Be Excellent To Each Other

brilliant game indeed.
I beat the Capra Demon (on the 4th or 5th try) this morning, before heading to town.
Cant wait to explore more.

Beat Havel the Rock last night with much fire and ventured out into the Darkwood Basin, killed a few of those big Ice/Crystal thingies and saw the Hydra (?) boss in the distance. By this time though I had no magic / Estus left so decided I'd have a look the other way. Saw a black knight running at me so ran away bravely to the nearest bonfire.

Good progress made last night, Gargoyles are now defeated (did them on my own in the end with Great Soul Arrows and Fire). That felt good. Went back down to the Darkroot Garden for a change of scene and found the Sleeping Golems. Managed to run and grab the Elite Knight Set before high tailing it out of there. Nice find but too heavy for my character and play style.

I went to darkroot basin, killed the knight and the crystal blokes, then went down the elevator and thought naaaah once did the depths, but died 4 times one the gaping dragon even with helpers...inc solaire . Then went to look at the hydra. OMG. Didnt get within half a mile of it and it was . Then realised the door will lead back to the castle but only via Havel the Rock, whom I hate. So I went the other way.

Now my task is to kill Gaping dragon once and for all!

Oh and can someone please explain how to get magic shield and magic weapon (right hand ) to work. I have the spells, I have the catalyst (standard one) and I have weapons and shields and more than 10 intelligence. Its just greyed out.
I can cast the soul arrows and basic pyro thingies, so I must be just being completely dumb, however this game can be so obtuse sometimes.

anyone?

Magic shield: hold shield in left hand and catalyst in right. Cast catalyst.

Magic weapon: hold weapon in right hand, catalyst in left...etc. 'cept some weapons (the magic ones usually) cant be magicked.

Check the stats for the magic though... I think magic shield and weapon are alright, but most magic needs intelligence of 12 or above.

Just had one of those magical game moments that come along maybe once or twice a generation.* I make no apologies for the wall of text.

So you all know the absolute ball ache I got into killing the Capra Demon. 20 odd attempts easily. Obviously I'm apprehensive about the next boss. Sneaking around the Depths a rat gives me 1 humanity. Finding a bonfire I cash it in. I find the fog for the boss but I'm too scared to go fight it because, you know, I'm actually human for once.

Then all of a sudden YOU HAVE BEEN INVADED flashes up on the screen.

A red spikey guy with a gigantic sword and far cooler armour than me is charging at my back in the tight sewer passageway. I roll out of his way, swing my shield up and start circling him. The girlfriend (who was about to watch Seinfeld and has roughly pieced together the concept of the game) falls silent, sits down and leans forward.

He swings, I roll, he swings, I block, he swings, I roll, spin around and get a hit in! FUCK YES! But my heart sinks as his health bar barely flutters. Depressed, I let my guard down. BOOMF! The guy hits me and I lose over a third of my health.

So it's the Capra Demon fight again. . I bring my shield up and I play the long game of roll and dodge and patience and patience and patience. He swings I roll, he swings, I dodge, I block, and only when everything is perfect do I strike.

Inch by inch I whittle him down, inch by bloody inch. Until he falls. You trained me well Capra Demon.

I take his humanity and 10,000 souls.

I bow.

The game was so resolutely a single player game to me that to suddenly see another player break down the wall and come swinging at me knocked me for six. Bloody amazing.

I level up twice and then I find a summon symbol and bring another phatom into the game. He's white and badass looking and his sword is on fire. I wave and we walk to the fog wall. At the fog wall I use the pray gesture swallow and walk through.

I know enough that I have to keep alive at all costs, but also use the Estra flasks to heal him. Having never seen the gaping dragon before I've no clue what to do so I stay back watching using 4 or 5 flasks to keep him alive whilst he hacks the dragons tail of for me!**.

I join the fight, we pull the dragons attention from each other and start hacking at it. I'm sure to roll away whenever he we get low on health and sup a flask. But then it's dry.

It's all or nothing. I swing, and swing and with my last flicker of stamina I swing again. It dies.

But he's gone. I never even get to thank him.

I go straight back to the bonfire lay down my summon sign and after a minute or so a magic user summons me.

We bow to each other. Into the breach my friend.

Game of the generation.

* Mirror's Edge and Rhythm Tengoku being the last two games to do it.
** hacking a boss' tail off gives you a special weapon in this case

Great work, Lave.

Aww yeahhhh! I think everyone has a moment or two like this with this game. Awesome.

Doesnt work for me
I have the required stats. Its really odd.

Did the Moth last night, pretty straight forward really. Managed to loose 8000 souls on the way back to the nearest bonfire

Thought I'd have a go against the Capra Demon again and did pretty well on my first attempt then worse on the next two tries. Time to explore Blight Town for a change of scene I think.

In a moment of weakness, I boughtt this today despite promissory myself that I would get further in demons souls before I caved.

I ended up justifying it to myself as games like this have a habit of becoming rare and therefore expensive.

I also got resistance 3, a it was cheaps.

I'm yet to encounter an invading phantom. I did invade someone else's game but they triggered a boss fight before I found them.

In demons souls in always made sure I was dead so I couldn't believe invaded. Randoms? Width!

WIDTH!
I have no idea what I was trying to say

So I've just killed the gaping dragon and starting to head down to blightown but realised I could do with a bunch of moss. Is there a quick way back to fire link anywhere? I can't remember how to get out of the depths...

It shouldn't be too tough getting back out the depths. Run past the place where the giant rat was (there's a short cut through a door in that bit where the gates lead down to blighttown) then back through that kitchen area up to the bit near the Capra Demon. It's a bit of a slog but you'll quickly get to the undead merchant in that sewer area.

Just checked and magic shield and magic weapon need intelligence 15 each. If you've got that I've no idea why it aint working for you.

You can cast though right? I wonder if you have a character that needs to talk to the sorcerer first (bottom of the keep near the ninja thiefs and needs the key that the first merchant sells).

I am a Mature Hormonal Top Heavy Female Arse Bandit With the gift of Binoculars with a penchant for pillaging corpses.*

I have no idea what the point of binoculars is beyond inappropriately wanging them out in the middle of battle and getting summarily smacked in the face.

I'm not very good at this.

* - In terms of sentences I think I'd never have reason to say, this does have to rank quite high.

Start again and lose the binoculars. Get the master key, unless you're a thief, in which case get something else because you get the key anyway. The binoculars (and everything else barring the master key and the pendant) can be found in the game at some point. The binoculars are in the skeleton graveyard near Firelink Shrine!

The master key is invaluable for unlocking doors you'd otherwise have to find a one-off key for!

As I said to Zardoz, I'm drunk and I want the gift of binoculars (and will start again properly tomorrow)

I have to admit though, when I said that I expected a stat boost to vision or something. Not actual Binoculars.The shine smewhat wore off as I saw a close up of a monster smacking e around the face.

Ah, beer binoculars, gotcha.

I've had a go at the New Game+ and I had to defeat the gargoyles and Capra before heading into the sewers. I might just try and level up enough to use that dragon tooth weapon...

I can't see why though. I've finished it already yet it's still the best and most enjoyable game to play at the minute. Maybe I'll stick around to murder big boobs in Anor Londo which I missed last time...

Decided to have a quick go last night so headed into Blight Town as I'd only ever nipped in briefly before, had my arse handed to me a few times but I did manage to grab the Sealers Armor Set, Tin Banishment Catalyst (awesome as a melee weapon too) and the Remedy spell. Those blow-dart pixies are a right fucking pain.

Should be able to make better progress on my return visit now.

Thankfully, the blow-dart-bellends are dead forever once you've killed them. It's pretty much worth a suicide run just to pick off as many as you can.

Oh cool, they are 1st class twats. Even with the purple moss I'd collected they were still pegging me dry.

Oh, come on!

I felt their poisonous pricks penetrating me in the darkness.

Just saw my first item monster! Brilliant stuff, it was just hanging about and turned around to fight me with an armfull of bows.

Then moments later I've been invaded by a phantom who doesn't show for five minutes as he's wandering the map looking for me. Cue a tense wander around the map making sure I clear out the enemies in an anticipation that he'll find me and the shit will go down. Which it does, albeit briefly , as he's wearing a fog ring and I can't lock onto him so he carves me up with a great axe while I flail around swinging wildly.

Im at the point where I am stuck now.
I have failed to find the Butterfly, and failed to kill the Wolf, and the Hydra.
I joined the cats covenant, invaded one person, did some hits to them, and their health went nowhere and I got whooped.
Sucks.

Can you leave covenants without being cursed to the book of the naughty or whatever it is?
I dont think I wanna be in the cat crew...

Hey Lace, where you at in terms of the main quest arc? Have you done the two bells, you been to Anor Londo and have you acquired the Lordvessel yet?

What weapons you rocking and have you been levelling them up yet?

The Butterfly should be knocking around Darkroot Garden past those sleeping giants that cast that spell that slow you down, at the top of a demolished tower. It isn't far past the Crestmoon gate: ignore the gate and go right then next left into a wide open area. It's a fairly easy battle if you've got some heavy soul arrows.

Hi, I have rang one bell in the parish, in terms of bosses, ive done the the Burg, Parish and Depths thus far.
I havent leveled any weapons as I have lost all souls, dont have any humanity (lost it) and use the Drake Sword almost exclusively.

Don't worry about losing some souls here and there. I think you need to crack on with the quest as it looks like you're in areas that'll need doing later on when you're tooled up. It'll be much easier. You need to go through the depths and into Blightown to find that second bell. It's a tough old slog but you'll need to do that before you unlock the fortress and then Anor Londo.

Let me check what you can do with the drake sword. You should try levelling you're best weapons up from the blacksmith. I upgraded to a raw halberd +5 and it made everything easier. Then when I turned it into a lightning halberd from the blacksmith in Anor Londo the game got massively more manageable.

Drake sword has 200hp! That's pretty good and should see you through Blightown. Seems it needs dragon scales to level up which are few and fair between (although I know two are in Blightown). Seems the max hp is 300 whereas my halberd got past 300 with lightning (plus lightning damage, natch) so you might want to start levelling something else up when you can so you can make some magic/divine/cursed/lightning weapons when you've found the embers. Hell you can even stick some fire on them later on which does massive damage. You must have a few materials saved up already if you've not been using them so go nuts.

FYI: you've got to use titanie shards to get any weapon to +5 before you change them to fire/cursed/divine etc etc and some need to be +10 before you can make the unique weapons from the boss souls.

Ok so I need souls and titanite to take a normal weapon to plus 5 (or 10) then add more powers to it at another blacksmith? (new londo ruins?)

Pretty much. You'll find different blacksmiths do different upgrades: the blacksmith in the parish does raw and dark I think, while Londo Ruins bloke does magic and divine. The guy in Anor Londo does the good shit though, fire and lightning, so all the more reason to get them bells sound off.

done most of blight town but cant kill that witch spider thing. Need to reinforce the bonfire so I have more chance.

I'm in blight town swamp (haven't found the boss yet).

I was invaded again, and as there is a round arena style place behind the bonfire I decided to wait there for the invader. He climbs down the ladder and I bow to him. He uses this chance to attack me, which I find very ungentlemanly. So I'm especially pleased to find 8k souls and 3 humanity on his corpse. Boo-ya.

Slogging my way through Blight Town (now at the second bonfire down there). Man, this section is tough, but at least it's getting easier with the new gear I keep finding (in someways this area reminds me of Dead Space). It does suffer from slowdown pretty badly at times but certainly hasn't spoiled my fun.

The slowdown sucks but damnit that area design is great and it's solo atmospheric, the scale of the place is awesome. Look up when you gets a breather! Amazing

Seems to be those shitty flies that cause most of the slowdown. Still, this game is bloody incredible.

I keep getting my behind made into the Taurus demons bitch.

Kill it with fire (Pyro or Fire bombs). Make sure you are unencumbered with heavy armour and roll around like a crazy rolling thing.

I'm actually using my binoculars at the moment, Mr Dave.

Ahh, but are you using them in hand to hand combat?

I still havenhaven't found in use for them.

No, Mr Dave, I haven't.

It'll be a fair while before they become useful to you.

I bet you're using them to get close up views of enemy crotch.

I use them to seek the pestilent bell-end headed face humper men and the fire breathing whippets.