GoG has released a Forgotten Realms Archive collection

[Fingolfin269]

For those looking for some nostalgia...



Pools of Radiance

Pools of Darkness

Curse of the Azure Bonds

Eye of the Beholder

Etc.

etc.



http://www.gog.com/forum/general/release_forgotten_realms_the_archives_a239d/page1

The Archives are a set of thirteen D&D GoldBox classics packaged across three collections:

--Forgotten Realms: The Archives - Collection One features Eye of the Beholder I, II, and III. It's the three and only, the gold-standard in classic RPG dungeon crawling.



--Forgotten Realms: The Archives - Collection Two features more gameplay hours and secrets than we could ever count - with Pool of Radiance, Hillsfar, Curse of the Azure Bonds, Gateway to the Savage Frontier, Pools of Darkness, Secret of the Silver Blades, Treasures of the Savage Frontier, and D&D: Unlimited Adventures.



--Forgotten Realms: The Archives - Collection Three features near-infinite replay value and and an important chunk of RPG history with Dungeon Hack and Menzoberranzan.

I know what I'll be doing once I finally finish up Witcher 3. Rolf here I come.

 

[meson2000]

Nice! I loved those games. I beat Pool of Radiance, Curse of the Azure Bonds, Gateway to the Savage Frontier and Secret of the Silver Blades. I think I might have started Pools of Darkness way back in the day, but I don't believe I completed it. Might have to pull the trigger on these....

 

[Fingolfin269]

Hopefully by the time I get through these they'll have the Krynn games out.

 

[rivethead]

Oh happy day! I've been hoping and waiting for this. Lots of quality entertainment for $10/bundle.

 

[shortylickens]

What we REALLY need is a remake of Stone Prophet.

 

[DaveSimmons]

I played the heck out of PoR, SSB, CAB, PoD on my 12 MHz 80286 with 640K RAM, 65 MB hard drive, and 256-color VGA graphics. Not that they actually supported VGA, they were 320 x 240 16-color CGA.

I'm not sure even nostalgia glasses can stop the pain of those graphics 25 years later. Not to mention the brutal AD&D 1 rule set. Resurrection? Not for elves, and humans lose 1 CON point forever.

 

[lupi]

Believe I just requested this in another thread, seems they weren't nearly as far behind doing it as some thought.

 

[DigDog]

i never beat pool of radiance; i actually never made it out of the first dungeon. too many goblins for 1st level characters.

and i never played secret of the silver blades. but i did beat the rest of them, including the krynn series.

 

[Fingolfin269]

I wasn't a fan of Secret of the Silver Blades mainly because the maps were so huge and wouldn't fit on my graphing paper. Can't remember if I ever finished that one or not.

Definitely planning on picking these up for $10. I may only play for 5 minutes but there's always a chance I'd actually play through Pools of Radiance in its entirety again. That would easily be worth $10 to me.

Speaking of playing the GoG games...

Does anyone know if these old games released via GoG still require some type of special handling to run properly on modern PCs? Or have they already taken care of that on their end?

 

[rivethead]

Does anyone know if these old games released via GoG still require some type of special handling to run properly on modern PCs? Or have they already taken care of that on their end?

I was just coming to ask a similar question. I can't tell if GOG.com is just bundling these games with some type of DOS emulator, or if they've tweaked them to run directly on modern PCs and Macs. Or if any other enhancement has been done.

Right now the old Bards Tale games (I-III) are being enhanced by Old Skuul (who's CEO is the original coder of those games). She's taking the code, enhancing some of the music and graphics and UI and making such that you won't need an emulator to run them.

Curious if anything like that has been done to these Forgotten Realms titles......

 

[DaveSimmons]

For existing versions of games like this they normally ship with DOSbox which emulates old PCs for new PCs - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DOSBox

GoG does not do HD remakes, their devs are busy with the Witcher series.

 

[rivethead]

For existing versions of games like this they normally ship with DOSbox which emulates old PCs for new PCs - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DOSBox

GoG does not do HD remakes, their devs are busy with the Witcher series.

That's what I figured. Which then makes this product curious as I appear to see legitimate free ways to play Pool of Radiance (and others) through emulators out on the net....

I guess with the GOG games you get all the goodies too like manuals and code wheels....

 

[cronos]

I bought the boxed 'Forgotten Realms Archive Silver Collection' (or something similar) back around 2000-2001 which contains basically all of Volumes 1-3, and was able to play them through DosBox. These came with all the manuals and copy protection/translation rings as well, which is pretty neat. I am still tempted to buy these again now, though. I'd love to have them all listed in my GoG library.

If GoG comes out with the Dragonlance series I'll definitely buy them. I do have a copy of these as well, but I collected them from abandonware sites. I don't think they came out with an actual boxed collection for these like the Forgotten Realms. (Note: I did buy and play all the originals back in the 80s/90s, so that's my justification for this particular piracy )

 

[cronos]

I wasn't a fan of Secret of the Silver Blades mainly because the maps were so huge and wouldn't fit on my graphing paper. Can't remember if I ever finished that one or not.

I started with PoR but didn't finish it. It was just too hard. I finished all of the rest, starting with Secret of the Silver Blades. Somewhere in the middle I got ahold of the 'Clue Book' for PoR (I think I borrowed it from a friend), which is basically a walkthrough book, complete with tips and tricks for defeating every single area. I finally finished PoR using this book.

Definitely planning on picking these up for $10. I may only play for 5 minutes but there's always a chance I'd actually play through Pools of Radiance in its entirety again. That would easily be worth $10 to me.

PoR is a little tough, especially because of the interface and gameplay is so slow and inefficient (no mouse or at least terrible mouse support, resting is 'real time'- no 'fix'). I tried, and failed to continue further than the first two maps. Starting from Silver Blades the interface and gameplay is much much better.

I would love to get a chance to replay everything and actually complete the series from the beginning, carrying over all my characters from the first game. I believe I brought my characters from Silver Blades all the way through. By Pool of Darkness they're like superheroes

Speaking of playing the GoG games...

Does anyone know if these old games released via GoG still require some type of special handling to run properly on modern PCs? Or have they already taken care of that on their end?

As mentioned, it should come with DosBox already bundled, so they took care of the compatibility issues and setting DosBox up with the games.

 

[Fingolfin269]

PoR is a little tough, especially because of the interface and gameplay is so slow and inefficient (no mouse or at least terrible mouse support, resting is 'real time'- no 'fix'). I tried, and failed to continue further than the first two maps. Starting from Silver Blades the interface and gameplay is much much better.

That sucks. I haven't played this since late 80s / early 90s so don't really remember that as much. I guess like any other series improvements are made along the way that can make what you remember as an awesome experience not being the same when you try to relive that experience.

I'll probably at least try to get through the slums and see what I think at that point.

 

[Rhezuss]

Menzo! Wow that is cool news!

 

[alcoholbob]

I can't play anything older than the Infinity Engine. Just can't...that's where I draw the line. So it looks like Siege of Dragonspear for me later this year...

 

[DigDog]

agreed. i tried playing one of the krynn ones a year back and .. man, they are just too old. too rudimentary.
and the krynn series was one of the advanced ones, too.

 

[DaveSimmons]

It's too bad the Pool of Radiance reboot was supposedly awful even if you ignored that uninstalling it would destroy Windows system files. I have fond, if vague and nostalgia-enhanced, memories of playing all of the PoR...PoD and Krynn games.

 

[cronos]

It's too bad the Pool of Radiance reboot was supposedly awful even if you ignored that uninstalling it would destroy Windows system files. I have fond, if vague and nostalgia-enhanced, memories of playing all of the PoR...PoD and Krynn games.

Wait, which reboot is this? This one?

I don't think I've seen that before. It came out around the time where I don't play any computer games.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Yes, that's the fetid pile of goo I was thinking of. It wasn't a HD remake, it was a reimagining or failed successor.