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General discussiongog.com & drm free offline installers - another (soon?) broken promise?(43 posts)(43 posts)
(43 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted October 27, 2019
high rated
Yesterday I have bought "Crossroads Inn" here at gog.com. After payment I wanted to download the game and play it... nothing special or interesting enough to talk in the forums about it, BUT unfortunately the offline installers are broken (see the entries in the game's forum or here under the release information in the general discussion forum for more details and confirmation from other users that the offline installer files are currently broken and cannot be used for game installation).

Why I do I want to bring this to your attention in the general discussion forum? Because of what happened after I noticed that the offline installer files are broken and cannot be used: I have opened a support ticket and today, approximately after 30 hours I got the following "solution" suggested by the helpdesk:

QUOTE

Hello,

We strongly advise using GOG Galaxy - our application which makes downloading and installing games as convenient as possible.
Besides being very user-convenient, and keeping your games up to date, it offers the fastest download speeds possible, pausing/resuming, and - most importantly - thorough protection against file corruption while downloading.

Just go to https://www.gog.com/galaxy then download and install it on your system. Afterwards, just launch it, log in, and you can install games directly from your Library section.

If you just want to download game installers, please click the game in your Library, click MORE -> Backup & goodies. This will let you download the installer, which you can back up and/or use to install the game at any time.

Best regards,
GOG.com Support

UNQUOTE

Here is my open/public answer to that which I have also written in the support ticket:


QUOTE:

Hello,

sorry but using galaxy is NOT a solution for me! I want to use the offline installers and I hope that you will keep your promise to your customers to always provide drm free games. And using galaxy is - for me and many others - a form of drm I do not want to have on my PC!

If I would prefer to buy/play games using third party client software on my PC I might just as well have bought the game on steam where updates are often published much earlier and prices sometimes even better than here, but prefer to buy my games from YOU and hope that you will stay true to what you told your customers repeatedly in the forums and feature requests: that you will always keep providing offline installer files and deliver truly drm free games.

Thank you and best regards,

UQUOTE

And that's it for today, I am going offline now, because after 30 hours my problem is still not solved, I am rather fed up with the whole issue and I just wanted to let off some steam and make you all aware that it is probably really time to make backups of all your favorite game's offline installers NOW, since we unfortunately cannot know how long we still will be able to get them in this form and how long until gog.com will finally break another promise and force their customers to use galaxy (or just leave and take their money elsewhere - and that's a promise I will keep, dear gog.com!)....
Posted October 27, 2019
Nothing strange at all, it's just a standard response that suits most users who aren't offline installer users only because manually updating the installers take time and are sometimes broken because you guessed it, GOG has a habit of rushing out things before they are ready, even the links in every 1/3 news announcement are broken.

So yes Galaxy is the faster solution here or would be if you didn't only use installers.
Post edited October 27, 2019 by ChrisGamer300
Posted October 27, 2019
high rated
avatar
RainbowDragon: Yesterday I have bought "Crossroads Inn" here at gog.com. After payment I wanted to download the game and play it... nothing special or interesting enough to talk in the forums about it, BUT unfortunately the offline installers are broken (see the entries in the game's forum or here under the release information in the general discussion forum for more details and confirmation from other users that the offline installer files are currently broken and cannot be used for game installation).
Do you mean this one:-
https://www.gog.com/forum/crossroads_inn/corrupt_download_files

I don't own the game but if that happened to me with something I just bought and a support ticket resulted in "don't use our offline installers", personally I'd just put in a refund request with a note linking to that forum post and a comment saying you'll rebuy them when the offline installers are fixed.

Edit: It might also be worth posting your response in that above thread / linking to this one to let other users experiencing the same broken downloaders know of the situation. They may back you up on the "compulsory clients are not why we buy games here" thing.
Post edited October 27, 2019 by AB2012
Posted October 27, 2019
Sounds like they didn't understand that the installer is broken. Perhaps it would be good idea to reiterate that in your answer to the ticket and link the thread where other people complain about the same thing. Making some unsubstantiated claims about end of offline installers is unnecessary.
Posted October 27, 2019
My Gaming PC has no and will have an internet connection, so I'd depend on offline installer.

"Crossroads Inn" isnt my type of game, but thanks for the warning - could hit another game, that i like, too.
Posted October 27, 2019
avatar
AB2012: ...if that happened to me with something I just bought and a support ticket resulted in "don't use our offline installers", personally I'd just put in a refund request with a note linking to that forum post and a comment saying you'll rebuy them when the offline installers are fixed.
+1 to this but I would strongly suggest waiting until you get a (recognisably) human response to your support ticket - chargebacks should be the last resort rather than the first.

Support takes time to respond (a few days typically), especially if you raise a ticket during the weekend.
Post edited October 27, 2019 by AstralWanderer
Posted October 27, 2019
high rated
Gog should change the wording of this automated response. It confuses customers more than it helps.
Posted October 27, 2019
That fits in with my experience from the last couple of days: Septerra Core runs like a charm if and only if I launch it from Galaxy. It will not start if I try the desktop shortcut.
Posted October 27, 2019
Sounds like one of those things that don't get solved simply because it's the weekend. Have some patience and the offline installer will probably be updated tomorrow.

(And if it isn't, just reply to your ticket).
Posted October 27, 2019
Every day there's paranoid posts about offline installers going away, despite the endless number of times GOG staff has said plainly they're not going anywhere. A form letter reply doesn't mean anything.
Posted October 28, 2019
avatar
RainbowDragon: "Hello,

We strongly advise using GOG Galaxy - our application which makes downloading and installing games as convenient as possible.
Besides being very user-convenient, and keeping your games up to date, it offers the fastest download speeds possible, pausing/resuming, and - most importantly - thorough protection against file corruption while downloading.

Just go to https://www.gog.com/galaxy then download and install it on your system. Afterwards, just launch it, log in, and you can install games directly from your Library section.

If you just want to download game installers, please click the game in your Library, click MORE -> Backup & goodies. This will let you download the installer, which you can back up and/or use to install the game at any time."
It was bad enough when developers were telling users to "just use Galaxy" to get updates. While the message quoted here doesn't go as far, it is further illustration of the UNequal treatment of Galaxy versus offline installers. And no, I am not referring to the mere fact it takes a little longer to generate the offline installer (though this is the first I have heard of one not being available upon release, which I agree is cause for demanding a refund). The main point of the inequality seeps through the tone of the message. The first paragraph is so joyful it practically reads like an advertisement! The end of the message is what offline installers get: an afterthought.
Posted October 28, 2019
low rated
What else do you expect from a dying storefront?
Posted October 28, 2019
avatar
Lord_Kane: What else do you expect from a dying storefront?
Gogs not dying, I have no idea where that is coming from if anything GOG gets better and better every year.
Posted October 28, 2019
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Lord_Kane: What else do you expect from a dying storefront?
avatar
David9855: Gogs not dying, I have no idea where that is coming from if anything GOG gets better and better every year.
sorry, In a black mood.
Posted October 28, 2019
avatar
StingingVelvet: Every day there's paranoid posts about offline installers going away, despite the endless number of times GOG staff has said plainly they're not going anywhere. A form letter reply doesn't mean anything.
We don't have to fear anything except if we see Monks at GOG HQ. That is never a good sign :P. Cheers
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General discussiongog.com & drm free offline installers - another (soon?) broken promise?(43 posts)(43 posts)
(43 posts)