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Goldbox Enhanced Edition?

SillyKoboldSillyKobold Member Posts: 11
in General Discussion (Spoiler Warning!)
Any chances that it might happen? Or does the fact that these are DOS games pretty well kill the possibility?

I really liked those games back in the day, especially Gateway to the Savage Frontier and Treasures of the Savage Frontier.

Comments

  • AstroBryGuyAstroBryGuy Member Posts: 3,437
    You can get them on GOG.

    https://www.gog.com/game/forgotten_realms_the_archives_collection_two
  • ScarsUnseenScarsUnseen Member Posts: 170
    edited October 2018
    To be honest, I'm not sure what you could even "enhance" about those games that wouldn't basically just make them full on remakes. The art is too low res for upscaling to accomplish anything, the music is MIDI, etc. I wouldn't mind seeing a modern D&D first person dungeon crawler, but as AstroBryGuy said, the originals can already be obtained and played through GOG, and I don't see much room for improvement the way the Infinity Engine games were improved.
    Post edited by ScarsUnseen on
  • ScarsUnseenScarsUnseen Member Posts: 170
    subtledoctor said:

    ScarsUnseen said:

    ... basically just make them full on remakes.

    Uh, yes pleez!

    I mean, what's wrong with remakes? It happens a lot these days. And given your points about the art and sound in those games not aging well, along with the fact that their content is otherwise pretty great... it seems like they would be prime candidates for remake treatment. :smiley:
    Okay, but that's not what the Enhanced Editions are. I'm 100% fine with remakes. But right now, if someone goes in buying one of Beamdog's Enhanced Edition games, they more or less know what they're getting: the original games, code cleaned up and some new features added. And that's a good thing. It means that all I have to know before getting an EE title is whether I was interested in the original game or not.

    If Beamdog started doing full on remakes from the ground up and calling those Enhanced Editions, suddenly there's a lot more questions about the EEs as a whole. Was I interested in the original game's premise? Is the title a remaster or a remake? If it's a remake, is it faithful to the original's gameplay, level design and aesthetic? If not, what liberties were taken and how far is it in feel?

    I'm fine with getting remakes of the Gold Box games, but that's not what the original question was. If the question is "should the Gold Box games get an Enhanced Edtion remaster?" then my response is "I don't see the point in doing so." If the question is "should someone remake the Gold Box games in a modern engine?" then my response is "absolutely, but labeling those 'Enhanced Edition' is both misleading and potentially damaging to the Enhanced Edition label as a whole."
  • jsavingjsaving Member Posts: 1,083
    It's also worth pointing out that Beamdog was composed of people who'd either previously worked at BioWare/Black Isle or had written IE mods as part of the fan community. That gave Beamdog the coding knowledge to put together Enhanced Editions in a cost-effective way (and the connections/goodwill to secure the rights to do so). Even that wouldn't have been enough without the tens of thousands of fans who kept playing BG1/2 for 15 years in non-enhanced form, sending a strong signal there'd be a market for enhanced editions of those games today.

    Unfortunately, none of those factors apply to the Gold Box games so it's very unlikely that Beamdog would make enhanced editions of them. Here's hoping, though!
  • AstroBryGuyAstroBryGuy Member Posts: 3,437
    subtledoctor said:

    ScarsUnseen said:

    ... basically just make them full on remakes.

    Uh, yes pleez!

    I mean, what's wrong with remakes? It happens a lot these days. And given your points about the art and sound in those games not aging well, along with the fact that their content is otherwise pretty great... it seems like they would be prime candidates for remake treatment. :smiley:
    There is a Pool of Radiance re-make for NWN2.

    https://neverwintervault.org/project/nwn2/module/pool-radiance-remastered
  • smeagolheartsmeagolheart Member Posts: 7,963
    edited October 2018
    Just update the art to HD with new art, update the music that'd be worth it right there. It already runs on GOG so not much would be needed there but you could modernize some code and fix a few bugs. Leave the rules and all that intact.

    I'd be interested in the games with a new coat of paint.
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 0
    edited October 2018
    The user and all related content has been deleted.
  • ScarsUnseenScarsUnseen Member Posts: 170
    edited October 2018
    smeagolheart said:

    Just update the art to HD with new art, update the music that'd be worth it right there. It already runs on GOG so not much would be needed there but you could modernize some code and fix a few bugs. Leave the rules and all that intact.

    I'd be interested in the games with a new coat of paint.

    Not that simple. Can the Gold Box Engine support high resolution artwork or modern music formats? Almost certainly not. So there's some engine modification needed right there. And it doesn't "run on GOG." It runs in DOS, an operating system that hasn't been in widespread use in over 20 years. It's one thing to use an emulator to run an old game, but I doubt Beamdog or any other professional game studio is eager to develop for DOS anymore.

    So at a minimum, we're looking at transporting code meant for DOS to a modern Windows environment before they could even begin a remaster. And that's assuming the source code is available anywhere at all, which is a big assumption considering the games weren't all developed by the same studio and that the publisher, SSI, was bought out twice before finally being put to pasture by Ubisoft in 2001. And then, after all that, you can finally make any improvements you want, and at that point it seems kind of silly to just slap some new artwork and music on it an call it a day.

    And like jsaving said, the current EE games came about due to the involvement of former IE developers and prominent modders, but that won't happen for the Gold Box games since none of the developers for those games are active in the industry. Looking up Pool of Radiance, only one of the developers is notable enough to have a Wikipedia page, and it's so brief that you don't even have to scroll to see the entirety of it. So while there may be some old fans that would like to see it happen, there is no industry level impetus to get the ball rolling. Even if Ubisoft would let it happen. Even if they were the only people who you needed permission from(one of the Gold Box development studios was bought by EA). Even if the source code was available. Even if rewriting the engine for a modern operating system was feasible given the likely low payoff.

    As opposed to the Infinity Engine games, I think a from the ground up remake is the more feasible project for these games.
  • SillyKoboldSillyKobold Member Posts: 11
    AstroBryGuy said:

    You can get them on GOG.

    https://www.gog.com/game/forgotten_realms_the_archives_collection_two

    So how does the GoG version run? Is it an exe file that contains both a DOS emulator and the game itself?

    How's the speed? I know that when I tried to run the original DOS version years ago, modern computers run the game way too fast. Presumably GoG did something to slow the game down?

    I don't see the Dragonlance titles on GoG - only the Pool of Radiance series and the Savage Frontier series. Are the Dragonlance ones somewhere?
  • AstroBryGuyAstroBryGuy Member Posts: 3,437
    Yes, the game runs in DOSBox. Speed issues are fixed.

    https://www.gog.com/game/dungeons_dragons_krynn_series
  • jkhristianjkhristian Member Posts: 17
    Do for the Gold Box games what is being done for the Bard's Tale games! If you've played the Bards Tale Trilogy Remastered you know what I am talking about.
  • brixbrix Member Posts: 43
    jkhristian said:

    Do for the Gold Box games what is being done for the Bard's Tale games! If you've played the Bards Tale Trilogy Remastered you know what I am talking about.

    These are awesome. An running well as far as I know.
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