Dark Souls 2 announced

- One thing Shibuya wants to enhance is the action in the game. He feels that he can contribute because of his experience working on action games in the past.

That one makes me a bit nervous.

Where can I read the actual article instead of some NeoGAF poster's idea of a summary of it? I'm not inclined to trust the latter.

Edit: If this part is accurate though, it's great fodder for speculation and also very exciting:

Except for the part where the poster apparently thinks Lordran is a planet, that is. Anyway, if they aren't naming it that means it's a place mentioned in Dark Souls. Gogo Vinheim.

You can't. Well, not without forking out a subscription fee. I'm not quoting a paraphrase for laughs, here. I subscribed to Edge for a few years, but it was really overpriced for what I wanted out of it.

I can't just buy the current issue somewhere, or pay them to let me read it online? WTF, print magazine industry?

Edit: here it is, but this issue isn't out yet: http://gb.zinio.com/browse/publications/index.jsp?productId=500608921

Well, color me excited. I've not managed to get very far into Dark Souls because of just how impenetrable the mechanics, stats and such are for someone who never played Demon's Souls. If they want to make it easier for me to make informed decisions on how to equip myself and level up attributes, then great, it'll allow me to dive straight into the combat and exploring, which seems like a win/win for all concerned.

I can understand why hardcore fans of the series would find it worrisome, though. Slippery slope and all that.

It isn't? I thought it was in the same solar system as Degobah.

I'll eventually get the magazine, so I can summarize what's in there at that point without having to resort to scans and whatnot. When it's delivered. When is this supposed to be delivered? I haven't checked my mail in a couple of days.

Which issue is this article in? January?

Issue 249 (January edition), some UK-based subscribers might already have their copies. It's out on the 20th.

bummer.

Welp.

That just made me a whole lot less excited about Dark Souls 2.

We'll always have Lordran.

I think the game is too far away for ENB's opinion to change mine. We still don't know a great deal, we have another Miyazaki game to anticipate, and making major changes is not in and of itself a bad thing.

True, it's possible, but I think lowered expectations are due. Not that it is a bad thing in an of itself, it's just setting a more reasonable baseline, IMO.

I don't know, I find the hysterics about DS2 pretty silly at this point. We know almost nothing about it, and while other developers have certainly been dumb and ruined franchises in the past, it's premature to assume that that's where Dark Souls 2 is heading.

I just got the Christmas issue this week, so we'll see if whatever this magazine handling service is that brings these things to me gets it over before I leave town. I'm guessing not, but we'll see.

And I ran out of gas with that guy after ten minutes. That's a lot of work he's going to there to explain that he's not excited. It doesn't help that a fair number of the decisions he's bemoaning (i.e. limiting the ability for new players to not know where in the holy hell they're supposed to go once the game starts in earnest without looking it up online) are very nearly direct responses to issues that I remember reading and hearing about with the prior game. They could end up being bad decisions if they're implemented hamfistedly, but that's true of any decision, and it's not like they're not trying to fix something that actual people actually complained about, so I'll at least give them a chance to prove their incompetence before I presume it for them.

I see the narrative of every sequel to every beloved franchise has already become well-established in this thread.

as the most beloved game of all hipster douchebags could there be any other response?

Yeah, Hipsters. That's us.

On a more serious note, while I kinda like ENB in general, he's also a guy that kinda takes himself a bit too seriously for my taste. I realize that he is aware that he does that a bit ... awww hell, I'm just trying to say that his input on whether I'll buy Dark Souls 2 or not is zero. As I've said earlier, as long as there is no dumbing down of the melee system, I'm more or less good.

Good one.

To be fair the Skinny Jeans +5 are pretty good for <25% characters.

Based on ... ?

There is the meddling of the suited-ones in these there hills.

I think that's reasonable, depending what he means by dumbing down. But I would be surprised, for instance, if they went with a more detailed tutorial rather than the time-honored game design shortcut of putting more obvious cues in the combat. There's still a big gap between that and something as problematic as, for instance, Batman Arkham Asylum's head lightning or the holy grail of QTEing everything like other third person fighting games.

But yes, some clarification of the combat system seems inevitable, and prevailing trends are not good in that aspect.

*shrug*

Clarifying the DS combat system could be something as simple as having a tutorial level that actually covered all of the controls, so you didn't have to find out about certain basic functionality by accident fifty hours in. That would be a good idea. We just don't have any information about what they mean by any of this stuff, and there's no point panicking about it when we don't have any details (not that you are, but a lot of people apparently are).

A creative force who apparently wishes he is working on the sequel but is not (note: I assume this is because at one point there was no talk of a sequel, and he had other ideas, and someone wanted those to move forward, and then suddenly someone else decided "make the sequel!"; and not something comically nefarious).

Extarbags is 100% correct that it's too far out to do much worrying (or any at all; and I am not worried). However, I also agree with Charles that there's some warning signs. I lack Charles' insight from the inside, but I've been following game development for almost 2 decades (I was a gaming for considerably longer) and I'm a software developer by trades. I don't think there are warning signs because someone might have said something that apparently contradicts a mechanic or feature in a game I love. I just see some telltale signs I've seen hundreds of times before, and more often than not (but not always) they're ill-omens.

I would like to read the article myself, or at least get a more trusted pair of eyes in front of it, in any case.

Fuck my life (his too :( ).

That's a fairly ginormous warning sign, as these things go. Doesn't mean the game won't be good, of course. Expectations will adjust accordingly, and we'll see.

Miyazaki: there's a core of the game that will be protected. The other things are not so much his concern, apart from polishing key failings or incomplete aspects of the previous games.
Other interesting stuff:

Yeah it seems like insanity to change the very things that made the game a success. I won't say developers haven't done it in the past (Dragon Age 2 I'm looking at you).

From seems responsive to fan input. I mean, they listened on the Games for Windows thing. What other company would do that?

Well, dozens to hundreds depending on how small the shops you want to include are, I guess?

Here's a link to what is purported to be a bunch of concept art for Dark Souls 2. If the link stops working or something let me know, I saved the pics.

Link to pics.
Second link to same pics.

Chariots!!! Holy shit but those are beautiful. Thanks kerzain.

Oddly enough, on the official site the "PC" icon no longer bears any mention of GfWL. Does this mean anything? Who knows, but I'm willing to grasp at any non-GfWL straws by this point.

We can hope.

You know what I want in DS2? Stats! Motherfucking stats, and lots of them. Such as:

• Souls Earned
• Souls Spent
  • spent on levels
  • spent on items
  • spent on weapon upgrades
• Souls lost
• Number of deaths
• Number of times bloodstain was retrieved
• Bonfires kindled
• Number of invasions
• Invaders vanquished
• Number of times you invaded
• Number of invasions you won
• Total times summoned
  • Successful summoned
• Number of phantoms summoned
  • successful phantoms

That's pretty much off the top of my head. Games like GTA/SR were good with this stuff. Online character/brag sheets would be good, too, but probably asking for too much with that.

I'm fine with more interesting achievements. As it stands, I hope they refine intra-covenant rankings or whatever or at least do some hack policing, and that would be fine. Global stats would be interesting but I'm not sure if direct comparison would really be in the right mindset that I associate with DS multiplayer.

And then my copy got here in the mail. My takeaway:

Miyazaki was probably kicked out, though there's some linguistic confusion as to how much influence he had on the choice of replacements. Nonetheless, he doesn't seem to think that it will stray too far from the basic play themes of the first game. I tend to agree, given that it's not like the original dude can't just saunter down to the break room and fart directly into his nemeses personal yogurt cups if they whiz it down their legs.

This game will explain how things work. The example they keep falling back on is Covenants. And I'll give them this - Covenants are completely inscrutable in Dark Souls without additional outside aid, so that's not necessarily the worst idea. Surprisingly, nobody mentions what I would consider to be the poster child for pointlessly obfuscated design - why come nobody said me if I push the O I go down the ladder all fastly? If I had to guess, I'd say that you're probably not going to see quite as many hidden and mysterious core concepts, like access to entire covenants being controlled by in-game decisions made without notification.

Your dumb ass is probably not going to be allowed to stumble around in Anor Londo or fight things you have literally zero chance of killing in the graveyard until you frustrate yourself into quitting. Stupid. And though I give them a hard time, that might not be the worst idea, as I encountered at least two people who were put off the game because they couldn't figure out where they were supposed to go after the bird shat them out into the game proper.

I kind of don't like one of the new directors, because he apparently obsesses over proper coiffing and wears provocative shirts with adorned with a naked lady who is cleverly hiding her titties and whatnot in an effort to help the author of the article make a point. I don't know whether it's the writer's goal or not, but he really makes me want to punch Shibuya in the throat a little.

They want to have the ocean. Maybe boats. But you do not get to drive them, you greedy, entitled asshole, so don't think for a second that you're going to be doing any Assassin's Creed 3 shit in this. It's good that they went out of their way to explain this to me, because my natural expectation in every single game featuring a boat of any size, shape, or purpose is that I will be afforded the capacity to steer, and I could be a threat to myself and others if my expectations were built up, only to be dashed by the harsh reality of their game constraints.

The game is supposed to be denser than Dark Souls, which is in contrast to the apparent inclusion of at least one drivable vehicle (chariot).

It's not likely to release in 2013, so it's probably not even worth the amount of worry that I've devoted to drawing up this short summary at this point, given that god only knows what could happen to the thing between now and when it happens at you.

The whole thing comes up to like six pages and some pictures, though, so I'm not sure why it got the cover in the first place. There really isn't a whole lot of there here, and at least some of the reason people are flipping out is because the article expressly encourages them to smash the skulls of their neighbors and feast on the goo that flows forth, which seems like entirely responsible games journalism. Also, my personal hypocrisy in this regard notwithstanding, somebody needs to tell that author of that piece about the inherent evil that is the adverb.