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nightcraw1er.488: Proactively downloading as you buy is the simplest way of proceeding.
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timppu: Too much work trying to track (and download) possible updates for over 2000 games... but to each his own.

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nightcraw1er.488: “ The version in the 2015 message is not actively maintained anymore, I think? One should seek the kalanyr branch of that, and IMHO use the development version of that as it has more useful features.” - yeah, I don’t use it myself, like with most open source you will spend most of your time finding out which branch or fork you need and which set of distributables or software you need to get it going.
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timppu: But being open source has made it possible for other people to continue maintaining the tool so that it can still be used, when the original author has (apparently) abandoned the project.

If it had been closed source, then it wouldn't be usable today, unless someone else created a similar tool from scratch themselves.
But you have the wonderful changelogs and new/updated? Yes, I am well aware it could be better, but seriously there are not that many updates, unless you hit one of “those” games like north guard, or you are buying indev and then it’s your own fault.

Yes, well aware of the plus and minuses of proprietary versus open source. Am quite open source myself, but am aware of the limitations of it.
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timppu: Too much work trying to track (and download) possible updates for over 2000 games... but to each his own.

But being open source has made it possible for other people to continue maintaining the tool so that it can still be used, when the original author has (apparently) abandoned the project.

If it had been closed source, then it wouldn't be usable today, unless someone else created a similar tool from scratch themselves.
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nightcraw1er.488: But you have the wonderful changelogs and new/updated?
I presume you are sarcastic as I've seen you complain about the (lack of) changelogs, and yeah new/updated doesn't always work, or the flag may get cleared even before you have downloaded the game (e.g. if you merely go to check a changelog).

Fortunately gogrepo doesn't care of any of that. If some files in the archive have changed, it can detect them all, regardless if there are new/updated flags available or not. Sure the downside is that then you might get also updates that you don't "need" or want, but then there is a much higher probability that you want an update, than that you don't want it.

Also, gogrepo doesn't automatically delete the old files but just moves them to a separate location (and doesn't even do that unless you specifically ask it to "clean" your archives), so if you are so inclined, you can at that point inspect if you want to keep some of the older files. I e.g. decided to keep the older versions of Riven (Myst 2), the original CD and DVD versions of the game that GOG had in the past, even if the newest version really is superior because of better Windows 10 compatibility (due to using ScummVM, unlike the earlier incarnations of the game).

And inspecting all changes (whether you want it or not) is just too time-consuming when your library grows. I recall doing that manual update tracking and downloading updates one by one back when I had like a few hundred games on GOG, and already back then I lost track of the updates, and at some point decided I'd need to redownload my whole library if I wanted to have all updates (because trying to compare each game manually to those on GOG servers would be more time consuming and more work than just redownloading everything).

And nowadays downloading installers manually is more cumbersome as we don't have the GOG Downloader tool anymore that adds add file parts to the download queue, and you don't have to click to a couple dozen separate links per game.

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nightcraw1er.488: Yes, I am well aware it could be better, but seriously there are not that many updates
There are not that many updates per game maybe, but when you have lots of GOG games... I currently have around 70 update flags. Do I want to go inspect them one by one whether I'd want to download them or not? Not really.
If you're not familiar with python and therefore hesitate to use gogrepo, there is also a GUI for gogrepo:
https://github.com/Twombs/GOGRepo-GUI
I would prefer something official from gog, and i suspect that may never arrive, but gogrepo works quite well for me. Took some time to setup initially, but now i just plug in the backup drives and run the batch files for the script every other month or so.
i can´t imagine going back to manual downloads, so when i had the cookie expire incident i was alittle worried. Fortunately, there was an easy fix availible.
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darkangelz: I would prefer something official from gog, and i suspect that may never arrive,...
You mean it will never return. They did have the GOG Downloader, but they discontinued it to push Galaxy instead.
They could instead have improved the downloader or made it open source and let the community improve it or at least kept it as it was. But GOG is trying to make everyone use Galaxy.
Post edited July 11, 2021 by Lifthrasil
low rated
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Darvond: Okay, Tim.

You have 429 games. No matter how you slice that, it's going to be at least 100 GB as installers alone.
and? now we have 10+ TB hdd-s
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Darvond: Okay, Tim.

You have 429 games. No matter how you slice that, it's going to be at least 100 GB as installers alone.
Having it auto-queue up the next downloads, interesting/needed extras and just letting it go for 3-7 days sounds like it would work... And 100Gb of installers isn't so bad, seeing 80Gb installer for a single game....
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SirTawmis: To be fair - it would be a nice feature.
Your old PC crashes, you get a new one - set it all up.
End of the night, you come here - log in - hit download all - and let it go during the night while you sleep blissfully.
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timppu: I am not sure if you are thinking about a similar feature as the original poster.
I think he was requesting the ability to download ALL his games on his GOG account, for his personal archives or whatever.
You seem to be describing that a new fresh installation of the GOG Galaxy client would semi-automatically install and download all those games that you had downloaded and installed before on some other Galaxy client.
I don't use Galaxy but I assume the latter could be achieved by copying all the game files you installed on your first computer to the second computer, and then on the second PC just point Galaxy to import those games. Or something like that.
No, it was the same thing. Downloading the offline versions.
I also don't use GoG Galaxy.

Or even if there was a way to "Check" mark specific games. Say you have 100 games, but you just want to download the "Sierra Games" - so that's like 40 games. You check mark those 40 - and it just downloads all 40 games when you click "Download All" - maybe a check mark "Include Extras? (Y/N)" type thing.

All of this is pipe dreams, naturally. GoG probably doesn't want their servers throttled like that, hitting a lot of downloads all at one time from a single person.
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timppu: I am not sure if you are thinking about a similar feature as the original poster.
I think he was requesting the ability to download ALL his games on his GOG account, for his personal archives or whatever.
You seem to be describing that a new fresh installation of the GOG Galaxy client would semi-automatically install and download all those games that you had downloaded and installed before on some other Galaxy client.
I don't use Galaxy but I assume the latter could be achieved by copying all the game files you installed on your first computer to the second computer, and then on the second PC just point Galaxy to import those games. Or something like that.
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SirTawmis: No, it was the same thing. Downloading the offline versions.
I also don't use GoG Galaxy.

Or even if there was a way to "Check" mark specific games. Say you have 100 games, but you just want to download the "Sierra Games" - so that's like 40 games. You check mark those 40 - and it just downloads all 40 games when you click "Download All" - maybe a check mark "Include Extras? (Y/N)" type thing.

All of this is pipe dreams, naturally. GoG probably doesn't want their servers throttled like that, hitting a lot of downloads all at one time from a single person.
But why do you not have all the installers backed up? Then if your PC crashes, you can just reinstall what you need, no need to waste bandwidth redownloading…
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SirTawmis: No, it was the same thing. Downloading the offline versions.
I also don't use GoG Galaxy.

Or even if there was a way to "Check" mark specific games. Say you have 100 games, but you just want to download the "Sierra Games" - so that's like 40 games. You check mark those 40 - and it just downloads all 40 games when you click "Download All" - maybe a check mark "Include Extras? (Y/N)" type thing.

All of this is pipe dreams, naturally. GoG probably doesn't want their servers throttled like that, hitting a lot of downloads all at one time from a single person.
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nightcraw1er.488: But why do you not have all the installers backed up? Then if your PC crashes, you can just reinstall what you need, no need to waste bandwidth redownloading…
Because I have several hundred games on GoG. So I typically download and install just the games I typically replay a lot. :)

But I frequently get in a mood to play a different series of games, or whatever.
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nightcraw1er.488: But why do you not have all the installers backed up? Then if your PC crashes, you can just reinstall what you need, no need to waste bandwidth redownloading…
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SirTawmis: Because I have several hundred games on GoG. So I typically download and install just the games I typically replay a lot. :)

But I frequently get in a mood to play a different series of games, or whatever.
Hundreds? I have over 1400 here alone. My back up drives are about 11tb a piece. You are relying on the fact that an internet service will be there tomorrow, effectively handing control of your product over to someone else. The point of gog is that you own, and have the responsibility of owning it. You wouldn’t buy a physical copy and leave it at the shop to look after would you?
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SirTawmis: Because I have several hundred games on GoG. So I typically download and install just the games I typically replay a lot. :)

But I frequently get in a mood to play a different series of games, or whatever.
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nightcraw1er.488: Hundreds? I have over 1400 here alone. My back up drives are about 11tb a piece. You are relying on the fact that an internet service will be there tomorrow, effectively handing control of your product over to someone else. The point of gog is that you own, and have the responsibility of owning it. You wouldn’t buy a physical copy and leave it at the shop to look after would you?
So GoG is assuming everyone should just have 11TB drives lying around?
I do make occasional backups to BLURAY discs - but that's like once a year.
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Darvond: Okay, Tim.
You have 429 games. No matter how you slice that, it's going to be at least 100 GB as installers alone.
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timppu: So? You can get 2TB (or bigger) USB HDDs for a nickel and a dime.

I have over 2000 GOG game installers downloaded onto my 5TB and 2TB USB HDDs. (I currently have 2164 GOG games but I haven't run gogrepoc.py for awhile, for several months. I guess it would be time to refresh my collection at some point.)
HDD prices are still stagnant here and having all your data on a large disk is a problem if it breaks and not many people will double their HDD cost to mirror data.

We could also do with next generation storage to take over from BluRay. Where are all the holocubes and quantum memory cards.
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nightcraw1er.488: Hundreds? I have over 1400 here alone. My back up drives are about 11tb a piece. You are relying on the fact that an internet service will be there tomorrow, effectively handing control of your product over to someone else. The point of gog is that you own, and have the responsibility of owning it. You wouldn’t buy a physical copy and leave it at the shop to look after would you?
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SirTawmis: So GoG is assuming everyone should just have 11TB drives lying around?
I do make occasional backups to BLURAY discs - but that's like once a year.
So customers should assume that websites run indefinately? Anyways, I wouldn’t bother with blue rays or that type of media, it soon becomes a huge pile. Hdd’s are the way to go. If you have 400 games, and they are old ones, chances are you can fit them on a couple of 2tb external drives. On the great and evil master site (Amazon) you can pick up 2 tab hdds for around £50 which is only twice the price of a pack of Blu-ray Discs.
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SirTawmis: So GoG is assuming everyone should just have 11TB drives lying around?
I do make occasional backups to BLURAY discs - but that's like once a year.
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nightcraw1er.488: So customers should assume that websites run indefinately? Anyways, I wouldn’t bother with blue rays or that type of media, it soon becomes a huge pile. Hdd’s are the way to go. If you have 400 games, and they are old ones, chances are you can fit them on a couple of 2tb external drives. On the great and evil master site (Amazon) you can pick up 2 tab hdds for around £50 which is only twice the price of a pack of Blu-ray Discs.
Naturally, just like any store - a website can go under, easily enough.
As for stacking up - they do, mostly for personal stuff (documents, pictures, etc).
But for games and MP3s - I typically just back up by date, so if the last time was 12/20/2020.
Say, come July, I'd just back up data from that date to now.
Most of the games I enjoy, as you said, easily fit (mostly Sierra games). But I've purchased things like Pillars of Eternity and all the extras, and such that are larger.

But again - I am just weighing in on it'd be a cool feature for those that don't have TB drives (or don't wanna dig through DVD/BluRay back ups) to be able to check mark some games, and download - figure the download could be managed by GoG Galaxy, if someone wanted that option. I don't need it (I don't even remember the last time I reimaged my machine, I work in IT - so I hate effing around with my own own machine), just thought it would be a cool feature.