Hey guys, I wanted to put together this, well... more a compilation of tips rather than a guide to help you all get started with co-op. This is mainly intended towards new players who found themselves wanting to experience where it all started since DkS III came out. Hope y'all enjoy, and maybe I'll see you in Lordran!

This section is purely for absolute beginners, so if you have any experience with Dark Souls, feel absolutely free to skip this one.

First off, you need to be human in order to summon others, and you can only summon if the area boss has NOT yet been defeated. You CAN, however, lay down your white sign if you're hollow and/or if the area boss has or has not been defeated.

Quite differently from both Dark Souls II and III, in which you use a humanity/ember whenever to revert back to being human/embered, the way to become human in DkS I is:

• Pop a humanity
  
• Sit down at a bonfire
  
• Choose "Reverse hollowing"
  
• ?????
  
• Profit!

Congrats! You no longer look like beef jerky. Unless you purposely made your character look like it even while human lmao.

This is the only "technical" tip in this guide, albeit the most important. Wulf's Dark Souls Connectivity Mod[www.nexusmods.com] is an absolute godsend, and it is mandatory that you get it. You don't even have to install anything! Simply download it, run it and then run Dark Souls. Voila! You have working multiplayer!

What the mod does, if you're too lazy to read the mod page or the readme (which you should), is it collects a certain number of random "nodes", which is to say, people around your world, and connects you to them in order to get you kickstarted with multiplayer. This is to remedy the nigh horrible Steamworks functionality which, I dunno, depends on the weather? Maybe on the alignment of the stars? Who knows! The kicker with this mod is that it does NOT replace Steamworks functionality, meaning you still get both at the same time.

The mod also makes it INCREDIBLY easy to connect to a specific person, so you and your buddy/buddies can co-op all you like! Do yourself a favor and get the mod. For help on connecting to someone in specific, read the readme or the stickies around here. Google is your friend!


This is what the mod looks like in play. This is maybe a second or two after I loaded my save, with my name highlighted in blue. In the upper right, you can see the max number of nodes you can have, with the current number you're connected to to the left.

In addition to being incredibly awesome at connecting to people (seriously, go throw your money at the author), this mod also allows you to see the SLs of people you're connected to, as well as their current state (hollow, human, etc.). And incredible mod, and again, man-da-to-ry.

Now that we got the technicalities out of the way, here are the more gameplay-oriented tips to help you get summoned or to summon yourself!

• Be in level range!
  Could be kinda obvious, but I wanted to list this just so that you can't say I didn't warn you. In order to summon or be summoned, you have to be within a certain level range of the host/phantom you want to join or summon. The formula for the level range is the following:
  
  min_sl = your_sl - (10 + (0.1 * your_sl))
  max_sl = your_sl + (10 + (0.1 * your_sl))
  
  For example, if you are SL 100, you can summon within the range of SL 80 to 120;
  min_sl = 100 - (10 + (0.1 * 100)) => 100 - 20 = 80
  max_sl = 100 + 20 = 120
  
  If you found this tedious, worry not! There is this handy tool[mpql.net] that calculates not only the level range of co-op, but of invasions as well! Also, here[darksouls.wikidot.com] is a list of the most common level ranges people usually use in specific areas.
  
  
• Pick a good area to lay down your sign!
  What I found generally works, from best to worst, is the following:
  
  1. Put your sign down very close to the area bonfire. Newer players will appreciate you helping them out throughout the entire area, and the possible protection against invaders. Be careful not to sustain too much damage before you reach the boss, though.
     
  2. Put down your sign right in front of the boss fog gate. While the summoner will have to wade through the entire area before finding you, you'll be at your prime and ready to kick some boss-ass!
     
  3. In the middle of the area, in a safe zone. Put your sign down in a safe zone in the level where you KNOW the host will have to walk through. An example might be the area with the two shortcut elevators in Sen's Fortress
• Pick an interesting username!
  On the PC Steam version, people are going to see your profile name when they see your sign. Bland names tend to get a soul sign immediately ignored. If, however, you pick a dank funny name, you're much more likely to get summoned, if only for a laugh.
  
• Rock a cool build!
  In the vast sea of generic builds, standing out helps bring freshness into the game. One example I'd give, both for this point and the previous, was that I got summoned to help fight Quelaag by a dude called "Ripped AF", who wore no shirt, some pants and gloves and fought with his fists. I laughed like a moron when I first saw him, and we had a great co-op session. Right until I died to Quelaag's explosion because I got stuck between her legs, sorry man. :/.

I hope you found this very short guide spicy and interesting, and hopefully it'll net you an extra summon or two. I had fun while writing this, and I'll hopefully update it in the future with some screenshots and more content if I find something new to write.

In the meantime, go out there and engage in some jolly co-operation! \ [T] /

• v1.0 - June 23, 2016 - 0:09
  First version of the guide with all the main content in place, hopefully with as little spelling and mechanical errors as possible.