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The gold box games are my new obsession.

11302101130210 Member Posts: 381
in Off-Topic
What's a person to do when you've played Baldur's Gate I&II half to death, beat the NWN EE game's campaigns many times, and played every other Infinity Engine game?

That's when you turn to the gold box games. These games offer a challenge and experience nearly equivalent to the tabletop experience. At the moment, I've ordered 5 gold box games from Ebay. I'm really excited because the locations you get to visit are places I've always wanted to visit in a D&D computer roleplaying game.

Namely, I'm not picky where I go in D&D computer games, as long as it's someplace new. I actually get bored of visiting the city of Neverwinter. Take me to Waterdeep (or even underneath it!) like in Eye of the Beholder!

Comments

  • GusindaGusinda Member Posts: 1,915
    edited April 2018
    @1130210, great games... make sure you get the Gold Box Companion. Enables auto mapping and heads up display of your chars.

    Gus

    Edit: Just had a visit to GOG and the collection of Gold Box Games (well most) are currently on sale. There are the other part to the Archives on sale as well.
  • MathsorcererMathsorcerer Member Posts: 3,037
    There are several older threads about the GoldBox games and/or the FRUA here. In at least one of them, I have a link to the FRUA Forum.
  • loudentloudent Member Posts: 38
    edited April 2018
    1130210 said:

    What's a person to do when you've played Baldur's Gate I&II half to death, beat the NWN EE game's campaigns many times, and played every other Infinity Engine game?

    That's when you turn to the gold box games. These games offer a challenge and experience nearly equivalent to the tabletop experience. At the moment, I've ordered 5 gold box games from Ebay. I'm really excited because the locations you get to visit are places I've always wanted to visit in a D&D computer roleplaying game.

    Well, there is NWN2+expansions and, just FYI, a lot of those gold box games were done justice in NWN1 (and, to a lesser extent, NWN2). In fact I'm planning a run through of the Pool of Radiance campaign in NWN2 shortly.

    EDIT: I guess my main point is, with NWN1, the Official campaigns are only the start. So many great full on adventure mods were made with it that I doubt you could get through them all.

  • DrHappyAngryDrHappyAngry Member Posts: 1,577
    Gusinda said:

    @1130210, great games... make sure you get the Gold Box Companion. Enables auto mapping and heads up display of your chars.

    Gus

    Edit: Just had a visit to GOG and the collection of Gold Box Games (well most) are currently on sale. There are the other part to the Archives on sale as well.

    Looks like their site is down at the moment, but reading up on the description it sounds like it might solve some of the interface issues that made those games unplayable to me. I only got to play a little bit of the Dark Sun games at a friend's place as a kid, so always wanted to play them. When I finally went back to give them a shot, the UI was such a pain I just couldn't deal with it.

    Do you still have to go through the steps of opening a separate screen to pick a spell/psionic ability to cast, then go back to the game to cast it? That is really annoying.
  • GusindaGusinda Member Posts: 1,915
    Hi @DrHappyAngry, which site might be down? If GBC, I was just able to download the companion so should be good now. I have used it mainly for the mapping but I did take advantage of some of its features. My Ranger->Mage was able to make it through the series without being held back as he would have without GBC. Same with my Elf F/M/T, Dwarven Fighter and Ranger-> Cleric. It was great!

    The ingame action hasn't changed but you can add spells and manage your PCs from GBC if you like (ie: learn spells, level up etc) and get around some of the 'problems' related to race/class levels etc. You need to have DOSBox running and in a Window (I have mine set at 3x size on a 1920x1200 screen). GBC places the map to one side and the Heads up display on your characters above the game. You can use shortcuts and/or mouse to get to teh other features.

    All in all, I wouldn't now play the games without it.

    Gus
  • DrHappyAngryDrHappyAngry Member Posts: 1,577
    Ya, looks their site's back up now. Next time I'm ready to give the Dark Sun games a shot, I'll give it a go.
  • MathsorcererMathsorcerer Member Posts: 3,037
    I can get GBC to read my save games but when I hit "search" I get an error that character number 1's name does not match. I will probably just start a brand new game--my save games are from a year or two ago, so no loss.
  • GusindaGusinda Member Posts: 1,915
    edited April 2018
    @Mathsorcerer, it is a matter of order in which you load both. You need to start the game (eg: PoR) first then load the saved game (eg: D) you want to continue with. Start GBC, the select the game (PoR), the letter (D) of the saved game you loaded, then select search. It should then find the right game in memory and load the maps and heads-up.

    Gus

    Edit: Fix Typo
    Post edited by Gusinda on
  • 11302101130210 Member Posts: 381
    Mathsorcerer said:

    I can get GBC to read my save games but when I hit "search" I get an error that character number 1's name does not match. I will probably just start a brand new game--my save games are from a year or two ago, so no loss.

    Yeah, I had that problem on Unlimited Adventures too. I tried what @Mathsorcerer said, and it still didn't seem to work. I just kept getting the name error. I wish I could get it to work for Unlimited Adventures.

    However, it works so far for Pool of Radiance, as I'm about 30 hours in to that game.
  • GusindaGusinda Member Posts: 1,915
    @1130210, it uses the same principle as PoR, but with a couple of more steps (also this is from starting a new game):

    Start UA and select module
    Add characters to game (I am using Borderlands, games02.dsn, but I have used it with other modules).
    Once game goes through its intro, save game (A)
    Start GBC
    Select UA
    Configure UA settings
    - underneath the game selector is a button which shows the path
    - select and locate the path to the module, mine looks like: 'E:\Games\DnD\G10-UA\game02.dsn' (you will need to redo this when you change modules)
    Select saved game (A),
    Search - It should then find the game in memory and load the map etc.

    Happy venturing
    Gus
  • MathsorcererMathsorcerer Member Posts: 3,037
    If you exit a combat map, GBC thinks that the mosters are rejoicing because the party has died. That isn't a complaint, just something funny I noticed.
  • GusindaGusinda Member Posts: 1,915
    @Mathsorcerer, in all this time, I have never noticed... Will have to have a try.

    Gus
  • MathsorcererMathsorcerer Member Posts: 3,037
    PoR is not a game which is conducive to trying to solo it, which is why I noticed. I have a solo half-elf fighter/mage/thief but you can level up very quickly by finding the hidden treasures here and there. Anyway, fights against wights or ghouls are an automatic "flee" because without a cleric as backup there is no recovering lost levels and once you become paralyzed the next hit is lethal.
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