'Dark Souls' Announced for PC – 'Demon's Souls' Goes Offline

[TheDickWard]

PC gamers get 'Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition' on August 24th

[insert meme denoting much happiness]

http://www.joystiq.com/2012/04/11/da...ins-august-24/ - Dark Souls for PC

http://www.joystiq.com/2012/04/11/de...ine-on-may-31/ - Demon's Souls Offline

[Godstar]

I wonder if there is someone out there that wouldn't mind sharing their weapons with me before the end so I can get the trophies.

[Jerec]

Yeah I can probably help, what do you need and what SL are you?

[Godstar]

130-140'ish and probably some of the crafted weapons, and a handful of the drop weapons.

[rm082e]

General note - you can still Platinum Demon's Souls offline. You'll be missing the social aspect, but online is not required to Platinum the game.

[Godstar]

General note - you can still Platinum Demon's Souls offline. You'll be missing the social aspect, but online is not required to Platinum the game.

Oh I know, I just figured I'd knock a big chunk of the more grindy multi-playthrough stuff by just borrowing the weapons.

[Favelle]

http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/04/17/da...d-giant-giant/

The monsters in Dark Souls can get very big. The man-sized denizens that inhabit the RPG’s castles and caves are enough of a threat, but it’s the bosses that are really going to mess us up. The PC version will come with a few extra ones, because Namco Bandai know that we PC gamers can take it.

Spoiler:

[michealo]

those images from the dreamcast port?
i kid! i kid!

[Blinx123]

I certainly wouldn't mind getting some help on my adventures.
Last I played Demon's Souls, I was stuck in between two worlds. I remember I was unable to finish of the giant spider boss in one world and not making any progress in that one prison world.

[Tnecniv]

Shaping up to be a rather disappointing, lackluster port:
http://www.dsogaming.com/news/namco-...cked-on-30fps/

A while back, we wrote an editorial about the features that should be included in the PC version of Dark Souls. These features were important – in our opinion – and it seems that Dark Souls PC won’t support any of them. Not only that, but the game is said to be locked on 30fps. Wait what? A third person game that is a pain in the a**, where movement is essential, and will be locked on 30fps?
That was revealed in Famitsu’s interview with Miyazaki. As Miyazaki said, the PC version would be identical with the console versions. A straight port with no change in resolution and he specifically says not to expect 60fps. Oh, and don’t expect any kind of optimizations for the PC. As Miyazaki said:

“Yes, It’s basically a faithful port. There’s no change to the resolution.
The frame rate won’t be 60 FPS.”

We don’t know whether or not Miyazaki is aware of the PC hardware and its capabilities. If he’s not, then the framerate won’t be locked. If he is, which seems to be the case here, then the framerate will be locked indeed on 30fps. Bad move Namco and From Software. Really bad move.
UPDATE:
Since there is one hell of confusion about it, Miyazaki was obviously reffering to the game’s assets when he was talking about the resolution. Sure, Dark Souls PC might not support all kinds of aspect ratios, but you’ll be a fool to think that it will be simply locked to a 1280×720 resolution. No, it will have a nice choice of resolutions, that’s for sure. The game even uses GFWL which means that it HAS to support resolutions up to 1080p. Common sense is common sense. However, the game’s textures will remain the same (aka, same resolution as the console versions, which translates to no HD textures). Our biggest gripe is with the 30fps lock. Let’s not forget that we informed you about this awful lock that was present in NFS: The Run, The Force Unleashed 2 and L.A. Noire. And that is that.

Eh, unless some new news emerge, I will likely pass, and just pick up 360 or PS3 version for dirt cheap.

[Favelle]

Definite pass on this one...

[MA16v3]

Definite pass on this one...

You're missing out. Regardless, it's a damn good game.

[Tnecniv]

Not sounding promising at all:
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...-issues-remain

Dark Souls developer From Software is having a torrid time getting its beloved action RPG up and running on PC and has confirmed it isn't including any optimisations for desktop gamers.

Producer Daisuke Uchiyama told Eurogamer that it had underestimated how tough it would be to port the game across.

"To be completely honest, we're having a tough time doing it due to our lack of experience and knowledge in terms of porting to PC. First we thought it would be a breeze, but it's turned out not to be the case. We're still developing right now - we're crunching right now.

"In Japan there's not much of a PC market and we haven't really taken into consideration that audience before. That's one of the reasons why we haven't been able to step up on the PC platform until now."

Uchiyama went on to confirm that it hasn't fixed the frame rate problems that had hobbled certain parts of the game on consoles.

"In terms of the frame rate for say, Blighttown, From Software sincerely apologises for that happening [in the console version]," he said.

"In terms of the PC version, the quick answer is no, [we won't be fixing the frame rate problems]. Because we wanted to get the PC version out as soon as possible, it's more strictly a port from the console version. We haven't been able to step up into doing any specific optimisation for PC.

WTF, no thanks, lol. They shouldn't even have bothered with a PC port. The game is still pretty good, I guess I'll just be getting it for 360 or PS3. But I wish they weren't in such a rush to port it over. I'd happily wait an extra year or however long it took for them to release a proper port but that's just me.

[Bane]

It's pretty shitty to "sincerely apologize" for a problem, and then not fix it when given the opportunity.

[Tnecniv]

Eurogamer preview. Doesn't sound nearly as bad as I thought it would.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...devils-bargain

To cut to the chase, the frame-rate on consoles has always been a major area of complaint among Dark Souls fans, and the notorious Blight Town or New Londo Ruins areas are usually singled out as the big offenders. The implication of a PC release is obviously that all these problems can be tackled by the brute force of a faster CPU, and though there are very light hitches here and there, it's a relief to say Blight Town now plays without all the constant chugging. The improvement is staggering to those that endured the treacle-like pace of the area on PS3 and 360, already making this version a winning proposition.

There is bad news which could hit PC gamers pretty hit hard, though. While the frame-rate's rough edges have been filed down, you're still going to be playing at 30FPS out of the box, as widely rumoured. A graphics menu has been added in, but there are no obvious ways to raise the bar to the preferable 60FPS mark. In fact, options are pretty meagre overall on this front; you have the standard resolution and refresh rate settings (it does nothing to solve this), and also check-boxes to remove aliasing or motion blur. Barebones and to the point.

There's also something curious about the resolution too in that there's no change in clarity when attempting to crank up the settings. On close inspection, it appears that Dark Souls PC uses the very same 1024x720 internal framebuffer as the console versions, regardless of which resolution has been set in the menus. The option provided is for output resolution only; a simple courtesy to allow the game to play on most monitors, but the image quality will always remain the same. In short, PC gamers will very much be getting the genuine console experience here, right down to the pixel.

From Software has admitted in advance that there have been technical issues, but this is still quite surprising. This lower resolution doesn't bring out the fantastic visual design going into the game, where we'd hoped a PC version would take it to new heights. It's quite likely this will draw the ire of PC gamers expecting the premium experience. That is, until an official patch or heroic modder comes to the rescue.

This shouldn't detract from the merits of the extra content, of course, which does appear to be fresh and distinguished enough from what we've seen before to make it worthwhile for a fan of the series. Due to the smoother, if limited, frame-rate, the PC version is also looking to be the definitive way to play the game, especially for those planning to jump in for the first time on August 24th.

Hopefully From Software continue to support and work on the game post launch and release a nice high res texture, high framerate patch or something, if not, then hopefully the mod community can work something out. Either way, it's nice to hear they have the framerate under control and that there's at least an anti aliasing option. Might pick this up on PC after all...just not right away, gonna wait for one of those magical backlog building discounts.

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