If anyone is thinking of getting this then please save your money or read the forums on Steam first. It is just about the worst port I have ever seen. It looks and plays like it is being run under a bad Xbox 360 emulator. I had it on the PS3 - it accidentally emigrated to New Zealand with my friend so I thought I would buy the PC version. Bad mistake!! I uninstalled it and I am currently pleading with Valve to give me a refund or let me buy something else instead!
Jedra if it's any consolation I've read this little fix helps out: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=488240 I think from the outset From Software have stated it's going to be a straight port so it was never going to live up to our standards, but I think it was great of them to do it anyway as a reaction to the big petition for it. I haven't bought it yet but am thinking about it since I missed out on the console version, mainly because I wasn't very keen playing it on a console anyway.
Orca - thanks for the link. Yes I had the pack installed which goes some way to resolve the resolution issue (albeit with the patch the messages left by other players do not render). Other problems are that the game is only really any good when played with a controller. Unfortunately it does not work well if you have more than one Joystick installed (you cannot choose which one to use). My wireless 360 controller is not recognised by the game as it is expecting me to use the G940 I have installed. Simply unplugging the G940 is not enough - apparently you have to unistall the drivers as well!! I have played the PS3 version and to be honest if you have a console you may as well play it on that as the PC version offers nothing new and is twice as expensive (PS3 version is now £15 at Amazon). I know the fans asked for this port, but to be honest they should not have bothered if they were going to make a half arsed job of it and then charge a full AAA price for it!
Been playing around with this a bit last night. Did the little 1080 fix, certainly made the game quite pretty. I've also been playing with my PS3 controller and having no issues. Well, PS3 controllers and Windows don't play nice at first but that's not the game's fault (Sony, drivers please?). 360 controllers should be plug and play. I also haven't run into any of the technical issues like Joe mentioned in his preview, but that could just be luck, a friend I was playing with had a couple seemingly random framerate problems at first. The PC version actually does offer something new, a few new zones and bosses. It's also a good $20 less than a AAA game, at least on US prices. The additional content will eventually be added to consoles, though I don't know what to expect as a cost. As a big fan of the game I'm glad to basically have my same console game... on my PC, with some new stuff, enhanced pretties, and what seems to be improved networking (though time will tell).
This game is a console port in the purest sense....as in, it was never intended to be a released on the PC. As someone above stated, I admire FROM for acknowledging that the graphics and fps would not nearly be up to PC standards. That being said, download the f_#@n patch and have fun with it....still the best game I've played in the past 3 years. The new content is great. Did anyone have problems summoning? I played for a few hours last night and saw summon signs everywhere but only got about half of them to work. I really hope we're not seeing a re-hash of the matchmaking problems present when the game released on console.
That sure is the truth. Supposedly it was all stuff that was already largely developed but I have a hard time buying it, it all feels pretty new and unique. Not a single enemy was reused, and the zones all have a different feel. It felt like the transition from Demon's Souls to Dark Souls, similar but improved. Also, I flipped through my artbook (well, "design works") and hardly anything from the new content was in there. Artorias was, and Chester, but nothing about the new enemies or zones. There were, however, still things in the design works that weren't implemented in the new content... The boss fights are a lot of fun as well. Sanctuary Guardian isn't exactly spectacular in itself, but it's a pretty punishing fight, particularly considering it's the first thing you fight in the new content. Artorias was an absolute blast, though. It was like a ninja battle with the two of us rolling all over the place! Manus was extremely intense. The atmosphere, the cutscene, the fight... awesome. I couldn't help but compare the fight to Flamelurker: rough when you're alone, but having a friend makes a world of difference. Once he's after you he sticks on you like glue! There also seem to have been some balance changes, largely for the better. Increased delay on the Claymore R1 so you can't chain-stagger people as well, DWGR only works at under 25% equip load, lightning weapons weakened, backstab and riposte damage supposedly reduced against players, all sorts of stuff. And a little something awesome that I was impressed by: Spoiler If you meet Sif in the Chasm of the Abyss before beating him in the old content, the cutscene for fighting him will change. I can't spoil it by saying how. Summoning a friend I've been playing with works just fine, but summoning random people is about a 50% chance at working, kind of odd. We both forwarded the ports used by GFWL and have Windows firewall off... maybe that's helping?
It was never intended for PC until the petition went up. With the res scaling fix, the game looks fine. Once you force some FXAA anyway. I'm not sure what you expected? I've had absoloutely no problems with the controls using the 360 controller. I think this particular games suits the Playstation controller better, but it's not worth the effort if you're not using one already. Keyboard and mouse LOL. Honestly, why would you even try? You've not been robbed at all, it's one of the most challenging games you'll ever play, and definitely isn't what you'd call casual on the fly gaming! Using a control type the game clearly wasn't designed for was obviously never going to work! I never played this on console, so not sure if I'm not seeing the full picture maybe? I'm 4 hours in and have died more times than I can remember!
I've now finished the expansion (including bonus boss) and had a bit more time to play around with the new content. Couple new impressions: -I'm in agreement with sloth. The guardian boss is decent, Artorias is fun, Manus is HARD. I always insist on beating bosses by myself and at SL 65, that last fight was rough. After about 10-15 tries I finally had his move set completely memorized and was able to beat him fairly easily. The expansion area will be very difficult for newbies. -New weapons and armor are all fantastic. I had visions of starting an Artorias PvP build but apparently everyone is doing that so I think I'll refrain. The Chester armor is my new favorite set....reminds me of the Fat Official from Demon's Souls -Summoning is broken. I took down my firewall and everything and it's still busted. A friend and I are questing together and we found that once one of us can actually perform a successful summons, we don't have trouble summoning each other afterward. Summoning anyone else is a crapshoot and just downright frustrating. I really hope they have a fix for this soon. The console version saw the same problems at launch. -Arena PvP is great......when it works. I'm declaring it broken like summoning because getting paired for a match is a chore. I spent 2 hours yesterday trying to get matches for the SL 50-100 bracket, and I got maybe 5 matches. -In addition, it appears that dueling is the only mode where you can find matches. This is disappointing because I was looking forward to the 2v2 option. Overall am very satisfied with the experience. This is definitely worth the buy if you like challenging old-school rpg's. However, since I've already cleared the content, this game isn't going to hold a lot of replay value until I can reliably summon and PvP with other players.
The problem for me is two-fold; 1. I owned it on the PS3 and loved it. Unfortunately it accidentally got emigrated to New Zealand with a friend of mine. Now, I was never a member of their forum, nor was I following the whole petition thing. One day it came up for pre-order on Steam and I thought, 'why not'. Nowhere in the Steam store did it say 'this is a rush job, like for like port of the 360 version'. Nowhere did it say, 'although this will work on kb/m it is not recommended'. Basically all of the reasons that people give to excuse it's poor quality, I did not know about. 2. Secondly the game only seems to work with an Xbox 360 controller if you have no other control devices installed. It is not really acceptable for me to uninstall my other control devices just to get the game to work with a 360 controller - it is not enough just to unplug them. None of the other games I own expect me to do this. I could put up with the ropey resolutions if the controller worked properly (lets face it, it wasn't particularly stunning on the consoles in the first place - that's not really what the game is about). I honestly would like to be able to play the game but as it stands, I cannot, it is not fit for purpose. Other than trying to persist with keyboard and mouse (which is entirely infeasible!) I can't actually play it. Anyway Valve are giving me the run-around with regards to a refund, which is a shame, but I will persist for a little while longer in pursuing it. If nothing else I am interested to see how many times they can reply to me with exactly the same wording before one of us get bored! Maybe in the meantime FROM will fix all the problems - then I guess I will be happy!
Speaking of "everyone is doing that", I had a bit of a chuckle at the first time I was invaded. I'd just gotten to the second bonfire in Anor Londo when this cheeky phantom invades me using all Havel armor and a lightning Zweihander. Yaawwwwwwwn, last season's build After seeing Ciaran I made a new character to "be" her. I figure it'll get mad style points wearing her armor and actually dual wielding in PvP.
Still think you're making a mountain out of a mole hill. Especially considering you've already played the game. I'm really enjoying this 'rush job'
Well, I would agree with that if I could actually play the game. Seriously, it is unplayable using kb/m and it won't work with a controller, so I can come to no other conclusion than I did!
In fairness my opinion of it will probably change the first instance another player invades my game and kills me lol.
Haha, yep. Artorias seems to be invading me a lot lately...usually he's a fat-roller and spams the R1 button, making him very easy to parry On another note, I'm loving the PvP changes. It looks like the new competitive pvp SL will be 100, which I support because it will force people to choose a certain build and master it....and prevents someone from having a bs "jack of all trades" build. I'm REALLY loving the DWGR nerf. Gone are the days of ninja-flipping goobers with full giants armor and 100 poise. Now you actually have to CHOOSE one or the other, which is the way it should be. The only problem I still have is the 1 sec invulnerability window that you get from spamming a fast roll or flip. It's very frustrating (especially as a heavy weapon guy) to land a carefully placed hit on a DWGR user and have it count for naught because he rolled at the last second. Her armor is ba. I'm thinking I'll create a dex build and model it after her for my next playthrough. Getting invaded is an absolutely terrifying and surreal experience...it adds a whole new dimension to the game. You'll see the dreaded words show up on your screen: "<joeschmo> has invaded your world". Now all the sudden you have a rougue human phantom hunting you down in addition to the diffcult npc enemies still ahead of you. You'll probably die to a lot of invaders but once your skill improves you'll grow to love them...all the epic moments in this game happen during invasions.
Hmmm... ace. I may finally pick this up tbf, but I have been really put off by the idea of a poor port. I'll give the chaps on neogaf a bit more time to perfect it though. Good thing I have an Xbox 360 controller also.
I feel bad for the people playing it on the PC. I had it on the Xbox and it's a very fun game, but I always thought it'd be a bad idea to port it to the PC. Good luck on Smough and Ornstein, folks.
