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Vote for GoG to carry the SSI "Gold Box" games

dwilliams1966dwilliams1966 Member Posts: 41
in Off-Topic
Before there was Baldur's Gate (way before), there were the SSI "Gold Box" D&D games such as Pool of Radiance, Curse of the Azure Bonds, Secret of the Silver Blades, Pools of Darkness, and others.

These games were fantastic for their era. Real time exploration would shift into turn based combat when you encountered an enemy.

You can get these games to run in Windows 7 if you have the old Wizworx CD compilation using DosBox, but it sure would, IMO, be nice to be able to buy them from GoG with all the setup and installation difficulties already taken care of and the manuals in PDF form.

If you agree, go here and vote for "All the original SSI Dungeons and Dragons games". You'll have to create a GoG account if you don't have one.

http://www.gog.com/wishlist/games

Comments

  • elminsterelminster Member, Developer Posts: 16,317
    Voted for it :D
  • WilburWilbur Member Posts: 1,173
    I created an account and voted for it too.
  • AendaeronBluescaleAendaeronBluescale Member Posts: 335
    voted for it.
  • ajwzajwz Member Posts: 4,122
    I don't understand why people have to vote for this :/
  • LateralusLateralus Member Posts: 903
    I voted, but man the graphics are hopelessly outdated. Somebody should snatch up all the content and put it into a way better engine and sell if for some serious jink.
  • LadyRhianLadyRhian Member Posts: 14,694
    in the day, I played Pool of Radiance, Curse of the Azure Bonds, Secret of the Silver Blades, Pools of Darkness and Dark Queen of Krynn. And, I mean, the games are good. The graphics, well, not so much.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9x02jVpvLo
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=or7GaPbeHLY
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3llu4jMtH1Q&list=PL0839CA736A4E5F64
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iziFrUXjgpA&list=PL7A96DE45BDEB5608
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXQUUHTU_5s
  • WilburWilbur Member Posts: 1,173
    I played Champions of Krynn and Death Knights of Krynn a couple of years back and the graphics were not an issue. Maybe that is because I played them as a kid so I was used to them.
  • dwilliams1966dwilliams1966 Member Posts: 41
    The graphics don't really bother me. The biggest draw to these games is the nicely done turn based combat system, IMO.

    Who can forget stumbling into the Mulmaster Beholder Corps?

    I spent many hours on these games. Probably as many as I spent on BG1 & 2.

  • LadyRhianLadyRhian Member Posts: 14,694
    I exploited the hell out of the hiring hall in the first game. If you hired the level 6 warrior, he came with a +1 Sword and +1 Armor. Hire him, send him into every combat first and get him killed, then appropriate his armor and weapons for yourself! Rinse and repeat, and it makes the earlier fights a LOT easier, especially those on Sokol Island (The area with all the undead early in the game.

    In Secret of the Silver Blades, there was another exploitable thing (Not REALLY a cheat, though). The vault in town would carry over between games, so you could win the game, stick all your treasure in the vault and start your next game with all the best stuff at the beginning! I still have a list of stuff I had at one point, like 172 +1 Swords and so on. If you play several games like this, the stuff in the vault can be ridiculous. At one point after a few games, I actually ran out of space and had to sell some of this stuff off. Then I ended up with several million gold pieces and gems, along with a ton of stuff in addition. I recall you could get Bracers of AC0, Plate Mail +5, Long Sword +5 and similiar stuff. Go through this several times and you could have every fighter type in the party outfitted in the stuff. Another thing was the ice crevasses. If you rested right before one of the black doorway sections, you COULD NOT be attacked while you rested. And yes, I exploited the hell out of that, too! Given how often random encounters happen in that game, it was a relief to be able to rest in peace and not in pieces!

    My favorite part of Pools of Darkness was the ghost you encounter in the tower you have to light up to bring hope to the land, Brimwulf. I used his picture as my screen background (in grayscale, which I liked much better than the color version) for a couple of years. He shows up again in Dark Queen of Krynn with a Solamnic Knight mustache.
  • dwilliams1966dwilliams1966 Member Posts: 41
    Heh, funny stuff LadyRhian.

    I can honestly say I finished PoR through PoD without using any exploits.

    Hintbooks.....yes.

  • BattlehamsterBattlehamster Member Posts: 298
    You know what SSI game I really want to see?
    Fantasy Empires. Basically its D&D total war.
  • MathsorcererMathsorcerer Member Posts: 3,042
    edited September 2013
    dwilliams1966 said:

    Who can forget stumbling into the Mulmaster Beholder Corps?

    That still ranks as the most difficult fight in any game I have ever seen; its only equal might be Dave's Challenge at the end of Pools of Darkness.

    I still have the Forgotten Realms CD containing all these games that I bought eons ago and I keep backup copies on two different sticks.

    The things I never knew about for a really long time were the UA Hacking project, found at http://ua.reonis.com/index.php?board=8.0 as well as Simeon Pilgrim's work on converting the Gold Box games for more modern platforms, found here http://simeonpilgrim.com/blog/2005/08/04/curse-of-the-azure-bonds-project/

    A really useful tool I ran across for those games is Gold Box Explorer http://goldbox.codeplex.com/.


  • ZarakinthishZarakinthish Member Posts: 214
    Man, I have some really fine memories of playing Dark Queen of Krynn. I can even remember my party composition more or less: two knights, a cleric, a kender thief, one good mage, and one neutral mage. One of my favorite parts of the adventure was when you are helping sea elves at the bottom of the ocean, and you had to vastly change your spell selection. Having lightning bolt more or less act like fireball was supremely cool.

    One of the best things about the gold box games deals with an annoyance of mine with CRPGs that has been endemic from Baldur's Gate on. The problem is what I like to call the TARDIS effect (for those of you familiar with Doctor Who): the outside of a building is almost always smaller than the inside. From what I remember of the way the gold box engine works, it is just one big area with some walls, and thus you don't have the problem.
  • dwilliams1966dwilliams1966 Member Posts: 41
    Ask and ye shall receive (two years later).

    http://www.gog.com/game/forgotten_realms_the_archives_collection_two
  • atcDaveatcDave Member Posts: 2,387
    I really liked the last hurah for Gold Box, the "Savage Frontier" games. When new, they seemed a little like an old engine badly in need of updating. But when I played them later (mid '90s?) they struck me as fully mature Gold Box.
    So much detail, so well thought out, some fun and different stuff. And SLOW level progression! Geez it took a while just to make 2nd level, and then it was hard to afford the 1000 gp for training!

    Good memories...
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