This topic contains 14 replies, has 10 voices, and was last updated by 
mfdoll 9 years, 9 months ago.
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We wanted to create a specific Forum for discussing your favorite games (including those SSI classics).
Everything from the Warp Factor through Neverwinter Nights… 🙂
So…seeing as this is apparently the proper forum (which I get the need for):
*What was the backstory behind ‘Oh, well’ at the end of Dave’s Challenge in PoD?
*Why didn’t we get to fight Manshoon?
*Why did we have a pretty nice remake of Queen of the Demonweb Pits (complete with the portal in the temple) with a Marilith, rather than Lolth, at the end? Were you not allowed to kill off TSR’s signature characters? Heck, by 30th level, I’d have thought *Bane* would be the final boss…
Nice to see someone with detailed memories of some of SSI’s classic gold box games. The questions you ask deal with issues where SSI is using TSR’s properties. Both Manshoon and Lolth were tightly controlled by TSR, and they did not want anything done to them in Pools of Darkness. Same with any named TSR character. Without doing an original IP, you do what the owner’s say.
Dave’s Challenge was an idea from my then boss, Victor, to have a difficult mission, after players commented on the difficulty of some of my missions, like Pool of Radiance’s Kobold Caves. Since it was just an off-the-cuff idea, and I was already splitting time between Pools and Dark Sun, it never really got the polish it deserved.
–David
Thanks Dave! Never though I’d actually be ‘virtually’ talking to Dave of Dave’s Challenge!
How much thought did you give to the ‘palettes’ of the other dimensions? Seems like the spider dimension’s all in purple, and Moander’s in green, red, and orange. Or was that just a coincidence?
Ahh.. the goldbox games. I remember reading a review of Pool of Radiance in Commodore User and thinking THAT’S THE GAME FOR ME!
It was. Oh man, how it was! But it wasn’t easy getting the game since I was (am) living in Sweden. At least once a week since reading the review I went to the local games store and asked for it. It took months and months before i could lay my hands on a copy for my old trusty c64.
After playing Pool on my 64 and then Champions of Krynn (and all the rest) on my Amiga i was left wanting for more.. and have been ever since. Sure, there’ve been a few other gems in the years since, MOM in particular, but nothing’s ever come close to the feeling of playing the latest Gold Box game.I salute you for doing this and from the bottom of my heart: THANK YOU for bringing back hope to this CRPG-junkie. 🙂
/Jonas
Hey David – I’m curious what work you did on Dark Sun. How long was the whole development process? You must have started pretty early in the existence of the franchise (or even before it was released) given how new the campaign setting was at the time the game came out?
Hey CraigR, I was the initial producer and designer on Dark Sun. It was an 18 month development cycle and I was there for the first nine. This was the new setting TSR was launching, so they wanted to involve us early in the process. So we got their materials just as they shipped them, plus some insider info prior to print.
Hello all, especially the devs of TSI, my teen-age heroes!
I’m currently writing a , over at the Obsidian forums. It’s going well so far, both the old-schoolers going down Memory Lane and the younger ones whom are curious about the classics seem be enjoying it. I invite you follow the chapters of my adventures. Warning: the tone is often tongue-in-cheek. I’m 40 now, and can’t really take a heroic story as seriously as when I was wide-eyed and 15. I hope the devs, if any of them reads the Let’s Play, won’t get offended, and instead have a good laugh now and then!
The forum software removed the link from the previous post. Is this auto-moderation? Because I’m a fresh registration, and posted a link, mistaking me for a spambot? Admins, please restore the link.
My favorite Gold Box game was Curse of the Azure Bonds. I liked that characters started at 5th level, because I had a folder full of characters which had previous pen and paper adventuring experience, and none of them were still 1st level characters. When a character starts at level 1, they must kill enough Rats (or Skeletons or Kobolds) to get to level 2 before the plot becomes interesting and starts to make any sense. Curse of the Azure Bonds also had a nice adventure hook which got my characters involved in the story right away. I enjoyed that I could visit Haptooth Tower, Yulash, and Zhentil Keep in any order I chose. I dislike games that railroad my characters into a single course of action, or that don’t allow my characters to explore the world freely. I particularly dislike the Eye of the Beholder games, which required you to find a key in Dungeon N that opens the door from Dungeon N to Dungeon N+1. Some of the Gold Box games did a better job at allowing free exploration than others did.
From Pools of Radiance through to Pools of Darkness, From Champions of Krynn through to Dark Queen of Krynn, so many hours of fun (mixed with a little frustration when things go awry).
I loved the way Pools of Radiance started gently, easing your inexperienced band of adventurers into the story and grew more difficult as time went by, Valhingen Graveyard anyone?.
Stoked that there may be a game coming that might have the same ‘feel’ as the games I grew up with and still play now.To be fair, it’s not just the games though.. the books played their parts as well. Pool of Radiance and Pools of Darkness in particular (read them both if you haven’t done so.. read them again if you already have!) sucked me into the Realms bigtime, and I’ve never left. Thanks SSI and TSR for that! 🙂
That being said, I really hope SDS gives me that same feeling I got all those years ago. I so miss that “itch” from not playing for an entire schoolday.
BTW, is it just me that still fondly remembers the grinning face from Silver Blades?
Creating atmosphere in addition to solid game play mechanics is very important. Many games today take advantage of multiplayer but we’re looking forward to crafting a strong single player experience that rekindles those fond memories of old.
I grew up playing the SSI Goldbox Series. Absolutely some of my favorite games of all time, and the reason I became a PC gamer. When I was a kid, a family friend gave me an old computer and a shopping bag full of games, but the SSI ones were the only ones that really grabbed me. I probably spent about a decade playing through them all, some of them multiple times. It’s tragic though, since as I tend to dislike most other RPGs. Other games either lack the control the the SSI series afforded in combat, or tend to play too slowly with the turn-based combat dragging on endlessly. I am so hyped to see more from you guys! To celebrate, I’m going to playtrough at least one of the classic in the meantime.
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