Games you are playing

[Reynard-Miri]

Weird... Maybe they're actually polymorphed humans? Not that that would count either if you didn't know.

[Curry-Kohai]

Maybe it wasn't in the rat, but the humanity was was in YOU the whole time!

*queue henshin theme*

[Kimiko]

Finally collected all the legendaries as well in my gardens. And made it to level 57 for the gold trophy. Now I just need two more minor trophies to be done with SunFlowers.

[PLA]

[Benkyo]

I had someone invade for the first time yesterday. After a bit of panicky dithering I realised they were just goofing around and following me about. He dropped ~13 humanity when I was about to die from poisoning, later dropped a black halberd that I won't be able to use for the next month or so then eventually committed suicide off a cliff.

Is that sort of thing a common occurrence?

[Reynard-Miri]

I suddenly realized I have no idea what we're talking about.

[PLA]

[Benkyo]

[Curry-Kohai]

The secret is...

[PLA]

Yeah, Drake Sword. It's almost as hardhitting as my Black Knight Greatsword (currently, but that one scales), but doesn't require dashing attacks to not leave me open forever. I also killed the dragon with my bow. The bow does scale, though.

I got an article in my feed right now mentioning Dark Souls' harsh penalties for dying, and it just isn't true. Most games reject everything you do between the last save and dying. Dark Souls allows you to keep the vast majority of everything. You only take a hit to the wallet. And the game even gives you one chance to get that back.
It sends you back to the last area where you're so safe that even if you somehow managed to kill yourself, you'd automatically get your souls back unless you refused.

Rushing head first, opening shortcuts and grabbing everything you want works perfectly. If you die, you get a free ride back.

Edit: There's never a risk in running away from something that could catch up. Even if it does, you'll drop your wallet a little closer to home.

[Benkyo]

While everything you say is true I think whatever you lose when you die is beside the point. I agree it's pretty generous with your deaths (having said that I have a bloodstain in New Lordran(?) that I am certainly not going back for!).

Where it seems to differ from most RPGs for me so far are:

Free-form exploration, so it (sometimes) gives you hints as to where is dangerous but it lets you go there anyway. This is awesome, amazing, it massively helps immersion and should be standard practice but never is. This wouldn't work so well if it had a punishing death mechanic.

Death mechanic that totally eliminates the need for quick saves. Better implementation than most games that try this.

Levelling up isn't really that important. At least for everywhere I've explored so far I could have got to at my starting level. Player skill and ingenuity trumping the level grind is awesome and should be done more often. Only a few games I know of that don't have levelling at all are similarly awesome. Nothing else with RPG-style levelling comes to mind.

Atmosphere and architecture. So much better than 99% of the crap out there. Really helps immersion.

Nicely integrated online aspect to a single-player game. This is the way I like it. Don't make MMOs, but let me see the footprints of others, it's great.

So yeah, all the above and someone is writing about death being punishing in Dark Souls? Daft. He/she should go play some roguelikes =)

[PLA]

^ Indeed. The online-stuff is pretty cool, though it does kick me back to the title-screen if my connection messes up.

[Trifkin]

I played Amnesia tonight. I didn't feel NEARLY as scared as I thought I would considering that my roommate, who plays Resident Evil and Silent Hill games like they're fucking Animal Crossing or something, is completely terrified of this game. :/

[PLA]

^ Scary games are mostly frustrating to me. Come out so I can beat you up! What do you mean, I "can't"?

[Benkyo]