Seattleite

For a positive note, I just beat Knight Artorias in a single try and I feel AWESOME. Like I am the GOD of Dark Souls. Now, give me half an hour, it'll humble me, but still. For the moment, AWESOME. Like, this is the best feeling any game can inspire, right here. This feeling is what people who actually have a hard time with this game play for.

Getting my shit kicked in by Knight Artorias. Kicking Knight Artorias's shit in. In one try. I... Thought that would be a lot more difficult. He certainly creamed me on my first playthrough. Apparently in the mean time I have become Death, the destroyer of worlds.

In regards to the idea of releasing a video detailing stories of horrible abuses within the games industry, I'm 100% all for it. I would certainly watch it, it's something I am very interested in, and I think the word needs to get out so some companies can start getting at least some little bits of damage in return for the shit they pull, even if it isn't serious. As for piracy, here's my conditions to allow it: 1. The original developers are no longer getting compensated. And I mean the people, not the company. When EA bought out Maxis, I wouldn't have supported pirating Sims games even though EA's getting the profits now because enough of the original devs were getting paid for sales of the game that it wasn't right. But when EA bought out Westwood and fired most of the staff, I'm not paying for the classic C&C games anymore because very few, if any, of the original devs are getting paid for those sales. 2. There's no new units being produced. And that's produced, not sold. I'm sure there's still copies of games from the '80s floating around that are legally new and available for purchase. I'm not paying for them. I don't even care if the company itself still sells them, either. If they aren't making more, they're saying "This is no longer a product of ours." Obviously, if production is just down for two weeks for maintenance that doesn't count, and if it's digital only that doesn't count either, but if it's a game that is (or at least was at release) only made in hard copies and there's no hard copies being produced, it's free now. 3. No support. Yeah, even if it's still sold, if the dev is a corporation capable of supporting it and decides not to, they've decided that the profits are not worth supporting it. So they don't get the profits. That makes pirating legal by international law of go fuck yourself. 4. Asshole DRM. If the DRM is a hassle, fuck the developer. This includes: A. Any DRM that renders a game unusable, any amount of the time. That includes always online in singleplayer. Some of us don't have that kind of internet, EA, go fuck yourself. B. Limited-use disks. I fucking bought Spore, EA. And both of the fucking expansions. I dropped over $100 on this thing. Don't you dare fucking tell me I need to drop $100 again because I switched computers a couple times. Fuck you. 5. You cannot legally play it due to censorship, national bans, region locks, lack of store access or other such limitations. There's a certain limit to what we can expect somebody to go through, too. $1700 for an arcade cabinet is one, but so is having to drive across state or national lines just to make a purchase of the game. Piracy is A-Ok in that case, because it just isn't right to ask for so much just to play a game. The same goes for games that are just massively overpriced, but this is a "bounds of reason" thing. If a game is full-sized and $70, that's a pain in the ass but it's still reasonable. But if it's a multi-player only game with half a dozen maps and barely any content sold entirely off of how cool the trailer looks (*COUGH*TITANFALL*COUGH*) and it's $70, pirate it. 6. For a quick grey area, if the game is just old enough. Okay, where you draw the line varies, but if a game is old enough it should be free. I say 10 years. This is mostly because the game just isn't worth paying for anymore, the devs already made plenty off it, and they haven't put any serious work into that game in years even if it still has support. This is one I don't expect many to agree with me on in principle, but we all fucking do it in practice, so you're all hypocrites if you say this isn't a sufficient justification. 7. For a second grey area, if you morally object to giving the developer any money, or any incentive to continue making games in this series. That means anything produced by EA or Activision. Fuck those guys. If I see ANY game of theirs I want to play, I don't care if it came out last week, I'm pirating it. I am NEVER sending those bastards a single red fucking cent. Ever. Especially not to make Battlefield or Call of Duty. And that's my opinion on piracy.

I do certainly agree that Gravity Falls is awesome. (I rate it just as highly as Animaniacs... If for different reasons. That's something coming from me.) Never seen Star Vs. The Forces of Evil, though.

Watching Gravity Falls. Yes, I'm watching a Disney show. Deal with it.

All bonfires restore Estus. Most restore to 5, but any attended by a fire keeper (IE: Firelink Shrine) restore to 10. Also, the thing that says "kindle" at a bonfire means "make this bonfire also restore to 10", and is a good investment if an area is kicking your ass. Also, there's a soft cap of 40 on all stats. It still provides benefits, just reduced. And yeah, Bloodborne's best armour provides, like, 400 defence. That means it only cuts damage in half. Now, half damage is good but... That's the best in the entire game. It should be a LOT more than that. Here, it's only about 400 as well, but that's 1/4 damage, you take WAY more than 1x damage without your armour on and you can totally take 20% damage or less without even having to go all munchkin on it. So the armour really, really matters. (Improving it, less so. Improve weapons, then armour. And never improve shields unless they take twinkling titanite.)

Drinking heavily and trying to ignore my crushing depression.

Well, the older Souls games *do* have a slower pace... Can't say if they're actually easier since I don't have a PS4 and haven't played Bloodborne. They tend to focus on complexity in their encounters rather than speed, and it will get hard later on. But here's a few notes, since you're coming from Bloodborne: 1. The parry works like Bloodborne's gun, except that it's usable less often and if you fail you're eating that attack you were going to deflect. But on the bright side, the window is also larger. 2. You don't regain your health by hitting enemies right after being hit, you have to use your Estus, heal miracle, Humanity or Divine Blessing to regain health. 3. You can block a lot of things that don't look blockable. 4. Your armour works totally differently. In DS2 and Bloodborne, the armour reduces enemy damage by 10+0.1*Defence%. So 50 defence means you take 85% damage, 100 defence, 80% damage and 200 defence, 70% damage. In Demon's Souls and Dark Souls, they use a vastly superior system (in my opinion... hate percentage resistances) where damage is just divided by 0.01*Defence. So 50 defence, 200% damage, 100 defence, 100% damage and 200 defence, 50% damage. It also provides a stat called "poise", allowing you to take small amounts of damage without being staggered or stunned. 5. If you don't need points in your primary stat, don't forget that points in vitality and endurance are never wasted, but points in resistance are always wasted. 6. Never turn off the music, it's got the best music in the franchise. 7. KILL THE DOGS FIRST.

It's no secret that I LOVE this series. Demon's Souls, Dark Souls, Bloodborne... All of these games I absolutely adore from start to finish and there's no series I'd rather be spending my time on, 90% of the time. While I'm entirely inclined to just sit around gushing about how much I love these games, though, that's not entirely productive. Any of you that have played through the games, I'm interested in your reviews. Full reviews, of course, are my preference. The positives, the negatives, the neutrals, anything of interest. But I'd be happy with trivia, questions, one-paragraph opinions... I'm not going to hide it, I just want to talk about these games, and I'll take whatever I can get. Seriously, let's talk Souls.

"Not man enough? NOT MAN ENOUGH? I HAVE THREE Y-CHROMOSOMES, SIX ADAM'S APPLES, PECS ON MY ABS AND FISTS FOR NIPPLES!"

I seriously don't like it. It's one of those games that intentionally drummed up controversy to boost sales strictly because it had nothing else to work with. The AI is shit, the stark monochrome loses its charm in two seconds, there's no polish and the game in general is just not fun. In my opinion. I'm sure there's somebody somewhere who thinks it's a masterpiece.

Well, I kinda live with her mother. Be pretty easy to convince her. And there's no denying that my grandmother has the power in our family. And I mean, like, ALL the power. So it's pretty likely to work.

I would, if I didn't have a better way. Specifically, going to her parents, and letting them tear into her.

Well, on one hand she should be better since we're going home tuesday instead. But on the other hand, that's because my cunt aunt decided she isn't going to pay us. For 250 hours of work. Each. That's $4000 we're not getting because my aunt decided I might spend some on the evil video games and is withholding all payment. I am absolutely livid right now.

She's recovering. She was more upbeat after work... Not saying much, but still. She says she'll give her daddy all day for a week when she gets home, to make up for missing his day... I was dumb enough to also point out his birthday is before she gets home... Now she says he gets two weeks. That's okay. She can cuddle a tombstone* for two weeks, as long as she's happy and stable. In the end, those are my main concerns. (Note: Anybody else who loves somebody with serious mental illness will understand.) *According to her, technically the ground right in front of the tombstone, right over him.

No, it wasn't. And it's too late now anyway. She'll have to go there when we go home. That's... Well, it's at the end of July.

My girlfriend is having a breakdown, and there's nothing I can do about it. She just realized today was father's day, it's 10 PM, and she's over a hundred miles from her father's grave. That's huge for her, I can't even describe it. She just keeps crying, and all she'll say to anyone is "I need to see daddy." And I just have no clue what to do.

My girlfriend and I had a shared dream, recently. We were in the car going out to ride dirtbikes, and we picked up this lost little girl. It was so crazy vivid here, too. It wasn't like I just knew she was lying because it was a dream. I remember her looking at our dirtbikes before saying her family was going dirtbiking, averting her eyes when saying they forgot her at a gas station, all of it. My GF and I spent our time trying to figure out how to contact her parents, with her shooting down every suggestion. Eventually, she ran out of excuses and admitted she ran away from them at a gas station, and lied about where they were going, so they'd stop making her read "the crazy book", and she wanted to stay with us instead. I wanted to take her in, but was uneasy about it for legal reasons. My girlfriend was really eager to take her, and talked me into it. I woke up about there, Kari was asleep a few more minutes. She said the "crazy book" was a bible, can't vouch for that. But I'll ask the child, her name's Alicia by the way, tonight because these dreams are happening every night, are still shared and have continuity. And much more pleasant than the dreams I used to have.

Now, if BTG had said this about Counter-Strike, that'd be different.

Pro tip: 99.99% of the time, 99.99% is not meant to be taken literally. And it's new gun owners who will have problems with tighter gun control, responsible or not.

You know, when it first went free to play, I played a solid fifty hours of it in the first week. I saw one hacker, total. And it was a griefer sniper who hacked so he could kill teammates. Maybe I just got lucky, but I personally find it hard to believe the issue is as rampant as BTG says.

Excuse me, but I own a firearm. Most of my family owns firearms, as do all my neighbours and friends. Guess how many people have been killed by all of these firearms combined. If you guessed zero, you were right. 99.99% of gun owners are responsible, non-violent, productive members of society who have never used their weapons to harm anybody, and they are perfectly safe if properly handled.

Fixed it. Sorry, didn't realize it was so huge when I grabbed it off of Funnyjunk. And yeah... Wasps. A whole nest of them, which I thought were bees and therefore harmless, and proceeded to weedwack right next to. My girlfriend was clearing debris behind me, and she got hit even more than I did.

I dumped everything else to get the maximum perception, intelligence and agility. I don't remember my other stats, it's been half a year. I do remember distributing my remaining points evenly, though. Also, that was my second try, my first I did a more reasonable sounding, not min-maxed to all hell kind of build and got *more* hits, somehow, despite a lower displayed accuracy.

Recovering from the very valuable lesson my girlfriend and I learned the hard way today.