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I'll do an official when I get home(at work atm). I got a ton of info i can complie for a good read. Been adding a lot of stuff to the various wikis.

Game is insanely fun and additive. Last game I had drive to play so much was WOW back in 05. Working on a divine weapon as I hear it does wonders in the catacombs.

So i gave this game a try, but i don't think it's for me. I finally beat the Asylum Demon (ended up just starting as pyro and chucking fireballs at it until it died, race against time, no strategy on my end) and i found it extremely annoying and not fun in the slightest. I landed in the main area, and had little desire to keep going in the game. Wanded around and got some loot, then encountered some skellies and died. I'll likely return it to redbox tomorrow. I think The Elder Scrolls is more my type of huge world RPG. I'm in it for the beautiful scenery, story, and open endedness, i'm not looking for a challenge.

I just learned of the Dragon Tale Sword. When you get to the under bridge with the big red dragon breathing fire, go to the other end of the ledge where the entrance to the rats are. You will get a clear shot of the dragons head, along with his body when he flies down, to pelt with arrows. Takes about 50 arrows with a regular short bow, and using regular arrows. Sword does 200 damage, and has only the reqs of 18 str and 16 dex.... so early game changer right there for a lot of people.

I just learned of the Dragon Tale Sword. When you get to the under bridge with the big red dragon breathing fire, go to the other end of the ledge where the entrance to the rats are. You will get a clear shot of the dragons head, along with his body when he flies down, to pelt with arrows. Takes about 50 arrows with a regular short bow, and using regular arrows. Sword does 200 damage, and has only the reqs of 18 str and 16 dex.... so early game changer right there for a lot of people.

I thought you had to shoot off its tail? Might try it with my pyro as on my hunter I had to kill the merchant when my finger slipped and I got mad and restarted lol.

I started as a Hunter. I finally had time to sit down last night to play and got as far as Ringing the Undead Bell.

Now I'm off battling Wailing Ghosts... pretty tough as you have to be cursed in order to deal damage to them not to mention they literally swarm you as they can phase through walls and attack you from within them :cry:

I thought you had to shoot off its tail? Might try it with my pyro as on my hunter I had to kill the merchant when my finger slipped and I got mad and restarted lol.

You do. Underneath where you fight the two undead (sword guy and spear guy) you have an angle to hit the tail. Tail is roughly around 200HP, so depending on dexterity could take ya 15-40. Well worth it though. I'm still using it and I'm in Sens Fortress atm. Though I should have a divine+10 weapon here soon, so I'll probably switch to that.

In case you didn't see it. Official thread!

https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/1031533-official-dark-souls/

Good official thread, Slane. Thanks for putting this up :).

Definitely some stuff that I didn't know about in that list. I'm still in the Undead Burg right now, so I'm definitely going to make sure that I stop by that merchant and get the Repairbox.

One thing that I found really helpful was what Audioboxer said in the previous thread regarding the Soul Arrow. That is, you can buy it quite early for 2,000 souls (and the catalyst for 500 souls). Ended up being good for me since I chose a Wanderer, and now having a ranged attack has definitely made things a little less stressful.

does a good job of showing you where to go to find the merchant selling the Soul Arrow.

I've rang both bells and will be heading to Sen’s Fortress next. However for now I'm stuck in the Ash Lake on the Hydra boss.

Last boss I did was revisiting the Asylum, that was fun... and hard.

Love this game soo much, it's a lot better than Demons Souls, but definitely harder.

I've finally rang the 1st guard tower. Had to the get Dragon Sword first, then just beat the gargoyles down finally. Took about 8 tries. Finally, was able to land 5 straight hits on the 1st garg, and the 2nd one is just easy alone.

I've now headed into the sewers... I believe that is what it is called.... took the door by the bridge where the dragon hides. Trying to beat the Capra Deamon, but screw his dogs! I sure hope this is the "next" monster I am supposed to defeat, because he is crazy tough, and I am already lost in where I should be going to get to the 2nd bell. *cries* I want my central hub back :p

Also, why do skeletons not give any souls? You destroy them, and they just crumble. But it seems like a waste of health and time to be fighting them, when there is no reward at all. Not only that, but some skeletons don't stay dead, but will reanimate infinite times until you do something special I assume lol.

I'll do an official when I get home(at work atm). I got a ton of info i can complie for a good read. Been adding a lot of stuff to the various wikis.

Game is insanely fun and additive. Last game I had drive to play so much was WOW back in 05. Working on a divine weapon as I hear it does wonders in the catacombs.

Just to let everyone know, I added Slane's official thread to Audioboxer's post. That way we can continue discussing the game in this thread. :yes:

Just to let everyone know, I added Slane's official thread to Audioboxer's post. That way we can continue discussing the game in this thread. :yes:

Good Idea, but any way to credit Slane's work in the post.. cause it seems like it was Audio's doing with how it is at the moment, and Slain is a great sport for providing what he has :)

Good Idea, but any way to credit Slane's work in the post.. cause it seems like it was Audio's doing with how it is at the moment, and Slain is a great sport for providing what he has :)

He's credited but I added it at the bottom of the post. I'll move it to the top so people read that first. (Y)

Really digging this sites help.... here is a link to how to defeat the Capra demon, as well as a good farming method listed below in the read.

http://supremegamer....the-capra-demon

The boss you are supposed to jump past to get to the gardens is insane! I remember finding him by accident a while ago. He looks like he is carrying a huge black rubber dildo. He started to chase me and I had to cry in the corner because he shoved it up my @$$! :p I dunno what it is exactly about this game, but it is pure sadomasochism.

I knew buying this game new was a mistake - I've got too many games going on already to dedicate to this one and it's already avalable pre-owned lol

This has been the only game so far in a while to really tear me away from LoL and anything else I'm doing in life at the moment. Everything else compared to this is child's play :p

Ok, during my lunch hour, I ran back to the Capra Demon, and using the info the guide gave me, I beat him first try... probably one of the easier bosses. Just block when you first go in, roll behind the dog and boss and go up the stair case and then to the right on the edge. From there, You can take out the dogs without the Capra Demon hitting you. Then, when the CD is at the top of the stairs, drop down, wait for him to drop, hit, run back up stairs, and repeat. Should only take a few minutes.

Now, here is where I am sort of lost. I beat the Capra Demon, went into the depths. I beat the butcher and dropped down the shaftway behind his table. I killed the giant rat and then started running around the area. I killed the spell caster and all the other rats, then jumped down the hole with no water pouring in it. From there, you have to kill the horrible horrible frogs and some rats. I ran through all of that area I believe, all the way to where I finally entered the dragon demon boss who has the upside down mouth. By the time I reached him, I have over 10k of souls. I died.... There was no bonfire I found from the starting one at firewhaterpoint.... So I quickly ran all the way back to the boss, grabbed my 10k of souls, and used a homebound item to get back to my camp so I could level up. After using the souls I found on the way, I had roughly 16k of souls. Plenty for me to buy soul arrow and heavy soul arrow as well :)

But, where is there a bonfire in the depths?

From the guide, the recommended order of playthrough. Thought people might find this handy.

Undead Asylum .................................................. 040

Firelink Shrine....................................................... 044

Undead Burg ........................................................ 048

Undead Parish ...................................................... 056

The Depths .......................................................... 066

Blighttown ............................................................072

Quelaag’s Domain .................................................078

The Great Hollow ..................................................081

Ash Lake .............................................................. 082

Undead Asylum Revisited .................................... 084

Sen’s Fortress ...................................................... 087

Anor Londo .......................................................... 093

Painted World of Ariamis ......................................103

Darkroot Garden ....................................................110

Darkroot Basin ......................................................118

Valley of Drakes ....................................................120

new Londo Ruins .................................................121

The Abyss .............................................................124

The Duke’s Archives .............................................126

Crystal Cave ..........................................................129

The Catacombs .....................................................132

Tomb of the Giants ...............................................135

Demon Ruins ........................................................140

Lost Izalith .............................................................148

Kiln of the First Flame ...........................................152

Enemy Reference Data .........................................156

Ok, during my lunch hour, I ran back to the Capra Demon, and using the info the guide gave me, I beat him first try... probably one of the easier bosses. Just block when you first go in, roll behind the dog and boss and go up the stair case and then to the right on the edge. From there, You can take out the dogs without the Capra Demon hitting you. Then, when the CD is at the top of the stairs, drop down, wait for him to drop, hit, run back up stairs, and repeat. Should only take a few minutes.

Now, here is where I am sort of lost. I beat the Capra Demon, went into the depths. I beat the butcher and dropped down the shaftway behind his table. I killed the giant rat and then started running around the area. I killed the spell caster and all the other rats, then jumped down the hole with no water pouring in it. From there, you have to kill the horrible horrible frogs and some rats. I ran through all of that area I believe, all the way to where I finally entered the dragon demon boss who has the upside down mouth. By the time I reached him, I have over 10k of souls. I died.... There was no bonfire I found from the starting one at firewhaterpoint.... So I quickly ran all the way back to the boss, grabbed my 10k of souls, and used a homebound item to get back to my camp so I could level up. After using the souls I found on the way, I had roughly 16k of souls. Plenty for me to buy soul arrow and heavy soul arrow as well :)

But, where is there a bonfire in the depths?

There is a bonfire down there, trying my best to remember how to explain. There is also a soul arrow magic dude you should kill at the top of the area before going to boss or else he buffs the dragon and shoots at you mid battle.

If you're a human you can summon an NPC to help you fight the boss (2 if you saved a certain someone).

Thanks for the play order, Audio. Watching the Tips & Hints video on LIVE they tell you to go to the Burg first - thought that was kind of bold; guess it was to specifically get a weapon.

Can't imagine why someone would put this up for resale already... :rofl:

Can't imagine why someone would put this up for resale already... :rofl:

The game punished them for being bad at games, and thus they cried their way back to the game store, tail between legs, and shamed themselves when telling the clerk they wanted to return it. :p

In any other game, if I was to die and restart as much as this, I would have said screw it. But there is something about this game that makes you go, " **** me? NOOOO, **** you game!" :p

Thanks for the play order, Audio. Watching the Tips & Hints video on LIVE they tell you to go to the Burg first - thought that was kind of bold; guess it was to specifically get a weapon.

Can't imagine why someone would put this up for resale already... :rofl:

Well technically the first two areas are forced, the game takes you there :p The burg is the first place you choose to go to.

Shakey, the bonfire is at the end of a hallway. Gotta have the key though. Instead of dropping down behind the butcher. Continue you along the like you should. You will eventually come to a skellie that is standing in front of a door. This is where the bonfire. If you have master key you can open it. Otherwise continue through the area and the key is on a corpse against a steel fence, which has 4 or 5 rats in front of it. I believe that's where the key is. At work so I can't run through.

Once I get home I got a nice bit on humanity and covenants ill post.

Thanks. Ya, I read up a little more and apparently I was running right past it. I have the key, so after work, I shall get there again. At least I have basically cleared all the bosses down there and know what to expect. It should also be easier now that I have Heavy Soul Arrow equipped.

I really need to look more into the covenants. There are so many, and some require you to play a certain way or do a certain thing before reaching a certain area... so much to understand lol.

Are there multiple endings based on what covenant you choose? Or is it just the playthrough that changes a bit?

No. Two endings and you make the choice at the very end. Covenant may affect some story but not significantly. In fact only thing I think that does affect story is the Pendant.

Covenants

There are 9 Covenants throughout Dark Soul's. You must take an oath to join a Covenant. There are rewards set by the Leader of the Covenant for following the guidelines of the Covenant. All Covenants have 4 ranks, 0 to 3+. Some Covenants will reward you with a promotion, but not all do. Covenants affect online interactions.

Leaving a Covenant

If you break rules of a Covenant and "sin" you will be removed from the Covenant and placed in the Book of Guilty. This will open you up to invasions from members of the Blade of the Darkmoon. You can cleanse your "sin" by obtaining absolution. To obtain an absolution you purchase it from NPC located in the Bell Tower where you battled the Belfry Gargoyles. An Absolution costs 2000XSL. So if you SL (Soul Level) is 100 you would need to pay 200,000 souls to receive an absoultion. Talking to Oswald the Pardoner you can receive a Pardon and be removed from your Covenant without accruing any Sin.

9 Covenants

Blade of Darkmoon: This Covenant has a good alignment. You can hunt down and invade players who have unabsolved sins while in this Covenant. You use the Blue Eye Orb to invade players who have Sinned, this will alert them and can be used anywhere. If you have the ring equip'd you can be summoned to invade a Sinned players world w/o alerting them. Souvenir of Reprisa is needed to gain rank and you obtain Souvenir of Reprisa by killing characters from the Book of Guilty. Currently there is only rewards for reaching +1 rank. You will obtain Darkmoon's Light Sword(miracle) and the Darkmoon's Talisman. To join this Covenant, head to the bottomw level of Anor Londo. You can only access Gwyndolin's tomb by killing Gwynevere or wearing the Darkmoon Seance Ring.

Chaos Servent: This Covenant has an Neutral alignment. To join this Covenant you must defeat Queelagg. Proceed past the area where you fought here, and descend the steps to the right of where you ring the bell. There will be a breakable wall. Once broken proceed down the path, do not affect the egg dude. Talk to him and he will grant you access to the bonfire behind him. To the right of the Bonfire will be a lady. Talk to her to join the Covenant. Upon joining you will receive the spell Chaos Great Fireball. You will also start growing eggs out of your head (eventually). The cure for this can be bought from the egg dude located here as well as more spells. You rank up in this Coveneant by offering Humanity. At rank 2+ you will the spell Chaos Firestorm.

Darkwraith: This is a hidden Covenant that has an Evil alignment. Covenant is great for players who love to invade others. You will be given an item that has unlimited uses to invade others as well as Dark Hand, which when use it's Strong attack you can steal humanity from players. To join the Covenant you need to kill the Great Wolf Sif and obtain his ring, Covenant of Artorias which allows access to the Abyss. From here you have two options. You can not talk to Framps at all and obtain the Lordvessel, then speak to Ingrid in New Londo Ruins to receive the key to enter the Abyss. Or you can defeat the 4 kings before obtaining the Lordvessel (if you don't you will not be able to join for the rest of Current playthrough) and kill Ingrid to get the key to enter the Abyss. Entering the Abyss starts the battle with the 4 Kings, after defeating them speak to Kingseeker Framp in Firelink Shrine to join. Upon joining you will receive a Dark Hand. At rank 1+ you will get a Red Eye Orb and at 2+ you will get Dark Sword and Darkwraith Armor Set. You rank this Covenant up by victories when you invade other players.

Forest Hunter: Neutral alignment. You join this Covenant by talking to the cat called Alvina. You will receive the Cat Covenant Ring which when equipd will allow Alvina to summon you whenever a non-Forest Hunter player enters the first part of the Forest. After 4 kills talk to Alvina to receive a Ring of Fog. Alvina tells you she hates the wolf guarding the giant sword and asks you to kill him. If you don't you will break the Covenant, but be granted the sword. No rewards for ranking this Covenant up.

Gravelord Servant: Evil alignment.

Path of the Dragon: Evil alignment.

Princess' Guard: Good alignment.

Warrior of Sunlight: Neutral alignment.

Way of White: Good alignment.

EDIT: I'll finish the rest later. All this typing has made me want to play.

I want the guide but I can't find it anywhere.

I'm in Anor Londo right now but looking at Audio post I think I skipped two or three parts. The Great Hollow, Ask Lake and Undead Asylum Revisited. Where is Ash Lake and The Great Hollow?

All the other games I want will have to wait. I don't think I'll play anything else until I finish everything in Dark Souls. :p

This topic is now closed to further replies.
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In my case, all I had to do was add the media path I just created, which you can also browse to using the folder icon in the path field. In addition, you can now map the new Media library in Windows Explorer using the Zima Client. Oddly enough, it is not possible to access the ZimaBoard 2 over the Network Neighborhood; you must map drives using the client, which is shown in the last image in the above gallery. I watched one of my Blu-Ray rips, which is Dolby Vision with Dolby Atmos, and the content played fine with no stuttering or buffering, which is what anyone needs in this scenario. ZimaBoard 2 Zima Client mobile app There's also a client for mobile. It is pretty barebones, as shown in the above gallery, for example, the Apps screen launches the WebUI for that app, and the Backup must be done manually. On opening Backup, you can select internal storage folders on your phone to backup to the ZimaBoard 2's storage, and although this is constantly scanned, the backup action itself must be manually triggered. There is an option to allow foreground backup (last image in the above gallery), but this basically means the queued backup gets triggered when you manually open the app. Benchmarking SATA PCIe 3.0 X4 A CrystalDiskMark test on a mapped network drive from within a Windows 11 25H2 PC (image above) connected over a 2.5 GbE was well within acceptable ranges. Writes were generally better on the SSD RAID mirror. SATA PCIe 3.0 X1 I also ran the NAS Performance tester, which tests the link speed performance. As you can see, it pretty much maxes out the 2.5GbE connection. Of course, you can also opt to bond the two 2.5 GbE connections for a bit more umph, but I didn't do that. Thermals Top PCIe card SATA HDDs Next, I measured some hotspots while playing content on Plex. It's fair to say this will perform better than a NAS that is enclosed in a metal or plastic case, as almost everything storage-wise is exposed! Anyway, the ZimaBoard 2 did not break a sweat with Plex streaming or disk benchmarks. ZimaOS Factory Reset ZimaOS does not include a factory reset option. Instead, you have to download the ZimaOS image and flash it to the eMMC manually. The flashing process is shown in the above gallery. The steps to do so are listed below: Download the ZimaOS image here; Open BalenaEtcher (Run as Administrator) and select the image; Select your inserted USB drive (min 8 GB) Flash to it; Connect your USB drive, monitor, keyboard, USB hub (optional), mouse (optional), and network cable (recommended) to the ZimaBoard 2; Connect power and press F11 continuously; Select your USB drive starting with UEFI in the boot device menu; Press Enter on the Install ZimaOS option; Select /dev/mmcblk0 (MMC) flash drive as target; Confirm with (three times) to wipe the target disk; Wait a couple of minutes while ZimaOS installs; Remove the USB drive and confirm with a reboot; Your ZimaBoard 2 has been factory reset. However, you don't have to stick with ZimaOS, in fact the company also offers official CasaOS images, that are based on Debian; or as they say themselves, put anything you want on this "hackable single board server" it's up to you. Conclusion I had a lot of fun putting this together. I've custom-built all my own PCs and servers since the 90s, and this is the first time I have had to put a NAS together. Even if the actual base ZimaBoard 2 was already a completed build, it still feels pretty custom. I just wish that IceWhale Technology included a getting-started guide in the box for the Start Kit, which would have really completed this kit. Instead, I had to search for the official video on the YouTube channel to make sure I wasn't doing anything wrong. So who is this for? Definitely the hobbyist who is comfortable building their own PC and servers. It also has a much smaller footprint than its nearest equivalent (in terms of specs), like the Beelink Me Pro, which is another NAS I will be testing soon. Although the Beelink does not come with the PCIe 3.0 X4 expansion, the ZimaBoard 2 Starter Kit suddenly looks to be a great bargain, even if it only offers the two 3.5-inch bays over the four in the other example. It makes a lot of sense to use Intel's N150 chip inside a NAS; it is more than capable of doing what the ZimaBoard 2 is intended for, media streaming and backup. It also looks like the IceWhale Technology staff are quite active in the official forums helping people with issues they come across with ZimaOS and the devices, peer support seems to be good as well, I was quickly able to find why I was not able to create a new Storage Pool in ZimaOS v1.6.1 even though that is quite a serious bug, hopefully it will be fixed in the next update. If you are comfortable with the command line and Docker, you'll be fine. You can do great things with this hardware. This was my first time with ZimaOS. It seems a bit barebones in comparison to the likes of Synology DSM, TOS, and UGOS, but it has a ton of apps to get you started with your home or small business NAS. Where to buy As of publishing, IceWhale Technology is running a discount of up to 5% for the Starter Kit. If you opt to get just the ZimaBoard 2 itself, it does come with a SATA Y-Cable, so you will be able to connect up to two 3.5-inch HDDs to it. ZimaBoard 2 1668 Starter Kit for $534.50 on Amazon US (was $548.60) ZimaBoard 2 832 Starter Kit for $372.88 on Amazon US (was $390.60) Zimaboard 2 1668 (16GB+64GB) for $419.90 on Amazon US Zimaboard 2 832 (8GB+32GB) for $359.90 on Amazon Disclosure: IceWhale Technology provided a free sample without any editorial input or review pre-approval. Good to know The Amazon link is U.S. specific, and not available in other regions unless specified. We only use first-party seller links (at the time of article publishing); ensure that you purchase from a first-party seller link only. Check out Today's Deals on Amazon | or our recent tech deals. 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    • It's in the Insider's group so yes it's technically beta, though these days it's hard to see much of a difference unless you opt for the most extreme beta builds, which I don't. When I moved here from the Release Preview channel I did so primarily because I wanted to see how well the restored taskbar functionality (restored from Win10, and earlier) is working and whether it was time to finally abandon SAB--and it is--working fine, so far. Not as polished as SAB, but it'll do for me.
    • I've been using MWB Premium for a number of years so that along with Windows updates and updated browser should be fine. Thanks for that.
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