Morituri te salutant

I bought Dark Souls 2 over the weekend, and I’ve been playing it every day since. It’s quite fun.

Among many in the video game community, the Souls games are held up as the pinnacle of difficulty, with a typical playthrough resulting in at least hundreds of deaths for the player. I don’t really see it, though. My failures are the result of my miscalculations and are essentially just part of the learning process for a new player.

I do want to share my favourite story so far, which is about the first time my game got invaded. Other players may enter your game to help or hinder you, as they wish, and one such person did so to me. I was just minding my own business when someone glowing red showed up in my game. I bowed to him, since it seemed the polite thing to do, then he bowed back, then I stepped forward to get a closer look at him and he shot me in the chest with a crossbow. I didn’t know we were supposed to be fighting. He was classy about it and messaged me saying "Valar morghulis", so of course I replied back "Valar dohaeris" since no one is outdorking me.

Anyway, I also discovered this list of player names banned from Dark Souls 2. Players may choose the names of their characters, and if you’re familiar with certain parts of the Internet then you’ve already guessed that most of the banned names involve sex acts or are various synonyms for genitals. It’s kind of awe-inspiring that so much human creativity is expended on slipping obscenities into a video game.

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