hard to be a caveman (dark souls 2 first timer thread)

one of my favourite creature designs which appears in dark souls 2 and 3

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in another thread made me think about how some of the areas in DS2 must smell

No-Man’s Wharf is probably extremely musty and dank

Earthen Peak probably has some sulfuric aroma, no?

trying to imagine what Heide’s Tower or Drangleic Castle smell like. Majula and Heide’s might have that salty sea air, something a bit briny

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me and veronica were just talking about this last night but it was mostly naming a place and me making gagging noises

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its a very stinky series

god jeezus valley of defilement blighttown farron keep ugh

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dust and ozone

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I played a meaty session yesterday. It started off with me repeatedly blasting the troll man until he stopped respawning, leveling at least 10 times. I lit a couple of bonfires and started working my way through the forest. Is this how I should’ve been playing souls games all along? Everything feels very manageable right now and I’m mostly dying just from falling by accident. Will I ever get other spells? TBD, but I expect to be shooting ki blasts through this whole venture.

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need to come back to this later tn with no glare on the screen

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it looks kinda sick with the glare honestly. i love the sunset on that side of the forest of fallen giants. That level in general has one of my favorite IRL weather conditions, dark/rainy clouds dominating one part of the sky & bright sunlight dominating another. it casts a really eerie washed out light on everything

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probably mentioned this before but i appreciate how even text is fully legible on crt in these games. really appreciate fromsoft’s care in that, since i had only a crt for most of the ps3 gen

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I always think of long sword lounge as part of well village because the weather matches

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that makes sense i think its supposed to be closer by than most of the other places you go to from Maj-- from Well Village, since you can see the big statue from the shore where you meet the emerald herald. I mean its all fragmentary connections anyway but that makes as much sense as anything. Its also sort of a dead end branch off the Village other then traveling one way by GIANT BIRD

i just got to the One Weird Level connection everyone hates and it rules more than ever lol

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:smirk:

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What is Rosabeth of Melfia wearing today? post yr rosabeths

i gave her my starting traveler outfit + gavlaan helmet

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:cryingpig::stampstampstamp: :fu: :gotohell: Lost Sinner…I wasted some Human Effigies…kinda ruined my morning on an unexpected day off as of 8:30am. the real demon is always my impatience when it rears its head! got her down to one hit and…just got antsy and bored of the dirge of the dance and blew it and made my dog anxious vibrating with frustration and contempt and was like, “Yeah I’m done with this game. I don’t need this shit in my life right now!”

ran some errands and did some cleaning and come dinnertime thought, “I’ll go exploring.” found and talked to Cale and opened the mansion and killed the invader at the bell switch (don’t even want to think about the Gargoyles) and then decided to give Lost Sinner another go, shield up, turtle, wear the Red Eye Ring and draw her attention while Lucatiel whittles her down and hey it worked and I won and Lucatiel is alive. idk what that means going forward but it’s probably good (she got so owned every time we went into battle together otherwise (IF she didn’t fall off the walkway and die before even reaching the fog gate! (apparently Lost Sinner is tougher on vanilla and in SotFS you can light the arena without having to defeat the Gargoyles godammit)))

Polly pushes on

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posting to remind me to make a new grinch in ds2

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We call this place Well Village. Not too special, if you ask me. It’s just the place where everyone seems to end up.

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im always gonna wonder just how “open world” the original vision for DS2 was

my understanding is the extant levels were retroactively stitched together into the hub’n’spoke structure (which definitely explains why the interstitial areas are low-poly hallways where you ride an elevator or watch a huge door slowly open) but i cant tell from there how they would have fit into a world like the Lands Between

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the levels dont really feel stitched together to me like it feels way more like a fucked up kingdom than ds1 which was like castles and fortresses built on top of each other. i am also not sure what else they could have done besides the hub design that would make sense with what everyone in the game keeps saying

i mean i guess this is like the speculation that everyone on the internet does about it, the game had troubled development, was it incompetence or running out of time… but i personally prefer to take the level design at face value because its the most interesting option

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Fair, i definitely only think to look for those kinda seams cuz of what i know about the development (not rushing or incompetence imo, if it’s as much of a salvage job as rumored it’s a fucking impressive one). I mostly do see em in those interstitial areas. I like seeing the seams though! i like fingerprint smudges on a canvas

and both “this kingdom has rebuilt on itself many many times” and “your character’s memories of their journey fade & blend together cuz their brain is literally rotting” are compelling themes. whether they’re supported by the level design or paper over its cracks is kinda moot to me cuz the whole picture is improved either way

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I like that majula - heide’s tower is the same distance no matter what direction you are looking from even though the transition between the two areas is much smaller

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