Demon's Souls Coming to America.

[Kageh]

About the stat distribution: if you use North Regalia, you don't need STR/DEX, and you have lots of points left for Vitality. Endurance should be at 40 for maximum stamina, everything above that is good for wearing heavy equipment and still being able to dodge. Tower shield is the best melee shield for example, but it weighs 30 pounds.

Farming herbs is very easy once you unlock 1-3 and 1-4 archstones. 1-3 has the two blue eye knights which both drop at least 2 herbs each, 1-4 has the 3 red eye knights, each of those is usually 3 herbs minimum.

[Le0]

Ok thanks for the advice, I'll use a great club for the meat cleaver since I have two.

Also was wondering something about the One Time Revival spell, if I understand correctly If I die I get auto-rezzed. But is there a chance I can directly die again since I was fighting something?

Also had a funny moment today, was just restarting 4-1 and killing the few skeletons at the begining, after killing the first archer I pulled a skeleton up near the stone arch, he proceeded to come rolling at me, went mental and rolled around fast. Then he proceeded to fall from the cliff an die. I did not even have to hit it once, made me chuckle.

[Kageh]

Reading from the net, one-time revival acts like an additional buffer the size of your maximum HP. So if you have 1000 HP and something hits you for 1500, you will insta-revive with 500 HP and can be killed again. You can recast it and it lasts indefinitely though.

[Le0]

Was a good afternoon, I killed Adjudicator, really an easy fight when you know where to hit 
Then I proceeded with 4-1 and right at the archstone there was a blue mark so I decided to summon him, the guy had really nice feedback and kicked ass, I pretty much followed him and he would do all the work I just had to loot stuff.
He had the Adjudicator's shield and a two handed miridian hammer of kick serious ass. I think it must have been dragon because the zombies or whatever guy there would explode after one hit, I had not enough time to do anything.

After that he proceeded to hand back leechmonger's ass back to him in 30sec or something like that, I was impressed thanks to him anyway (LEDMirage or something can't remember)

[Le0]

What is a good weapon to transform into Dragon for 5-2 and 5-3?

[Lounge]

What is a good weapon to transform into Dragon for 5-2 and 5-3?

Why not just use the Dragon Long sword you picked up from 2-2?  IIRC it starts at +2.

That being said, I found the fire to not be worth it for the 5's.  I ended up using my long sword of searching (since my str / dex were both 35 already) and was significantly more effective.

[Le0]

Well I'm afraid of Flamelurker because all I heard is people dying against it, so I can't get special weapons yet. That said I killed it as a phantom on the first try but the guy with who I was with did not seem to get hurt by him at all.

Also being a full melee character I figured having a bad ass fire weapon for 5 would not hurt, for the boss neither. Two handing a dragon miridian hammer or something in this area should do quite a bit of damage.

[Kageh]

I used an upraded Crescent Falchion (+4, chunks all got through farming 4-2 reaper and 4-x geckos) throughout most of 5-x and 2-x for my dex melee character, works great. For dragon weapon, I made a Dragon Mirdan Hammer too. The longsword from 2-2 that Lounge mentioned starts at +1 and is a decent alternative.

The big bonus of dragon weapons against most mobs is the stagger animation when they burn, it is very powerful when combined with a fast swing weapon, as you can keep them incapacitated as long you have stamina. That said, it's not really that important against 5-x mobs, even though strategy guides keep pushing that.

[Le0]

I can't seem to find Yuria the Witch. I have the key and can get in the small tower in 1-3 where she is supposed to be, I know I must don the fat hat but I can't get on top of the tower, if I get into I can climb to the third floor inside and I'm stuck in a dead end. Where is that raised stair case supposed to be ?

[Kageh]

Do you have the correct key? The key that drops in 1-3 opens up the dungeon where the locked up Biorr in 1-2 (In the cellar of the small tower right before Tower Knight), and the fat minister that you kill in there drops the key that will open the door to Yuria's tower in 1-3.

The hat drops from the fat minister right behind the portcullis in 1-3 (the one that flees and lowers the gate in the cutscene as you approach him at the beginning of 1-3). You have to complete nearly all of 1-3 to get to him, since killing him allows you to free Ostrava and activate the level shortcut to Penetrator.

Once you have the hat and the key (I think it's "Bloody iron key" for Yuria's tower), climb inside the tower until you're stuck at the apparent end of the stairs, and you'll hear the fat minister above chuckle. If you have the hat equipped, he will lower a stair so you can get up to him. You know it is the right tower because you a.) can hear him laughing and b.) the "Ring of the Accursed" or something like that is on a corpse at the end of the stairs.

[ffc]

A small note about the minister's hat - he killed me at the same time I killed him.  I saw the glowing orb drop as I died which was his hat but when I respawned and made it back to the gate the orb was no longer there.  I died again trying to make my way through the level and when I got to the gate again the orb was back.

[Le0]

It's okay, I found the witch finally. Its weird because the first time I did not hear the minister chuckle at all so it did not peak my interest.

Also killed Flamelurker first try but I must confess I read the boss strategy and was well perpared (water veil, flame resist ring and purple flame shield) the boss barely makes any damage with this combination (I mean its flame attack maybe removes 1 silver of life). Then proceeded with Dragon god which was surprinsgly easy.

Meat Cleaver really rock, I love the weapon.

[Kageh]

I am having serious connection troubles on the US servers, ever since the game launched. I log in fine, but there are no bloodstains, messages or white ghosts, and multiplaying does not work. The usual symptom is that the SELECT button is not coming up with the "Write message" dialog. The really annoying part is that nothing short of endless attempts at re-starting the game fixes it. Sometimes I also log in and am connected, just to randomly lose the online part during the game, without the game noticing. And it's not the kind of connection loss that throws you out of the game, you can go on playing all day long except that you are actually off-line.

I assume it's due to capacity shortage with the game being so popular. There's a pretty long thread in the Atlus forums about the problem, with zero official responses. The server upgrades they performed didn't really help with the problem so far.

I checked with the asia version in the meantime, and multiplayer works flawlessly there. Which also confirms that it's not a network issue on my end. If Atlus doesn't get their stuff together I'll sell the US copy and go back to the JP servers. Not being able to multiplay takes a lot of the fun out of DS 

[ffc]

That's terrible.  If there was no online integration with Demon's Souls then it would be a totally different game and I wouldn't like it nearly as much as I do.  The only online issue I have had is occasionally getting booted off of PSN while playing but I can log right back in and all the online components work fine.

[Le0]

I have no connection problem at all from Switzerland. I never had any disconnection during gameplay only once I had to log in to psn twice

[Velorath]

For those interested in sales numbers, Demon's Souls came in at #11 on the NPD charts for October with around 150,000 copies sold.

[Pagz]

Pure white world tendency event from the 21st to the 27th!

Its good to see they're still playing attention to this game, now if they'll only activate the 6th archstone.

[Kageh]

Yes, been lookwing forward to this as I have a character in NG with whom I fucked up getting a pure greystone in World 2, and I don't feel like killing Flamelurker in NG+ just yet 

As for the sixth archstone, don't get your hopes high up on that. IMO it just never made it into the final game. The weird part is that, for a game which is so tightly polished and pays a lot of attention to details, they didn't bother to remix/cut the intro video where the monumental mentions SIX archstones. That would have taken what, 2 minutes?

Ah well, we can still wish for it.

[Pagz]

But I mean, you can see the destroyed archstone with the other archstones. Like, someone can fix it, right? right?!

[Hawkbit]

I bought this game back when it came out and something happened my live that has kept me from playing it.  Last night I finally was able to play for a bit, but I'm just a little lost with all the classes.  Is there any of the classes that is better suited for newbie players?  Any other basic, non-spoiler tips you can think of?

[JWIV]

I bought this game back when it came out and something happened my live that has kept me from playing it.  Last night I finally was able to play for a bit, but I'm just a little lost with all the classes.  Is there any of the classes that is better suited for newbie players?  Any other basic, non-spoiler tips you can think of?

It's all mainly just a set of starting equipment and stats, so technically speaking, anything can eventually become anything else.  That said, the easiest way to go is to start as  Royal.

[Pagz]

I bought this game back when it came out and something happened my live that has kept me from playing it.  Last night I finally was able to play for a bit, but I'm just a little lost with all the classes.  Is there any of the classes that is better suited for newbie players?  Any other basic, non-spoiler tips you can think of?

Classes pretty much mean nothing, but Royals have the best start due to starting with a spell and an MP regen ring. Really just choose the class you like the look of most, as after about five hours of play you have the ability to access everything every class starts with.

[Kageh]

I think royal/templar are the easier classes, depending on whether you favor magic or melee style play. Royal is easy-mode for a starting wizard (compared to the mage) because he gets the better spell and the mana regen ring. Templar gets the best starting armor - which at that point of the game makes a lot of difference - a decent weapon (halberd) and a self heal.

I usually start as templar and modify from there.

[Lounge]

I think royal/templar are the easier classes, depending on whether you favor magic or melee style play. Royal is easy-mode for a starting wizard (compared to the mage) because he gets the better spell and the mana regen ring. Templar gets the best starting armor - which at that point of the game makes a lot of difference - a decent weapon (halberd) and a self heal.

I usually start as templar and modify from there.

I had to break it down in a spreadsheet.  If you want a caster type go Royal.  If you want a pure melee with the least points "wasted" in caster skills or luck the temple knight is the best.

[ahoythematey]

I bought this game back when it came out and something happened my live that has kept me from playing it.  Last night I finally was able to play for a bit, but I'm just a little lost with all the classes.  Is there any of the classes that is better suited for newbie players?  Any other basic, non-spoiler tips you can think of?

Like the previous posts say, Royal is probably the best to start with since they have both mana regen and soul arrow.  Or you could do like me and start with a sink-or-swim class like the Thief.  You learn how to dodge, parry, and backstab damn quick with that one.  I'm guessing barbarian is also hard-mode.

[Kageh]

Barbarian was really hard for me. I started my first US char as a barbarian, after quite a bit of experience with the asian version, and the fact that you start with ZERO armor and an awfully bad shield made me die many painful deaths. 80% damage reduction on block is dangerous when you haven't even got Cling Ring yet, and 10% against fire means every flaming sword dregling at the bottom of the guard tower can usually one-shot you.

[Bzalthek]

I started Wanderer (I hadn't read any threads on it yet.)  It was tough, but after playing Captain Lemming for a couple days I started learning.

[ahoythematey]

Gamespot names Demon's Souls their game of the year.

[schild]

They got it right, for the first time ever. Bravo, Gamespot.

[NiX]

They got it right, for the first time ever. Bravo, Gamespot.

How does this make you feel?

Edit: Even better is that MW2 didn't make their editorial picks.

[NiX]

Yes, been lookwing forward to this as I have a character in NG with whom I fucked up getting a pure greystone in World 2, and I don't feel like killing Flamelurker in NG+ just yet  

As for the sixth archstone, don't get your hopes high up on that. IMO it just never made it into the final game. The weird part is that, for a game which is so tightly polished and pays a lot of attention to details, they didn't bother to remix/cut the intro video where the monumental mentions SIX archstones. That would have taken what, 2 minutes?

Ah well, we can still wish for it.

The sixth archstone was removed from the dialogue in the reprinted version. The broken pillar is still there, but no mention of it.

Edit: It's still in the Monumentals dialogue, but he speaks of the past.

[Kageh]

The game sold amazingly well in the US from what numbers I could gather. Maybe this will motivate From Software to release an expansion soon.

I tried some web searches about the sixth archstone, but I could not find anything official, it's all guesswork currently.

[Nerf]

Demon's Souls won X-plays award for most innovative use of online play for 2009, I would have liked to see it win a few more, but one is better than none.
Uncharted 2 took 3 awards, including GOTY, I really need to get around to playing it.

[Threash]

Just started playing this and i had a few questions:

first off, what the fuck this is hard.  I like that though.

second, is temple knight a good starting choice? i tried royalty and their nifty spell was very useful but i felt like Harry Potter with the magic wand thingie, i guess it didn't help i was just running around shooting everything and going spectro patronus!  anyways, im a melee kinda guy but i don't want to get my ass kicked too much.

Third, mana regen? i can cast my heal miracle once and thats basically it unless i die and get mana back, i've found one or two items that return mana but they are very very rare so far, royalty had a nifty regen ring, can i get something like that on my templar?

fourth, this is fucking hard.  I beat the first demon with the shields and spears then promptly died once again to some ninja skeletons in some other world and im kind of at a loss as far as where to go.  I assume the ninja kung fu skeletons are not the place to go.

Fifth, whats with all the "im in trouble, please rate this msg" stuff?

[Trippy]

Fifth, whats with all the "im in trouble, please rate this msg" stuff?

You get healed if other people rate your messages.