voted

Thanks, voted.

Voted.... and voted!

It's been a few days. This has all been covered already, but here goes.

I still hate the fact you took my shelf away and replaced it with a crap view of the store. Which I can't even view all at once. Why did you take away my beloved boxart? Why? I like the effect well enough after I open one, but it should be behind the game boxes.

I've always used manual sort. I never realized how useless the others were. Purchase date can be useful if you are trying to find the last few games you bought, but otherwise.

Love the changelogs. Absolutely love them. Order history was long needed and great to finally see it.

Tags & filtering are a nice plus. Just not at the cost of the one place that's 100% yours which I can no longer manage the entire library. Unlike before where I simply manually sorted my shelf.

GOG you have killed any urge I might have felt in "completing a series" here. I was going to buy X-Wing and place it before my Independence War & Freespace games. I already have my '95 CD copy of TIE Fighter installed & working. However, X-Wing would have looked all lonely without TIE Fighter next to it. It would then just seem wrong to not have XWA to finish it off (also have working CDs). XvT ... meh. Still with the series discount and having all the others... Now with this subset of the store: no reason, no tendency, no urge for more than X-Wing.

After a few days of using this new My Account I have to say I'm very disappointed.
For me there were only two reasons to ever use the shelf: the appearance with the box art and the ability to manually sort the games. GOG took those features away and I can no longer figure out why I'd use the shelf. It really looks terrible.
From now on I'll have to use the list view but that now has a serious drawback too. It now has multiple pages.

Tags are ok. Maybe I'll use them someday. But I haven't needed them all these years so I'm not too excited.

GOG, you say this is our My Account page to use the way we want. That is simply a lie (typical marketing BS) unless you return the features you took away.


edit: I forgot to add the one positive point in all this mess. The change logs are a big improvement.

I've seen this posted a few times, and just have to say that this is silly problem to be having. It appears that GOG is dumbing things down at every turn for the mobile users and for those that have short attention spans. If I'm sending someone a message on GOG, I'm doing it on my computer, I'm not sending them a short text on my phone.

What's next GOG? Will the forums be changed next to look like this?

Please can you return the option to manually arrange items on your shelf.

knowing that now the gog library is as a pain to manage for me as would be, for example, the steam library...
knowing that the website design is as much headache giving as, for example the steam website
knowing that the gog galaxy client (though optionnal at least) is as frustrating and bothering for me as, for example, the steam client
knowing that the reliable gog downloader is put at the backseat and the galaxy client has same speed issues as, for example, the steam client (compared to browser and gog downloader which work both full dsl throttle)
knowing that steam has a feature or functionnality to add in your steam library games from non steam sources...
knowing that now gog less and less include goodies or bonuses or soundtracks on many game releases or instead provides them as separate purchases as, for example, steam does
knowing that my computer can display a more confortable resolution (now not even taken in consideration or put to advantage) than, for example, my damn cellphone

please, tell me, why would i ever try to painmyself to follow the "gog" experience (aside from purchasing and getting billed, i mean) and maintain two clients, two libraries, and why wouldn't i instead just purchase here as i would from any steam resellers plateforms and keep centralizing my stuff on steam instead ?

auto update ? i already used to make my updates manually, and for the very few games i am forced to play through steam, i already turned off any option of auto doing anything for me as if i was a toddler needed to be fed.

so far the only reason is: i already didnt invest any time at all bothering myself about managing the little steam library i grew up ( against my will) and never use it "daily" at all, only launch the handful of games from there manually. which is indeed a rather nihilistic reason in "favor" of gog

it is a real question indeed, below the sarcasm layer dressing up in fact real concerns, issues or problems of mine.
(anyway, regarding the "dressing up" thing, it already seems to me that gog is rather dressing itself up like a sort of pimped up hooker on a pavement those days, so lets call it a draw)

Feedback on Chat System - Part I

NOTE: I'm posting in two parts, as it got pretty lengthy, and I fear that the forum software will choke.
I’m also thinking of making a Wishlist entry regarding improvements and changes I think are necessary (that will point back to my posts), in hope that GOG will listen.

Part II here.


From the OP of the "My Account - big changes on the horizon" thread [emphasis added]: Allow me to say that the PM system was not weary at all. It had some limitations and could use some improvements, but its overall design and functionality served the purpose of private communication quite well.
One had a good overview of a decent number of the contacts at first glance (ten, IIRC), the area that displayed the messages was large enough to offer a good overview of recent and ongoing exchanges, past ones would expand to the bottom and make use of almost the entire screen space, the text box expanded while typing making proofreading and previewing one's entire message before sending it easy, basic formatting and making paragraphs was simple.

Now, people will argue that it had a number of issues - true, I have experienced most of them, if not all, myself. But allow me to say that this was due to GOG never working on it to improve it and fix bugs and glitches; if they had, it would have worked better and wouldn't have became "old and weary", as if that happened all by itself.
Instead, in what seems to have become traditional GOG fashion, they chose, once again, to solve their problems by scrapping the PM system, and putting this new utterly impractical and user-unfriendly Chat thing in its place.
Because the PM system did not transform into anything, and the Chat system is not a replacement for it on any level.

Wikipedia provides the following definition for chat (other sites have similar ones) [emphasis added]: I'd add PMs to the "other text-based online communication forms", as they resemble emails more than chatting, and say that the above definition perfectly fits the Live Chat system that GOG implemented, and seems to take quite some pride in doing so.

GOG's shiny, live chat is designed for this kind of communication - real time, fast-track, and short-lived back and forth. One is supposed/ expected to use the Chat system in real time, when they and their interlocutor are both online, have a brief exchange and move on. Some of us didn't use the PM system exclusively in this fashion, and the Chat system does not lend itself to allowing us to conduct our private communications they way we used to; on the contrary, its overall design deters one from engaging in more lengthy, thought-out conversations.

There is already a Wishlist entry for the return of the PM system. While I have voted, I have little to no hope that it will make it back, but if the Chat system could be improved and adjusted to offer us the same experience as the PM system, while being more desktop friendly, it could be seen as a somewhat usable replacement.

I've attached a screenshot I took that summarises some of the problematic points. I've cut out the top and bottom of the page, as their not part of the usable area; the bottom in particular is a huge waste of space taken up by the tall footer that GOG introduced with the fresher, better GOG.

So, where to begin. Based on my experience so far:

1. Overall Chat area
1.1 The usable area is very limited overarching box, split into two smaller boxes, one for contacts to the left, and one for messages to the right. I call them boxes, due to the vertical scrollbar elements used which confine the area, wasting a lot of screen space. This is really a bad design choice, as it completely disregards desktop users with monitors of a greater size than 7 or 10 inches.

1.2 Two scrollbars, plus the page scrollbar makes for a lot of scrolling that needs to be done very carefully - if one's mouse pointer slides a tiny bit outside of each box while using the mouse wheel, they end up scrolling the entire page. Certainly not a problem for those using a mobile device with a screen of 7 or 10 inches, but not a good design choice overall; there are desktop users here, and they should not be treated as non-existent or second calls users.

2. Contacts area
2.1 The contacts box takes too much space up horizontally for no good reason. Each contact is displayed in a big rectangular that has too much empty space in it, both horizontally and vertically; for all that space, one would expect to see more info about each user than avatar, username and on/off-line status. Basic info on registration date and rep that were introduced in the PM system, are gone now. Will they return?

2.2 The user avatar and username are way bigger than what they were before, which makes me thing that users of mobile devices are again the criteria for the design choices.

2.3 There's no longer any distinction between GOG staffers and regular GOG members. The contact in my attached screenshot is actually a GOG staffer who first contacted me before getting his blue-text status that came with a change in username, yet he looks like any other user in my contacts, plus is stuck with their old username.

2.4 The tall rectangular of each user, combined with the "scrollbar box design", allows for a very limited number of contacts to be visible (about half of what we had in the PM system), and introduces the need for a lot of scrolling when one has a large contact list. As a desktop user, who doesn't visit GOG on a mobile or touchscreen device, I find this more cumbersome, especially when combined with the following.

2.5 Contacts jump around in random fashion, based on their on/off-line status, which can very well result in users that have sent one a message to fall off the visible area if they are offline and the contacts that are online are more than six at the time one checks their messages. This clearly demonstrates the character and intended purpose of the chat system, the push towards "talk to those that are online at the same time you are", and the cultivation of an artificial urgency to communicate with others before they go offline, things that I find extremely irritating and very impractical when one wishes to use the only available system for private communication in a different way. In the PM system, contacts that had sent a message were placed at the top, making it easy to check one's messages and reply.

2.6 The indicator for new messages that is placed next to a contact's avatar is such a faint shade of grey that it's almost invisible; it's quite likely that users with eyesight problems have more trouble seeing it. The number of messages inside that grey indicator is unreadable (it looks like an even fainter grey smudge). All this makes the push towards he "live communication" character of the system evident. I don't like being told how to conduct my private communications, and I'd very much appreciate it if GOG stopped thinking what's best for me in this area. Since the indicators are there, they should do their job properly.

2.7 Anyone on the forum that clicks on "Start Conversation" in the pop-up menu of another user's avatar can add themselves to that user's contact list, even if they don't send a message, something that worked differently and better in the PM system. And one is stuck with such contacts, as there's no option to remove people that have not sent a message. I think that a number of users have experimented with the pop-up menus in the forum, either out of curiosity or just for giggles; imo, having control over one's contact list is not an unreasonable request, as this could very easily turn from a mere annoyance to harassment.

2.8 In the PM system there were options to manage individual contacts via the "Block" button. While I never found myself in need to use it, it's a useful feature and should return. The options in "Privacy" (everyone, friends only, nobody) are too broad to be efficient. I think that same "Block" button also served to report a blocked user; if this returns, the two functions should be separated, even better the options should be "Block" and "Block and Report" (not sure if a separate "Report" serves a purpose), as one may want to block someone, but not necessarily also want to report them.

To be continued in Feedback on Chat System - Part II

Impressive. I hope this gets read by the right people...

I wish GOG would bring back the box art as well. The "grid" mode of the Game Shelf just doesn't look the same. But I do like the changelogs and the tags that can be added to the games.

Woah, that's a pretty detailed analysis and critique there mate, in general I agree although I'm already thinking about giving out my eMail-address to some nice folks here now to be immune to such "improvements" in the future. ;)
I always did this when some very weird changes happened on other boards that had a negative impact on my communication.

I'm not mad because I'm here for the games but GoG obviously wants to be the hive of an active community and be an alternative to Steam in this regard too so I guess they should listen to you.

Someone may like the changes to the message system, I just didn't see him yet.

Another suggestion: Instead of showing me the overall rating of games in the library (in list view), show me the rating that I gave that game. Or show both.

Feedback on Chat System - Part II

Part I here.

3, Messages area
3.1 The username and avatar are disproportionally big compared to the text size, and overshadow it. Perhaps I'm in the minority here, but I think that the most important part in an exchange is the actual content of the messages, so I'd expect to not be distracted by the size of usernames and avatars. Of course since the user whose message one reads is no longer at the very top in the contact list, one needs some form of reminder on who sent the message, but that could be easily rectified if the contact list didn't behave the way it does. Of course that would come at the expense of "look, look these people are online, talk to them, not the others", but that's not one's priority when checking pending messages.

3.2 The "scrollbar box design" confines exchanges in a very limited area, wasting so much screen space, and makes going through past messages an unnecessarily tedious task. This is true not only for long messages, but also for short(er) ones that are part of lengthier conversations or in the case of regular exchanges with certain users. Of course if one sticks to the intended purpose of the Chat system, the need to scroll a lot is limited. Except that it's not - older messages are placed at the top, and newer at the bottom. It was the opposite in the PM system, which made more sense and life easier; why this was reversed is beyond my comprehension.

3.3 Messages sent consecutively in a short time span (how short is unclear) are auto-merged in one big fat wall of text. I've had notifications next to "Chat" in my account tab informing me I had 3, 6, even 14 messages awaiting me, and when I opened my Chat page there were only one or two lengthy messages from one or two contacts. This often leads to having messages with disconnected content, which is puzzling and makes the communication seem illogical. I think the auto-merge feature in the forum is bad enough to not be adopted in the private communication system, so I do not appreciate this at all.
One could argue that if such messages weren't auto-merged, the messages area would be even more cluttered with the repeated display of the big avatars and usernames - well it wouldn't if the avatars and usernames were smaller.
Additionally, the discrepancy between the notification next to "Chat" and the actual number of messages is quite confusing - before the thought that messages are probably auto-merged crossed my mind, I was wondering (and worrying) if any of my messages got lost. If I have misunderstood and no auto-merging takes place, then either my messages got lost or the notifications next to "Chat" are even more borked than they were before.
Overall, the whole thing does not work in an efficient way, and it would be appreciated if a blue text would clarify which is the case, and if there are any plans to improve on this.

3.4 The text box - ah, my favourite!
- Sorry, but who in their right mind thought that a visible area of two lines that - surprise! - gets another scrollbar when exceeded but does not expand as one keeps typing was a functional and user-friendly design choice? Seriously, did anyone try to type more than two lines and said "Yeah, this works great, let's keep it!"?
- One has no way to preview and proofread their message unless they use another application; as a user of Barefoot Essentials, I found myself resorting to the "quick reply" space to proofread my messages, as it offers a preview and spelling, but going back to my message to correct or edit something is a chore at best. Which means that typing and sending a message takes double as long as it did in the PM system. Which again shows that the Chat system was not designed to (also) accommodate exchanges of lengthier messages; that ridiculously small box is not good for much more than the "HI, nice 2CU" type of communication.
- We have absolutely no idea which keys are assigned special actions - heck, I accidentally found out that hitting "Enter" is equivalent to clicking on the "Send" button, leading to all sorts of incomplete messages going out and puzzling their recipients. Instead one needs to use "Shift+Enter' to insert an empty line, when it makes more sense to have it the other way around. Better yet, give us an option?
Rolling out a private communication system that works in a very different way than the previous one with no word about how it works, is not good customer service. And no, posting questions in the forum in hope someone (blue text or regular user) will have an answer is not a sufficient replacement.
- We have absolutely no idea what sort of formatting is available. Does "Ctrl+Tab" insert spaces? Do HTML:tags work? Will anyone tell us? Some of us are not familiar with standard 'chat" functionality and features, and even if we were, is it guaranteed that GOG has not drifted from them? How will we know? By experimenting and spamming our contacts?
- Is there a character limit as to the overall length of a message? Again, we have no idea, and no-one thought to tell us because we're not supposed to use for lengthier messages.

3.5 I really like how this system lacks so much in features and functionality, yet the fade-out effect as one scrolls through messages was implemented (yes, that’s a real thing). If that’s not fluff over substance, I don’t know what is; makes me question GOG’s priorities when it comes to planning and implementing changes.


4. Notifications
4.1 Notifications next to Chat are not counted towards the total of notifications that appear on the account tab in the nav-bar. If one does not hover over their account tab they’ll never know if they have an unread message or not. I don’t understand the logic of this, and would appreciate a rational explanation. If it’s a bug, please fix it a.s.a.p.

4.2. I’ve already mentioned the discrepancy between number of notifications and actual number of messages in the case of consecutively sent messages.

4.3 I have also already commented on the indicators next to contacts that have sent messages awaiting to be read.

4.4 The option to get notified by email has been scrapped completely. While I was not using it, I think it was useful for many people, especially those that don’t visit GOG on a daily basis. I suspect that the live character of the Chat system, combined with the argument to encourage users to visit more often are behind this decision, which I can understand from a cold business POV, but GOG is supposed to be more customer friendly, and it kind of feels like GOG is trying to get rid of users that are “weight”.


So far, the only positive aspect I've found is that we finally have proper time stamps, even if seconds are left out which is what I suspect leads to the auto-merging of consecutively sent messages.


Lastly, I'd like to bring up the issue of the past PM history that didn't make it into the Chat system from the start, something we were not forewarned would happen; on the contrary the initial announcement left no doubt about the opposite. And GOG only when users started asking about their missing messages, leaving us again [url=https://www.gog.com/forum/general/my_account_big_changes_on_the_horizon/post389/?staff=yes]with no ETA.
I had inquired about the time frame of the transition to the new account system as I was worried about the loss of our PM history, but got no reply. I had started backing up my messages locally, but the new account system arrived unexpectedly this past Monday, and I did not have the time to complete my backup; I fear that I may not see some of them again. I hope that GOG will prove my worries unfounded, but their past record regarding site changes fills me with very little confidence.

So, in case things don't go well, I'd like to request that GOG makes our past PM history available to us so we can at least store it locally and refer to it whenever needed.