Gold Box SSI's Gold Box Series Thread

[Beans00]

So technically I finished the game, in around 18 hours. Sort of ragequit at the end which I'll explain later in the post.


Encounter design was good in some areas, bad in others.

I really liked most of the end game areas, especially the star mount which was the peak of the game imo.

My party was sort of lacking but I made it through alright. Would have helped to have fireball earlier but I managed



So this leads me to bitching about the end game, which I technically ragequit. So the last area was really easy, just turning skeletons ad nauseam but cool enough area.

The end fight sequence was IMO complete trash. Nothing to do with the fights themselves but going through the maze in the gold box combat engine was so tedious. I ended up using a guide and it still took me like 45 minutes to get through the first time.

My issue is how much of a blatant waste of time it is

10 goblins, 30 goblins, 1 goblin, some pointless fights with shambling mounds, ect.

So I get through this and heal up and I end up in the final fight which looks like a decent challenge.

So right away my F/M/T gets killed by a lightning bolt. I still go forward with my fighters, the end boss goes forward. Unfortunately my paladin(who has my best weapon, a +3 longsword with a bonus vs golems) gets eaten or something by a shambling mound.

I ended up having my healer run north to use dispel magic ect as needed, the end boss ran at me and I started plugging away at him while killing a few mages. I ended up losing but I got him down to like 65 hp, if I didn't fuck up getting my paladin disabled I probably would have beaten him on the first try since my paladin is by far my most effective fighter.

I had read about a way to bypass the fight basically by running north. So I just stepped out of the map with my cleric and won the game.


This didn't sit right with me, since obviously I want to actually beat the end boss who didn't seem unreasonably difficult. So I went back, but the issue is how long it takes to get through the maze. I used invis potions to bypass the fights and it still took me like 15-20 minutes total to walk through and make it to the final boss.

My 2nd attempt at the boss was awful, I only did like 10 damage to him and probably killed half the enemies. I think I would beat this in like 7-8 attempts if I could keep cracking at it but I can't handle walking through the maze again. It's such an obvious waste of time.

I would prefer just having a multi stage fight like the end of dark sun without the busywork. That fight took me like 15 attempts and it was lots of fun trying to think of how to beat it. I don't think there's anything wrong with the final encounter in this one aside from the attached busy work I'm not willing to do for a 3rd time, especially since I probably would have beaten it on the first try if I didn't fuck up rushing my paladin too far forward.



Looking forward to playing other GB games. I'm aware this one is generally considered the weakest. I'm sure at some point I'll sit down and waste 2-3 hours of my life beating the final boss.

 

[behold_a_man]

I would prefer just having a multi stage fight like the end of dark sun without the busywork. That fight took me like 15 attempts and it was lots of fun trying to think of how to beat it.

Don't worry, Pools of Darkness will fulfill your wish, except this time it'll be 150 attempts.

 

[octavius]

Did you buff your characters with spells like Prayer, Enlarge and Haste? The Enlarge+Haste combo on a Fighter/Thief is very effective against the end boss.
Also, don't forget Rangers already deal extra damage against Ettins (I think there's one group of them?), against which a buffed Ranger will be very effective.
The real problem is those Shambling Mounds that take so long to kill. I think they take full damage only from Ice. Now is the time to use and Wands of Ice you may have come across. Slow should also be effective against them, reducing their number of attacks.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

So technically I finished the game, in around 18 hours.

Great, now play one of the good Gold Box games.

 

[Beans00]

Did you buff your characters with spells like Prayer, Enlarge and Haste? The Enlarge+Haste combo on a Fighter/Thief is very effective against the end boss.
Also, don't forget Rangers already deal extra damage against Ettins (I think there's one group of them?), against which a buffed Ranger will be very effective.
The real problem is those Shambling Mounds that take so long to kill. I think they take full damage only from Ice. Now is the time to use and Wands of Ice you may have come across. Slow should also be effective against them, reducing their number of attacks.

I'll try again doing that, I just have a weakness for dumb design like this. I quit dead rising at the final boss for the same reason.

 

[Cael]

Did you buff your characters with spells like Prayer, Enlarge and Haste? The Enlarge+Haste combo on a Fighter/Thief is very effective against the end boss.
Also, don't forget Rangers already deal extra damage against Ettins (I think there's one group of them?), against which a buffed Ranger will be very effective.
The real problem is those Shambling Mounds that take so long to kill. I think they take full damage only from Ice. Now is the time to use and Wands of Ice you may have come across. Slow should also be effective against them, reducing their number of attacks.

Wand of Defoliation... It is there for a reason.

 

[octavius]

Ah yes, how could I forget the Wand of Defloration?

 

[Cael]

Ah yes, how could I forget the Wand of Defloration?

*makes crass joke about virgin Shambling Mounds being violated by DnD players*

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

I alway thought General Vaalgamon was maybe Venger's bro from the D&D cartoon.

 

[Beans00]

I just beat it. Took like 4 additional attempts with like 10-15 minutes of stupid to get back to the fight each time.


Probably the first time my party was really inadequate but I had enough aoe (wand of frost, necklace of missiles, 2x fireballs) to wipe out all the mages and chip away at everything else. I did something similar to the last battle in dark sun, I ran north into the exit and bottlenecked everyone. I gave the want of defloration of whatever to my shittiest fighter and he killed mounds the whole time.


I'll be honest the shitty final sequence left a fairly bad taste in my mouth. Didn't get much dopamine out of beating that, really just feel like I wasted 2.5 hours of my life.

 

[octavius]

Having played the Pool and Krynn series before, I thought the final set of encounters was great; the sole highlight in the entire Gateway to the Savage Frontier, which was otherwise a rather bland exerience.
Things improve in the sequel, though.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Romance begins I believe & same with Dark Queen of Krynn. Or maybe I misremember.

 

[Arrowgrab]

Go do the Buck Rogers games next!

 

[Dorateen]

Romance begins I believe & same with Dark Queen of Krynn. Or maybe I misremember.

You have it right. Treasures introduced romances. And DQoK had an NPC a male player character could befriend and then receive gifts during the adventure.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

And you both snuggle and smooch under the cloak and the party is like... "WTF?!? We have shit to do quit making out!"

 

[Beans00]

Out of curiosity, how do I import characters into other games?


I'm either going to do

treasures savage frontier
champions of krynn
or the FRUA module heirs to skull crag

next

 

[behold_a_man]

Out of curiosity, how do I import characters into other games?

Painstakingly. There is no uniform way of doing it, and those I saw usually didn't work. For Radiance quadrilogy, this almost worked:
https://af.gog.com/forum/forgotten_..._transfer_other_questions/post3?as=1649904300
but I still had to dabble a lot in configs in the case of Secret (I used the default Linux version from GOG).

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Hmmmm..... you know this is where GOG/STEAM could have shined by programming something in their launchers to more easily transfer characters in games that allow transfer. I don't know if GBC or ASE (for EOB) have extra utilities to make this easy. If not, maybe we can prod Joonas to work something up for those games.
https://gbc.zorbus.net/
https://ase.zorbus.net/


POR -> COTAB:


COTAB -> SOTSB:


SOTSB -> POD:


We don't see POR -> Hillsfar or COTAB -> Hillsfar and obviously Hillsfar -> COTAB.

I'll see if those vids exist.

Others:
EOB -> EOB II
EOB II -> EOB III

Gateway -> Treasures

COK -> DKOK
DKOK -> DQOK

DS SL -> DS WOR

Buck Roger's CTDD -> Buck MC

Baldur's Gate -> BG2

Hmmmm... are there others in SSI?

Obviously we have Wizardry 6-8, Ultima 4-9 maybe? I honestly can't recall if we can take our avatar from 4 to 9.

Yeah, GOG fix that for easy transfers.

Now, if i could stream and such I'd show how to do this on dos, dosbox, c64 emulation, appleii emu, amiga emulation etc. i mean, that is information that helps gamers unless they just want to start new each game. <shrug>

 

[Beans00]

Out of curiosity, how do I import characters into other games?

Painstakingly. There is no uniform way of doing it, and those I saw usually didn't work. For Radiance quadrilogy, this almost worked:
https://af.gog.com/forum/forgotten_..._transfer_other_questions/post3?as=1649904300
but I still had to dabble a lot in configs in the case of Secret (I used the default Linux version from GOG).

I figured out gateway -> treasures I just had to move some files.



Although the first city in treasures is sort of kicking my ass. Definitely need to dual class my fighter, and potentially my cleric to a mage asap.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Well, maybe someone can make a utility for easy transfers. Again, i never really played with GBC but maybe you can input gear, stats, hp max, spells, xp, etc. I can look up to see if a video explores this. I do recall playing with ASE a bit clipping or setting coordinates to places you can't normally get to. Again, a full easter eggs and cheese for these games are cool to explore after completion. While I like a lot of FRUA, I miss the multiple currencies and weird ass treasure. I don't think anyone changed that. It becomes 1 currency or bust (with exception to gems & jewelry and inventory treasures).

Can you edit the GB games with GBC and customize? I dunno but I think it'd be pretty cool if the games could be busted open and content modded into (although... sound and effects of different GB are better than others).

I had so many assets for FRUA via dialup it was crazy. Then a virus wiped my computer which sucked and i just failed my morale and never attempted again. Bye bye frua project I started for 0th-1st level. Meh. Same time when I lost my por & cotab complete notes and screenshots for added to table top gaming along with the FRC1-2 pnp modules. I was going to write up a SOTSB module as well. Bah!!!

 

[Beans00]

I'm about 10 hours into treasures of the savage frontier now.


Enjoying it less than gateway. I find combat to be fairly frustrating. Almost every encounter is too easy, then I run into 4-5-6 mages and unless I kill them quickly with RNG they lighting bolt my whole party.

It's still ok, but I definitely gimped myself, especially with my shitty half elf ranger cleric. Would have been better with a pure human mage.

 

[Cael]

I'm about 10 hours into treasures of the savage frontier now.


Enjoying it less than gateway. I find combat to be fairly frustrating. Almost every encounter is too easy, then I run into 4-5-6 mages and unless I kill them quickly with RNG they lighting bolt my whole party.

It's still ok, but I definitely gimped myself, especially with my shitty half elf ranger cleric. Would have been better with a pure human mage.

Treasures is based on an above average party. A gimped one will have issues.

 

[Beans00]

So I just got a game ending bug.


I had dual classed my fighter and my cleric both to mage. Somehow, I guess when looking at enemies with the GBC my cleric deleted my fighter and cloned herself.

As in he's gone, and now I have 2 characters of my cleric although the name didn't get changed. I was on auto pilot because of all the shit trash mobs in luskan so I didn't notice until I saved over my back up saves.

Probably ragequitting the entire series. Would have preferred not to waste 35 hours of my life but shit happens.


I 100% blame the gold box companions more than the games themselves. Absolute shit software lol.

 

[Glop_dweller]

Wait 'til Bigus Dickus hears of this!

---

*Actually the guy (usr. jhirvonen) seems fairly nice, and the software is pretty amazing for what it is, and manages to do. He might even be interested in your details of this, and potentially fix it if there is a problem with the GBC.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Wish my computer wasn't ass atm. I'd probably boot it up. Hmmm.... I think I know where Lenny is and he can work just as good as slutty Envy. Fuck me for fucker her up. Fuck you HP saying here's a bios upgrade... do it. NO! Fuck me for doing it when she was running smooth. Bah...