I got a lot done on this lazy Sunday. I utterly demolished the Bell Gargoyles thanks to the help of two summoned phantoms (not the NPCs). The Capra Demon was a bit tough but a good defense was enough to win against goat man. I then ventured into the Depths (I couldn't help myself), killed a crap ton of rats, dog-things, piles of sludge and some crazy disease-spewing giant eyeball things (I looked them up on the wiki - Basilisks, I think?) and it was all going quite well. I thought based on how easy the gargoyles were with summoned help, I should have a fair chance against this boss in the Depths. I summoned Lautrec and Solaire, ventured through the fog... and died.

I was concerned for two reasons: before I died Solaire was vanquished (you can heal, using Estus, white phantoms that are online players, but not these NPC guys, that sucks!) and I feared I had lost his help and whatever other opportunities he might present. Fortunately I made a trip to the dragon/Taurus bridge and he was still there. Phew.

Second, I was concerned that I'd lose my huge stock of humanity (I have 12 loose right now, which seems like a lot to me). So I decide I will run in through the fog, grab my souls and Homeward Bone out of there. So I walk through the fog, hold the damn circle button ("O") on my controller to run for the bloodstain, and what does it do? It activates my Homeward Bone. My fingers were nowhere near the square button! My controller has been doing weird stuff lately. Fortunately I have a newer, less broken one that I can charge and use if necessary. But sheesh, am I right?

So anyway, on my second try it worked, I got my souls and humanity back, and I hauled my butt out of the Depths. That disturbing ultra head crab dragon thing can wait. I obviously need to level up a bit more, but I'm not sure where to go. Nothing is very clear in this punishing world.

Oh, so after I beat the gargoyles some guy was in the bottom of the tower, and I bought some of his "Indictment" parchments on a whim. About 20 minutes later I was invaded by a red phantom, and I had something like 8 seconds to choose to report this person to the Book of the Guilty. If this person had perhaps bowed, and allowed me to return the gesture, I would have just thought well that was some decent fellow, they've invaded my world but at least were respectable; kudos. But no. I was dealing with some stabby thief-types in the lower Burg when this jerk all of a sudden blocked me into a corner so I couldn't move and just slashes the hell out of me with some poisoned weapon.

You're in the Book of the Guilty now, bitch. 

Random thought: the guy who voices the pyromancy trainer is great. Wonderful delivery. Firelink is becoming kind of homey, with people in it now. People aside from that crestfallen "warrior."

You shouldn't feel too hollow, Gregg. I googled the rules on summoning and someone wrote out some formula I didn't bother to follow, but what it worked out to was that you can summon people who are in the top 10% of your level. Example: If you are level 20 then you should be able to summon anyone else who is level 20 or 19. So this person should not have been some uber-mensch.

And on scary looking people: I have seen some really weird phantoms; like the hats they wear make me wonder if people have hacked this game (impossible, no? on a PS3?) or if FromSoft actually made a hat that is a treasure chest with a tongue sticking out of it. Oh, and another guy I saw, who was a white phantom along with myself for some other person, was disguised as a barrel. At least I think it was a disguise. I was trying to kick and roll into this barrel: nothing; then it started to move, then in a wisp of smoke it turned into a person. Very weird.

On my slowness: yes, I am quite slow, but I put in some huge sessions this weekend. Aside from going out briefly with friends on Saturday night, all weekend I pretty much just ate food and played Dark Souls. Delicious all around.

With a bit of bleed and poison resisting methods you could certainly venture into the Depths just for a peek. I found a very useful ring, albeit really deep into the place: with every enemy you kill you gain a small amount of HP. Ring of the Evil Eye, I think. Just be careful down there ... there is a bonfire, but the whole place is very dark and trap-laden.

I've noticed since I started playing that I haven't seen a single ghost (=other player) wearing any armour. Every single one just looks like the deprived class in tattered rags, is this the case with everyone else? The only ghosts I see that are wearing things are usually sat around the bonfires, and they usually look scary.

I've been trying to join someone else's game whenever I've been at the parish church but nobody is summoning me. In the end I decided to go check out Darkroot Gardens. That all went pretty well until I decided to use Astoria's Crest to open that door. The trees in that area are noticeably tougher and coupled with the density of forest and the Darkwraiths hanging around I had real difficulty getting far there. I managed to get across to the Eastern armour set and pulled in towards the centre again but then a Darkwraith managed to take me out in an area that was going to be hard to get back to. On the way back a tree ate my face and I lost about 8000 souls and 5 humanity so I was pretty pissed and decided to ditch that area before things started getting even uglier. Oh, while I'm talking about Garden enemies, those golem knights look very tough but actually go down pretty easily with a mace, one even dropped a Stone Greatshield which requires 38 strength and weighs 20 thingies!!

I wandered down to the Darkroot Basin and got biffed in one hit by the knight in the Watchtower and got sliced and stabbed by a big black knight. I also got chased by some weird creatures just in front of what looks like a hydra. Shit looks nasty down there. Oh and to top things off, fucking crystal lizards made a reappearance! Bane of my life, I just cannot hit those things.

Has anyone managed to get a message rated at all? I've been trying all sorts of different approaches with them, funny, useful, non-sequitur, but got nothing back. I'm sick of seeing 'Good Luck' and 'Praise the Sun!' and 'Here!' being rated highly though! I'm making an effort to rate anything that is useful or inventively funny to try and offset that nonsense.

Pokey, if you can push on through Darkroot Gardens past those golem knights there's a relatively easy boss that'll net you 10,000 souls. I spent that on the Astoria Crest and to be honest, at level 28 I had a lot of difficulty past those doors :-/ I'm not sure how effective spears are against golem knights though, my mace worked a treat.

Note to self: Artorias, not Astoria.

Ruined tower opposite the door...? How have I missed that?

Just tried my hand at the Capra Demon and the New Londo Ruins. The Capra Demon I think I could have taken it's just those damn dogs and the enclosed space makes dealing with them all a right pain in the arse. I positioned myself near the entrance so that if I died I could easily retrieve my souls and get outta there with them using a Sacrifice Ring but I decided against because... well, 5000 souls probably wasn't worth risking that ring for. It was a good call because for some bizarre reason my bloodstain was near the stairs and I didn't get anywhere near it before being pounded into the ground.

The New Londo Ruins was an unnerving place. I got up some stairs and across a narrow walkway before being ambushed and decided that I wasn't well equipped enough to be going any further. I did manage to retreive a Fire Keeper Soul while I was down there though. I'm struggling on where to go next because it seems that everywhere is hurting me badly at the moment.

When I returned to Firelink I heard somebody snoring where the bird is and I couldn't find anything. With my surround sound I could tell which direction it was coming from but there didn't seem to be anybody there... weird. Good weird.

That shifty fellow near the Fire Keeper disappeared for a while then reappeared later on. I don't like him, I don't like him one bit.

Edit: @Steerpike:

It's funny, after about 15 minutes of Dark Souls I was annoyed and thought this can't be better than Demon's Souls. It is oh so improved in so many ways. Ways you don't expect. How is anyone on this planet playing anything other than Dark Souls? It's madness! Quit Warcraft, throw Modern Warfare in the garbage!

As Steerpike put it: DAAAAAARRRRRRKKKK SOOOOUUUUULLLLLSSSSSSSS!!!

I'm kicking a lot of ass in this game, I don't know if it's because I'm so fresh off Demon's that my fingers and brain are just wired to live and breath these games right now, but wow, I'm so in love. Gush gush.

I've been splitting time between a Pyromancer-ish lass (my original creation) and my Knight. Both very enjoyable. I naturally like the knight. It is slow and laborious, as am I.

Although I didn't need it, I took Pokey's advice and...

Still sticking with my Halberd+5. Yes, Gregg, it is indeed a wonderful weapon. I love not having to get right up close and personal.

My characters are both hovering around level 30. (I am addicted, I admit this.) If any of you plan to attack any bosses at a specific time let it be known here. It would be very neat to possibly join forces, although a certain aspect of it is left to chance.

I spent some time this evening just assisting people with the Bell Gargoyles. I got half a dozen Sunlight Medals, about 45,000 souls, and have now left the Way of White covenant to join the Warriors of Sunlight. I very much enjoy helping others. It is satisfying. I don't think I could ever invade someone forcefully; honorably yes, but not like Mr. Poison Griefer did to me.

Gregg, a few things:

• I have read about the phantoms you see, and I think the reason they appear all skin'n'bones raggedy is to sort of reinforce the undead thing. Around bonfires that is supposed to be different, allowing you to see people in their true form.
• On being summoned: I have been doing it a lot, and I have noticed the most effective way to be summoned is actually not by placing your sign in front of a boss fog door, but actually closer to that level's bonfire. Reasons being: by the time the summoner gets to the fog door they've probably already summoned their help. But right outside a bonfire is the first place they see after they reverse hollowing. If you want to test this theory (and are low level enough... 10-20 roughly) place a summoning sign on the small wooden bridge right outside the Undead Burg bonfire (right behind the crossbow guy's area). I did this and was summoned constantly. Also, I walked around the Parish in human form and found the most common places for summon signs was just outside the Firelink shortcut elevator/bottom of the stairs to the second floor of the church, or just outside the side steps of the church, and just before the path to Andre the Blacksmith. I put my summon sign at the latter repeatedly last night and was summoned at least 10 times in about an hour and a half.
• An exception I noticed to this was the Capra Demon, since the shortcut from Firelink basically leads right to his fog door, when I was human I saw quite a few summon signs there. I had trouble summoning people there though, the signs disappeared quite quickly... I don't know if they're just disappearing for me and appearing for others to allow different bunches of people a chance (server load balancing?) or if that area just has a lot of demand for summoned help.
• My random tip of the day: remember when Atlus taught you the one-two punch in Bioshock? (Electro Bolt + Wrench.) I have found a very effective melee strategy, particularly when dealing with medium armored foes (example: the two spear & shield guys about the first merchant in the Burg), is to approach them with your shield raised, and when you are close enough and they are not already winding up for an attack, KICK then ATTACK. Kicking can be finicky sometimes but I find the best way to pull it off 100% of the time is to be very firm with your controller, don't try to lightly push the left stick up and hit R1, you can even just push the stick up hard and HOLD R1 and that will still execute a kick. Anyway, I've found that to be the most stamina-effective way to compromise your opponents' defenses.

Also, regarding messages, I'm trying to leave helpful or nice ones too, and none of mine have been plus rated. But then I see ones like "Need head" appearing everywhere. Sigh.

I don't know why they have the fully canned phrases either. I see a million messages that just say "I can't take this..." What a boring message.

If only I could be so grossly incomprehensible.

Gregg and I have confirmed that across-the-pond summoning works. We engaged in some jolly co-operation today!

Helped each other both defeat the Capra demon, then did some sleuthing in the Depths, where we took out one invader but then fell to a second, though we did quite respectably down there. The tension of your dwindling Estus is great, and when you've summoned someone you're unable to light or rest at a bonfire. We may have survived that second invasion had I not run out of Estus, and had the invader not been kind of a dick-- he kept closing this door to the Depths bonfire room, and hiding behind it waiting for us to approach. Still, we put up a good fight.

The lag between us was also minimal for the most part. There were a few hiccups when we were invaded, but nothing crippling. It helped in general that we were talking on Gmail chat; gestures are not nearly enough when you completely lose track of where the other person is. This is especially true for the Depths, which are labyrinthine.

All in all, that was a serious good time!