You Died- the Dark Souls Companion by Keza MacDonald & Jason Killingsworth

Author:Keza MacDonald & Jason Killingsworth [MacDonald, Keza & Killingsworth, Jason]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781909430235
Publisher: BackPage
Published: 2016-04-22T07:00:00+00:00

The actual human responsible for Fat Tarkus, Jeremy Greer, may troll occasionally but he doesn’t live under a bridge (unless somebody manages to construct a giant bridge over Lafayette, Louisiana, after this book goes to press). He’s a respectable southern gent, 35 years old, happily married, dog owner, a contributing member of society. He sells electronic reading systems to cities, municipalities and public works. “I was a computer guy for years and years, and then somehow got into sales because I have a personality,” says Greer. “That’s kind of what happens to guys like me.” During our hour-long conversation he laughs easily and often. And, trust me, when the subject comes to PvP trolling tactics in Dark Souls, there is a lot to laugh about.

I’ve tracked down Greer, who also co-hosts the wonderful Dark Insight podcast, to discuss numerous facets of Dark Souls PvP. I’m especially keen to understand the mindset of players who’ve latched onto the game’s invasion mechanic. Members of the Darkwraith covenant have the ability to brute-force their way into the games of other players and hunt them for sport. If an invader manages to kill you, they can derail your progress and force you to respawn at your most recent bonfire checkpoint. Or they can just stand in a doorway for 30 minutes holding a shield. Once inside another player’s world, invaders can pass the time however they like.

I must confess up front, I’ve always had an irrational phobia around invasion. I’ve been invaded countless times over the hundreds of hours I’ve spent with Darks Souls, but I’ve never reciprocated. The ability for one party to force an unwilling participant into a duel made me squeamish. Any time I unhollowed at a bonfire, rendering myself vulnerable to invasion, I instantly felt like I was walking to my car through an empty parking garage at night, gripping my Balder Shield like keychain pepper spray.

Unversed in the nuances of PvP tactics, I rarely offered invaders any meaningful challenge. Encounters were less of a duel and more of a let’s-get-this-over-with turkey-carving. Eventually I began jumping off the nearest ledge if an invader ever showed up, the PvP equivalent of shouting ‘You can’t fire me... I quit!’. No matter how many times I died to the Capra Demon or Ornstein and Smough, I never felt inferior or judged by them, but it was impossible to get one-shotted by an invading player without a tinge of shame and inadequacy.

Greer found his early encounters with invading Darkwraiths as terrifying as I had, but instead of fleeing the experience, he simply decided to heed the Internet meme that urges one to... git gud.

“I’d never played a lot of multiplayer games on the Internet before [Dark Souls],” he says. “I’d played racing games and stuff like that but nothing with an active competitive element to it. I remember my first time getting to Anor Londo and going out to where the bridge would be, but I hadn’t raised it yet. Someone left a message there that said, ’Beware of Darkwraith’.

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