Elden Ring - #6 on the most played Games List

I've taken the first step towards playing the game and put it on my wishlist.
Now I hope:
a) that my current PC configuration can properly run it;
b) for a meaty discount

Originally Posted by henriquejr
I've taken the first step towards playing the game and put it on my wishlist.
Now I hope:
a) that my current PC configuration can properly run it;
b) for a meaty discount

Two sausages off this weekend.

Elden Ring Sold Over 12 Million Copies in Just 3 Weeks

Elden Ring does not cease to amaze. The developers boasted that they managed to sell over 12 million copies of the game in less than three weeks after its release. Unfortunately, it was not given how these 12 million copies are distributed among different hardware platforms. We have only partial data at our disposal. We know that in the European Union 44% of the purchased copies of Elden Ring were bought on PC. In second place is the PS5 (27%), followed by Xbox (16%) and PlayStation 4 (13%).

Originally Posted by JFarrell71
@SirJames not everything gets worse when it blows up, but a lot of things do. The messaging in Elden Ring compared to earlier games is a pretty strong example. There were some lies in Dark Souls but the ratio of helpful (or at least clever) messages to trash was much higher. The community had this vibe of wanting to help each other through a tough game. Now that everyone and their sister is playing it, there are a lot more jackasses and not nearly as much feeling of community.

Yeah. They're definitely keeping it real. Other game developers are really confused how Elden Ring has scored so well when all research suggests that what people want is the opposite of Elden Ring style quests, quest guidance, interface, etc. It's very much a game that only From Software would make.

Originally Posted by OverIt
@SirJames Other games had secrets but not in the abundance and with no clues they exist like in Super Mario Bros which made it a phenomenon in school culture.

As for less dungeons, I dont think so. The game map is so huge filled with dungeons there are about 50 dungeons or at least what i consider to be dungeons ranging from pretty huge dungeons to smaller ones. As for exploring every nook and cranny, I find that is the beauty of the game, its so huge that you could do that, you could spend a lot of time exploring, you could just do the dungeons.

As for multiplayer I really enjoy it. Despite it being a little harder in multiplayer(the person who joins someone else's game gets half the flasks), there is a certain thrill of getting invaded and beating those people. More so when you are running out of flasks. That said there are some broken systems which make some of the invasions not fun.

And the troll messages are whatever though later in the game because the game gets harder, people are putting more helpful messages. And even the troll messages have people saying "liar ahead". That said i do enjoy watching people jump off to their doom(red patches), some of them are in unexpected places.

Yeah, I do really like the game.

If I had to pick between more dungeons but they reuse the game assets or fewer but more unique dungeons I'd go with more dungeons every time. For past Souls games I've often thought they put way too much work into a small stretch of game. Could easily use those landscape textures in more areas.

It's a tough one. Like, in the catacombs seeing that crappy cat statue boss 5 or 6 times. How all the mines kinda seem copy/pasted. You could complain about that but more content is more content.

There's no general review/thoughts thread for Elden Ring so I'm putting this here.

At this point I've played for 94 hours and I'm still going strong. But I can now confidently say that the pacing in Elden Ring is terrible.

Doesn't seem to have hurt it at all, given the number of players and new fans. But really, it takes a long, long time to get to the most interesting stuff. Ultimately, there's a ton of that, but you wouldn't know it from the first 30+ hours.

1) There are almost no large dungeons in Limgrave/Weeping Peninsula (the opening area) and almost no medium sized ones either. Just a lot of wilderness and tiny dungeons with generic bosses and little exploration. The large dungeons are my absolute favorite part of the game, but you have to get very far to really get to them.

2) NPC questlines don't develop for ages. You meet a lot of the NPCs early on, but the meat of their storylines require you to visit mid game if not late game areas.

3) Loot. You find some interesting stuff along the way, of course, but at some point much later you start finding tons of cool shit. One specific example is armor sets. I honestly thought they changed the game from Dark Souls and you could no longer find armor sets. You can, several, but not for a long time.

It's disappointing to hear that it takes so long to get to the more meaty content. At least I know there's more to look forward to when/if I reach that point.

Originally Posted by SirJames
If I had to pick between more dungeons but they reuse the game assets or fewer but more unique dungeons I'd go with more dungeons every time. For past Souls games I've often thought they put way too much work into a small stretch of game. Could easily use those landscape textures in more areas.

Interesting pov. I'm actually the opposite. Fewer and more unique for me.

It took me about 140 hours to complete the game (Ingame clock, got more recorded hours on Steam!) and I felt the game was a little bloated towards the end, for a completionist like me. I did every little bit that there was to be done in the game.

That said, many of the extra dungeons with extra bosses were completely optional, so I can't see the harm of them being there. They serve a purpose for people who want more, but it's a bit of a downfall for those of us who want to do everything and can't put a brake on that, at the risk of hitting burnout due to repetition.

That's precisely what stops me from completing Fallout or Elder Scrolls games at times, although Elden Ring did manage to keep my interest through the finish line.

It will feel different for each person, though, so my own advice is that if you don't enjoy doing many dungeons that feel similar, with similar layouts and encounters, do not not force yourself to do them just because they are there, you miss really nothing by skipping and following the critical path. Of course, that's an advise I can't even take myself, as I said.

In the end, this is hands down the best game I've played for a long while. While it's hard to measure fun and entertainment, simply the quality of everything this game offers is astronomical, and it merits for a great, pleasant experience all around.

I like having all the optional content because it gives me something to do when I'm stuck on a boss. At this point in the game I don't think I'm going to find anything in optional content that's going to give me too dramatic of a power boost. A few extra stat points probably won't make a difference, though if I'm trying to level up a new weapon or spirit to try I'd much rather gather the runes by exploring a new area then by farming. But mostly it's just a break, I can explore the new area and then come back to the boss later. Even if my power level hasn't increased that much, sometimes the boss feels easier after a break doing something else.

Think I'm pretty close to the end. Hard to say though, because every time I think I've explored most of the map it opens up a brand new area that I wasn't aware of.

Originally Posted by Lolozaur
Elden Ring Sold Over 12 Million Copies in Just 3 Weeks

Total anecdotal evidence, but I've been in two separate large cities the last two weekends, and in both I randomly saw huge Elden Ring electronic billboards. Seems they may have had a serious marketing budget for this release.