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General discussionIMPORTANT NOTICE: Unbundling games(1959 posts)(1959 posts)
(1959 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted March 27, 2015
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ZFR: Is it possible to at least have the unbundled games link back to the gog game page when you click on the title? At the moment they link to nothing.
Just wanted to second that... You could add the link to every unbundled item, instead of removing it. Already found it annoying with X-Wing and TIE Fighter games (DOS and Windows versions were seperate boxes on your shelf, even before unbundling started)... Especially since the search doesn't work from the account page, so you have to leave your shelf to search for the game to find the game page. Stupid...

Apart from that and the weird box arts, conflicts with the downloader, "useful" bonus content descriptions like "product_bonus_48883" and unbundled expansion packs with very "descriptive" names like "WING COMMANDER SECRET OPS" (figured out it belongs to Wing Commander V), ... yeah, apart from that, I like the unbundling :P I never understood why I got stuff installed that I didn't even want. I normally don't play various games of a series simultaneously ;)
Posted March 27, 2015
So happy about this. I use a custom game launcher to launch all of my games (gog or otherwise) and keeping track of which games I had on gog meant custom writing which games were in all of the bundles I own. It was a serious chore. Of course, the transition period is a little painful - all of the new games are registered in my client as new titles, with new names etc, and don't link up to the stats (playtime, completion status) I've been logging for the games. I'll have to go through and move the stats to the new entries.

But in the long run this makes the most sense. You can always use the downloader (or galaxy) to queue up all the downloads from the bundle if you like.

When considering a client (such as galaxy, or my own) this is kind of the only way to do things.
Posted March 27, 2015
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Grargar: Firek's response 2 days ago on the "State of Customer Experience" thread.
I've seen that response, but I'm not 100% happy with it. It's nice that Firek assures us that the web team is following the thread, but how hard can it be for a member of that team to drop by and leave a message about what's going on? It would take five minutes max and it would show that they really care about our feedback.

Right now the unbundling is a mess and it seems that nothing happened for about a week (I'm sure they are working on it, but we can't see anything), so it would be nice if they could start communicating again.
Posted March 27, 2015
Lke many others have said, the option to still have bundled games would be great. I really don't need to see all eight Heroes Chronicles chapters separately, for example. :P
Posted March 28, 2015
The Alone in the Dark release is still kind of weird. It would be great for 2 and 3 to show up on the shelf or with some sort of shortcut (Like with Jack in the Dark) instead of just downloading the older installers when you select them.
Posted March 28, 2015
The one thing I don't like about this is that it makes my backlog look bigger.

And why does Fallout keep disappearing? Is that something to do with this?
Posted March 28, 2015
Was there the option of unbundling games before?
Either way, when I saw it happen I was really happy!! It looks like a real collection now.
I have to say, as much as I don't enjoy buying digital, GoG makes me feel better about it (which is why I mostly only buy digital games from here)

But yeah, I am really happy about this, and I am surprised to see that many players aren't, though I can see why after reading some of the posts here...
Posted March 28, 2015
So Bundles will remain bundles on the store, but will be split in the library? AWESOME! and I mean this.
Posted March 28, 2015
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saluk: So happy about this. I use a custom game launcher to launch all of my games (gog or otherwise) and keeping track of which games I had on gog meant custom writing which games were in all of the bundles I own. It was a serious chore. Of course, the transition period is a little painful - all of the new games are registered in my client as new titles, with new names etc, and don't link up to the stats (playtime, completion status) I've been logging for the games. I'll have to go through and move the stats to the new entries.

But in the long run this makes the most sense. You can always use the downloader (or galaxy) to queue up all the downloads from the bundle if you like.

When considering a client (such as galaxy, or my own) this is kind of the only way to do things.
I still rather like the idea of making additional games DLC under the original game. You get the separation for piecemeal downloading and keep the like items together.
Posted March 28, 2015
Just to say, but Hero Chronicles was a 670MB download, now they're all separated, look ugly in the shelf as individual items and each download is around 450MB or more.. what's the gain? An option to keep them bundled (also with the old download system) would be nice...

Moreover, all forum and game page links are broken. Really with all the things that GOG could do to improve, this would have been the last one I would have chosen, if at all..
Post edited March 28, 2015 by mg1979
Posted March 28, 2015
high rated
My first reaction after discovering this was "FINALLY".

Upon closer inspection, I find the implementation of the unbundling in many cases really dumb. Why? I do use the game names as storage folder for each game on my USB hard drive and naming scheme is more hackneyed than ever...

Other reason is that the game extras are multiplied per game, like every Ultima trilogy game has as extra all stuff from it, Might & Magic too. Worse, these games are just chopped brutally into pieces from their base compilation CD instead of providing the real original game versions (Might & Magic, Earthworm Jim for example...)

Some suggestions for your naming scheme:
- enforce an uniform naming scheme and do not let the naming be influenced by the current mood, alcohol level, alignment of the stars or tossing dices.
- do a QA rule check on your package names.
- do a proper research on game names on mobygames.com and don't invent new titles for the games
- use numbering in game series consistently (don't use sometimes roman numerals, sometimes numbers in numbering of the series (Ultima, I'm looking at you))
- don't leave out the name of the main series in the game name (Battle Chess, Battle Isle, ....)
- don't start a game name with "Episode x ...." (Blackwell Bundle for example)
- don't split up games where the source is a Collectors Edition / compilation pack from a single CD. (too many to list, mostly Sierra games, I suspect the Ultima games, Might & Magic RPG, Earthworm Jim 1+2 (yay, no audio tracks), Incredible Machines, Cossacks Anthology, ....)
- make up your mind, where you put the "the". some games have this at the beginning of the name, some other at the end.

Here are the reasons and my suggested fixes (and note I only discuss my owned games):

Battle Chess Special Edition ---> Chinese Chess
Should be called "Battle Chess: Chinese Chess", as it was called originally...

Battle Isle Platinum (includes Incubation) ---> Battle Isle - Historyline 1914-1918
Call the game name "Battle Isle - History Line 1914-1918" (not historyline_19141918)

Battle Isle Platinum (includes Incubation) ---> Incubation
Call the Game "Battle Isle - Incubation"

Blackwell bundle
erm.. Episode 2..4 - Name ... please fix it to "Blackwell x - Game name"

BloodNet ---> Bloodnet
BloodNet ---> Bloodnet (FDD version)
Why, WHY splitting up? I also did not know until know that there were 2 versions included?!

Cognition: Game of the Year Edition ---> Cognition - Episode 1
Cognition: Game of the Year Edition ---> Cognition - Episode 2
Cognition: Game of the Year Edition ---> Cognition - Episode 3
Cognition: Game of the Year Edition ---> Cognition - Episode 4
Going back to the original parts... but provide in the game name the episode name ...

Heroes Chronicles: All chapters ---> Heroes Chronicles [Chapter 1] - Warlords of the Wasteland
Heroes Chronicles: All chapters ---> Heroes Chronicles [Chapter 2] - Conquest of the Underworld
Heroes Chronicles: All chapters ---> Heroes Chronicles [Chapter 3] - Masters of the Elements
Heroes Chronicles: All chapters ---> Heroes Chronicles [Chapter 4] - Clash of the Dragons
Heroes Chronicles: All chapters ---> Heroes Chronicles [Chapter 5] - The World Tree
Heroes Chronicles: All chapters ---> Heroes Chronicles [Chapter 6] - The Fiery Moon
Heroes Chronicles: All chapters ---> Heroes Chronicles [Chapter 7] - Revolt of the Beastmasters
Heroes Chronicles: All chapters ---> Heroes Chronicles [Chapter 8] - The Sword of Frost
Heroes Chronicles was originally a base game with additionaly addon disks and I think it was produced as a full title, so merge the game back ...

Heroes of Might and Magic® 5: Bundle ---> Heroes of Might and Magic V
Heroes of Might and Magic® 5: Bundle ---> Heroes of Might and Magic V - Tribes of the East
Really no logic behind that? Why did you split up the 5th game and not all the other Heroes of M&M? Merge it back, like the other ones.

Leisure Suit Larry ---> Softporn Adventure
Why splitting this game away from Leisure Suit Larry?

Might and Magic® 6-pack Limited Edition ---> Might and Magic 1 - Book I
Wrong name. Correct one is "Might & Magic I: The Secret of the Inner Sanctum".

Might and Magic® 6-pack Limited Edition ---> Might and Magic 4-5 - World of Xeen
You do know that Might & Magic 4 and 5 are all standalone games too? Oh snap, we have taken this from the Compilation CD where it's already fused together and we cannot split it. Please use the original game sources, if you are doing this stuff.

Pirates! Gold Plus ---> Pirates!
Somehow, this game is not in my library, though I do own the Pirates Gold game.

Quest for Glory 1-5 ---> Quest for Glory
The original EGA release is missing (it is on the original compilation CD where you butchered from).

tesla_effect_a_tex_murphy_adventure
should be called: tex murphy - tesla effect

Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation + Chronicles ---> Tomb Raider - The Last Revelation
Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation + Chronicles ---> Tomb Raider Chronicles
Why do these games have no series numbers (4, 5)?

Ultimaâ„¢ 1+2+3 ---> Ultima 1
Ultimaâ„¢ 1+2+3 ---> Ultima 2
Ultimaâ„¢ 1+2+3 ---> Ultima 3
Ultimaâ„¢ 4+5+6 ---> Ultima IV
Ultimaâ„¢ 4+5+6 ---> Ultima V
Ultimaâ„¢ 4+5+6 ---> Ultima VI
Ultimaâ„¢ 7 The Complete Edition ---> Ultima VII - The Black Gate + The Forge of Virtue
Ultimaâ„¢ 7 The Complete Edition ---> Ultima VII - Serpent Isle
A total trainwreck in numbering. I guess the reason for this is to differentiate it with the freeware release of Ultima 4 and you took the games from a compilation CD where free has other files than the compilation...

Just number it correctly.

Why in the world have you Ultima 7 unbundled? This makes really no sense at all.

And for the love of god, if you insist on unbundling the Ultima 7 game, why isn't Ultima 8 (your Gold edition with the speech pack?)

Wing Commanderâ„¢ 1+2 ---> Wing Commander
Wing Commanderâ„¢ 1+2 ---> Wing Commander II
Wing Commanderâ„¢ 5: Prophecy Gold Edition ---> Wing Commander Prophecy
Wing Commanderâ„¢ 5: Prophecy Gold Edition ---> Wing Commander Secret Ops
Why is Wing Commander 1 and 2 not unbundled with their secret ops / speech pack?

Baldurs Gate - The Original Saga
Baldurs Gate 2 - The Complete Saga
Dark Reign (has an expansion)
Descent 3 (has an expansion)
Duke Nukem 3D Atomic Edition
Freespace 1 (has an expansion called "Silent Thread" is included in package)
Gothic 2 Gold Edition
Heroes of Might & Magic 3 Complete Edition
Heroes of Might & Magic 4 Complete
Icewind Dale Complete
Magic Carpet
Redneck Rampage Collection
Syndicate
Sensible World of Soccer 96 97
Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri (includes Crossfire expansion)
Spellforce Platinum (is a compilation of base game + expansions)
Strike Commander (speech pak and data disk included)
Hugo Trilogy

all of the Telltale episodic games
According to your logic with Ultima 7, Heroes of Might&Magic 5 and similiar cases, these games have to be butcheredup into its parts, base game and expansions..... (not that I'd advocate that).

See what are you doing and what havoc are you causing?

I guess the main reason why the unbundled games - ignoring the naming issues - are now in such a butchered, messy state, is that GOG just split up their compilation CDs sources not accounting that their are very often incomplete and often only have a single documentation PDF for all games.

If you don't want to undo this, please get the original game releases and replace the butchered compilation versions with the real releases (and provide the wholesale missing audio tracks at least as MP3).
Post edited March 28, 2015 by coffeecup
Posted March 28, 2015
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coffeecup: Pirates! Gold Plus ---> Pirates!

Somehow, this game is not in my library, though I do own the Pirates Gold game.
The game (along with others), hasn't been unbundled yet.

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coffeecup: Quest for Glory 1-5 ---> Quest for Glory

The original EGA release is missing (it is on the original compilation CD where you butchered from).
For some inconsistent reason, the EGA version is contained in the VGA installer.
Posted March 28, 2015
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coffeecup: [..]
I agree with all that (even if it has been adressed before) and I'll add this:

- episodes\chapters or Goty\Gold versions must NOT be split. End of story.
- I would avoid all the starting "the" or "a" in the titles.
- the series name before a game name is mandatory. I'd even force the number 1 on the first titles.
- maybe I'd even use double padding for numbers under ten (01,02) so a possible GAME11 wouldn't end up between GAME1 and GAME2.
Post edited March 28, 2015 by phaolo
Posted March 28, 2015
In addition to everything that has been said before, I would also like to point out that in several cases, the product team took some very strong creative liberties with the game covers. I already wrote to support about Ultima I, but the more I look at other covers, the more I realise I should had made a longer list.

The worse hit is the Might and Magic series. They used fonts from MM VI as the basis and chose covers almost at random (where did they find the MM II cover for example?)

Hopefully, once they make certain that each game has its own cover (as promised in a bluetext post), they will return to existing ones and correct the ones that stick out the most.
Posted March 28, 2015

Might and Magic® 6-pack Limited Edition ---> Might and Magic 1 - Book I
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coffeecup: Wrong name. Correct one is "Might & Magic I: The Secret of the Inner Sanctum".
Shouldn't the correct name be Might and Magic Book I: The Secret of the Inner Sanctum?

Besides that you are right with everything you wrote. +1
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This is my favourite topic
Community
General discussionIMPORTANT NOTICE: Unbundling games(1959 posts)(1959 posts)
(1959 posts)