GameSpot: Dark Souls Q&A

GameSpot speaks to development director Hidetaka Miyazaki about why hard games are OK and how Dark Souls is a lot like real life.

[LiVe_From_NYC]

Hopefully Dark Souls stays true to it's roots...

[EvilC]

Congratz Xbox players.

Day one buy for me I really loved demon souls very hard but very very rewarding amazing graphics amazing gameplay

[specialguest]

This game will be contender for RPG of the Year 2011. There will be massive competition from Sykrim and ME3 though.

[TheDivine]

This could well be goty if its anything like demons souls. It looks even bigger badder and better. The preview with that big dead hand and huge bosses was amazing. Cant wait for this.

[Thoreau]

i did not think demonssouls was hard after you got past the phalanx in boletaria and picked up the cling ring. i doubt dark souls will be hard if you use a bit of logic and common sense.

[Korix]

Of course it was hard. Now you're just kidding yourself.
No matter who you are, you would have died countless of times.
Losing in a game - losing very often - is not what makes an easy, or medium difficulty game.

[Thoreau]

hard for you.

southpaw79-psn

i crushed demonssouls. the only part that got me was when i was too greedy farming souls and i kept losing all the souls i had farmed on stormlord stage farming reapers and the spirits they create. i also kept killing myself in human form by farming the stone of epheramal eyes to make the world tendency black to get maximum souls. my greed got me, not the game

[Korix]

Extremely annoyed to see that they insist on making co-op bothersome for the user.
They KNOW the user is gonna play co-op with his friends, and yet they are determined not to enable voice chat or easier co-op play with friends.
They make the features, but make sure it's gonna be as bothersome as possible for the user.
In Demons Souls, people had to put up signs and HOPE their friends could see it, and HOPE they got to it before random people got to it.
Further more, you HAD to use a computer with something like skype, to talk to your friends.
And what do they do when asked about these features?
They completely ignore the fanbase.
The dev says it's a dark game world. A world without friends or help. But guess what, it's a GAME. IRL we DO have friends, and we ARE gonna be playing with them. Only thing they are doing, is making it harder to play together.
This is SO typical for japanese developers - thinking their ways are flawless, and that any legitimate criticism from the user is utter bs.

[TheDivine]

Voice chat would ruin this game. It would ruin co-op knowing who people are also. It adds to the panic when some badass you dont know invades your world. With people helping you dont even need to talk, you go kill shit. Imagine if a big scary player with awesome armor invades you and then his voice is like mike tyson, not fun, not scary. Besides you can tell friends where to go to get summoned anyways. Its a pain because its more fun to take a chance really get involved with random gamers. This one dude with a massive lance helpd me out bigtime, murdered everything and ive helped random peeps a bunch, idk i think its better without that stuff.

[AKS]

Then find another game that you like instead. The randomness of the online encounters in Demon's Souls were part of what made it such an incredible experience. It wasn't supposed to be a game where you could easily team up with your buddies in a squad. I can only imagine how much that would have thrown off the balance of the invasions. You were supposed to feel isolated and feel like there's a constant danger that you could be invaded by a random black phantom. The isolation was party of the storyline.

It's hilarious that you consider your voice to represent the fanbase of Demon's Souls based on the things you are saying. Go buddy up with your pals in Halo. The "Souls" games offer a unique experience I do not want to see ruined.

[Schade]

One of the major reasons for the popularity of the original DS was the innovative way it incorporated the soul system and messaging. It added to the environment and feel of the game in a unique way. The game was challenging and did not give away anything other than what you could discern from the environment and the cryptic messages left by others. For those of us who finished it there was a great sense of satisfaction in doing so within the constraints the developer gave us.

I am not saying you should have liked it for that Korix. But I am saying that there currently are, and will be plenty more co-op games in the future that stick to the "safe" formula you are demanding.

I think I speak for he rest of us who like the rare developer who dares to try new things when I say, I don't think the original DS or Dark Souls is the game for you Korix.

[Korix]

Saying I want voice chat doesn't mean I want everyone to run around with their mic's turned on. Yes, that would ruin the experience. But where did I say I wanted that? I didn't.
If I want to play with a real life buddy of mine, I can. But it's such a hassle. Sure I play with random people, but when I want to play with a friend of mine, why can't I have the OPTION to do so (in a quick and easy way)? How does this in any way hurt your experience of the game - me being able to hook up easily with a friend? It only makes the game better for some people, while leaving the game intact for others, who doesn't use the "friend finder" features that I'm talking about. Where's the con's? I don't see any. Only pro's for some people.
And voice chat; If i want to play with a friend of mine, AND talk to him, how does that hurt your game experience?
This could be a selective feature. One where you could choose to engage in a voice chat with someone in your PSN friend list.
Again, this doesn't in the slightest way affect your game experience. It only makes it easier for people who want to talk to each other, instead of using skype on a computer, as I'm doing with DS already.
And why would you disagree to my idea? making very simple features, that would only affect people who actively pursue them?
Only pro's. No con's. I don't get the disagrees.

[Schade]

Read the article Korix. The developer tells you exactly why it affects the game experience to have in game voice for anyone.

Just an excerpt for you...

"There are lots of games out there that allow people to play multiplayer or play with friends or voice chat, but that's not what we're trying to provide the user. I understand people may want multiplayer mode or people may want voice chat. But for this game, because we are trying to achieve an original sort of game standard, we have deliberately not put in any voice chat. And, again, the network system is not to support multiple people at the same time but to enhance the single-player mode."

I go back to my original statement... I dare say that this game just might not be for you.

[AKS]

Have you actually played Demon's Souls? I'm assuming you have given you're making these demands for major changes. But if so, I'm puzzled as to how you are failing to see how voice chat wouldn't completely wreck the invasion system. When I invade, I might already be facing an opponent with significantly more health plus 2 blue phantoms that are as powerful as I am. And you want everyone to be able to coordinate with voice chat as well? How is that not completely destroying the balance? That WOULD impact others, and by quite a bit. It also decreases the difficulty, which I don't want. Sure, people like you will Skype your way around it to try to get an unfair advantage, but there's always going to be someone doing that. That doesn't mean I want an in-game feature encouraging it. I'm glad the developer is ignoring you and is listening to the Demon's Souls fans that loved it and spread the word to help it become a successful game.

[Tex117]

Im so glad your opinion was not heard by the developer.

I'm willing alot of Demon's Souls players feel the same way as well.

Demon's Souls wanted you to feel alone and not be able to access your "friend" list.

They were able to make a multi-player online experience a cold and almost desperate attempt at grasping for help. Brilliant.

[jessupj]

I'm very pleased the game is going to be just as hard, if not a little bit harder. Honestly that's what made the game fun and epic. Imagine Demon's Souls without the fear of being killed in 2 hits? I think that's why it was so popular (to the developers surprise) because in a sea of dead easy games that are catered to the casuals there was one game that stood out, that gave us hardcore what we've being pinning for... a game that really gave us a challenge that didn't need to use cheap tricks.

[Tex117]

The developers are sure saying the right things to make me drool.

Interesting when they talked about the health feature.

"Hardcore gamers, this will make it more hard, casual gamers it will be more accessible"

This game CANNOT come soon enough.

This is my most anticipated game of the year, and that is saying alot this year.