Ten Things you didn't know about Dark Souls

[@kalameet3136]

and this, ladies and gentleman, is why this game is a masterpiece. amazing work, Orb!

[@chelskiman4966]

And this is why Dark Souls is a masterpiece. Even after all this time I'm still learning new things about the game. Fantastic video as always, Orb.

[@duncanleeson1709]

Fantastic list, didn't know any of these! FYI, if nobody has pointed it out, the book is William Playfair's British Family Antiquity from 1811. Playfair was an interesting character, who has been credited with the invention of both the bar chart and the pie chart, and he was also involved in the storming of the Bastille in Paris in 1789 during the French revolution. What any of this has to do with the lore or the archives, I have no idea - if I was picking (massively unlikely) theories out of the air, maybe its to do with him being involved in overthrowing a ruling elite as a rank and file citizen, similar to how the chosen undead is one of many who takes down the lords. Or maybe its just a texture from a photograph that was used in the game rather than designing one from scratch..

[@gimpdoctor8362]

Motoi Sakuraba is watching this like "damn someone noticed my seeeecrettsssss!!!!"

[@chosenuntot]

Now that would be amazing, man. Urban really loves this game, considering we're in 2016 and this video came out, and I think to myself "Wow, this guy always surprises me with his work, it's impressive indeed" and all, and I still haven't seen other people treat the game the way he does, right? So yeah, it's most likely true that what he says makes sense. By reading your comment I could imagine Sakuraba with a concerned face and spooky eyes, watching this video and thinking "it couldn't be more accurate O.O". haha

[@NATANMAN151]

Great video man! I love learning new things about dark souls, it's like every time you think you know all there is to know it slaps you in the face with another layer to examine the game through.

[@TheUrbanOrb]

Yep these games have that kind of vibe to them, which makes them irresistible to communities who work together to unravel them.

[@Scias]

I love the analysis of the music, as you can imagine!

[@TheUrbanOrb]

Nice, thank you for watching.

[@gates7831]

The point you have about Seath's theme is very interesting. It reminds me of Dancing Mad from FFVI which also had a lot of unusual time signatures and was supposed to represent (at least partly) Kefka's madness.

[@TheUrbanOrb]

That's one of my personal favorite tracks ever, Uematsu really went ahead of his time as far as game music is concerned. Same goes for my point at #1, his use of Leitmotif technique in Final Fantasy 6 is one of the greatest examples of this in game music, and very memorable.

[@knutaf]

I think I only knew one of these, so really nice job pointing out some cool, new things. I though it was especially neat how you used your background as a musician to show stuff about the sounds and soundtrack that I definitely never would have noticed. After you point out the thing about enemies going into the middle of a combo after a stagger, I immediately recognize it, but it's crazy to me that I never realized it when actually playing. It's one of those things that you just adapt to without really knowing what's going on. It's neat to see it deconstructed. I've always maintained that the hitboxes and swing arcs in this game play a huge part in the combat system, an unsung hero of sorts. People don't really talk about them, but exactly the thing you pointed out adds an interesting depth that you definitely wouldn't get if your character's hitbox was just a sphere or box, like many games. Not only that, the hitbox keeps changing as you move, swing, etc. There's a lot going on there. All that being said, I rarely deliberately exploit it, myself. The footage you show of using it tactically against Ornstein is fantastic, definitely Orb-tier skill on display, man. I'd love to see more of these. This video format never gets old for me. :)

[@TheUrbanOrb]

Hello! I know what you mean, I love videos like that myself, unfortunately people have been having problems to find new things after all these years, understandably. I am confident though that there are more secrets in this game that are yet to be discovered. What you describe about unconsciously adapting to things without fully grasping them may be one of the more important aspects of the irresistible charme that these games have. Thank you.

[@Final-Ts]

I find your music notices/revelations of the game the most intriguing and amazing. The 12 time changes of the Seath Theme, for example, is something only one's very knowledgeable in music theory would possibly notice or know. It's very much a compliment and have never noticed it myself-- even though I've listened to the score many times over the years. And-- even if I had, I would not have been able to define the time signatures in the accurate detail you provided. Again, the similar notes you found in boss fights is an amazing find/notice, truly. Many "Ten things about Ds" videos have come about over the years-- but this one has something that probably wouldn't have ever been discovered, if not for you. Many Kudos and thanks for sharing.

[@TheUrbanOrb]

Thank you very much for your kind words. As for the videos, I do wish to leave something behind that I can be content with.

[@Final-Ts]

TheUrbanOrb You're more than welcome and I understand/support your decisions. :) Thank you for keeping Battle 2 and remastering it-- I really enjoyed it and that meant a lot to me. Believe it or not, I still practice it a few times a week even to this day-- and while I have yet to master it, it is a mountain to climb that has always motivated me in a positive way. It's a very difficult piece though (grumble grumble). ;) I hope you read this. Thank you for everything, and I wish you the best for the future. Many good things will come for you. :) Warm regards

[@TheUrbanOrb]

That is awesome that you still practice that piece. Yes, I wanted to keep that piece and I think it sounds nice with the new sound that I used, so I didn't remove it. Thank you for everything too, and thanks for sticking with me over the years even when some stuff that I did ended up being not being all that understandable. You've invested so much effort and time into my work that I think you've been one of the few people who played an integral role in keeping my work alive. Thank you for that, and I wish you all the best as well.

[@noah9942.]

Saw this on Reddit. Was wondering where to learned all these music facts, and read the comments, only to find out that you're a long time musician. Makes so much sense now.

[@Emberrs]

Really impressed how you picked up on number1 that is some hardcore stuff!

[@TheUrbanOrb]

Thank you very much. I guess something positive has gotta come from analyzing tons of music pieces throughout school.

[@Lemonducky86]

I didn't know a single one, wow. Good work sir. #2 also sort of blew my mind lol.

[@TheUrbanOrb]

Awesome, thank you.

[@harpsitardo]

Great stuff as always. Good to see you back.

[@TheUrbanOrb]

Thank you very much.

[@harpsitardo]

As a fellow pianist, it's always a pleasure to see your work - especially when you discuss the musical aspects. Your philosophical comments in your Dark Souls Restricted run have been illuminating as well. I must admit, your Restricted still ranks as my favorite series of Dark Souls videos. I'm glad you put the work in on those videos.

[@TheUrbanOrb]

That is a great comment to get, thank you very much for saying this. The Dark Souls run was a preposterous amount of work that I am certainly not going to repeat in this form. That's why the upcoming DeS run is just going to be a reel cut together from my stream footage from back then with only occasional editing. I appreciate though that you say you liked it, because in general I feel it has gone by the community withouth it taking note of it beyond the trailer and first video. Thanks.

[@harpsitardo]

It is absolutely deplorable that the series didn't receive as much acclaim as it should have. I recall how you commented on how agonizing the process was in some of your videos, and I understand why you would not want to repeat it! I hope your hand has healed as well. Was the playing in your new Demons Souls video your own?

[@TheUrbanOrb]

I have thought a lot about why it didn't have more success and I have found answers that I can make peace with. If I am honest, I would not want to watch it myself if I were to stumble on it on KZbin, so how can i expect others to want it? Yes it was not nice, I clicked so much that I ended up using foot pedals, and when my feet started hurting I used voice input to cut until my throat hurt. In a way the editing was just as much of a challenge as the run itself, also it cost me quite a bit of money. But that is in the past, and I will close that chapter soon. The playing was not my own, I should have put it in the credits. It's a Chopin piece, replied to another comment there giving the details. My hands haven't healed but I am now very positive about the future, which is why I have to leave all this behind and walk away from it soon. Thank you very much for taking the time to comment.

[@v1ncn7]

I haven't played Dark Souls in a while, but this video showed me why I love it again!

[@TheUrbanOrb]

Yep, I used to have the same experience when I watched DkS videos on youtube and streams back in 2012.

[@VerlixStone]

Fantastic work on this! The bits about the music is something that takes a lot of time and effort to both understand and actually explain. You both understood and explained it perfectly, good work, sir!

[@TheUrbanOrb]

Thanks a lot! I was unsure whether I expressed my thoughts properly because English is not my native language and I struggled to get the point across. It's great to get this kind of feedback.

[@VerlixStone]

You expressed it perfectly! I understood every word. If there is something I could give you advice on though it would be about the audio volume. It was a little too high in some parts so it would slightly overshadow your voice. For future videos it might be worth looking into. I'm looking forward to more content from you.

[@TheUrbanOrb]

Thank you very much. I think my grammar might have been off here and there. Oh well. Yes I didn't spend much time with the sound. Getting the sound right in a video like this is such a hassle and much more work than it 'sounds' like. Didn't care too much here so I just went for it as long as it was possible to understand what I say, because right now my priority is to hurry up and get things finished. I've put out everything that will have my voice though so it's not gonna be a problem anymore. Thanks.

[@EpicHotCheese]

the amount of minor details in this game is absolutely mind blowing.

[@davideo7286]

Fantastic video especially the insight into the musical cues and motifs!

[@__sad_but_rad__]

That was, as usual with your content, superb. Also thank you for remastering and reuploading your piano videos! Your playing inspires me to improve mine (:

[@TheUrbanOrb]

Hello! Thank you for saying that, and thank you for being one of the few people to come here from my piano channel. It was very important to me to make these reuploads, as it is very important to do the uploads that I'll do here now, so that I can close this chapter. I wish you all the best with on piano journey!

[@trycior7718]

Nice video! About 2: It is most likely a bug. My guess would be that a part of the attack logic (for example timers, attack ID,...) dont get reset correctly when stunning them out of a (planned?) attack. If it happens that the timer runs out at about the same time the stun does, it might allow them to follow up the canceled attack with its next attack. Or alternatively when a stun happens in the same frame with an attack, some kind of variables might get overwritten by the attack, so the attack chain logic literally thinks the stun is the attack. Depending on how this works exactly this might even be abusable by players in some way, but it would most likely require frame perfect inputs.

[@TheUrbanOrb]

It may very well be a glitch, at the same time it feels like there is some kind of a pattern to it, unlike a lot of the other problems that are in these games.

[@frostsmoke]

I concur, a happy accident.

[@Lexsed]

Wow, ten things I ACTUALLY didn't know about Dark Souls, nice. Great stuff Orb, hope to see you stream some more too!

[@TheUrbanOrb]

Thank you Lex.

[@ZOMGitsKENNY]

Orb. It's been forever. Nice to see some content.

[@TheUrbanOrb]

Thank you! I remember you. Awesome to see you still around.

[@45Thawk]

Pretty amazing, that even after so many years this game can still surprise you

[@TheUrbanOrb]

Yep that's Dark Souls for you! I am confident there are still more secrets.

[@zanebecause00111]

(I'm not experienced with game coding, but this is just my assumption) With the animation skipping thing, where you stun them mid-swing of the first animation and the second comes out quicker, I imagine it's just that they have it set up where the AI does it's attack, then delays the attack, then activates the second swing of the attack, and what stunning them does is essentially skip over the first animation, and go to the second one, and since the delay was a part of the first animation, it is also skipped. (Again just my assumption, don't have any experience with game coding). Also, great video, orb, love the content. :)

[@TheUrbanOrb]

Yes I would think the delay that you mention is just the ending of the first (or skipped) swing so it gets lost when the first attack gets lost too. Thank you very much.

[@princepixel1]

awesome video orb! cool to see you upload again

[@TheUrbanOrb]

Thank you very much Charlie. I am putting out everything that I still have left.

[@theanarchistdictator2908]

2 - Don't really know if it's a design option or simply a broken thing. 4,8 - From your playthrough :) 10 - I just recently discovered that. A fantastic sensation actually. 1,3,6,7,9 - Didn't know any of the soundtrack/audio things.

[@TheUrbanOrb]

Nice. Yeah I guess the abyss thing is easy to find if you just bother to look up. That place is so dark that it took me a while to actually think of finding something above.

[@benofbrown]

Great video, I don't think I knew most of those. I do remember the jumping attack going under Ornstien's spear from your restricted SL1 run though. I had a quick look around and I think I've found the book they used for that texture, it's listed here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Playfair#Works "British Family Antiquity: Index to the 9 Volumes of William Playfair's Family Antiquity of the British Nobility" from 1811.

[@TheUrbanOrb]

Oh that's amazing! Nice find. I didn't realize Playfair is a writer. I remember that someone found another real book that is prominently used in the archives (one that's folded open, but I can't remember where exactly I saw it), but I didn't think that the other books that are in the shelves have real references too. Although I gotta say, this doesn't make any sense. My bet is that they just photographed some random bookshelf in a library and used that as a texture. You can also see library codes on the back of some books. Which doesn't make sense because if Seath has such a catalogue system in place, he would have gotten every book into that, not just a few.

[@ErickTG]

awesome video, I love DS and did not know most of those

[@RobotBlueprint]

The book you point out at around 3:30 is a real book! It's "William Playfair's Family Antiquity of the British Nobility."

[@RobotBlueprint]

The illegible word being "British," the spine reading "Playfair British Family Antiquity."

[@TheUrbanOrb]

Yep Ben Brown pointed it out earlier, even though the illegible word is a surprise to me, nice one. That word looks as if it's upside down and not printed correctly. As I speculated below I assume that they just took random pictures of books in a real library and put it into the game.

[@user-et9vb4pm8b]

Great research and nice video!

[@TheUrbanOrb]

Thank you very much.

[@marinchapuis8720]

Love seeing from you Orby! - Gruntbuster3000 ;)

[@TheUrbanOrb]

Thank you , and hello.

[@algi1]

Very interesting.

[@TheUrbanOrb]

Thank you.

[@UndrState]

Fantastic!

[@TheUrbanOrb]

Thanks a lot.

[@BillyPalmerMusic]

Where can you find out about number 5 please?

[@TheUrbanOrb]

I don't have a source for this. You pick it up as you listen to the piece. If you listen close enough you'll notice that those bass notes are not possible on a normal piano and that they are below the lowest note on normal pianos.

[@harpsitardo]

Bösendorfer makes acoustic pianos with extended keyboards, though it is also possible that the soundtrack was done with digital piano software, or a sampled Bösendorfer (I have a sampled Bösendorfer on my workstation, though I can't recall if it had extended keys) - which would also more easily give you those lower notes. The picture in the video appears to be of a Bösendorfer, as some models color those keys in black to as not to disorient us old-timers who aren't used to those extra keys!

[@TheUrbanOrb]

Yes it is absolutely possible to do the extra keys digitally. The footage I showed was just as an example since the Boesendorfer is probably the most well known grand piano with that extended range, but I don't know the exact model they used. I have actually been trying to find out what piano they used for the original recording, but I couldn't find it out. If it's a digital recording then that must be one hell of an amazing software they used, because I have never heard anything like it. Do you have any idea what they may have used?

[@BillyPalmerMusic]

Really interesting stuff - music student and obviously soulborne fan here so I loved hearing your take on the music and had to subscribe. I'm not certain if it's a decent sampler or an actual recording. Either way it's definitely a capture of a live performance. The RH sounds the most tinny and synthetic, but I'm not sure whether it's just a mixing/recording thing. On the other hand (thank you), the lh sounds very acoustic to me. The extended range notes make me wonder if perhaps this a performance captured on a nice keyboard using a library - I'd be surprised if the piano duo was recorded live simply because it would be out of character with the budget/production of the rest of the soundtrack. A piano with an extended range at that too sounds uncharacteristic of the production. Tell me if you or anyone ever finds this out please!

[@harpsitardo]

My version is quite old by now. This site (www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=360914) lists some newer ones that have the extended keys included. The Vienna Symphony Library has the Bösendorfer Imperial (www.vsl.co.at/en/Keyboards_Complete/Boesendorfer_Imperial) - it's a whopping 38 gigs! Here's a page with some recordings of it: www.vsl.co.at/en/Keyboards_Complete/Boesendorfer_Imperial#!Demos. I haven't tried this VSL, but it sounds very nice.

[@chosenuntot]

Hello, Orb! Things you didn't know (with brilliant philosophical take) right? haha. I admire you so much, man, does this "closing this chapter" thing mean you'll be taking a long break from videogames or what? Will you erase the channel? If so I must finish downloading your Dark Souls run, download the DeS one as well so that I can "secure it", without having to rely on internet to be able to rewatch any episode whenever I want, and to "eternalize it". I feel like I'm never able to express my gratitude to you, cause English is not my native language and I'm lazy af, but I hope I could make myself as clear as possible. Also I'd like to know if I can make a poster with a screenshot I took from one of your videos, it is from the Great Hollow episode when the mushrooms dads were glitched. ^^ imgur.com/a/xphow I wish you the best!

[@TheUrbanOrb]

What an awesome comment to get, thank you! Yes as long as it's just for yourself and as long as you don't sell it or anything, go ahead and make that poster, that was certainly one of the funniest moments of the playthrough. Chat went nuts back then. Yes my original plan was to delete all of my channels and accounts. But after thinking a lot I realized that I can find closure without doing that. I would have thrown so much work away, didn't want to do that. Instead I am now working on 'finishing' things. That's why I upload my old Demon's Souls run now, and why I made this video. After I am finished with this, I want to leave and turn my back to this, without the intention of coming back. Who knows what'll be in the future? But right now I am intent on leaving for good. Thank you for your supportive comment.

[@TheUrbanOrb]

Also I should say that your English is good, I can understand everything. Thank you for your kind words, and I appreciate that you took the time to write your comment.

[@chosenuntot]

No sweat, I did take some time to write it, to read everything twice to make sure it was coherent and all. Don't know if you remember, but you said on Twitch that you were having some trouble to pronounce my name @chosenuntote and I didn't know how to pronounce it till you bring it up.Back then I knew how to pronounce only "chosen". x)

[@TheUrbanOrb]

Oh it's you! Hello. Yeah, took me a long time to figure your name out for some reason. "Untote" is the german female form of an undead, but I never pronounced it like that for some reason. I know what you mean about reading comments until you get them just right. I've been doing that a lot when I would still post in forums. Anyway, thank you again.

[@knutaf]

Wow, I had no idea you were planning on deleting everything. As you say, that seems like a huge waste of your effort, not to mention the artifacts you've produced have a huge positive value for many people and for many reasons. It would be a shame to lose this, so I'm glad you reconsidered.

[@GMatt193]

U amaezeeng