Yeah I spent my evening getting all four of their weapons, the axe and great sword took me over an hour to get a drop, I really can't stand the swords though. If the would just attack the way the knights use them I would jizz my pants but that stupid east west attack pattern is horrible. Combined with the uber slow speed of the swing, ughhh, I hate great swords. Fuck even the giant ass axe attacks faster.

Currently I'm rocking the halbred and I plan on farming the shit out of some twinkling titante so I can fully upgrade the halbred and axe plus my stone armor then go spank the res of the game and run though NG+.

You know the enemies always have the advantage, man. Or in this case, flash.

I made it to the area right behind the lordvessel, but I went back because it felt like the final arena (which I confirmed with a quick visit to Dark Souls Wikia). I hadn't explored the painted world of Ariamas yet, so I don't want to have to start over without visiting it. The crow harpy things have been the bane of my existence since I got here. They aren't terribly difficult, but when you are on a narrow walkway and they do that swooping attack that you can't defend against... Fuck those things.

yeah those crows hit hard too, especially on the spiral staircases....BUT, the Painted World is easily my favorite setting in DkS (mainly because of the snow/Nosgoth feeling, which warms my heart).

I KNOW RIGHT? I'm the same!

*brofist*

You mean the future section in Soul Reaver 2, when the Sarafan where at the height of their glory? I see the resemblance, but I don't recall there being low visibility or blizzards in SR 2.

Ummmmm, wrong thread, mate?

Nah, my fuzzy Argentine friend. I was responding to Morrigan, who in turn was responding to Frog about the Nosgoth thing, where Soul Reaver takes place. Unless I've somehow fucked this up??

Well, there are no blizzards in the Painted World Aren't you talking about the Crown of the Ivory King DLC?

Oh shit.. yes, I thought this was the Dark Souls 2 thread and Frog was referencing the third DLC. My god I'm a idiotic fool sometimes. I'll just shut up and leave the thread now.

So apparently you can get the DLC for Xbox and PS3 as well. I'm gonna download it but before I do I want to know if it will mess with my current game. Will I have to start over or will it just be there and be awesome like magic? I'm about done with my first play thru and if it will mess up my progress I'll just wait till I beat the game and get it for when I do NG+.

You can access the DLC as soon as you have the Lordvessel. It is recommended to do it in NG the first time because in NG+ it will be really difficult. It won't mess your save, once you unlocked it, you can just access it normally like any other area.

The steps to reach the DLC area is a bit obtuse though:

Gotta love how, after paying for the DLC, From proceed to have you fight your way to actually reach the content. Talk about being true to yourself

Awesome! I'll get on that tomorrow once I wake up, working nights blows y'all.

I don't think I ever summoned Dusk and it worked for me

Holy shit! I just downloaded the patch for the game and I feel like I just stepped into sally bitch land... everything I kill is giving me like double or triple the souls and now I can buy twinkling titanite and large titanite shards from the gian balcksmith... this game just got waaaaaaaaaaayy to easy.

Hopefully now I can go into DLC land at least.

Edit: ok good it's not every enemy. I may have been a bit hasty there, but the souls are considerably more plentiful now.

More edits: What is this, I'm not loosing all my humanity when I die? Ok well yeah I loose it but I'm getting it back at my blood stain??? I can target enemies wearing the fog ring, some enemies aren't respawning anymore either. This is so weird, what else has changed?

About the DLC, where is this golem with the broken pendant, I don't remember there being any at the beginning of Duke's, and I don't have a pendant in my inventory, unless he's there now that I got the patch, or is it a golem down with the rest on the way to the crystal caves?

^^^ Why I don't like DLC in gaming. If I pay for the game, I want 100% of the fucking game.

If you intend on buying Witcher 3, you'll get all the DLC for free
Aw shit, plugged it, moonwalk.

but you are getting to play 100% of the game... more so even since you're getting extra content... I'm just confused about the patch changing the current play of the game. It made it easier and I feel like I deserve the reward of eating one of the hardest games I've ever played but now I'm here with the patch. The game was so fucking punishing this whole time I've been playing and I'm glad I made it to the end without getting an easier version.

Dude you were playing the unpatched version all this time? Why? Yeah the patch changed lots of things, can't be arsed to list them but look them up I guess.


Yes, you do need the patch to access the DLC, the golem didn't spawn before but it should be there now, right alongside the first crystal hollows at Duke's.


First of all, the PC version comes with all the DLC already included and it's dirt cheap during Steam sale so quit yer whining.
Second, not all DLCs are lame cashgrabs. Are you against expansion packs too? Because that's pretty much what it is. It wasn't in the original game because they had to release the game at some point, and they did release a full game. But then they started working on more content which they polished and refined and then released as DLC. That's perfectly acceptable, unlike garbage like on-disc and/or day 1 DLC, horse armour and other bollocks.


Meh, obvious marketing PR stunt is obvious. Worst thing is all the fanboys are eating it right up.

So supporting something is being a fanboy? CD Projekt's stance on DLC is one I agree with, even down to the important part where they believe DLC can be paid if it's something truly substantial I.E the expansions of yesteryear. Charging for tiny little additions, and glorified mods, has always seemed rather suspect to me. Oblivion is a good example here. All that shit that came with Knights of the Nine was inconsequential, except for the main quest line which was pretty boring. In stark contrast, Shivering Isles is much more substantial and worth its price. Something like horse armour could have been included free into a patch, no problem.

CD Projekt shares this belief, and as such I wish to support them for it, almost as a way of "protest" if you will against DLC practices I disagree with. If that's a "fanboy eating it up" then so be it, but at least it's standing by principles and trying to influence an industry I care about steering toward a future I'd like to see.

That said, the DLC practices of From Software are a kind I do agree with (mostly, the trilogy idea of the second is a bit murky).

Ahhh pure ignorance really. When I bought the game and started playing it for the first time Xbox prompted me with an update before I couldmstart playing, I just assumed that was the patches (DLC not included since I didn't even know about it at that point in time). That and I was led a stray by someone (Smoking _Gnu) who told me the DLC extras were only for PC so it wasn't even until the other day that I knew I could get it.

My point is that it's nothing more than a PR stunt. It literally costs nothing to CD Projekt to "offer" these "16 DLCs", which are of the horse armour variety. The game isn't out for months yet, so it's not like it's going to be meaty content that had to be cut because of the release deadline (and as you said, they would indeed charge for such DLC). They know this. They know people are alienated by shitty DLC practice from EA, Ubisoft, etc. so they are simply trying to appear as "the good guys". And good for them for not selling that horse armour, but bragging about how they're such good guys compared to the others by giving the horse armour away for free is just facile.

*cough*Yeah I'm kind of dumb.

True, but can it not also be seen as a sort of "protest" or even awareness? A way of saying "Look, here have this and have fun with it, but remember, many other companies would have charged you money for this little addition, so be careful with what practices you support with finances". Something like that? CD Projekt don't get anything from this save some good PR, while their fans do get something out of it for free. It's pretty harmless, where as something like horse armour is very much the opposite.

I just don't see anything wrong with this, a little PR and a peaceful passive protest against controversial DLC practices.

Sweet, I'm diving into the DLC right now

CDP's move is much more a political one than a business one, though I'm sure they saw a nice spike in sales after they revealed their DLC plans. That said, I'd still be weary about pre-ordering W3 for other reasons...

On another note, using "fanboys" as a pejorative in the Dark Souls thread for a different IP is fucking hilarious. People who live in glass houses...

Witcher 2: Enhanced Edition sure as fuck wasn't horse armor. They had no reason to do something like that for free and so late after release, it really doesn't take a fanboy to say "yes, CDP are good guys" at this point. PR embellishment or not.

I don't have the PC version. And the vast majority of DLC seems like lame cash grabs to me, seeing as how all me friends are always saying something about "It's only x amount of dollars", or every console nowadays (except maybe Wii-U, not sure) is charging you for online play, but are only coming out with games intended mainly for multiplayer online.

I just like to purchase something and be done with it. Not have to wait for more content to come out to get to the heart of the game. It just feels like being slapped with a "To be continued..." at the end of a movie.

Well, just know the DLC to Dark Souls is on par if not better than the base game. The boss battles, especially, are among the best, and the added dimensions deeply enrich the overall experience.

I'm not far into it but I'm enjoying it so far, it's definitely challenging that's for sure. Dark Souls isn't really a game that I'd want to play multiplayer. Sure a little PvP action sounds fun but other than that and some boss help if need be I don't think I'd want to have another person in my game.

Don't know what you mean. If Namco or From did something dubious, I wouldn't let them off the hook. For instance the lighting downgrade was a pretty shady thing to do. And I was pretty pissed when Namco refused to release a season pass for the PS3 userbase.

In this context, "fanboy" refers not to people who are big fans of the game (which is fine and I wouldn't begrudge anyone that), but to people who get easily manipulated by PR stunts and don't even notice they're being manipulated.


This isn't about Witcher 2, it's about Witcher 3... which isn't out for a few months. So your comparison to Witcher 2 is not relevant, except perhaps to maybe say CDProjekt has a good track record? In any case, I mislike the blatant manipulation attempt (btw this "16 DLC" does include actual horse armour, no doubt in an attempt to be cheeky, as well as beard styles... whoopty doo?).


But the vanilla game is the heart of the game. You have a full product even if you don't buy the DLC. The Dark Souls DLC is great content and well worth the money if you're a big fan of the main game, but that doesn't make the main game suddenly less. And since it was developed after the game was released, it's basically just "here's a bit more of Dark Souls if you're interested", and not "pay $15 to unlock the last few levels". Again, it's exactly the same principle as expansion packs from back in the day; were you against those, too?

You want to complain about shady DLC practices, go for it; there's plenty of it going on in the industry. Ubisoft, Capcom*, EA, etc. being notoriously bad offenders. But Artorias, no way.

* Ironically, Capcom can be of two minds when it comes to this. Their RE6 DLC was on-disc, which is complete crap, but they gave tons of free DLC with Monster Hunter 3 U and didn't brag about it whatsoever. Go figure.

Alright then, I agree with you. Do note that CDP did exactly the same thing with Witcher 2 as well, including announcing that all DLC would be free before the game was released, so it's not like it's exploring uncharted "PR marketing stunt" waters for the studio. But I digress.

I still think you should give Witcher 2 a shot. The fanboys are fucking annoying (as are the 'haters', who are the natural outcome of all the fanboys), but the game is gorgeous, the combat methodical and challenging (albeit still too much rolling) and the writing rarely short of fantastic. And despite what that Gamasutra article claimed, it's not sexist as a game. Yes, the world it inhabits is sexist, but claiming the actual game is sexist would be no different than insisting every GoT novel is sexist. It's very much missing the forest for the trees. But maybe I'm wrong. You won't know unless you play it yourself!

Anyway, you may now return to your regularly scheduled Dark Souls.

I tried Witcher 2, remember? Hated the combat (don't know about methodical or challenging but it's clunky as fuck and not remotely fun), hated the UI (barely playable with a controller), and the game glitched and decided to erase my save, so I saw zero reason to ever bother trying again.

(Also: fuck this. It's like... almost a perfect armour design. So close to perfect. But hey BOOBS! Yeah, fuck you.)

I never had any problem with controls in Witcher 2. Seemed completely fluid to me. But I do use keyboard and mouse exclusively, so I wouldn't know if they did a bad job with controller functionality. If so, it's a shame the controls fucked it for you because it's otherwise a very good game, though I still prefer the first in many ways (it has an immense charm the second lacked).

I actually didn't remember that, sorry. And also sorry to continue to co-opt this thread with an irrelevant game, but how exactly was the combat "clunky?" I see the same thing written about the Souls games and Piranha Bytes games, and it usually just stems from not knowing how to operate it properly. Like most semi-hardcore action RPGs, the combat becomes much more diverse and effective once you start leveling up your character and spreading out your skill points into an array of different skills. Stuff like riposte and alchemy upgrades are absolutely essential for a high difficulty playthrough.

As for the Saskia armor: maybe it has something to do with the fact her character realizes that base men are much easier to sway to her cause (recall she's the commander of a massive uprising) by appealing to their baser desires? It's been statistically proven men are much more trusting of women who are 'sexy' than those who aren't; I don't think it's too much of a slippery slope to say showing a bit more skin could sway more men to die for her cause. Recall also that she uses the commonly held belief that she's a virgin to further augment her leadership appeal; whether she actually is a virgin is irrelevant.

Funny you'd pick on Saskia, though. Had you chosen Triss, Phillippa or even Ves I'd have been in agreement with you. Although again, each of those women uses her sex appeal in a third wave feminist kind of way, and not a single one of them is an empty-headed bimbo; this is less in an effort to be PC and more because character depth is the core of good (contemporary) writing. The only completely hollow sex kitten I recall in the game was a succubus.

I tried playing with a gamepad and it was awful. It's normally the other way round with this kind of game, but it seems to me it was designed for mouse and keyboard and controllers were only an afterthought.

What inhumanist said. Also, no strafing or properly backing away despite having a lock-on system. And the potion/meditation system was painfully tedious. Just terrible all around, sorry. I wasn't struggling with it, I just found it immensely boring.



Come on, that's not why the designers drew her that way and you fucking know it. Stop playing dumb. "Statistically proven".... yeah, I'm sure the Witcher artist looked up statistics when drawing an armour with cleavage. Are you fucking kidding me. Not to mention, I'm pretty sure a battle commander wouldn't command more respect from her battalion by flashing her cleavage.


This isn't about their personalities or how they use their sex appeal in the story. I strictly talked about armour so I really have no idea why you're going on about this stuff. Triss was actually sensibly dressed in 2 (not so much in 3). I don't care if she gets naked during a sex scene because it's a sex scene, of course there's gonna be nudity. But there is zero excuse for having cleavage in an armour, it's simply the designers being tone-deaf morons. As I said, it's all the more insulting due to the fact that her armour would look so good without it. But they just HAD to throw that cleavage in there.

Beat the game today, I had been hung up on trying to cut off Kalameet's tail for about a week or so and just got fed up today so I killed him instead. Anyways WORST ENDING EVER.