He's just waiting for your chapter about his ATM incident. ;-)

Well it says that it is not clear, so it could possibly be illegal or not. Who knows. All know ... to cut this short and not always repeat myself. I won't change my mind on this. Sorry.

I would have clearly stated that beforehand. If they want to hear my opinion, these are my conditions. (On a side note, I would never ever sign anything I do not fully understand like a NDA in a foreign language ... though I don't know if your NDA was german or english).
And really, I'm not interested in any numbers. If they tell me "we have enough money for like forever" I'm ok with that, but it should also be possible to talk about let's say the next game they are trying to release and maybe why it takes so long and why it maybe not come at all. If that is not possible, I don't see a good reason to go there. Just my stance on that.

What I wanted to show with this is one problem of GOG. They have to tell their support their plan or else these things happen. Maybe if I ask again, I now get an other answer. Who knows? But this should not happen. Bad communication.

As I said before, I really want to believe GOG (and your optimistic view), but first GOG has to deliver, because of what I said before. Then, and only then I might come back to terms with GOG.

Unfortunately this is being produced By Fox, and inspite great veiwing figures, a strong cast and a producer that can literally shit gold bricks we're going to cancel this show.

If you're lucky you might get Wishbone the Movie in 4 years..

That is so... gog. xD

This thread needs a sister thread linking to all the best informative posts.

Don't say it. Do it :D

True. :P Doing it now.

Thank you for your reply JMich and I appreciate other input from all others who attended.

Unfortunately, my position remains as it was.

I feel no need to seek further clarification from you regarding any point.

GOG should be in here telling us and offering clarification, no one else. I do not wish to belittle you or anyone else who attended.

GOG remains high on my suspect list and none of the recent seriously questionable moves by GOG has been formally addressed by GOG.

GOG can rest assured that even on the whiff of the next naive move, I simply wont be a customer.

WISHBONE'S TALE: PART THREE

The big day
So, I woke up around 5:45, having slept awfully, and I should NOT, ow! ... I should not have drunk quite as much as I did the night before. Dozed fretfully until about 6:30, then gave up on sleeping any more and got out of bed. I puttered around, watched a bit of YouTube on my laptop, took a shower, dressed, and then went down to the lobby to meet the other guys for breakfast.

Breakfast at the hotel was basic, but adequate. What was not adequate however, was the coffee machine. It was one of the fancy ones which grinds the beans for each cup and brews it as you wait. All well and good in many situations, but we were 6 guys all of whose internal mechanisms were screaming "COFFEE! NOW!" at us at the top of their voices. Needless to say, a lot of impatient queueing was going on.

Eventually we did all get our coffee and food, and gathered around a table to one side of the hotel cafeteria for a breakfast and chat. We talked about the goings-on the previous night, and about what was going to happen today. Even though we had all only met physically just the day before, the sense of camaraderie between us was already very powerful. After a second cup of coffee, I began to feel slightly more alive than dead, and felt somewhat ready for what was to come.

Breakfast over, we went back to our rooms to prepare, and then met back downstairs a bit before 9 to wait for the taxi which was being sent to pick us up.

Interlude: The Evil ATM
We were standing outside waiting for the taxi to arrive. There was an ATM right next to the hotel entrance. MarkoH01 wanted to withdraw a small amount of the local currency (PLN), in case we'd have a chance to buy something somewhere. He put his card in the machine and started navigating the menus. We were all standing around him talking. In the menu he ended up in, the smallest amount he could withdraw was 1000 PLN, which was much too much for the short time we were there. He cancelled the transaction, and the machine spat out his card. He turned to talk to us about it, and we agreed that there had to be an option to withdraw less than that.

At this point, MarkoH01 still not having taken the card out of the machine, the ATM decided that he must have left and forgotten his card in the machine. What happened next was... unfortunate. The machine flashed a brief message that we only just had time to see, saying that it was now going to appropriate the card for security reasons, and then it ate the card!

Needless to say, MarkoH01 was not happy about this turn of events. By now, the taxi had arrived and was waiting for us, but we had to deal with this situation before we could leave. The ATM had a customer service telephone number on it, so MarkoH01 enlisted the help of the Polish receptionist from the hotel, to call the customer service, explain the situation, and hopefully get them to get the ATM to return his card.

The rest of us were outside, discussing this unfortunate turn of events, when a dejected MarkoH01 came out of the lobby and announced that nope, there was nothing to be done. The card was gone, and would not be returned, but would in fact be shredded. There was nothing he could do except order a new card when he got home.

We were of course awfully sorry for him, but given that there was nothing any of us could do about the situation, we opted to get underway and hope that the day would get better soon. Thankfully, it did.

Watch this space for the next exciting installment: Wishbone's Tale: Part Four. It probably won't be until tomorrow though. I know I said that before as well, but this time I (probably) mean it ;-)

A little addition here if I might. Meanwhile I blocked my old card and already got a new one. So no need for people to participate in a "bread for Marko" collection. I am not in immediate danger of starving or to not be able to pay for things I need. At this moment however it felt far more extreme than it was in the end and I guess I just panicked. Like I said then, it was not a biggie but it was a little dent in an otherwise just great experience. Thanks to Wishbone for recapping this event so accurate.

I haven't drawn a new statement of account yet so there still is the chance that somebody did some big shopping tour with my card before i was able to block it (or like PaterAlf said this was all a big scheme and all costs of this event were paid now using my card ;)) but I highly doubt it. So there is nothing to see anymore and things are back to normal.

[emphasis added]

Is the part I highlighted meant as "fully offline installers that will not depend on any kind of network or client connection" and "single player experiences that will not depend on any kind of network or client connection", or "fully offline installers" and "single player experiences that will not depend on any kind of network or client connection"?

On a side note, I got a "heh" moment reading this; sounds like an indirect admission that a client and DRM-free are not compatible. No need to comment on this, I'm not looking nor trying to start a debate on the DRM-free topic. [emphasis added]

Underestimating the reaction just goes to show how little they really know their userbase.

The point I'd like to make is related to the part I highlighted. I'll accept that the banners and buttons didn't do the trick for a number of users. However, they could have avoided both the load of support tickets, the workload to add the Galaxy installer to the standalone installers, and the shitstorm, if they had done a very simple thing, imo.

Take a look at the screenshot I've attached. See all that great empty grey space underneath the shelf where the "Share this" and "Go to my Account" buttons are (can't help a "heh" every time I see the order of the buttons)? Add a "Install Galaxy" button and put a revision of that blurb that is now on every game card in our accounts regarding the Galaxy-laden installers - a revision to make clear after installing the client, games can be installed using the client. In other words, make those users aware of the client, the need to download and install it to get the advertised features, and that they don't have to get game installers separately after that.

Make every purchase, redeemed gift & promo code open this page. Telling people right after a game has been added to their account to install the client will, imo, be much more effective than how this page works now, or how the various options to install a game are in the FAQ, a FAQ that not many will bother to read beforehand, and a number won't read anyway.

Should this fail for some (and it quite probably will), and they go to their account, revise the client button. Reward it to say "Install Galaxy", and add a blurb right under it to say "if you want <list of major features> install our client blah blah blah". Seriously GOG, you chose the current wording of that button out of fear you'd hurt the sensibilities of those that don't want to use it, yet when it failed to work for those that want it, you've gone with an extreme solution.

I'll be genuinely surprised and puzzled if nobody at GOG thought of this. If they have, the question then is why hasn't it been at least attempted?

I meant to post this in the thread about this that BKGaming made a few weeks ago, and never got around it, but I guess this thread is as good a place to make a suggestion. Does "the site" refer to other parts of GOG's site, or does it also include the forum? Feedback on what exactly pertaining to moderation? Did the topic come up only for GOG to get feedback, or did they share any ideas/plans as to how to improve forum moderation, but you're bind by the NDA and can't say anything more?



Are the shit and questions, and how you asked them, also covered by the NDA, or can you freely share?


Is this your impression, or was that explicitly stated and there's an actual plan as to how they'll do it?



What exactly did you tell them, and in what context? Did anyone stress how unreliable the current notifications for updated games is? Did anyone ask why games with a changelog aren't flagged as updated? And if you did, is there any plan besides "we'll work on it from the grounds up eventually™"?

Also, did anyone bring up the issue of changelogs? And why game forum links on game pages is restricted to only In Dev games?



If I may ask, you know them by name because they told you themselves, or did GOG share with you who else was invited but didn't/couldn't/etc. attend?



What bug related to the notifications are you referring to?

Thanks for taking the time to report this. I for one am glad that GOG is asking active members for their input.

Keep up the good work GOG.

I think we talked about it in the context of backup management (they asked us how we handle that kind of thing). And yes we asked both questions. Can't really say anything about their plans, because I don't remember the exact answer. They took a lot of notes though.

Which issue of changelogs? I told them that it would be great, if they would be visible for everyone right on the store page of a game. Not completely sure about the second question, but I think someone mentioned it.

Sorry, since I use AF and BE I did not even know about this so I did not ask them.