I actually did miss out on The Great Hollow and The Ash Lake during my first playthrough because i didn't explore lower blighttown , i just wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible lol.
Great video, man! Can't wait to see more from you. I'm surprised you don't have more subscribers. Your videos seem far more professional and better edited than my own. Good luck to you!
Amazing video, dude. You made an intense research for this video, your explanation about the Souls mechanics is clear. I think the reward experience and the feeling after to beat a boss remains me why I love play videogames, this kind of videogames. I will check your videos. Thank you :D
That's why I love Miyazaki's games, they're designed to be compelling in every aspect. The lore, the level design, the gameplay, the difficulty curve, even just understanding the mechanics and how they work. Once you figure out how stat scaling works, for instance, you want to play the game again with certain weapons upgraded down a certain path and see how you fare.
What a delicious vid - great way to break the game down by looking at the discovery aspect of the title. There's something almost poetic about the first dark souls that I can't shake. Extremely well crafted and designed game - just like this video. Thanks
Castlevania (2D) series is extremely satisfying when it comes to level discovery. Many indie game have followed it's example too. Similar to DS, the levels are either separated by high level enemies, or doors/obstacles that are not cheap Metal Gear games are really fun, but their mechanical discovery makes them above any action stealth title. There are just so many things to "do" (interact with certain objects, using gadgets and weapons on yourself and the environment, learning the movement mechanics etc.) This was on of the main things the stuck with me in MGS3
+Hemang Chauhan Absolutely, the Metal Gear Solid series is one of the few examples I can think of that offers quite linear level design but has such depth in mechanics that the player has a huge array of freedom in how they navigate that linear space. Run past guards, hide in plain sight, distract them, stun them, engage them head on etc etc A lot of other games have it the other way round, shallow mechanics but freedom of choice in how you navigate the space, which is still great, but MGS definitely stands out for feeling different. Note - I haven't played the open world MGS V so I'm just referring to the previous ones.
Excellent video, mate! This is the type of content I greatly enjoy, especially when discussing my favorite game. You gained a subscriber, and I would love to see more content like this.
One thing you missed which I think is *huge* in Dark Souls is something which I guess comes under a mixture of narrative and content discovery - the bosses. The bosses are by and large so unique that the very prospect of a new boss can motivate players to continue, and finding a new boss is one of the most interesting and cool things in the Souls series. This is a massive part of why they're successful - good bosses hype you up for the other awesome bosses to come, and then it delivers on that with huge boss variety, mechanically and aesthetically. Because you have no idea what to expect, it's a large part of the discovery of the games, along with normal enemies to a lesser extent. This is also related to mechanical discovery - discovering the new and interesting mechanics a boss may have that previous ones didn't. It's a pretty big deal. One final, and I think *major* point, that you missed, is exclusivity. In the beginning you explain why discovery is cool, but I think one major unmentioned aspect of discovery and open-world experiences over more linear ones is the percieved exclusivity of the experience. Everyone loves to feel special, intelligent, and powerful (one of the reasons that the Souls games are some of the most *satisfying* games out there - the feeling of power and awesomeness you get from overcoming a boss makes you feel *amazing*), and like they're getting something nobody else is. Without going into the psychological and social reasons of this, suffice to say that if we feel we have something that other's don't, we feel good. Dark Souls capitalises on this, while also mitigating the downsides through the online element. By hiding things away cleverly, be they items, areas, enemies, whatever, they make the player feel special and smart for finding them, without making them feel stupid for missing them because they' won't realise they missed something. Think about the words we use - discover, explore. To discover or explore is to find something or somewhere new and unknown. What I mean by exclusivity in this sense is the feeling that when you find something hidden, you know there's people who didn't. *You* found that item - and a bunch of other people didn't. *You* found this area - there's a whole chunk of the game thats just for you, because you were smart enough to find it, and other people weren't. You feel special. This is very risky though, as you risk putting in important items or large areas of the game that go unappreciated by many - but the multiplayer element goes a long way to removing this potential downside by ensuring that players won't miss anything *too* important. Great video though. I'll never get tired of people delving into why the Souls games are some of the best of all time.
Sorry for not replying but I got a lot of comments on this video and it was hard to keep up with them all whilst working full time, I obviously missed this one so my apologies! I agree with everything Migey11 says, I think you could write a book on the detailed aspects of how From Software maintain a sense of discovery throughout the game from start to finish, something very few games can achieve. I guess my reasoning for not including those two points in my video was because they kind of fall under the content and multiplayer aspects I already mentioned. They absolutely deserve to be discussed in their own right but I was keen to keep the video as tightly focused as possible and a lot shorter in length, so I tried to distil my ideas into the most concise examples possible and that meant a lot of aspects of the game design sadly got neglected :( It was a really interesting and insightful comment, sorry for the late reply!
Subscribed. You make some great points about the game that I hadn't considered, which is especially good given how talked to death DS is already! Looking forward to new stuff.
Fun fact: Miyazaki created the Souls series from an initial idea based on when he was a kid and read quite a few western fantasy novels like Lovecraft and others, but couldn't understand the whole story because he didn't know English all that well. So he had to piece the story together from what he did understand and used that as the basis for the lore of Demon's and later Dark Souls. I'm guessing the whole discovery thing ended pouring over into all the other parts of the games' design as well.
Great video. I keep thinking about how the narrative is presented in Dark Souls. In some ways it's really direct. There's the opening cut scene, talking to Crestfallen Warrior, ringing the bells of awakening, talking to Frampt, Getting the Lord Vessel, the bit with Gwynevere, Gwendolyn, ... Gwynn. The story has major events, the world changes, and it pushes the player forward. In a lot of ways the narrative is really indirect, the item descriptions, the multiple dialogues from the same character, dialogues that require specific triggers, etc. The Indirect narrative really strengthens the more direct narrative to the extent that events can have much richer significance to the player who has gone the indirect route. The more you explore the world, the more you get out of the narrative. The craziest thing is that you can either talk to Frampt or Kaathe, and talking to Kaathe totally changes how you interpret Frampt. The only thing I'm not too sure about is that killing npc's is necessary for lore. Who in their right mind wants to kill Hawkeye Gough??
I was so lost in the beginning of Dark Souls, but so into the game that I only found the path to the catacombs. Made it all the way to the fog door towards Nito before ever discovering the other options XD
Dark Souls is a fantastic and beautiful game in so many ways. I feel the whole series is very much about depression and not giving up amd showing how so many people will try to get you down and force you to give up and go hollow. Dark Souls on the other side if the coin is also a perfect example of that metroidvania feel and giving you freedom of exploration in a semi open environment 👌.
A few (mostly obscure) Dark Souls mechanics/bugs used and exploited by Good Veterans/Cheating PvPers: Reverse roll, Toggle Escape, Dead Angle, Weapon Move set Swap, Tumble Buff, Animation Cancel, Chain Back Stab, Kick into Combustion, Dead angle block, Turn Around Dragon Roar Stun, Infinite Souls/Humanity Glitch, Weapon Item storage share for other Characters and probably more. These are just some of the mechanics I have discovered after meeting some people, experiencing for myself going through the motions and studying on RUclips for the past 4 years.
+Shane O'Neil I've got a few ideas for future videos but I think In-depth Reviews are going to be my main focus because there's so many games I want to do videos on, but I will definitely try and do something a bit different every now and then if that's what people want!
The only game that made me strip naked for a jump was Morrowind. Dark Souls rivals Morrowind in exploration, the only game to do so actually. A unique world, rare artifacts and armor, less hand holdy design. That atmosphere! Dark Souls shows quite a few tricks in a genre where bethesda failed to innovate for more than a decade.
In the PS4X1 era, creating content is even more expensive and time-consuming than before. It will be difficult for FROM to replicate the same quantity of content of DS1 to lend the feeling of scale and discovery.
This alone is why Dark souls one is far superior to its sequels, I didn't get the same with feeling of discovery with dark souls 2 and 3 was really hoping theyd add onto this type of level design in dark souls 3 and improve it even further, oh well.
Always find it funny when fans of Dark Souls see everything as a positive. Lack of narrative direction? That's a positive of course. The game give wrong information in item description (that ring heals you over time? Really?) of course that's a positive. Hell I even had a fan so fucking blinded by his love of the game he tried to explain why the framerate issues of blighttown was a positive! Don't get me wrong, I started the game semi recently and have enjoyed the experience overall. But this is one of these situations where I'd love to have someone take an honest look at Dark Souls and analyze it's strengths AND failings.
+Jean-Francois Charbonneau There's always fans who are so passionate, they refuse to admit a game's faults. I bet the guy defending the Blighttown frame rate issues claimed it 'added to the experience' in some way right? Whatever makes people happy I guess! To be fair though, I personally don't think the game has a lack of narrative direction, I think it's actually very deliberately constructed to be the way it is and the end result is by design. I would also imagine the misleading item description is either down to a mistranslation during localisation OR changes made late to the game regarding the ring's function and the out-dated item description slipping through the net. Dark Souls is by no means perfect though and if you're looking for a more honest and less gushing critique of the game I would highly, HIGHLY recommend two channels for you. Matthewmatosis and Joseph Anderson. They have both done fantastic, lengthy and thoroughly in-depth critiques of the game and go into great detail regarding the pros AND cons. They also share different views on certain aspects, such as the narrative. I have a feeling you'll lean more towards Joseph Anderson's interpretation ;) Check them out and thanks for watching!
thinreaper You are right, this genius claimed it added to the experience and "exemplifies the struggle of playing this game". I translated that in my mind to "I can't accept any flaw in something I love and am willing to go out of my way to make excuses for the game". As for the narrative, maybe I am not calling it right by saying narrative direction. I mean the game clearly has a direction, it doesn't give me one. Let me compare that to Fallout 3, New Vegas or Skyrim. (Let's avoid any Fallout 4 discussions for spoilers for those who haven't played it). All those games are high on exploration and let you do whatever you want in any order you want. Want to go north getting out of the tutorial town in New Vegas? Go ahead. You'll face "critters that only get mad if you shoot them in the head" (absolutely love that line) but it doesn't stop you from doing so. But they still all give me a personal reason for taking the first steps on my journey. Find your dad, find the guy who shot you in the head, find out about the dragons. None of them force me into it but my character obviously has a reason for doing so (even in Skyrim, being called by the Dragon people in the mountain). Dark Souls doesn't give me a reason to care about taking my first steps. My "call to action" being given by a dying and about to go insane men talking about an old family saying. Other than that, I ring both bells because... that's what the game wants. And then I go to Sens Fortress because, that's the section that just got unlocked. And then I go to Anor Londo because the game takes me there. And then... well let me play a little bit more and I'll let you know. But I am hours into this game and it still doesn't really gives my character a reason to do anything other than "that's the game" if you understand what I mean. The fact that a lot of the world building is from item description is not something I am a huge fan of but I can accept that. The fact that the story doesn't make me care from the get go with at least something to go on is, in my mind, a big failing of the game. I will use something I've learned from Todd Howard D.I.C.E. keynotes of Skyrim (which if you haven't seen this video, you should) where he explains the gameplay wheel (learning mechanics, getting comfortable, getting challenged, getting surprised) and then proceeds to explain how story fits into this. He says that story gives context for the players actions. This is what propels the player through the game and this is where I feel Dark Souls should learn something. By getting a different intro and/or a different discussion with the dying knight they could have easily gave me a reason to think "I want to do this" instead of "I feel like the game wants me to do this". Anyway, this was a little bit longer than I expected to write. But I would like to thank you for your response, I will be looking at both channels and let me congratulate you on a well made video. take care
TheShapesnatch Oh look, someone who think they are clever. I only see a person who refuse to look at any flaw in their game but what do I know. I've only been playing videogames for 32 years after all. Using item description for lore and world building is fine, clever even. But as I already wrote, this game has a weak as shit call to action, if you can even call it that. Maybe that's not something that bothers you which is fine. Or maybe you are one of those blind fanatics who can't accept that a game they live has any faults. In both cases I don't care actually. I wrote my piece. If you are intrested in my opinion you would have read it instead of thinking this "clever" 3 step program was worth anyone's time.
thinreaper I watched both channels up until where I was in the story. Both have interesting points and also points I disagree with. I still maintain that this game lacks a solid call to action. Let's be honest here between you an me and let's say you meet in the street a guy dying and getting insane and he tells you that they have an old family saying, would you embark on an adventure of the scale of Dark souls? Or would you, like me, call 911, get him medical attention and be on your way?
Big Boy Dan Cannon To be fair it wasn't so much an information source, but more a spark that caused him to think more in-depth about discovery in Dark Souls
Fantastic video man. Might be my favorite of yours so far and that's saying something.
+Joseph Anderson Thanks man, really appreciate it!
better than your dark souls video Joseph. That's for sure.
WHEN witcher 3 video :)?
I actually did miss out on The Great Hollow and The Ash Lake during my first playthrough because i didn't explore lower blighttown , i just wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible lol.
Great video, man! Can't wait to see more from you. I'm surprised you don't have more subscribers. Your videos seem far more professional and better edited than my own.
Good luck to you!
Thanks very much!
This is a really well made and put together video. Im glad I watched it. I wish you luck with popularity.
+TheGangster1505 Thanks very much! Really appreciate it :)
+thinreaper Oh yea, I subbed as well.
Amazing video, dude. You made an intense research for this video, your explanation about the Souls mechanics is clear.
I think the reward experience and the feeling after to beat a boss remains me why I love play videogames, this kind of videogames.
I will check your videos.
Thank you :D
That's why I love Miyazaki's games, they're designed to be compelling in every aspect. The lore, the level design, the gameplay, the difficulty curve, even just understanding the mechanics and how they work. Once you figure out how stat scaling works, for instance, you want to play the game again with certain weapons upgraded down a certain path and see how you fare.
What a delicious vid - great way to break the game down by looking at the discovery aspect of the title. There's something almost poetic about the first dark souls that I can't shake. Extremely well crafted and designed game - just like this video. Thanks
Very well said, sir! Couldn't agree more, the different discoveries you make throughout this game are fantastic.
Castlevania (2D) series is extremely satisfying when it comes to level discovery. Many indie game have followed it's example too. Similar to DS, the levels are either separated by high level enemies, or doors/obstacles that are not cheap
Metal Gear games are really fun, but their mechanical discovery makes them above any action stealth title. There are just so many things to "do" (interact with certain objects, using gadgets and weapons on yourself and the environment, learning the movement mechanics etc.) This was on of the main things the stuck with me in MGS3
Also want to add, the sense of discovery in Elder scrolls games is something awesome
+Hemang Chauhan Absolutely, the Metal Gear Solid series is one of the few examples I can think of that offers quite linear level design but has such depth in mechanics that the player has a huge array of freedom in how they navigate that linear space. Run past guards, hide in plain sight, distract them, stun them, engage them head on etc etc A lot of other games have it the other way round, shallow mechanics but freedom of choice in how you navigate the space, which is still great, but MGS definitely stands out for feeling different. Note - I haven't played the open world MGS V so I'm just referring to the previous ones.
Yes! More good game design videos! The editing is phenomenal for someone who only has a few videos. Amazing work, I'm glad to subscribe to this : D
Proper editing skills mate, cheers!
Excellent video, mate! This is the type of content I greatly enjoy, especially when discussing my favorite game. You gained a subscriber, and I would love to see more content like this.
One of the greatest games of the last decade. And this analysis is perfect.
Great job!
Very good video man! Dark Souls truly is a landmark game.
One thing you missed which I think is *huge* in Dark Souls is something which I guess comes under a mixture of narrative and content discovery - the bosses. The bosses are by and large so unique that the very prospect of a new boss can motivate players to continue, and finding a new boss is one of the most interesting and cool things in the Souls series. This is a massive part of why they're successful - good bosses hype you up for the other awesome bosses to come, and then it delivers on that with huge boss variety, mechanically and aesthetically. Because you have no idea what to expect, it's a large part of the discovery of the games, along with normal enemies to a lesser extent.
This is also related to mechanical discovery - discovering the new and interesting mechanics a boss may have that previous ones didn't. It's a pretty big deal.
One final, and I think *major* point, that you missed, is exclusivity. In the beginning you explain why discovery is cool, but I think one major unmentioned aspect of discovery and open-world experiences over more linear ones is the percieved exclusivity of the experience. Everyone loves to feel special, intelligent, and powerful (one of the reasons that the Souls games are some of the most *satisfying* games out there - the feeling of power and awesomeness you get from overcoming a boss makes you feel *amazing*), and like they're getting something nobody else is. Without going into the psychological and social reasons of this, suffice to say that if we feel we have something that other's don't, we feel good. Dark Souls capitalises on this, while also mitigating the downsides through the online element. By hiding things away cleverly, be they items, areas, enemies, whatever, they make the player feel special and smart for finding them, without making them feel stupid for missing them because they' won't realise they missed something. Think about the words we use - discover, explore. To discover or explore is to find something or somewhere new and unknown. What I mean by exclusivity in this sense is the feeling that when you find something hidden, you know there's people who didn't. *You* found that item - and a bunch of other people didn't. *You* found this area - there's a whole chunk of the game thats just for you, because you were smart enough to find it, and other people weren't. You feel special. This is very risky though, as you risk putting in important items or large areas of the game that go unappreciated by many - but the multiplayer element goes a long way to removing this potential downside by ensuring that players won't miss anything *too* important.
Great video though. I'll never get tired of people delving into why the Souls games are some of the best of all time.
What a huge comment has gone to waste. I agree with all the points you've mentioned. But sadly no answer from thinreaper.((
Sorry for not replying but I got a lot of comments on this video and it was hard to keep up with them all whilst working full time, I obviously missed this one so my apologies!
I agree with everything Migey11 says, I think you could write a book on the detailed aspects of how From Software maintain a sense of discovery throughout the game from start to finish, something very few games can achieve. I guess my reasoning for not including those two points in my video was because they kind of fall under the content and multiplayer aspects I already mentioned. They absolutely deserve to be discussed in their own right but I was keen to keep the video as tightly focused as possible and a lot shorter in length, so I tried to distil my ideas into the most concise examples possible and that meant a lot of aspects of the game design sadly got neglected :( It was a really interesting and insightful comment, sorry for the late reply!
Subscribed. You make some great points about the game that I hadn't considered, which is especially good given how talked to death DS is already! Looking forward to new stuff.
Great video, I always love in depth Dark Souls discussion. Keep up the awesome videos!
This was very interesting, and I'd like to see you do more of these.
Patrick Klepek sent me :) Great video! Makes me want to finally play that NG+ I've been putting off since I beat it originally last year.
Wonderful video. Subscribed and looking forward to more!
Fun fact: Miyazaki created the Souls series from an initial idea based on when he was a kid and read quite a few western fantasy novels like Lovecraft and others, but couldn't understand the whole story because he didn't know English all that well. So he had to piece the story together from what he did understand and used that as the basis for the lore of Demon's and later Dark Souls. I'm guessing the whole discovery thing ended pouring over into all the other parts of the games' design as well.
Fantastic video!
You make good videos...subscribed!
Great video. I keep thinking about how the narrative is presented in Dark Souls. In some ways it's really direct. There's the opening cut scene, talking to Crestfallen Warrior, ringing the bells of awakening, talking to Frampt, Getting the Lord Vessel, the bit with Gwynevere, Gwendolyn, ... Gwynn. The story has major events, the world changes, and it pushes the player forward. In a lot of ways the narrative is really indirect, the item descriptions, the multiple dialogues from the same character, dialogues that require specific triggers, etc. The Indirect narrative really strengthens the more direct narrative to the extent that events can have much richer significance to the player who has gone the indirect route. The more you explore the world, the more you get out of the narrative. The craziest thing is that you can either talk to Frampt or Kaathe, and talking to Kaathe totally changes how you interpret Frampt. The only thing I'm not too sure about is that killing npc's is necessary for lore. Who in their right mind wants to kill Hawkeye Gough??
Great video thinreaper!! I'm a simple man if i see a great video i like and subscribe.
I was so lost in the beginning of Dark Souls, but so into the game that I only found the path to the catacombs. Made it all the way to the fog door towards Nito before ever discovering the other options XD
if you wun awound in the awena :D
Great vid mate!
Great, objective points!
Great points! Thank you
Dark Souls is a fantastic and beautiful game in so many ways. I feel the whole series is very much about depression and not giving up amd showing how so many people will try to get you down and force you to give up and go hollow. Dark Souls on the other side if the coin is also a perfect example of that metroidvania feel and giving you freedom of exploration in a semi open environment 👌.
A few (mostly obscure) Dark Souls mechanics/bugs used and exploited by Good Veterans/Cheating PvPers: Reverse roll, Toggle Escape, Dead Angle, Weapon Move set Swap, Tumble Buff, Animation Cancel, Chain Back Stab, Kick into Combustion, Dead angle block, Turn Around Dragon Roar Stun, Infinite Souls/Humanity Glitch, Weapon Item storage share for other Characters and probably more. These are just some of the mechanics I have discovered after meeting some people, experiencing for myself going through the motions and studying on RUclips for the past 4 years.
Well spoken very Nice video.
Thats why the souls games are the
Best games
The more I think about Dark Souls, the more I realise the game is actually one giant 3D metroidvania.
Will you be doing more Game Design Theory like this?
+Shane O'Neil I've got a few ideas for future videos but I think In-depth Reviews are going to be my main focus because there's so many games I want to do videos on, but I will definitely try and do something a bit different every now and then if that's what people want!
The only game that made me strip naked for a jump was Morrowind. Dark Souls rivals Morrowind in exploration, the only game to do so actually. A unique world, rare artifacts and armor, less hand holdy design. That atmosphere! Dark Souls shows quite a few tricks in a genre where bethesda failed to innovate for more than a decade.
the only thing i discovered on dark souls is whether you're evil or good.
In the PS4X1 era, creating content is even more expensive and time-consuming than before.
It will be difficult for FROM to replicate the same quantity of content of DS1 to lend the feeling of scale and discovery.
This alone is why Dark souls one is far superior to its sequels, I didn't get the same with feeling of discovery with dark souls 2 and 3 was really hoping theyd add onto this type of level design in dark souls 3 and improve it even further, oh well.
I used the halberd in the catacombs. It would always make the skeletons fall apart for a few seconds. Enoigh time to kill them
Always find it funny when fans of Dark Souls see everything as a positive. Lack of narrative direction? That's a positive of course. The game give wrong information in item description (that ring heals you over time? Really?) of course that's a positive. Hell I even had a fan so fucking blinded by his love of the game he tried to explain why the framerate issues of blighttown was a positive!
Don't get me wrong, I started the game semi recently and have enjoyed the experience overall. But this is one of these situations where I'd love to have someone take an honest look at Dark Souls and analyze it's strengths AND failings.
+Jean-Francois Charbonneau There's always fans who are so passionate, they refuse to admit a game's faults. I bet the guy defending the Blighttown frame rate issues claimed it 'added to the experience' in some way right? Whatever makes people happy I guess! To be fair though, I personally don't think the game has a lack of narrative direction, I think it's actually very deliberately constructed to be the way it is and the end result is by design. I would also imagine the misleading item description is either down to a mistranslation during localisation OR changes made late to the game regarding the ring's function and the out-dated item description slipping through the net.
Dark Souls is by no means perfect though and if you're looking for a more honest and less gushing critique of the game I would highly, HIGHLY recommend two channels for you. Matthewmatosis and Joseph Anderson. They have both done fantastic, lengthy and thoroughly in-depth critiques of the game and go into great detail regarding the pros AND cons. They also share different views on certain aspects, such as the narrative. I have a feeling you'll lean more towards Joseph Anderson's interpretation ;) Check them out and thanks for watching!
thinreaper
You are right, this genius claimed it added to the experience and "exemplifies the struggle of playing this game". I translated that in my mind to "I can't accept any flaw in something I love and am willing to go out of my way to make excuses for the game".
As for the narrative, maybe I am not calling it right by saying narrative direction. I mean the game clearly has a direction, it doesn't give me one. Let me compare that to Fallout 3, New Vegas or Skyrim. (Let's avoid any Fallout 4 discussions for spoilers for those who haven't played it). All those games are high on exploration and let you do whatever you want in any order you want. Want to go north getting out of the tutorial town in New Vegas? Go ahead. You'll face "critters that only get mad if you shoot them in the head" (absolutely love that line) but it doesn't stop you from doing so. But they still all give me a personal reason for taking the first steps on my journey. Find your dad, find the guy who shot you in the head, find out about the dragons. None of them force me into it but my character obviously has a reason for doing so (even in Skyrim, being called by the Dragon people in the mountain).
Dark Souls doesn't give me a reason to care about taking my first steps. My "call to action" being given by a dying and about to go insane men talking about an old family saying. Other than that, I ring both bells because... that's what the game wants. And then I go to Sens Fortress because, that's the section that just got unlocked. And then I go to Anor Londo because the game takes me there. And then... well let me play a little bit more and I'll let you know. But I am hours into this game and it still doesn't really gives my character a reason to do anything other than "that's the game" if you understand what I mean. The fact that a lot of the world building is from item description is not something I am a huge fan of but I can accept that. The fact that the story doesn't make me care from the get go with at least something to go on is, in my mind, a big failing of the game.
I will use something I've learned from Todd Howard D.I.C.E. keynotes of Skyrim (which if you haven't seen this video, you should) where he explains the gameplay wheel (learning mechanics, getting comfortable, getting challenged, getting surprised) and then proceeds to explain how story fits into this. He says that story gives context for the players actions. This is what propels the player through the game and this is where I feel Dark Souls should learn something. By getting a different intro and/or a different discussion with the dying knight they could have easily gave me a reason to think "I want to do this" instead of "I feel like the game wants me to do this".
Anyway, this was a little bit longer than I expected to write. But I would like to thank you for your response, I will be looking at both channels and let me congratulate you on a well made video.
take care
+Jean-Francois Charbonneau
Step 1: Read item descriptions
Step 2: learn story
step 3: profit
TheShapesnatch
Oh look, someone who think they are clever. I only see a person who refuse to look at any flaw in their game but what do I know. I've only been playing videogames for 32 years after all.
Using item description for lore and world building is fine, clever even. But as I already wrote, this game has a weak as shit call to action, if you can even call it that. Maybe that's not something that bothers you which is fine. Or maybe you are one of those blind fanatics who can't accept that a game they live has any faults. In both cases I don't care actually. I wrote my piece. If you are intrested in my opinion you would have read it instead of thinking this "clever" 3 step program was worth anyone's time.
thinreaper
I watched both channels up until where I was in the story. Both have interesting points and also points I disagree with. I still maintain that this game lacks a solid call to action. Let's be honest here between you an me and let's say you meet in the street a guy dying and getting insane and he tells you that they have an old family saying, would you embark on an adventure of the scale of Dark souls? Or would you, like me, call 911, get him medical attention and be on your way?
I like your videos but referencing Extra Credit as any sort of a credible or informative source is laughable.
Big Boy Dan Cannon To be fair it wasn't so much an information source, but more a spark that caused him to think more in-depth about discovery in Dark Souls