So far I usually go with Elite set with below 50% equip load. Doesn't protect enough to just sit down and chip bosses though, since I usually raise VIT only after I have reached my other desired stats. Don't realy play/like PvP though. What I meant was how more of the game's bosses should be like Orn & Smough and perhaps Artorias/Manus who really pressure you almost constantly. Though many bosses get much more dangerous when taken down with pure melee. Pyromancy & sorcery ease things a lot.

If From makes another Souls game, I hope they increase the difficulty of bosses. For me only Orn & Smough, Artorias, and Manus gave problems. And well, Bed of Chaos  Though first time around I had much harder times though. Also, it seems to depend on the build you play a bit. With sorcerer most bosses were easy, except Seath and 4Kings. Those I had defeated with little problems earlier but with my sorcery build I struggled with them more.

@CA
Yeah, Catacombs would be interesting to beat earlier than with Tomb of Giants. I checked miracles again, and to be honest I'm not sure how much use I'd have for them. Most seem to be about healing and I'm already skilled enough to play every area and boss with 5-10 Estus  There is some offense miracles, but to me it looks like pyromancy is more effective on that part. Perhaps I just make dex build then.

I wonder if I should try to make melee/archer build or perhaps try miracles... There are still play-styles I haven't tried...

I suppose some people see value in something other than monetary. Personally I don't use much KS, but I'd imagine if I'd see something truly wonderful I would kick it with money I can spare (probably not even 100$ mind you) just to see it realize. However, I'd evaluate the track record and how trustworthy the author is first.

Get +10 Eagle shield. Or any other high stability shield. Thats it if you can't dodge his attacks.

I suggest you explore the Tombs as a last or second last area in game. Otherwise it will probably be rather frustrating.

@Belimoth
Hehe, probably not. I have played DkS enough for now with over 100 hours spent on it and I think I should look into other games. Lets see how long my determination lasts... Should probably try to make some design analysis from DkS to see what excites me in it so much.

I have to agree with CA that the world feels very real in some sense. Personally I feel a much more sense of progress in DkS than in DS. DS feels more artificial to me with the archstones and nexus while in DkS I get reward of exploring just by how the environment changes as I go. IMO DS had levels, DkS has a world. I also don't mind backtracking since in most cases the distances aren't that great.

Also TeeGee, this might be a spoiler, but if you don't have Lord Vessel, do yourself a favor and get out of the Tomb of Giants and go to the two bells and Anor Londo

I just defeated Gwyn. Had to do it melee, since my magic would have killed him in few seconds. More fun to fight with melee against him. Now I don't know what to play, having this empty feeling

What used to be the strengths of the adventure genre simply got incorporated into a number of other genres.

While certainly true, at least in my opinion most of the time these strengths suffer in other genres compared to adventure games. Most notably storytelling. Ideally in adventure games, the playing and mechanics itself advance the story, while most genres rely on cutscenes & other "artificial" methods.

I think that what killed adventure games is simply that the genre became perfect as a medium.

I don't think it got perfect but instead was perceived as perfect. I can't think many other genres with as clear "great classics" as adventure games. Sure, everyone probably has their most favorite FPS or RPG, but the consensus about the masterpieces of the genre isn't as great as in adventure games and those masterpieces aren't as worshipped as in adventure scene.

Also, while adventure games are deceptively easy to make technically, they are very difficult to make properly. Mainly integrating puzzles and storytelling.

I wonder how well an adventure game with Dark Souls like story telling would work. Myst kinda did that but even it used books, videos, notes etc. How about a world where you encounter puzzles which are somehow part of the grand scheme and you have to piece the story together from the environment? Difficulty would be having open environment, since most of the adventures are linear and for a good reason too.

Adventure game genre is also genre with most idolizing of past games. Seriously, it feels like every second adventure is trying to "achieve feeling of Monkey Island", or "bring back good old days". That alone is something which is wrong with adventure games. Because of that genre haven't moved forward much with some exceptions. Another problem has been the puzzle design like already stated.

Personally I like good adventure games. If done right, they can tell story like no other game genre and offer most interesting puzzles and character interactions. In nowadays I have noticed that adventure are streamlining. There isn't anymore ten different verbs to use to each item which in my opinion is mostly a good thing. There is some other trends too which are mostly in proper direction imo.

I suggest to look into some of the more recent adventures and analyze the good points of them. I suggest looking into Syberia 1&2, Amanita design's games and Stacking from Double Fine. There is others too.

Also, this gives rather good example of bad things in some adventure games:
http://www.oldmanmurray.com/features/77.html

I don't think bloat is good argument provided you run modern system. Linux distros in my experience run better on old hardware than Windows but in new machine one generally can't notice much if any difference unless you are obsessed to optimize everything. Exception is all bloatware which may come preinstalled with your Windows but that isn't really difficult to remove. You really have to do something very specialized to utilize that freed 1-2% of CPU power in any meaningful way. And large file size of Windows installation is issue only with small SSDs nowadays.

Moonlight Butterfly is difficult if you fight it after Taurus and don't have any magic protection. You only need to fail one roll and it can one-shot you with those homing things. After you realize that and figure out the timing it is easy, especially if you have ranged attacks. Died few times like that in my first playthrough.

I actually bought it at that price as a retail (euro=dollar "conversion" though). Got artbook, poster etc. so Steam version didn't really attract me much.

There is also speculation that Velka was pygmy and mother of Priscilla etc. I wonder when Miyazaki comes out and says that he has trolled all of us and that actually Frampt is pygmy and humanity is transforming everyone in the end to serpents and dragons therefore returning the age of dragons or something as weird

Still it looks safe to assume that serpents are manipulating pretty much everyone in DkS universe, both humans and gods. I wonder where the undead curse comes though. Earlier it was said to be dark soul spread by pygmy to humans to eventually become the dark lord. Now I'm not so sure since Manus seems to have something like dark soul, and since we have killed all of the lord soul holders, it isn't too far fetched to assume we can get the pygmy too. Dark lord might be as much fabrication as chosen undead legend.

I think that perhaps the flame and bonfires are fueled by humanity, slowly eating away people's humanity turning them hollows while too much humanity turns wild and leads to insanity apparent in Oolacile. If flame and humanity are really the opposite, then darksign would be side effect caused by the flame and dangerous to humans, while wild humanity and Abyss is especially dangerous to gods.

Thanks for suggestions. I'll look into Gseries next time.

That Serpent ring is a good point. Leads me thinking that serpents want to revenge the defeat of the dragons and destroy gods by using humans. That's why Kaathe thinks Frampt went mad by friending Gwyn.  I wonder does the dark lord hold any power to the serpents or is s/he just a puppet leader while serpents stay behind the scenes like so far.

Another thing which slightly confuses me is the two abysses, New Londo and Oolacile ones. Origin of Oolacile one was pretty clear, since it was done by Manus but how about the tamer version of New Londo? Was it created after 4Kings started to drain humanity and collected enough humanity to form the abyss?

I don't know, I'd liked if some bosses had talked a bit though many of them are creepier because of not talking. I'm usually more chilled by comments NPCs say when you attack and kill them, probably because they so clearly identify as humans and not monsters.

Btw, what do you people make out of the whole story? Before I thought it was clear that the dark age was a good thing and keeping the flame lit was "bad" but after seeing the humanity's dark side and what happened to Artorias, Manus (pygmy?) and talking to Gough it looks like keeping the flames lit has some positive sides too. Well, I didn't really expect to see clear good & bad guys, but makes me wonder what is the real motivation of Kaathe since he apparently has supported the abyss in past too (supposing that it was him who led Oolacile to its fall).

Palm grip.

@Tanner
Good to hear that since I was looking into it or the laser version with that freely spinning scroll wheel which I started to like with M705.

@Andy Wolff
Yeah, it looks good but its form factor is very similar with M705 so I'm afraid it isn't much of improvement to it  I guess I have rather small hands.

Does anyone have good recommendations on good mouse? I wanted to upgrade my Logitech M305 to something with perhaps thumb button etc. and bought Logitech Marathon mouse M705. It destroyed my wrist in a week and now I'm using my old M305 with my left hand. I'm going to return M705 and look something other. Sad thing is that I really liked the bac/forward and thumb button of M705 in OSX :/

I play with sorcerer so I just spammed him with magic. However, his attacks are really slow, can't you just run in, hit few times and back off?  If you can run around him while he is breathing fire, you should be able to score few hits in. Same when he is walking. I'd probably try to stay very near him but not below if I played melee. You should also have magic resistance gear since his flames do magic damage.