Elden Ring's writer/director Hidetaka Miyazaki was asked in a Gamespot interview: "If you could take over any game franchise and had an unlimited budget, which would you pick?" His answer: "Ultima Online or EverQuest."

Hearing you say you don't understand the S-class being higher than A was so funny to me because as a millennial who played a lot of Japanese-made video games as a kid, they ALWAYS had S-rank as the highest! So to me it is completely ingrained as a 'normal'! Loved hearing you talk about your experience with Elden Ring and the way it is similar to a game I never got to play :)

The E through A with S being the best comes from the Japanese school grading system as I understand it. C is 60~69%, B is 70~79%, A is 80~89%, and S (rarely ever given) is 90~100%. S stands for "Shu", meaning 'exemplary'.

I haven't played Morrowind in over a decade, but can still hear the screeching of the damn birds so vividly.

My dad was an Everquest player back in the day. He picked up Elden Ring and thought the same thing and loves it because of that, so it was a pleasant shock to see this video pop in my feed!

The letter grade system you noted in Elden Ring is basically universal among Japanese games. Not for item valuation, but for any ranking really, like sports games, rhythm games, character action games like DMC use it for feedback on combo performance. It isn't inherently easy to understand but it's common enough as a convention that no one I know complained about it.

You don't need to rest at any one specific site of Grace to unlock leveling. You simply need to rest at any 3 sites of Grace that exist in the open world (aka not a part of a dungeon). Melina will appear to you at the 3rd site of Grace.

I agree that magic progression and getting better spells is pretty obtuse in Elden Ring but I like the way that you as a player can consider “who practices magic in this world?” and follow those threads to find a lot of spells and magic related things in a natural way (the obtuseness is alleviated a bit by the fact that many early game spells remain the most mana efficient and gain damage as you level up your intelligence throughout the game) Most games don’t train us to think so literally about the world but if you pay attention you will be led to more magic if you seek it out! A few examples are Sellen the first NPC and her side quest which lead you to the bodies of Azur and Lusat who are in possession of great spells/staves/armor for magic users, the mage towers in the open world that have magic related items inside, Raya Lucaria which is a magic academy and holds a ton of upgrades and spells for magic users, the Carian manor which is associated with Ranni and is owned by the family that includes the most powerful magic users in the world of Elden Ring (Rennala, Radahn, Ranni) and Sellia in Caelid which is where Radahn was taught magic and it holds some powerful things in and around it as well (night sorceries that AI do not attempt to dodge, metorite staff + rock sling in the surrounding area). I love this approach because it rewards players who explore areas that are relevant to their in game character’s class and interests, rewards understanding of the lore, and requires the player to think as if they are in the world of the game which I find to be really immersive.

Playing a rogue in Everquest really trained you to stay alive at all costs, which is a trait that translates well into Elden Ring. When I moved from Everquest to WoW, my rogue didn't die until level 23, because Everquest had trained me to burn up all of my tricks to escape.

Interestingly, all of your points about Elden Ring apply to Dark Souls too, apart from Elden Ring's world being more open from the start, whereas Dark Souls, while not being fully linear, has fewer paths between areas.

EverQuest before things were mapped and Wikied. Before the bazaar and the rush to the end game that is now what MMOs do... It was magic. You felt the world was huge. Each fight worth fighting could go bad, each session could end in death that would take hours or a lot of platinum to recover from. And without maps, Wikis and recommended leveling paths, each advancement in level or gear felt amazing. You can capture some of that feeling when a new tlp opens, or when p99 happens to do a refresh, but not really. The info is there.

Hello Tim! Big fan of your games! Can you please make a video on what type of game design you want to see in the future? Like what mechanics would you like to see more in games or what problems you want to see solved in video games.

Would be nice to hear you talk about more modern games, you don't have to "review" them, just say what you thought interesting about them.

I’ve been trying to track down where I read it sometime ago, it was an interview in regards to King’s Field/ Demon’s Souls/ Dark Souls.. I distinctly remember Miyazaki stating that besides being heavily inspired by the ttrpg “Fighting Fantasy” he loved and was inspired by EverQuest :) I may be misremembering though and that I just had similar feelings to you, which I’m happy to hear you express the comparison because friends told me I was wrong :p

Did you played or heard about Gothic 1 and 2? It's a similar type of the game. Hard combat but also good story, roleplay and especially exploring element. You would probably like it. And last year Chronicles of Myrtana: Archolos were released and that is game of the year 2022 for me.

having these videos is such a treat awesome to have these perspectives

This comment section is about to pop off with younger people who have played a lot of SoulBornes and zero EverQuest

I super appreciate your perspective on this, knowing who you are and your achievements. I might disagree with some of it, but, regardless, it is FASCINATING hearing from a hardcore gamer (and a DEV, especially) that I respect, and all of your opinions of the weird stuff encountered in different games. I feel like if we went camping or something, we could talk and argue and drink beer all night about why such-and-such mechanic wasn't good or what design decisions in what game should have been a different way or why not. For example, I think a lot of inconsistency and chaos in the FromSoft games has been incredibly invigorating in the same way an earworm has been, and creates a meta group-memory for gamers to discuss and laugh or cry about together. Like... a lot of that stuff is so weird that it's beautiful, and most developers are so afraid to stray from a beaten path and just polish away any and all of that weird character that makes those games so unique. A lot of games try to do what From does, but very few actually achieve the same level of mood and experience; there's definitely an x-factor there and I dont think making it "easier" or "more intuitive" would necessarily be better. From games have ended up being this weird acquired taste, similar to fermented foods. Edit: also, JoJo. Jojo's bizzare adventure is the same acquired-taste energy.

please do more videos like this! talking about a recent game you really liked, or if a new game reminds you of another game. you're really good at articulating

I stumbled on your videos while literally sitting here playing classic Everquest.

Sir, you have become a daily habit to watch your videos. Really interesting takes and insights.

Watching/listening to these videos every morning is becoming a staple of my day - this one in particular had me grinning ear to ear just hearing you analyze and compare. Thanks so much, Tim!

I found your point on quest design and locations in Elden Ring super interesting, as I see some similarity in Fallout 1's quest design - i.e. the lack of hand holding and the need to keep track of locations and where NPCs hint without pointing directly where. Although I can completely understand it might be a con as modern games typically have more direct quest tracking. Ultimately, it is up to the player and it isn't for everyone. But as someone who grew up with Skyrim and other RPGs during that era, when I played Fallout 1 later it was super refreshing trying to explore and problem solve to find clues for questlines. And this exact feeling I had when I was playing Elden Ring - I don't think it was as difficult as people made it out to be but I think it's because from the beginning it was doing something similar to Fallout 1

Damn I can't believe there's a chance I've played EQ with you back in the day and did not realize it.

Great video as always Tim!

Hi Tim! interesting perspective and parallels you've drawn from comparing these 2, also found the mimic veil as a really cool mechanic, regarding what you've said about inconsistent bosses, some bosses being harder than others based on the class you're playing while fighting, I believe this is a good choice making replays feel different and challenging even underestimating a boss that was initially trivial, I never played a souls game as a magic user but tried it first time in elden ring and got a huge surprise when the tree sentinel just returned my spells right at me, also agree when you compared horse-back fights vs on-foot, some fights I couldn't win without riding while others I chose deliberately on foot for a bit of an challenge unfortunately many of the fights cannot be fought on horse-back also I think they made some things in elden ring difficult to find/figure out while having the messaging system in mind, one player discovers a hidden path puts a message that others will learn about and proceed to discover that path, I am also curious what is your perspective on the quests of elden ring, I found them a bit difficult to follow since I played rarely and ended up forgetting where I was in each one, but I get the feeling they are built somewhat like puzzles that require a bit of effort to solve yet are rewarding to do so, comparing this to some rpgs that offer ample choices in quests leading to many custom outcomes I believe and mixed approach would be best

6:49 Thank you, Tim, for expressing with words what I could not, up until this point! I never could really figure out why, in Elden Ring and previous Souls titles, (excluding Bloodborne) why I would want to use one weapon over another, if the one I was currently using was already effective, and similar to a new one I'd find, post-upgrade. Word salad aside, hopefully you didn't spend any time reading this one, thanks for that.

If you could elaborate, what would be an example of a weapon comparison system you would prefer instead of what Eldin Ring and EverQuest presented? And for that matter, what other gameplay systems or mechanics do you prefer in games?

Keep rambling please! I love your insights!

7:34 another excellent point! I often found myself not even wanting to engage with certain NPCs/questlines in Elden Ring/Dark souls 3 because of how vague they progressed. I didn't want to have to look a solution up online, or else risk completely failing said NPC/questline, with no explanation as to how I failed it or how I should have/could have gone about progressing.

great to hear your thoughts tim!

I miss old game boxes. Those old EQ covers were great. And the goodies they gave away with them were a reason to get them alone. To this day I’ve never received a game world map made from actual cloth except from non collectors edition EQ expansions.

I love to hear those "ramblings" and insights about other games - any thoughts on modding? Your favorite mods for games? You think modding tools for Outer Wolrds could have been expanded? Will it be for the sequel?

Reflecting on my time playing EverQuest, I have to agree, there's a lot of similarities. What jumps out to me as similar is how both games have highly dangerous, atmospheric (for its time), immersive worlds. The games can both very easily give you an "in over your head" feeling, but simultaneously make you stand back and marvel at the scope of it all. Great insight, it makes me nostalgic!

The second I saw this video I had to click. Everquest was my childhood. Probably too much of it. I can see the comparisons. Everquest is a big driver in the games I want to make. Nights in EverQuest still haunt me. Pitch dark, can't see your own hand in front of your face. Horrifying monsters that come out at night in certain areas. Random nasty creatures roaming "safe" areas. Venomous snakes biting you and learning very quickly they're not worth the exp unless your healer has cure poison. God what a wonderful game. I haven't played Elden Ring yet. I've been punishing myself by not playing it because I want to get what I'm working on done first. But soon, soon I will. The enchanter disguise self skill was great if you threw a coin on the ground and had someone sow you. You could zip around town as a piece of copper cause of that bug. Good memories. I hope I can bring the sense of exploration and adventure old games like Morrowind, EverQuest, etc gave me to my stuff. I want people to explore and discover unique things to tell their own stories. But I do agree some quality of life to clarity is important. I could go on for HOURS about EQ. What server were you on Tim? Mithaniel Marr here. :)

Interesting video, would love to hear your thoughts on more games.

I'm in a similar boat. I could never get into the Dark Souls games when i tried them but Elden Ring was a great experience for me even if I never got around to finishing it. Still had a good time

I love to hear you ramble

I am a little confused that you didn't like the previous Souls games but you did like Elden Ring because all the things you listed from ER that reminded you of EverQuest... Were in all those previous souls games. The griefing, the high level enemies you take on, even mimic spell, those were all in previous Dark Souls games. So my question is What made you like Elden Ring better than Dark Souls? Was it the open world or something else? This isn't meant to be some "gotcha" by the way, I'm just genuinely curious about what appealed to you in Elden Ring that was missing from Dark Souls. Thanks for another great video,Tim! 👍

In my personal opinion all the quests: 1. Go find / bring 2. Go kill Could be surprise discoveries in the open world, and will be a lot more tedious if someone set a goal for you do them Basically i am advocating for the begging and end of the quests be happening in one small area that you can stumble upon to get the dopamine hit And chain quests with stages should be absolute necessity with insanely good story because they are energy depriving Baldur’s gate 3 did an amazing job with this

The real test of one's determination in EQ was travelling back to your corpse over the course of two hours, all while very naked and afraid!

I never really thought about the issues with comparability of the weapons but I can definitely see where you’re coming from. I don’t see an issue with the S rank system since that is a set standard in pretty much all Japanese games that have letter grading of any kind, but i get how it would be confusing if you operate under different assumptions where the A is the top rank and all ranks below are alphabetically ordered. I think part of what makes it complicated is that neither weapon scaling nor base stats could independently tell you if a weapon was better for your class. Determining the proper balance of base stats to scaling depends on knowledge of the game not accessible without trial and error and/or consulting external knowledge. An s rank weapon can have bad base stats and a d ranked weapon can have awesome base stats. Also, what if the weapon scales on two or more stats and this scaling is done at different levels for each of those stats. This results in weapons that can be bad when you get them but terrible at high levels or they are terrible at first but great once you get the right stats high enough. This is made even more complicated that both base stats and scaling can be effected by weapon upgrading and also some weapons have different upgrade paths than others. Also, none of this accounts for the fact that this is a game whose combat is reliant on timing based execution of commands. The motion of your weapon can make or break its effectiveness for you. A weapon may be statistically better in all metrics besides that the attack animation and/or physical properties make it impractical or ineffective to use. Like the weapon could be too slow to get a hit on a lot of bosses or it could be too short in length meaning you have to be scarily close to get hits in. I think part of the fun of the game is trying out different things and also there is tons of ambiguousness in gameplay systems that I think is intentionally done in most cases to encourage community engagement and discussion. There is so much mystery to so many elements of these games that it makes it really intriguing and also really fun to talk about, hence why many people who played dark souls constantly bring it up in discussions about video games. I am just glad that the weapon upgrade system isn’t like in Dark Souls or Demon’s Souls. It was a mess. Like in dark souls, you could choose to change the upgrade path from default to one of 9 alternatives. All of these different paths would alter the scaling in some manner that wasn’t knowable until after you did the upgrade and possibly irreversibly ruined your weapon. Some of these upgrade paths would change a portion of your weapon damage to an elemental damage type which you now have to worry about because physical damage is decent at killing everything but enemy elemental damage resistance was often much more varied and extreme. Also there are some upgrade paths that add the same elemental damage but slightly differently with different scaling adjustments. These different upgrade paths also relied on upgrade materials that were not interchangeable with each other and were much rarer than the normal upgrade materials. It was so obtuse with such severe consequences if you upgrade your primary weapon incorrectly (especially if that weapon was unique) that I think most people didn’t bother and would mostly stick to the normal upgrade path. It requires a high level of understanding of the game, your build, and what weapons are good for that adjusted damage type and scaling factors in order to at all effectively use. For most people it was simply best to ignore it and stick with the safe bet of the default upgrade path. Demon’s Souls was even worse and more obtuse.

I still miss those days when people that would train the griffon to the east commonlands tunnel where everyone bartered. 😂 To this day I’ve still never had a better time playing a game than those EverQuest days.

FromSoft looked at the griefing in games like EQ and made improvements by... adding a recurring NPC who tricks you into really bad areas and knocks you down holes. This way, even the offline players get to share in the fun!

This was an interesting video because I think it's the first time I heard someone talk about Elden Ring who wasn't a big fan of Fromsoft's other games but still liked it. I've heard other intelligent people talk about the series before but usually I've found they love all of the Souls games.

You might have stated your opinion of this in another video, but I'd love to hear your thoughts regarding JRPGs since they take a very different design philosophy when compared to Western RPGs. I've been replaying Final Fantasy VII using some mods to upgrade the experience, and I'm almost done Persona 5 Royal, and while I love both of these games, they take a much more linear approach to game design when compared to Fallout or Baldurs Gate. I personally like playing both of these games since I like the variety, but it would be interesting to have your input on this.

Interesting thing about Morrowind is that it almost looks like an accidentally good game in retrospect. I love Morrowind to this day, precisely because it is so unique compared to what came after. I assume the change to a more handholding experience was a calculated move to reach more audiences, but I wonder what could have been, had these games been more like Elden Ring, which still reached a lot of players.

Now we just need an excuse for Tim to make a not-review video on Baldur's Gate 3

*I'd love to hear you talk more about Elden Ring and Fromsoft games in general.* I doubt it since you didn't mention it but did you play sekiro? It's somewhat familiar but very different to the souls games and happens to be my favorite game of all time and I think you would either love it or absolutely hate it with no in between

I hear the criticism often of people will just go online to look things up. It’s valid, but to not have the game hold your hand so much creates awesome immersion for those that want to play “blind”. I usually do…then go through a second time and find all the things i missed. Creates amazing replay value.

I love this because this shows how different taste in game design effects how people play and I agree with a lot of your points on Elden ring even though I love souls games. I think it only really rewards those who put a TON of time and mental investment into the game which touches on the obtuseness you mention in the game. If you put a lot of time into the games to learn the systems then it becomes a lot more enjoyable. But is it worth it to make those systems so obtuse is the question I think. I also agree that the game is really only specialized for certain builds like Melee or Dex characters that’s engage in that Dance you spoke of in the game. Love your thoughts as always.

My dad was one of the OG beta testers for EverQuest, I’m sure he has the cd they sent in the mail to him somewhere. I used to watch him play and that was my gateway to mmo’s and I didn’t even know it.

My favourite part about playing as a spellcaster in elden ring was finding all of the spells. I got about 90% of them without the internet And didn't really miss any of the good ones. Most spells are either found in areas you might expect to see magic, are tied to questlines from magic users, or are sold by magic users. I would really hate it if you knew where to get all of the spells or any item for that matter. Item collection is the number one reason for exploration in every souls game and is also how you get a great deal of the lore through scenic storytelling and item description. As a spellcaster my main drive is exploring to find all the best magic gear and spells in the game rather than just making enough money or experience to buy it.

One thing you pointed out, about when the game don't provides a good explanation of how some basic things works (like leveling), so you have to search it online. To me this is a big issue for games in general. It really turns me off when I have to look online for basic things, at least what I think the game should tell me. I'm cool with learning enemy patterns or having to count on my memory instead of a map, but having to a research to discover what kind of skills I can learn so I can properly play the way I want to, how do I reach a certain place because there is no hint nearby or "what type of items drops from this?", "where can I get that type of item?". And the more I have to keep consulting, the more I dislike what they're doing with the game in this aspect.

Hey , Tim. Do you have some interesting stories about insides and outs of how the Bloodlines works or about its development process? I think a lot of people here are really interested in Bloodlines stuff.

The first time I played Elden Ring, I completely missed the ruin in Limgrave that had the earliest sorcery vendor available (the lady with the stone mask). As you mentioned, however, the level of freedom available in Elden Ring is unprecedented when compared to the previous Souls titles, so even the incredibly formidable (at the time) Margit the Fell can be ignored if you wished to move on to Liurnia of the Lakes. Once the game reaches a point where it doesn't receive any more patches, the mod scene will truly flourish, making it an evergreen title.

Dark Souls 1 is hard to recommend, jut honestly it has my favorite "A-ha" realization moment in any game I've played. And I especially love it because you can beat the entire game and never come close to realizing what is truly happening, but this is done with thematic purpose. Basically, if you do weird sequence breaking, you discover a conversation with a NPC who kind of blows the lid off of your entire motivation, "kindling the fire". He lets you know that you are essentially going to hell and back just to use your own body as a twig to kindle a dying fire which gives power to long corrupted Gods. It's my favorite use of the FromSoftware in-direct story telling because it feeds into the allegorical value of the game, relating it to war and such. Absolute masterpiece

I had a similar conversation with friends recently who I played project 1999 with.

You mentioned that you’re a fan of Ultima, did you ever play Ultima Online? Always liked that one. Also curious on your opinion on Underworld Ascendant

Comparing the Crows of Caelid to Cliff Racers made me laugh my ass off, thanks for another video Tim

I feel S rank being better than A is fairly common in games, maybe that's just the types of games I play though

Everything Tim’s like “couldn’t they have done that?” I’m like I love that about the games ahaha, like not telling you where magic is for example.

I can relate to the not levelling thing. I ran all through the woods dying to bears looking before I finally gave in and just googled it.

I think these 'rambles' are a perfect way to talk about games without "reviewing" them. Talk about the mechanics, about interesting things they did. As youve said before, your perspective as a game designer is different from most players, so naturally videos centered around specific games should be different, too.

Loved hearing your thoughts! Are you playing Armored Core? Not sure if it’s your kind of thing, but it’s a strong contender for my favorite Fromsoftware game yet.

Hey Tim. Did you get to PAX and see the VtM:B 2 updates?

I'm so curious about what type of character your rolled in Morrowind, I feel like you can tell a lot about a person based on what kind of character they choose to build in games. Even if I never roll evil characters for example that fact that the option exist makes role-playing games feel so rich to me.

I love Dark Souls, it's probably the best overall experience for me because I didn't quite know what was going on but I felt compelled to learn. The looking-up problem is still a thing, for me in Elden Ring it was largely trying to follow storylines to their completion (which I guess got a bit easier with a later patch where they put NPCs on the map). Despite my love of Dark Souls, though, Elden Ring fits my style better because it was way more flexible in what you could do, if you were stuck on one area you could just go try elsewhere, and you could also burgle items a lot more readily than in DS. I felt a bit exhausted with it midgame, but things picked up later. It wasn't because I had choices but that I'd started to tick the boxes for a lot of places and there was that narrowing starting in, but it was still unclear if I'd missed things or if I had to improve tactics elsewhere. Summoning definitely evened out the playing field in a more reliable way than in DS. I guess for me it wasn't that losing runes was good intrinsically, but that the threat of loss heightened the tension and made victory sweeter when you manage to keep your small fortune to the end. As far as it being a specific Site that allowed leveling, I thought it was a bit more flexible than that because I stumbled upon it early, but what I didn't realize, because I was already exploring everywhere, was that there was a crafting kit I'd missed very early from a vendor. I had the wondrous physick pretty much from the start, but it took me many hours (and a look-up I think) to find the damned crafting kit. The choice to have many important systems be so easily missed was certainly strange to me. I only played EQ a bit, but I wound up touring the world as best as a low level Iksar monk could do, so I appreciated that free roaming aspect as far as it let you do so without getting murdered by undead gorillas and the like. Appreciated your thoughts on these games :)

There are actually multiple sites of grace which will activate the Melina cutscene to enable levelling up. I think the game does a poor job of encouraging you to actually rest at the sites of grace for players new to that game, given there are a lot of NPC actions tied to specific sites of grace. It's a much more natural action for people coming from Dark Souls, and because of that it probably flew under the radar of their testing. Also, these games hail from the design of Armored Core, and much of that stat heavy, complex design carries over to the weapons and armor of Souls.

Oh my god, the griffin in EC! I lost so many levels in EQ, and I always hated that mechanic, and the hell levels. But I loved exploring that world. Being a bard was the best! You could literally go anywhere. I remember exploring underwater with breathing and invis...of course, I couldn't do anything by myself, but it was so cool to be able to go anywhere. And FromSoft is kinda...well, they enjoy feeding the trolls a little bit. The multiplayer aspect since Demon's Souls has always been somewhat adversarial. That's what the mimic veil is for! You use it when people invade you and prank the hell out of them. It's so good. We normally think of frustration as something we want to avoid for players - but From have made it an art to incorporate frustration into their game design in a way that is satisfying without feeling unfair or broken. As much as I've been griefed during Souls sessions, there's always the option of running the content solo to avoid invasions. I just like having my friends around, even if it results in the collective misery of getting ganked 10 times in a row by a naked dude who is min/maxing. I also remember Morrowind feeling like a single-player EQ, which is why I bounced off of it pretty quickly - because the other people were my favorite part of playing, and their absence meant the world feel empty. I absolutely did find this enjoyable, and it's great to know that your favorite class in EQ was the enchanter - I always loved having them around, and they always appreciated my mana boost song so they didn't have to sit around staring at their spellbooks so much :)

I wonder what'd you'd think of the Gothic games? Are you interested in doing a playthrough of the first one? It's like elden ring + morrowind, with more of a eastern european taste to it, if that makes sense.

Dark Souls saga games were a life changing experience to me. Personally, from all the games I've played, they were the ones that absorbed me the most, like a good book, and I don't mean the lore, I didn't read an item description once (for the lore), I mean in making me feel that I am wanted/required to finish the game. Dunno if that makes sense.

For everyone who couldn't get into the Dark Souls games but HAS liked Elden Ring, I'd personally recommend checking out Sekiro -- it's in that same category of "still distinctly a FromSoft game but quite decidedly reinvented from Souls".

Serious question Tim, how could you make real time (non-button smashing) combat without the coreographed attacks? I found your first "dislike" about the coreograph combat, clashes with the fact that the game have very reactive gameplay that leads to very "deserved" deaths, aka the feel of understanding why you died and a sense of "fairness" (that you also enjoyed, as many of us). I may be wrong ofc! Because the alternative for real time, at least in the industry and for what I've seen, are button smashing games where you play some sort of a "godly" entity like Spiderman, Batman or Devil May Cry games. For the record, I LOVE your channel and your games. Oh, also, I completely agree about having high level enemies in low level areas. Those add tons of immersion to the world. The feeling that this world does not care about you. Probably the biggest contrast would be base Skyrim. I can remember when I played it for the first time, and felt devastated when I realized that the entire world of enemies changed with my level. Going into a dragon lair at level 7 and still having a chance? Sudently wolves turned into leopards in the entire world??? So incredibly immersion breaking!

Hey Tim, I'm curious if you know about the game RimWorld? I'd love to hear your thoughts on it.

1999 EverQuest player here (bar none, the most amazing video game experience of my life). When I played it, I found Dark Souls to be the closest experience I've had to EverQuest. Haven't played Elden Ring yet, but looking forward to it.

One thing that Dark Souls through Elden Ring differ from older gamers is the expectation for the player to be involved with the online community at all times. The message system is key element of the game design.

Very true. The griffins were a pain in the ass while farming that zone outside of Freeport and where the Tunnel is. ngl, was kinda fun and took you out of the monotony of grinding; you have to look over your shoulder rather than be a robot. (I comment in real time while I watch your vids. This stopped at 3:10 so I can address my thoughts).

As a note, S>A is very common in Japanese games and media because that’s how school grades with in Japan. S is the equivalent of an A+. Just a little cultural quirk that has been leaking through even to western games

I've never played EverQuest but i had a similar experience to you as far as liking elden ring a lot and not really loving the souls games. The open world made me feel a lot more free to go do something else if i am feeling stuck. It's also just so pretty.

most of the dark souls fights bring back that childhood feeling of when your dad is about to slap the ever-living shit out of you, but he STAYS his hand just long enough for you to think for the briefest moment that maybe, just maybe he won't strike, and that split millisecond you let your guard down and that flicker of hope sparks, is when the hand comes down and deals 10k damage and knocks you off the cliff, and you gotta start all over.... I love souls games..

Back then in dark souls 1 there was no npc that you needed to level up. While I like the maidens, I agree that trying to find Melina at the start to level up was a bad decision.

I think it's interesting that you find the dance in wow raids specifically to be not so good, because that was the aspect of wow's raids that I fell in love with especially later at the mythic level where one bad step means death for the entire party. That was where you really put your knowledge and skill to the test, because while you are doing the dance you are also required to perform your classes role to the absolute maximum peak. I feel like too many options can often lead to a loss of identity in favor of having a universal "X Utility" and allows players to make fundamental mistakes due to lack of foresight or foreknowledge that later down the line after having spent hours building up wrong, barring them from further progression within the game unless they scrap everything and start back from square one. This was a big problem with early Wow's talent tree, the point system ended up causing a lot of issues with player and character viability going into the endgame content and the cookie cutter builds emerged, which then caused the endgame content to be tuned around the cookie cutter builds cementing their place within the game and eventually leading to the removal of the point system and the replacement of the modern talent row system.

the 'S' in japanese style grading systems stands for "Special" a lot of japanese games use this.

like another commenter said, i too think this ranking system comes from japan. earlier letters in the alphabet are "better"/higher ranked than later letters with the exception of "s" for some reason. some games also introduce higher ranks like "ss," "sss" etc. so the ranking from high to low would look like this: sss>ss>s>a>b>c>d>e>f.... also funny to hear how even YOU got annoyed by the freaking cliffracers in morrowind lol

At 1.18 I kinda expected him to go into a PaRappa the Rapper track. And now I really want to hear a PaRappa track actually about Dark Souls combat...

I love and play all Soulsbourne games and you are correct. Thing is the resources in the game are infinite so eventually you don't go nuts after losing millions of souls/runes/blood echoes.

Thoughts on Starfield?

oh man i have the best story about the mimic veil. so a friend and i were doing this dungeon in Elden ring. we got invaded. used the mimic veil and hid in corners as candles. the invader ran by us like 10 times, i was sweating bullets and talking to my friend over VC, "Dude dude, hes gonna notice us! Ah! here he comes again! Oh God!" after a while the invader just left it was hillarious.

Is "S" being higher, or better than "A" a japanese thing?

I may or may not have participated in less than honorable invasions back in Dark Souls 1... As questionable as it is, it's absolutely one of my favorite mechanics, something I had always dreamt of playing single-player RPG's etc. To balance it out, though, I got summoned a bunch and had fun using builds that are particularly nasty when teaming up with someone, long spears, staggers etc., and a ton of my invasions were very considerate. It was a cool layer to character expression too, some were looking for a fight, some just looking for humanity along their playthrough, others were just tricksters sitting at level ranges with fair equipment. That's something I personally much preferred over abusing progression, but that's fair-game too, cheap, but fair enough. I usually put further limitations on myself as well, and I liked at least showing people new and novel ways to get ambushed. If I was gonna use the map against them, I'd try to use gimmicks like stealth etc. and give myself access to no more than a VERY low dmg weapon etc., stat points going towards gimmicks and having a bit of hp. I'd love to one day see a game dev take that to 11, as an invader I really enjoyed being weak myself, and merely using utility to compliment the foes and traps. It had more of a Dungeon builder vibe to it, especially in maps like Sen's where you get to cut people off, spawning from above them. Made knowing shortcuts etc. super satisfying, and it always felt great when a player outsmarted me right back. There's people on YT who did gimmick invasions too, like putting on some of the heaviest armor with no endurance, appearing as a slow and telegraphed mini-boss in a controlled environment, it's like you're joining From in their encounter design. Ohh yeah, that net-code, though. That and matchmaking should be a MASSIVE priority with dynamics like this. I should also add I've mostly just had my share of a lot of what Dark Souls etc. offers, it'll forever be a very favorite game, but I probably won't return to it for more than the occasional chill playthrough. Buuut... Fires of Rubicon might be one I'm gonna have to check out, very interested to see how the combat pans out.

Same, I tried the first Dark Souls a couple of times, couldn't get into it. Played a bit longer with Dark Souls 3 though, still only with Bloodborne and Elden Ring i could sink in a lot of hours. I enjoyed the PS5 Demon Souls remake too. Might try Everquest, thanks Tim.

I dunno Tim I feel like this comes VERY close to being a review :p haha jk. Great video

Many of the things you describe are also present in tabletop D&D. At least older editions.

Hahahah, the more things change the more they stay the same, eh? Honestly, the "XP loss on death" mechanic in FromSoft games is so fundamental that people will indeed riot if you change it. The reason is that we are simply conditioned to it at this point, but unlike what I presume EQ did, which was "death=lost XP" Elden Ring's runes are a universal currency and they are recoverable on death. Because you can recover, it is made as a goal for the player to retrieve them and have an incentive to face the area and enemy composition again, with the caveat of "OK, now I know what killed me". This is why it's considered core to the Elden Ring experience. You fail, but you are given a chance to use what you've learned to recover. Or simply get so used to it, that it doesn't phase you and you always just have the opportunity to move on, and make up that lost currency through exploration. While I agree the lack of quest markers forces you to interact with the world in a more integrative sense, I also agree that would be nice for Quests to include some more mechanically relevant rewards rather than lore specific items and interactions. I love the latter, but with the obtuse and basic design of the "quests" it will be a blessing and a curse. I do think that Elden Ring played with that idea more than before, clearly evident in one of main quest routes giving you the titular Moonlight Greatsword, a weapon that's been in ALL Soulsbourna games. So for veterans, it's like reuniting with an old friend, but only doing so with 3/4ths of the main quest progressed already. But yes, Soulsbourne questing has always been questionable, as it seems hard for it to move beyond from static NPCs and obtuseness to incentivize speculation and wonder. I also thought you would criticize the weapon upgrade system, and how it softlocks trying other weapons and playstyles. Because a weapon in Elden Ring is far from just a stat stick with scaling assigned to weapons. The letters are somewhat based off arcade game rankings, i.e. E is the worst rank, getting to earlier letters means you're improving at the level, with A usually meaning that you're good and competent at it, while S is for *mastery*. You just assign that meaning to how well your weapon's numbers grow with that stat. And even the fattest Elden Ring stat sticks are not made viable in PvP unless they are given a *moveset* to compliment them accordingly. Regardless of all this, it's great that Elden Ring did indeed manage to succeed hooking you into the formula. I'm sure you'll hear plenty of people now telling you: "Yes, you get it now, and can probably tackle Dark Souls 3 with far less difficulty."

Lol. I had that same confusion moment with elden ring and being unable to level up

8:49....this is how the older souls games did it but had a draw back this one didn't because you can accidentally kill trainer Bob, they also have a few here in elden ring , most notably turtle pope, but less than others . Find them works a lot better for the mystery of the world as you usually get them from places relevant to the lore of the world (like my favorite which you can only get from a location relevant to the lore of the spell & secretly a hint at a last minute spoiler ) , as I know I didn't look up a single spell besides the Kamehameha one a lot of people were showing off online (Comet Azur ) and found "okay have to complete x quest "

Tim, if you enjoyed ER, then you must play Dark Souls 1, if only to experience the fantastic world map design and how all the seemingly independant levels can be linked together, i’d love to hear your thoughts on it. Only DS1 had this kind of level design, it’s sorely missing from 2 and 3.

Tim have you tried Nioh ?

I think a lot of those "questionable" design decision you brought up, which are often praised / defended by the fromsoft fans, were significant contributing factors to why dark souls was so very popular. Dark souls shook up the industry by leaning into more esoteric design and game mechanics that were more reminiscent of hardcore older games in a time when most AAA games were becoming more and more streamlined, more and more casual. It was a counter-culture that seemed to tell gamers who wanted a greater challenge that there were still games out there for them. You've pointed out how a lot of these things weren't new, but actually pulled from older games - but I would say they still felt fresh against the competition in the early 2010s. Now though, the souls games are a known quantity (after demon souls, 3 dark souls, sekiro, elden ring, bloodborne) and so it's less about being fresh and interesting, and more about leaning into the formula that skyrocketed them to being a household name. They shake things up a little with each release, but I think if they outright dropped some of those mechanics you question, they might also start dropping some of their fanbase in the process. Either way though, nice video.