Gold Box/FRUA Remasters

[dfortae]

Hello everyone!  I am dfortae, the creator of the Gold Box/FRUA remasters.  They are Windows applications (instead of DOS).  I've remastered 8 of them at this time (only 2 left - Dark Queen of Krynn and Pools of Darkness).

If you have any questions/comments, feel free to reach out (here or on my Discord under the Gold Box channel, which I will respond more quickly).  I especially want to know what pain points FRUA module creators have run into with FRUA over the years.  If possible, I'd like to incorporate a way to all them to create more advanced modules, if there were some things they couldn't do before (including with/without hacks).

You can download any of the remasters from my Discord server: https://discord.gg/yJXvw6M

Looking forward to meeting more AD&D fans!

[Milos Gulan]

Thanks so much for showing up here... I have downloaded all Your remasters and waiting for new ones too...

For me I am long Ad&d mostly 2e player, I have played other Ad&d computer games, but discovered FRUA and DC here in 2012.

I still have to play GoldBox games and they are totally new to me, but now I realized how good they are, so remasters are just one more step in improving what was really great... I played it a bit but decided to start from originals first... But I might do original and remastered version together after summer...

We sure here need some developing force... I love DC but unfortunately can't help much with improving it a lot... and yet need to learn to mod with FRUA despite being here for 14 years... But I have played really a lot FRUA great games....

And thanks again for joining this forum, it is actualy an honor to see people who can make wonderful things as those remastered version. I hope we will see more of it!
   

[dfortae]

Thank you for that welcome, Milos!  I totally understand about playing the originals first.  I think it's a great way to approach the Gold Box games in order to get the "true experience".

Yeah, I'm hoping that FRUA modders will share their pain points because I'd like to be able to expand FRUA way beyond the limits others have experienced.

Thanks again for the reply.

[Milos Gulan]

I really would like to see that happen. Thank You!

I will try to mod with it too. There are people here who can make wonders with FRUA, I still hope I will be one of them...

[rmgreen]

   Welcome, dfortae!

   I haven't had an opportunity to look at the project because I don't make use of social media, but speaking for myself, two things that would have been nice in core FRUA would have been a toggle to indicate if a location or encounter was aquatic, subject to all the impediments of underwater adventuring, and a countdown/count-up timer that can initiate other events. (I'd always felt that if you're too long in Skyrim, Alduin really should just destroy the universe.)

   Also, I know a past discussion in the forums mentioned the desirability of a "strip the party" event, where all items and money could be taken away if they were captured, for example.

   Just passing on my ideas, since you've asked. Thanks very much for expanding the scope of FRUA!

   Best wishes.

                                                 - Ronald -

[dfortae]

Welcome, dfortae!

   I haven't had an opportunity to look at the project because I don't make use of social media, but speaking for myself, two things that would have been nice in core FRUA would have been a toggle to indicate if a location or encounter was aquatic, subject to all the impediments of underwater adventuring, and a countdown/count-up timer that can initiate other events. (I'd always felt that if you're too long in Skyrim, Alduin really should just destroy the universe.)

   Also, I know a past discussion in the forums mentioned the desirability of a "strip the party" event, where all items and money could be taken away if they were captured, for example.

   Just passing on my ideas, since you've asked. Thanks very much for expanding the scope of FRUA!

   Best wishes.

                                                 - Ronald -

Excellent, thank you for the feedback/suggestions!  I'm sure I can make all of that happen, but let me double check what you mean by the timer...  Do you mean a stopwatch situation (real-time), where something would be running in the background, and then trigger based on the timer expiring?  Or do you just mean a trigger based on amount of time that passes in-game (like 5 days, 2 hours, 10 minutes passed)?  Either way, it's definitely something I can do.

[rmgreen]

   Thank you for the prompt response!

   I had been thinking in terms of an in-game timer which would keep track of the overall passage of time while adventuring/camping/travelling, in order to allow events to proceed on a timeline independent of party action.

   This was an issue in one adventure I designed in the context of a spreading war. Had an overall timer been available, different cities might have been accessible, closed under siege, or fighting for their life, depending on when the party got there. In another adventure, the party would have ideally been hired on a 90-day contract to recover an item, so they'd be racing the clock while facing the adventure. Introducing time as an active element allows for an additional impetus in adventures.

   Hope that helps. Best wishes.

                                             - Ronald -

[dfortae]

Sure thing.  Ok yeah, I understand what you're looking for.  Should definitely be able to do that. 

There would have to be an "initiate timer" type of event that would kick it off, in case you don't want it to be from the very beginning of the game (although that could be done as well).  Then, the amount of time that passed could be checked, and I could see a couple of options there.  1) It could trigger anywhere in the game (like a global counter no matter where you were), or 2) It could just be checked on an actual event or step trigger somewhere in the game.

I'm not bound to events only triggering on the current area loaded, I could have the event trigger an event for another area potentially.

The way I plan on extending past the limit of the FRUA creation portion is using external text files sitting on the file system for a given module.  I haven't done the architecture of what would be in those files yet, but it would basically have a filename similar to the area (something like 'events_5_9_25' where the 5 would be the area, 9 would be the x position, and 25 the y position.  The engine already has some things like that, but would do something special for the FRUA modules most likely.

That text file would be formatted in a way where you could create addition events, override events, triggers, etc., such as "starting the timer" you mentioned, and possibly one for "when timer > 5 days" type of mechanism, "trigger event 20 in area 7" for example.  Just trying to explain my plans for the future, not that it's going to work exactly like that.

[rmgreen]

   I believe I get the idea.

   Thanks again for your efforts expanding the scope of the game!

   Best wishes.

                                                 - Ronald -

[Milos Gulan]

Here are my thoughts... I remembered that FRUA had problems with class limits, so people developed hacks like for example for Oriental Adventures classes like ninja, samurai ect...

Maybe it could be possible like in Your remastered games to bring to FRUA classes from Unearthed Arcana like my first char Illusionist, then others Cavalier, Barbarian, Thief Acrobat, Assassin, Bard ect... Then also Oriental adventure classes like Monk, Ninja, Samurai, Wu jen and others...

This is all 1e now I am not sure about all classes of 1e but I wish I could have it all in one and make something like FRUA remastered version... Now Arabian Adventures (FR Zakhara) and other Campaign Set specific classes (DL, DS ect), and Class kits (Specialized handbooks) are 2e but I really like them too yet and would like to have them too....

That probably would need 2e kits and classes to convert to 1e or something so we could have something like 1.5e (1e and 2e compatible engine), I am not sure about levels 2e should probably be a bit leveled down... Anyway that is what I wanted to see in DC, meaning all classes and kits from both 1e and 2e in one engine, and it would be possible there I guess only if we could make it... Though developing that is maybe more complicated, at least for me I am still learning to mod with editor but more complex things like some engine functions are still above my knowledge... But I need to learn it too...

I hope it is not too much to ask... DC is very good and newer but FRUA seems to still be much more stable... Also if somehow graphics could be improved, ect... I guess I could make a list like various languages support for example to have option for simultaneous entries in multiple languages (Serbian for me but why not others like Italian, French, Polish, German, Spanish ect). Now it is much easier to translate things with AI so translating is not that much complictaed and I think good modules could have options just to switch languages easy with one click option. That is option I wish for DC too. Language barrier is serious thing for examle me speaking 40 years english but still when I play I don't get up to 10% all english good....

Just tell me if this was helpful, I probably could go on like this... But I think it would be cool. Hope we can make Improved FRUA version     

[dfortae]

Hi there Milos.  Thank you for the thoughts and feedback!

I have implemented all 1st edition classes from Unearthed Arcana and Dragonlance (SSI hadn't done any UA and not all the Dragonlance classes).  Those can already be enabled in-game by the right-click context menu.  All the features have been implemented for those as well.

As far as Oriental Adventures, I will most likely implement all those classes and races as well at some point (again, right-click context menu enabled).  I could put in a text file option to "force enable" certain races/classes in order to make an entire module be in a certain setting.

As far as 1st edition vs. other editions, I'm not really that interested in any edition besides 1st.  I think 1st edition is the best, once it's implemented the way Gary Gygax designed it.  SSI left out so many 1st edition rules that it seems a lot worse than it should.  As I have implemented most of the rules (and still doing so) for 1st edition, the games really shine now.  My goal is to see Gary Gygax's vision fully implemented, since no video game has ever done that.

That's not to say I will NEVER implement some other ruleset, but it's definitely so far down on the priority list for me, that I'm not even considering that at this time.

As far as the language barrier, there is a problem with the way the engine displays characters.  It has separate characters for each alphabet character...  So in order to translate text AND DISPLAY IT in-game, that's a big problem.  The translation part could potentially be done, but the display in-game would be very difficult.

I do have a right-click Debug Internal Log that players can view right now (shows all calculations/rolls/details of what's happening in-game) as a popup window.  I could potentially have a similar concept of a language translation popup window that could display (in windows, not in-game) translations.  Or, I could just display the English text there and someone could have some other program reading the text written to it, but not sure how helpful that would be.

So again, classes/races have been expanded far beyond the original games (to their fullness, not just a 'hack' of a class), but all 1st edition.  It gives the players a tremendous amount of options and tactics and completely renews potential in many modules!  Lots more ways to deal with in-game challenges now.

Thanks again for the requests/comments/feedback.

[jhirvonen]

I haven't tried the remasters yet, so you might already have something like this implemented, but an idea for the UI:

Make it possible to mark weapon sets in the inventory. By pressing "1" or "2" you can mark one or two items per set, e.g. press "1" on two items to mark a sword and a shield, then press "2" on another two items to mark a bow and arrows. The inventory would show "1" or "2" beside the marked items or use some color coding.

Then, when in combat, you could just press 1 or 2 directly to swap between the sets, without going into the inventory screen. Or just one key to switch between the sets.

Some items have effects (berserker sword, dragonlance, and what not) so it might get tricky to implement. I had this idea for Gold Box Companion but decided it was too difficult to do as I do nothing with the actual game code, and probably would have needed to use some dummy effect.

Another idea:

Make it possible to enlarge the combat screen by completely minimizing the right side, toggleable during combat?

Are the remasters based on the Simeon Pilgrim's C# version of CotAB?

[Milos Gulan]

Thanks for answer. I am using only English letters for Serbian language... So it is workable to translate from English to Serbian in any engine... Here is how it looks like in DC :)

[dfortae]

I haven't tried the remasters yet, so you might already have something like this implemented, but an idea for the UI:

Make it possible to mark weapon sets in the inventory. By pressing "1" or "2" you can mark one or two items per set, e.g. press "1" on two items to mark a sword and a shield, then press "2" on another two items to mark a bow and arrows. The inventory would show "1" or "2" beside the marked items or use some color coding.

Then, when in combat, you could just press 1 or 2 directly to swap between the sets, without going into the inventory screen. Or just one key to switch between the sets.

Some items have effects (berserker sword, dragonlance, and what not) so it might get tricky to implement. I had this idea for Gold Box Companion but decided it was too difficult to do as I do nothing with the actual game code, and probably would have needed to use some dummy effect.

Another idea:

Make it possible to enlarge the combat screen by completely minimizing the right side, toggleable during combat?

Are the remasters based on the Simeon Pilgrim's C# version of CotAB?

Thanks for the ideas/feedback jhirvonen.  I don't have an option to quick toggle, but I did think about doing something like that a long time ago.  I'm sure I'll implement something eventually.

Yes, I took Simeon's decompile/conversion he did from the original Curse engine and re-factored it to my style/architecture.  Most of that original code isn't recognizable anymore with all the changes/expansion, but it was used as the base originally.

[Mechanaut]

 Impressive results dfortae!  Thank you for doing these!

Is it feasible to overlay the circumference of the AOE spells during targeting?
...Especially when not centered; to have it follow the built in targeting square, and be different for Ice Storm, Cloud Kill, Fireball, Cone of Cold, and others.