Keep in mind that this is the CD-ROM version. You'll notice that the file size is over 100MB as opposed to only a few megabytes for the "free" version.

Neither version is freeware. You are pirating this game if you download it without paying.

It was freeware for a short while as a promotion for Betrayal in Antara. In 1997 the game was released for free (the Floppy version) to hype up the new game, the rights owner has since 'revoked' that particular license and the game is no longer 'legally' free to obtain.
There was no press release or anything stating this though, they just removed the download from the Sierra website at a certain point and it was assumed that people would know, at that point, that the game was no longer free - though it hit the Abandonware scene in the early 2003/4 period.

I was wondering about that as I just saw the Betrayal at Krondor CD sitting on my shelf with "FREEWARE" written on it. Is the CD-ROM version here a talkie or are the enhancements something else?

I am pleased to have bought it from GOG...very fun game.

The difference between the CD-ROM and floppy versions is that the CD version had CD-audio music as an option. Also, the CD version was pre-patched to 1.02 (the final patch).
The only "free" version of BaK on CD-ROM that I know of is the promotional disc bundled with early hard-cover editions of the book. However, it did not have the CD-audio soundtrack; it was basically just the (patched) floppy version put on a CD. It also had some minor extra material, like a PDF manual and an interview video.

Hmm... no, the version in the book that I got definitely had the CD-audio.

Strange. The book version I saw (and others have mentioned it in reviews as well) did not have CD-audio music. Did your version have the hint software (this was in the "real" CD edition) or the RtK videos (these were in the book version).

It might perhaps have been a later bundled release of game + book. As far as I know, the "book" version was only included with the first hardcover run of the book.

Well, unfortunately I no longer have it (be careful who you lend these things to), but I do remember the CD audio check box being available in the options menu, and also my computer playing it as an audio CD, minus the data track.

I actually bought the Krondor: the Betrayal hardcover a while back, and it had the game on an included CD -- no Redbook audio, though.

I want to just bump this a little.

I have the original on CD.

To get it running in DOSbox with CD audio took me quite a bit of work. And I'm fairly competent at this kind of thing.

Had to rip the CD as a dual mode CD-audio / Data disc into a CUE file (took a while to figure out).

Have to mount the CUE image a certain way in DOSBOX.

Have to tweak around with the settings a bit to get something that runs well.

Definitely takes some work. GOG certainly makes it easier. Took me about 2 hours of tinkering to get everything working with my original disc.

Could you please state what you did in DosBox to make this version run? I'm running Linux here, so I'll need to make this work the hard way. I'd wish that Gog would open up their DosBox titles, so other OS'es don't have such a hard time running the games.

Actually, if you own the GOG version of Betrayal at Krondor, you might have an easier time of it than you realize.

GOG packages the freeware / command line version of DOSBox in their releases. To get the game to run in windows, they create a shortcut on the desktop that runs a game configuration file, located in the root directory of the game, through DOSBox, located in the root directory of the pack / game folder.

i.e. : "C:\Games\GOG\Betrayal Pack\DOSBOX\DOSBox.exe" -conf dosboxBAK.conf -noconsole -c "exit"

With a Start in path of: "C:\Games\GOG\Betrayal Pack\Betrayal at Krondor\"

So, assuming you can unpack the windows executable to install the game(s), it should be a simple matter of feeding the Linux version of DOSBox the above mentioned configuration file. All parameters have been customized within to run the game.

In case you just have the original CD of the game and want to play it in Linux, or extracting the files form the GOG setup executable is impossible for you, simply download the Betrayal at Krondor Official Strategy Guide image in this post, and rename the extension to .rar. Extract and have fun with your new config file. (Finally, a Prima Guide that's WORTH something :P)

Admins - I apologize if passing out this 4kb text file is against site policy. If so, please remove it from this post. Thank you.

-Ronin

Ronin, Thanks for the hints.
I've got many Gog Dosboxed games to run natively on my box, yet I'm having a hard time getting the music to work on my box.
The game does run in it's enhanced form, only there is no music to be heard, in spite of choosing the correct settings for an emulated Soundblaster:A=220 and I=7.
I have downloaded an abondonware version, which was a much smaller download, but more importantly, works straight after copying the files.
I see that Gog converted all in-game music into .ogg files,
My guess is that Gog uses a helper program to hook all the ingame music calls to that helper program that plays the ogg files. An .exe is no batch file, so I don't really know what the Gog customizations do, or I'd make a symbolic link to a similar linux program.