Need Help with TSR/SSI DL "Death Knights of Krynn"

[Hexum]

If anyone out there has played this classic and still has it around, I have a major problem I'm running into.

First, it took me forever to get it to actually show up on screen with real words instead of a bunch of computer language on the screen (because most new computers don't like DOS based games anymore). But I have it figure out, for the most part.

My main problem right now is that I can't memorize any spells for any of my party. Whether it's cleric, druid, mage, etc... No matter where I try in the game( i.e. INN, home, woods, etc...) it always acts like I never picked the spells I wanted them to memorize. Anyone know how I might be able to fix this? I haven't gone very far into the game so it wouldn't be a problem to re-install, but it's seriously going to be hard to play without any type of magic for my guys to use.

HELP!

[Uziel]

Hmm...it's been years since I played this trilogy.

Anyway from memory, you choose the spells you wish to memorise and then you rest. As you rest, it should tell you that each spell is memorised. You have rested first after selecting to memorise spells, right? If so, when you are resting, do the spells state on the screen that they are memorised?

Also another thing I just thought of. When I got these games I used a freeware program called Mo'Slo. It slows down a program so that even though your pc is far too advanced for the game, it allows it to be played properly. That might help also, and you can find it quickly by doing a simple google search.

[Hexum]

I know how to memorize the spells, but after I have picked the spells for each person and go to rest, the spells will not memorize.

Usually after the spells are picked out you can just hit "R" to rest and it will show how many hours/days its going to take to memorize the spells, but for me it's always saying "00:00:00". I've tried many times to get the spells to memorize but they won't.

I'll have to look for that Mo'Slo program, also.

[Uziel]

Hmm...ok. I recall having this issue myself years ago. I'll reinstall shortly and let you know you if I have any issues.

[Uziel]

Doesn't sound like a program related bug, that would be fixed by reinstalling. It could be related to the speed at which it is running on the pc (which is where Mo'Slo would come in handy).

I just reinstalled DKoK, chose which spells to memorise, then selected to 'keep' them. Once done, I rested and memorised everything perfectly. I presume you are selecting 'keep' after you select all the spells and not just hitting enter? If so, then I'd get Mo'slo and test again. You won't even need to restart your game when you use it, just reload from your last save point.

If you have major problems getting Mo'Slo, shoot me an email and I can get you a copy.

[Hexum]

I finally figured out why it was not working. For some odd reason whenever the list of spells came up that I wanted them to memorize and I had picked them out, I had to highlight the one at the top and then press "Keep".

Everything is working fine for me now, except that I keep getting beat up on by the crazy dwarves in my attempt to help one of the normal ones rescue his boar. But that's why I love these games, some of these battles are a definite struggle.

Thanks for your help though, it is greatly appreciated.

[Uziel]

lol, yeah that's what I said above. Unless you tell the program to 'keep' the spells, it throws a hissy fit and scraps all the ones you chose previously. ;)

The games were semi-challenging. Admittedly I was always a bigger fan of the FR games (Silver Blades, Azure Bonds, Pools of Darkness, etc) than the DL ones though.

[Hexum]

So far I can easily say I am, too.

I own the Silver Edition which came with I think 6 or 7 of those games and I've played each at least 3 times.

[Uziel]

That said though, whilst neither 'Champions of Krynn' or 'Deaths Knights of Krynn' were anything to really rave about. 'Dark Queen on Krynn' was fairly well done, and gives a decent overview of Taladas at least. And there's the snazzy enchanted draconians too.

Even still none of those 3 DL games are anywhere near as well done as the FR quartet. I've got the Silver Box too, which I got for my own copies of the quartet and the 'Beholder' trilogy, which I also enjoyed years ago.

[Hexum]

All I have from the DL series is Death Knights... I'm trying to find the other two, but so far I haven't been able to find them, even on eBay.

[Uziel]

All 3 are now freeware and can be directly downloaded from freeware sites (been freeware for quite a few years). You can get the others and the manuals from Home of the Underdogs (http://www.the-underdogs.org)

[Hexum]

And to think I paid $14 for Death Knights off eBay.. Silly me.

Thanks for the link, greatly appreciated!

[Hexum]

Sorry for the double post, but I didn't know if I'd be able to get your attention otherwise or not Uziel.

I recently beat, or thought I beat the game, but I'm not sure, so I figured I would ask you, since you have played it.

I made it into Daargard Keep and fought Lord Soth and the Death Knights and won, but I was unclear as to whether or not that was the end of the game. When I travel around I still encounter a lot of things (I don't mean out in the wilderness, rather in towns/cities).

Anything you might be able to add?

[Uziel]

A direct email or a PM is the best way to get my attention. Anyway, I noticed the post, so it's all good. ;)

Defeating Soth at Dargaard Keep is the end of the main storyline of the game. There are numerous side quests, etc, that you can complete, albeit one of them (Cerberus) needs to be done before Soth is defeated.

The gnome village of Quazle, the town of Cekos, Throtyl Keep, The Cursed Village, The Fun House, Father of Trees, The Shipwreck, dwarven village of Turef and the Kuo-Toan slave ship all have side-quests which can be attempted after Soth's demise. The sidequest of Cerberus/Cerberus Graveyard (destroying the evil) will not be available after Soth's defeat).

The main quest to attempt and the only one which appears after Soth's defeat (all others can be tackled at any time you're on the map) is Dave's Challenge. It's a semi-challenging small quest in the far northwest of the map.

Hope that helps. Any questions in relation to any of the games, I'm happy to answer for you, if my memory serves.

[Pix Pocketts]

I have played these games for some time. I used VMWare on XP to install Win98 and I run them from there.

Pix

[Hexum]

On the side quest note, these are what I have finished:

Kuo-Toa ship, Cursed Village, and wow... that's it.

I've attempted Cekos many times but I can't find the treasure anywhere. Any clue where it might be located?

And if you would be so kind as to tell me where the Shipwreck, the Fun House, and Father of the Trees might be, I would be greatly obliged.

[Uziel]

I've attempted Cekos many times but I can't find the treasure anywhere. Any clue where it might be located?

If you go to the townhall in the north-east and smite the draconians, then get the key in there. Next you have to go to the jail, which is just north-west of the entrance to Cekos, I believe. Free the folks, go to the kitchen and follow the servant. Then kill the mayor and there's a secret passage in his office that leads to the dragons and the treasure. If you have the dwarf Igorf with you, he'll help in the fight and take some treasure for himself.


And if you would be so kind as to tell me where the Shipwreck, the Fun House, and Father of the Trees might be, I would be greatly obliged.

Fun House is located in the mountain range, directly in between Throtyl and Gargath.
Father of Trees is in the south-central part of the map. I remember finding it right near the bottom of the map, in the middle area.
The Shipwreck was on the coast just northeast from Kalaman.

[Hexum]

Awesome. Thanks once again for all your help, I really do appreciate it.

[OldschoolDL]

a year or so back I had picked up the trilogy off ebay... man it took me back...

I loved the goldbox SSI games. Don't forget for resting and healing and such you can hit the magic FIX button which brings everyone back to full and will memorize the spells you assign.

Dark Queen is different for the game will assume the spells you memorized for since the beginning of the game will be the same and automatically memorize it.

[Avery_Tosscobble]

Howdy!
I also have those games from the 'good old days.' I've tried installing them onto my new XP computer, but I can't seem to make them work. Was there anything special you had to do to make them work?
Thanks in advance!

[Uziel]

Nope. I had XP also. I simply unzipped them, ensuring I had a subdirectory called 'Save' with all the appropriate files and then ran them from a command line.

If it buggers up, you can always delete the .cfg file, which will force the game to prompt you for graphic/audio settings on first run. Also as I mentioned above, I use 'mos'lo' to slow down the game, since my 3.2ghz pc runs a tad too fast for this poor old game otherwise. ;)

[Hexum]

I also found that if you are running the game on a faster computer through command prompt (or DOS, whichever you would like to consider it), that sometimes if you install and the graphics do not show up on the first load, reboot and try again. On the computer I used, which was at work.. ;) I had to restart whenever I decided to play for the first time each day and it would run fine. Give that a shot. If it doesn't work, at least I tried... lol.

[Avery_Tosscobble]

Were you guys able to get the sound to work? I installed it on an old laptop that I have (Win98) and I got it to work fine, except for the sound.
Thanks!

[Uziel]

I did, but I had to edit my autoexec.bat to ensure that sound played in Dos. Or more to the point, that the sound codecs were initialised when a Dos session was started. A little fiddly and something I probably wouldn't bother with doing again, just for basic Adlib on an old game. ;)

[Hexum]

I never tried, nor cared for the sound from those old games. I always just put on some music and played it out.

[Uziel]

So Hex, did you end up finishing all the side-quests in DKoK? I recall Dave's Challenge was easy, except for the last battle, which was an unholy dirty dog to finish. I think most of my characters died except for my knight actually. Who finally topped the last couple of death knights by himself.

[Hexum]

No, I haven't had the chance to finish up, but I do have all the info you gave me written down with the Adventurers Journal.

I've got the game loaded on a computer here at work and this is my first day back since basically Monday, so I haven't been able to play. I was hoping to finish it up tonight but someone is on the computer with the game, so it will have to wait until tomorrow.

BTW, is there a "Dave's Challenge" in all the games?

And also, did you ever play the newer Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor?

[Uziel]

'Dave's Challenge' was in 'Pools of Darkness' also and it was even harder in that. You had to refight all the four demons together, plus a ton of other challenges. Damned hard...

And I did play PoR: Ruins of Myth Drannor. Visually speaking it was fairly good. And the combat system and overall gameplay were nice. For me though, it didn't seem to have the same charm as the earlier Dragonlance and FR games. It just didn't grab me as much, for some reason. That said, I finished it though. ;)

[Hexum]

I played PoR: Myth Drannor for damn near a year on and off and I don't even know how close I came to finishing it. I know I had to buy the walkthrough guide for it because I got sick of having to retrace my steps to places that took me hours to figure out were part of certain quests.

I loved the game and I'm thinking about re-installing it in an attempt to finish it off, because I thought it was incredible.

But I agree on the other, older games being better. If only they made them like that still, the computer gaming world would be so much better.

I still need to finish Baldurs Gate 2 also... wow, I'm slacking.

[Uziel]

lol, I played and finished BG & BG2 years ago. Also got and finished Throne of Bhaal too. Now 'those' were great RPGs. Icewind Dale 1, 2 and their add-ons weren't bad, but can't compare to the BG games in my opinion.

One of the greatest RPGs of all though, was Planescape: Torment. IMO, that beats any other AD&D CRPG hands-down.

[Hexum]

I finished BG1 thanks to the help of the handy cheats they had that you could edit into your characters. Whenever I would get to the final battle in that game I would be royally whooped upon.

Bg2 I only bought about 6 months ago but I have yet to finish, I'm probably only a 1/4 of the way through (I've been spending my time on another game, Call of Duty to be exact, but I'll leave that out of this post).

One last question for you though... did you ever play PoR: Myth Drannor online at all? I was wanting to do it but I never had the extra funds to do so, thanks to my college bills.

If I get a chance, I'll check out the Planescape game. I've heard lots of good reviews about that.

[Eldor Starblade]

lol, I played and finished BG & BG2 years ago. Also got and finished Throne of Bhaal too. Now 'those' were great RPGs. Icewind Dale 1, 2 and their add-ons weren't bad, but can't compare to the BG games in my opinion.

One of the greatest RPGs of all though, was Planescape: Torment. IMO, that beats any other AD&D CRPG hands-down.

Deffinetly agree with you Uziel that Torment was a great game but i stil think BG2 was the best, simply because it was so long and there were so many sub missions. I think if memory serves me correct the total game time was like 220 hours! Also i like how in BG2 is that you could beat an enemy not only by kicking the crap out of it but also you could outsmart it. That game requires thinking not just kill, kill, kill which i enjoy in an RPG.

[The Gray Voyager]

Torment had an amazing story...

but BG2 was an opus of game design, only comparable to Ultima 7 in its perfection of design.

By the by, Dark Queen of Krynn was the best SSI game IMO despite it's level 40+ DL absurdity and being set in Taladas. I reccomend you find it somehow and play it.

[Uziel]

As mentioned near the start of the thread Mitch, all 3 SSI DL Gold Box games are now freeware and readily downloadable from Home of the Underdogs. So getting them is no issue.

Ultima 7.. now there was an RPG. One I willingly went out an purchased when they later released 'The Collection'. Damn those were great games. U7: Black Gate and U7: Serpent Isle were hands-down some of the greatest RPGs of their day.

Damn this is like Uzi's nostalgia thread. I own and have played every Ultima from good old Akalabeth (which is kinda shoddy these days), to U1 through to U9: Ascension. Also have Martian Dreams, Savage Empire, and Ultima Underground 1&2.

[Hexum]

Did you ever play Lands of Lore or Lands of Lore 2: Guardians of Destiny?

The original LoL was one of my all time favorites, but for some reason I can never get it installed on computers to play anymore. If you have never played it, I highly recommend checking it out. The second one is alright, too, but doesn't quite compare to the original. And I know there is a third but I haven't played it.

[Uziel]

Yep, downloaded LoL a few years back (now freeware). Great game.

I got LoL2 on cd (for free again), and played it. It was ok..but I never really got into it and never finished it. I know I had to install LoL2 on my Win98 partition (got a dual partition/dual OS setup for my pc b/w XP and 98 - I only have 98 for old programs and games). I'm pretty sure I ran LoL on Windows 2000 Professional though, and it ran ok.

[Hexum]

Did you get LoL from the same site you posted earlier? I'd love to be able to play that game one more time.

[Uziel]

Indeed I did. Home of the Underdogs has LoL fully downloadable as it is freeware.

Just bear in mind that the one they have on their site is the full CD-ROM version with music, voice, etc. So unless you have fast ADSL (like me) it might take a while to d/l.