Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
If you have an email ending in @hotmail.com, @live.com or @outlook.com (or any other Microsoft-related domain), please consider changing it to another email provider; Microsoft decided to instantly block the server's IP, so emails can't be sent to these addresses.
If you use an @yahoo.com email or any related Yahoo services, they have blocked us also due to "user complaints"
-UE
If you use an @yahoo.com email or any related Yahoo services, they have blocked us also due to "user complaints"
-UE
Comments
Doublepost 'cause why not.
Anyway, lore time!
The recent reveal of Artorias got me thinking about the lore of Dark Souls and how it draws upon mythology. Most obviously, "Artorias" is a corruption of the Roman "Arturius", which is itself a corruption of "Artor" or "Artur", who would later be known in English as Arthur, King of the Britons (trumpets). We also have "Gwynevere", a corruption of "Guinevere", pronounced exactly the same way. Evidently, the lore of Dark Souls contains a subtle retelling of the Arthur myth, which is all kinds of cool. In this one, though, it appears that Arthur misstepped on his way and fell into darkness. He has a tomb, but we fight him in the DLC, which suggests to me that the tomb we find commemorates his ideological death and falling into Hollow form rather than the literal end of his bodily functioning.
In this story, Arthur never takes kingship because there is no Excalibur to prove his divine providence over the Crown; he is "merely" a mighty warrior and knight, but he still appears to have been gifted a magical sword -- the Greatsword of Artorias, which can only be used by characters of great strength, skill, faith and intelligence. It's arguably the best weapon in the game, as it scales with every damage stat, meaning that both mixed builds and versatile builds can get good damage out of it (as long as they meet the minimum requirements). That's a pretty good expy of Excalibur if you ask me.
I suppose this all begs the question of Arthur's relationship to Guinevere, who were lovers and spouses, with remarkably little relationship drama until the introduction of stupid sexy Lancelot. As we (probably?) know, however, the Gwynevere we see in the game is an illusion; the whereabouts and nature of the real one are unknown, unless she's simply dead. Given the lack of information, there's no way to tell whether there was anything between the Arthur and Guinevere of Dark Souls.
Another cool tidbit is that the corpse of Ciaran is found behind Artorias' tomb. Was she sent to kill him? Say goodbye? Defend the tomb? Who knows? But of the knightly order both belonged to, we only meet Ornstein in the flesh, and Ornstein appears to be an original creation with no relationship to existing mythology.
Dark Souls is pretty cool when it comes to lore.
Time travel. No, really.
... well, I guess we already have world-phasing.
WMG: Dark Souls is secretly a Doctor Who game.
Actually, the cursed version of the sword is better, due to the regular version having its damage split between physical and magic, whereas the cursed version just does physical damage, and so in the end it works out that even though it has a lower AR, it consistently hits for more damage against pretty much anything. That said, you don't necessarily have to factor that in for lore stuff, I guess.
For the record, the Grant has the highest AR with maxed out stats, and the Demon's Greataxe actually does the most damage.
So, I wrote up a thing for starting Dark Souls players.
I know none of the people in this thread actually need it, but I figured I'd link it anyway.
If you're hardcore enough to actually hit 40 str/40 dex/50 int/50 fth, I think the regular version hits for 720 split damage, which I'm pretty sure hits harder than the Cursed version's 500-whatever. In terms of SL-120ish PvP, the Cursed version in definitely better, but in terms of wider PvE, the regular version has much more potential.
^ You should include a comment about shield stability ratings in the appropriate section. They make a massive difference.
I certainly do. Thank you, Clockman.
The other thing I'd say is that the only starting class that should be actively discouraged is the Deprived, because it makes the early game difficult for newcomers and has absolutely no PvP application whatsoever. Every other class has something to offer, depending on what the player wants, and one of the biggest joys of both Demon's Souls and Dark Souls is the ability for every player to discover different styles of play. I think it's much better for new players simply to start with whichever class they find most appealing.
Starting with the Knight, for instance, teaches excellent stamina conservation and general foot placement, as the fatroll prevents dodges from being effective. Therefore, the best means of defense for the early game Knight is walking out of an attack or blocking it. Dodging is often better than blocking, but generally worse than walking out. Alternatively, the Cleric and Bandit teach players how to fight with weapons that have heavily inefficient animations and slow recovery while dealing with poor defense. The Warrior teaches how to play down the straight and narrow, with strengths in every area of non-magical combat. The Thief and Wanderer are about applying special weapon effects while staying out of danger, albeit at slightly different ranges. Hunter is about versatility, forcing players to manipulate the environment more than any other class. And finally (I think), the Sorcerer teaches players to deal with medium-range combat, staying out of the range of weapon attacks while being close enough to lock on and launch magic.
Which class you choose will influence how a new player (barring a guide or an overbearing friend) deals with everything until the mid game. So let 'em have at it and choose something that appeals to them, because how they deal with the initial challenges in the game will inform their problem-solving methodology for some time to come.
Dammit, I meant to do that, then didn't...Thanks. I'll add it.
I considered saying something about that, but it's really, really obvious that it's underpowered.
I do agree with that, but I suggested the Pyromancer for two reasons:
Eh, it's just that a lot of people heavily encourage the Pyromancer as a starting class. While it does start at SL1, it doesn't have good armour, doesn't have a good shield and doesn't perform especially well at general combat. Its saving grace is its early-game access to Pyromancy, but it only gets 8 castings of an extremely basic spell that has a pretty significant wind-up time and slow projectile speed.
The Sorcerer is probably easier, really, given its 30 castings of Soul Arrow, which track, scale with intelligence and (if I remember correctly) cast more quickly. But the issue with both classes is that they encourage new players to sit out of challenging combats and use ranged attacks rather than progressing their skill at the core fighting type of the game -- close combat.
Artorias did save a damsel in distress, but that was Dusk of Oolacile. The what people say is that the real Gwynivere married off to a fire god of another land, I think.
I've heard that, but if that's the case, who's Priscilla's mother? Seath is her father, and I always figured Gwynevere was the mother.
The first two are easily fixable, but I find the last one untrue. That's just my opinion, though.
These would seem to be inherently contradictory.
The reason I like Pyromancer is that it does decently at combat, but gives you an "oh shit" button.
Yeah, because old gods didn't behave like superpowered pricks. Didn't have affairs nor illegitimate children, right? Gwyn's Firstborn was exiled over some mistake for crying out loud.
He exiled himself, actually. You know him as Solaire.
Yeah, but if she's married to a god from a far-off land, she would presumably be in a far-off land.
Speaking of which, why is the Ring of the Sun's Firstborn found in front of Gwyndolin's hideout, of all places?
Maybe he happened to be there when he had an argument with his family?
Priscilla isn't a newborn, Gwynivere could have birth her millenia ago.
True.
Also, what's with there being a god of fire? Isn't that supposed to be Gwyn? You know, the guy keeping fire going? And if not, shouldn't this other guy be doing something about the whole "the fire is going out" situation?
He doesn't give a fuck about Lordran's concern. It's like asking Zeus to take Thor's duties.
How do you know it is not just affecting Lordran?
As far as I know, the Lordran we visit is just Lordran's Hell. We don't see humans proper at all. All it could mean is the death of belief in the region.
If it were hell, there wouldn't be undead there. Because if undead were in hell, they'd be dead. And not dying is their whole thing.
Also, I think the priestess lady and Blacksmith Andre are alive.
Let me rephrase, The Lordran we visit, at least to me, is hell because it is filled with non-living humans. That is, I consider that hell in that region is a literal place where the non-living dwell, rather than a place in another plane. Furhtermore, the prophetized Age of Dark will be an age where humans will grow in power, and the gods of old will cease to exist, put another way the age of dark is an allegory for the death of belief in the supernatural.
Pristess lady? If you mean Reah she's at the brink of becoming hollow.
The problem there is that Lordran is the home of the gods. I'm pretty sure they're alive. The undead, meanwhile, were at first confined to an asylum outside Lordran until the outbreak grew too great to quarantine.
I've heard that before, but the Age of Dark is heralded by the existence of the undead, which means humans are actually ceasing to exist entirely and being replaced with a more supernatural equivalent.
My interpretation of the world goes thusly:
The curse of the Darksign began some hundreds of years ago, halting social and technological progression for all that time. The Undead Asylum is one of many built in various regions of the world to contain the curse. These asylums failed, and now all that remain are the undead, all of whom are at risk of going hollow. The Asylum in the game has major signs of decay all over the place, and I suspect it's suffered more than a few jailbreaks in its time. The Crestfallen Warrior appears to be familiar with the Asylum, enough so that he suggests that staying there might have been a better course of action. There's a strong possibility he spent time in one of the asylums, which would, in turn, suggest that many (or all) undead have spent time in one. Oscar of Astora certainly appears to be in the process of breaking out himself when he rescues you.
Which begs the question: who runs the asylums?
Most enemies we fight in the Asylum are generic hollows, but we also meet a demon that appears to be responsible for holding the way out closed, plus one of his kin that's been locked away. In addition, Black Knights appear in the Asylum upon our return. It's clear that the asylums are under the control of demons, containing the last of the human population until they inevitably go hollow -- except for those like us, who escape. This is a medieval post-apocalypse where everyone is cursed and the world is dominated by demons and monsters.
The curse of the Darksign is so powerful that even Gywn, the mightiest of the gods, fell prey to it, and thus the sun is fading and fire slips away from the world. Our task is to confront the remaining rulers of the world, extract their souls and use them to power the Lordvessel and open the way to the Kiln of the First Flame, where we confront Lord Gywn and succeed him as the world's Firekeeper -- or plunge everything into darkness for as long as our reign holds true.
This isn't a game about the end of the world proper, but it's a game about the end of the human race -- the end of humanity, so to speak. Should we fail, demons and monsters inherit the world; should we succeed, the human race is exorcised of the Darksign, and those that aren't hollow can live the rest of their lives and then die with their identity and humanity intact.
Undead are still urged to go to Lordran, outbreak or not.
Are you certain about that? I thought he was just getting old or running out of power or something, but that would make a lot of sense.
Because there's a prophecy saying that if a specific one does it, the apocalypse might end.
Is it bad that my first reaction upon learning about this game's lore was that I want to read a Dark Souls/Madoka Magica crossover fanfic where Homura Akemi is the chosen undead and Madoka Kaname becomes the firekeeper of the First Flame?