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Gold Box SSI's Gold Box Series Thread

What are your favorite Gold Box games?

  • Pool of Radiance

  • Curse of the Azure Bonds

  • Secret of the Silver Blades

  • Pools of Darkness

  • Champions of Krynn

  • Death Knights of Krynn

  • The Dark Queen of Krynn

  • Gateway to the Savage Frontier

  • Treasures of the Savage Frontier

  • Buck Rogers: Countdown to Doomsday

  • Buck Rogers: Matrix Cubed

  • Forgotten Realms: Unlimited Adventures (FRUA)


Results are only viewable after voting.

DavidBVal

4 Dimension Games
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Alfter beating Pool of Radiance decades later, the feeling has been wonderful. What a magnificent RPG, every bit as good as I remembered it.

PoR is more than a mere game to me. I was around 14 when I began playing it, and even "multiplayed" it with friends; we'd each roll characters and played it like if it was an adventure, handling each of our chars in combats and voting or arguing to split the loot or deciding where to go. We made challenges like, let's go to the Graveyard before level 5 or stuff like that, or we tried to go early for some other uber-reward the game offers (the lizardman +2 shields or the buccaneers insane loot are some examples). We had a pirated version and only knew a few of the passwords, so we often had to wait a very long time even to open the game (each try was like 10 minutes of "Loading... Please Wait", or so it is in my memory). Because of this, for me there will never be a cRPG like Pool of Radiance, ever. It's just a part of me, so it's not easy to find wrong things in the game.

Clearly Pool of Radiance belongs to the "Tier 0" of the RPG ranking, the handful of games that were a milestone in cRPG development and inspired both players and creators forever. From a historical perspective, it is groundbreaking: full party, tactical combat, complex rulesystem, non-linear exploration, open world. Combines the 1st person dungeon crawling from Wizardry or M&M with Ultima-style TB combat, but with the AD&D system implemented with an accuracy that had never been seen before. The fact it is just the first title in a multi-saga Gold Box family only makes it a greater achievement. The adventure itself is just brilliant, gives great feeling of progress and invites to explore.

Still the game is not perfect. The mid to end game progression feels boring, it really needed level 4 spells. And the events and little details in dungeons become very sparse in most areas. Of course it also shows the engine is new, because some shortcuts and quality of life to be introduced in later Gold Box games is sorely missed. Still, it is just too good. Too damn good.
 

Null Null

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Joined
Aug 2, 2014
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542
I remember what you were talking about--I was always replaying it with different parties, trying different dungeon orders and so on. And--oh yeah, sneak into the graveyard for stuff and try not to get drained, haste yourself to keep Al-Hyam Dazid from escaping with his Ring of Protection +3, get the bracers AC 2 from the Shaman in the Nomad Camp. Find and kill the Fake Tyranthraxus and get his Long Sword +5. The loot was way too good--something they fixed in Gateway. ;)

Have you tried the FRUA adaptation? As it uses the FRUA engine, you have access to 4th level spells. (5th if you grind enough.) There's no scaling of monsters to party strength, but that may be a plus in some cases. Ray Dyer was pretty faithful to the original, though I did find a few differences.
 

Cael

Arcane
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Which game should i start for a newcomer?
Gateway to the Savage Frontier or Champions of Krynn or Pools of Radiance.

These are the three first games in their respective series, so should give you an idea of what to expect. I believe that Champions is the most forgiving of the lot, though. It hand holds you through quite a bit. But that is just my opinion.
 

DavidBVal

4 Dimension Games
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Which game should i start for a newcomer?

Any of the starting chapters in the series, probably CoK or PoR. Just make sure you use Gold Box Companion unless you are very used to 80s games and want a "purist" experience. Automap and other quality of life functions are going to save you a lot of time.
 

Zed Duke of Banville

Dungeon Master
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11,756
Which game should i start for a newcomer?
Pool of Radiance is the single best Gold Box game, while Champions of Krynn is the second-best game and the start of the better of the two series. If you intend to play through one series before starting the other, then first choose Dragonlance (Champions --> Death Knight --> Dark Queen of Krynn) followed by the other one (Pool of Radiance, Curse of the Azure Bonds, Secret of the Silver Blade, Pools of Darkness). If you want to try out the Gold Box system without committing to anything, then start with Pool of Radiance (you can always switch to the Dragonlance/Krynn series after finishing PoR or perhaps after completing CotAB).
 

Bara

Arcane
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Apr 2, 2018
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So I just want to be sure before I start grabbing the graph paper and drawing again. Goldbox companion doesn't work with UAshell games right?

Giving the realm a whirl and so far I'm impressed with their keep on the borderlands conversion. Just worried I'm going to get lost if I don't start mapping but so far my sense of direction and compass has been holding up.
 

octavius

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Yeah, Keep of the Borderlands was great. Probably my favourite The Realm module so far.
But the Realm campaigns tend to get too easy eventually, if you follow the recommended playing order.

Personally I'm using Grid Cartographer to make maps.
U4px9z4.jpg
 

Bara

Arcane
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Apr 2, 2018
Messages
1,320
What order would you recommend to go through if you have a list? Should I have two parties run through different sets of adventures in order to split xp and resources up instead of stacking it all on one party?
 

octavius

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Been a while since I've been playing them, and the modules vary quite a bit in size, so it's hard to give detailed advice.

But yes, I would split the modules between more parties to make things more challenging, as I noticed with both the East and South campaign that they sort of drifted into "Story Mode" eventually and I started losing interest. Your mileage may vary, though.
 

Joonas

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screen16.jpg


Small update (v2.60) to Gold Box Companion:
  • Settings file has changed so it's best to completely remove an existing version of GBC.
  • Music version of GBC included (GBC_Audio.exe). Plays external sound files. See GBC_Audio.txt for more info. No sound files are included, but the downloads section has a package of sounds. Also check Tabletop Audio for downloadable ambient tracks.
  • Lots of effect name corrections (thanks to Stephen S. Lee and Null Null for these).
  • Fixed a bug where known/memorized spells were wiped out if the FIX STATS option was on in Dark Queen or FRUA.
  • Fixed a bug in Dark Queen where auto-identify corrupted scrolls imported from Death Knights.
  • You can press "T" on the map window to toggle world map location titles.
  • Item editor support for Dark Queen / FRUA.
  • ECL Tool (bytecode script viewer) enhanced with map display, global search, flag list, flag comments. Lots of memory addresses in PoR / CotAB commented (thanks to Stephen S. Lee's FAQs for these).
Homepage:
http://gbc.zorbus.net

Direct download:
http://gbc.zorbus.net/gbc.zip

Music samples:
http://gbc.zorbus.net/gbc_music.zip

Site for downloading good ambient tracks:
https://tabletopaudio.com/
 

Cael

Arcane
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Nov 1, 2017
Messages
20,282
Hi, Joonas. I have the 2.50 version, but it doesn't read the map in DQK. Keeps showing me the overland one only. Is this a bug or is that expected? I have the original version of the Gold Box games, not the GOG version, if that has any bearing on it.
 

Joonas

Arcane
Developer
Joined
Jul 28, 2011
Messages
172
Location
Finland
Hi, Joonas. I have the 2.50 version, but it doesn't read the map in DQK. Keeps showing me the overland one only. Is this a bug or is that expected? I have the original version of the Gold Box games, not the GOG version, if that has any bearing on it.
Do you know what version your DQK is? I think the game got a patch at some point. The GOG one is v1.1. Also, are you using vanilla DOSBox with the default config?

If the game is v1.0, you could try this:
https://www.patches-scrolls.de/patch/1106/7/22571
 

Cael

Arcane
Joined
Nov 1, 2017
Messages
20,282
Hi, Joonas. I have the 2.50 version, but it doesn't read the map in DQK. Keeps showing me the overland one only. Is this a bug or is that expected? I have the original version of the Gold Box games, not the GOG version, if that has any bearing on it.
Do you know what version your DQK is? I think the game got a patch at some point. The GOG one is v1.1. Also, are you using vanilla DOSBox with the default config?

If the game is v1.0, you could try this:
https://www.patches-scrolls.de/patch/1106/7/22571
It is DQK v1.1. I am using DOSBox with vanilla config, though, but with increased speed (due to DQK being so slow).
 

Joonas

Arcane
Developer
Joined
Jul 28, 2011
Messages
172
Location
Finland
Hi, Joonas. I have the 2.50 version, but it doesn't read the map in DQK. Keeps showing me the overland one only. Is this a bug or is that expected? I have the original version of the Gold Box games, not the GOG version, if that has any bearing on it.
Do you know what version your DQK is? I think the game got a patch at some point. The GOG one is v1.1. Also, are you using vanilla DOSBox with the default config?

If the game is v1.0, you could try this:
https://www.patches-scrolls.de/patch/1106/7/22571
It is DQK v1.1. I am using DOSBox with vanilla config, though, but with increased speed (due to DQK being so slow).
Speed shouldn't matter. Can you zip your save folder and send it to me?
 

Cael

Arcane
Joined
Nov 1, 2017
Messages
20,282
Hi, Joonas. I have the 2.50 version, but it doesn't read the map in DQK. Keeps showing me the overland one only. Is this a bug or is that expected? I have the original version of the Gold Box games, not the GOG version, if that has any bearing on it.
Do you know what version your DQK is? I think the game got a patch at some point. The GOG one is v1.1. Also, are you using vanilla DOSBox with the default config?

If the game is v1.0, you could try this:
https://www.patches-scrolls.de/patch/1106/7/22571
It is DQK v1.1. I am using DOSBox with vanilla config, though, but with increased speed (due to DQK being so slow).
Speed shouldn't matter. Can you zip your save folder and send it to me?
How do I do that? I have a save from right at the beginning of the game at Caergoth when I was trying to figure out what was wrong.

Note: GBC201 detects the map and displays it properly while GBC221 refuse to work at all on DQK. Both exhibit weird behaviour in COK and DKK, where they sometimes don't detect the map properly and just fails trying to load up the save game.
 

Joonas

Arcane
Developer
Joined
Jul 28, 2011
Messages
172
Location
Finland
Hi, Joonas. I have the 2.50 version, but it doesn't read the map in DQK. Keeps showing me the overland one only. Is this a bug or is that expected? I have the original version of the Gold Box games, not the GOG version, if that has any bearing on it.
Do you know what version your DQK is? I think the game got a patch at some point. The GOG one is v1.1. Also, are you using vanilla DOSBox with the default config?

If the game is v1.0, you could try this:
https://www.patches-scrolls.de/patch/1106/7/22571
It is DQK v1.1. I am using DOSBox with vanilla config, though, but with increased speed (due to DQK being so slow).
Speed shouldn't matter. Can you zip your save folder and send it to me?
How do I do that? I have a save from right at the beginning of the game at Caergoth when I was trying to figure out what was wrong.

Note: GBC201 detects the map and displays it properly while GBC221 refuse to work at all on DQK. Both exhibit weird behaviour in COK and DKK, where they sometimes don't detect the map properly and just fails trying to load up the save game.

Might be easier to just compare the sizes of these files:

DQK.EXE
449 664 bytes

DISK3\GEO.GLB
48 114 bytes

Those from the v1.1 GOG-version.
 

Cael

Arcane
Joined
Nov 1, 2017
Messages
20,282
Hi, Joonas. I have the 2.50 version, but it doesn't read the map in DQK. Keeps showing me the overland one only. Is this a bug or is that expected? I have the original version of the Gold Box games, not the GOG version, if that has any bearing on it.
Do you know what version your DQK is? I think the game got a patch at some point. The GOG one is v1.1. Also, are you using vanilla DOSBox with the default config?

If the game is v1.0, you could try this:
https://www.patches-scrolls.de/patch/1106/7/22571
It is DQK v1.1. I am using DOSBox with vanilla config, though, but with increased speed (due to DQK being so slow).
Speed shouldn't matter. Can you zip your save folder and send it to me?
How do I do that? I have a save from right at the beginning of the game at Caergoth when I was trying to figure out what was wrong.

Note: GBC201 detects the map and displays it properly while GBC221 refuse to work at all on DQK. Both exhibit weird behaviour in COK and DKK, where they sometimes don't detect the map properly and just fails trying to load up the save game.

Might be easier to just compare the sizes of these files:

DQK.EXE
449 664 bytes

DISK3\GEO.GLB
48 114 bytes

Those from the v1.1 GOG-version.
They match:

Dqk.exe - 439 KB (449,664 bytes)
geo.glb - 46.9 KB (48,114 bytes)
 

Joonas

Arcane
Developer
Joined
Jul 28, 2011
Messages
172
Location
Finland
They match:

Dqk.exe - 439 KB (449,664 bytes)
geo.glb - 46.9 KB (48,114 bytes)
Damn, now I'm out of ideas. One thing you could try is to press the SEARCH WIZARD button from the HUD when a map isn't found. This closes the HUD / Map and shows the start window again. Check the log for any map related errors. Especially if you go from the world map to a town / dungeon. And maybe try if using the default speed setting changes anything.
 

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