Dark Souls (Project Dark)

Sid Shuman: Would you describe Dark Souls as a sequel to Demon’s Souls, or a spiritual successor? Does Dark Souls reside in the same universe as Demon’s Souls?

 

Hidetaka Miyazaki, director, Dark Souls: Dark Souls is not a sequel to Demon’s Souls by any means. However, it’s created by the same producers and director and so the ideologies, concepts, and themes have carried over and are similar. It’s a totally new game with similar concepts.

 

SS: Demon’s Souls is infamous for its high difficulty. Will Dark Souls be as difficult?

 

HM: Yes, Demon’s Souls was known for its incredible difficulty [laughter]. With Dark Souls, we don’t want to decrease the difficulty at all. Actually, we intend to increase the difficulty of the game. (Sid: !!!) But not simply by making the game harder, but by giving players the freedom to strategize freely and conquer that difficulty, and to be rewarded accordingly.

 

This is an analogy we often use: We are trying to create a game that is spicy. And we want to make it as spicy as possible. But it is edible, it tastes good, and it leaves you wanting more.

 

SS: How do you keep a difficult game from becoming overly punishing, and drive the player to quit in frustration?

 

HM: Good question. We can’t tell you all of our secrets, but there are a few ways we prevent users from drifting away. Number one, the difficulty is not dependent on the skill level of the user. We have not created a game where players who react faster or press buttons faster are better than others. Second, when a player dies, we try to leave a sense of “maybe if I try a different strategy I can succeed.” Things that you lose in death can be outweighed by the rewards of trying again. We try to give players lots of freedom to design their own gameplay style, and we’ve implemented enough content to enable users to continue challenging themselves and continue making progress.

 

One more aspect is the difficulty based on repetitiveness. We don’t want users to have to constantly carve away health from enemies. We’ve created all characters — including enemies and the player — to have high attack power but low defense. We don’t want users to hack and hack and hack away to defeat an enemy. It’s more strategic. We want users to think, “if I avoid this enemy, maybe I can overcome him.” We don’t want players to be frustrated by doing the same things over and over.

 

SS: Death was a part of life in Demon’s Souls. But it required that you replay the entire level from scratch with enemies in identical locations. Will Dark Souls force players to restart levels? Will levels be less repetitious to replay?

 

HM: The main concept has not changed: You try something, die, learn from your mistakes, and eventually overcome those mistakes. In Dark Souls, we’ve added the ability to players to choose their recovery point — essentially respawn points. If you die, you won’t be taken back to the beginning of the level. And as you explore the world, you can carve out your own territory and retry quests you failed. That’s a big difference. It’s an aspect that we want players to use to strategize their approach to the game.

 

SS: Will Dark Souls have a less intimidating control scheme than Demon’s Souls?

 

HM: In Demon’s Souls, when you finally get used to the controls, it feels pretty good. So for Dark Souls, the controls and feel won’t change too much. However, we are adding a tutorial so players don’t have to fight to learn how to play. We don’t want to take the players step-by-step, we just want them to get past the first step.

 

But generally, for Dark Souls, learning commands and controlling your character is probably a little bit easier. But to counter that, we’ve added a lot of aspects that users must learn beyond the controls. The amount of magic, the number of weapons, the types of weapons, the moves attached to the weapons…there is a lot more that players must learn in order to conquer the challenges.

 

SS: Does that mean we can expect a lot of new weapons with unique functions?

 

HM: The simple answer is yes. But we’re not just increasing the number of weapons; we want to improve the uniqueness of each weapon. Each weapon will have characteristics that are vastly different from other weapons in the game. As an example, the player starts with a Long Sword. Eventually he might find a Holy Sword, which is far more powerful but is used very differently. Some players will choose to continue using the Long Sword simply because they’re more comfortable with it.

 

We want to give players many options, even if that means they use the sword that ‘fits best in the hand.’ We want you to become emotionally and physically attached to the weapon you’re using. Perhaps the Long Sword, after you’ve used it for so long and taken such good care of it, is the real Holy Sword. [laughter] The real Holy Sword, though, might be very hard to master despite its power. And some players will say, “This is difficult to use? Leave it to me, I’ll master it.” [laughter]. The mind games and strategizing — that’s the most fun aspect of the game to me.

 

SS: How will dual-wielding weapons impact combat? Is using two swords at once a successful strategy, or more of an “expert’s mode”?

 

HM: Dual wielding is an option, but it’s a very difficult choice for novice players. The default fighting style is holding a shield in one hand, a weapon in the other. And the shield adds a lot of protection, it’s quite powerful in its own way. If you see another player dual wielding, we want you to think, “Oh my god, this guy is special!” Dual wielding is a way to challenge yourself, but it has a lot of downsides and makes the game much harder. When you’re in trouble, you’ll want to return to your shield and sword.

 

We want to keep dual wielding special. It’s a very unique strategy that will hopefully give a new experience to the player as well as those who see him.

SS: Like Demon’s Souls, Dark Souls will include online co-op and competitive play. Are you planning any broad changes to the multiplayer?

 

HM: Yes. Throughout the game, there will be both cooperative and competitive play with other players. Each user will enjoy a unique single-player game; at times, they will cross paths with one another. Depending on the situation, the time, and the players’ goals, those players may cooperate or compete against each other. The multiplayer system we’re creating will envelop the single-player mode. Multiplayer will enhance single-player, make it more unique, compared to other games that emphasize traditional multiplayer co-op or competitive play.

 

SS: What’s the single addition to Dark Souls that you’re most excited by?

 

HM: Probably the Beacon Fire. It stands for a lot of things. It serves as a recovery point; when the player’s health is low, the Beacon Fire helps you recover. It serves as a respawn point as well. So it’s powerful from a gameplay perspective. Secondly, the Beacon Fire will be used to share experiences with other players. It’s a place where players can gather together and communicate — not verbally communicate, but emotionally communicate. Third, it’s probably the one place in Dark Souls where users can relax just for an instant. In this cold, dark world, the Beacon Fire is a place of warmth. It’s one of the few locations in the game that is heartwarming. It expresses this dark fantasy world I’m trying to create.

 

SS: How will character creation work? Are there still classes? How can I augment and customize my character?

 

HM: The basics are quite similar to Demon’s Souls, but you can customize the physical build of your character now in addition to his face. There’s a lot of customization in terms of gameplay styles and parameters. It’s very open, and there are many more options than in Demon’s Souls. You can create any type of character you’d like to create.

SS: What’s your philosophy regarding monsters in Dark Souls? Are you going for really grim, grotesque creatures?

 

HM: Calling it a “philosophy” is probably overstating it a bit [laughter]. I want to expand the range and variety of all the enemies, whether they’re hideous or beautiful or strong. I don’t lean towards any particular type, but [high-level enemies] will be pretty disgusting. And you might not believe this, but all the monsters I design — from Demon’s Souls to Dark Souls — are “beautiful” to me, no matter how gruesome their appearance.

 

SS: What games are you looking forward to playing in 2011?

 

HM: Politically this is sort of a difficult question to answer! [laughter] I’m a big gamer. But to be honest, right now I absolutely love Magic: The Gathering Online. For 2011, I’m really looking forward to UNCHARTED 3 and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.

 

UNCHARTED 2 came out around the same time as Demon’s Souls, so it was a big competitor for us at the time. But UNCHARTED has done so well, and now I’m really excited for UNCHARTED 3. I’m quite interested in Skyrim because the fantasy world is something I really look forward to in games.

Isskyriau kas siame interviu buvo svarbiausia:

- Sunkumo lygis padidintas palyginus su Demon's Souls , zaidimo strategija vaidins dideli vaidmeni.

- Zaidejo lygys nesuteiks didelio pranasumo ir laimes ne tie zaidejai , kurie turi greitesne reakcija, o tie kurie pasirinks reikiama strategija

- Ir zaidejai, ir priesai tures gan auksta atakos lygi , taciau maza gynyba

- Bus galimybe susikurti savo checkpoint'a

- Bus co-op ir competitive rezimas , panasiai kaip Demon's Souls , taipat bus dar kazkokiu naujoviu , kuriu neminima

- 'Beacon Fire'(si vieta buvo rodyta trailer'yje) - stovykla , kur galesim bendrauti su draugais, atstatyti gyvybe ir t.t. pan kaip Nexus.

- Nebeliks veikeju klasiu

Is kito saltinio:

- Magijos skaicius padvigubes , ginklu padauges, taipat padauges ju valdymo budu.

- Zaidejui nebus daug vietu pasislepti nuo priesu, jie stengsis juos persekioti net tokiose vietose kur nelabai tiketusi

O cia siaip pakelti nuotaika

Hidetaka Miyazaki Discusses Dark Souls

 

Why Not Demon's Souls 2

 

Miyazaki said that it's difficult for him to give a straight answer to the question of why the new game is Dark Souls and not Demon's Souls 2. He did want to make Demon's Souls 2, but "various things" prevented that from happening. Regardless of this, he's happy that the game has become Dark Souls, as it allows him to show his creative side by using new ideas and not being tied down.

 

Fully Seamless World

 

Asked about new concepts for Dark Souls, Miyazaki said the game places focus on the feeling of exploration by making the map fully seamless. 4Gamer asked if this means means the fields will be like the open fields of Bethesda's Oblivion series. Rather than this, he suggested that we think of it as being a full dungeon. Demon's Souls was split into stages like 1-1, 1-2, 2-1 and so-forth. Dark Souls has these seamlessly intertwined.

 

Walking about the fully connected map is very enjoyable, said Miyakai. The map portion of the game is still not complete though. It's like being between alpha and beta state at present.

 

The map isn't just expansive, Miyazaki noted. They've prepared a variety of situations. There's more than just Dark Fantasy. You'll also find High Fantasy areas, hell, and other varying maps.

 

The world will also have great height, although this is something that was true of Demon's Souls as well, Miyazaki feels.

 

In making the world map, they're considering things like how players will shift viewpoints, general movement patterns and so-forth in order to create a map that's easy for players to get a grasp of. They're keeping in mind how players remember the map in their head and are taking care to not exceed that processing limit.

 

Volume Up

 

Dark Souls is expected to have about 60 hours or so play time, said Miyazaki. Demon's Souls, in contrast, expects 30 or 40 hours.

 

In the area of content, the major point of increase is in enemies. Demon's Souls had around 30 types. Dark Souls has close to 100.

 

Of course, they're also readying an appropriate quantity of weapons, armor and such. There will be new magic. An example is the ability to turn yourself into objects, which could lead to coming across jars in odd places during multiplayer.

 

Weapons will have different motions, and some players may choose to keep using weaker weapons because they match their play style rather than switch to more powerful weapons when obtained. The weapons actually see changes in speed and recovery time depending on your character's parameters.

 

There will also be weapon fortification system in place, an area that Miyzaki felt Demon's Souls failed with. Overseas players in particular said that this area of Demon's Souls was difficult to understand.

 

Online Play

 

While not getting too specific, Miyazaki highlighted two concepts for Dark Souls' online play.

 

First is "shared play experience." Miyazaki wants players to feel that they have friends who are challenging this difficult game along with them. Players will have gradual effects on one another. The goal of this system is to recreate the feeling of playing the old Dragon Quest games, where even though everyone is playing individually, they exchange information and feel happy that someone else is struggling with them.

 

The other concept is referred to at From Software as "mutual role playing." This involves instances of cooperative and competitive play as an extension of the individual's role playing experience.

 

We're going to have to wait for details on this area of the game, it seems.

 

On the Partnership with Namco Bandai

 

From Software is handling promotions for Dark Souls on its own in Japan. Namco Bandai is doing that sort of work for international markets. Miyazaki said that Namco Bandai's role could be described as collaborating on the game while also taking part in the game's worldwide strategy. From Software is responsible for all the game's content, though.

 

There won't be any Namco Bandai character cameos in the game, said Miyazaki, because the game's world setting wouldn't really match this. (4Gamer's interview said that they'd been hoping for a Soul Calibur character cameo... or maybe a a sword tie-up ala God Eater Burst).

 

There also aren't ties to other From Software games, although there may be something like the Moon Light, a sword from King's Field that also appears in Armored Core and was in Demon's Souls as well.

 

On Overseas Development

 

Dark Souls, like its predecessor, has been getting lots of attention outside of Japan. But Miyazaki doesn't appear to be actually creating the game for overseas players.

 

There are only three areas where they are taking overseas markets into consideration. First, the interface and control methods are being made to match up with world standards so long as they don't go against the gameplay ideas the team is considering. Second, they're making it so that localization work will be simple. Third, they're avoiding cultural taboos (see below).

 

Aside from this, they aren't attempting to design things for overseas players. Miyazaki feels that while some Japanese players feel that Demon's Souls had a western feel to it, for overseas players, the game's graphics, monster design and game design looked Japanese. For overseas players, one of the appeals may have been to see the strange and unknown.

 

On Download Content

 

There are currently no plans in place for download content, although it's not something that has been completely ruled out. They wouldn't have a paid system for offering items, though, as these are meant to be rewards for discovery and work. However, if they feel that they can do something interesting online using the Dark Souls engine, this could appear as download content.

 

Who Is this Miyazaki Guy, Anyway?

 

4Gamer asked a few personal questions to Miyazaki. It's hard to believe, but Miyazaki has only been in the game industry for six years. He joined From Software at the age of 30. Prior to that, he was just an ordinary gamer who did analyst and account manager work at an IT company.

 

Miyazaki had wanted to work in the game industry for some time, though. However, after finishing graduate school, he needed money, so he selected a company that paid well. After four years of working in this fashion, he acquired the money he needed, and decided to go make games.

 

Why From Software? From is among the few companies out there that will hire a 30-year-old planner who doesn't have experience, explained Miyazaki. He felt lucky to get the job at From, as he was actually a fan of King's Field.

 

Upon entering From Software, Miyazaki first took part in Armored Core Last Raven, joining the game's development midway through. For Armored Core 4, he was main planner, but ended up being switched to director midway through. He then served as director on Armored Core For Answer and, of course, Demon's Souls.

 

Interestingly, even though he entered From Software as a planner, there are no games in which he appears as "main planner."

 

On Dark Souls, Miyazaki is credited as "Director and Producer." He was just Director on Demon's Souls, but he was also doing producer-like duties on that game so there isn't really much difference.

 

Dark Souls Secrets

 

Miyazaki also shared a few development secrets about Dark Souls.

 

4Gamer said that it heard last year from someone at From Software that Dark Souls was going to be called "Dark Ring" at one point. The reason this didn't happen is because Dark Ring is slang for anus in England.

 

But Dark Ring wasn't actually the original conceived name. Originally, prior to the game's unveiling point at Tokyo Game Show 2010, they were planning on going with the name "Dark Race." The game's setting has players being of a race of cursed people, and this race was known as the "Dark Race."

 

The Dark Race name didn't hold because there was worry that it would be viewed as a racist expression overseas. This concern popped up two days before Tokyo Game Show, which is why the game ended up being announced with the placeholder title of Project Dark.

 

Following TGS, they kept the Dark and considered such names as Dark Lord and Dark Ring. They couldn't get a trademark for the former. They decided on Dark Ring, but were told of the slang around New Years time.

 

The concept of "Dark Ring" actually figures into the game, as there's a "Dark Ring" that comes out of the player as a sign of their being cursed.

 

Release Set for 2011

 

Miyazaki wouldn't get specific with release dates beyond affirming the promised 2011 time frame.

 

While From may do demo events, there are no plans to release a downloadable demo, as they don't feel that the appeal of Dark Souls can't be conveyed in a short play experience. Plus, Miyazaki feels that he's not all that great at making demos.

atrodo tai fantastiskai:)

nu ta vieta su pavirtimu zombiu ar monstru tai keistai ir įdomiai skamba, įdomu kaip ten bus ištikro..

15 Dark Souls HD gameplay picu. vieni matyti kiti ne . visi geros kokybes. verta perziuret.

 

Visi matyti , visi puikus.

Dark Souls Design Interview

http-~~-//www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lla1L4zE0s

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