Gold Box SSI's Gold Box Series Thread

[Null Null]

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.

 

[DavidBVal]

I vaguely remember backstab didn't work if you were holding a shield. Is it true?

 

[Cael]

I vaguely remember backstab didn't work if you were holding a shield. Is it true?

It works. I just had a FTM stab a skeleton warrior wearing a plate +4 and a shield +4.

 

[Eisen]

Which game should i start for a newcomer?

 

[Cael]

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]

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]

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).

 

[Eisen]

Thanks for the tips, i will try Champions of Krynn

 

[Bara]

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]

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.

Spoiler

 

[Bara]

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]

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]

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/

 

[Elwro]

Thank you so much, Joonas !

 

[Null Null]

Always a pleasure to see a new version of this! Thank you so much!

 

[Cael]

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.

 

[eXalted]

Goldbox companion doesn't work with UAshell games right?

It works.

Great software. I never got into the Goldbox games and FRUA modules until I discovered it.

 

[Joonas]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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.

 

[Cael]

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.

No to the search wizard thing. I have tried everything from restarting the entire programme to researching the game a few times. It is very weird.