Gold Box Series Games?

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Hey guys, I noticed there's no forum for the AD&D Gold Box Series games? Anyone here play these? Or am I the only one?

 

Woo hoo!!! Playground!

 

I played those. Pool of Radiance and Curse of the Azure Bonds were my favorites.

 

Indeed.

Yes.

No.

 

Mystra, Should I take my ball and go?

 

Yep, several.
Full run through of Gold Box games - Boards o' Magick
https://sorcerers.net/community/threads/getting-gold-box-games-to-run.49159/
https://sorcerers.net/community/threads/game-that-best-follows-2nd-ed-ad-d-pnp-rules.48260/
I know there are several more not so obviously titled.

I myself remember them fondly, but seem to have nostalgia glasses since the graphics aren't that good by today's standards. However, back when my Apple IIGS was my only computer, I spent way too much time playing Pool of Radiance, Curse of the Azure Bonds, and Champions of Krynn. Those were the only three available for the Apple II family.
I wouldn't get to play the rest until fifteen years later when somebody gave me the Forgotten Realms Silver Edition.

 

Well, your graphics may not hold up to your looks back when you first played the Gold Box Games either...
Comparing really old games with nowadays standards would be like comparing your face in the mirror with a 30year old photo of you. I might even have had hair on top of my head back then and would not compare well myself.

Back then Pool of Radiance was a revelation after games that were fun, but looked like e.g. Wizardry or Ultima I...

I played Pool of Radiance on my C-64 back in the day, so you were lucky to experience the Apple II version.

 

It was for the Apple II family, I'm not sure it was any better or worse than the C64 version. I know it needed 128K of RAM, so I don't know how superior that was. The CotAB game had some noticeable improvements to the interface such as "fix" as well as the more powerful Paladin and Ranger (than fighters).

Speaking of which, was there any benefit to a plain human fighter over paladins or rangers? The only thing I saw was multiclassing options for demihumans and no alignment restrictions. Other than that, paladins and rangers seemed to have everything a fighter had to offer plus extra abilities such as the bonus against giant-class enemies and low-level spellcasting at high levels.

 

The C64 had 64 KB of RAM. That long ago - and I contemplated last week to get a new PC because my current one has only 4 GB RAM...

Mmmh, I just took a look and perhaps I had the Amiga version in mind and not the Apple II version - at least it does not look any better than the C64 screenshots:
https://www.mobygames.com/game/pool-of-radiance/screenshots

Paladins could be only humans. And in the later games singleclass humans who had no level maximum ruled. In the early two or three games of the series multi-class demi humans, e.g. dwarvish fighter/cleric or elven fighter/mage/thief did, because back then they had no experiencepoint maximum (like in Baldurs Gate) but a level maximum as far as i remember.

 

I have never used a Commodore computer. I'm aware that the C64 and C128 refer to the amount of RAM, and I know that the Gold Box games on the Apple II used 128K of RAM since I used the "Visit Monitor" and "Memory Peaker" CDAs (enable them until the computer is turned off by typing a # into the Apple IIGS monitor at the * prompt before you boot the game, only works on an Apple IIGS) to cheat and found that it used the second memory bank (01, should be shadowed to E1 on a IIGS) for data. Mostly all I did was give my characters 233 strength so they could haul all the coins from certain treasure drops back to town to be exchanged for platinum, I can't recall why you couldn't go higher than 0xE9, just that it seemed to screw up the weight carrying formula if you went higher. I've still got notes on how to do this in a box in mom's basement because those huge treasure drops where you could not possibly carry all the coins away bothered me. If you could make multiple trips like in BG I wouldn't be so upset, but once you exited the treasure screen it was lost forever.

There were level limits in all of them, but it was only really felt in the second. Although you could feel it a bit with halflings in the first if they had low strength they were stuck at fighter4.
By the third game demi-humans were useless except as pure thieves and you were better starting a human as a ranger or even fighter and dualing to thief as it gave better THAC0 and HP even if you dueled on creation (though better if you waited until at least level 9 or 13). This was better than a dwarven fighter9/thief because you got more HP on level up.

So, what was the benefit of a fighter over a ranger (or paladin) other than alignment, race, and multiclass restrictions?