20 hours ago, ObjectivityGuy said:

thanks, that is kinda of sad, i hope i don't end up writing a book just so people go around breaking my canon like they did to Tolkien with Shelob in shadows of war

 

They didn't really break the canon at all. They turned to Tolkien's writings for the character. Tolkien himself described the character as an "evil being in spider form". Shelob basically sounds like a shapeshifter, and in an effort to make the character more prominent decided to give her a humanoid appearance. 

10 hours ago, lilington said:

"Just finish reading everything.

I don't want to destroy your dream but look at this game: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dust:_An_Elysian_Tail

made by one man in 2012 for almost 4 years of work. I think as someone told you before you will need at least 10 to 20 years to do DarkSouls alone.

In the meantime, there is hope. Just forget about Dark Souls for a while and make something that exists better for 2017. How? just go on youtube find those old Atari game and remake them, then modify it, make it better. With my level, I will make space invader clone in a day (using, of course, some codes I used before), so in a month I could make something totally different but still based on it. I can give you an example of my own game based on Pacman with now a totally different gameplay.

My advise if you don't know where to start is to participate in"2018 New Year Challenge: Missile Command" from this site. do your best, winning is not really necessary. try to finish your ideas within the 2 months of the challenge. Do it alone, you will get more experience from it than any of us can give you by our pieces of advice. 

Here is the link for the challenge :

If you are not able to do it or think it is a waste of time or any reason ... Then I tell you cash "Look somewhere else, Video games are not made for you". Remember, winning is not important, spend 2 months of your time in this project and see what you can do will be important and will teach you what to do to achieve your dream of a better DarkSouls game.

 

the greatest con of indie development for me so far is the time it requires, i know it takes long to write a book but at least you can do it alone and nobody takes 10 years on a book (at least i think so)

A song of Ice and Fire. A.K.A Game of Thrones some books took almost 10 years. it is almost 20 years for 5 books.

The thing is what is your goal? if the destination matters more than the journey you travel by plane, if not you travel by whatever is slow enough for you to enjoy and fast enough to not spend all your life on the journey. An AAA game is impossible for one man within only a year, let me be clear about it. NOBODY here will even attempt to do a DarkSouls in one year, that will be a year lost for nothing.

You said it is difficult to make your team... After reading you I can tell you that no professional will follow you, reason? they are many.

Your chance of convincing an indie with minimum experience is also around 0% as he will know all the trouble with this project. Remains other with no experience and full of dreams, they may follow you but this AAA project will fail more or less quickly.

My advice is the same as others said and I already told you. find those old game a make them, then make them better, then make them original. ex: Angry bird, I saw it 20 years ago during Qbasic demo somewhere. it was exactly the same game with just 3 or 4 levels and only squares, no bird, no image just squares. find something like this you don't need a year for that, if you can do well you will get some money and you will be able to pay for a team for your AAA game.

But there are few things that come in no time. Gamedev is not one of them.