Anyway, wouldn't it be great for the entire gaming community if those old games, source code and all, were made open source? The game engine itself is dated, and probably could not be sold in today's market. You can download all of them for free as abandonware now anyway. 1st edition rules are also a thing of ancient history. Wizards has all but abandoned the old game world stuff that was around in the TSR days. Why not just GPL the entire gold box series?
Assuming that Wizards owns the source code, the benefit to them would be drawing tons of people into D&D at virtually no cost to themselves. I couldn't see these games as a direct competitor to any current D&D electronic products. It would have zero consequence financially to do this. Just letting go a few old titles sitting on the shelf collecting dust.
Please, set gold box free.
Who owns the copyrights to the old "Gold Box" series of games? Is it whoever owns what's left of TSR? Is it Wizards?
Anyway, wouldn't it be great for the entire gaming community if those old games, source code and all, were made open source? The game engine itself is dated, and probably could not be sold in today's market. You can download all of them for free as abandonware now anyway. 1st edition rules are also a thing of ancient history. Wizards has all but abandoned the old game world stuff that was around in the TSR days. Why not just GPL the entire gold box series?
Assuming that Wizards owns the source code, the benefit to them would be drawing tons of people into D&D at virtually no cost to themselves. I couldn't see these games as a direct competitor to any current D&D electronic products. It would have zero consequence financially to do this. Just letting go a few old titles sitting on the shelf collecting dust.
Please, set gold box free.
So someone could edit them into 4E? :D
No really.
pDosBox (the p stands for portable) then I had to buy the later versions that came on cd (finding a 3.5 floppy drive was not gonna happen.) I also have all my infocom games on my phone.
I have them all, and still play them regularly on DOS BOX. Recently I got dos Box for my phone, and now I play my sweet sweet gold box games on my phone.
No really.
pDosBox (the p stands for portable) then I had to buy the later versions that came on cd (finding a 3.5 floppy drive was not gonna happen.) I also have all my infocom games on my phone.
How did you install them on your phone? I just found pdosbox, and have a motorola q and would like to know how so I could...
I have to be honest, I'm really surprised that we haven't seen (m)any games (outside of the MUD community) based on 3.5 SRD. Is it the license that's prohibitive? I was kind of harboring this fantasy that someone would create open source computer games based on my favorite 1st edition modules, but then I remembered the modules are not covered under the OGL (or whatever it's called now). I did try the NwN versions of some of these, but they were "eh" at best. Maybe if it were open source someone would do a MUD based on them. Now THAT would be a MUD worth playing!
Wizards and other companies have been dinking around with ways to extend PnP into the electronic realm.... How about text mud? Nothing (IMHO) resembles PnP more. Not only that, but the engines are already built. My biggest beef with MUD's is that for some ungodly reason, nobody can seem to make one true to first edition gaming. Why is that I wonder? They all seem to be based on the allegedly humorous world of Kilgore Trout (and other pseudo fantasy / sci-fi authors), or have semi-complete weapon / combat systems, or NPC's that resemble Wilson from that Tom Hanks movie. I'd love to see Wizards hand over the 1st edition modules and say "here... make MUD based on these". I'd be tempted to learn MUD coding if that happened. Game Table is close, but it's so utterly painful to create or even play a game in that software (probably because it's trying to be a generic platform for any game system). Maybe if someone forked it for a specific game system it would be better.
It's a real shame. Wizards has a ton of great material they could cut loose from 1st edition, electronic and PnP.
Maybe it's just me. I remember when I was a kid it all seemed to be more "magical". I had more time and money to dedicate to PnP, and didn't have to worry about feeling guilty spending all my time playing games. Now it just seems like going to a game session is robbing my family of the precious time we have together. I have guilt issues. It also seems like Wizards is on a never ending quest to see how many books they can convince me I need. Seriously, does anyone actually *use* all that material? Isn't a 7,000 page rule set a bit much? Oh, you've bought all the books? Well here's the *new* edition. Please. If you buy a rulebook they should give you free web updates for life. Reselling the same freaking books with minor changes is such a crock.
How about some *real* value add for gamers? You know what I would love to see? I would love to see Wizards package an adventure module from a-z. You buy a DMG, and a PHB, then they sell a boxed set with the actual printed module, miniatures, a playing surface(s), etc. Everything you need to play T1-4 in a nice big fairly priced, well thought out box. Yeah right. To me it seems like actually *playing* D&D is the last thing on anyone's minds. Book collecting, arguing about rules, idle banter, miniature collecting... Is there an actual game to be played somewhere in here? If D&D books were actual magic tomes, some poor wizard (we'll call him "Gandalf the Gay") would spend his entire life studying them, only to find that version 4e was out, and his puny 2e material is now useless. He would never get to actually use magic.
Yeah. I'm really disappointed that D&D is still all about book sales, and not really about gaming. I ran a 3.5 adventure of "Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh" a few years ago, and it really turned out to be an epic feat. I wanted to nail down as many specifics as possible to narrow down the in game debates. Played all the combats through a few times to debug them. Pre-drew all the maps. Provided all miniatures to players. Arranged place to play. I finally had everything nailed down pretty much, but it took MONTHS of my free time. The adventure did run pretty well, but it was exhausting. One of the players described it as "herding cats". We did this for several weeks, and I literally just lost my will to continue. It was such a colossal effort to get all the material worked out before hand I just burned out.
I don't know. I guess I'd just like to see something designed to deliver the D&D gaming experience in a less complicated way. Show up, open the box, 10 minutes later start rolling dice. 2 hours later the game is finished, everything is put away, and players are happily on their way home. Existing fantasy board games are one alternative, but A) nobody in my area seems to play them, and B) some are even more complicated than D&D.
Maybe it's time to just let go of my childhood and forget about gaming.
I am no longer the target audience.How did you install them on your phone? I just found pdosbox, and have a motorola q and would like to know how so I could...
You are gona need a sim card. The easist way (I think) is to install it on your PC thn move it over to your phone. Then, using DosBox on your phone open up the start file.
Getting the games up and running is an ART however. You gotta be willing to fiddle with it - a whole bunch. But it is worth it.