 2015 |
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Dec 30, 2015 23:33
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death .cab for qt posted:By the way, you never showed and read the description of the Estus Flask. It's kind of important. Huh, you're right, I totally forgot. And it'll have to wait until Undead Burg is over, because I actually recorded a whole second session before heading out on vacation  In fact, have a video:  04 - Into the Burg I'll try to make a note to read the Estus Flask description next time I get the chance to record
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Dec 30, 2015 23:41
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I like this but think it would work better with 2 people. On condition that all know that both go in with the goal of discussing level & game design it could be fun and interesting.
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Dec 30, 2015 23:41
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Yessss, I just finished the first three and was hoping to catch the fourth soon.double nine posted:I like this but think it would work better with 2 people. On condition that all know that both go in with the goal of discussing level & game design it could be fun and interesting. I agree with this, as there are a fair number of LPers who would love to gush over this kind of stuff. I know AngryMog and Wayne are currently doing a DS2 LP of equal chillness and informative quality, and both have done design/story-specific streams in the past as well. Wayne is one person I would stream crash on item placement and inferred story a bunch, as well. bawk fucked around with this message at 23:44 on Dec 30, 2015 |
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Dec 30, 2015 23:41
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I am extremely here for this. I am absolute poo poo at playing Dark Souls but god drat do I love its subtle storytelling; it really is just so loving good at it. Please continue to yammer your way through the entire game.  You've already pointed out something I never noticed before with Petrus and those red eye orbs, even. This loving rear end in a top hat, I swear.
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Dec 30, 2015 23:42
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Another note: the morning star is really bad for skeletons. It outright says it does Thrust damage. So don't do that.
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Dec 30, 2015 23:52
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I almost passed this up because it's frigging Dark Souls again, but I'm glad I didn't because you are specifically doing the one thing it annoyed me that none of the other LP's do, and that's talk about the story the game overtly tells us versus the story that can be inferred by the world itself, item placement and descriptions, and character interactions. This is basically the DS LP I've been waiting for.
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Dec 31, 2015 00:04
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I really like solo commentary. Yes, this is an LP I wanted to see!
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Dec 31, 2015 00:17
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Honestly, to agree with the above poster, this is the De Facto DS LP. This hits the notes the game wants to hit outside of the intended player experience, while not going outside of what a player would do. If you do include other commentators, I'd recommend keeping them out until at least after the lord vessel, if not until after you hit NG+. A game done at that pace with revisits to hit the stuff you would never see at the "natural" pace of the game would wrap this entire game up in a bow. Most of the Master Key stuff can be done through simple sequence breaking, and it'd give breathing room to fill in any gaps you might leave.
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Dec 31, 2015 00:21
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In honour of the Legend of Zelda LP Try Jumping This is doubly apropriate given what happens when you leave Firelink :p Trap ring of sacrifice. Veloxyll fucked around with this message at 10:51 on Dec 31, 2015 |
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Dec 31, 2015 00:25
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I personally want to see strength and sorcery, since it seems pretty uncommon.
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Dec 31, 2015 00:34
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Lizard Wizard posted:I personally want to see strength and sorcery, since it seems pretty uncommon. Just a bro in robes, liftin' spell books and stuff.
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Dec 31, 2015 22:13
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Personally I never got the hang of miracles so I'd like some insight into that.... I think more than 1 character will be necessary Vicas
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Jan 1, 2016 14:31
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Welp, this has gotten me to reinstall the Prepare to Die edition. Been a while since last time, do I still need to download any fixes to make it run better or has all that been patched by now?
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Jan 1, 2016 20:26
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Loving this so far. One point from video 3 - the Bonfire at Firelink was pre-kindled right from when the game came out. (Or at least by the time it launched in the EU.) The three bonfires with Firekeepers were always already at the 10-Estus level, something that marks them out as important.
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Jan 1, 2016 21:06
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Dark Souls is a really good game and this is a really good LP. I think the openness of the world helps you feel a lot more immersed, especially compared to Demon's Souls and Dark Souls 2. Rather than going places with a specific objective you just kinda of wander around and do whatever you come across, at least in the first half of the game.
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Jan 2, 2016 06:13
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Clerics start with a mace so they can totally do the skeleton graveyard right from the start.
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Jan 2, 2016 07:01
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I'd like for this to continue as a solo commentary LP. I'd also like for you to eventually explore the DLC areas since I played this waaaay back when it came out on the PS3, but never picked up the DLC.
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Jan 2, 2016 07:21
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This has been great so far. If you bring in other people, just make sure they don't ruin the fun flow you have going. Have fun and let those of us who aren't that good at the game ride along with you!
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Jan 2, 2016 07:28
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Just chiming in to say that I'm really enjoying this so far. You've already shown off a lot more things I've missed after playing (and watching people play) than I thought you would have.
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Jan 2, 2016 18:53
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This is like kicking back with an old pal. This game has that kind of effect. It's weird to feel nostalgic for something that came out only four years ago, but here we are.
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Jan 2, 2016 19:49
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Well that was fun. I play this on my PC using an X-Box 360 controller. Last time around I didn't have a problem with it, but recently in this and other games I've had an issue where it wasn't detecting that the stick was pushed forward all the way, meaning that instead of running I'm relegated to slowing walking about to things that want to kill me. Spent most of my morning trying to solve it starting from the software side and then moving to actually taking the thing apart and cleaning it. Still no luck. I did discover, however, that without the top cover on the detection was working fine. So the problem was that, somehow, the cover was not allowing the stick to move forward fully. So I used a knife to widen the area the control stick fits into. Bam, controller now works perfectly. Knifehacks.
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Jan 2, 2016 22:16
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I use the 360 controller on the PC, too, since I first played the game on the 360. Haven't had that kinda trouble before Also, have a video! Episode 05 - Burgin' So Hard
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Jan 2, 2016 23:46
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I never got the hang of kicking. So I'd only end up doing it by accident. Edit: also, LIZARD BATTLE Veloxyll fucked around with this message at 00:14 on Jan 3, 2016 |
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Jan 2, 2016 23:52
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An important thing to note, that greatsword? It used to a be a percentage chance for the Black Knight to drop it. So you could throw yourself at him a bunch of times trying to kill him, not get the drop when you do, and... he only spawns the one time. Now you will fight more of them later, and eventually you'd probably get the sword, but... yeah, it's a nice change. I just dodged having to actually fight one in a later area by accidentally throwing myself off a cliff while fighting him, only to start laughing because he threw himself into the abyss after me, and I somehow picked up his titanite and weapon after he died.
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Jan 3, 2016 00:22
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RickVoid posted:An important thing to note, that greatsword? It used to a be a percentage chance for the Black Knight to drop it. So you could throw yourself at him a bunch of times trying to kill him, not get the drop when you do, and... he only spawns the one time. No "used to" about it, it still is a percentage chance (and not a great one), at least as of my last playthrough a couple weeks ago. Vicas just got lucky.
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Jan 3, 2016 01:01
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death .cab for qt posted:By the way, you never showed and read the description of the Estus Flask. It's kind of important. Walrus Pete posted:Counterpoint: this is only ever entertaining when it's generating hatemail from pvp and is very boring otherwise. This is exactly why if you're looking for hatemail now, you should always record the main game while paying ZERO attention to story, and item descriptions and such in the game. Find Spider lady's sister for the first time? KILL HER AND USE HER SOUL FOR YOUR FLASK. And just say something about "well, how important could she be anyway, big whoop." Since Microsoft Live isn't a thing anymore for this game on PC, hatemail is almost non-existent. The next best thing is pissing off everybody that hates when somebody doesn't respect/admire/blah blah this story as much as they do! (That, and level up nothing but resistance.). That being said, for being an informative type LP, this is pretty snazzy!
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Jan 3, 2016 01:05
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Ziere Tole posted:No "used to" about it, it still is a percentage chance (and not a great one), at least as of my last playthrough a couple weeks ago. Vicas just got lucky. Yep, by all accounts this and the next Black Knight weapon are not guaranteed drops Also, I'm a bit of a doofus and forgot to put the newest episodes up in the OP, but they're there now Veloxyll posted:I never got the hang of kicking. So I'd only end up doing it by accident. It's sort of a weird motion and I always have to stop and think about what I'm doing before I do it. I do kinda feel like it's one of those techniques that is useful but not required in a lot of circumstances, and that means most players will really never learn it or try it on new enemies intuitively. It's the drawback of having such a minimalist tutorial that doesn't bang everything into your head, really
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Jan 3, 2016 01:34
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I could just never reliably do it. even practicing half the time it wouldn't happen. Which obviously lead to many deaths when I did it by accident when I wanted to swing/blockBMS posted:This is exactly why if you're looking for hatemail now, you should always record the main game while paying ZERO attention to story, and item descriptions and such in the game. Find Spider lady's sister for the first time? KILL HER AND USE HER SOUL FOR YOUR FLASK. And just say something about "well, how important could she be anyway, big whoop." I both love and hate this. Which I feel is the true Dark Souls experience
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Jan 3, 2016 03:10
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Veloxyll posted:I could just never reliably do it. even practicing half the time it wouldn't happen. Which obviously lead to many deaths when I did it by accident when I wanted to swing/block There's only one real reason for the kick in this game..... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCqIGwcD9mw And people farming the Drake sword are so oblivious usually haha. Yes, I like this game for what it did with the story in that you DON'T HAVE to pay attention, or give any damns about it. Some of it's pretty neat no doubt, some of the backstory and such. But if you're just in it to play, which I was my first time through, it doesn't force you to pay attention to hour long cutscenes and stuff. Story is optional, and not paying attention doesn't detract from the fun gameplay experience. The better part is watching others get genuinely upset at people for just not caring about the story or characters haha. That, and SL1 darkwraiths. I've garnered so much hate from doing that, and my Microsoft Live account was bombarded by hatemail, even when I took it to Anor Londo. The amount of "get good", and "you're a cancer to this game" made me feel like I was doing God's work.
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Jan 3, 2016 05:27
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What the heck happened to that drake? This is a good game for a lot of reasons. There is no One True Way to dark souls. providing you aren't putting points in resistance, you're good.
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Jan 3, 2016 06:13
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Kinda disappointed you didn't show off using that "useless" ledge to kill the Black Knight, I mean fighting patiently while properly using your consumables is more Galliant, but Goofus pisses him off, runs over to that ledge and giggles like an idiot when the Black Knight falls to his death chasing you.
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Jan 3, 2016 13:02
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But then he wouldn't get his sword! I wonder if the next star on the LP will be shown taking the plunge.
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Jan 4, 2016 03:35
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