Be Excellent To Each Other

And his reward is some jewel thing. And (and) apparently he'll help you kill the gargoyles (but he wasn't there when I tried. It's triple nectar points all round for letting him out.

Oh and I know why some guy joined my game the other day. If you have humanity before the gargoyles you can summon Orange Knight or that cleric guy to help you out. The AI can play him but somehow higher level players can play as them too. There was something similar in Demon's where a higher level player could 'be' goro. I mean, the boss. I remember it well cause whoever was playing the boss had walked away from his console so he just stood there while I kicked his ass until the player came back and tried to run away after I pushed him into a corner. Brilliant stuff that was - but could easily gone the other way.

I can't see the lack of direct multiplayer (just referring to the docs comments above) as hindering the success of this game. The community and spirit of co-operation in the game more than makes up it. Rate peoples messages if you found them helpful everyone, especially if you see mine!

pooh got the drake sword and managed to kindle my fire. Now to fight the dragon? Or scarper somewhere else...

I wouldn't bother fighting him - I pumped 100s of arrows into him and he barely flinched. Unless you can do what Ian did, he seems unbeatable for the time being.

Quick, check your inventory peeps. Have you got the basement key? You can unlock the door on the bridge just after you fight Taurus but before the dragon. The dragon who "will" now do a lap of the castle walls and flame you if you walk across at the wrong time (but he doesn't settle on the wall again)!

That door leads to the lower parts of the Undead Burg. Exploring now!

That wasn't what I was getting at. I was referring to how an active multiplayer scene stops people trading in games (by, effectively, endlessly generating fresh content) and thus keeps prices higher for longer. I appreciate Dark Souls has this clever semi-MMO aspect, but that's not the same as (say) CoD. Hence I think the price will drop more quickly.

Once you've maxed your character out you can get into high end PVP I suppose. But yeah, there's so much here I doubt people will be trading it in any time soon, if at all. Having said that, it's so damn tough and unforgiving if you're not prepared to put the time in, I imagine many copies have been traded in already.

This is my theory. We'll see soon.

Well whoever is in GAME or wherever next report back as to how many copies.

It was interesting to read that the PS3 version is outselling the 360.

Anyway, I've spent the last hour and a half down in the lower burg. Those thief guys are quick but don't take much damage but still kicked my ass enough times until I got a clear run. And I managed to find that sorcerer and am now the proud owner of a basic Soul Arrow! BOOM. Plus, I've unlocked the short cut under the bridge.

Plus plus (its been eventful) I found that woman in the cage - she's only under the start up shrine?! Did everyone know there's a lift below the start shrine to go somewhere else (and not the bloody grave yard) right under my nose

360 is for casuals only interested in HD-DVD, clearly. ^__^

I'm sure the price will drop quickly on this, but like Mirrors edge theyve done something so unique I want to give them as much mullah as possible.

Xbox game of the year contender this. The claws are deep. If only I wasn't so busy...

Holy shit, this game never stops getting cooler:

http://t.co/GafkFYKO

Beat the gargoyles, by the way. First time!

Also by buying the game now, you can see what happens on Halloween. I suspect shit'll get crazy...

I'm try them tomorrow now I've got my soul arrow. Did you get assistance or lone gun them?

The New Londo Ruins are below the shrine but it looks to be a dead end with some ghosts you can't kill although this merchant in the bridge shortcut was selling something to turn you into a ghost I think. Plus, now I've got the Capri Demon boss to kill who wiped me out in one swoop.

So can I just check that the shrine has only four exits and I've not missed anything else: graveyard, over the bridge to the Burg, up the lift to the church and below the shrine to the ruins. Oh and the bird back to the start (which I haven't tried yet).

Ten hours clocked up and I've no interest in playing anything else!

Yeah that's about all I've found. I tried going down as well but saw ghosts and came back! I killed the gargoyles on my own. I managed to lop a tail off one of them and they drop the 'Gargoyle Tail Axe' which is decent. I too have the Capra Demon to do now - killed the dragon by shooting it with one arrow from the guard tower behind it (the one with a black knight on it). Think I'll leave Capra for tomorrow though...

Ah man, do they do events and stuff? I heard that people who got the game early (broke street date) were constantly attacked by excessively powerful monsters until launch day.

Can't wait to find out what happens to the people on the 'naughty' list!

Really wanna try this now...hnnngggg ....don't want to splurge 36 quid tho...

Bloody game. For some reason, the dragon has started flaming me well before I even get to the skeletons, at full sprint. It wasn't like this earlier. Why?

Skeletons? Do you mean the regular hollow guards? Also, are you running up the middle or to the side of the bridge? Try to stick to the left hand side then dart across to the steps on the right. You can't make it up there without at least taking one round of fire. I certainly never managed it any way. But also, why are you going that way? Haven't you knocked the ladder down to create the shortcut?

Gargoyles: done. All on my lonesome and on the first attempt. Plus a lovely gargoyle helmet for my trouble. Dunno why it was such a pain the arse before but those soul arrows really helped. Plus I'm kicking everyone arse all of a sudden with my +3 long sword! BLAM! Even those black knights are falling to an onslaught of Mr Stabby and a barrage of magic arrows. I suppose I'll move onto the Capri Demon but I've done all I want to for tonight now: killed the gargoyles, unequiped all weapons and ran past the skeletons to nick the binoculars and a sword, and even did the jump to get to the crows nest. Very happy with the nights progress.

Malabelm, if you hold up your shield even if you get flamed you should survive the blast if you don't make it to the steps in one go. I didn't think that if shot up the bridge until you got within spitting distance of the stairs though.

I've ran to the stairs to get the Drake Sword, which was easy enough and involved not getting fired at all. But now for some reason I can't get to the guards — never mind past them — without getting one-shot; as soon as I step onto the bridge he comes a flamin’.

Anyway, what ladder? If this before the bridge?

I'm not sure about the being one-shotted thing, but if you can make it to the stairs in the middle of the bridge again, head down them and instead of going under the bridge where you shot the dragon's tail, there's another door leading out of the little room. Head through there and go down a couple of stairs and you'll see a ladder. Knock the ladder down and you'll find yourself back at a familiar bonfire. Now you have a nice shortcut back to under the bridge.

Ah, cheers.

I'll see if I can get back to the middle again tomorrow. I'm sure the dragon must have bugged out or something, though, as there's no way he should have been flaming until I was pretty much in the middle.

By the way, I'm finding the videos by this guy really helpful:

http://www.youtube.com/user/EpicNameBro

I basically watch the videos of the parts I've already done to see if I've missed anything. That's how I found out about the curling up in a ball in the crow's nest malarky. It's tempting to watch the videos of the bits I'm about to do, but I don't want to ruin the tension.

A flaming dragon, yesterday.

Ha!

Apparently if you kill the tutorial boss with your broken sword nub instead of running away you get super strong armour off him. Pretty cool.

Coming back to the areas you've been through umpteen times but with a new kick ass piece of kit is part of the fun. I'm staying away from the on-line stuff to keep the joy of exploring alive.I've done a bit of a grind so I can level up a little more so I can hold my bad ass halbert in one hand but after level 17 its over 2000 souls for the next level. I've got some stuff so I can kill the ghosts too but I'd imagine the next bell is either through the catacombs or past the Capri Demon so I'm thinking do the boss first and see where I end that way.

Yeah I've no idea where the next bell is! I've read that once you've rang it, an NPC appears that will buy your stuff for souls, so that's good.

Look in the mirror.

The reviews I'ev read made the online aspects sound interesting (invasions, covenants etc) - any comments from beexers on that?

Haven't experienced many of the online features yet myself. Partly because I'm more interested in the singleplayer stuff at the minute whilst I get used to the game and partly because they don't fucking work! Apparently they're working on a patch, but right now the servers seem to be having trouble coping with invasions and summoning and stuff. Well, they were last weekend when I gave it a try.

Plus you have to be human to get invaded, and seeing as I spend most of my time as a "hollow", I'm yet to be invaded. (In case you're wondering, you start off as a "hollow" or an undead zombie type person, and you can collect "humanity" to return you to human form. There are a few advantages and disadvantages to being both hollow and human, but the gameplay remains the same regardless of what you are.)

It's the same system as demonstrated souls are far a I can tell.

My r, perience of hat was that it has very little effect as I was rarely in an invadavle fofm

*Strokes chin sagely.* Yes, yes I can see why that might be.

My phone appears to be talking more shit than usual.

I think you'll find that there are only some world events that happen when you're in human form so you miss out if you're dead most of the time. I've only been invaded once but in a good way when someone helped me with a boss.

I haven't seen much talk of the dark and light World Tendency events from Demon's Souls. They might not exist in Dark Souls though or perhaps the're more subtle this time. World Tendency was stuff that would happen depending if you were playing good or bad, and you could only affect it as human. So if you kill a good NPC as a human you'd get Dark World Tendency and get different events happen (like, an empty cage now contains some guy who'll fight you) and certain types of weapons and armour dropped. Same with killing the bosses as human you'll get Light World Tendency and new paths that were blocked open up.

Now after all that typing, Dark Souls might not even have it!

Telephone Mr Dave is possibly more entertaining than Drunk Mimi.

I can't stop laughing!

I like to imagine he's dialling it in using a screenless touch tone phone with no way of checking what he's sent until afterwards.

Just had a look at the manual and there's no mention of world tendency...anyhoo, Capri Demon, finally smashed him. Hint to anyone who gets there - ignore him and run to the stairs as soon as you get in the fog otherwise you'll be dead. Very quickly. In fact you'll be dead very quickly anyway. The Soul Arrow had him in the end though, god I love it.

Yeah I just killed the Capra demon as well. Was too scared to head into the Depths so I went and killed that black knight who guards a ring before the first boss. Then I went down the tower that leads to the first boss and god killed by that club wielding bastard in one shot. Will get him tomorrow!

The depths is a scary place to be with no flasks and a tiny bit of energy. You certainly don't want to fall down some hole and be surrounded by a load of poison spewing rat-frogs and 7000 souls in the bank. I've seen the giant rat boss but stupidly thought I'd look around first; so now I have to find my body down some hole in god knows. Hnngh!

Well that was ass clenching. Wandering around praying I'll not meet anyone and having a large turd drop on my head and refuse to let go without sapping half my energy first, and praying I don't get poisoned by rats or frog-rats spewing death in my face. This bloody game has made me stay up on a school night until I found my corpse. And find it I did! And then wandered into the big rat but stumbled across a cheesy way to murder it. It seemed rude not to stick around and finish it off. Is that the time, I better get some sleep...

Game of the year? It's looking that way.

I've also made the dash across to under the dragon's usual perch. He initially flew off and I've been back & forth across the bridge a few times since, but once (after a death of course) I steamed out onto the bridge only to find him hanging on the wall again. I ran in & out a few times & he took off again though.

What or where are these gargoyles I'm hearing about? Surely noone's actually managed to kill the dragon?! When you talk about shooting arrows into the tail, I assume you're referring to getting the sword, rather than actually trying to kill it?

Also, I've had a taster of the guide and would quite like to buy one but it seems to be sold out everywhere. Odd that a pdf hasn't cropped up on the usual torrent sites.

Also, is there a key to open the door at the bottom of the tower before the taurus demon?

I think that door below Taurus can only be opened with the master key the thief starts out with. I certainly haven't found it anywhere.

If you go past the dragon and keep going you'll find the Parish. The gargoyles are on top of that. You can get in either through the front entrance if you're feeling brave, or you can go round the right hand side entrance, which is a bit easier. If you've seen the armoured hog you'll know you're heading in the right direction. There's a merchant nearby too so you're best advised to find him first (again by the right hand side) before you attempt to enter the Parish.

WTB said he killed the dragon with an arrow in the back of the head from a tower behind the dragons perch. I haven't had a go at this but you'll need to kill a badass black knight to get up there. I'd wait till you're fully tooled before you try that. I lured him down the steps so I could blast him with magic which worked a treat.

Yeah so I found the gargoyles, I'll come back to them

Also, my dragon's back again. I was running back across the bridge and he came back to flame me, which was nice. Having said that, at the bonfire under his castle perch I see his shadow moving about, but when I'm up the tower held by the black knight, the dragon can't be seen...as in, the game doesn't show him there. :/

Yeah that's a glitch. He was there when I came back after killing the gargoyles!

Well I reckon that's the depths done and dusted. I would have been in bed hours ago had I not been cursed. Which, by the way, reduced your health by half unless you buy something or see some block in New Rondo. I thought I'd try the latter and have a go at some ghost having three times forgot to change my respawn and make the journey to pick up 5000 souls each time I got caned. Eventually lost the lot. Eventually got uncursed and killed the Gaping Dragon boss with a bit of help from two friendly souls looking for some humanity who joined in before buying some snazzy new gear and exiting to the next area where I immediately got pasted by the first new enemy... That's it I'm buying some more magic now! Tomorrow.

This has really opened up now - the problem is just getting from one place to the next.

I've made it from the top of the castle through the ewers to some shanty town leading to the bottom of the castle. The sense of scale is immense. I haven't touched Londo Ruins or the caves but I've opened up the dark forest near the smith. It's just vast. I don't think I'm anywhere near the end and I've sank over twenty one hours in. Christ, the game is good and I have invaded anyones space yet either.

Awesome, I've just been invaded! But I soon sent him back from wence he came with my pokey stick. Then he appeared before the boss wanting to help out so I summoned him - cause no hard feelings, right? Wrong, he refused to help me kill the flaming spider boss and let me take a kicking while he watched. Gah.

Spider boss done and the second bell has been sounded!

...And now I've been cursed again. Oh for fucks sake.

I think the chap that appears at the bottom of the first bell tower will cure cuses, at a price.