From Software Elden Ring - From Software's new game with writing by GRRM

[Raghar]

The only hope is that their publisher came up with the idea and that FromSoft will just make the game they were going to make anyway. It's not like the money people are going to give a shit one way or another. FromSoft could literally disregard anything Martin sends them and the higher ups wouldn't know any better. As long as they got the publicity and they can write "GRR Martin" on the box they will be happy. Dumbfuck GoT drones will drool all over the "writing" of the game even if 90% of it is actually written by Miyazaki himself lmao.

I'd prefer Miyazaki as author over GRRM.

 

[Kitchen Utensil]

The only hope is that their publisher came up with the idea and that FromSoft will just make the game they were going to make anyway. It's not like the money people are going to give a shit one way or another. FromSoft could literally disregard anything Martin sends them and the higher ups wouldn't know any better. As long as they got the publicity and they can write "GRR Martin" on the box they will be happy. Dumbfuck GoT drones will drool all over the "writing" of the game even if 90% of it is actually written by Miyazaki himself lmao.

I'd prefer Miyazaki as author over GRRM.

Yes, every sane person does.

 

[NJClaw]

The only hope is that their publisher came up with the idea and that FromSoft will just make the game they were going to make anyway. It's not like the money people are going to give a shit one way or another. FromSoft could literally disregard anything Martin sends them and the higher ups wouldn't know any better. As long as they got the publicity and they can write "GRR Martin" on the box they will be happy. Dumbfuck GoT drones will drool all over the "writing" of the game even if 90% of it is actually written by Miyazaki himself lmao.

God i hate normies so much.

I don't see people drooling over Martin's non-ASOIAF books, so it's not a given that that will happen with Elden Ring.

 

[Lyric Suite]

I don't think people who watched GoT read anything he wrote. People who knew his books before hand are probably few and far between the masses of normies that got into the show because of the hype.

Then again normies don't play Dark Souls as that's too teh hard so i have no idea why they think this marketing is going to work. If Bethesda had done it i could understand but FromSoft? But maybe is just my lack of familiarity with Japanese publishers and the kind of cheap antics they can sink into.

 

[Kitchen Utensil]

Nobody's drooling over any of his books, people are drooling over GoT.

I don't think people who watched GoT read anything he wrote. People who knew his books before hand are probably few and far between the masses of normies that got into the show because of the hype.

Then again normies don't play Dark Souls as that's too teh hard so i have no idea why they think this marketing is going to work. If Bethesda had done it i could understand but FromSoft? But maybe is just my lack of familiarity with Japanese publishers and the kind of cheap antics they can sink into.

Which is exactly why this is so worrying. They want to attract a significant part of the GoT audience, they'll probably have to dumb the game down for that. The thing is, everyone has heard of Dark Souls, it was only a matter of time until they would capitalise on that reputation. Seems like now is that time.
And it's not like there wasn't already a part of the DS community asking for difficulty settings, a map, more cinematic story etc. in the Souls games. Now that there's an Open World and GRRM is the perfect opportunity to finally cash in on the reputation. Fuck the couple of true Souls fans, they'll be irrelevant and their voices won't be heard over the shilling of the MSM and the soyboys.

 

[NJClaw]

Nobody's drooling over any of his books, people are drooling over GoT.

A lot of people on the internet are obsessed with the ASOIAF series. There are extensive wikis with extremely detailed descriptions of every single minor character. On the other hand, Martin might be writing those wiki articles instead of writing his damned book.

Anyways, since GoT fans aren't interested in other Martin's works, I don't see why they would be interested in this game. I was mainly replaying to this statement:

Dumbfuck GoT drones will drool all over the "writing" of the game even if 90% of it is actually written by Miyazaki himself lmao.

 

[Lyric Suite]

And it's not like there wasn't already a part of the DS community asking for difficulty settings, a map, more cinematic story etc. in the Souls games.

The fuck is this heresy. God damn whyto people.

 

[Bester]

Nobody's drooling over any of his books, people are drooling over GoT.

His vampire novel is my favorite novel of all time.
His sci-fi novel is for teens, but it's got a rich, imaginative setting and lore.
He's got another book that he co-wrote with a chick, and its okay and again features an original setting. The setting mostly works through the rule of cool, i.e. not a lot of rational explanations, but it works nevertheless, and that's the bottom line.
Then there's a sci-fi novel that he finished for someone else. Some writer wrote 50 pages and didn't know how to continue, so Martin took over and added some 500 pages. Also a well developed setting and lore.
Martin is good at this.

 

[Matador]

Martin's vampire novel was quite good, I agree. Good characters and setting.

I wouldn't worry about Elden Ring gameplay being casualized. From always try to make their games rewarding to beat for players.

Some games are better than others, but they always have honest drive.

I would say online PvP balance has been their worse influence after DS1

 

[Lyric Suite]

I loved the concept of the covenants from DS1. I don't remember many games that integrated PvP with the single player aspect. The invasions and player interactions are still part of the "world" of the game. I loved that.

That said, the PvP part itself definitely needed improvement and of the three From games i played (DS 1, 2 and 3), none of them got it really right. Somehow i doubt they ever will.

 

[MajorMace]

Covenants were way ahead of their time. Still to this day, multiplayer is usually a separate mini-game instead of an actual product of game design.
I'll never cease to be amazed everytime I think of Demon's Souls/Dark Souls.

If there are younger lurkers here : you need to understand that back then, the norm in terms of "good gameplay" on consoles was Batman Arkham, Gears of War, Assassin's Creed or Uncharted. No level-design, no encounter-design, no clever way to implement meta-gameplay elements, nothing. Just scenery and button-mashing/popamole. This was everywhere and inevitable. This was the future. Between 2007 and 2010 I didn't play anything but football manager on an old pc. Redemption came in 2010 when I picked up New Vegas and remembered that games could be fun.
Dark Souls being multiplatform, is the game which actually started the little revolution of the souls games. Many big publishers got impacted, game-design in AAA games started being a little bit less retarded and we went from button-mashin Batman Arkham to stuff like RE2:Remake. Obviously, triple A remains triple A and it's still mostly fucking terribly bland, but oh boy was it abysmal back then.

I legit believe that consoles would have just fucking crashed and burnt without this series and their legacy. There wasn't a single good game on ps3 before Demon's Souls. This console felt like a tech showcase with no substance. The mega hit back then was MGS4 and it says everything. Consoles would have been exclusively played by retards fed on Fifa and Call of. Today it's actually a good option if you can't afford a PC.

The last time we had a company have such an impact on the general gamedesign paradigm was probably at the beginning of full 3D.

 

[Verylittlefishes]

I'm actually interested in playing Miyazaki game where you can actually do RPG things and can read the story not only from fucking item descriptions. I mean, yes, this way of storytelling is brilliant, but we had like 5 games from From constructed this way already. Sekiro was a first attempt to do more anime open narrative and it was quite good (even if the gameplay is much more stupid than DS).

 

[Lutte]

Just scenery and button-mashing/popamole. This was everywhere and inevitable. This was the future. Between 2007 and 2010

Bruuuh.






The 360 era is the era of some of the most brutal games released. I guess there was a dearth of more in between games accessible to a large public while also providing a respectable challenge but it's not like there wasn't games with more meat to them than "scenery" and "button mashing popamole" if you were actually looking.

Any of the above games will make the souls look like a walk in the park. I'm glad From exists but gaming didn't need to be saved by From, and all the modern "souls hard" terminology is quite the riot.

 

[MajorMace]

Yeah but these were definitely not names you'd hear back then, with the exception of Ninja Gaiden (but then again, it was more of an exception than a rule).
SMB is from late 2010.

 

[DJOGamer PT]

The 360 era is the era of some of the most brutal games released. I guess there was a dearth of more in between games accessible to a large public while also providing a respectable challenge but it's not like there wasn't games with more meat to them than "scenery" and "button mashing popamole" if you were actually looking.

Any of the above games will make the souls look like a walk in the park. I'm glad From exists but gaming didn't need to be saved by From, and all the modern "souls hard" terminology is quite the riot.

Yeah but the problem was that for the most part these types titles were becoming more and more niche
You gave the example of the NG2, that game didn't make as much of an impact as the original and Black had - same thing went for DMC4
The industry was moving too fast away from dificult experiences
So while DS is not hard - and honestly From fanboys overrate the difficulty of their games - it was much more demanding than what the casual player had played so far
Plus From's marketing was pretty clever:

This and the game's success among the though competition of 2011 AAA games, cemented this notion their games were hardcore

 

[Verylittlefishes]

The 360 era is the era of some of the most brutal games released. I guess there was a dearth of more in between games accessible to a large public while also providing a respectable challenge but it's not like there wasn't games with more meat to them than "scenery" and "button mashing popamole" if you were actually looking.

Any of the above games will make the souls look like a walk in the park. I'm glad From exists but gaming didn't need to be saved by From, and all the modern "souls hard" terminology is quite the riot.

Yeah but the problem was that for the most part these types titles were becoming more and more niche
You gave the example of the NG2, that game didn't make as much of an impact as the original and Black had - same thing went for DMC4
The industry was moving too fast away from dificult experiences
So while DS is not hard - and honestly From fanboys overrate the difficulty of their games - it was much more demanding than what the casual player had played so far
Plus From's marketing was pretty clever:

This and the game's success among the though competition of 2011 AAA games, cemented this notion their games were hardcore

Well, DS IS hardcore for the first 30 hours or so.

 

[JDR13]

I was a big fan of From's older titles like the King's Field series and Shadow Tower. I hope Elden Ring is closer to those than to Dark Souls. I want to see more of an emphasis on exploration again.

 

[MajorMace]

I find it interesting that the topic of the discussion slided towards difficulty.
I didn't mention difficulty, but game-design.

I actually think Dark Souls is pretty easy. We're talking about a game with infinite continues and checkpoints everywhere.
It's true that the game got this reputation, and I fucking hate it because it made it really hard for me to get my friends to try this game, because they would always tell me "i'm not hardcore". Fuck this, they liked it in the end.
My post was about gamedesign specifically, and in case you forgot was in response of a post about covenants. Which has nothing to do with difficulty.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Just scenery and button-mashing/popamole. This was everywhere and inevitable. This was the future. Between 2007 and 2010

Bruuuh.






The 360 era is the era of some of the most brutal games released. I guess there was a dearth of more in between games accessible to a large public while also providing a respectable challenge but it's not like there wasn't games with more meat to them than "scenery" and "button mashing popamole" if you were actually looking.

Any of the above games will make the souls look like a walk in the park. I'm glad From exists but gaming didn't need to be saved by From, and all the modern "souls hard" terminology is quite the riot.

The Cave games came from the arcade scene, they have nothing to do with the console market.

There's plenty of complex and difficult console games dating back the 80s that's not the issue. FromSoft themselves made complex RPGs during the PS1 era. But i assume his argument is that Dark Souls made complex and difficult gameplay mainstream. I have no idea if that's the case but that's how i understood what he was saying.

Of course, not being a console player and being very selective about the nugames i play there's no way for me to corroborate this idea Dark Souls had any impact on the popamole, mainstream market. I mean i played nuDoom and that's super teh hard at the higher difficulties but i can't say if Dark Souls had anything to do with that or not. It's possible because there's a lot of "Souls-like" moments. Like when you get the super shotgun in Doom Eternal, where you get trapped in a tiny square room and have to deal with exploding zombies, those Mancubus guys that spray green shit all over everything and on top of it there's like flames coming out of the floor. That felt very Dark Souls to me but again i have no idea if id soft just decided to put that shit in there on their own or whether because they were answering to a trend started by the Souls games.

 

[MajorMace]

it's not like there wasn't games with more meat to them than "scenery" and "button mashing popamole" if you were actually looking.

Yes but they were either not AAA or not well known. So the industry would give 0 fuck about their design.

 

[Wunderbar]

Plus From's marketing was pretty clever:

"Le hardcore game for hardcore gamers, ur gon die million times!" is entirely Namco's thing. Annoying, but pretty clever all things considered.
Who knows, maybe Dark Souls wouldn't have become the giant it is today if not for Namco's difficulty-focused marketing.

 

[Lutte]

Yeah but these were definitely not names you'd hear back then

Really goes to show what kind of media one consumed during the times, I dunno? CAVE shmups weren't played by a lot of people, but were pretty well heard of because of the memes surrounding that video :

In all its ant-level resolution glory.

I'm glad the PC became more of a platform for this type of games in the past few years too. So many ports since Crimzon Clover came on steam.

Plus From's marketing was pretty clever:

A prepare to die material, I don't recall the marketing being so focused on that aspect of their games before the rerelease of DS1 with the DLC content (PTDE edition, which is what us PC players got, the original DS was not bundled with Artorias of the Abyss)

Their marketing has never been clever, they follow the flow of the tides. When people imported DeS this was how DeS got marketed :

DS1 got a larger, more mainstream audience across two consoles and as a result got its difficulty hyped to high heavens so From just copied what the people were saying in their DS1 re-release ads.
The PTDE marketing is just copy/paste what game jooouRnoLists were saying about the game (game journalists hated DeS, and probably also hated DS1, but because DS1 sold too many copies, they had to pretend they liked it and only noticed how hard the game is compared to their skill level that can't even handle playing a modern FPS so professional reviews had a very unnatural obsession with how "hard" this game is)

 

[Lyric Suite]

To me, what made Dark Souls special is not that it's so difficult but that it resurrected the greatness of 90s games. Doom Eternal is also super teh hard at Nightmare and even has an iron man mode but while i did enjoy it precisely because of its difficulty there's a ton of shit in there that's totally nugaming filth. Not Dark Souls. What's even more amusing is how i got to play it. I don't play console games, i don't own a console, never had and never will. So i had absolutely no idea what this game was and only heard its name in passing. But a friend of mine was into it so he brought me a copy he removed from an inventory of the PC port, because otherwise i wouldn't have played it. I got to the Capra Demon and then simply quit, uninstalled it, erased the torrent, and went to steam and bought it at full price, something i have never done in my entire life.

In almost a decade since the beginning of the decline during the early 2000 it was the first time i felt so impressed by a game, and the fact i got it first from a pirated copy from a friend even rounded up the feeling of being back in the 90s again.

 

[Verylittlefishes]

To me, what made Dark Souls special is not that it's so difficult but that it resurrected the greatness of 90s games.

Well it was made by people who created 90s series of King's Field (which I never played), known for its brooding atmosphere and labyrinths.

 

[Lutte]

The Cave games came from the arcade scene, they have nothing to do with the console market.

I don't see the point of trying to make a dichotomy between the two scenes as if consoles were something that can't be arcade. Arcade ports and homegrown arcade-style games were a mainstay argument in favor of Sega's consoles (genesis, saturn, dreamcast), games like Streets of Rage which were console-only were heavily influenced by the ethos of arcade gaming, and by the time we're talking about, when the Xbox 360 came out, the world of arcade was beyond dead and most sales for arcade style games came from consoles because nobody went out to play arcade games on actual arcades anymore. CAVE's swansong, Saidaioujou, was released in such a tiny number of actual arcade machines, that its PCB is one of the most expensive for the genre, commands batshit insane prices and that is when you actually find one person willing to sell it to you, which is a rarity in itself.