Hello good people and darkwraiths, here's the deal.

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The entirety of this guide may have just been made obsolete by a kind individual called Wulf.
***http://www.nexusmods.com/darksouls/mods/1047/?***
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Download the file above, follow the instructions and praise the sun!
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1. Search for official Steam list of required ports. Make sure they are all open, that should solve 50% or more of your problems. Use Google to help you.

2. If you already know about different regions and know how Luxemburg, Finland etc. are the best... I whole-heartedly recommend using a LAN region of your respective continent. - From my personal experience and the experience of 9 other people I have tested this with and some of them tested it amongsts themeselves or with other ppl. LAN regions although not always, ususally collect nodes faster. I dunno why. They also rarely yield long waiting times or summoning failed messages.

After switching to LAN region, if you're playing with a friend and trying to summon him, even if you both just entered the game I reckon you shouldn't wait for more than 3-4minutes TOPS to see each other. I usually wait around 2minutes under such circumstances. (When I just entered the game)

LAN regions are not limited to the continent you selected (USA, Europe, Asia) While on LAN USA I managed to connect to Europe, and while on LAN Europe I connected all the way to India.



Only 2 things that matter are: 1. PORTS - don't be lazy or afraid of them - check them and open them. and although it shouldn't matter... 2. DOWNLOAD REGION. - ANY region can be hit or miss, even Luxemburg. Please try out LAN regions for yourself, you won't be sorry.

Enjoy co-op and PvP! Doing this and using LAN regions solved all my griefs I had with this game a week ago when I couldn't see a single sign around.

Resources below --

List of Ports Steam uses: https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=8571-GLVN-8711&l=English

(For starters forward these, then the others as is neccesary)
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Steamworks P2P Networking and Steam Voice Chat

UDP 3478 (Outbound)
UDP 4379 (Outbound)
UDP 4380 (Outbound)


How to forward the ports on your router: http://portforward.com/english/applications/port_forwarding/Dark_Souls/default.htm

If you can't find your exact router model don't fret, the procedure is basically the same for all routers.


And some additional info regarding download regions: http://gtm.steamproxy.vip/app/211420/discussions/0/617329920709379138/

Read through the thread for better understanding, but basically... The more populated the region is the easier it will be to accomplish more connections. Some of the regions previously confirmed by the community to be well populated (May change with time...)

Luxemburg. Finland, US-New York, US-Phoenix, Japan.... Otherwise I suggest using LAN region or the one that works the best for you.

Dark Souls PvP Watchdog - Isn't necessary at all but will help you determine if you are getting online connections, and how much. - Also can help with cheaters and/or hackers.
https://bitbucket.org/infausto/dark-souls-pvp-watchdog


Remember! To change your download region go to Steam>Setting>Downloads then change the region.


Praise the sun!

Upon entering the game it is quite normal to wait for the first connections to arrive for about 5-10 minutes. That's just how the game is made and you can't do anything but wait for a few minutes. If even after wating for 10 minutes or more you are seeing you have 0 nodes (use PvP Watchdog) - a restart of the game, or as many report - a restart of your modem/router should do the trick.

Also if the game happens to bug out during play and resets to 0 nodes - just restart the game.


You can mesure the traffic your game gets using the program PvP Watchdog. The traffic you get depends on many things, even when all your ports have been properly forwarded and you're using a well populated region or LAN region.

How many players you encounter depends on:

- Number of actual players in-game
- The area you're in (ammount of players there)
- Your Soul Level or SL (and the SL of others)
. and what items you're using for online interraction.


For example, you can expect more action in Darkroot Forest or in Anor Londo than anywhere else because those places are hotspots for PvP.

Your SL and items you're using for online interraction actually kind of tie together.

For example, When using the White Soapstone (for placing your summon sign) you may only connect to people 10+10% above or below your SL.

Meaning, if you're SL 150 your range for getting summoned through your white sign is with people from the range of SL128 to SL175.

(SL128 is because even though your down limit may be SL125, the upper limit of the SL125 player is actually SL147 so he won't be able to see your sign)

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Note: The usual, agreed by most players endgame SL is 125. If you decide to go above that know that you are cutting yourself off from the majority of players.

Note2: If you are often getting "Summoning Failed" messages it may be because of the other players name. The game has issues with handling long names and thus will not establish a connection.

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Note3: IMPORTANT: Please DO NOT use dsptde-2.0. beta settings!
-------- ONLY use the DEFAULT (None) setting to play. ----------------
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Our community is divided, please help by making it whole again!
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- Your ingame name is not your character name but your STEAM nickname. If your Steam nickname is over 14 characters long please consider shortening it if you want to see more online activity and improve the experience of other players - if necessary.

Most of the info in here has been found out and tested by the members of the Dark Souls Community. I have only compiled it into this guide. If you want to get friendly feel free to pay them a visit in the Dark Souls Community Hub Forums.