GOG - Forgotten Realms: The Archives

Endless hours of turn-based tactical hack -n- slay.

…guess I'll have to buy the white album again…

You have to love how CD Projekt relentlessly pursues these old games that are stuck in licensing hell and just makes it happen so that the whole gaming community of enthusiasts benefit.

another frown for the missing krynn games, those were the absolute best!

In the case of EoB I guess all rights are at EA now as they acquired Westwood. Short story.

Edit: Just realizing that Westwood and SSI split…and SSI continued without Westwood…so EA might not have had the rights…hrm

Now if I want to do a let's play, whom to ask for permission?
Unfortunately they aloso don't list the current license holder.

Originally Posted by HiddenX
I'm missing my beloved Krynn series…

They were my favorite of the Goldbox series as well.

Also missing are the two SSI Ravenloft games. Stone Prophet in particular was excellent.

Are there stories to these or is it predominately fighting?

EotB has some story (but less than Stonekeep or Lands of Lore, more than Dungeon Master) can't speak for the rest though.

The Gold Box games have pretty good stories overall. Obviously they're not voice-acted or full of cutscenes, requiring some reading (in an external book, no less!), which seems to mean "no story" to a lot of kids these days.

Originally Posted by Kordanor
In the case of EoB I guess all rights are at EA now as they acquired Westwood. Short story.

Edit: Just realizing that Westwood and SSI split…and SSI continued without Westwood…so EA might not have had the rights…hrm

There is a reason, why Westwood did Lands of Lore next after EoB2. Westwood never had the rights, it was always SSI. On top of that, you also need a D&D licence from Wizards.

Originally Posted by Sacred_Path
fewer and fewer reasons for abandonware sites to exist… sad actually

Not sure about that - GoG mainly seems to pick up games of a certain caliber. Far more than just some obscure niche games remain in the sole domain of abandonware, so future games historians will really owe those sites.

Originally Posted by Kordanor
In the case of EoB I guess all rights are at EA now as they acquired Westwood. Short story.

Edit: Just realizing that Westwood and SSI split…and SSI continued without Westwood…so EA might not have had the rights…hrm

Now if I want to do a let's play, whom to ask for permission?
Unfortunately they aloso don't list the current license holder.

I thought SSI was owned by Ubisoft now. SSI originally became part of Mindscape, which was acquired by Ubisoft, so I assume that they own the rights.

The GOG listings have them as being GOG published rather than Ubi/ SSI/ EA. That isn't the case for any other Ubi/ EA game so it seems likely neither has the publishing rights at least.

The rights for the games were meant to be pretty complicated so a situation like the publishing rights reverting to Hasbro/ Wizards and the copyright being held by EA/ Ubi and agreement with both being needed before release seems a strong possibility.

I'm surprised it took so long for these to finally get released in digital form.

That said, I'm not sure how many people will be able to really enjoy them if they don't have the nostalgia from playing them years ago.

Ah, another set of games to buy, just to have them

Originally Posted by Zygo
The GOG listings have them as being GOG published rather than Ubi/ SSI/ EA. That isn't the case for any other Ubi/ EA game so it seems likely neither has the publishing rights at least.

The rights for the games were meant to be pretty complicated so a situation like the publishing rights reverting to Hasbro/ Wizards and the copyright being held by EA/ Ubi and agreement with both being needed before release seems a strong possibility.

Should be the same like System Shock 2. It's not, that Nightdive has the Copyrights now, but they have a licence from all stakeholders to act as publisher. Same for this collection.

Originally Posted by JDR13
That said, I'm not sure how many people will be able to really enjoy them if they don't have the nostalgia from playing them years ago.

Honestly, for me, it's too old. This said, it's absolutely great, that they are releasing it again for all who care.

Originally Posted by Avantenor
Should be the same like System Shock 2. It's not, that Nightdive has the Copyrights now, but they have a licence from all stakeholders to act as publisher. Same for this collection.

Yeah, just with GOG in the Night Dive role as they have been for a few other old titles. I'm surprised it actually took them so long to start doing that.

I have only played Champions of Krynn as far as the Goldbox games go, so I am eager to check out some of the others.

In fact, I almost overpaid for a raggedy used copy of the Forgotten Realms Archives off of ebay the other day but then I decided to just wait and hope that GOG would get them. Lucky timing for me.

ahh Pool of Radiance. Really the game that made gaming for me and got me into pen an paper gaming (and still continues today!).

Its the first game I remember where once you cleaned out an area.. it stayed cleaned out. No foul repopulation. And the monster fights felt.. right. You didnt have this mix and match of Greater Demons and Giant Ants attacking you (M&M1).

I never enoyed my henchmen turning on me though.

You are right though, there are the Dragonlance games, the Buck Rogers games, Al Qadim ,Dark Sun, Ravenloft, Spelljammer!

Originally Posted by Menigal
I had that one, too. Was that the box that had all the cd's just slipped into slits in the cardboard at an angle, or am I mixing it up with another one?

Yep, that's the one! I've since put my cds more safely into cases to avoid any scratching damage. But it's definitely a memorable box for its presentation.

Have to agree on the desirability of the Krynn trilogy and the two Buck Roger's games.
I didn't quite beat Matrix Cubed either, so that'd be another nice bit of motivation.

I've tested the EotB games: All three worked well, including the music of which I hadn't heard in years.

The second Dark Sun was even better IMHO. I remember playing the game cd in my
stereo because the soundtrack was just amazing. It was glorious. Also, the final battle of Dark Sun 2 was the epitome of epic, fighting one of the craziest monsters ever invented for D&D.

Edit: I wonder if they could make the Dark Sun MMO playable somehow… I really wanted to play it, but my internet speed prevented that… or was it bugs. Can't remember now.

Originally Posted by Menigal
Hillsfar's in the second collection with the rest of the Pools series. Or at least it's listed as bring a part of it. How much of the original NWN would work now, since it was an online game?

I really hope they release the Dark Sun games. The first one was amazing and should be better remembered than it is today. I never could get the second one to work well enough to get very far.