Board Thread:Dark Souls II/@comment-5264386-20130801122019/@comment-5264386-20130930125528

Update #4: Before I begin, a quick warning:

'DARK SOULS II (potential) SPOILERS ALERT!!!!! DO NOT READ IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW!!!!'

{| class="collapsible collapsed" style="width:100%; margin-bottom:0px; margin-top:1px;" border="0" ! sab="1148"| Click to see Dark Souls II news (Contains Spoilers) A YouTuber, at the risk of being kicked out of the beta, has uploaded (as of time of posting) two videos of his time with the beta. The first can be found here, whilst the second here.
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Apologies are made in advance if the videos are taken down on request by From, however, this is completely within their right.

In addition to this, several assets have been leaked on Reddit, detailing new spells, such as a homing fireball, a Fire Whip-esque spell used by the "pyromancer soldiers of Drangleic", an barrier of "darkness" which deflects all pyromancies. A text dump about spells, items, armor and weapons can be found here, whilst leaked texture files can be found here.

As a quick summary of the new content:

Countries/Kingdoms

 * Lindeldt, the Silverdrake Knights of which were " worthy rivals to Drangleic".
 * Drangleic, a land from which "hollowed thieves" wander.
 * Olaphis, a "lost land".
 * Melfia, land of "magic[-using] warriors".
 * Forossa, home of the "Lion Knights".

Characters/Mentioned Characters

 * The Ancient Dragon, presumably an antagonist in DaSII.
 * Straid, "sworn brother-in-arms to the ancient king of lost Olaphis" and a "great sorcerer".
 * Venderick, the king of Drangleic.
 * Llewellyn, a "master smith"
 * "tiny Gren", a member of the "war god"'s covenant.

Weapon Types

 * Daggers
 * Straight Swords
 * Greatswords
 * Ultra Greatswords (and yes, the Zweihander returns to DaSII). It is also possible that Curved Greatswords have been incorporated into this category.
 * Thrusting Swords
 * Katanas

Axes

 * Axes
 * Greataxes

Polearms

 * Spears
 * Halberds

Casting Tools

 * Staves, formerly known as Catalysts.
 * Talismans, used for casting "miracles and hexes". → may be related to "Sacred Bell" weapon class, which can cast spells and block attacks, or perform Strike attacks.

Ranged

 * Bows and Crossbows, which can now be used to bash enemies.

Shields

 * Small Shield
 * Shield
 * Greatshield

Returning

 * Sorceries - Of particular note is a sorcery which temporary boosts Dexterity at the cost of lower Intelligence
 * Miracles

New: Hexes

 * "It is said that hexes originated as a form of sorcery. However, they were claimed to pervert the nature of life, and now hexes are forbidden in most countries."
 * This is one is very interesting: "35111000, A hex passed down by Galio the Hexer. Instantly doubles the gravitational force exerted within a certain area, making the creatures within heavier. This darkness eats away at the user as well, ,reducing the user's maximum HP." → Makes one wonder what effect gravity will play in DaSII, no?

Covenants

 * A "bloodthirsty covenant" with the "war god" Nahr Alma. The equivalent to the Darkwraiths, perhaps?
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Anyways, that's all for this post. Hope it's helped to whet your appetite for Dark Souls II (for those of you who read it, of course :P).