It seems to sound okay, but since I've got it functioning now (that was my priority) I'll fiddle with it and see if I can make it sound better with different settings.

I think the culprits were the "PC Speaker" settings, since making sure those were "NO" got things working. Before that PoR would freeze at the beginning of the guided tour. I'll try turning Roland off too.

To anyone interested in downloading the entire (285 MB) archive at RoseDragon in a single zip, you can find this here :

http://frua.rosedragon.org/pc/modules/pc_modules.zip

The readme for it is here :

http://frua.rosedragon.org/pc/modules/pc_modules.txt

Thanks for all this info. I still play AD&D and these old modules in the Realm seem awesome. I will start with Keep on the Borderlands. Do you have any recommendations that have to be played? Once again thanks again and you have made an old timer very happy. Time to go adventuring in Gary Gygax creations again.

One other question about the Realm series. Can dwarves and elves only advance to certain lvls? ex. dwarf fighter only lvl 9. Or was this taken out? If I run a bunch of these modules my dwarf fighter would be screwed later on and my elf magic user :)

Well, I more or less approve of all the modules listed here, but personally I'd particularly recommend:

- all designs by Ray Dyer (Realms series, Far West series, Realms Olde Adventures series), if you're looking for that oldschool Pen and Paper flair

- all the designs by Ben Sanderfer included in that list (particularly AT1: Dark Alliance and AT2: Dark Wizardry Pt. 1), if you're looking for more Goldbox style adventuring in Phlan and Krynn

- The Sect by Ben Jockisch, if you want a very good epic Goldbox style game with its own setting and humor that spans across a huge range of character levels and takes perhaps 20-40(?) hours to play through; easily the longest of the top quality designs

- everything by Darius Whiteheart (especially Curse of the Fire Dragon and the Ravenloft series)

- everything by hans, if you want good short stories with a few select combats and excellent presentation, these are mostly very short (10-60 minutes) and linear, with pre-defined characters, more about experiencing a good story and not at all about leveling your characters, and often in more exotic settings like Oriental Adventures or Super Hero UA, so quite different from the Goldbox games but still highly recommended, if you're open minded. He also created one EGA design that pays hommage to the Goldbox games though (Kill the Heroes of Phlan!)

- Deepdelvers Demo and Legacy of the Dragon by Kaz-Keith, one of my personal favorites, very creative use of the toolset. The first is all about dungeon crawling and exploration, in the latter you get to play a dragon hatchling.

- Harvest of Sorrow by Dan Crawford, The Bell and the Staff by Tom Bumgardner, The Quest for Arkana by Merlin (the last one being the first hacked design for UA I played back in the days, so my vision may be tinted by nostalgia goggles, but back then I loved it)

And there are lots of other good design authors; Nol Drek does a lot of oldschool P&P conversions; Harry Polsa was known for his fantasy spoof and lesbian noir sci-fi story designs (also recommended his more serious fantasy design, When Solitude Remains, about a sorceress and her familiar IIRC); Steve Gustafson had his own serious spoof series, too; then there is a serial mod project in which each author did one installment, ending with a cliffhanger, and the next author would continue from there (sadly it stopped after episode 5, due to some unfortunate incidents, but I still hope someone will continue it one day); etc etc

Thanks for the reply. I will try many of these. Going to start with the modules in the realm and then the Sect by Ben Jockisch, seems right up my alley. Like that last name BTW :)

I added a question to my last post in case you did not see. You answered so fast :)

One other question about the Realm series. Can dwarves and elves only advance to certain lvls? ex. dwarf fighter only lvl 9. Or was this taken out? If I run a bunch of these modules my dwarf fighter would be screwed later on and my elf magic user :)

What about the female strength cap? Was it removed or are female characters still relegated to being second-class citizens?

That one still seems to be in place. And the readme to HackCkit, the tool which allows removing level caps and modifying other hard-coded stuff, does not mention strength caps. No idea if it's an oversight or actually harder to change.

Ok, Leroux, I think maybe I can explain a little more.

The best setting for me does seem to be Roland, Adlib, and SoundBlaster ON, with both PC Speaker settings OFF.

I believe this might work better for me than it does for you because a long time ago I installed a sound font for Roland emulation. I was experimenting to get better audio in another game (Master of Magic, if I remember correctly).

However, Adlib and SoundBlaster ON with both PC Speaker settings and Roland OFF sounds almost as good. I probably wouldn't have noticed a difference if I hadn't been looking for it.

In any case, I'm happy with the sound now. I'd advise anyone having trouble with the game to make sure they try turning the PC Speaker settings to OFF.

Yes, that makes sense. It's what the guys from GOG's Support told me, too. You need to have some plug-in or sound font installed to properly enjoy Roland music, the default midi emulation is rubbish. I don't understand why they chose to offer the game with Roland music as the default setting though, since for everyone who didn't install 3rd party sound tools (supposedly the majority of players) Roland music will sound terrible - not less good, but actually wrong.

Thanks for recommending the module the Sect. Finished Keep on the Borderlands and Horror on the Hill and wanted to try a new adventure. Sect has been great so far.

It's a good question. If I were to guess I would say it's because there are a higher-than-average number of GOG.com users who have sound fonts installed already because there are a lot of old games in the site's library.

Anyway, thanks again for your help and your good work.

Am I need to install anything extra for play Neverwinter Nights Offline module ?

Neverwinter Nights Offline is a hacked design, so you'd need to follow the instructions from the OP for installing UAShell.

All designs stored in the UA Archive are accompanied by a descriptive text file like this one for NWN Offline. You'll find them in the same folder as the zipped designs (e.g. here), and the newer ones tell you in detail if changes were made to the engine and graphics. If the section *HACK INFO* contains one or more "YES", than the design is hacked and requires UAShell to be run correctly.

Alternatively, you could also just check the Full Module Listing, search for the module name in question (e.g. "neverwinter") and find out if it's listed as "Hacked" or "Not Hacked". All hacked designs require UAShell, those that are not hacked don't need any 3rd party installations.

Thanks . I got it now :)