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General discussionGOG - Biggest potentials for improvements(7 posts)(7 posts)
(7 posts)
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Posted August 16, 2017
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Hi Gog and Gog community:

I've been using GOG for a few years now and love it. I have been able to grow quite a game collection and it is great fun to be able to choose from both titles with childhood memories and to be introduced to recent indie titles. I am not using gog galaxy because thoose kind of clients are not my thing. I really appreciate that the full library can be downloaded just like in the past. I hope that users such as me are not forgotten or down-prioritized due to GOG galaxy.

That being said, it bugs me that such a great service has flaws that are left unattended to for years. Is it a sign that your commitment to your customers is waning?

I intend to list the 10 biggest potentials that can greatly increase the user experience with relatively small effort a.k.a. "quick wins". If you would be so kind to do some cleanup. I am hoping to catch the attention of someone who can do something about them in the GOG team, or at least get some supporting voices from the community:

1. Update/fix GOG Downloader
GOG Downloader occasionally will refuse to download certain files (latest "Kyn"). It says paused when not paused and just skips to next game. Sometimes when restarting GOG Downloader it remembers lists of downloads already completes in the past and then proceeds to re-downloading them. Very strange. Clicking on bonus content links with 0 mb causes a download to appear that never starts. Please fix bugs in the downloader!

2. Move GOG Downloader links to normal game content window
When scrolling through the library we can complete almost any actions on the titles on the same page. This means it is possible to e.g. look at change requests for one game and then jump to next title in an instant. The exception is gog download links which appear on a completely different page. Once I go to the downloader links and start download I then have to press the back button to get back to the library, my previous position on the page now forgotten. This is very annoying when downloading several games in one go. Can you please move the gog links contents to the same pop-up window that appears for info, changelog, downloads, serial key etc..?

3. Clean up GOG Downloader links
Windows DLC appear under linux download links... go figure. It is quite clear that the gog downloader page was designed long ago and has not been amended to neatly fit all the new content. Today there is a vast amount of different content, including DLCs, demos, and more. It would be great if this could be correctly and conveniently arranged on the gog downloader page. I.e. If I am a Windows user I don't want to see linux links in between installer and extra content. It just confuses me and enables me to accidentally download wrong files or miss something. If there is no bonus content then I don't want to see a link that says 0 mb. It is not clear if 0 mb means there is no content or content is so small it is close to 0mb. Don't place links that have no purpose. Would be great if there was a filter for language and system to hide non relevant links.

4. Clean up game folders, files, names and numbering
It is time to clean up the folder names guys! I wish to have same file and folder names as when downloaded in order to help me make sure my library is synced. However the current naming is not always great. "xwing_cdrom_placeholder" is not a great name for x-wing game folder. Related games and dlc use "the" in the name inconsistently: "The pit - mindgames" but "Sword of the stars: The pit". Why can't they be named so the folders appear in conjunction when sorted alphabetically? How about skipping the "The" prefix altogether in folder names? And what happened to the version numbers? Suddenly new updates of games have version numbers lower than old files. Why are the version numbers on the files different from those on the game page in the library? (i.e. gog-5 compared to 2.2.0012 etc). It makes it tricky to tell if a file is latest version!

5. Merge related game content
Different versions of games and DLCs already appear under the main game title in the library. However "free" demos of same games appear as separate titles. Could you please move the demos as downloadable additional files under the main games? If this causes any trouble when people do not have the main game then there is something wrong with the whole premise how things are set up. It would be convenient to see the main title in the library but no installer link, only demo link and possibly a message explaining the main game has not yet been purchased. If you think showing titles when only demo is available will deter people from buying the main game, then indicate with an icon on the game icon that it is incomplete.

6. Indicate when game content has been added in the library
It would be great if there was some marker as to which games have new content (could mean dlc, artbook, sountrack etc). When I buy a DLC to an existing title there is no indication there are new files for the game. It comes up neither under new or updated. It may be a third category is needed "added content" or something. Current situation becomes a problem with a big library. I can't easily keep track of where content has been added when making multiple purchases. It would also be very good to have same marker when new free content is available - i.e. perhaps a new trailer or old game version was added as a bonus.

7. Add filter to hide titles already owned
When I browse through the purchase list of games I always have to mentally filter out everything I already own and sometimes scroll between pages because of it. Why can't you just add an option to filter out titles already owned? I am not interested in duplicates or gifting titles! Make it easier for me to shop! Please!

8. Make it easier to avoid buying DLCs without main game
Sometimes I accidentally try to buy a DLC for a game I don't have. The shopping cart screen properly informs I cannot but the link to remove the game is found farther below the messages. It would be much more convenient if either the games are not added to the cart at all - or if the "remove" link was next to the "cannot buy" message.

9. Show games inaccessible to my region
I can see advertisements for the Neptunia games but when I search nothing comes up. Turns out they are not available in my region (according to customer service). Would be great if we could see all games available in all regions, and instead of hiding them just replace the purchase button with a "not available in your region" button. The button could then take you to a screen with more information. As it is now there is no information as to why a game has seemingly vanished.

10. Prevent Pinata sale duplicates
I love your pinata game sale but please - could you stop giving me duplicates and instead inform me before overbuying? Who wants duplicates? Can't you just show a message that all games have been bought when trying to overbuy, like you do with DLCs without main game? This would save time and unnecessary work with service requests.

Thank you for a great service - but it is time to clean up before it goes down hill!
Post edited August 16, 2017 by PrinceThrakhath
Posted August 16, 2017
GOG Downloader is no longer supported and won't be updated anymore, it will likely stop working in the future... GOG considers Galaxy as the replacement for the GOG Downloader as you can download standalone installers with it or continue to use the website.
Posted August 16, 2017
Shit, if they can just manage to give me my notifications back I'll be content. :P
Posted August 16, 2017
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tinyE: Shit, if they can just manage to give me my notifications back I'll be content. :P
I very much doubt that.
Posted August 16, 2017
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PrinceThrakhath: ...
As said, GOG Downloader isn't supported anymore, so don't expect it to be developed further, or fixed.

Related to downloading especially the offline installers, a couple I wouldn't mind seeing (related to each other; these could be implemented in the Galaxy client for all I care):

1. A way to mass-download all your offline installers and extras, a bit like e.g. gogrepo.py (and lgogdownloader) does it already. It wouldn't only be used for downloading, but it would also check automatically what has changed or is new and needs to be downloaded, like gogrepo does.

Now, I understand GOG isn't necessarily excited about the idea people constantly downloading all their games all the time due to the extra stress on their CDN servers and rather would see people download games one by one only when they intend to play it, but the solution would be:


2. Implement optional peer-to-peer functionality to the downloading. Then the GOG servers wouldn't be hit even nearly as hard for people mass-downloading their games, and GOG users could contribute to the bandwidth.

I see many sites and online services nowadays implementing peer-to-peer to their content delivery, off the top of my head:

- Humble Bundle allows you to download your DRM-free games (both PC and Android) with a generic bittorrent client.

- Windows 10 has the option to use also your PC for content delivery for other users.

- I recall the Battle.net client has such option too? At least I recall so when I used it a long time ago.

- The MapFactor navigator on my Android phone has an option to use peer-to-peer to download/share offline maps, which can be quite big. On a freaking phone!

I just get a warm fuzzy feeling when using p2p technology, as if I am finally contributing something to the world, without being a filthy pirate. In all the cases above, using peer-to-peer is optional and there is an option for direct downloads too, in case you don't want to use p2p (like due to monthly data transfer caps, or because the port needed for p2p are blocked, or whatever...).


However, I am not optimistic GOG would implement these things as they seem to hope people would rather use their GOG games "the Steam way", letting Galaxy to install and run the games. The offline installers are of secondary importance to them and offered on the side.

Oh well, in the meantime I use gogrepo.py then, it does pretty much what I want, even if it downloads everything directly from GOG.
Post edited August 16, 2017 by timppu
Posted August 16, 2017
1-3: GOG downloader has been discontinued.
4: Folders?
5: Eh. I guess that makes sense.
6: I guess. But you could also just search for it.
7: That's in the barefoot fundamentals.
8: Sometimes you can't buy the game this week. Maybe you had a sudden bill. But you want to buy the game eventually and have the DLC ready to go?
9: Fair enough.
10: The entire pinata concept is kinda dumb.
Posted August 16, 2017
Filtering and anything that allows a better organization of the library and store pages would be welcome.

As a user of the GOG downloader (without any problems so far), I assume some day it will stop working. No blame on GOG: they've been quite transparent about it and haven't killed it on purpose or removed it from the website (which they could have).
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General discussionGOG - Biggest potentials for improvements(7 posts)(7 posts)
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