Lucas remained calm as ever, waiting for the right mont to guide the public opinion among online players.
Because he could clearly see the ga's real data.
But for many designers in the industry who had been following Nebula Gas, they had no access to this data.
They could only judge Dark Souls based on online reviews and the ga's surface-level content, and they all had mixed feelings.
"As expected, while Lucas has been dominating the indie ga scene, this is still his first ti developing a large-scale ga, and he can't quite handle it perfectly yet!"
"I wouldn't say that. The art design is flawless, the combat system is great, and while we don't know much about the story yet, judging from the worldbuilding it shouldn't be bad. The main issue is the numbers and balance."
"Yeah, I think so too. Dark Souls has really good visuals and art quality, but the difficulty just feels way too high!"
"It's not just that! The level design and little details matter too. There's no mini-map in the ga, and you can't adjust the difficulty. This ti Lucas is being way too stubborn."
"The player rating for Dark Souls has already dropped to 8.3. Compared to Lucas' previous gas, that's a world of difference!"
"Yeah, this might be his lowest-rated ga ever, right?"
"This ti Lucas has hit a real setback. Even if it's not a total disaster, with the size of Dark Souls' marketing and production costs, it must be pretty painful."
Actually, not necessarily. The main problem with Dark Souls right now is the difficulty and the small details in the gaplay. Later, if Lucas lowers the difficulty a bit and adds an option for different difficulty levels, things might turn out differently.
"But in the end, they were still a step too slow."
"I guess a lot of ga companies who released around the sa ti are feeling a little regret now. Before, Dark Souls had such strong promotion that they were worried it might affect their own gas, but now Dark Souls is struggling."
A lot of people in the industry are paying close attention to the designer of Dark Souls.
Nebula Gas had released several big hits before, but most of them were low-budget productions.
As Nebula Gas' first large-scale title, Dark Souls naturally drew a huge amount of attention.
But right now, it's clearly surrounded by controversy.
It might even fall short of expectations.
This has made so ga companies and designers start thinking differently.
Before this, the two major studios SkyNova and NetDragon had already announced clear release dates for their big VR projects—early December and mid-December.
It was obvious they were ready for a head-on battle.
And even though Nebula Gas isn't a large ga company, their string of successful indie gas and the hype surrounding Dark Souls had still made many studios and designers avoid competing directly.
After all, no one knew exactly what kind of ga this would be, and if it turned out to be high quality…
Wouldn't going up against it be like serving yourself up on a plate?
But now, with how Dark Souls is performing, so designers and companies are rethinking things.
EagleFalcon Entertainnt, a dostic studio focused on ARPG and action gas.
Their lead designer and head, Simmons, had also been closely watching Dark Souls.
That's because his own ARPG project, "Dawn of the Mind," was set to release soon.
Unlike so companies that deliberately avoided Dark Souls, they had announced their release date long ago—two weeks after Dark Souls ca out.
But there was still so debate within the company over whether they should delay it.
After all, if Dark Souls turned out to be truly high quality, then as another ARPG it might easily be overshadowed, hurting sales.
But now the situation seed much clearer.
Right after the ga launched, Simmons personally bought Dark Souls and gave it a serious try.
And after playing it, he was shocked.
Just like the players online complaining about the difficulty, Simmons got beaten down by the Iudex Gundyr fight and the Crystal Lizard, and ended up quitting in defeat.
He had only one thought—was there really nothing wrong with this ga's difficulty?
Did Lucas really not make any mistakes in the ga's balancing?
Sure, it's an ARPG, and even one leaning more toward action, but this difficulty was just way over the top.
Especially after he looked online and found out that later on the ga was full of nasty traps, and that the early parts were just a small taste of what was coming.
At that mont, Simmons felt a bit disoriented.
From the way Dark Souls was designed, he could more or less guess what Lucas had in mind—
To make it into a hardcore ARPG.
That's why Simmons thought Dark Souls would end up being a niche title without huge popularity.
And based on current online player reviews, it really did seem to be heading in that direction.
Then there's nothing more to say. At first, there was so worry that Dark Souls might turn into a huge hit, so there was hesitation.
But now that the timing, the situation, and the people are all in place, not riding this wave would be a cri against myself!
Very soon after Simmons made his decision, Mind Dawn began a high-profile publicity campaign.
Not only them — EagleFalcon Entertainnt and many other studios that had originally planned to release their gas during this period but held back because of Dark Souls' overwhelming publicity — also started warming up their promotions.
After all, December has two huge "monsters" coming up. Even though they're VR titles, they will still have a noticeable impact on the PC market.
And judging by Dark Souls' current player reputation, it's clearly a husky wearing a wolf's skin.
The early marketing looked fierce, but once it ca down to the real fight, it collapsed instantly.
By the ti their gas launch, the reputation will probably be even worse.
...
anwhile, inside Nebula Gas—
Lucas was discussing how to maintain Dark Souls' heat with Ethan.
Rachel and Anna, who had been keeping a close eye on the data, discovered sothing that got them excited.
The player reviews for Dark Souls seed to be slowly turning around.
There were still plenty of angry players leaving low scores and complaining about the high difficulty in the forums.
But according to Nebula Gas' backend data, Rachel and Anna were thrilled to find that quite a few players who had left bad reviews hadn't quit right away.
Instead, they kept playing — the longest batch already had over 12 hours of playti.
Most of these players even changed their low scores to higher ones.
On the official community forum, many of them also stepped forward to change their tone and speak well of Dark Souls.
This shift in attitude made Rachel and Anna both happy and puzzled.
What happened to these players?
Did Lucas cast so kind of spell on them?
(End of The Chapter)
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