Ginella Leonis

I had a lot of fun doing invasions and co-op with a giantdad build. Almost everyone knew what it was. Got a lot of messages.

Been a major fan of Dark Souls 1 for a while, and I consider it the best of the Souls trilogy. What makes it really special to me is how the game explores its lore. I can't think of any other RPG that can tell a story by putting dead bodies and item drops in specific locations and having a line or two of background info for every item. Demon's Souls actually did this first, but I think Dark Souls and even Dark Souls 2 improved on that formula a lot. Oh, and the best boss in vanilla Dark Souls is Ornstein and Smough, no question. I love those guys.

Dark Souls thread. Discussion about the Souls series (and the upcoming game Bloodborne.) One rule and one rule only: no salty johns. To begin: What do you think of the Scholar of the First Sin re-release? Think it'll fix all the problems with Dark Souls 2? Hype for Bloodborne? Favorite boss? Favorite build? Invasion stories? Go, go, go!

You see no appeal in being able to play with your significant other/friend? I want to enjoy the story with my husband. We want to run around in the world together. I personally think it would be really fun if co-op campaign let multiple characters contribute to conversations. It would lead to some really interesting results, with one player's character maybe trying to convince an NPC of one thing and another player's character either agreeing and encouraging, or perhaps trying to pull in another direction. They could compete for love interests. They could work together. It sounds to me like a really fantastic game experience. It would be a complex task but well worth it. As it is, I can't go five minutes playing this game - even with my husband sitting right next to me and watching - without thinking, "This would be so much better if we could just play it together. Look at this empty building, at these benches, at all these world touches that are nothing more than set pieces that serve so little purpose but with another person could be the source of such fun!" So screw the idea that co-op somehow ruins your game. It's not like you'd be forced to play co-op and I don't think it would mess with the story at all. I'm not asking for the ridiculously idiotic style of competitive dungeon crawling that Bioware implemented. I want co-op campaign. Just look at Diablo III. You can play the story solo, or you can play it co-op. It doesn't hurt the narrative at all. I wouldn't say Diablo 3 was hailed for its riveting narrative. It's a kill, loot, repeat game. To use a better example: Dead Space 3. Horrid, horrid co-op integration. You missed out on a significant amount of content if you didn't have the urge to play online with some random stranger, since couch co-op wasn't supported. Every co-op mission was the same, and the story barely changed with the inclusion of one more person who said "yeah we got to do the thing" but with a space marine-type personality. Or Fable 2 and 3. Aside from being bad games, the co-op was just a game of tug of war with one camera. Your buddy couldn't do anything but help you in combat and also kill important npcs in your world. Riveting. I'm not saying it's impossible, Divinity: Original Sin actually did it decently. It's just that most devs will never put the time or effort in to make it good. Easier to put in a shitty multiplayer mode with microtransactions.

For a heavily story based game like Dragon Age, I doubt Bioware could incorporate co-op into their single-player campaigns without ruining what made them so great in the past: YOU are the savior of the world/galaxy and YOUR choices matter (sadly, this isn't really the case with modern Bioware). If you had someone playing as Joe Schmo random soldier guy, you'd either have to give him dialogue options that take away your agency as a player, or just make him an invisible character. In the latter case, what would the point of having him around be? I kind of have that old school "single player experiences should stay single player experiences" because I honestly can't see what co-op adds to these games other than further assimilation into Co-Op Killing Game #345987 Oh right, Dragon Age: Inquisition. I borrowed it from a friend because I wasn't sure if I'd like it or not. It wasn't my thing, honestly. I disliked the writing, (the sex scene dialogue for Cassandra is just... ugh, so cringeworthy, and the others aren't much better) didn't care for the companions, (ESPECIALLY when it came to Sera, her whole "lol fuck mages" attitude just made me think she was an idiot who only cared about one group of oppressed people at the expense of another. That and she might as well look like a goblin) and the combat system that decided, for some odd reason, to ape the Estus mechanic from Dark Souls to make exploration unnecessarily time consuming. ("It's a 50 hour long game though!") And I just noticed how long this post is, so I really should stop. I shouldn't be ranting, since I didn't even buy the game. Guess I'm more annoyed that DA:I is another example of everything I hate about the AAA industry. It's not even a terrible game, it's just... there's no soul or sense of originality to it at all. Just an open world with fetch quests to appeal to the Skyrim audience, significantly worse sex scenes to appeal to the Witcher audience (?) and an uber grimdark setting to appeal to the Game of Thrones audience.

Anyone with a couple of brain cells is aware that Black Mages are the most effective warriors on the battlefield. Smart, witty, beautiful... The list goes on. Really, the only reason Black Mages keep those other classes around is for heals and meatshields to keep them nice and safe while they rain fiery death upon their enemies. Enter Estabella Malvrin, an Elezen Duskwight who isn't a Black Mage quite yet. She's merely a lowly Thaumaturge whose first great display of magical prowess was that time she accidentally burned her left eye to a crisp. This cross-eyed mage has the ego of a supreme spell slinger but none of the skill to match. The last thing she thought she needed was a traveling companion, but a number of near death experiences with giant turtles has changed her mind. For the low, low price of absolutely nothing, you could be the lackey and guinnea pig for a self-important, egotistical, condescending Duskwight whose hobbies include doing any (ANY) odd job for gil, mastering the magical arts, and tormenting those Gods damned Lalafells. A tank is the most obvious choice, but a sufficiently obedient DPS can suffice. Inquiries about her cave aka FORMER (huge emphasis here) home are absolutely off limits. What I'm hopin' to do. -Write an awful person who develops into someone less awful. -Have some lighthearted IC shenanigans. -Write a Black Mage the way they should all be written: as assholes. -Make someone work for that sweet, sweet character development.

So I'm new to this forum and FFXIV. I joined because I wanted to get involved in player driven stories. The only MMO I've ever played was Runescape due to how in depth the quests were. I have two character ideas so far: -A hot blooded, lance happy Highlander who dreams of slaying a dragon (it would make for a great pub tale after all) -A Duskwright who wants to explore Eorza and lands beyond in pursuit of ultimate magical knowledge. Sooo yeah! Hope to have something more concrete before I join you all in shenanigans!