One tip. Dont play online until at least level 50. Waay too many griefers and BB glitch abusers, especially in the first areas of the game.

Also, choose either warrior, hunter or pyromancer

Well, I've heard Dark Souls is harder than Demon's Souls and that the Four Kings in particular are a nightmare. I didn't actually find Demon's Souls to be all that difficult, and even where it's challenging it's a scrupulously fair game, but something about the the atmosphere combined with the difficulty level was really unnerving to me. I was getting creeped out in a way I haven't since Silent Hill 1 & 2. I needed time to recuperate before plunging into Dark Souls!

And nah, I'm digging Skyrim a lot. It's just that there's so ridiculously much to do, I don't know when I'll be done with it. Hopefully by the time XCOM comes out, though.

Dark Souls is only as hard as you make it. With anything you can farm souls and lvl up from the start, unlike Demon souls.

Do you mean as opposed to having to kill the first boss before you can level up? I didn't find that part all that bad. The only part in the whole game that gave me fits was those stupid Maneaters!

How does the open world work without a hub? Is there a lot of annoying backtracking?

From what I can tell the bonfires serve as checkpoints throughout the game, but I'm not very far into it and there might be a way to travel maybe? Through the bonfires? I have no idea, this game tell you jack sh*t about how things work.

I don't know if there is a hub or if there are city like areas or something like a safe haven somewhere. It is not very structured in location compared to Demons Souls. All I was told is I have to ring a couple bells and something will happen.

Take this from a guy who has put over 600 hours into the game, beat it 10+ times and has 5 characters on it...minus the few boss battles Dark Souls is in every way easier than Demon's (given that you are a veteran) There are glitches to:

• Get infinite amount of souls
• Cast infinite amount of items
• Buff unenhanceble weapons
• Spellswap
• Duping infinite amount of items
• Use weapons from old character on new character (BB glitch)
• 1 Backstab KO hit on all enemies

Haha, I think Demon's Souls had most of those glitches, too.

Yeah that it what I mean, unfortunately was hard for me as the worst class. There is a lot of backtracking in Dark Souls until you get to teleport b/t bonfires.

Levelling up doesn't help all that much, that was my first mistake. Equipment and spell upgrades are far more important and not weighing yourself down with too much heavy armor. You slow down for each 25% of your maximum weight allowance.

You can defeat the knights now if you're careful, but it will be a lot easier later. Having to hit them 20 times and perfectly dodge all the time in between is doable, yet very risky.

I just did that this morning. Up against the tower knight right now but the spell caster on the second floor of the church isn't cool. Had to go to work so I wasn't able to engage the knight. You'd probably have a harder time rushing through the game if you weren't a knight, but it sounds like you are reaching a point where you aren't as powerful from the get go. Luckily I haven't died back to back yet so I've been pretty plentiful on souls.

You can use select in the stats menus to get a description of stats. Other than that take the time to use the guide. Demon's souls was way easier to understand at the beggining, but it still had confusion later on. Dark Souls is just void of help so far.