Gold Box SSI's Gold Box Series Thread

[Invictus]

Spent almost 5 hours building my part and revisiting Pools and while they game is as charming as ever, holy shot are some of its issues anoying; for example having to manualy memorize spent spells every time and casting healing spells and resting, then selecting again the spells gets old really fast especialy at the starting levels where your chars can die from a loud sneeze
Most of these issues got fixed in the sequels and since the last Goldbox games I played were the Savage Frontier ones (were almost all the gameplay issues and the system itself was very polished) it was kind of a shock, plus not using the mouse
But then again the game IS 26 years old, that is sacry shit...

 

[Alchemist]

for example having to manualy memorize spent spells every time and casting healing spells and resting, then selecting again the spells gets old really fast especialy at the starting levels where your chars can die from a loud sneeze

You might want to check this out: Gold Box Companion
Apparently it can do this among other things:

• Fix-command for Pool of Radiance. Works with the other games as well. Instantly heals the characters.
• Store the list of memorized spells and restore the spells with a single click.

I haven't tried it yet so I can't vouch for how / if it works. But might be worth a look.

 

[Servo]

Has Servo posted information about his party? Besides being half the fun in reading about other people's experience, it can also be rather insightful about how much enjoyment or frustration one is getting out of the game.

Dwarf male fighter
Elf wizard
Human cleric
Hobbit thief

I'm thinking I need to pick up a couple more PCs just for the bar fights. Monster fights are pretty easy so far.

 

[Servo]

You might want to check this out: Gold Box Companion

What exactly does the fix command do? I understand it speeds up the memorize-heal-resting process, but does it just do those steps automatically until everyone's fully healed or what?

Also, I read somewhere in the manual that the game gets harder as time progresses. For this reason I don't always worry about fully healing everyone because I don't want to waste time. Did I read that correctly?

 

[octavius]

Has Servo posted information about his party? Besides being half the fun in reading about other people's experience, it can also be rather insightful about how much enjoyment or frustration one is getting out of the game.

Dwarf male fighter
Elf wizard
Human cleric
Hobbit thief

I'm thinking I need to pick up a couple more PCs just for the bar fights. Monster fights are pretty easy so far.

That's not a good party if you want to take them all the way to Pools of Darkness, due to the class level limits of the demi-humans. Basically only Humans will do in the long run, plus a Dwarf or Half-Elf Fighter/Thief.
Also, due to the XP caps in the first game there's really no need to limit yourself to four characters, at least not single class one.

 

[Joonas]

You might want to check this out: Gold Box Companion

What exactly does the fix command do? I understand it speeds up the memorize-heal-resting process, but does it just do those steps automatically until everyone's fully healed or what?

Starting from Curse of the Azure Bonds, encamp-fix forces your divine spellcasters to memorize healing spells and cast them until the whole party is fully healed or until the rest is interrupted by a random encounter.

Gold Box Companion locates the character's hit points in DOSBox's memory and sets the current hitpoints to maximum and status to "okay". So it is a insta-heal, game time does not advance or anything.

The spell memorization helper functions so that you memorize your wanted spells in the game and rest to get them, then click "store memorized spells" in GBC. When you want to get the spells back you click "restore memorized spells".

I wonder how much game improvement suggestions SSI got. Small UI improvements like tagging items to sets of melee/ranged weapons and easy switching between them would have been trivial to add. In other areas, like the AI, I can understand that game versions for the 8-bit computers limited what you could do. I remember reading some finnish reviews of the later games in the series and they we're raging why the area-map still does not show doors. The term SSDD, same shit different dungeon, was also used.

 

[octavius]

I remember reading some finnish reviews of the later games in the series and they we're raging why the area-map still does not show doors. The term SSDD, same shit different dungeon, was also used.

I thought Finns were hard-core nerds that didn't use area maps, but drew their own.

 

[Humppaleka]

Well I'm a pussy bitch at least and rely on ready maps about 75% of the time.

 

[Servo]

Gold Box Companion locates the character's hit points in DOSBox's memory and sets the current hitpoints to maximum and status to "okay". So it is a insta-heal, game time does not advance or anything.

So it's more like a cheat? Lame.

The spell memorization helper functions so that you memorize your wanted spells in the game and rest to get them, then click "store memorized spells" in GBC. When you want to get the spells back you click "restore memorized spells".

No resting required? Lame.

Sounds like GBC changes too much. It's unfortunate it doesn't simply add the functionality from CotAB.

 

[Alchemist]

If it just cheats - yeah, that's not as useful as I thought. Would rather play it legit.

 

[Jaesun]

This stupid thread is making want to play some Gold Box Games.... or maybe a FRUA mod.....

 

[Joonas]

Gold Box Companion locates the character's hit points in DOSBox's memory and sets the current hitpoints to maximum and status to "okay". So it is a insta-heal, game time does not advance or anything.

So it's more like a cheat? Lame.

Yes, it is a cheat. But imagine the amount of work it would need to use the game mechanics to do the same without the game source codes.

For example, you would need to know in which menu / game state you are (by reading it from somewhere in the memory or from screen via OCR, optical character recognition), then select the spells by tagging them in the game (by sending keystrokes to DOSBox) and so on. And if you would use OCR, imagine all the different screen scalings etc. people have configured in DOSBox.

Huge amount of work and not really worth it.

 

[octavius]

This stupid thread is making want to play some Gold Box Games.... or maybe a FRUA mod.....

IIRC there were some GB games you haven't played yet?

 

[Jaesun]

This stupid thread is making want to play some Gold Box Games.... or maybe a FRUA mod.....

IIRC there were some GB games you haven't played yet?

Yes. I never played the Savage Frontier series. Did that ever come out for the Amiga 500? That may be why I missed it.

 

[octavius]

I never played the Savage Frontier series. Did that ever come out for the Amiga 500? That may be why I missed it.

I played them both on my Amiga 501.
You should give them a try. The first one is rather boring, but the second one is a solid GB game.

 

[Servo]

Yes, it is a cheat. But imagine the amount of work it would need to use the game mechanics to do the same without the game source codes.

Good point. I was thinking it was more of a patch - didn't realize the author didn't have the source code.

 

[Invictus]

I liked the Treasures series; I actually played them before the Krynn games and while they are not very innovative they are the most polished series by far, with nice graphics and fun gameplay. Definelty an higher than average Goldbox is better than most current offerings...
I will take a look at that program alchemist it looks interesting and while some of its features don't interest me the Fix option sounds worthwhile by itself

 

[Dorateen]

For the sake of continuity, play both titles of the Savage Frontier! I actually enjoyed Gateway a bit more, because at least I still had three other AD&D Gold Box adventures to look forward to.

 

[Jaesun]

Does the Amiga version of Gateway/Treasure gave better graphics? I don't know if the utilized the 32 color palette of the Amiga or not, and just used the shitty 16 colors of DOS.

EDIT:



NO Elf Rangers, and NO Cleric/Fighter Dwarves!!!!

I miss Rays FRUA setting..... Oh well... I'll figure something out.

 

[Invictus]

I have never played a FRUA are there any good examples I could try? I heard there were worthy remakes of some modules
Nevermind found the thread

 

[Jaesun]

I have never played a FRUA are there any good examples I could try? I heard there were worthy remakes of some modules
Nevermind found the thread

Yes. Ray's Modules are really good.

FRUA setup guide here: http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...ealms-unlimited-adventures-frua-thread.61909/

Then play all these modules in this recommended order: http://therealm.flopsyville.com/west.html

The individual modules can be downloaded here: http://frua.rosedragon.org/modulelist/file.php (then click on the Full list of pc modules to see the full listing).

I always plug Ray's modules because those are the only ones I am familiar with. Also the Judge's Guild series by Nol Drek was really enjoyable (I played the first 2). I though he did a great job on those.

DO read the READ ME for the Judges Guild games. They are NOT Level 1 modules.... heh (of which I later found out) I wondered why I kept dying...

 

[octavius]

Does the Amiga version of Gateway/Treasure gave better graphics? I don't know if the utilized the 32 color palette of the Amiga or not, and just used the shitty 16 colors of DOS.

I don't think there's any practical difference between the versions; the DOS versions look plenty fine to me. By 1992 most DOS games were using SVGA, IIRC.

 

[Invictus]

The Savage Frontier games didn't look as good as DQoK but they were pretty enough on the PC

 

[Jaesun]

5 Steaks. Hell yes!

 

[Dorateen]

BROS.... WE HAD THOT THIS WAS GOIN TO BE A ROTINE MISSON, GARDING A CARAVAN OF MYTHRLA TRAVLING FROM CITADEL ADBAR IN TEH FAR NORTH. BUT NO SOONER DID WE BROS SIGN ON TO PRVIDE PROTECTION TEHN THE DORF'S KING HAARBROM HIMSELF CALLED US TO THE TOP OF THE TALLEST TOWER IN TEH FORT. LOL!