Dark Souls Dev Apologizes for Technical Difficulties

[NamesAreHardToPick]

Actually, in truth, I'd just like more viability for scaling weapons. The Iaito+15 was brilliant, but once you've maxed Dexterity, and put some points into endurance and vitality, someone else has a +5 Lightning Iaito, maxed vitality and endurance, a maxed out Pyromancy Flame and can easily beat you into a bloody pulp. And when you finally match them for health and stamina, you are too high a level to actually fight them.

In Demon's Souls the scaling weapons would benefit from Cursed Weapon while elemental ones were out of luck. The Dark Souls drain-health-for-more-damage spell is a character enchantment and boosts your damage no matter what you're swinging, and also a pyromancy... the net result is that the best base damage and damage-boosting effects both come without any kind of stat commitment beyond the very basics. My first character was a Vit/End build and I never felt like it was a bad idea.

I'm still plodding along with a wizard to see how an INT-build character works out.

 

[newwiseman]

There where problems so bad a Dev apologized?

The only thing that requires an apology is not releasing the game on PC. Why don't they want my money?

Many developers don't release on PC so it's harder to pirate the game and people have to buy a legal version.
They don't release on PC because they like money.

So because they don't want to see their PC sales fall victim to piracy they decide to turn down all PC revenue. That's a good plan you have there.

I've seen that argument made a lot but there is not one single published study showing that releasing on PC hurt total sales (this is mostly due to digital sales not being made public), while it is certain that the console sales go down there is no evidence that those sales don't just migrate to PC, in spite of Piracy (piracy exists on consoles too, though in lower numbers). When steam was made available in Russia everyone is the industry said that piracy would kill it there but Russia has instead become one of their largest markets.

The only valid reason not to do a PC release is the added cost of development needed to make the game compatible with PC, it can be very expensive and time consuming sorting out hardware compatibility and driver issues for even the most popular video cards. This is unfortunate but there is no way around it.

There has also been an argument made for publishing costs but considering that digital distribution makes it no longer necessary to actually sale a physical disc the actual costs become extremely minimal.

It also shouldn't be overlooked that many modern PC games (especially steam releases) can't be resold. Considering publishers see the sale of used games as bad as piracy this is appealing.

At the end of the day the only thing a studio or publisher needs to ask is will the sales out way the costs, in this case the sales on PC out way cost of porting it and the added dev time to make it stable. There is no doubt in my mind that this game will sale, piracy or not.

Here is Mr. Valve on the issue here [http://gamingbolt.com/gabe-newell-piracy-is-a-non-issue-to-valve-providing-better-services-will-result-in-more-sales]

For added argument against piracy here is a study showing that piracy helps anime DVD sales here [http://www.osnews.com/story/24376/Piracy_Increases_Anime_DVD_Sales_Study_Concludes/]

I'll reiterate, why don't they want my money?

 

[Jfswift]

I'd like to see more pvp like with demons souls but im up for another.

 

[The Pinray]

He's kidding right? At least your game was done when you released it. Go on and make another!

 

[Nurb]

And I'm sorry you don't want my money
-PC gamer

 

[malestrithe]

bring this game to PC, and then we will "talk" about this petty thing called "forgiveness"

Don't beg for this game or any other. Be like your forefathers and show some pride in your gaming experiences. You should be above the petty console games. To them, a game only existed if it was on PC and nothing else.

Instead, you are acting below the vaulted pedestal your forefathers created for yourselves.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

bring this game to PC, and then we will "talk" about this petty thing called "forgiveness"

Don't beg for this game or any other. Be like your forefathers and show some pride in your gaming experiences. You should be above the petty console games. To them, a game only existed if it was on PC and nothing else.

Instead, you are acting below the vaulted pedestal your forefathers created for yourselves.

i truly hope that was sarcasm...

attracting this dev to pc with open arms would be more than beneficial for the whole community, overall demon/dark souls are amazing games that would fit amazing in the pc community, due to it's length/difficulty/and rpg depth. not to mention it would be amazing to see what the modding community could do with the game(s)

 

[Denamic]

The game has some pretty serious framerate issues on the PS3.
In blighttown, the framerate can dip below 5 FPS.
But I enjoy the game so much that I don't even care.
As for the lag, that's because the online matchmaking is global and make zero distinction between regions.
It can just as easily connect you with some guy on the other side of the planet as it could connect you to your neighbour.
It's hit or miss.
I'd like it to ping players and make low ping connections a higher priority.

 

[Simonoly]

I bought Dark Souls yesterday. I thought I'd give myself more time, since I only beat Demon's Souls in October. But every game I've been playing lately just feels so easy (mostly because they are games that I've played over and over and just know how to properly build my character and use my abilities). I don't know when I'll actually start it, but it'll probably be sometime before Mass Effect 3 comes out.

I bought it on PS3 because I heard the 360 version has some bad lag. Is that an issue on the PS3 as well? Anyway, it's refreshing to see some humility. Though it makes me feel a little bad when it comes from a developer with such a pristine record. These guys care about their work.

I've witnessed a bit of lag during online co-op and pvp, on both the PS3 and 360 versions. It's only really an issue during pvp when people 'teleport' behind you for a backstab (there will be screaming!). From what I have experienced there is little to no difference between the two versions. It's nice to see total consistency in a game between two systems.

There is worse lag on the 360 copy for some users. I've seen a player have no lag like the PS3 version and I've seen a player have some pretty bad lag.

It's possible that the person who had no lag on his 360 copy simply had a better internet connection than the guy who had bad lag. I'm sure if you took a group of people playing Dark Souls on the PS3 there would be varying degrees of lag between them too. Any lag experienced is most likely down to speed of connection and available bandwidth and It doesn't appear to be console specific.

 

[Souplex]

There where problems so bad a Dev apologized?

The only thing that requires an apology is not releasing the game on PC. Why don't they want my money?

Many developers don't release on PC so it's harder to pirate the game and people have to buy a legal version.
They don't release on PC because they like money.

So because they don't want to see their PC sales fall victim to piracy they decide to turn down all PC revenue. That's a good plan you have there.

No, because they don't want their total sales.
There are still a good number of people who have gaming quality PCs and consoles. If those people had the option to pirate a game instead of buying the console version, they would.

 

[newwiseman]

There where problems so bad a Dev apologized?

The only thing that requires an apology is not releasing the game on PC. Why don't they want my money?

Many developers don't release on PC so it's harder to pirate the game and people have to buy a legal version.
They don't release on PC because they like money.

So because they don't want to see their PC sales fall victim to piracy they decide to turn down all PC revenue. That's a good plan you have there.

No, because they don't want their total sales.
There are still a good number of people who have gaming quality PCs and consoles. If those people had the option to pirate a game instead of buying the console version, they would.

Name one study that can show any correlation between there being a PC version and a decrease in total sales. Yes console sales go down but there is zero evidence that total sales go down, every partial study I've every seen actually shows total average sales go up. (It's difficult to get large samples of accurate numbers given the number of releases that don't have their digital sales figure released, it's unfortunate but production companies don't like being transparent)

One commenter mention how Ubisoft has stopped production of PC games if they don't believe they'll make $500,000 on that particular version release. Ubisoft's position is even if total sales stay the same they want the PC to be able to pull in at least that much in revenue to cover the added dev time, is sad but justified. Then again Ubisoft uses some awful DRM that undoubtedly encourages piracy of their games...

I'll add; you can pirate every single game in the steam store, how is it making money in Russia were piracy was supposed to make it die before it got started?

The piracy boogeyman is a BS excuse with no evidence to support it.