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Loving this LP, actually got me to buy the game and try playing it myself after all these years. Gotta say it's frustrating how easy Vicas makes it look, nothing quite like losing thousands of souls to some baddie I just watched him breeze past effortlessly in a video. Especially that stray demon ... Christ. Keep up the good work is what I'm trying to say, this LP is a lot of fun to watch. 
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Apr 2, 2016 15:26
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Cerebral Bore posted:No, you can definitely still cheese him. However, it won't work unless he has his big tentacle out, and he won't take his big tentacle out unless you're all the way at the far end of his arena. So if you're not on your first attempt you have to run to the far end of the arena, lure him there and run back in order for the cheese to work. Good to know, I had a real shock when it didn't work because I've never not cheesed him and I had no idea how to actually fight him properly.
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Apr 2, 2016 16:58
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"cheesing" him is technically the intended way to fight him, to be honest, but we'll get to that when we get to that
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Apr 2, 2016 17:08
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OK that was weird, played for 6 hours last night, and didn't notice the time passing. Farmed a Divine Morningstar +5 and got myself 1-handing a Zweihander for funsies too. Also killed Oscar and a cool bro in the poison swamps.  I love everything about Dark Souls Skeletons. Their flying corkscrew attack into an abyss gets me every time.
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Apr 3, 2016 16:26
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Sorta makes me wish they were somehow immune from fall damage so that you'd have to deal with all of em at the bottom 
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Apr 3, 2016 17:14
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Interesting that skeletons are different from other Undead. They're not people under a curse to lose their humanity, they're more like...puppets.
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Apr 3, 2016 20:41
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Saw my first vagrant enemy today. I'd never even heard of these things before, which is weird considering all the videos and LPs of this I've watched. Game continues to surprise! I couldn't get the cheese on Ceaseless Discharge to work, but still managed to just lock him in a pattern near the fog door that I could kill him really easily. Just took quite a lot of estus.
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Apr 4, 2016 04:05
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Oddly enough, Geop's LP did in fact involve a Vagrant, a fact which makes me very happy
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Apr 4, 2016 04:39
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I saw two vagrants in one day back when DS1 had just been released, then never again. I didn't even know what they were called at the time, because I refused to look anything up online until I was done with at least one play-through.
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Apr 4, 2016 05:15
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I don't even remember the one from Geop's LP, though that was the first LP of DS I ever watched. Should probably rewatch it anyway now that I've actually played the game.
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Apr 4, 2016 15:08
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Koushirou posted:I don't even remember the one from Geop's LP, though that was the first LP of DS I ever watched. Should probably rewatch it anyway now that I've actually played the game. It was in the Duke's Archive somewhere
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Apr 4, 2016 15:17
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I have only ever seen a vagrant during my first playthrough, he was on the tower during the Taurus Demon fight and killed me before I even got a decent look at it. For a while I was uncertain that I had even actually really ever encountered the thing. I thought maybe I had dreamed or something.
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Apr 4, 2016 21:29
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Just a completely random thought, watching a different dark souls video. In the depths, when laurentius mentions "Her", maybe the person in question is Maneater Mildred. Butcher knife ? check. Sack hat? Check. Man...eater? Sounds like she eats people. The two butchers in the depths look and sound decidedly male.
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Apr 4, 2016 22:21
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That's a fairly common interpretation. But, the butchers themselves are so deformed and monstrous that they could be anything, really, and hollow-form female undead PCs have much deeper, more gravelly voice clips.
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Apr 5, 2016 03:25
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Frankly I thought that he was talking about Quelaag. I know she's at least two zones away, but she is the biggest "she" I know of down there and she looks like she eats people.
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Apr 5, 2016 07:31
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I'm pretty certain Laurentius is talking about another individual who Vicas has yet to encounter. It's someone who would be a pretty impressive person for a student of Pyromancy like him.
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Apr 5, 2016 12:34
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If I correctly understand the trigger that causes Laurentius to ask (possessing a Chaos Pyromancy), there are two ways to get them: Entering a covenant with The Fair Lady, and the not-yet-encountered merchant. Both are women, so his response is the same no matter what specific way you triggered the conversation. Now, a case could be made that the other included NPCs for that zone (Quelaag and Maneater Mildred) were made female by the designers in order to encourage fan theorycrafting and wonder. vvvv e: Ah, yes, sorry. They were referring to when he is rescued and says "I would have been her supper without you." while I was referring to when Vicas murders his only friend and says "I shall locate her myself." Magnetic North fucked around with this message at 15:20 on Apr 5, 2016 |
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Apr 5, 2016 13:52
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I think this conversation is mixing up Laurentius' multiple uses of female pronouns in this game
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Apr 5, 2016 15:04
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Also, I have a video to finish up this session! 30 - Pinwheel Not a great boss fight, but a really creepy fucker for sure
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Apr 6, 2016 03:13
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Pinwheel has great atmosphere, but unfortunately the general experience with him is to waltz in much later in the game than Vicas with an extra twenty levels and weapons that are nearly twice as powerful and hand him his rear end in under half a minute. I think they intended for people to visit the catacombs around the time Vicas does but between the first impression the graveyard gives and how much necromancer skeletons can ruin you if you don't know about holy weapons' effects on them, most people tend to do this part after the game gets a little more open-ended in its direction again. Although as someone who rolled a faith/strength build I do adore how this section is handled; all the clerics go in the graveyard so you chase after them for more miracles (since Petrus overcharges the bejeezus out of you), and since you're more likely to go earlier as a faith build the overtly faith-based weapon modification is a huge boon.
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Apr 6, 2016 03:21
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I like the ambiguity of what the gently caress Pinwheel is. It's got masks of a father, mother and child, the masks seem to talk to each other, and three pairs of arms, like it's three beings fused into one.
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Apr 6, 2016 04:00
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Speedball posted:I like the ambiguity of what the gently caress Pinwheel is. It's got masks of a father, mother and child, the masks seem to talk to each other, and three pairs of arms, like it's three beings fused into one. Well did you see Gravelord Nito? I like to think that Pinwheel is basically a smaller version of that.
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Apr 6, 2016 04:42
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Pinwheel is one of the most unsettling enemies in the game, I think. The boss arena with all the strung-up skeletons, the shape of him...and then there's the statues in the Catacombs. They come in two kinds. One wears the mask of the Father. The other wears the mask of the Mother, and has an image of the mask of the Child just about at womb level - from which it shoots spikes. Also, Pinwheel's theme is creepy as gently caress, and it's kind of a shame that between his low HP and the general noisiness of fighting, most people haven't actually heard much of it.
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Apr 6, 2016 05:33
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But now you have to make your way back up the Catacombs. And I'm pretty sure I've never, ever had to do that, so... this will be interesting.
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Apr 6, 2016 15:24
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Dark Souls is two for two on skelly-themed bosses being relatively merciful. Pinwheel is an awesomely creepy entity, with cool music and a bunch of little details which lend some intrigue to the Catacombs themselves. In Dark Souls 2, the Skeleton Lords boss, while less creepy, might be Fromsoft's sincere attempt at humor, with a lot of kooky little things going on, accompanied by music that sounds like it came straight from Halloween Town. But, they're both only tricky if you let yourself get overwhelmed. A calm approach with even moderately good equipment makes them a cakewalk. As to Pinwheel itself, this piece of fanart is one idea as to what's going on under there. The theorized story goes that he, or rather they, were a family of undead sorcerers, father, mother and child, attempting to resolve their curse using powers related to humanity and bonfires, but succeeded only in fusing themselves together. The corroborating evidence comes from the Firekeepers' Souls items -- masses of humanity fused together to form something which sustains the bonfire itself, and Pinwheel's connection to bonfires is quite apparent given it's possession of the Rite of Kindling. And here we are, invading Pinwheel's home, a place bearing it's familial iconography on all those statues, populated by subservient necromancers and their silent yet distinctly quirky skeletal constructs. Just like how maybe Quelaag would have eventually cured her sister's ills, maybe Pinwheel would have eventually found a way to reverse it's condition. But, we shall never know, lacking an option to (un)live and let live. Golbez posted:But now you have to make your way back up the Catacombs. And I'm pretty sure I've never, ever had to do that, so... this will be interesting. Actually not too bad. Take the route near where you find the Darkmoon Seance ring. Just after where you get the Tranquil Walk miracle, the hole drops you back into the room with the second necromancer. It's a short jog back to the first bonfire and the path up to Firelink...emerging from which is a memorably relieving moment, what with how the sunlight is framed as you trudge out of the cold, dark tombs.
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Apr 7, 2016 04:02
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I had been under the impression the fused body thing came from one of the official art books.
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Apr 7, 2016 14:47
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Huh, I was under the impression the Pinwheel Story TM was that the mother and child died and the father managed to steal some power from Nito, but because he was some crazy dude rather than a powerful sort of god-ish thing, he hosed up the attempt and half brought them back to life but weirdly fused together. Now he lives in a big pile of books, hoping one of them will help fix the problem.
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Apr 7, 2016 15:21
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As far as I'm aware, the fused-together family thing is all fan theory, though one that's particularly reasonable (as fan theories go, anyway). It is outright stated that Pinwheel stole power from Nito. Puntification posted:I had been under the impression the fused body thing came from one of the official art books. I, being an incredible sucker for that kind of merchandise, own all those, and I can't find anything like that in 'em. Mazed fucked around with this message at 19:07 on Apr 7, 2016 |
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Apr 7, 2016 19:05
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Mazed posted:As far as I'm aware, the fused-together family thing is all fan theory, though one that's particularly reasonable (as fan theories go, anyway). If I had more disposable income right now they'd be on my shelves too, the design is so good in these games I wouldn't regret it either. It's a thing that sounds right so I didn't bother checking tbh. I've always assumed it's practically a given the stolen power is the rite of kindling, which suggests the church/the way of white are encouraging undead clerics to seek out nito.
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Apr 7, 2016 20:21
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Eyyy I recorded a new session 31 - Sneeple! Bit of a long one today because I wanted to conclude our long national swamp-snake-demon nightmare
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Apr 10, 2016 01:42
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The sneeple sorcerers do magic damage, despite the apparent lightning effects. Vamos' line about New Londo is probably a remnant of an earlier build, because the ember that's there isn't for him. Vamos and Pinwheel are the keys to an early-game cheese strategy, where you do a Benny Hill impression through the Catacombs, grab the Great Scythe, summon an NPC for Pinwheel (yes, they gave you a summon for that fight), homeward bone back to the bonfire, give yourself just enough str/dex to wield the GS, drop back down to Vamos (picking up that green shard), then buy enough titanite shards to get the GS to +5 and make it fire. The GS has very good base damage and is a good candidate for elemental ascension, although in the long run a pure phys dex build will get the most damage out of it.
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Apr 10, 2016 05:39
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I think that Vamos' voice sounding so fuzzy is because he isn't talking, but rather it's the metal scales of the beard vibrating to make sound. The beard's a lovely metal speaker.
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Apr 10, 2016 06:16
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Sen's Fortress is the love letter to D&D nerds. It's a pure distillation of a Gygaxian hellhole filled with things that unabashedly gently caress you for the sake of loving you, but it's backed by some phenomenal stage design in addition to audio design that not only enhances the atmosphere, but can clue you in to what's coming. It's a playground of dungeon crawl cliches that just works. That said, the stuff in the tar pit at the beginning is sort of a huge sucker's trap, best saved for late game when you actually have something that uses Demon Titanite and you can just mow through those guys to get it. Alas for the antisocial El Vámonos, I usually end up killing that guy because he drops a singularly unique helmet and fire/chaos weapons are overrated.  But, his whole appearance and workshop setup is pretty hilarious, including the cutscene which makes you think you're in for a boss fight inside that tiny little corridor which may or may not include several skellies behind you.
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Apr 10, 2016 20:43
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The first time I saw Dark Souls being streamed, the player was in Sen's Fortress and my eyes bugged out a little bit at the swinging blades. I eventually decided that they must be an art installation. Sen's Gallery.
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Apr 10, 2016 23:04
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One thing that always upset me about Sen's Fortress was that I don't think you ever learn anything about it or who the hell Sen was. I would have figured in a game like this, you'd get some flavor text or lore that mentions something about the place.
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Apr 10, 2016 23:27
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ousire posted:One thing that always upset me about Sen's Fortress was that I don't think you ever learn anything about it or who the hell Sen was. I would have figured in a game like this, you'd get some flavor text or lore that mentions something about the place. One theory I've seen is that "Sen" actually means "thousand," and the name should be translated more like "Fortress of a Thousand [Traps]".
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Apr 11, 2016 00:26
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Fortress of a thousand Sneeple.
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Apr 11, 2016 00:29
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ousire posted:One thing that always upset me about Sen's Fortress was that I don't think you ever learn anything about it or who the hell Sen was. I would have figured in a game like this, you'd get some flavor text or lore that mentions something about the place. I think it's a reference to some obscure Japanese legend, actually.
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Apr 11, 2016 00:37
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I've been playing dark souls 2 and holy poo poo, I think I'd rather do blight town twice than do the gutter again. I lit all the sconces and the dark spirit bugged out on me and I couldn't get the sweet looking witch gear  Also I realize kind of the whole point of the area is to light the torches but some of the ladders are really hard to see. I spent like half an hour running around with no clue where to go until I realized there was a ladder behind a dog dude I killed. To add something to the topic, Sen's Fortress is really great but does kinda pull a dick move with the bonfire. The entire zone you're like "great, what next" after all the spikes, axes, rolling balls, and then finally giant explosions 
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Apr 11, 2016 02:13
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Mazed posted:Sen's Fortress is the love letter to D&D nerds. It's a pure distillation of a Gygaxian hellhole filled with things that unabashedly gently caress you for the sake of loving you, but it's backed by some phenomenal stage design in addition to audio design that not only enhances the atmosphere, but can clue you in to what's coming. It's a playground of dungeon crawl cliches that just works. Okay, that sounds like a Souls game location name. "Gygaxian Hellhole." I like it. Just as good as Hyperbogean Gaol.
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Apr 11, 2016 07:40
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