Introduction to Gold box games

Originally Posted by bkrueger
But for some people Baldur's Gate was the beginning of the end of CRPGs. Only Goldbox RPGs are true CRPGs!!!11!

I'm very curious concerning these gold box games. I never had the chance to play any and I know only the basic : They were made during the late '80 and early '90. They use the AD&D ruleset and have a top down view.

On wikipedia, I found this list :

The Pool of Radiance Forgotten Realms series (developed internally at SSI):
Pool of Radiance (1988)
Curse of the Azure Bonds (1989)
Secret of the Silver Blades (1990)
Pools of Darkness (1991)
The Savage Frontier Forgotten Realms series (developed by Stormfront Studios):
Gateway to the Savage Frontier (1991)
Neverwinter Nights, the first graphical MMORPG, for AOL (1991)
Treasures of the Savage Frontier (1992)
The Dragonlance series (the first two developed by SSI, the last by MicroMagic, Inc.):
Champions of Krynn (1990)
Death Knights of Krynn (1991)
The Dark Queen of Krynn (1992)
The Buck Rogers games (developed by SSI):
Countdown to Doomsday (1990)
Matrix Cubed (1992)
Spelljammer: Pirates of Realmspace (1992)
Forgotten Realms: Unlimited Adventures (1993)

I wonder, are these games still playable? Which one would be the best and/or easiest to discover the genre? Is it still possible to buy them somewhere?

Thanks!

Part of me really wants to play these old games, but every time I try, either technical issues or just straight up "why am i playing this?" happens

Baldur's Gate is The Beginning, for me. It seems to be the benchmark

GOG has a good smattering of these oldies, i just installed Ravenloft and ALMOST started playing it

Originally Posted by xSamhainx
Part of me really wants to play these old games, but every time I try, either technical issues or just straight up "why am i playing this?" happens

Baldur's Gate is The Beginning, for me.

That has also been pretty much my relation with these old games. But I thought perhaps that watchers here could make this step easier.

For example GoG has some of them them as part of the "Forgotten Realms: The Archives - Collection", consisting of several parts. Also some as "Dungeons & Dragons: Krynn Series". Completely playable with DOSBox, which is usually already included in the GoG versions (but I didn't check that).

By the way I never played them, only wanted to make fun of the NCRPG fans. But several people at RPGWatch have played them and can tell more about them…

I love them, and they're still very playable. I just played through a few fanmade (and super excellent) modules for Forgotten Realms Unlimited Adventures. Going back to finish Temple of Elemental Evil in FRUA sometime, it's a behemoth of an adventure! Ray Dyer really did remarkable work translating the tabletop module classics into FRUA adventures. Good luck on your search. <3

What's the most "accessible" of the oldies?

is there one among them that really shines?

Several people mentioned the Krynn Trilogy (Dragonlance) as beeing well playable. See this 2012 thread about it. Edit: DArtagnan found PoR to be the best…

Originally Posted by xSamhainx
What's the most "accessible" of the oldies?

is there one among them that really shines?

They're all great IMO. Pool of Radiance is a good one that a lot of people like if I had to pick one out, but also the 1993 Forgotten Realms Unlimited Adventures is SUPER good if you figure out how to download modules for it. I'd recommend "The Realm" series of modules found here - https://www.flopsyville.com/Bravenet-TheRealm/Menu.htm

The CRPGAddict completed a few Gold Box games I believe.
Here's an article on Pool of Radiance. It might give you an inclination as to whether you would like to play it or any of the others.

First post:
http://crpgaddict.blogspot.com/2011/…ance-1988.html


Contains all of them, but you have to scroll down and click on Older Posts to see more:
http://crpgaddict.blogspot.com/searc…0of%20Radiance

Hehe, I just posted a message about these games not ten minutes ago! I'll simply state facts: these games are amongst the very best in computer gaming, assuming the genre appeals to the player. I've probably played each of them at least four or five times, and Pools of Radiance more like a dozen back in the day. Knights Chalice is a modern version of what the gold box games represents, so there's another to consider. By today's standards the gold box games might appear a bit dated yet the story, exploration and mechanics are beyond solid. You should really give them a try, they shouldn't be too harsh on the wallet.

Several of those games, and references to the Gold Box series, can be found in The CRPG Book, sometimes with links to patches or a piece of advice (no guarantee they're still up-to-date).

You can check the pdf version. If you don't already have it, which I doubt --> https://crpgbook.files.wordpress.com…book_2.0-1.pdf

I can't get into Baldur's Gate these days, let alone this "Gold Box" stuff.

If you do end up interested enough to try, Forgotten Realms: The Archives Collection Two is currently 75% off in GOG's summer sale. It contains seven games (Pool of Radiance, Curse of the Azure Bonds, Hillsfar, Secret of the Silver Blades, Pools of Darkness, Gateway to the Savage Frontier, Treasures of the Savage Frontier) and the Forgotten Realms Unlimited Adventures toolkit.

The Dragonlance gold box titles are also available on GOG but are not on sale at the moment.

I played many of the Gold Box games in the early 2000s many years after the original release. My favourites are the Krynn series and PoR.
The games are only fun for gamers who can tolerate old GFX and GUIs.
They are challenging and have no "handholding" features like questmarkers or automapping.

I can still do the IE games, but I can't do the Gold Box titles. I didn't get into PC gaming until 4-5 years after the last of those.

The closest I came was playing Ravenloft: Strahd's Possession. I couldn't finish it though, and I'm not sure if that's considered a Gold Box game anyways.

I'd love to see someone recreate them with more modern visuals.

Originally Posted by JDR13
I'd love to see someone recreate them with more modern visuals.

There is the Pool of Radiance: Remastered module for NWN2, but of course it won't have the same combat system.

Originally Posted by Nereida
I can't get into Baldur's Gate these days, let alone this "Gold Box" stuff.

harsh!

Originally Posted by JaakkoPeltonen
If you do end up interested enough to try, Forgotten Realms: The Archives Collection Two is currently 75% off in GOG's summer sale.

Solid
$2.50, at that

I would probably add a willingness to examine the manual and journal. Probably need to be handy with paper and pen - mapping, clues & story. They tend to require focus and effort. By the way GOG provides the cluebooks.

Having said that, the nearest I came to these types of games were Eye of the Beholder (1 and 2), Ravenloft: Strahd's Possession and Ravenloft: Stone Prophet. EotB was the easiest but Stone Prophet was more interesting.

Now I really find that IE stuff is as far back as I can go. Not sure why.

I grew up on those games and played them all and loved them. Spent hours and hours with them. Could not play them now though … for the same reason I would not want to go back to washing clothes by hand knowing I could use a washing machine instead. I enjoyed them a lot but have more modern games to play now.

That being said I did play them and I played them A LOT. For those who never played them I could see maybe doing it for the experience of what it was like back then.

Originally Posted by wolfgrimdark
I grew up on those games and played them all and loved them. Spent hours and hours with them. Could not play them now though … for the same reason I would not want to go back to washing clothes by hand knowing I could use a washing machine instead. I enjoyed them a lot but have more modern games to play now.

That being said I did play them and I played them A LOT. For those who never played them I could see maybe doing it for the experience of what it was like back then.

Yeah, same basically. I remember reading the magazine article (probably in Ahoy) about SSI getting the license. I played a bunch, finished a few. I think the Krynn ones were probably my favorite; I finished a couple of things. One thing I never got around to that I wish I had was playing the Buck Rogers game(s).

But yeah, they're too archaic for me now.