Accessibility a 'key topic' for Dark Souls II

Won't spit blood and gall over this yet but many a great series has been destroyed by catering to a broader audience, and pleasing noone. Hopefully Hidetaka Miyazaki is working on a Tenchu revive, that series has some sick potential.

i can see a another sequel going to be ruined by "accessibility "... some games are MEANT to be hard from the get go till the end... its true the story needs to be more explained but they might make it easier on the  way

don't like the idea of dark souls being "more accessible." i kind like the feeling that it takes somewhat of an elite intellect and reflexes to beat the game and solve its mysteries. if everyone can do it, that takes away a huge chunk from the experience. i'm not even saying i'm that group of "elite", but if you aren't then, i think its better that people have to go online and look up stuff from gamers who have gone before them and give credit to those who solved it first. i didn't think the game was very hard to learn in the first place, so i get really frustrated everytime this Tomohiro Shibuya makes a comment. He's clearly targetting the people who didn't like the game. Fire this guy please.

just tried to play Dishonored for a day, was not very fun despite the high rating on gamespot. Demon's Soul's has ruined a lot of games for me including skyrim...i don't think i can go back to cheesy combat anymore

Tomohiro Shibuya. please fire this guy. Not only does he make inconsiderate stupid remarks about our beloved game, his only experience is Resident Evil Outbreak. That's bad!! Lets get a petition going. We can't let a guy with no credibility handle dark souls 2. Why is Hidetaka Miyazaki stepping down? We need to find someone who's designed some really good games.

Don't you dare streamline this series like how they did Dragon Age and Ninja Gaiden. There will be oceans of blood spilled if this happens.

What if all they mean by accessible is that they have a very slight tutorial and a story that is a bit linier but still an awesome story from start to end that makes a player feel awesome about himself...but for those who are deep fans of the game and love exploring find more to the story then the casual player?

For example. In the story you end up killing a dragon that was going to destroy this town.. That would be the casual gamer experience. But for the more in depth people they find out that the dragon actually was supposed to destroy the whole universe and came after this town just because of you. And you were actually the son of some expressive father that once defeated this dragons father?

Something like that. A basic story that is still amazing in its own to the causal player but with an underlying expansion of the story that makes the original base story that much more amazing to the people who go hunting for the lore in the game.

Yes, adding an Easy mode for people who just want to relax and play for enjoyment. Not headaches and stress.

Dark Souls doesn't need to explain itself, it just requires cold blood and great doses of patience on the players' part!

As long as the optional elements aren't pushed into the player's face, then I guess it's ok . . .

This Tomohiro Shibuya guy is ruining Dark Souls completely. I hope someone makes a petition to From Software to kick his ass and fire this idiot ASAP before he damages Dark Souls beyond repair!

I am not going to worry about this until they release more information.  In fact, I will not worry until I see the 24 hour livestream, or a gameplay trailer.  I am confident this game will be just as good as dark souls, maybe better if things go the right way.

On a side not i hope they do not use GFWL.

It just deleted all my Dark Souls saves.All 7 of my characters are gone, several hundreds of hours wasted and i had just started a Let's Play for it....

Which is now canceled.

Fuck GFWL

Somebody needs to take this game away from Shibuya. Or at least help him understand what it really needs: Better story, (ring two bells doesn't quite cut it) no back-stabs in pvp (the ultimate cheap-ass move) and no boss animals that limp around when you wound them, waiting to be finished off (sorry, Sif - I had to do it).

Main Steaming is not what this game needs. Better multiplayer, more easter eggs, and better PC support is what it needs. Also, how bout showing blood stain animations that shows who/what killed the guy.

Beth screwed up the Fallout series and the Elder Scroll series by over simplifying, do not make the same mistake.

Listen! Can you hear the Dark Souls world crumble?

Same happen to RE4->RE5. RE5 still was good game, but not as great as RE4

Story wise this series does need to be more accessible.  My bro got the "bad" ending, and didn't even know it until I explained it to him.  The fact that you have to read the Dark Souls wiki to understand a great deal of the game is not going to open the game up to a wider audience.   That being said, the difficulty needs to remain punishing.  It's what the series is about...fearing for your life and being pushed to survive.  I certainly hope they maintain that feel. 

The more I read the more I cry.  RIP Souls series.  ;__;

If they really wanted to encourage new players to play Dark Souls they should've  released a playable pc port, that would've gotten them a lot more fans then dumbing down the game would.

Lost its charm. Beware of Darkwraith +1

I don't get why people are moaning about this. So what if the game starts off with more info? The way Shibuya is talking about it makes it seem like it's something that'll mainly affect the way players are eased into the game. Other than the covenants, he doesn't mention anything at all about steamlining. As long as it's not another Dragon's Age 2 type retardation then we should be fine, no? 

its only one question that is hurting me; WHY?

Everything i hear about Dark Souls 2 has something to do with streamlining it. I don't have a good feeling about this game.

if they f this game up...i will unleash a miasma of death and disease. and miyazaki the scaleless...will betray his own

If it's done well (in an unobstrusive way, nothing like "use A+RB to teabag your enemies and gain 10hp"), streamlining covenants is what i'd change. Because, honestly, I still have no idea what some of them (Path of the Dragon, Princess' guard) do. Story being less subtle...well, that I can live with, AS LONG as there are no companions NPC telling you the story.

I have to admit, I fully agree with streamling Covenants, too. They were like almost literally NOTHING but speculation and "I have no idea what I just did. Why is this important." Half of em didn't even really do anything. You had to look up on a wiki just to find out why you would even care about raising Chaos Servant to +2. There were no vague hints or lore or anything that indicated it would open a shortcut to Lost Izalith. Although, I never did try talking to Queelan after reaching +2 with the Old Witch's Ring on, though I still doubt she'd say anything significant.

>Way of the White.

Sorry, I know this is off topic and I can't seem to be able to comment on the forums, so I gotta say quit fucking fishing for backstabs. At least against me. I never, ever go for them and I hate it when that's all you do. How is that any fun? Let's just straight up fight, not too much to ask for. My PSN is Tightwad70 or something rather. I'm probably the only one with that name. This will probably only make you guys try even harder for backstabs and I hope you relish in no fun, semi-cheapness. Only reason I'm mad is because I never go for backstabs.

So long as they don't mainstream it too much, I have no problem with a more traditional "introduction" to the game. Just about every game has some form of tutorial in the beginning.

i.e. "This is an Estus flask, use it heal you." *you get smacked* "Oh balls you are hurt! Push X to heal yourself with your Estus flask! To change to your Estus flask, press DOWN on the D-Pad"

Just don't ruin what makes the series good. I would love some deadpan humor in loading screens too. Like right after you get splatted "Some enemies use the element of surprise, try not to get hit by them!"

i cant wait from dark souls 2

Crossing my fingers in hopes that this don't mainstream my favorite franchise into hand holding fest.

Some of this doesn't sound good, but I have faith in the Japanese to do it right. They are not sellouts(at least not nearly as much as us Americans), and they will massively piss off a very passionate fanbase if they stray too far from what we want. From what I see, it really shouldn't be very difficult to make it more accessible for newbs while keeping everything else we love so much.

People love the game because it is something different. Don't mainstream it.

Please don't murder this franchise by trying to make it more "accessible"!

As long as they don't water down the experience and make it easy. The reason why I loved Skyrim more than Oblivion was that they refined a ton of features but didn't make it seem less of a challenge (playing it on the highest difficulty at level 40 is still punishing sometimes). The story of Dark Souls was a bit confusing and when I have to wikipedia to understand what really happened at the end does reflect on bad storytelling. Other than that Dark Souls 1 was a near perfect game.