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Try the DRM-free online gaming platform.

<span class="bold">GOG Galaxy</span>: our truly gamer-friendly, DRM-free online gaming platform. As we shared our vision with the world, we promised auto-patching, social functionality like chat, friends lists, and achievements. We promised our own multiplayer support and cross-play with Steam. Most importantly, we promised truly optional.



Today we deliver.
The <span class="bold">GOG Galaxy</span> client enters beta, open to anyone, with the most important functionality ready to try, test, enjoy (and break) at your leisure. We're proud to have gotten this far, and we know that we couldn't have done it without you all - that's everyone who spent months in alpha testing, that's those of you who talked to us about your needs and expectations, and it's every single one of you that has supported us since ever. So thanks, GOG Galaxy is for you!

With the <span class="bold">GOG Galaxy Beta</span>, you can install your games in one click and keep them up to date automatically, the beta currently supports this feature in all but a couple of titles available here. You can also perform backups easily by downloading a standalone installer through GOG Galaxy. The beta features a friends list, game time tracking, achievements, and chat. You can now talk to each other, connect with your group of friends, and see what everyone is playing. You can also try out our online multiplayer & matchmaking solution that, in select titles, includes cross-play: platform-independent multiplayer between gamers on GOG.com and Steam. If you download a patch that breaks something or if you just change your mind, the app will soon feature a unique rollback option to restore a previous version of your game.

Best of all, GOG Galaxy is optional. If you don't want to use any additional software, your experience with us won't change at all. If you only want to take advantage of select conveniences, you can toggle them on and off. It's all totally up to you.

You can sign up for the <span class="bold">GOG Galaxy Beta</span> and find out more on <span class="bold">gog.com/galaxy</span>, where we tell you about the features and answer many of the questions you may have. We'll be watching the forums carefully, so feel free to leave a comment if there is anything else that you'd like to know!
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redrain85: But the description for Galaxy already proclaims lots of great features to match Steam's, and when you install the client you find that most of them are "Coming Soon". So, in its current state it's rather a misnomer to even call it a Beta.
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green.anger: Don't know the story, but it looks like Galaxy was meant to be released just before Witcher 3 regardless of its state. Of course you cannot call such release "pre-alpha" even if it is. Wouldn't be fun to know Witcher 3 was delayed so that GOG team could release something stable.
Wasn't Galaxy supposed to be done when Divinity: Dragon Commander released, so the game was delayed for a little while and then released anyway because Galaxy was still way far off? Or was that another game?
Post edited May 10, 2015 by Maighstir
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green.anger: Don't know the story, but it looks like Galaxy was meant to be released just before Witcher 3 regardless of its state. Of course you cannot call such release "pre-alpha" even if it is. Wouldn't be fun to know Witcher 3 was delayed so that GOG team could release something stable.
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Maighstir: Wasn't Galaxy supposed to be done when Divinity: Dragon Commander released, so the game was delayed for a little while and then released anyway because Galaxy was still way far off? Or was that another game?
As I said I didn't know the story, all of it was only an assumption. But it's more likely possible for Witcher 3 as it is CD Projekt RED's product and GOG is its subsidiary.
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Maighstir: Wasn't Galaxy supposed to be done when Divinity: Dragon Commander released, so the game was delayed for a little while and then released anyway because Galaxy was still way far off? Or was that another game?
Nope. What was supposed to happen, was to add a galaxy launcher similar to AVP Classic 2000 to enable online multiplayer. Source by Destro himself.
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Maighstir: Wasn't Galaxy supposed to be done when Divinity: Dragon Commander released, so the game was delayed for a little while and then released anyway because Galaxy was still way far off? Or was that another game?
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Grargar: Nope. What was supposed to happen, was to add a galaxy launcher similar to AVP Classic 2000 to enable online multiplayer. Source by Destro himself.
Ah, that wasn't clear when I read about it way back when, but that's a bit more reasonable.
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green.anger: Option will be the best solution for everyone. In the end, it's a matter of preferences. I'd rather wait a bit longer for decompressing, than a lot longer (depends on bandwidth of course) for downloading the game twice.
Agreed! There should be an option. So you don't have to download the game twice, if you want an offline/backup installer.

If people prefer faster install at the expense of more data transfer, then they can leave it at the default. But I'd rather have the option for the client to use the offline installer, even if it takes longer to set up a game.

And your theory about Galaxy being rushed out the door regardless of its condition, to be on time for Witcher 3's release, makes sense.
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redrain85: There should be an option. So you don't have to download the game twice, if you want an offline/backup installer.
They have that. The option is "download and run the installer". It's available on the Extras page for the game. :)

You're thinking of Galaxy as purely doing installations, and that's incorrect. Galaxy does updates, and happens to do installations as a side-effect. If you don't already have the game installed, then an "install" is really an update from nothing to the current version.
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ATimson: They have that. The option is "download and run the installer". It's available on the Extras page for the game. :)
LOL. Well, at least one other person has agreed that the current way of downloading an offline installer, could be far more seamless. Or, at least more discoverable.

What say the rest of you? :)

I'm trying to put myself in the shoes of someone who might be designing the client. Not as a savvy GOG user.
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nicbongo: I've just tried to purchase the Witcher 3 expansion pass and silver with the beta and have encountered 2 problems:

1) when I got to the check out Silver disappears from my basket.

2) When I click to pay with paypal I cannot view the paypal screen, which is a GOG screen not a browser screen. It's strange, on my task bar GOG shows 2 windows though but I just cannot select the paypal screen.
Whenever I've seen that sort of behaviour here on my end it turned out to be one of my Firefox extensions interfering with things. I muck around with NoScript, RequestPolicy, CookieMonster and other addon settings to get things to work and then I'm golden. If not, I give up and switch to another browser temporarily that doesn't have Fort Knox security or customizations and that does the trick. If you're not using any addons though then it would have to be something else I suspect.

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redrain85: The way you download a game installer in Galaxy, as you mentioned, is currently rather unintuitive IMHO. (Most people will not think of going to an option labelled "Extras" to download the actual game installer).
Indeed, the wording of that or layout of the menu could be more intuitive. "Downloads" would be a better name than "Extras" for intuition if it is all chucked into one place, or "Downloads" and "Bonus Materials" if breaking them into two.
Post edited May 10, 2015 by skeletonbow
Spare key redeemed.
Post edited May 10, 2015 by Shimejibr
Will GOG Galaxy ever support the movies that you can purchase on GOG.com ?
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KthulhuX: Will GOG Galaxy ever support the movies that you can purchase on GOG.com ?
Good question. Depends on whether they want Galaxy to evolve into a general entertainment client I suppose but in theory it shouldn't be hard to add a simple player to the client using HTML5 technologies probably with the addition of an H.264 codec if it doesn't have one built in already. It's worth adding that suggestion to the Galaxy feature wishlist perhaps.

http://www.gog.com/wishlist
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redrain85: The way you download a game installer in Galaxy, as you mentioned, is currently rather unintuitive IMHO. (Most people will not think of going to an option labelled "Extras" to download the actual game installer).
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skeletonbow: Indeed, the wording of that or layout of the menu could be more intuitive. "Downloads" would be a better name than "Extras" for intuition if it is all chucked into one place, or "Downloads" and "Bonus Materials" if breaking them into two.
Later is better. But it's already implemented that way. "Download Extras" is split in two sections, "Game Installer" and "Game Extras". For me it's totally fine, except for the name of sub-menu. It should be "Downloads" as you suggested, not "Download Extras". "Extra" is confusing, you wouldn't consider an installer to be an extra. But "Downloads" is fine for everything.

The bigger concern I have is about inability to download DLC installer. There are installers, patches, but no DLC. If you want your DLC installed you'll have to install core game and then in the "Configure" sub-menu click checkboxes for needed DLC. What's more, for some games DLC are installed with the core game without your permission and you'll have to uninstall them later, if you don't need them. And as we know Galaxy doesn't download installers during installation. So the only option to get DLC installer is to go to the website. What is it, flawed design?
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redrain85: If people prefer faster install at the expense of more data transfer, then they can leave it at the default. But I'd rather have the option for the client to use the offline installer, even if it takes longer to set up a game.
You know, thinking about Blackguards again, I'm not sure it will take longer using 4 GB offline installer than downloading 17 GB ready-to-play game. 13 extra Gigs is no joke. Again, it all depends on bandwidth (for downloading) and hardware (for decompressing).
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green.anger: Option will be the best solution for everyone. In the end, it's a matter of preferences. I'd rather wait a bit longer for decompressing, than a lot longer (depends on bandwidth of course) for downloading the game twice.
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redrain85: Agreed! There should be an option. So you don't have to download the game twice, if you want an offline/backup installer.[..]
This dude checked the logs and told me that Galaxy already downloads installers and not uncompressed data as I though too.

Also, it's true that at first GOG wanted to delay D:OS and wait for Galaxy, but luckly they changed idea at the last time.
They released a pre-alpha with AVP, then.
Post edited May 10, 2015 by phaolo
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DCT: Why? not being snarky., I am honestly curious as to the reasoning since you can download the installers through Galaxy and just about every thing in it is optional and so if you choose so it's basically a fancy downloader so outside of the stigma of the term Client I fail to personally see what the reason for having the downloader and a other application that does the same thing.
I know this is a few days old and someone else might have mentioned this, but I can't use Galaxy to download installers - I don't have the necessary specs to run the program. I am using an old Macbook running OSX 10.6.8. Galaxy requires 10.8. I have no intention of upgrading as the laptop does what I need perfectly fine, including running old games. Being able to continue to use the downloader matters to me.