Yeah, I don't quite get the SotSB HATE. It has it's flaws and it's good points. The sum of it's whole was however a good experience. And hell there is FRUA if you think you can make it a better game of it. Have at it.
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Gold Box SSI's Gold Box Series Thread
- Thread starter Saxon1974
- Start date
Mein Gott, those Bulettes are nasty. Even after being affected by a Slow spell, one of them hit my Fighter/Thief with an AC of -10 three times, doing 31 damage in one of the hits.
This game is definitely harder than than Gateway.
This game is definitely harder than than Gateway.
Carlos' Bitch1
Arcane
The ending area is somewhat of a challenge. You will know it when you get there.
It's amost as if Dan Daglow, who was the main encounter author in Gateway of the Savage Frontier, listened to my criticism in the OP when he designed Treasures of the Savage Frontier. The encounters are varied and more challenging than in Gateway, and there are few random ancounters.
Sadly he only did the encounters for the first half of Gateway. The last part is done by Mark Buchignani, and again the game suffers from having to fight the same random encounters over and over again. Incidentally Buchignani is also one of the designers of Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor...
My party is now off to Mirabar for the final showdown(s), and I'm rather pissed that I still haven't found a single Gauntlets of Ogre Strength or Girdle of Giant Strength.
Thank Gygax* for the Enlarge spell!
* I'm sure some lvl 36 AD&D Geek will inform me that it was not Gygax who designed the Enlarge spell.
Sadly he only did the encounters for the first half of Gateway. The last part is done by Mark Buchignani, and again the game suffers from having to fight the same random encounters over and over again. Incidentally Buchignani is also one of the designers of Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor...
My party is now off to Mirabar for the final showdown(s), and I'm rather pissed that I still haven't found a single Gauntlets of Ogre Strength or Girdle of Giant Strength.
Thank Gygax* for the Enlarge spell!* I'm sure some lvl 36 AD&D Geek will inform me that it was not Gygax who designed the Enlarge spell.
MMXI
Arcane
- Joined
- Apr 28, 2011
- Messages
- 2,196
At first I was about to brofist this, but then I remembered that football players hug each other after a goal is scored. And plus, if you have an all female party...After my characters climb out of the cavern under Waterdeep, this is the reaction of the "Heroes of Ascore":
"Everyone hugs each other in happiness of completing such difficult and dangerous an escape!".
The fight against the Grand Yeti was rather anticlimactic compared to earlier "boss encounters", despite most of my party running away in fear. Two Fireballs and down he went. None of the Yetis, unlike Ettins and Giants, even managed to score a hit on my guys.
EDIT: The fight against the Beholder was more challenging, though.
According to the manual, the Yeti first appear in AD&D in this game. I wonder if the Yetis in Icewind Dale have the same stats?
All in all this is defintely a worthy Gold Box game so far. Far superior to Gateway and about on par with Champions of Krynn, IMO.
EDIT: The fight against the Beholder was more challenging, though.
According to the manual, the Yeti first appear in AD&D in this game. I wonder if the Yetis in Icewind Dale have the same stats?
All in all this is defintely a worthy Gold Box game so far. Far superior to Gateway and about on par with Champions of Krynn, IMO.
Carlos' Bitch1
Arcane
One thing that really pisses me off is that unlike the other Gold Box games in Treasures I can't use Dispel Magic to release characters held by Hold Person or Hold Monster. But of course, my own Enlarge spells are dispelled.
It's such a much more elegant solution than using the cheesy Power Word: Reload.
Too bad one has to resort to meta gaming and cheating because of faulty design/programing combined with 20 enemies spamming Hold spells on you. And even with all my characters having Belts, Cloaks and Rings of Protection +2, which should give a combined +6 bonus to all saving throws, they usually get held by the first spell thrown their way.
It's such a much more elegant solution than using the cheesy Power Word: Reload.
Too bad one has to resort to meta gaming and cheating because of faulty design/programing combined with 20 enemies spamming Hold spells on you. And even with all my characters having Belts, Cloaks and Rings of Protection +2, which should give a combined +6 bonus to all saving throws, they usually get held by the first spell thrown their way.
Heh, Freezefire went down in six swings. Funnily enough with his -8 AC he was much easier to hit than those pesky Blackrobed Mages and Spies with -4 AC. The Blackrobed ones always seemed to get at least a +5 to all their rolls. Even Hasted archers and Enlarged and Hasted fighters had problems hitting them. My Paladin ended up using a measly Wand of Magic Missiles to make sure of interrupting the bastards' spell casting.
Anyway, overall Treasure of the Savage Frontier was a good game.
Encounter design was significantly better than in Gateway, and only some of the later areas suffered from repeatedly having to fight the same random encounters. This game also uses the same improved AI (enemies can move and then cast spells, and they avoid Clouds) that Pools of Darkness introduced.
I also liked that in some battles it mattered which of the enemies you killed first, to get one of the three crystals you need to read the "Lucky Papers".
There wasa bit more actually a few interesting locations to find in the wilderness, but overall the pretty looking overland map was rather wasted in the Savage Frontier games.
Money actually had value in this game. There were lots of stuff to buy, and unlike Pool of Radiance and Gateway, each Giant you slay don't drop 4000 coins. I got robbed of all my gems and jewels at one stage, so for a long time I actually didn't have enough money for everything I wanted to spend money on.
Conventional armour became obsolete, though. No use in a Plate Mail +2, when you get better AC, saving throws and movement with Bracers and Belts, Cloaks and Rings of Protection.
Rewards were rather disappointing. +3 Tridents and Battleaxes don't just cut it when I already have +3 one handed weapons, and +3 and +4 2H Swords. Same with +2 Helms (even if they have impressive names), when you already have looted +2 Helms from vanquished enemies.
The game introduced some new things to the Gold Box games:
1. Romances. Unlike BG2 you don't have the option of rejecting yourstalker love interest, though. But in combat one of the lovers would go berserk (or at least you temporarily lose control) if the other lover goes down.
2. Weather effects. Didn't really add much, since it just reduced movement points if it's bad weather.
3. Possible reinforcements for both sides. This I really liked. Made battles more unpredicatble.
This game also seems to have been more of an influence on the IE games than the other Gold Box games were:
1. Many named items, both weapons, armour, shields and helms. Very few of these in the previous GB games.
2. Romances.
3. Party members interjecting.
4. Farr Windward reminded me of Spellhold.
Anyway, overall Treasure of the Savage Frontier was a good game.
Encounter design was significantly better than in Gateway, and only some of the later areas suffered from repeatedly having to fight the same random encounters. This game also uses the same improved AI (enemies can move and then cast spells, and they avoid Clouds) that Pools of Darkness introduced.
I also liked that in some battles it mattered which of the enemies you killed first, to get one of the three crystals you need to read the "Lucky Papers".
There was
Money actually had value in this game. There were lots of stuff to buy, and unlike Pool of Radiance and Gateway, each Giant you slay don't drop 4000 coins. I got robbed of all my gems and jewels at one stage, so for a long time I actually didn't have enough money for everything I wanted to spend money on.
Conventional armour became obsolete, though. No use in a Plate Mail +2, when you get better AC, saving throws and movement with Bracers and Belts, Cloaks and Rings of Protection.
Rewards were rather disappointing. +3 Tridents and Battleaxes don't just cut it when I already have +3 one handed weapons, and +3 and +4 2H Swords. Same with +2 Helms (even if they have impressive names), when you already have looted +2 Helms from vanquished enemies.
The game introduced some new things to the Gold Box games:
1. Romances. Unlike BG2 you don't have the option of rejecting your
2. Weather effects. Didn't really add much, since it just reduced movement points if it's bad weather.
3. Possible reinforcements for both sides. This I really liked. Made battles more unpredicatble.
This game also seems to have been more of an influence on the IE games than the other Gold Box games were:
1. Many named items, both weapons, armour, shields and helms. Very few of these in the previous GB games.
2. Romances.
3. Party members interjecting.
4. Farr Windward reminded me of Spellhold.
Carlos' Bitch1
Arcane
Agreed. I remember a number of battles becoming quite a bit more difficult due to this, which reinforced my usual 'hold back' on casting spells/using item willy nilly.
Yes, it's possible. I used the same characters in both games.
The tricky part when using DosBox is editing the CFG files correctly, taking into account that DosBox (depending on version) may trunctuate file names and use different paths, so that game 2 knows where to look for the characters from game 1.
When using the D-Fend Reloaded version of DosBox, I just start DosBox instead of the game. Then I do a DIR command to see what the actual path to the games and their folder names are.
For Treasures (cracked version to avoid the the copy protection questions) the original CFG files had these lines:
C:\TEST\TREASA~1\TREA\SAVE\
C:\GATEWAY\SAVE\
To be able to import characters using D-Fend Reloaded I had to change to the following:
C:\TREASURE\SAVE\
C:\GATEWA~1\SAVE\
Feel free to bump this is you have more questions on this Sin Vraal.
What did you think was most challenging?
I went straight for the Peak, since I wanted to avoid the random encounters as much as possible. There was one brutal fight against a clan of Cloud Giants, or rather it would have been brutal if they had attacked blindly instead of avoiding the Stinking Cloud (AI was improved, but it helped me too much in some fights) I placed in their path. So it was easy to take them down with missile weapons, although it took so long time, even after softening them up with a Fireball, that I got impatient and put my two best fighters in the melee and immediatedy got whacked for 31 points of damage ("that's gotta hurt").
The penultimate battle was quite brutal, thanks to Blackrobed Mages with 18+ Dex and being surprisingly hard to hit, and thanks to not being able to use Dispel Magic to dispel Hold Person/Monster.
But I got lucky on the second attempt, and by using various wands I was able to prevent enemy spell casting in the first round. The Wand of Ice Storm I found in Gateway was useable by my Fighter/Thief, but the one I found in Treasures was Mage restricted. I don't understand why the makers of the Gold Box games never could agree on the restrictions on the wands, or which spells Dispel Magic countered.
The final battle OTOH was by far the easiest in all the Gold Box games. Freezefire opened the battle by breathing on my Ranger for 56 damage, and then my hasted and enlarged fighters made dragon chops of him in six swings.
Freezefire seemed to be highly resistant to magic, but a Fumble spell slowed him. Not that it mattered, though. Fumble seems to be an underrated spell, but it's actually an excellent spell against dragons with no magic resistance, since it makes them forget to breath on the party.
According to a comment I read on YouTube the final battle is unwinnable. o_O
Oh well, the same guy (obvious storyfag) says Treasures was not as good as Gateway. From a combatfag view Treasures is clearly superior. Who plays the Gold Box games for the story anyway?
Carlos' Bitch1
Arcane
The Final battle was a joke, though I lose track of how many times this is the case in CRPG's...
The two battles you mentioned were tough (Cloud Giants and Mages), and I also had some difficulty with the Beholder and yeti horde battles. I found these to be a sudden change of pace to the rest of the game, of which I found to be occasionally challenging in a leisurely way.
At least this game was a decent ending to a brilliant engine.
The two battles you mentioned were tough (Cloud Giants and Mages), and I also had some difficulty with the Beholder and yeti horde battles. I found these to be a sudden change of pace to the rest of the game, of which I found to be occasionally challenging in a leisurely way.
At least this game was a decent ending to a brilliant engine.
I found a second video of the final battles on YouTube, by "DosBoxMom". She has lots of Let's Plays, but to my sensible Scandinavian ears she has the most ugly of all ugly American dialects (I can't place it more accurately geographically, though) so I only watched her video of the final Treasures battle.
Interesting tactics she used...It hurt me to see her move her fighters toward their targets, then instead of attacking she stops next to the target and used the Aim command to attack. She had her fighters attak the Darkrobed Masters (fighters) with -8 AC and ignored the much more dangerous spell casters with -4 AC. They spammed her party with Hold Person and Hold Monster spells, but they made all their saving throws. I wonder if I was punished for using a cracked version? I have the original Amiga version, as well as the 9 game collector's edition by WizardWorks, but with such small (in bytes) games, it's just so much more convenient to download from the net.
Unfortunately I forgot to make a video of the final battles myself.
AFAIK, Dark Queen of Krynn was the last one. It has a higher UPC/A number and was reviewed in CWG in a later issue than Treasures.
Although technically FRUA was the ending to the Gold Box engine.
About level 10. Some of my characters were not maxed out, since I largely ignored the side quests and in areas with endless random encounters I didn't explore the thouroughly.
Interesting tactics she used...It hurt me to see her move her fighters toward their targets, then instead of attacking she stops next to the target and used the Aim command to attack. She had her fighters attak the Darkrobed Masters (fighters) with -8 AC and ignored the much more dangerous spell casters with -4 AC. They spammed her party with Hold Person and Hold Monster spells, but they made all their saving throws. I wonder if I was punished for using a cracked version? I have the original Amiga version, as well as the 9 game collector's edition by WizardWorks, but with such small (in bytes) games, it's just so much more convenient to download from the net.
Unfortunately I forgot to make a video of the final battles myself.
AFAIK, Dark Queen of Krynn was the last one. It has a higher UPC/A number and was reviewed in CWG in a later issue than Treasures.
Although technically FRUA was the ending to the Gold Box engine.
About level 10. Some of my characters were not maxed out, since I largely ignored the side quests and in areas with endless random encounters I didn't explore the thouroughly.
elodman
Novice
- Joined
- Aug 22, 2012
- Messages
- 30
Greets.
do you players agree with this review snip?
Is this issue become more balanced in Curse o.t.A.Bonds?
thanx.
do you players agree with this review snip?
source: http://crpgaddict.blogspot.hu/2011/06/pool-of-radiance-final-rating.html
Is this issue become more balanced in Curse o.t.A.Bonds?
thanx.
Not quite. Money is needed for Fine Longbow (25 K) and healing at temples, in addition to training. Especially healing at temples is a good place to spend money as long as you stay in Phlan. I think it's better role playing to go to a temple to get healed instead of spending days of resting and rememorizing Cure Light Wounds.
In my experience the less valuable coins become worthless really fast, but coin in genereal only becomes abundant once you meet groups of giants each carrying thousands of coins.
Not really. Training is rarer, healing in temples is not very feasible, and there are a few magic shops only quite late in the game, but before that you'll probably be overburdened by coin.
- Joined
- Jan 6, 2012
- Messages
- 3,876
Akabar Bel Akash is actually one of the main characters in the Curse of the Azure Bonds novel trilogy. He dies in the third novel after casting a fireball on a monster filled with gas, the explosion kills him and the dragon he was riding. I liked the character, back when I was 14 years old.
Akabar Bel Akash is actually one of the main characters in the Curse of the Azure Bonds novel trilogy. He dies in the third novel after casting a fireball on a monster filled with gas, the explosion kills him and the dragon he was riding. I liked the character, back when I was 14 years old.
I liked Akabar in the computer game. At first I was pissed at him for provoking the Drow patrols, but then I realized that eliminating Drow patrols significantly improved the party's chances in the local showdown in the barn.
And whenever I need an Arabian sounding name for a character in a game Akabar Bel Akash is always a good choice.
- Joined
- Jan 6, 2012
- Messages
- 3,876
Cool octavius. Also, Akabar Bel Akash is actually a combination of Arabian and Indian names. (Akabar is a modification of Akbar, a Muslim name, while Akash is Indian/Hindi)
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