Pathfinder: Kingmaker was a total, utter shitshow when you had to rely on offline installers.
It was the game that finally convince me to never buy new releases on GoG, because they simply cannot handle offline installers and patches anymore.

There were *multiple* patches per day for Kingmaker on some days. At least several weeks were there was at least one patch per working day. And each and everyone of these patches was dependend on the previous one.
Combine that with GoGs ridiculous policy of keeping only the last 4 patches available for download, you had to check the downloads page every day.
And they *still* messed up with some patch of a patch, and the patch chain broke. Since at that time i had only shitty internet, a full re download of the Game would have taken days, so i grudgingly installed Galaxy, patched the game, and removed Galaxy again.

When I'm facing a choice whether to have Galaxy based multiplayer or no multiplayer at all, I choose the first. And I don't think that's the choice of minority. There's of course the possibility of multiplayer without any client, but it's very rare these days.

Give it time. It’s not released yet, could be an online only microtransaction fuelled gamble fest with a kernel anti cheat module. With of course an offline training module so it’s all good and proper.

Yeah, to be blunt there just might not be enough demand to bother, or maybe the publisher doesn't want that. Or maybe GOG is lazy, who knows! I'm just glad there's a preload at all, I figured there wouldn't be.

How large is this download btw?

In a phase where a game is frequently getting updated, an offline installer is completely useless, just like a physical copy would be these days. Or do you guys want to download that thing 3 times a week? I am totally into no-DRM and offline installers and I have an external drive with offline installers for every single gog-game I own.

Nonetheless, a launcher that always keeps the game up to date has its merits, at least for new games.

I hate DRM but I am also happily using Galaxy, mainly because I like to track my game time. The fact that I am not forced to use it is enough "DRM-freeness" for me.

That's a false choice. The real choice is between Galaxy-based multiplayer, and properly-designed DRM-free multiplayer that many games even today still have. Hell, Galaxy should have been DESIGNED to be a DRM-free multiplayer layer from the get-go, and not as a lock-in, anti-feature system that it is. It was intentionally designed badly.

Also, the helping adoption Galaxy client is NOT a good thing. It's being used for DRM purposes. Look at Cyberpunk 2077. That's 100% by the book DRM through Galaxy. Some other games have had similar too. Plus, even at its core, "ownership checking" is there. Install a game on a shared computer under one profile. Switch to another profile and switch to that game (signed in to a different GOG account that doesn't have that game in it) and it will immediately show "offline". You can test further: Said "offline" profile cannot get achievements from said game. This is bad behavior.

Galaxy as designed, marketed, and used is a BAD thing and is just a stepping stone to eroding away consumer rights and DRM-freeness; just a tool to bring in back door DRM and even overt DRM.

My folder is 26.6GB.

You might want to remove that space character from the URL you're trying to use here and on the news post.

I mean why else post here, really.

Thanks. :)

You personally would choose the first...cool...but why does a "DRM-free store" make the same choice? And, why does number of users matter when it comes to whether something is DRMed or not? Imo, a DRM-free store should not accept any DRM even if a majority of users would say they personally don't care. One could make the argument that as a business they should accept DRMed games either in part or whole, but if so, they have lost their selling point and have caused major brand confusion (as GOG already has, in my opinion).

I will grant that not much can be done about developers releasing constant updates the way that happened with Pathfinder 1, though GOG should still give offline installer users the ability to download previous individual patches via offline installer. As to why offline users can't also access a preload, maybe there are not a ton of us at this moment in time, due imo to so many people being gamed artificially into using Galaxy. However, I feel GOG could at least give us the option, advertise it equal to Galaxy, and see if anyone takes advantage the offline way. If not, why not?

And beyond that, isn't GOG a "minority" compared to Scheme, Epic Fail, and other competitors? I don't see encouragement to go shop at those places instead so it's a little odd to invoke that as a defense for why some customers get a thing and others don't. As much as GOG may not like it, there are still some of us here like me who insist upon the offline installers and insist on NOT using Galaxy. We can get called names, we can get told it's to our detriment, but we can keep not using your "optional" client too.

The offline installers are an important feature of GOG and they're not going anywhere. I also understand why Galaxy-only multiplayer may be controversial. However I don't think that GOG is in a position to dictate the publishers and developers the shape of online features that they implement in their games. GOG isn't a game developer nor a publisher and it doesn't have influence on how the games are made. Therefore the service can't impose the timplementation of Galaxy-free multiplayer. And I'd rather prefer an option to buy a game with Galaxy-only multiplayer than not to buy it at all on GOG because it's unavailable. Please remember that games with Galaxy-only multiplayer still have offline installers which can be used to install and play the game without using the client and this is a crucial thing.

Sadly, we can't even get all single-player content from GOG via offline installers anymore, since the inclusion of DRM in products, such as Cyberpunk 2077 and others.
GOG is a publisher: https://www.gog.com/games?devpub=gog&page=1&sort=popularity

Also, it does have influence on how games are made: it should never have accepted its "sister entity" messing with things here by putting GWENT into the catalog for instance. A total rejection is influence.

And GOG would have a HELL OF A LOT MORE influence if they properly designed Galaxy's multiplayer layer actually to be DRM-free. But, alas, they did not go that route and went with the heinous path bringing us to how it exists today, with it being account-based, ownership-verifying, external-client-requiring, etc.