Gold Box SSI's Gold Box Series Thread

[mondblut]

That first tower, is that the one with the basement teleporter? because that wasn't interesting, that was FUCKING AWFUL. Ten levels of complete waste of time. I hate that tower.

Mission accomplished That tower was sheer trolling.

 

[Sceptic]

Nonsense. It was the first Goldbox game I played, without journal or manual, and I managed.

I'm impressed. You're either a tactical genius or had to reload a LOT.

Mission accomplished That tower was sheer trolling.

Yes it was. AND I HATE IT
Had to actually get all the way to the top before that obscure clue (about the porch) finally hit me and I went back to the basement.
FUCK.

 

[Erebus]

I actually think you do need to climb to a certain level (but not the top) in order to activate the teleporter. I'm not sure, though.

 

[Metro]

That first tower, is that the one with the basement teleporter? because that wasn't interesting, that was FUCKING AWFUL. Ten levels of complete waste of time. I hate that tower.

Mission accomplished That tower was sheer trolling.

I seriously thought I had a defective game. Slogging all the way up there and wondering where the damn stairs were... surely it wasn't in the Otagh (I know I spelled that wrong) pit in the basement!

 

[Erebus]

Okay, I've just checked and it *is* possible to go directly to the basement and find the teleporter. However, it's very difficult : there's some kind of spell (that can be deactivated on level 6 or 7) that'll teleport you back a few steps or turn you around to keep you away from the teleporter. It can be bypassed, but you need to pay attention.

They really wanted to sell those cluebooks.

 

[Jaesun]

Pen and a piece of paper. Try it sometime.

 

[Bruticis]

Okay, I've just checked and it *is* possible to go directly to the basement and find the teleporter. However, it's very difficult : there's some kind of spell (that can be deactivated on level 6 or 7) that'll teleport you back a few steps or turn you around to keep you away from the teleporter. It can be bypassed, but you need to pay attention.

They really wanted to sell those cluebooks.

Remember these?

Probably not......

 

[Carlos' Bitch1]

Okay, I've just checked and it *is* possible to go directly to the basement and find the teleporter. However, it's very difficult : there's some kind of spell (that can be deactivated on level 6 or 7) that'll teleport you back a few steps or turn you around to keep you away from the teleporter. It can be bypassed, but you need to pay attention.

They really wanted to sell those cluebooks.

Well, yes...they apparently sold a lot of these to lazy fags. Personally, I never needed graph paper for Goldbox games, especially after you play other 3D walking games of the same era that really need mapping.

Still, people did have a problem finding a certain person in Morrowind, didn't they? Wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't read it.

 

[Erebus]

It's not so simple as to simply draw a plan. You have no reason to even suspect that, in order to get to the top of the tower, you need to use a teleporter located in the basement. I did manage to find it all by myself, but I was fairly lucky. Considering said tower is not exactly the most exciting part of the game, I understand why some players might have found themselves frustrated.

 

[Sceptic]

It's not so simple as to simply draw a plan. You have no reason to even suspect that, in order to get to the top of the tower, you need to use a teleporter located in the basement.

You forgot to mention that the teleporter is behind a secret door and that the basement map is made so that it is perfectly symmetrical... and the secret room with the teleporter is OUTSIDE the symmetrical part (and breaks the symmetry). You don't need the cluebook, in fact once you get to the top of the tower the hint you get makes it relatively easy to find the teleporter... it's the fact the whole thing is just one huge waste of time that pissed me off.

Mondblut said it: the whole tower's jiust one humongous troll. A very successful one too.

 

[someone else]

DQK is difficult without imported items from DKK. Or maybe I'm just not hardcore enough.

 

[octavius]

I know that in the IE games the backstab modifier was based on the Thief level, but is it the same in the Goldbox games?
I'm about to start a new runthrough of the Pool series and I'm not sure if I should create a multi-class Dwarf Fighter/Thief or dual class a Human.
The Dwarf will only be able to advance to lvl 9 as a figher, so his progress as a thief will be slow. But if the backstab modifier is not level dependent a human thief dualing to fighter will be a better choice.
I have a feeling the backstab modifier is level dependent, but can't find the info in any manuals.

 

[Zomg]

1st edition PHB says level 1-4 2x backstabs, 5-8 3x backstabs, 9-12 4x, 13+ 5x

 

[octavius]

1st edition PHB says level 1-4 2x backstabs, 5-8 3x backstabs, 9-12 4x, 13+ 5x

Thanks. I'll probably go for a multiclassed fighter/thief, then.

 

[Zomg]

Also a thief dualed to fighter will have terrible HP, only 1d6 + a maximum of 2 HP per level for high con up, won't start getting fighter HP until the fighter level exceeds the thief level.

 

[GarfunkeL]

I used thief dualled to mage. Works well enough as a thief in PoR and then dualled her into a wizard in Curse.

 

[octavius]

Yeah PoD is fucking brutal. I stopped playing last night and went to bed (@ 2am) after getting hold person/confusion spammed by Drow over and over again under Zenthil Keep. My extensive dual class strategy has left me at odds with the games very difficult battles. That is especially true when it comes to the Drow and their innate magic resistance. Yeah sure you can try to use a lightning bolt or fireball to disable the spell casters, but the odds of it actually doing the job are slim to none.

This is where the "useless" thieves with their backstabbing are nice to have.
The GB games don't keep tabs on number of kills, but in Icewind Dale I my one Fighter/Thief is usually responsible for nearly half the kills.
I use magic very sparingly and try to rest my party only once per day, so I don't unleash hell in every battle, then rest and so on. So if you really role play a band of adventurers a Fighter/Thief is one of the most effective characters.

 

[octavius]

I just configured Game Base Amiga to run the WHDLoad of "Gateway to the Savage Frontier" on the Amiga. It eliminates disk swapping which is nice.

Never played the amiga versions before but I think I like it better than the DOS version. The sound is better for sure.

Anyone else play the Amiga versions of these games? Impressions?

The Amiga version of Silver Blades has a major bug - the Cloaks of Displacement make your charactes invincible to physical attack. They are supposed to only stop the first attack, but instead they block all physical attacks. i don't know if there are updated versions of the Amiga Silver Blades, though.

BTW, sorry for necroing this thread but I recently started a full run through of the Gold Box games myself.
I'm using the MS-DOS versions. PoR has poorer grpahics but is better programmed than the very slow (in combat) Amiga version.*

Had problems getting the Manual of Bodily Health to work properly. In the Amiga versions you equipped it, used it and the rested 31 days anf got +1 Constitution and IIRC the HPs got updated.
Playing the PC version my character did the same procedure but only got the extra CON, but not HPs, after several weeks wandering in the wilderness.

 

[Carlos' Bitch1]

Did you try out the Tandy sound effect option?

I will have to play through these again soon myself, and have a useless thief on the team just to see. My fighter thief was ok in POR, and the Kender Cleric/Thief wasn't bad in the Krynn series.

 

[Zomg]

Had problems getting the Manual of Bodily Health to work properly. In the Amiga versions you equipped it, used it and the rested 31 days anf got +1 Constitution and IIRC the HPs got updated.
Playing the PC version my character did the same procedure but only got the extra CON, but not HPs, after several weeks wandering in the wilderness.

I can't remember a single instance of the GB games autoupdating anything like that while playing the PC versions. Con goes up by +1 and future calculations will use it, but that's it. Similarly I think if you get level drained one time only the games will give you back the correct amount of HP if you are restored, but any more than that and the game takes away a random HP roll and you reroll your HP again when you get the new level, stuff like that, they didn't have an outlandish amount of memory to play with.

 

[made]

BTW, sorry for necroing this thread but I recently started a full run through of the Gold Box games myself.
I'm using the MS-DOS versions. PoR has poorer grpahics but is better programmed than the very slow (in combat) Amiga version.*

Had problems getting the Manual of Bodily Health to work properly. In the Amiga versions you equipped it, used it and the rested 31 days anf got +1 Constitution and IIRC the HPs got updated.
Playing the PC version my character did the same procedure but only got the extra CON, but not HPs, after several weeks wandering in the wilderness.

Can't comment on the bugs, but if the game runs too slow, crank up the CPU emulation. If you're using WHDL (which you should, unless you want save states) you can go with 68020 - runs silky smooth even with JIT off.

 

[dolio]

I was under the impression that prior to 3rd edition, bumping constitution didn't give you extra HP as if you'd retroactively had that much during level-ups.

 

[octavius]

Had problems getting the Manual of Bodily Health to work properly. In the Amiga versions you equipped it, used it and the rested 31 days anf got +1 Constitution and IIRC the HPs got updated.
Playing the PC version my character did the same procedure but only got the extra CON, but not HPs, after several weeks wandering in the wilderness.

I can't remember a single instance of the GB games autoupdating anything like that while playing the PC versions. Con goes up by +1 and future calculations will use it, but that's it. Similarly I think if you get level drained one time only the games will give you back the correct amount of HP if you are restored, but any more than that and the game takes away a random HP roll and you reroll your HP again when you get the new level, stuff like that, they didn't have an outlandish amount of memory to play with.

Yeah, it's quite possible I misremember the HP being updated in the Amiga version.

As for level drain it seems like the game only tracks one level drain per character. We had the NPC Dirten in the party, but not a good enough thief (lvl 4 Dwarf with 17 Dex) nor any fighters with str more than 17 or Mages with Knock, so we weren't able to enter Mendor's Library and get the Scrolls of Restoration.
So Dirten was level drained twice by Wights in the Cadorna Textile House. But casting Restoration on him much later restored him only to lvl 4, not to lvl 6, and additional castings had no effect.

 

[octavius]

I'm using the MS-DOS versions. PoR has poorer grpahics but is better programmed than the very slow (in combat) Amiga version.*
.

Can't comment on the bugs, but if the game runs too slow, crank up the CPU emulation. If you're using WHDL (which you should, unless you want save states) you can go with 68020 - runs silky smooth even with JIT off.

I wasa bit unclear. It was as much slowness as the fact that in combat the screens got redrawn two times every time a character or NPC attacked. It looked quite amateurish, and slowed things down, but fortunately all was fixed in CoAB.

 

[octavius]

Did you try out the Tandy sound effect option?

If you're asking me, then no.
I play PoR without sound.