No update to the Sheltered changelog since 18/10/18

Hey, this be the land of patience, if nothing else.
The 2nd Class Citizen thread/spreadsheet has already been mentioned here, it's being kept as up to date as possible with the help of the community. Might be worth checking out whenever you want to make a purchase on GOG - but considering it's GOG, devs get some lenience for updates. A couple of days, even up to a month; after that, I think we're free to complain. ;)

Changelog does not mean a thing (unfortunately). Several games receive updates but no changelog.

Yeah I agree that a few days, even weeks (but certainly no more than a month) is fair. I don't expect gog to get any update the very second Steam does. Steam will always get the love first, and it's understandable due to their volume, but at some point (a month?) it's unacceptable.

I don't know if it's the case here, but keep in mind that generally speaking differences in version numbers don't necessarily mean differences in features.

For example, solving technical issues specific to Steam (e.g. broken Steam achievements) might cause the version number on other services like GOG to "fall behind" despite the actual game being as up to date as the Steam version.

I understand all of that and referenced it. The 1.1.20 patch not only fixed Steam achievements but also had bug fixes and update to the engine. In 2017. Those bug fixes and update to the engine are not here.

Some games also use different build/version numbers on GOG vs Steam which is absolutely delightful when you're trying to figure out whether a game is up to date or not. :) Another way to check that is the GOG Database, though it does not help with the issue you mentioned here.


I wouldn't necessarily say Steam "gets the love first", it just tends to be more convenient in some cases. But yes, give them time before we start a riot. :D

I GET where you're coming from with this, but is it really so bad? The version number seems pretty "high" so it can't be that much that got updated.

Also It's literally ONE number removed from the steam version. You're making it sound here like GOG is only selling a sketchy beta or something.So you'd potentially give up on the DRM free thing for games with slightly higher version numbers that May or May Not be improved or fixed in some substantial way?To be fair with new games being added all the time and updates being made all the time that one might be impossible to fulfill 100%.
Saw the edit to this post, but in general i'd rather they sold said outdated games with a disclaimer in BOLD LETTERS warning people of the outdated versions/issues with gameplay so people could still play it if they wanted.

If the solution were easy it wouldn't be a problem anymore, I'm sure. I'm not defending it, but if what I've mostly read is true... GOG patches take a lot more effort due to no forced client, and since GOG sales are much lower many developers put it off and don't get around to it... the only solutions seem to be either force the client (which would make many people flip their shit) or reject these developers (which would make many people flip their shit).

Nobody is asking for perfection, but that doc about outdated games contains almost 400 titles by now..
(and it doesn't include missing achievs)

True, but that's compared to how many games total? I think it's around 3500 or so....so 400 or so being out of date(and some not by much) is pretty good all things considered.



SV is of the mindset that gog should have all games downloadable via the client or that they should do so to make updating easier somehow(don't ask me how).

Did you poke the actual devs on social media? Sometimes one or more parties can forget.

I'm fairly sure GOG changed the way things were uploaded "back end" a year or two ago to make things significantly easier vs how it used to be. ie, whereas patching used to be a hassle for devs, the upload / patching pathway is now more "direct" and there's no longer any real correlation of "offline installers are holding back patches" (that's a process that can be virtually automated for most new games that don't write registry keys / need custom tweaks like disabling ALT-TAB, etc). If anything it's the extra work required to redo achievements just for Galaxy that's probably discouraging some devs from even releasing here.

The real bottleneck appears to be devs actually wanting / remembering to upload patches on "secondary stores" in the first place (even for Galaxy). Likewise, many of us are happy to put up with some reasonable delay, so there's no real "demand" that offline installer updates happen on the same day as Galaxy, and if they're "pulled" from a direct more automated path, there's no more hassle for devs either and GOG's offline installers should in fact be completely transparent to devs. Really though if GOG aren't automating that Galaxy -> offline installer process (at least for new games), then that's the first mistake that needs correcting.

I think phaolo's point was less than a year ago the "second class" list was nearer 200. Now it's doubled in size in virtually a year (whereas GOG's catalogue hasn't) and is now well into double-digits. It's the trend overall that's not looking very good. The sad truth is, not that long ago many older games sold here such as Commandos: Behind Enemy Lines were the superior version vs elsewhere due to better compatibility patching vs devs just booting them out "raw" on Steam (and only starting to take 'it won't work' complaints on Steam seriously after Steam (begrudgingly) introduced refunds). Newer games don't even need that level of attention and yet are still problematic.

I mean simply reading the Changelog entries, it's far more work for GOG to rebuild a game like Thief 1-2 / System Shock when the newest updated 3rd party community patch (NewDark / TFix / TafferPatcher) comes out, and yet they manage that faster than many devs of new games who have little more to do than click a button yet that's still 'too much effort' for some.

I don't think it is a case of GOG accepting it, but mostly about GOG not being aware which games are not fully up to date etc. Of course a community generated list helps, but even then... well, think of it yourself. Let's say you work for GOG.com, and your main job is web design. Then your superior comes to you "hey, if you have nothing else to do, could you go through that community list of 400 developers and ask each of them why exactly the GOG version is not fully up to date?".

You are miffed because you'd have some other work to do too, but anyways you start preparing 400 emails to developers, one by one. One month later you have received a reply to maybe 12 of your emails, most of which just deny that the GOG version wouldn't be up to date, or saying that the Steam update is not critical. Then you think should you really start going through the changelogs on Steam and trying to see if there are any important missing fixes on GOG, and start arguing with the publishers etc.? Then there are a few positive emails which say "oh ok, we didn't remember, we will fix it soon", yet they never do.

Do you think some Valve employee goes through all Steam games once a week or once a month, to see if they all are up to date? No, they expect the publishers/developers to take care of their games, updating them if needed etc. GOG probably expects the same, and hiring more people to continuously herd the game publishers/developers is an extra expense that the competitors (like Valve) don't have.

As StingingV said, if there was some easy solution to this, I am sure GOG would have implemented it already. I am not denying it is an inconvenient situation to GOG too, and it is for their (business) best interest that the GOG games would be fully up to date.