The “gold box” set of the World of Greyhawk Fantasy Setting (for AD&D 1st edition), considered by many fans to be the definitive treatment of the setting, is now available in an official pdf version from DnDClassics.com.
You get three pdfs in the package; one for the Guide, one for the Glossography, and one for the maps. The books themselves are text that has been OCR’d, not just a scan of the pages, and are quite nice and legible.
The maps are at once nice and frustrating. They’re given at full size, which is great, but as they seem to have been photographed rather than scanned, the creases on the maps are very visible and give a slightly bowed effect (and a lot of glare) in the places where they’re not completely flat. But the most frustrating thing about the maps is the fact that they’re presented on two separate pages in the pdf, rather than put together as a single image. Given what they are, it’s doubtful that anyone is going to find having to flip from one map to another particularly useful, and it robs them of their grand effect as a gorgeous unified whole.
Still, on the whole that’s a minor quibble, as anyone with a decent pdf editor will be able to put the maps together the way the Gods and Gygax intended. The fact that the boxed set is now available is a huge plus, and at $9.95 it’s a steal even if you already have the hardcopy like I do.
Weren't the maps two separate maps in the first place? I seem to remember having two large sheets that were difficult to fit together, and joined right around the Nyr Dyv to make mapping the titular city itself somewhat annoying. Or was that a different edition?
If that was the case and WoTC sewed it together themselves, then folks would have complained they weren't in the original format.
Oooh! I may have to snag this. I recently dug my old boxed set out of storage for inspirational reading. Would be nice to have a pdf copy!