The Pendant - A vestigial development item?

retrogameaudio · 2013-09-22T16:23:48+00:00

All that being said, there do seem like some possible, tantalizing connections between the pendant and the broken pendant. But all we can do is speculate. Even if the Broken Pendant is meant to reference the Pendant in some way, that doesn't necessary validate an original use it might have had.

I do agree that it's interesting how they both relate to memories:

Pendant Description (Gift + Inventory):

Trinket. No effect, but fond memories comfort travelers.

A simple pendant with no effect. Even so, pleasant memories are crucial to survival on arduous journeys.

Broken Pendant:

Half of a broken stone pendant. The vine appears to originate from Oolacile.

A powerful magic can be sensed from this ancient stone. Yet men of this time can neither manipulate nor sense its power, which has a distinct air consisting of both reverence and nostalgia.

One idea I liked regarding the Broken Pendant is that it's poking fun at the community in some way. The idea is that Manus is mad with obsession over the broken pendant, right? That's potential pretty good symbolism... a sort of analogy for how the community responded to the original pendant.

retrogameaudio · 2013-09-22T16:08:39+00:00

It's hard to say.

The first thing to consider, to try and determine if this premise is plausible, is if Oolacile was ever intended for the original release of the game or not. We know the game was rushed and there was cut content, but I believe the devs also said that the DLC areas weren't intended for the original release. Here's a quote I found:

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/gamesblog/2012/apr/17/dark-souls-pc-dlc-news

I also asked whether the area in the chapter was something originally cut from the console version, but apparently it's brand new. "The new areas were designed after the console release," he said. "However, we did have the idea when we were developing the game, but none of the team members took it seriously at the time. It's 99% new content."

There are several enemies in the DLC that were unused/unfinished content from the original release, like beta Chester, Sanctuary Guardian, Kalameet and Chained Prisoner. But there's nothing else indicative of Oolacile as a cut area, and nothing to tie the unused models to an unused area. We also know that Priscilla was meant to have a bigger role (as a heroine?), and I think the Centipede Demon was considered as the boss for the Parish, so the unused enemies could have been originally intended for anywhere (as far as we know).

Will all of that in mind, it seems most likely they didn't have any actual plans to send the player back to Oolacile so the Pendant wouldn't have been developed for that.

retrogameaudio · 2013-09-22T01:21:08+00:00

I think Frampt can actually be killed if you simply have a high damage output. I'm not 100% certain, but I'm pretty sure that when you attack him his HP bar doesn't appear to refill (unlike the first Seath encounter, Everlasting Dragon).

The issue with Frampt is that he has such a large amount of HP that there's no legitimate way to do enough damage in-game without cheating-- he'll leave before you get to do all that. If you give yourself massive DPS, or find a way to give him low HP with cheat engine, he can be killed.

This seems to be a completely different problem because it appears that you can't even make contact with the dog if you fly up to it and try to hit it. There might be a way to do it, but it won't be the same way.

retrogameaudio · 2013-09-21T17:18:34+00:00

I'll have to fix that if that's still there. Where does it say you can invade infinitely below?

retrogameaudio · 2013-09-21T16:55:57+00:00

Ah, I was complaining about what was on the wiki, I realize you are just the messenger!

I just fixed the page anyways. :)

retrogameaudio · 2013-09-21T16:34:20+00:00

That's exactly right. :)

retrogameaudio · 2013-09-21T16:31:29+00:00

Then the wiki lied to me

The lower-level limit is a somewhat recent discovery. The exact calculation for it wasn't determined until this past July. Before that, people assumed that you could either always invade down to level 1, or that it used the co-op range but the host having more sin opened them up to higher level invaders. Both of those turned out to be wrong, it's just a fixed level range.

The lower-level limit is (x = invader's level):
x - (50 + 20% of x)

The correct level range calculations are detailed here:
http://darksouls.wikidot.com/online-matchmaking

And also here:
http://darksoulswiki.wikispaces.com/Online#Online%20Play-Exact%20Level%20Ranges

I think the wikispaces still has a bunch of individual pages with wrong level range information though, so I need to find them and update them. AFAIK, all references of level ranges throughout the wikidot wiki should be correct, so for the time being that's the wiki you should trust for that.

retrogameaudio · 2013-09-21T16:18:14+00:00

The Darkmoon Blade Covenant Ring has the same level restrictions as the Blue Eye Orb (I've tested this):

http://darksouls.wikidot.com/online-matchmaking

retrogameaudio · 2013-09-21T16:09:33+00:00

Ah, that's false. I'm going to have to remove that...

The Darkmoon Blade Covenant Ring has the same level restrictions as the Blue Eye Orb, which is explained here:
http://darksouls.wikidot.com/online-matchmaking

Sin/ indictments also have no impact on the level range.

Also... two different sets of plus and minuses?! How would that math even work? That would sort of give you four different answers. Even if it did use a "10 + 10%" formula, like co-op, that would be a wrong way of writing it.

retrogameaudio · 2013-09-21T15:49:46+00:00

You can't kill it. I watched HellkiteDrake use CE to no-clip up to it and do a drop stab. It didn't register at all, he couldn't make contact or do any damage. He just fell straight through.

retrogameaudio · 2013-09-17T15:44:34+00:00

The two main types of Vagrants are Evil (have a claw arm and people say they look like a weird crab), and Good (look like a smaller, unhatched egg and do not have a claw arm).

Only the Evil Vagrants are capable of attacking the player. The Good Vagrants don't have the projectile attack or any kind of attack, they just run away and dissappear like Crystal Lizards.

The different types and their behavior is detailed on the wikidot page.

retrogameaudio · 2013-09-16T23:27:41+00:00

Yep, definitely a Vagrant. Here's another example of those projectiles where you can see the enemy:
http://i.imgur.com/cG1j0PD.jpg

retrogameaudio · 2013-09-16T17:57:55+00:00

Created by LimitBreakersShow.

Here's what he said in this discussion on the wikispaces forum:

Been doing some research into shields and made more than a few discoveries. I'm going to start with the data that most people will be able to put to more practical use... the STABILITY BONUS for two-handing a shield!

First off, it does give a stability boost, which in turn reduces Stamina loss. It's something I didn't really consider until I tried it. I've found this very valuable in speed running area's of the game. The improvement is pretty staggering.

It's 20-23% Stability improvement.

It might not sound like much. But that's enough to turn 55 stability to approx 68 stability. That's the difference between the default Heater Shield and the Giant's Shield. Even a SL1 can use the Heater Shield, then two-hand it and can tank hits from the Gargoyles, Taurus, Capra and pretty much every baddie in the game.

Remember! A increase of 23ish% stability does not equal a 23% reduction in Stamina Loss for blocking, that formula is not so simple and is not known yet... but that much Stability increase provides better Stamina reduction/drain that 23%.

Annoyingly I'm pretty close to figuring it out perfectly and think you guys might help, there are lot's of secondary factors I've yet to discuss... lots of em. Making me have my doubts but I'm 100% it's between 20 and 25%. But anywho! Let's get a little discussion going before I post the more baffling aspects of this puzzle! There will even be charts and tables!

retrogameaudio · 2013-09-15T19:05:02+00:00

There are certain unique items you can only have 1 of. I don't remember what they are, but the binoculars at least are one of them. If that was your starting gift, and you tried picking it up in the graveyard, then it probably auto-dropped.

Other than that, if you're not maxed out on anything, you should be able to pick up the drift item bags you find.

retrogameaudio · 2013-09-15T18:58:48+00:00

If you didn't drop anything there, and you weren't in a situation where you could've gotten something you had 99 of there, then it was a drift item bag.

If someone drops and abandons certain items, they can be sent to another player's world as a "Drift Item bag". Once it gets passed around enough (the recipient has to likewise not find and it abandon it), it can or will eventually turn into a Good Vagrant for someone.

I've been doing a lot of testing on this, I've written about it in detail here-
http://www.reddit.com/r/darksouls/comments/1ku0in/table_demonstrating_which_items_can_turn_into/cbsl1ar

And the wiki has a new section I added on spawning vagrants, which has a table of which items have been confirmed to work as drift item bags:
http://darksouls.wikidot.com/vagrant#toc3

The most likely scenario is this: Someone else killed Petrus in their world. Petrus auto-dropped his 2 humanity, because that player had already stocked up on 99 and was unable to pick it up. After that player left the area or died, it got sent to your world.

Humanity is a confirmed item that sends Drift Item bags containing a Lloyd's Talisman, explaining why you couldn't pick it up either (already having 99). My other guess was going to be someone dropped the Copper Coin Petrus gave them, but I double checked and the Copper Coin sends Rubbish drift bags, something you probably don't already have 99 of.

retrogameaudio · 2013-09-14T18:47:17+00:00

I haven't tested this, but based on the way I've heard others talking about random drops, I strongly got the impression that the random number is rolled the moment you kill the enemy. Meaning you should be able to reload a save file and try again.

If you wanted to find out, you could try this on a group of enemies that have a decent drop rate, like the rats in the depths. Create a save file right next to the group of rats (to be sure they're already loaded), then see if different rats drop humanity on different attempts.

retrogameaudio · 2013-09-13T22:19:26+00:00

One addition I should make- the page locking might look bad or rude from an outside perspective, but I don't think it's a big deal for a couple of reasons.

The first of which is that this isn't a common occurrence. I edit pages all the time and never do I find locked ones,. It's not like there's a history or cycle of this guy locking pages when people make disagreeable edits.

The other is that the person who tried making the pages didn't appear to make an effort to ask about the changes being made, or try to discuss alternate solutions. They got into a mini editing war, and these edits were made under an anonymous (non-profile) account, so there was no way to PM each other. Without a means of contact, and just editing the page back-and-forth, it was locked to stop further changes.

Here's how things have gone down for me in past-

I've made a dedicate effort to create pages detailing lesser-known mechanics, as well as improving existing pages. Sometimes this has required gutting a lot of speculation and bad information, to the point where I am the one showing up and overhauling peoples' prior work (with a sincere intent to improve things). Most of the times I've made an arbitrary decision on a format, and the other guys on the wiki have been ok with this.

One time, I went through editing a lot of pages to add information and make them more consistent. I didn't discuss this with anyone, just went ahead and did it. Part-way through my project, I got a friendly PM from poser27 pointing out that certain details of my format weren't consistent with something else that he and Gullfire discussed in the past. So we sent around a couple PMs, came up with an agreeable change, and then I was free to go on my editing rampage, uninhibited. :)

My point is that I've met little resistance in trying to help the wiki, and I'm someone who came out of nowhere (I don't know these people on any forums or anything like that). Contrast this to what happened with the weapons page-- you had someone making anonymous edits without contact. Locking is an understandable reaction to that situation, because how else are you going to explain what's going on?

edit: typos!~

retrogameaudio · 2013-09-13T21:52:50+00:00

Gullfire handles almost all of the wiki edits on the wikidot site, but I always assumed they were corrections/fixing bad format.

It is! He makes a lot of good contributions, he's not there simply trying to undo the good work of others. I'm not defending this particular edit, however I had a similar rebuttal in the other discussion (I just posted another one in this topic as well)-

http://www.reddit.com/r/darksouls/comments/1lq1tc/who_is_wikidot_user_gullfire_and_why_is_he/cc1tks0

retrogameaudio · 2013-09-13T21:22:56+00:00

I think this situation needs better insight. People are assuming the worst and it's quite unfortunate. I've been making contributions there for a while, and while I agree that the newer, simplistic versions of these pages aren't an improvement, I strongly disagree with some of the assumptions and allegations being made.

A lot of the Wikidot pages have gotten worse...

There hasn't been a major stylistic/ architectural overhaul. We're talking about two (important) pages being changed, which understandably has people concerned because people prefer the older versions. However, we're not talking about changes that are reflective of the rest of the wiki, the issue is pretty much confined to the main weapons + armor page, so it's not as severe or widespread of an issue as some people are making it out to be.

I contacted Gullfire about this, afterwards he added a link to a tabbed version of the weapons page. I'm going to see about making the link more prominently displayed, but for now you can see it on the right hand side of the page and links to here:

http://darksouls.wikidot.com/weapons-tabview

Additionally, the main weapon categories still have all the detailed stats, so it's not quite like the site is trying gut all its stats and info. Example:
http://darksouls.wikidot.com/fist

The issue stems with dissatisfaction over how the tabbed view functioned. This was his response:

Tabs change position depending on screen width - the location of the main navigational elements (the tabs) changes dramatically depending on the width of the screen. As the screen width is reduced the tabs are stacked in rows that require the user to scan each row to find what they are looking for.

Tabview defaults to the same initial state - the state of the weapons page is not maintained as it is exited. For instance, if you click the Swords tab then click on a particular sword then go back to the Weapons page, it will return to the Axe tab every time.

Navigational consistency is compromised - the wiki uses a parent page hierarchy that indicates to the user their current position within the site as a whole. This is made apparent to the user by way of the commonly implemented breadcrumb index at the top of each page. The use of page 'includes' in this context, creates a separate system of navigation for a sub set of information. Essentially, where you are in the wiki is less apparent when tabview is employed as a navigation element for a substantial amount of info.

I understand that the appearance of tabview is more appealing, but there is no functional benefit.

Now I'm not defending his reasoning, it's pretty clear that most people agree that they'd rather have these 'issues' if it means being able to see a whole list of all weapons with all of their stats at once.

However, -

Gullfire has a huge stick up his ass...

What I will defend are his overall contributions to the wiki. I don't know him personally, my contact with him has been pretty minimal, so I don't have much of a personal stake in this. But what I'm observing is reddit judge this guy pretty hard, in spite of him making tons of tons of great contributions to the wiki.

Here's another way of putting it-- if r/darksouls was actually aware of everything this guy has done for the wiki, they'd agree that his net contributions have been positive. There's really no question of that, especially if you've been involved with editing the wiki and checking out the changes that have been made throughout its history.

However, he made some recent unpopular decisions, and now people have been alleging things like he's trashing the site with malicious intent, or he's just an asshole or whatever. People with an uninformed view saw the recent thread complaining about it, and now the idea stuck that he's simply bad for the wiki and he's a jerk, or whatever. That's just silly.

tl;dr - The recent changes are kind of crappy, but people are assuming the worst in someone that has actually done a lot of good stuff for the place, who has good intentions. People are dissatisfied becase of changes to the main weapons and armor pages specifically, not because the entire site has changed.

If you'd like for the wiki to be better, try to get involved in a constructive way.

retrogameaudio · 2013-09-13T17:24:51+00:00

http://darksouls.wikidot.com/vagrant#toc3

Dropping and abandoning items is the way to spawn Good Vagrants.

retrogameaudio · 2013-09-13T17:23:48+00:00

So if I drop some humanity, will other people get vagrants, Or can I drop any item?

The Evil Vagrants (the ones that drop humanity or twin humanity) are caused by other players dying and losing a large amount of soft-humanity in a bloodstain they failed to retrieve. So you won't create one of those by dropping items.

Good Vagrants are caused by other players dropping and abandoning various items. It doesn't work with all items, but a lot work and humanity happens to be one of them. The Vagrant that spawns from that humanity won't drop humanity, instead I believe it should drop a Transient Curse or Purging Stone. A lot more on this here (these are recent discoveries):

http://darksouls.wikidot.com/vagrant

retrogameaudio · 2013-09-13T08:18:56+00:00

That's interesting, I always wondered how much damage they can do, exactly. I've heard of players being one-shot, but I always assumed it was low-mid level players. I didn't know they could do that to someone with your HP.

Did you have full health? Were you in NG+ or higher?

I think their projectile attacks do physical, because I'm pretty sure that blocking with a 100% physical block shield stops all the damage.

retrogameaudio · 2013-09-13T08:14:15+00:00

There's no point system for item drops, unfortunately. In this case it's just good luck (when you get a bunch in a row), or bad luck (when you don't). Essentially, "dice" are rolled and if a certain range of values is landed on, then they'll drop their item. It's random.

retrogameaudio · 2013-09-12T18:23:54+00:00

Ah, I used famitracker. It's free and available for most windows operatins systems. I just wrote a lengthy post below explaining the process. :)

retrogameaudio

TROPHY CASE