Gold Box SSI's Gold Box Series Thread

[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.

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.

I can try to debug it more if you are willing to send me the whole game zipped and maybe your DOSBox config.

 

[DavidBVal]

CotAB so far feels like a step backwards from PoR, or is it just my impression? World map not offering real exploration, monotonous dungeons with almost no special content, "forced" encounters to link the story to the novel making little sense. Balance was never a thing in Gold Box, but I stopped picking up money(even jewelry) right after the beginning, it's just silly.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Yes, Pool of Radiance managed to integrate a certain amount of overland exploration into the game structure, despite low-level D&D adventuring being focused on dungeon-crawling. The higher character levels of Curse of the Azure Bonds would suggest greater wilderness exploration, but instead the traversable world map was replaced with one allowing only fast travel between a few discrete locations. In similar fashion, towns were replaced by menus, an early example of "streamlining" in a CRPG sequel.

 

[octavius]

The overland map of CoAB is still far more interesting than the maps of Champions of Krynn and Gateway to the Savage Frontier, where despite you being able to travel anywhere you never ever come across anything interesting.

 

[DavidBVal]

Yeah I remember GttSF back in the day being extremely boring to explore. I also put endless hours into PoD and it was fun, but PoD is still worse than PoR in terms of progression and content. It would have been a better game if it had started at level 10-11 where CotAB ends, and reached level 20-22, rather than all the level 40 nonsense where you already have all the good spells from the start and merely raise numbers with levelup. So did Gold Box fail to reach its full potential then, and went for quantity over quality? PoR is an amazing start but from there onwards it seems as if titles were rushed. Never played the Krynn series though.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Yeah I remember GttSF back in the day being extremely boring to explore. I also put endless hours into PoD and it was fun, but still a decline from PoR in terms of progression and content. It would have been a better game if it had started at level 10-11 where CotAB ends, and reached level 20-22, rather than all the level 40 nonsense where you already have all the good spells from the start and merely raise numbers with levelup. So did Gold Box fail to reach its full potential then, and went for quantity over quality? PoR is an amazing start but from there onwards it seems as if titles were rushed. Never played the Krynn series though.

Although Pool of Radiance is the single best Gold Box game, the Dragonlance/Krynn trilogy is superior to the Realms tetralogy, so you really should experience it sometime.

 

[Cael]

Yeah I remember GttSF back in the day being extremely boring to explore. I also put endless hours into PoD and it was fun, but PoD is still worse than PoR in terms of progression and content. It would have been a better game if it had started at level 10-11 where CotAB ends, and reached level 20-22, rather than all the level 40 nonsense where you already have all the good spells from the start and merely raise numbers with levelup. So did Gold Box fail to reach its full potential then, and went for quantity over quality? PoR is an amazing start but from there onwards it seems as if titles were rushed. Never played the Krynn series though.

You want open sandbox in a Gold Box game, try Death Knights of Krynn.

 

[octavius]

Death Knights has perhaps the best overland map, with lots to discover. It compensates well for a rather thin main quest.

 

[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.

I can try to debug it more if you are willing to send me the whole game zipped and maybe your DOSBox config.

I will try. Not sure where I can drop the thing.

 

[Cael]

Death Knight has perhaps the best overland map, with lots to discover. It compensates well for a rather thin main quest.

Yeah. I tend to do all the side quests first before even hitting Kalaman so that my 6 guys got all the xp instead of having to split it with Durfey. And when you are done with all of the side quests, even Soth becomes easy :D

 

[DavidBVal]

CotAB so far feels like a step backwards from PoR, or is it just my impression? World map not offering real exploration, monotonous dungeons with almost no special content, "forced" encounters to link the story to the novel making little sense. Balance was never a thing in Gold Box, but I stopped picking up money(even jewelry) right after the beginning, it's just silly.

Alright, CotAB completed. The content really improves towards the end; the raksasha encounters were cool, and the beholder corps has been the more fun I've had in a RPG battle in years. Failed three times, although the last one managed to kill all but 3 beholders and 2 drow lords. The fourth time I remembered I had a Dust of Disappearance and it was much more maneagable. Now I wonder if SotSB is next, or if I should switch to Krynn or Buckrogers, or maybe take a break.

And regarding the crazy amount of money in these games: apparently it was part of the agreement to adhere to AD&D rules and sourcebooks, SSI had to include the listed treasure per encounter and XP as originally designed by TSR.

 

[Eisen]

Completed Champíons Of Krynn within 2 weeks, it's a fun game for a zoomer like me.

I built my characters like trash(6 characters multiclassed to some melee class, lol).

Is it requirable importing the save to the next game? Can i create a party from scratch and progress without any problem?

 

[octavius]

Both are feasible.
It's more fun to import characters, though. They lose their best items, though.

 

[CryptRat]

I built my characters like trash(6 characters multiclassed to some melee class, lol).

I'm too lazy to open the manual now but I think the recommended party is something like Fighter, Knight, at least two if not three Fighter/Mage/Cleric and whatever, could be not that different from yours.

 

[Elwro]

Now, I forgot this, but isn't it worth it to import characters because otherwise you start without a Dragonlance?

 

[Cael]

Now, I forgot this, but isn't it worth it to import characters because otherwise you start without a Dragonlance?

The Dragonlance gets taken from you at the end of COK.

List of items that gets taken away:
Gauntlets of Ogre Power (all of them)
Girdle of Giant Strength
Dragonlance
Mace of Disruption
Periapt of Proof vs Poison
Cloak of Displacement

 

[Elwro]

Oh. I must've been thinking about DQoK then...

 

[newtmonkey]

I've been playing two Gold Box games recently:

Pool of Radiance
I am so close to the end of this game. My cleric and two magic-users have reached their maximum level, and based on the map I got from the log book, all I have left is the graveyard and the Valjevo Castle area. I've explored the wilderness somewhat and have completed a few missions there, but have not explored it 100%.

What can be said about PoR? It's fucking amazing. My intention is to play the same party all the way to the end of Pools of Darkness, but we'll see. I rolled my characters honest, so they are not optimized. They are, however, all human except for a dwarf fighter/thief.

Buck Rogers: Countdown to Doomsday
Criminally underrated, especially as a "first Gold Box" game. No spells to memorize, a perfectly comfortable interface, fun skills to improve when you level up, no need to heal after battle (in fact, healing is automatic though not guaranteed...). As much as I enjoy Pool of Radiance, I am thinking now this should be the game that is recommended now when people ask which Gold Box game to start with. It's got a linear structure at first, but opens up after you complete the second mission—and btw the second mission is KILLER; it's the kind of thing where you can only experience it in a game as the entire scenario is completely interactive, even though it's clearly influenced by Alien and The Thing (it's much closer to the X-Files episode "Ice" but came 3 years prior to that episode... wonder if the writers of that episode had played Countdown...).
At any rate, I did not expect such excellence from BUCK ROGERS of all things, so this was very shocking.

 

[newtmonkey]

Pool of Radiance
Finally cleared Valhingen Graveyard! The game gives you tons of level restoration scrolls, so it's not as bad as I thought it would be.

What was bad: I killed the vampire my first try without any problem (both combats), but realized that doing so cleared all encounters from the area. I had a big chunk left unexplored and was concerned that I might have missed some nice treasure, so I reverted to an old save and sure enough, I had missed some VERY powerful equipment. I figured, no big deal, the vampire was a pushover, I'll just kill him again... several reloads later he was defeated and I realized that my first time slaying him was more luck than anything! The problem was not his level drain but his charm ability. He kept on charming my two fighters, who would then go berserk and slaughter my entire party lol.

I'm glad that area is behind me. All that's left now is to explore the wilderness. I've got three missions out there (have already done the pyramid), and then I believe I will be at the end game.

 

[Lukifell]

Love PoR. Especially the vampire hunting efreeti: “Are you vampires? No?” *goes back into bottle*

 

[Cael]

Love PoR. Especially the vampire hunting efreeti: “Are you vampires? No?” *goes back into bottle*

An efreet hunting vampires has to be the height of metagaming. "I am a genie of fire. You are especially vulnerable to fire. Eh-hahahahaha! Scorching Ray, Quickened Fireball!"

 

[Null Null]

Love PoR. Especially the vampire hunting efreeti: “Are you vampires? No?” *goes back into bottle*

An efreet hunting vampires has to be the height of metagaming. "I am a genie of fire. You are especially vulnerable to fire. Eh-hahahahaha! Scorching Ray, Quickened Fireball!"

Makes sense in-universe though. I mean, you wouldn't think he'd go fighting Salamanders or Fire Giants. Real military commanders spend a lot of effort thinking about what weapon is most useful against the enemy they're facing--look at Alexander's use of combined arms and the like.

In Goldbox they don't really have any fire abilities though--in a lot of games they're not even immune to magical fire. Which is odd but game-accurate (they are immune to normal fire but take reduced damage from magical fire.) They had a couple of fire abilities like pyrotechnics, produce flame, and wall of fire that didn't make it into the goldbox engine. They also were able to enlarge and become invisible, which were spells that had been converted.

 

[Cael]

Love PoR. Especially the vampire hunting efreeti: “Are you vampires? No?” *goes back into bottle*

An efreet hunting vampires has to be the height of metagaming. "I am a genie of fire. You are especially vulnerable to fire. Eh-hahahahaha! Scorching Ray, Quickened Fireball!"

Makes sense in-universe though. I mean, you wouldn't think he'd go fighting Salamanders or Fire Giants. Real military commanders spend a lot of effort thinking about what weapon is most useful against the enemy they're facing--look at Alexander's use of combined arms and the like.

In Goldbox they don't really have any fire abilities though--in a lot of games they're not even immune to magical fire. Which is odd but game-accurate (they are immune to normal fire but take reduced damage from magical fire.) They had a couple of fire abilities like pyrotechnics, produce flame, and wall of fire that didn't make it into the goldbox engine. They also were able to enlarge and become invisible, which were spells that had been converted.

3.5 hyped up the fire theme for efreeti. They get unlimited casts of Scorching Ray and are immune to fire, amongst other things.

 

[Deadyawn]

Alright, this is how things are looking:

Human Knight: he stays, very decent frontliner.
Dwarf Fighter: he stays, he means bussiness.
Dwarf Figher/cleric: she goes. She turned undead like nobody's bussiness but having her in front where her casting can be interrupted is actually pretty fucking stupid. To be replaced with an Elf Fighter/mage(white)
Half-Elf Ranger: he stays for now. Depending on how things progress may be replaced with a ranger/cleric
Kender Thief: she goes. To be replaced with a Kender Thief/cleric. I'll go Shinare since higher level spells sound great, plus special charm person.
Human Mage: he stays, he's red so that's also good.

I'll roll with this for a while and see how it goes. If things get too dicey I'll come back and tell Null Null he was right all along.

A few days after posting this I sort of forgot about it. Recently picked it up again and went through the rest of the game, that party did very well.

In short, it was really great. I've never played an rpg from this far back so I was expecting something a lot more primitive. I'm on to other games but eventually I might run these guys through the rest of Krynn games.

 

[newtmonkey]

Pool of Radiance
Nearing the end of this, and what a blast it's been! I finally finished up all the commissions.

I was surprised to find myself having such a difficult time with the final set of battles in the Kobold Caves—that is, until I realized you can affect your position in the battle based on the direction from which you enter the battle. Entering from the rightmost square places you in the corner of the battlefield with your back row safely protected by your front row characters, so I could start the battle with two fireballs to greatly weaken or outright kill the trolls and many of the kobolds. Getting through that first battle in decent shape was the key to getting through the second and third battles without much problem, and then the final battle is probably the easiest of the bunch as long as you have a fireball or two left.

Next is off to Valjevo Castle and what I assume is the end of the game!