Elden Ring - gamertags on first page

From what I can see so far, usual online bollocks. About five items for summoning etc, but I'm not entirely sure, only dabbled with one summon.

Haha, splooted by the first enemy I saw.

This has some polish to be added for sure but I cannot fucking wait for the release

The fact that you don't waste stamina outside of combat is nice, but there is something weird about the controls. They feel... laggy? I mostly played on resolution mode, so that might be it, but my character always rolled a bit too late.

Or maybe it's just another DS2 situation where you need to increase some stat before you are given enough i-frames for your roll.

The usual. But I did see a bit more bonfires (sorry, "sites of grace") than I thought, at least in this first area. There are also extra statues that serve as checkpoints, and you can choose whether to respawn at the last site of grace or at the last statue.

Also, since you can jump at will now, or even summon a horse, it should be more easily possible to just bypass any enemies you don't feel like fighting again.

Sneaking around groups and even bosses is viable, the aggro ranges are pretty generous. I avoided a big ogre, a ballista trap and several groups by hugging the edges of paths.

Enemies seem a bit relentless in their attacks, but stamina seems huge on the defensive so you can dodge/block a fair bit before being smacked.

The one spell I've used so far is fantastic. Magic could be spectacular

It's basically Soulsrim of the Wild and I am fucking stoked for it.

Playing on PS5. Some dodgy framerate stutters and a bit of pop in, but there's still 3 months to optimise. Looks really pretty to my eyes.

I'm doing the same, other than the network test I haven't seen or read anything about it, so nothings spoiled yet

I feel very positive about it overall, though with some caveats. I have to get back to work so in no particular order some quick thoughts: 

- looks like it could be huge, and the overworld is lovely and intriguing from what I've seen. I didn't even travel that far, but I trashed a load of goblins, cleared out some camps, came across some fucking weird Kraken-type-thing on a beach, met some beast-boss in a cave, plundered a fair bit of treasure etc. I also killed a giant tortoise and I feel pretty terrible about that, even though I later learned I could pickle its neck for a buff.  
- It's fundamentally familiar - is this good or bad? Your call. But it felt so easy to slip back into it in terms of controls. 
- But there was also welcome novelty - it's weird and fun being in a clear-cut Souls game that is also open world, has crafting etc. I enjoyed he cognitive dissonance of being immersed in Breath of the Skysouls (to vary Danno's punnage). 
- I really liked the spells I started with as the Enchanted Knight. The Carian Piercer has some nice risk / reward going on with its (relatively) slow casting time and (relatively) high damage. 
- The additive map seems like a nice touch. I enjoyed the fact that exploration can reward you by adding to the map. 
- The stealth is great. This is a good addition / borrow from Sekiro. But...
- ...the AI is as dumb as rocks. I killed one dude in a camp and another marched up to the body and didn't notice. You can be 5 metres away in daylight and they don't see you. None of this is new, and wouldn't matter if stealth wasn't built in, but it is; it doesn't play like a sophisticated stealth game (will this be easy mode, along with magic? Maybe).  
- Some really shitty animations at times - e.g. a guard wolf just spinning on the spot. Also, there are issues with frame pacing (surprise!) and other glitches; hopefully these will be addressed in the next three months. It does look lovely in general, though. 
- Am I supposed to have the horse yet, or does that come later...? 

Next chance is 4.00 tomorrow morning. Will I get up? I might well to be honest. 

FlexibleFeline I meant to meantion the enemy awareness/stealth. It was pretty funny at times but agree I'd like it tuned by release.

The horse is unmissable, you'll be double pleased when you get your mitts on it.

Was surprised I could save and go again with the same character, I hope they don't wipe everything between sessions, but it wouldn't be much of a loss, there's so many places to explore right off the bat

malek86 Are you talking about the golden-armour sob on the horse? He's doing my head in, utter c**t...

Managed to sneak in an hour or so during lunchtime; cannot wait to lose sleep and try again tomorrow morning. For all intends and purposes, this really feels like Dark Souls 4 with some open world elements thrown in for good measure. Not sure if the open world tropes will alienate long time fans, but I know I'm not cancelling my pre-order

"It's basically Soulsrim of the Wild"

That does sound good

I'm still in...thought I'd have been locked out by now

As I understand it the 'proper' boss is Mergit the Fell or somesuch, he controls the approach to the castle.

I don't know if this should constitute a spoiler, but try kiting the big golden fella on horseback up to the church with the merchant.

The fact that you can now easily jump everywhere, should make it possible to kite some bosses without even needing ranged attacks. I put a waist-high fence between myself and one of those annoying strong knights, and then just pelted him with quick hit-and-run attacks while he was busy hitting the wall.

They probably know people will cheese some enemies this way, so I expect most bosses will be either like the Fell guy (in an arena with nothing to hide behind) or will be able to jump themselves.