Dark Souls 2 beta testing

[dmpdesign]

I have had the luck of getting drawn twice now to test DS2 on the PS3 - this weekend is my second go around, wish I had a way to take screenies and such, but so far so good :D

[dmpdesign]

Actually, they posted a code on facebook:

The following code can be redeemed on the PSN to download the Dark Souls II Network Test Client for a limited amount of participants!

38QQ-8DNE-97AA

Hope to see some of you there!

[Verdite]

Whats the swordsman like? Do the dual swords actually output decent damage now?

[dmpdesign]

Next test is tonight, I will attempt to get online and have a feel for the swordsman style youre asking about ;)

[HwitVlf]

It's too bad my internet connection doesn't support online gaming- a downside of living in the mountainous-middle-of-nowhere. Unless they ask beta testers to keep mum, I would be interested in your opinion of the game. My main frustration with Dark Souls1, was that the lockon kept making me walk off ledges or get buggy camera angles at the worst possible moment. I was playing the PC version though so it may have been a porting issue. I wonder if they have improved that?

[dmpdesign]

I have played all versions of DS John, it is exactly the same on all of them, the only difference you'll find between the PS3/xbox version and the PC one is when they released the expansion for the two consoles, it re-enabled some terrible Engrish when you defeat bosses that said 'you defeated' instead of 'victory achieved'. In the PC version this was fixed with the expansion, with the other two it was rebroken lol.

Anyhow, as last time, I was sorry I stayed up for the test, it was terribly late and I was grumpy tired.  Amidst issues logging in for the first half hour, issues with server crashes and buggy invasions I didnt get a lot of play time.

Really it boiled down to logging into a beautifully drawn zone, waiting about 10 second and being backstabbed by an invisible invader....apparently the servers weren't well synched as many reported being killed by someone they couldnt see.  Since it was a networking test it was all about pvp, and quite honestly I despise the pvp aspect of dark souls anyways...I wish they would just allow you to group with your friends without the annoying invasion crap.  Unfortunately From Software seems hell bent on keeping the game anti-player, so I doubt that will see any change before its release.

[dmpdesign]

Ben to answer your question about the dual swordsman...I could see the class being interesting once youre very good at the game, but not having good block to begin with would probably spell early doom for a new player.

I have a feeling I wont touch that class until I have beaten the game once and am familiar with the layouts and attacks of the enemies.

Here is decent footage of that class in action...as you can see the sword play is still a bit slow to be terribly useful with the second weapon.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQc_tl7YynI

[Verdite]

Interesting! Thanks for sharing your experiences :)
That player was a bit difficult to watch but I got the jist of the dual swords; I liked the double slash attack that the player used early on. It would be nice to have the extra attack system like in Demons, where if you attained a certain level of DEX then you'd unlock it.

I am pretty sure that I will play as the temple knight. He looks too good.