Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen - We're back! Available on PC on 1/15.

[E = MC Hammer]

[url=http://www.g4tv.com/thefeed/blog/post/723048/dragons-dogma-music-video-intro-free-dangan-by-bz/]REQUIRED LISTENING WHILE YOU READ[/url] (I know it's G4 but it's the only site that still has the song available somehow, I don't know why)

[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/u211f4y.png[/IMG]

Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen releases on FRIDAY, preloads are already available. The PC release comes with a whole bunch of new sweet shit, including [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQ6KyfWX8gs]a lot of graphic options[/url] (with options catering towards toasters and NASA supercomputers alike), supporting up to 150fps, and with no stupid letterboxing like the console releases had.

[B]Hey, idiot, we get it the game is pretty. But seriously, what's Dragon's Dogma?[/B]

Dragon's Dogma was Capcom's first foray into the open world action RPG thing, and it went pretty well. Originally released in 2012, an expansion pack (Dark Arisen) was released in 2013 which included a polished general game and included a huge new dungeon area (Bitterblack Isle) and all DLC for free.

It's pretty neat. In a very loose sense, it's the lovechild of Dark Souls and Shadow of the Colossus, if they fucked and made a sweet anime baby. But it's so much more than that.

[B]Alright neat, what's the story or whatever?[/B]

Basically you're a fisherman in a dumb fishing village in Gransys, which is a cool little duchy ruled by a Duke. One day a fuckload of dragons fall out of the sky and you try to fight one, it goes interestingly. You become the Arisen, destined to kill a big bad dragon guy and save the Kingdom. Or hey, don't. It's all up to you.

[img_thumb]http://i.imgur.com/RBTfqm.jpg[/img_thumb][img_thumb]http://i.imgur.com/OdbVPm.png[/img_thumb]

Unfortunately Gransys police aren't very good so there are bad guys all over the place waiting to rob/kill/eat you. Luckily for you, the Arisen has a giant Pawn legion at their disposal.

[B]Pawns[/B]

[img_thumb]http://i.imgur.com/pKT9gm.jpg[/img_thumb]

Pawns! Basically you can summon pawns to help you and be your companions and tell you about enemy weaknesses (oh my god do they tell you about enemy weaknesses. Here's a hint: use fire unless it breathes fire, then don't)

You customize your own pawn and then can summon extras from the Rift, which is a neat place where pawns roam and wander.

[img_thumb]http://i.imgur.com/f930nm.jpg[/img_thumb][img_thumb]http://i.imgur.com/cN6pTm.jpg[/img_thumb]

This is basically the game's version of co-op, since you can summon your friends' pawns to help you kill things and when you're done, send them back to the Rift (or throw them off a cliff, it also works) and they'll go back to your friend with newfound knowledge and items.

[img_thumb]http://i.imgur.com/kdVASm.jpg[/img_thumb]

[B]You said something about fighting?[/B]

OH MAN. Dragon's Dogma has some of the best combat in an RPG that I've ever seen, and that's not exaggerating. There are nine classes to choose from (three are hybrid vocations, so pawns only have access to six). You can change classes at any time at an Inn, so you can try everything you want. You can technically min/max if you want but the majority of your power is tied to the weapons you're using, so even though each vocation has different stat growths and it's possible to swap back and forth to get the optimal allocation, what matters more are your abilities and weapons.

Here's a cool gallery of fun things you can do to monsters and people!

Plant explosives and detonate them from afar!
[img]http://i.imgur.com/d2DyWPZ.gif[/img]

Clump enemies together like some kind of magnet and let your sorcerer pawns summon giant tornadoes to kill them!
[img]http://i.imgur.com/D7RFSXT.gif[/img]

Use your comically large sword to pancake a Gorechimera into a tiny blood pile!
[img]http://i.imgur.com/I3jwp28.gif[/img]

Light yourself on fire and stab a Lion's eyes out!
[img]http://i.imgur.com/PSuufuM.gif[/img]

Send your enemies to Oz!
[img]https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-sJTKBmVlNF8/VVaDBNDPI-I/AAAAAAAABHY/5JaCkyUh0Gc/w300-h143/maelstroms4ena.gif[/img]

As an aside, this game has some of the most batshit insane magic I've ever seen. Check this shit out, here's some spells from a review copy of DD:DA on PC.

[video=youtube;7SrIFyfHTpU]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SrIFyfHTpU[/video]

Obviously, the harder hitting spells have longer cast times, but it's worth it when you land something and it demolishes fifteen health bars. Warriors have similar cast times for some of their hardest hitting abilities but even those don't hit this hard. Don't fuck with sorcerers.

[B]Woah, those are some big monsters. Neat! But if I'm melee, do I just stab them in the feet for hours until they die?[/B]

You could, I guess, but a better way to approach it is to grab onto them and stab them in their stupid faces. Careful, some of them will grab you back!

[img]http://i.imgur.com/ITiagl.png[/img][img]http://i.imgur.com/GyLybl.png[/img]

[B]Can I make my character look like a dumb idiot?[/B]

Hell yeah you can. Or you can make him a chiseled adonis god. Up to you. The character creation system is pretty phenomenal, and the body proportions you choose make a difference. Longer arms mean your sword reach is longer, but it also means you drain stamina slightly faster. Small bodies aren't very strong but they're fast and agile with small stamina pools that refill quickly, whereas big bodies can carry a lot of weight and are strong, and have a large stamina pool, but their stamina returns very slowly.

[img_thumb]http://i.imgur.com/5UYKwm.jpg[/img_thumb][img_thumb]http://i.imgur.com/btLxu.jpg[/img_thumb]

[B]Alright cool, what can I hit people with?[/B]

So like I said, there are nine classes (vocations). Three base, three advanced, three hybrid.

[I]Base Vocations[/I]

[B]Fighter[/B]

Hit stuff in the face with a sword (or mace) and then block them with a shield and then smack them in the face with the shield. Fighters are sword/board melee fighters, but don't let the shield fool you, they have some of the more devastating melee attacks in the game and are also the most balanced around offense and defense. Excellent frontline.

[B]Mage[/B]

Shoot fireballs in a harpy's face, or light your rogue friend's weapons on fire and let him carve ribbons into the back of a Cyclops. Mages make a poor frontline (unless you want a dead frontline) but are excellent supporters and can do more damage than either of the other base classes, provided they have the time and distance to get spells off. Mages also have access to Heal (and are the only vocation that does so). Very important to have a Mage pawn with you, unless you like carrying around 87 healing grass at a time.

[B]Strider[/B]

Your basic bow fighter, also has access to daggers and so Striders are excellent at any range of combat. Striders have the highest stamina gain of the base classes, because they're so agile and elf-y and shit.

[I]Advanced Vocations[/I]

[B]Warrior[/B]

Have you heard of Guts? The big anime dude who hits people with a big sword and makes them into tiny pieces? Yeah that's what warriors are. They have big fuckoff greatswords and long animation wind ups, but when they hit they hit HARD. They only have access to three abilities at a time instead of six, though (although I suspect this won't be a problem for a very long once modders get access to the game)

[url=http://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/dragonsdogma/images/6/62/Guts_and_Griffith.jpg]Also they added Guts armor because they like Guts so much.[/url]

[B]Ranger[/B]

Strider's big brother, Rangers have bigger bows and focus on hitting enemies really hard with a lot of arrows at once. More bow abilities than Striders, but less dagger abilities. More reliant and dangerous in ranged combat.

[B]Sorcerer[/B]

Oh my god Sorcerers are so neat. They gave up their pussy healing spells in order to harness the most destructive abilities in the game, and will singlehandedly clear fields of goblins by themselves, provided they get enough time to get a full spell off.

[I]Hybrid Vocations[/I]

[B]Assassin[/B]

Mixture of fighter and strider. Nimble combatants who can use swords, maces, shields, daggers, and bows, they are the most versatile class in the game and have a few cool passives (which I will address shortly)

[B]Mystic Knight[/B]

Mixture of fighter and mage. They're basically templars, they use swords and maces with big ol' greatshields. Capable of the most DPS in the game by far, provided they can get a combination of spells off. (It can also completely crash your game by doing too much at once, which is funny but probably won't happen on PC)

[B]Magic(k) Archer[/B]

Mixture of strider and mage. These guys are weird and unique, but have some of the most novel abilities in the game. You can sacrifice pawns to instantly kill almost any monster (even the BIG ones), and they have access to some really neat magic arrow tricks as well as daggers. They have incredibly poor stat growth, though. (which is not a huge issue)

[B]Did you say passives?[/B]

Each vocation has a set of passives (called augments) that you learn at certain levels of the vocation, and these augments are usable as any class. This is how the game encourages you to experiment and play as many different classes. For example, if you're playing a Sorcerer you'll probably want Attunement, a Mage augment that increases all magic damage by 10%. But to get that, you have to level Mage to 8. Likewise, most classes have problems with carry weight (inventories pile up quickly and if you stock up ready to go on a long adventure, you might not have room to carry things you find!), and there's an Augment for that but it requires Strider level 2. Most of these augments are not difficult to get, although the most useful ones are often at the highest level rank. This is where the main min/maxing comes in, but the differences are super noticable.

[B]Did you say there's an expansion?[/B]

Dark Arisen is a new expansion (well, came out in 2013 but whatever) that adds a new area called Bitterblack Isle, the most difficult area in the game, where you proceed through a monstrous (ha that's a pun) dungeon full of terrifying creatures and incredible loot. You can go almost immediately on a new character, but be careful because you'll probably die. A lot. Not for the faint of heart or new of...game.

[img]http://i.imgur.com/mJ6V8Fr.png[/img]

Enjoy, have fun, post questions, live your life.

[B]FUN PC 4K SCREENSHOTS WHOO[/B]

[img_thumb]http://images.onesite.com/capcom-unity.com/user/gregaman/dragons_dogma/highres_pc_screens/large/edeba5f96a5d296273fe9af46dead112.png[/img_thumb]
[img_thumb]http://images.onesite.com/capcom-unity.com/user/gregaman/dragons_dogma/highres_pc_screens/large/66d5af9cfcbcb5a30aa27acd6a43c1e9.png[/img_thumb]

[Mr Flexi]

I don't want to wait another 4+ days!

[PotatoArmada]

You should probably swap the thumbnails out for some of the PC pictures.

[E = MC Hammer]

I will as soon as I find PC pictures. I'm trying to take them myself but I can't figure out where the fuck screenshots save to.

[editline]11th January 2016[/editline]

i mean i'm not playing it right now

[PotatoArmada]

The steam store has some pictures.

And here's the [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxjcSqB78bc]PC launch trailer[/url] that shows some good shit to get hyped about.

[E = MC Hammer]

I've got it covered, don't worry.

oh my god there are no loading times at all, apparently

[editline]11th January 2016[/editline]

here's some 4k for you

[img]https://i.gyazo.com/dc1e27c9eabdc9fcbb24eb8cd52c80c4.jpg[/img]

[cowsaysoink]

this game is so good i was actually excited to buy it for the third time.

playing the game above 20 fps will be amazing.

[alpha00zero]

Oh man... Mystic Knight sounds right up my alley.

Big shields, swords and magic.

But now I'm torn between this new thing and Dark Souls 3. Damn it!

[Zezibesh]

[QUOTE=alpha00zero;49505333]Oh man... Mystic Knight sounds right up my alley.

Big shields, swords and magic.

But now I'm torn between this new thing and Dark Souls 3. Damn it![/QUOTE]

dark souls 3 is released in april though, there's quite a gap

[alpha00zero]

I know but both games are RPGs and they will consume tons of my time. Usually, I prefer to concentrate and play one RPG at a time, which right now is Xenoblade X.

There are also 3 games I'm getting in February and March.

And money ain't flowing much now. I saved up for 4 games, one of the savings being a BIG game which ends up being Dark Souls 3.

I might pick it up later in the year or maybe around DS3 if the port isn't optimized on launch.

[E = MC Hammer]

[QUOTE=alpha00zero;49505333]Oh man... Mystic Knight sounds right up my alley.

Big shields, swords and magic.

But now I'm torn between this new thing and Dark Souls 3. Damn it![/QUOTE]

MK has a hilarious ability chain that I didn't want to fully explain in the OP, but basically they're fucking berserk if you have space.

You can put down these orbs that float at around head height, and if you hit them with your mace it launches shots in the direction you hit the orb. Appropriately it is called like Magic Cannon or something, it's pseudo-range and it's great. But if you put down like three of them at once and you hit it, a lot of things happen all at once.

First, you hit all three cannons. That's 3 projectiles. Then each of those projectiles hit 2 additional orbs, which creates like 9 more orbs, and each of those can trigger another 3 orbs again. So basically you turn into a fucking gatling magic death turret.

It's hard to find a good video because basically people blow the hell out of things immediately, but here's a decent one.

[url]https://youtu.be/6KvAXahdTyE?t=37[/url]

That might be spoiler-y but it's not SUPER important.

[editline]11th January 2016[/editline]

You can also Perfect Block, which is a riposte after you get hit, and it hits 3 times rapidly. They're small hits, but if you PB in your nest of great cannons you spawn about 28 projectiles.

[Laika]

i hope someone makes a mod or something if its possible to brighten up the nights, it was waaaaaaaaaay too dark for me i could never see a goddamn thing, i even held off from playing until it was night since glare in my room made it practically impossible to play at all

[GHOST!!!!]

This version has been confirmed to not have Into Free by B'z so this sucks dick, fuck dis version m89

Nah but seriously I've already bought this game, can't fucking wait to play it again, and as someone else said, at more than 20 FPS.

[Lewdis]

Someone already made a mod for it to work, since the game got leaked yesterday. I can tell you from various sources though that the game does run amazingly.

[editline]11th January 2016[/editline]

[QUOTE=Furnost;49505540]i hope someone makes a mod or something if its possible to brighten up the nights, it was waaaaaaaaaay too dark for me i could never see a goddamn thing, i even held off from playing until it was night since glare in my room made it practically impossible to play at all[/QUOTE]

Thats the point of the nights though? It's meant to be pitch black and dangerous as HELL. Hence why you have everyone carrying lanterns.

[E = MC Hammer]

[QUOTE=Furnost;49505540]i hope someone makes a mod or something if its possible to brighten up the nights, it was waaaaaaaaaay too dark for me i could never see a goddamn thing, i even held off from playing until it was night since glare in my room made it practically impossible to play at all[/QUOTE]

Use Lanterns, that's why they exist. Night time is scary.

[QUOTE=GHOST!!!!;49505591]This version has been confirmed to not have Into Free by B'z so this sucks dick, fuck dis version m89[/QUOTE]

Someone replaced the OP with Into Free about eight minutes after the leak, it's a quick fix.

[Bugga12]

Fuck it, just bought this on GMG.

Impulse buy is go.

I loved the combat but could not for the life of me tolerate the performance of the console versions.

[Lewdis]

The port so far would be perfect, right now its sitting at 99% because no borderless windowed and its not got seamless alt tabbing, but a minor setback.

[editline]11th January 2016[/editline]

Fighting a Chimera with 2 mages spamming abilities snags around 90fps on a 970 by the way, no fps drops here :smile:. From reports, obviously.

[diwako]

The first time I've seen someone flatten a chimera with a giant greatsword I knew this was my thing. Tho are greatswords warrior class exclusive or is it better to use fighter class with them?

[Kyle877]

Warrior exclusive.

[Lewdis]

Classes and weapons work like this;

[img]http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/dragonsdogma/images/4/4d/DD_vocations_chart.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20120512230058p[/img]

So you'd have to be a warrior to use greatswords and the greathammers

[GHOST!!!!]

I'm just wondering how they'll combat cheaters and the Ur Dragon, because you know people are gonna give themselves fucking one hit weapons and kill it instantly and put themselves at the top of the leaderboards.

[Lewdis]

People have already got cheat engine stuff working, I'm just glad there's no competitive online system and I'm going to stick to using friends only pawns because I dont want some super op level 1 but max stats pawn from some hacker.

[Beardy]

probably nothing. games with leaderboards on the pc will always have cheaters on top.

[E = MC Hammer]

[QUOTE=GHOST!!!!;49505923]I'm just wondering how they'll combat cheaters and the Ur Dragon, because you know people are gonna give themselves fucking one hit weapons and kill it instantly and put themselves at the top of the leaderboards.[/QUOTE]

Nope. Even on consoles they had workarounds for that, if you do too much damage in too short of a time you're booted offline and your damage doesn't count towards the overall progress. You're locked out of Ur for 24 hours too which is hilarious.

[Tetsmega]

The info about body weight is wrong. Higher body weight doesn't make you run out of breath faster. You have lower stamina usage at the cost of long stamina recovery time.

Also sad about the working warez copy. I was tempted to download it but I already pre-loaded and don't want to bother starting over.

Also for people aiming for mystic knight here's your to-do stress test. It's 3 great cannons while doing full moon/compass slash.
[media]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-fMRXxTX1g[/media]

[E = MC Hammer]

[QUOTE=Tetsmega;49506086]The info about body weight is wrong. Higher body weight doesn't make you run out of breath faster. You have lower stamina usage at the cost of long stamina recovery time.

Also sad about the working warez copy. I was tempted to download it but I already pre-loaded and don't want to bother starting over.

Also for people aiming for mystic knight here's your to-do stress test. It's 3 great cannons while doing full moon/compass slash.
[media]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-fMRXxTX1g[/media][/QUOTE]

Oh right, I knew it was one or the other. I basically only played one character the entire time so I never experimented with body sizes.

tbh you might as well download it, I'm betting people will figure out where the hell saves are stored before the game comes out, and then you can just jump straight back in where you left off. Even if you don't do that, it's fun to experiment. For example, I found out about the retarded hair clipping already, which is disappointing but good to know early on. Not that I've played it.

[editline]11th January 2016[/editline]

and I knew there was a good MK stress test somewhere

[editline]11th January 2016[/editline]

[url=https://youtu.be/zEgp-eaUH28?t=59]although this is a better/funnier one, the perfect block is what really sets the grand cannon barrage off the rails[/url]

[Sunkite]

Oh man, I remember seing this back when it came out and how much I wanted it to release on PC

Now, it's finally happening.

The only kind of online interaction is those pawns, right?

[E = MC Hammer]

Yeah, pretty much.

One nice thing is that DD:DA comes with all the DLC, which means once you get to Gran Soren you have some of the good DLC armor in your storage box, as well as an eternal ferrystone, which is a LIFESAVER.

[editline]11th January 2016[/editline]

oh shit i found the save files

alright porting to the real game should be incredibly simple now

[Zezibesh]

I bought this game on PS3 and played a little bit, but the smudgy resolution and shitty framerate kinda turned me off. the class system also seemed super dumb. still excited to get into it again on PC.
it's gonna suck not having any trained pawns available online on the first days, I don't want to start teaching the obligatory healslut lolimage magic tricks by playing a mage.
honestly the class system still kinda worries me, the whole idea that you need to play completely different classes to get better stats in x parameters to play something else effectively kinda sucks. if I choose mystic knight I don't want to grind as a mage for optimal stat growth.
it also kinda sucks that warrior doesn't get as many skills as the rest, I really like huge swords but arc of deliverance alone doesn't really stop the staleness

[E = MC Hammer]

[QUOTE=Zezibesh;49506418]I bought this game on PS3 and played a little bit, but the smudgy resolution and shitty framerate kinda turned me off. the class system also seemed super dumb. still excited to get into it again on PC.
it's gonna suck not having any trained pawns available online on the first days, I don't want to start teaching the obligatory healslut lolimage magic tricks by playing a mage.
honestly the class system still kinda worries me, the whole idea that you need to play completely different classes to get better stats in x parameters to play something else effectively kinda sucks. if I choose mystic knight I don't want to grind as a mage for optimal stat growth.
it also kinda sucks that warrior doesn't get as many skills as the rest, I really like huge swords but arc of deliverance alone doesn't really stop the staleness[/QUOTE]

stat growth isn't really that important, gear matters SO much more. level as whatever you want, it doesn't matter.

they'll mod in a second set i'm sure