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

[AlwaysBrotoMen]

Generally the dlcs are better than the main game.

 

[HeatEXTEND]

Something tells me you're going to be playing that DLC when it releases yourself.

You should really check your sources because I'm still sick of this game just from my first playthrough. I even tried to force myself to get back into it, reinstalled and started a fresh mage run couple months ago and then very soon after I entered open world this strong feeling hit me - no fucking way am I going through all that again. I might need at least 5 more years before I can try this again.

The world can be traversed quite fast though, it's really not that bad.

 

[Deuce Traveler]

Elden Ring was an excellent game and was a nice change of pace after playing the grimdark Bloodborne and the mostly gray Souls games before that. I played the majority of the game wielding the Executioner's Axe with two hands and being near naked, depending mostly on dodge rolls. Once I brought my strength into the 70s I started to pump more points into Endurance and Vigor, ending the game around Level 130 and wearing some decent armor for the end bosses. Some thoughts:

+ I enjoyed the various NPCs and their quests. The blacksmith's story was probably my favorite despite the subtlety. He's finally released from being a slave yet can't seem to free himself. And the girl stays with him since she can't convince him to move. That one will stick with me.
+ I most of broken several quests because so many NPCs ended up disappearing or dead before I could finish their quests. This makes it tempting to go for a replay.
+ I enjoyed the brighter environment and vivid colors, though this was still a Souls game underneath the hood.
+ I got to kill Patches again.
+ I really enjoyed a lot of the main boss fights. The one versus Godrick the Grafted was particularly memorable
+ They really went all out with side quests. I liked the one with the dude in the sun mask and his clerical follower who was trying to decipher the sun mask dude's religious creed. I never finished it, though. I did end up doing the entirety of Ranni's quest and ended up hooking up with her and getting the alternate Age of Stars ending. That was pretty enjoyable.
+ The summoning ability was a welcome addition. I loved making a mimic copy of myself, but that summon was so OP that I was able to beat Godfrey on the first try. It helped that I had Nepheli Loux on my side for that battle, too. Hot barbarian chicks for the win.
+ I played this game for more than 100 hours and didn't get bored of trying to explore every nook and cranny until the final few areas when some of the mini-bosses and side areas started getting repetitous, and by that I mean...
- There's only so many floating cat statue mini-bosses and side mission dungeons with chariot dudes that a man can take.
- I explored almost all of Caelid, but that area was still shit. I eventually learned the pattern for fighting the giant hounds and the giant crows, but I didn't like how you encountered one of them every few meters. A really annoying area and exploring it felt more like a punishment.
- I feel like the 2nd to last boss and the final boss should have been switched. The 2nd to last boss was quick-paced and challenging and fair. The final boss took me a long time to beat, but was mostly just annoying with a lot of bullshit moves. Fun fact: On one of my last tries against the final boss I had an alternative rock station blaring out some old hits and Tori Amos' "God" came on. In the lyrics, Tori says, "Will you even tell her if you decide to make the sky fall". The answer is no, Tori, that final boss and the game camera will conspire together to make sure it's a surprise.

Anyway... great game, would recommend.

 

[9ted6]

I know Dark Souls isn't really supposed to make sense, but I've still never figured out why in 1 Gwyn cursed humans to become undead so they'd buy into his prophecy to come link the flame, but then gathers a bunch of monsters, demons, and his own men to stop the undead from getting to the flame.

It's the only plot point that's given any real explanation but then it's contradicted by the rest of the game.

Did he go crazy and forget his own plan? Better yet, why didn't he just link the flame himself? It makes sense if you work with Kaathe but no sense if you work with Frampt, who being a "friend of Gwyn" could just go tell him that you're on your way to do what he set up the entire curse to get you to do.

 

[Lyric Suite]

I barely paid attention to the Dark Souls plot but when you face Gwyn he is also hollow. I always just assumed the very fabric of the world this game takes place in was coming apart at the seams reguardless of what anybody plotted.

 

[Caim]

I know Dark Souls isn't really supposed to make sense, but I've still never figured out why in 1 Gwyn cursed humans to become undead so they'd buy into his prophecy to come link the flame, but then gathers a bunch of monsters, demons, and his own men to stop the undead from getting to the flame.

It's the only plot point that's given any real explanation but then it's contradicted by the rest of the game.

Did he go crazy and forget his own plan? Better yet, why didn't he just link the flame himself? It makes sense if you work with Kaathe but no sense if you work with Frampt, who being a "friend of Gwyn" could just go tell him that you're on your way to do what he set up the entire curse to get you to do.

Gwyn actually did link the flame, but it burned him out so much he turned hollow himself. This caused the curse of undeath, which made other people go hollow. A good number of hollows carry out their final orders before their sanity left them, which is why you have the black knights trying to kick you in the dick in the runup to Gwyn because they protected their lord in life. Demons are the product of the Witch of Izalith trying to make a new fire instead of the whole "use yourself as kindling" plan, but she fucked up and life ran rampant, creating demons.

In Dark Souls there is a cycle of dark and light. There used to be dark, then the Four Lords created light and stomped out the dragons, but when the cycle of reality turned to dark again they resisted, just like the dragons did. Their unnatural prolonging of light is the main reason reality went to shit.

 

[Nathir]

I know Dark Souls isn't really supposed to make sense, but I've still never figured out why in 1 Gwyn cursed humans to become undead so they'd buy into his prophecy to come link the flame, but then gathers a bunch of monsters, demons, and his own men to stop the undead from getting to the flame.

It's the only plot point that's given any real explanation but then it's contradicted by the rest of the game.

Did he go crazy and forget his own plan? Better yet, why didn't he just link the flame himself? It makes sense if you work with Kaathe but no sense if you work with Frampt, who being a "friend of Gwyn" could just go tell him that you're on your way to do what he set up the entire curse to get you to do.

You are overthinking everything too much. The monsters/demons/whatever aren't there specifically to stop the player character... And did Gwynn even curse the humans to link the flame? I thought he did it because he was either afraid of them or hated them or something along those lines. He tried to link the flame himself and it backfired, he didn't need the undead. He went hollow and I doubt he had any sense left. The chosen undead fable I always thought was a scheme of the serpents, just to try and get anyone to attempt to link the flame.

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

The dark age is coming no matter what, your actions (should you choose to do what Frampt tells you) only delay its coming. By 3, the world is in a state of disarray because you're living through the very final moments of the age of fire.

Which is why the alternate paths all involve calling out the gods' charade and putting an end to things.

 

[Ezekiel]

I don't remember the Souls games taking so long to get significant price cuts. Going open world must have really worked for them financially. I'll just have to keep waiting. Not dying to play it anyway.

Edit: Or maybe it's inflation. The publishers waiting longer to cut their prices because the games are so expensive to make.

 

[mediocrepoet]

I don't remember the Souls games taking so long to get significant price cuts. Going open world must have really worked for them financially. I'll just have to keep waiting. Not dying to play it anyway.

Edit: Or maybe it's inflation. The publishers waiting longer to cut their prices because the games are so expensive to make.

For what it's worth, Elden Ring is truly massive, so even if you pay full price, you'll get your money's worth (assuming you don't hate the game). I thought it was fantastic, but I like both Souls-likes and open world games so it was like PB&J for me.

 

[9ted6]

The dark age is coming no matter what, your actions (should you choose to do what Frampt tells you) only delay its coming. By 3, the world is in a state of disarray because you're living through the very final moments of the age of fire.

Which is why the alternate paths all involve calling out the gods' charade and putting an end to things.

I prefer how 1 ended. I read the team never wanted to make sequels and I can believe that with how bad 2 and 3's development cycles were.

2 and especially 3 really undo 1 with their multiverse of paintings and the fact they make the unambiguously "good" ending of 1 be working for Kaathe.

It wasn't clear that the Age of Fire was a bad thing or not and there was player agency in making the decision, but the sequels got rid of that and it doesn't really matter since 1's now just one of many paintings you're stuck inside of if I understood right.

I guess the lore doesn't really matter and has always been pretty nonsensical and obtuse anyway, but 1 had a satisfying enough story and conclusion that 2/3 shit on, IMO.

 

[NJClaw]

since 1's now just one of many paintings you're stuck inside of if I understood right.

What gave you this impression? There is a world that exists outside paintings and I never suspected that DS1 wasn't part of it.

In Dark Souls there is a cycle of dark and light. There used to be dark, then the Four Lords created light and stomped out the dragons, but when the cycle of reality turned to dark again they resisted, just like the dragons did. Their unnatural prolonging of light is the main reason reality went to shit.

I know this may be irrelevant, but I think "there used to be dark" is inaccurate. The DS1 opening cinematic makes it pretty clear that during the age of the everlasting dragons there was neither light nor dark, both of which were caused by fire.

 

[Caim]

The dark age is coming no matter what, your actions (should you choose to do what Frampt tells you) only delay its coming. By 3, the world is in a state of disarray because you're living through the very final moments of the age of fire.

Which is why the alternate paths all involve calling out the gods' charade and putting an end to things.

Dark Souls 2 has you take the Throne of Want and decide after that whether you want to rekindle the flame or not, but that's a choice made off screen. Aldia's point in SotFS was that the cycle repeats either because someone rekindles the fire or it flares up enough that someone can take it once more, and the alternate ending introduced in SotFS gave you the option to step away from the cycle to find an alternative (which is why you are not given the actual choice to link the fire, because it does not matter in the long run). This leads to Dark Souls 3 where reality itself starts to come apart during the game: the sun itself becomes a Darksign as you reach the endgame. We reach the point where the First Flame itself is trying to prolong its own existence by raising those undead that touched it before but didn't have the mettle to link it alongside several previous lords of cinder.

If you make it to the First Flame in Dark Souls 3 and rekindle it, very little happens. Contrast it to the conflatation of linking the fire in Dark Souls 1: the bonefire barely becomes bigger and it just sorta sets you on fire instead of consuming the entire arena. The alternative is getting the Fire Keeper to put the flame out to put an end to all things, but it doesn't work. You can also steal the flame by killing her as she takes it, but it's not really shown what happens afterwards. The secret ending of Dark Souls 3 has you actually try something different, an amalgamation of the plans of Kaathe and Aldia. By creating a lord of dark to replace the lords of cinder the cycle of staving off the dark by prolonging the light is broken... except it's now likely inverted, with the dark constantly trying to prolong itself by suppressing the light. Who knows what horrors can spawn from such a thing.

Or, you know, the devs just wanted the series to fucking end already.

 

[kites]

I don't remember the Souls games taking so long to get significant price cuts. Going open world must have really worked for them financially. I'll just have to keep waiting. Not dying to play it anyway.

Edit: Or maybe it's inflation. The publishers waiting longer to cut their prices because the games are so expensive to make.

Looking at sale history, ever since right before ER Bandai’s pricing/sales for Souls games has been worse and less frequent; My PC is failing so I was browsing the PS store Tokyo sale last week, and they wanted around $23 for base DS3 and $43 for the complete edition. I believe it was the first discount for PS DS3 this year, at least that I saw. Nuts. Just like KOIE games, now, even grabbing them on sale you’ll feel it hit your wallet.

 

[9ted6]

The dark age is coming no matter what, your actions (should you choose to do what Frampt tells you) only delay its coming. By 3, the world is in a state of disarray because you're living through the very final moments of the age of fire.

Which is why the alternate paths all involve calling out the gods' charade and putting an end to things.

Or, you know, the devs just wanted the series to fucking end already.

They definitely never wanted sequels to begin with, at least Miyazaki didn't. 1's got a complete story with two endings open to player interpretation, it didn't need a sequel, especially one with lore that either copies and retreads the original or makes up new things that are disjointed and convoluted and don't even amount to anything.

 

[gabel]

And the sequels still turned out better than anything else AAA or even AA.

 

[MasPingon]

I know Dark Souls isn't really supposed to make sense, but I've still never figured out why in 1 Gwyn cursed humans to become undead so they'd buy into his prophecy to come link the flame, but then gathers a bunch of monsters, demons, and his own men to stop the undead from getting to the flame.

It's the only plot point that's given any real explanation but then it's contradicted by the rest of the game.

Did he go crazy and forget his own plan? Better yet, why didn't he just link the flame himself? It makes sense if you work with Kaathe but no sense if you work with Frampt, who being a "friend of Gwyn" could just go tell him that you're on your way to do what he set up the entire curse to get you to do.

Gwyn actually did link the flame, but it burned him out so much he turned hollow himself. This caused the curse of undeath, which made other people go hollow. A good number of hollows carry out their final orders before their sanity left them, which is why you have the black knights trying to kick you in the dick in the runup to Gwyn because they protected their lord in life. Demons are the product of the Witch of Izalith trying to make a new fire instead of the whole "use yourself as kindling" plan, but she fucked up and life ran rampant, creating demons.

In Dark Souls there is a cycle of dark and light. There used to be dark, then the Four Lords created light and stomped out the dragons, but when the cycle of reality turned to dark again they resisted, just like the dragons did. Their unnatural prolonging of light is the main reason reality went to shit.

Actually there was no Dark before creation of fire - there was no time, no dark and no light, only everlasting dragons. Four Lords had nothing to do with creating the light, they just gathered the most powerful souls afterwards. And there was a Pygmy who took dark soul.

 

[gabel]

"Vaati and all his followers over-analyse Dark Souls' lore"
"Yeah, pathetic!"
"..........."

Fucking retards.

 

[NJClaw]

"Vaati and all his followers over-analyse Dark Souls' lore"
"Yeah, pathetic!"
"..........."

Fucking retards.

How the fuck do you equate simple literal interpretations of the very few plot elements the game shows you to what vaatividya does? Come on

 

[Child of Malkav]

Hehe, I've been imagining how a Gale fight would go and how the story would be for DkS3 if they actually wanted to end the series properly with a bang:

Go with the secret ending of DkS2 (walk away with Aldia). Aldia makes a plan to kill all possible pretenders/guys who want to link the fire and prolong the current state of the world, he basically makes a hit list for you and you start with a maxed out character and fully powered up (level, gear, spells, inventory, the CROWNS which are blessed and allow you not to hollow anymore that you have from DkS2) and you go hunting all these lords of fire. In the meantime Aldia makes contact with the painter and Gale and convene with them to paint a new world. Now, at some point in the game before you fight the the Soul of Cinder you do the 1st DLC which ends with Gale disappearing and you going after him in the 2nd DLC at the painter's request to bring the dark souls...blood...whatever it was I don't remember, and it goes normally until you touch the egg of that big, white chick which transports you into the future. When you travel into the future literally at the end of the world you can also find and fight Aldia which has gone insane after you disappeared and lost contact with you. He also acquired a physical form to try to accomplish the rest of the tasks but he fails as he doesn't have your power. He retreats and hides from Gale all this time until eventually succumbs to madness and slowly becomes hollow. When you find him he doesn't even recognize you and attacks you. You kill him and get another blessing from him or a powerful item which allows you to create monsters of your own. This ability he learned from his experiments at the Keep in DkS2, from creating the big humanoid hippos, the deformed creatures, the ancient dragon, the exploding mummies etc.
The fight against Gale is different (he becomes the incarnation of the Dark Soul and yours is the last piece it needs to be complete again). You arrive at the broken throne with the original Pigmy Lord on it, dead and hear a roar in the distance and a laughter and you see Gale coming on a huge skeletal everlasting dragon flying towards you.
The first phase of the fight is killing the dragon and getting Gael on the ground. The dragon can be killed using lightning as even in death they maintain the same weakness.
The second phase starts with Gale attacking you like Manus did. The fight proceeds as we know it but with vastly different abilities in an extremely big arena.
The third phase is about showing the abilities Gale gets as the fight intensifies and they are more and more scary: he changes appearance resembling some of the monstrosities you see in Oolacile in AotA DLC, he darkens the sky and the surrounding area (and you have to use a torch or some kind of light to survive or even a more badass way you can use a new spell created by Aldia that forces the Sun to fire a solar flare at any location you want), uses all the hexes and dark spells you used in DkS2 mocking you that you only used a small fraction of their true power, calls Abyss tornadoes from time to time, can split the arena using earthquakes reinforcing the idea that you need to kill him quickly before the situation goes out of control even more, he even gets the ability to rewind time for the last 3 seconds randomly, can call in sandstorms or ashstorms, can reanimate nearby corpses if there are any. As the fight goes on he becomes more powerful not less.
In phase 4 he creates ash monsters from the surrounding dunes in order to overwhelm you but if you killed Aldia before you have that forbidden knowledge that allows you to summon your own army (going back to Ivory King DLC fight). The maximum number of monsters on either side can go up to 30 or more. No matter the number Gale will always rush and attack you above all else. All the other monsters fight each other. The phase ends when Gale sustains enough damage to retreat from you and then he sends his remaining creatures to rush you.
After you kill them phase 5 starts and he gains the ability to call in stars and meteors while attacking you relentlessly. You can take cover from them in nearby ruins allowing them to tank the hits and getting permanently destroyed in the process.
Seeing you surviving everything sends him into a rage starting phase 6 of the fight. The floor begins to tremble and in the distance we see a volcano erupting with such force that it sends magma and pieces of rock falling over the arena. This phase is just a 1 on 1 and he also gets access to new abilties like telekinesis, invisibility (watch for the footsteps in the sand/ash), flash freeze and a few others. Once you deliver the fatal blow, with his last breath he summons a worlwide flood and flips the magnetic poles. You see the horizons darken as huge tsunamis race towards you. You pick up the dark soul and use the bonfire creation mechanic (that was scrapped from the final game) to make a bonfire out of Gael's corpse then you travel to the painter. There you get the option to become Dark Lord and do what Gwyn did and continue the cycle but this time with the dark instead of the light OR go kill the Soul of Cinder (he won't fight you if you killed Gael) and link the fire again OR give the painter the items so she makes a new world to which you travel. You have 10 minutes to make your choice as the flood kills the world.

All of this would correctly show why Gwyn feared the Dark Soul.

 

[Ezekiel]

How do the Souls protagonists learn about the items' lore: what's written in their descriptions? How do they grow? Pretty obvious the devs just design most of the items, characters and environments and then make up shit after. Think they even said something like this about ten years ago. I'm not impressed anymore, which is why I stopped reading most of the descriptions in Dark Souls III and why I stopped watching Vaati and whoever that white guy was who stopped uploading after moving to Japan and having a half-Japanese baby (whom I preferred over Vaati anyway). I used to be so impressed, but now think that if it's told mostly in text rather than visually it's kind of lazy. It's funny to me that people call the storytelling minimalist. No, minimalist is something like Ico, Limbo, Lara Croft GO or Sonic the Hedgehog 3. Souls is actually pretty heavy because of all the text exposition.

 

[Lyric Suite]

It's minimalist in the sense you can play and finish the game without paying much attention to any of it.

I think this kind of thing worked in their older games better because there was something more innocent about them. His early games had a bit of youthful naivety about them i think Miyazaki just got jaded over the years, which was inevitable as getting old does that to a person. I had the same reaction to Avellone's writing in Pillars compared to his stuff in Torment.

BTW, i'm mentioning Miyazaki and not Martin because the text in the game was clearly not written by the latter. Whatever Martin did it probably came in the form of lore summarys there doesn't seem to be any actual writing from him in the game at all.

 

[Child of Malkav]

BTW, i'm mentioning Myazaki and not Martin because the text in the game was clearly not written by the latter. Whatever Martin did it probably came in the form of lore summarys there doesn't seem to be any actual writing from in the game at all.

There was an interview/or more at some point in which It was mentioned that Martin wrote the mythos, world lore and the big events and set the narrative framework overall. So events that happened thousands of years ago, political games, assassinations, wars between the demigods, the nuking of Caelid etc. Whereas individual NPC dialogue and item description were written by memehackzaky.

 

[NJClaw]

How do the Souls protagonists learn about the items' lore

They don't and they don't need to. Main characters always act according to something NPCs told them in-game, item descriptions are there only for the player 99% of time. I love stuff like the Budding Green Blossom in Sirri's quest in DS3, where the "item description" is in a message tied to the item, but I can't think of any other example.

It's funny to me that people call the storytelling minimalist. No, minimalist is something like Ico, Limbo, Lara Croft GO or Sonic the Hedgehog 3. Souls is actually pretty heavy because of all the text exposition.

It's considered minimalist compared to what your usual RPG does. It's obviously no Ico or Limbo, but they're also games in a completely different genre. Would you say that a 1-page sacred text isn't "minimalist" compared to the Bible because haikus exist?

 

[Caim]

How do the Souls protagonists learn about the items' lore

Schizophrenia.