Dark Souls - Tópico Oficial

Fans of 2009′s PS3-exclusive RPG Demon’s Souls are sure to have questions about Dark Souls, which is being produced under the watchful eye of Demon’s Souls
director Hidetaka Miyazaki. Though the game was formally revealed just
days ago, I had a rare opportunity to speak directly with Miyazaki about
his plans for Dark Souls. We discussed the game’s soul-crushing
difficulty (it’s going to get harder, not easier), his favorite new
feature (a new form of “emotional communication” via Beacon Fires), and
the games he’s most excited to play in 2011 (hint: UNCHARTED 3).


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.



FONTE: http://blog.eu.playstation.com/