POST OF THE DAY

[Anastasia]

I move that this be considered at least the post of the week.

[Yuthirin]

I move that this be considered at least the post of the week.

[alethiophile]

...huh.

[Brian]

From Iddy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ES5UNMt7mrQ

[Yuthirin]

From Iddy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ES5UNMt7mrQ

Pulled from Youtube!

[Brian]

Well, yeah, but I wanted to credit the person who shared it with me. :p

[Brian]

Iddy found this; I was amused:

http://i.imgur.com/gdWoPWu.gif?1

[Brian]

I always found quirky instructional videos interesting.  This one's a bit gruesome, but considering what could potentially go wrong....

Courtesy of Music:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-oB6DN5dYWo

[Brian]

My brother sent me this:

http://calvinanddune.tumblr.com/

[Dracos]

It intrigues...sometimes.

[alethiophile]

That thing is great.

[Grahf]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ol1wxsN411k

Is this what cats figure everything is like?

[KLSymph]

From the annals of Dark Souls PVP.

I was once again in the Undead Burg, dueling invaders.  One invader entered, and instead of coming down into the duel arena, he stood at the balcony overlooking the arena, and after a few seconds of staring he began to fire lightning-enchanted crossbow bolts down at me.

I dodged this for a few shots, and then he began to beckon me with his body language to come up from the lower area.  I refuse this invitation, as I'm here to duel.  Instead, I pull out my compound bow and start shooting heavy arrows at him, catching him once.  Now he starts dodging, but after a bit he then descends into the arena.  I catch him with a second arrow, then put away my bow and start engaging with my sword, expecting him to be ready for a fight that he started.

On my first or second swing, I hit him and he dies.  Apparently he was a very low level invader, while I am fully leveled and equipped for dueling. This sometimes happens, because when you invade, you can be matched with a higher level victim.  That's just the risk of being a Darkwraith invader.

I do a Praise the Sun gesture after the win, because I only bow after legitimate duels, and this wasn't one.  Praise the Sun is fairly sarcastic in this context, but I felt it was appropriate since I had to get him to come down and fight.  It's not one of the truly condescending gestures available.  Those are "Well, What is It", "Point Downward" (aka "stay down"), and "Look Skyward" (a facepalm).

Across the next half hour, the following conversation takes place over PSN messaging.  All spellings are in original.

From: Invader
Subject: high level nub

To: Invader
Subject: Re:high level nub
If you can't take high level players, don't invade a PVP duel arena. :)

From: Invader
Subject: im sl 3 kid GOML
VIT Nub get skill lol let me fight you with max then u be mad

As far as I can tell, this means: I am soul level 3, kid.  Get on my level.  Use skill instead of whoring Vitality.

My character build's VIT is 50 out of 99, which is pretty common for a dedicated PVP dueling build and provides 1500 HP.  While the damage that I took from his crossbow bolts were very small due to my high defense as a well-equipped and well-leveled duelist, I was not using any HP-increasing gear, and I was far from a dedicated VIT build that uses 99 VIT and multiple gear to achieve an HP in the 2600s.  However, a level 3 character would only have a VIT in the tens, giving HP in the 500 to 600s.  The joke, of course, is that he invaded me and was then appalled that I unfairly had stats which make me harder for him to kill, when he obviously didn't invade to duel regardless of level.

To: Invader
Subject: Re:im sl 3 kid GOM
Don't make it sound like I'm proud of beating you.  When you invade, sometimes you get a bad level match.  If you want to duel me, I'm SL125.  Come get me.

Most duelists are there to have a fun match. Killing an opponent in one hit means only that I have to stand there another three minutes for someone else to come in.  It's not only nothing to be proud of, it's actively anti-fun, though I do enjoy the occasional sarcastic sun-praising.

From: Invader
Subject: 125 this aint DS
are you new? must be there is no level cap invading always bad

Soul level 120 through 125 is the most common PVP dueling range, getting you frequent matches in just about all the dueling areas, including the Undead Burg.  On the other hand, soul level 3 is not a very common invasion level, because you can go to soul level 11 and still be able to invade the full range of all possible levels if trolling or griefer-invading is your goal.  This is very basic PVP knowledge.

To: Invader
Subject: Re:125 this aint D
Ha ha ha, do you know anything about Dark Souls PVP? Or how red phantom invasions work?

Red phantom invasions, also known as Darkwraith invasions, use the Red Eye Orb or Cracked Red Eye Orb (which is a one-use version of the non-cracked orb) to invade another player in the same area.  Different kinds of Dark Souls multiplayer have different level ranges for which players can interact with which other players, and red phantom invasions allow an invader to invade only those players who are 10 levels + 10% of their own level below them, or any players above them, though it is more common to be matched with someone closer to your own level.  So while it is unlucky, a level 3 character could invade a level 125 character, but a level 125 could not invade a level 3.

From: Invader
Subject do u even pvp
or do u just play n kill low levels n hope u like ur vit imma 1 hit it

I believe this means: Do you even PVP or do you just kill low level players and hope to one-shot them while your Vitality protects you?

But I admit I am doubtful about the second half of that gibberish.

To: Invader
Subject: Re:do u even pvp
Of course I specifically target low level players to invade me. Because that's something an invaded player can control in Dark Souls.

And a portion that would not fit into the message box: And I do it in the Undead Burg duel area, because that's the place to find low level invaders instead of dueling-level players.

From: Invader
Subject: lol yup nub

I considered replying, but I decided there's nothing I needed to say to that.  Although I could've asked when did people decide that "noob" was too long to write.

...Dark Souls!

[Grahf]

Sounds like a real winner. I'm sure he'll go far with the spamming and complaining when the spamming doesn't work.

[Yuthirin]

Maybe he wasn't calling you a noob! "lol yup nub" could have been something entirely different if he was speaking Ewok!