Gold Box SSI's Gold Box Series Thread

One major thing I didn't check in Pool/Curse was to investigate transfer to/from Hillsfar. So ...

• This can prevent the Strength bug that prevents Enlarge from working.
• You do get to keep unusually high statistics, from either Pool to Hillsfar, or Hillsfar to Curse. No guarantee that won't actually hurt you beyond Curse (in SSB/POD), though -- it might not be fully supported.
• This is how you get the extra Harper messages on the World Map. That requires winning Hillsfar; you'll get a message saying that the Harpers will assist you.
• You'll automatically gain any levels you're eligible for. You won't gain any hit points doing this, however.

 

Any actual advantage in-game apart from the Harper messages?

 

I know now that any reference to $7CE4 in the scripts is a check for a Hillsfar character. If I search all of the scripts:

$ grep "7CE4" *
ECL80 - World Map 1.txt:$19F7 $99F5 03 COMPARE <$7CE4> 0

... nope, there's nothing else.

A check of the Secret of the Silver Blades raw binary shows nothing there, either.

 

I thought they did the GB games together? But, yes, SSI.

 

TSR was only directly involved in designing with Pool of Radiance.

 

Beyond software (then Stormfront) actually.

The Savage Frontier games were farmed out from SSI to Beyond software. Don Daglow and co.

 

They had a different feel no? More 'game-y', more cities and intrigue and fewer ruins and graveyards?

 

Curse of the Azure Bonds was based on the eponymous novel by Kate Novak and Jeff Grubb, published in late 1988, and Grubb himself collaborated with SSI's project lead George MacDonald on both the structure of the computer game and on adventure module FRC2 Curse of the Azure Bonds, which was published in April 1989, three months before the computer game hit the stores.

 

That makes sense. I did think Curse was a lot more 'railroaded' than Pool of Radiance, which was quite open ended, and more like a tabletop game presentation (There are quests on the billboard, just a bunch of adventurers, etc). I know it had a book after the games release.

Were there even any novels out in the forgotten realms before PoR? That whole game had a sense of being made up from scratch using just the tabletop world, without many preconceived notions, whereas later games seemed to be strait jacketed into their respective novels world with less room to move. I know the Dragon Lance games came after the novels, but I am not sure about the Savage Frontier, although 'Aminitas' seems to have a whiff of 'Famous Mage in Realm' about him, kind of like a befuddled Elminster/Gandalf type.

 

First Forgotten Realms novel was “Darkwalker on Moonshae” which came out May 1987 (a full month before the campaign set, apparently, and over a year before PoR was released).

 

It doesn't look like that book has anything to do with PoR though, so the coast was relatively clear for 'make it up as you go'.

I have the campaign setting book as well for Ruins of Aventure, and I think they did a better job in PoR to be honest. In the campaign book, the fall of Phlan is only something that has happened in living memory, while in PoR it was something that happened at least a few generations ago, which added to the 'mystery' of what lay beyond the Civilised section.

 

Like any good for-profit company, they used platforms for cross-promotion.

The Savage Frontier sourcebook came out in 1988, and focuses heavily on the cities there (ironic given the name). Kind of like Gateway and Treasures.
Time of the Dragon came out in 1989, and focuses on the continent of Taladas. Like Dark Queen of Krynn.

I could also point out that the mechanic of transferring characters is a nice way to encourage someone to buy all the games. Transferred characters started about 2 levels above newly created ones (EXCEPTION: Champions to Death Knights), so you had an edge, and lots of 13-year-olds are powergamers.

You can also bring an extra dragonlance in from Death Knights to Dark Queen. Pools of Darkness didn't have +5 items but Secret did, so it gave you an incentive to buy Secret even if you had Pools. Gateway had the Sword of Stonecutting, which wasn't available in Treasures but was useful for fighting Stone Golems in Treasures (especially for one optional fight that was useful for experience).