Messages on the ground. How do they really work?

So I've been thinking this over and I realize that I have no idea how messages in Dark Souls really work.

What we do know:

1. The messages are from other players

That's it really.

What we can speculate on.

1. Messages get their ratings erased every time the player who wrote them logs off. This would explain the crazy low ratings on messages.

2. Messages can be from any player at any level.

3. Messages can be stored in your character data so as to produce them when there aren't many other people playing. I mean how can it be I always see a crazy amount of messages when I play online? That would mean that there are always a significant number of people online that have written messages at the same exact time I'm playing. It makes no sense.


So if you have any more information about messages or want to speculate on speculations, let's do this!

Messages linger for a good deal of time, the exact number isn't known but they can last for days.

Tolvo wrote:Messages linger for a good deal of time, the exact number isn't known but they can last for days.

So they are stored in your character data then? Perhaps they get passed along like a virus as well.

Let's say that you see a message on the ground, it gets recorded into your character data.

Then the game sends out that message to other players, infecting them as well.

Since messages on the ground were designed to be used with a server, they had to do all kinds of funky stuff to get them to work with peer to peer I'm sure.

The ratings on the messages do not erase when the person who placed it logs off. Ratings stay forever.

My messages have lasted for weeks. I put a message down in front of Manus' hand in the Darkroot Basin on the first day the DLC came out and it's still there.

I'm pretty sure any messages you write appear whenever you're online and laat until you erase them.

Does anyone know if theres a limit to how many messages can be placed or seen at one time?

I've always thought it would be kind of funny to get a bunch of people to spam messages and cover an entire area for a period of time... maybe the Oolacile bonfire platform?

Uparkaam wrote:The ratings on the messages do not erase when the person who placed it logs off. Ratings stay forever.

Well I'm not sure if this is just the 360 but 90% of messages have a rating of zero.

Another 9% have 1-2 and 1% have 10+ in my experience.

This is why I think ratings get reset. I think it may be a bug or something.

Also when we talk about how long messages stay, we are talking about how long they stay in other worlds. They do indeed stay in your world forever once they are placed.

Ratings don't get reset. I watch mine go up and down continually. Orange messages are just text messages that are shared P2P. This is why you see them quickly, text transmits fast. I usually know I have a good connection for summons when the area I'm in gets populated by the messages.
They are only transmitted to others when you are online and can only be rated then.
I believe 10 messages is all you can leave ( but could be wrong on that last one)

can anyone confirm what the benefit is for up rating a message? I try to +1 every "need humanity" I see if I'm PVPing in the area- so more people can invade and host...

"I believe 10 messages is all you can leave ( but could be wrong on that last one)"
I think this is correct

The reason so many messages have 0 ratings is because no one rates them. Honestly how often do you even read a message on the ground let alone bother to get your own OSS out to rate it? Its just something people dont do.

on xbox u dont have to get the OSS out u just stay on it and hit select. But i think an OSS needs to be in ur inventory

Icegodzilla wrote:on xbox u dont have to get the OSS out u just stay on it and hit select. But i think an OSS needs to be in ur inventory

Yes and the game doesn't really explain it to you.

But I just think something isn't right here because on Demon's Souls messages would eventually get 1,000s of ratings. I would commonly see messages with hundreds at least. But on Dark Souls the most common rating by far is zero.

Icegodzilla wrote:on xbox u dont have to get the OSS out u just stay on it and hit select. But i think an OSS needs to be in ur inventory

In fact, you don't even need the OSS. You just need to activate the gesture menu while standing on top of a message.

Hmmm, still that's effort people probably cant be bothered to put in when they're on their way places.

So I was thinking about this today and I came up with something else to add.

OK so let's go over what happens real quick.

1. A player logs on
2. Your worlds get connected
3. You get a message from them
4. The message appears

Now the problems with this is that the person who you got the message from could easily not be online anymore. I highly doubt the game is constantly checking to see if whoever left the message is still online. If that were the case messages would disappear constantly but they don't.

So you walk over to the message and rate it. What happens? The message never ever gets rated up for the person who left the message. The person is offline so it is impossible for them to get the rate up.

Also there are so many connection issues with this game, such as fog appearing but no one invading and the dreaded "summoning failed" message I think that this could easily have connection problems as well. For example you rate up the message and then the connection fails and the person never gets the rate up.

I think this might be part of the reason why ratings are so low.

I've actually been going around rating up as many messages as I can just to see if I can make more messages not have zero ratings.

Someone earlier said messages were suppose to be instant? There have been a few times where I was co-oping and the host does the OSS motion. But nothing shows up on my end, even though I am sharing a connection with this person, a stable one at that, I cannot see the messages they lay down, and I am sure mine can't be seen either when I have done it the host doesn't react at all.

I don't think OSS works like it was intended to, like a few other things in this game.

There is definitely a limit to number of messages you can drop. I decided to lay ring of "death" messages around the dark moon tomb bonfire. After 5 or so the messages started disappearing to make room for the message I just dropped

I updated the soapstone page. It still said that you needed the soapstone to rate, but this was changed in one of the first patches. Just add more if something is missing/wrong.

There could also be a message limit for each area, as well as a grand total. The message limit in demons souls was 3 messages between each fog gate (multiplayer zone) before the first one disappeared. So for example in 4-1 (3 fog gates/4 zones) you could leave a total of 12 messages if I remember correctly.
-
Update: I just tried, and could place a total of 6 messages (on each character). My first message disappeared when I wrote the 7th, regardless of which area they were in.

6 messages is correct. The 7 th one will roll one off, not necessarily the one with the lowest ratings either. ( could be why there are no real high rated messages ). 6 messages for a whole game is not many.

saw a 216 rated message today. I stopped and was in awe of its magnificence. funny thing was all it said was "liar". so i did my duty and rated it up

Icegodzilla wrote:saw a 216 rated message today. I stopped and was in awe of its magnificence. funny thing was all it said was "liar". so i did my duty and rated it up

Can you tell me what system you are on? Also where was it located? Whoever left that must play nonstop.

Also I love how the wiki says how when a message gets more ratings it will "Level up" and have a new image next to it, which is a really cool idea. But sadly I never get the see the higher level ones

Join me my brothers on XBox! Rate up every message you see so that we can get some messages with high ratings!

At least try to anyway, lol.

was on xbox after the carpa demon right after the door that leds to the butchers. had domhnall of zena's picture on it

There's a message at firelink with 1k+ posts with frampt's image if you're interested.

defacto wrote:So I've been thinking this over and I realize that I have no idea how messages in Dark Souls really work.

What we do know:

1. The messages are from other players

That's it really.

What we can speculate on.

1. Messages get their ratings erased every time the player who wrote them logs off. This would explain the crazy low ratings on messages.

2. Messages can be from any player at any level.

3. Messages can be stored in your character data so as to produce them when there aren't many other people playing. I mean how can it be I always see a crazy amount of messages when I play online? That would mean that there are always a significant number of people online that have written messages at the same exact time I'm playing. It makes no sense.


So if you have any more information about messages or want to speculate on speculations, let's do this!

All Messages that do not have the Knight of Astora Icon in the message (Merchant, Solaire, Knightess, so on), it is indeed Human Made. The icons change, as they receive more pluses.

There are those that have over 100 still, and I have seen it show up again and again, within three months (a Sign I saw in Darkroot). Every Plus, gives higher recognition for others to see, as well as a Humanity addition for the maker (loose Humanity).

Only six signs in total can exist with a character. If you make a seventh, the first one you made is erased.

Signs sometimes disappear, however are still there; signs of other players that are hidden, show up if the Miracle Seek Guidance is used. The miracle also discovers the ratings of Plus/Negative for signs, as well as discover hidden messages of the Knight of Astora in Lordran.

Pluses give Humanity, however Negatives do not take. Rather, it gives less of a chance for other players to find the sign, unless the Miracle is used. The more negatives received, the higher chance that they will not show.

I am still trying to figure out, if signs will remain in Lordran, whether the player is online or not. If I discover yes or no, would explain why some users don't see the sign, because it is tied to the maker of the sign to be signed in... probably the character as well. Wish I had info on that.