Gold Box SSI's Gold Box Series Thread

[Jeff Graw]

Great game. Also available on Genesis, and while it's simplified down, the much superior navigation system might make that version worth it.

 

[someone else]

Thinking about Lord Soth as a villian made me post here.

I played Death Knights Of Krynn a long time ago, loved it, tried it again a couple of years ago but couldn't get past the horrible interface. Gah, now I feel like playing it again, and I still haven't completed Star Wolves.

One of you mentioned the sequel, Dark Queen Of Krynn. I got halfway through the game but stop due to the difficult random encounters. Random encounters have high level wizards who start combat with defensive spells like Fire Shield, Mirror Image and Globe of Invulnerability. Lets not forget the enchanted draconians, dragons are easy compared to these guys.


I believe this came from the hint book:

****************************************************
Enchanted Aurak Draconian
AC: -8;HD: 16; Mv: 15; Int: Genius
Size: M; Align: LE; THAC0: -3
Att: 2; Dmg: 4d8/4d8;
Spec Att: Exploding, Magic; XP:16,000

Enchanted draconians are deadlier forms of the draconians of Ansalon, their abilities enhanced by powerful sorcery. The enchanted aurak can cast meteor swarm, otto's irresistible dance, delayed blast fireball, disintegrate, and flesh to stone, once per day. Enchanted auraks go berserk when slain, like auraks, and do double damage when they hit while dying. When they finally explode, enchanted auraks do 16d8 points of damage over the same area as a fireball.


Enchanted Baaz Draconian
AC: 0; HD: 9; Mv: 15; Int: High;
Size: M; Align: CE; THAC0: 5;
Att: 2; Dmg: 2d8/2d8;
Spec Def: Trap Weapons; XP: 6,000

Enchanted Baaz can capture weapons by turning portions of their bodies to stone whenever they are hit, not merely when they are killed. Bring extra weapons cos they can get stolen in combat.


Enchanted Bozak Draconian
AC: -4; HD: 12; Mv: 15; Int: Genius
Size: M; Align: LE; THAC0: 1
Att: 2; Dmg: 3d8;3d8;
Spec Att: Explosion, Magic; XP: 11,000

Enchanted Bozaks may cast cone of cold, ice storrn, fire shield, lightning
bolt, and slow, once per day. When an enchanted bozak is slain, it explodes into fragments, with the same effect as an ice storm. They start with fire shield.


Enchanted Kapak Draconian
AC: -2; HD: 10; Mv: 15; Int: High;
Size: M; Align: LE; THAC0: 3
Att: 1; Dmg: 2d10;
Spec Att: Poison, Acid; XP: 8,000

Enchanted Kapaks coat their weapons with their toxic saliva; anyone hit by a kapak must save versus poison at -4 or be paralyzed for 3d6 rounds. When an enchanted kapak is slain, it dissolves into a pool of fuming acid which may spatter up to 10 feet in any direction.


Enchanted Sivak Draconian
AC: -6;HD: 14; Mv: Y4; Int: Genius;
Size: M; Align: NE; THAC0
Att: 3; Dmg: 2d8/2d8/4d8;
Spec Att: Back stab, Explosion; XP: 13,000

Enchanted sivaks which sneak up behind their adversaries may 'back stab' as thieves do. When an enchanted sivak is slain, it erupts with the effect of a meteor swarm.
*****************************************
Don't forget they have magic resistance as well.

Imagine meeting these guys while wandering around looking for secret doors. I'm not hardcore enough. Death Knights Of Krynn was much more reasonable. Did anybody actually enjoyed DQK?

An encounter with L Soth someone made:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQFJH6N1W7A
No sound, I liked Soth's theme song, it sounds better with PC speakers.

 

[mondblut]

DQK was brutal with those precasted wizards and enchanted draconians. Having most people dualclassed into wizards helps, delayed blast fireball works on everyone but enchanted auraks I think. Add fireshielding everyone and haste before hardest battles, and it can be survived through.

There was also an abundance of fine long bows and +3 arrows, which for a change were livesaving. Pincushioning an enchanted aurak in the midst of enemies works like DBF allright.

 

[octavius]

I played Death Knights Of Krynn a long time ago, loved it, tried it again a couple of years ago but couldn't get past the horrible interface. Gah, now I feel like playing it again, and I still haven't completed Star Wolves.

One of you mentioned the sequel, Dark Queen Of Krynn. I got halfway through the game but stop due to the difficult random encounters. Random encounters have high level wizards who start combat with defensive spells like Fire Shield, Mirror Image and Globe of Invulnerability. Lets not forget the enchanted draconians, dragons are easy compared to these guys.

[snip scary monster stats]


Imagine meeting these guys while wandering around looking for secret doors. I'm not hardcore enough. Death Knights Of Krynn was much more reasonable. Did anybody actually enjoyed DQK?

I'm currently re-playing the Gold Box games and I didn't find the interface of the old games too cumbersome.
Dark Queen is the most difficult one of the Gold Box games, but to me that is the reason why it's my favourite (along with Pool of Radiance for the AD&D "feel").
The Dark Mages are annoying since they have Dex 18 and casts Delayed Blast Fireball. So you need your own 18+ mages to counter them.
And the Heal spell is vital in DQK. When your Knight is down to less than 10 HP one casting of Heal can turn the most difficult battle.

 

[Thalkirst]

DQK: creating an elven fighter/mage/thief for backstabbing will take care of most mages.

Death Knights of Krynn was pretty good too, I really enjoyed playing it - and the last dungeon after completing the main quest (Dave's Challenge) is definitely a challenge.

 

[Binary]

I think I will stick with MM2 right now. I have been having a hard time deciding whether I want to play MM2 on the PC or use the amiga version. Amiga version graphics a bit better but other drawbacks like for some reason dungeons are gray and you have to do a small bit of diskswapping and full screen is a bit smaller. So will probably stick with PC version.

Hmmm, you're giving me ideas. HD installer + A1200 + MM2...

I played MM3 for a while. It's a good game, but there is something about it that is missing and I cant figure out what it is.

Same here. Maybe it was because I played MM4+5 before, but I don't think that's it. I think I always got confused with the variety of classes in MM3-5. Like... Ninja or Thief? arghhhh

Well, if you have UAE running, I recommend playing Amberstar first, then Ambermoon. I think Ambermoon is the better game, but less "Codexian". It is more linear and has fewer things for the player to decide, whereas Amberstar is very non-linear and allows the player to change his class.

Really, play both. They are well worth the time. Also, the Ambermoon Amiga intro is really nice. Well, all Amiga intros are. Witnesses of better times, now long forgotten.

Amen.

Any differences between PC and Amiga versions of Amberstar? Don't think I ever played the Amiga version.

Anyways, you are not entirely right. Ultima IV and V which were roughly contemporaneous with the gold box games had NPC interaction, and so did other games like Magic Candle and, uh... actually not too many.

Most RPGs of that time had some level of NPC interaction, but not many as detailed as Ultima or Magic Candle or Wasteland - everyone seems to forget Wasteland

 

[abstract]

Death Knights of Krynn was pretty good too, I really enjoyed playing it - and the last dungeon after completing the main quest (Dave's Challenge) is definitely a challenge.

You mean Pools of Darkness, which is also good in a completely crazy, epic monty haul way.

 

[octavius]

Death Knights of Krynn was pretty good too, I really enjoyed playing it - and the last dungeon after completing the main quest (Dave's Challenge) is definitely a challenge.

You mean Pools of Darkness, which is also good in a completely crazy, epic monty haul way.

Both games had a Dave's Challenge.
The one in PoR is the only part of the I couldn't finish since I couldn't anwer some riddle.

 

[made]

Gold Box games did have NPC interaction. It mostly happened in the form of journal entries rather than ingame dialogues, of course, due to technical limitations, but there were occasions where a short reply or action could be picked from a list.

The Savage Frontier games even had romancable party members, if my memory doesn't betray me. Not as sophisticated as in Bioware games, but it was a start.

 

[afewhours]

Wasteland - everyone seems to forget Wasteland

Which is a great, great tragedy. I chose this avatar for a reason. Consulting the corresponding paragraphs in the manual was big fun. It reminds me of the days when manuals were an artform. My favourite manual was for a game called 'Castle Master' I had on the Spectrum which contained this ridiculous poem by Mel Croucher - it made playing the game three times as much fun. Gave a lot of ambience to those wire-framed 3D graphics.

Also, you've just got to love the bizarre rabbit monsters in Wasteland. That game had an awesome streak of the absurd. There were loads of stupid little touches that made it really personal, kinda like Elite and its 'edible art graduates'.

 

[Grindstone_82]

personally I have not played any of them. Every once in a while I get tempted to try one, then I think nah, there are so many other games to play with a more comfortable GUI. Well, I guess I've become lazy


But to those who have played the games... do you feel that CRPGs have evolved noticeably since then (in those areas that really count)? From what you listed as their strengths and weaknesses, you could as well have talked about basically any modern RPG. I mean, what does 'interaction with NPCs' come down to eventually? You can click through loads of pop up text menus, that's basically it.

 

[mondblut]

But to those who have played the games... do you feel that CRPGs have evolved noticeably since then (in those areas that really count)?

Yeah, and in a wrong way. Somehow even the better ones (like TOEE or Prelude to Darkness) still fail to capture same kind of fun one may find in goldbox series. As for the rest, in a quest for "roleplay" and "c&c" and "immersion" and "interaction" somehow good gameplay was lost in process.

And I won't even start on "action RPGs", whatever they are.

 

[PorkaMorka]

But to those who have played the games... do you feel that CRPGs have evolved noticeably since then (in those areas that really count)? From what you listed as their strengths and weaknesses, you could as well have talked about basically any modern RPG. I mean, what does 'interaction with NPCs' come down to eventually? You can click through loads of pop up text menus, that's basically it.

Well, not compared to the better gold box games. (POR had interface problems, secret of the silver blades had design problems; it was just a big mine) There really aren't a lot of interface problems once you're used to it and the controls are 100x easier to get used to than nethack or something.)

They were not lacking for plot, but it's true you usually didn't have a dialog menu with

1. Yes, we'll help you
2. What's in it for us?
3. No, we're evil, die.

like in modern RPGs, (although rarely they did include that kind of thing) . But you still get a decent amount of NPCS talking AT you. At least in my fuzzy memories though, that's not such a bad thing. For example, if you played TOEE the town of Homlet was just one of the most boring things ever, even though it had tons of those dialog menus mentioned above. In a gold box game you'd walk into a couple buildings, see some cool little graphics squares, read a little text, possibly hear a midi and quickly get to the adventure, rather than wasting an hour plus on horrible quests. Admittedly, Homlet is worse than most modern rpg towns, but still.

As far as the battle system goes? I feel RPGs haven't really evolved much at all. TOEE had better tactical battles than the gold box games, but I'd say the Gold Box games had better tactical battles than say Fallout or KOTOR. The AD&D rules were simulated quite nicely and the plot encounters were usually quite challenging. A nice aspect of the Gold Box games compared to modern TB games is that with the limited animation set, the TB combat moved fast, you didn't have to wait around for people to do a slow walk animation across the screen. This was key because they often times made you fight huge amounts of enemies. Frankly this is a big problem with later TB games that wasn't present in the gold box games, nowadays it's too often a choice between slow ass walking animations and not fully showing enemy moves, and losing information.

One area where RPGs have evolved past the gold box standard is random encounters. The Gold Box games had too many and often they were pretty boring and untactical, just designed to wear you down.

I'm not sure if this is just due to the internet, or actually a change, but I recall a lot of times in the Gold Box games where I had no idea what to do and had to wander around searching for a way to continue the plot, which seems a lot less common in modern rpgs. I think a lot of it was the fact that you usually had to step on a specific tile to trigger the next event and there wasn't usually a sprite or anything there to indicate it was the trigger, you just had to step on it.

Overall though, if modern RPGs were more like the Gold Box games, I'd be playing a lot more RPGs through to the end.

edit: Oh yeah, Gold Box full party + 2 joinable npcs was a very solid setup that I wish more games would have used, it's great to be able to design your party to properly support each other, unlike BG, on the other hand, zero joinable NPCs like IWD/Dark Sun is a bit boring plotwise, it just fundamentally makes sense in an RPG for npcs to be able join you and fight.

 

[Thrasher]

Frankly this is a big problem with later TB games that wasn't present in the gold box games, nowadays it's too often a choice between slow ass walking animations and not fully showing enemy moves, and losing information.

or using a mod to increase the animation speed to be tolerable during battles (but ridiculous looking). I'm thinking of POR 2...

 

[Grindstone_82]

1. Yes, we'll help you
2. What's in it for us?
3. No, we're evil, die.

hahaha, yes. :D

And I usually go with options 2 or 3, because i have been spoiled by older RPGs that did not even offer these basic choices but force you to be good. So it gives you the illusion of actual freedom in the game

 

[kris]

But to those who have played the games... do you feel that CRPGs have evolved noticeably since then (in those areas that really count)?

Yeah, and in a wrong way. Somehow even the better ones (like TOEE or Prelude to Darkness) still fail to capture same kind of fun one may find in goldbox series. As for the rest, in a quest for "roleplay" and "c&c" and "immersion" and "interaction" somehow good gameplay was lost in process.

And I won't even start on "action RPGs", whatever they are.

apart from this latest devolvation in RPGs they have evolved a lot. The Gold box games had linear stories where people just talked to you in general and they consisted mainly of fighting against large groups of enemies. I generally annihilated populations matching small nations in them. Not havign played all I know that the later ones slowly began to implement some modern features.

 

[Saxon1974]

Darn, went back to try and give MM1 a shot on the Vice C64 emulator and most of the copies I found of the game are missing disk C, and the one I did find that has disk C the game won't recongnize the disk.

Anyone know how to get MM1 working on a C64 emulator?

 

[mirrorshades]

Was just poking around MobyGames, and found these two games listed in with SSI's Gold Box series:

Buck Rogers: Countdown to Doomsday
Buck Rogers: Matrix Cubed

Wow. They look... um... yeah. Anyone ever play one of these?

"Let's Play" thread, anyone?

 

[Zakhal]

Im planning to one day.They are definetly unique among gold box games. I thought of buying them too (nice box & manuals) but they were released only on 3,5" disks. All my diskdrives broke down ages ago. Shame that they never released them in any collection.

 

[Saxon1974]

They seem to be well reviewed, but I just can't seem to get interested in the setting.

 

[kristian]

I played Countdown to Doomsday back-in-the-day.

It is pretty much your standard Goldbox game, but with a nice retro-space (i.e Buck Rogers) feel to it. Kind of KotoR meets Spelljammer meets Azure Bonds

There are a few nice innovations, such as the ship-tp-ship combat (You don't pilot the ship but instead target / defend critical systems etc IIRC - all skill based). Good characters and story, a nice section that is reminscent (or stolen from) of "Alien" & "Aliens". I can't remember any specifics about C&C etc, but I'm pretty sure they were as good as (or as limited as) any of the later SSI AD&D games. There are plenty of different weapons, melee and ranged (Vibroswords kind of thing to rocket launders (aka Fireball), and of course, no spells!

I really enjoyed it at the time, but that could just be nostalgia talking though!

 

[Pussycat669]

"Let's Play" thread, anyone?

Done and done

 

[ghostdog]

The setting is far superior than the standard high fantasy bullshit that dominates rpg's.
You can get them here and here

 

[mirrorshades]

"Let's Play" thread, anyone?

Done and done

Holy crap.

 

[Zomg]

The first one is pretty fun - the ship-to-ship fights are interesting. Probably not worth actually finishing. The second is worse.