Gold Box SSI's Gold Box Series Thread

[octavius]

So, is Pools of Darkness a decent enough starting point to get into the Gold Box games?

No, but it's one hell of an ending point.

 

[Drew]

Hmm. I had read that it had one of the more "updated" UIs, so I figured it would be easier to get into.

 

[Excidium]

Why do you need to be eased into videogames, do you have some disability? Anyway play Pool of Radiance first.

 

[Gozma]

I dunno if people that aren't used to bullshit like low level AD&D can dig Pool of Radiance, but it really has the best high level game design with the block clearing and heavy non-linearity. It is also missing a lot of quality-of-life stuff like "Fix" that you will miss less if you haven't played the later games already... so I say start with PoR. Doing an entire Forgotten Realms run will 99% of the time end with you stopping very early in Secret of the Silver Blades on account of intense boredom, so PoR -> Curse and then a new party for PoD is probably best.

I think Champions of Krynn blows while DQoK is very good, so if you wanna do the Krynn games just start on Death Knights.

Savage Frontier games I didn't play until very late but I found them passable. Other people say they're shit so I maybe just lost perspective.

The Buck Rogers games are light and short. If you find you don't like general Gold Box stuff you might still like those.

 

[octavius]

Hmm. I had read that it had one of the more "updated" UIs, so I figured it would be easier to get into.

Is it also the most brutal one.

The most accessible Gold Box game to a noob is probably Gateway to the Savage Frontier. Unfortunately the encounter design is weaker than that of the other GB games. Treasures of Savage Frontier is even more modern in that it even includes a romance, and the encounter design is on par with the other GB games, so it may be an even better starting point.
Champions of Krynn may also be a good starting point, especially if you have read the Dragonlance books, but it is the weakest of the Krynn games.
Pool of Radiance is a bit rougher around the edges than the other GB games, and lacks the Ranger and Paladin classes, but it is the best designed one, and the only one that feels more like an AD&D campaign than an obvious computer game.

 

[Excidium]

the only one that feels more like an AD&D campaign than an obvious computer game.

Probably because it was designed by actual AD&D module writers. By the way did anyone play Ruins of Adventure?

 

[octavius]

the only one that feels more like an AD&D campaign than an obvious computer game.

Probably because it was designed by actual AD&D module writers. By the way did anyone play Ruins of Adventure?

To be honest I never actually played any AD&D modules (or if I did the GM didn't tell me their name).
Currently I'm playing the FRUA version of the classic Scourge of the Slave Lords, though. Quite solid module, with lots of exploring and decent encounter design, but not much of a story or NPC interaction.

 

[TigerKnee]

How does the FRUA version of POR compare to the original anyway?

 

[octavius]

How does the FRUA version of POR compare to the original anyway?

Slicker UI and graphics obviously, but a few things didn't get translated properly or are missing. OTOH you can start with Rangers and Paladins.
The best thing about it is that it's so easy to edit stuff yourself. I always thought the Buccaneers (one of the last missions) were pitifully weak (you can even "sweep" them!), so it would be very easy to buff them up, while with the original you'd have to do some hex editing.

 

[GarfunkeL]

PoR has more sidequests than you need, since it has a fairly low XP cap. Which helps replayability in the world map part.

 

[Infinitron]

New GameBanshee walkthrough for Secret of the Silver Blades: http://www.gamebanshee.com/news/112979-gb-feature-secret-of-the-silver-blades-content-overload.html

How odd (and awesome) that they're writing content for such an old game.

And now, Pools of Darkness: http://www.gamebanshee.com/news/113451-gb-feature-pools-of-darkness-content-overload.html

 

[Servo]

Sorry if this has been answered already but how do you run these games on Win 7 x64? I have the Forgotten Realms archives and I get an error when loading POOL/INSTALL.EXE:

The version of this file is not compatible with the version of Windows you're running. Check your computer's system information to see whether you need an x86 (32-bit) or x64 (64-bit) version of the program, and then contact the software publisher.

It makes me great sad, esp. since the publisher is dead.

 

[Revenant]

Use DOSBox?

 

[Excidium]

Most embarassing post award goes to Servo

 

[made]

I posted on page 1 of this legendary thread.

 

[Servo]

Most embarassing post award goes to Servo

If it's monetary I'll take it. Otherwise keep your shitty award. Google search didn't give up the answer on the first page of results, and I wasn't about to start reading this thread at page 1 looking for something that might not be there at all when it would be much easier to simply ask.

But I do care a great deal what you think about me Ex

Use DOSBox?

I figured as much but like how? Is there a guide to setting up DOSBox for this game in particular or any arbitrary game?

I posted on page 1 of this legendary thread.

Are you referring to the FRUA site?

 

[Jack Dandy]

Use a frontend like dosshell or D-Fend Reloaded. They're super easy to set up.

 

[Crooked Bee]

I figured as much but like how? Is there a guide to setting up DOSBox for this game in particular or any arbitrary game?

Are you really a programmer?

http://www.wikihow.com/Use-DOSBox

 

[Servo]

I figured as much but like how? Is there a guide to setting up DOSBox for this game in particular or any arbitrary game?

Are you really a programmer?

http://www.wikihow.com/Use-DOSBox

Yeah I realized after I asked that it would probably be easy enough to find that info. I tend to ask questions first and answer them myself later. Just the way my retarded brain works. Anyways, thanks

Also Jack Dandy thanks for the tip. I looked into D-Fend once before but guess now I'll have to try it. Thus far my only experience with DOSBox is the games that come with it from GOG, which is to say I basically have zero experience in that area.

Edit: damn those Prince of Persia animations are AWESUM

 

[Jaesun]

You can also try http://dfendreloaded.sourceforge.net/

I use this one. It is almost 100% idiot proof. And it has a wizard you can use to install a game with templates you can use (and almost all of the old classic CRPG's are in the templates).

 

[Servo]

shit... I have no translation wheel

DAMN YOU AMAZON! DAMN YOOOOUUUUU!!!

 

[Alchemist]

shit... I have no translation wheel

DAMN YOU AMAZON! DAMN YOOOOUUUUU!!!

Here's a web-based version of the code wheel: http://www.weekendwastemonster.net/crpgs/pool/codewheel/poolwheel.html

Also there is a backdoor to avoid the code check entirely, for POR and CotAB (courtesy of a thread on Vogons: http://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?t=4544 )

Pool of Radiance dos version has a built-in backdoor to bypass the codewheel check. You add "<space>STING" after the st.exe in order to activate it. So you can change your start.bat to look like this to bypass the codewheel check.

conf
if errorlevel 1 goto :End
st STING
:End
cls

Obviously if you just run st.exe to run the game then just change that to.

st STING

Curse of the Azure Bonds also has a bypass, it's start.exe STING Wooden (that's start.exe(space)STING(space)Wooden capitalized exactly that way.

 

[Servo]

Now I just need an icon for my dosbox shortcut and I'm set.

 

[Excidium]

Also servo, get this fork of DOSBox: http://ykhwong.x-y.net/

It's p. cool.

Also D-Fend is p. unecessary...just copy the dosbox .conf file, rename it to something like gametitle.conf, customize the settings if needed and put your mount options there at the end, then add -conf "address to the file" to the target of a new dosbox shortcut, change the icon to something cool and there you go.

 

[vanshilar]

Here's a web-based version of the code wheel: http://www.weekendwastemonster.net/crpgs/pool/codewheel/poolwheel.html

Also there is a backdoor to avoid the code check entirely, for POR and CotAB (courtesy of a thread on Vogons: http://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?t=4544 )

I should note that it's a lot more powerful than just a code check bypass, from the original source:

http://simeonpilgrim.com/blog/2006/03/07/curse-of-the-azure-bonds-cheats/

The guy reverse engineered the code to CotAB to build his own version, essentially the same game but recoded, and found it when he was working out the innards of the executable.

Also, I thought there are versions out there that have the code check disabled, for CotAB at least (I think one of the versions on my hard drive has the code check disabled -- although I still have the original 5.25 floppies laying around in my parents' house somewhere and the copy of that is one of my versions too). It's possible that although the prompt shows up, you can put anything you want and it'll automatically say it's the right answer. Or look around for a different executable where the code check is bypassed.