They really keep coming out with the Warhammer games don't they? Fair play!

How exactly do you guys expect this review-bombing campaign to end? What's the objective here? You think because a single indie game that's getting glowing reviews on steam but getting shafted on a niche market like GOG for a practice that's been industry-standard for years there are going to be ripples of panic through the games development industry?

You think they're all going to abandon the convenience of collecting (optional) telemetry data over randos giving angry incoherent bug reports?

Or do you think yet another developer is going to decide GOG isn't worth the headache anymore and abandon the platform? Soon GOG will just be a store for teen romance visual novels, what a consumer-friendly paradise!

It's like that one weirdo spamming game release threads here talking about his boycott of one. "Uh, oh, billion-dollar corporation CD Projekt Red, you're out $115 from my personal boycott so far!"

Or instead you could, you know, just click the opt-out box and stop ruining things for actual customers like me who don't want their game abandoned on GOG. It's happened before.

You miss the point. This is DRM-free and curated site. If a game or developer doesn't meet these qualities then they aren't welcome on this platform. They either fix the issues or don't come here at all. Anyone who wants to buy their manure can go to Steam.

If you think that it's harmful for Gog then you are wrong. Only reason Gog is still alive is because of their principles. Once they lose those there is nothing distinguishing them from Steam and if that happens, that's when their remaining customers will move away. Because there's no point buying Steam keys from third party sites if you have to activate them on Steam anyway. + Steam most probably gives better discounts as well.

The solution is not just to do things differently but better than the competition. Doing things DRM free and respecting user privacy deffinitely is better.

No, you miss the point.

If you want to end the practice of game developers taking telemetry data from games, review-bombing isolated indie games are the wrong tactics. It's all downsides and no upsides.

And if hosting DRM-free games that collect telemetry data would signal the doom of GOG... buddy they've got hundreds of games already that do just that, and they've been hosting them for years.

Che Guevara over here!

Okay dude, you go fight that revolution by angrily posting 1-star reviews of games you've never played.

Opt out on an external website doesn't stop the data being sent, it only stops it being stored at their end.
A third party can easily intercept that data in between, (especially with an open api like unity)
Over multiple games, Location and activity data, can be used to build up the daily routine of a target,

And for those hundreds of games (e.g. cyberpunk, original sin2) most place the opt out witihin the software, so don't even attempt to send the data, unless the user expressly allows it. This is different to what is happening here.

Precisely. It has never (as far as I am aware) been GOG's mission to get as many games on their store as possible. Their stated mission has been to get as many games as possible that are DRM-free and meet certain quality criteria. They have built their reputation based on opposing and pushing back against nefarious industry standards. If they had just gone with the flow and done what everybody else did, they never would have been successful in the first place.

The way I see it, these negative reviews are very useful, because they inform consumers and allow them to make an informed purchase. Potential buyers deserve to be made aware if a game they are interested in contains telemetry and there is nothing on the GOG store page that is open and transparent about that. It is obvious from the reviews and from the difference between the 'overall' and 'verified owner' ratings that the reason is people warning about telemetry. If those buyers don't care about the telemetry, then they can go ahead and buy it anyway (based on the VO reviews). For those that wouldn't buy the game if they know it contains telemetry, the 'review bombs' are providing a very helpful service.

I see a fundamental inconsistency in your position: either the negative reviews are inconsequential or they are not. You seem to simultaneously be claiming that these 1-star reviews are inconsequential and won't achieve anything, but you have also voiced concerns that they will damage the sales of the game and hurt a small, upcoming developer.

Sorry, but you can't have it both ways. If the reviews are inconsequential, then they are nothing to worry about and you can safely ignore them in the knowledge that they won't have any effect. If they are not inconsequential and may affect the games' sales, then I would argue they are a valid form of protest and may achieve their goal of influencing the developer and pushing for positive change. If they might negatively affect the sales, then surely the developer would be wise to take the concerns on-board and make changes?

In other words, I think your arguments fail either way.

I agree that we need to figure out what is going on with those other games and whether they are surreptitiously sending telemetry or not. By the way, this protest is not isolated, there was similar review bombing for Kerbal Space Program (which I believe is another Unity game).

Yes I can have it both ways.

A small developer may decide that it's not worth the extra man-hours to create a separate patch and installer for GOG customers when you never know what random button in the options menu is gonna trigger these loons to start a review-bombing campaign.

AND the business decisions of one isolated indie developer regarding a niche marketplace won't change industry-wide telemetry practices that have been standard for years now.

The two are not mutually exclusive.

There is no reason to single-out this one game for an industry-standard practice, and this pile-on won't change the industry standard. The only people it can have an effect on are paying customers like me who get late updates and missing DLC because GOG's more trouble than it's worth.

I would expect changing the way the telemetry works from 'opt-out' to 'opt-in' would be a very simple programmatic change to make. It's literally just a change to the default behavior of a function that already exists.

Fighting back against DRM happens one game/publisher at a time, which is exactly the way the GOG store was built. Pushing back against telemetry and other anti-consumer practices is no different. One game, one developer who's mind can be changed is a step in the right direction and is a worthwhile result. I don't agree with you that pushing for Slitherine to change their game would be inconsequential.

As I've said before, an anti-consumer feature being 'industry standard' is no excuse. In that case, all the more reason that we need to push back against that industry standard, the same way we have been pushing back for years against DRM.

Plus, as I also mentioned before, the 'review bombs' in themselves serve a useful purpose of informing consumers, regardless of whether or not they will result in this developer making changes.

As I said with the example I gave previously of KSP, there is a precedent for this and Battlesector is not being singled-out. I completely agree with you that this game should not be singled out in an unfair way - we need to look into other Unity games that are on GOG and determine to what extent they are spying on users. I will be much more wary myself of other games that use Unity from now on.

Warhammer 40,000: Battlesector - 2022 Video Roadmap

Nice to see the Penitent Engine make its video game debut.

https://www.slitherine.com/news/the-sisters-of-battle-march-to-war-both-battlesector-and-gladius-get-a-new-faction-dlc-on-december-13

"The new Sisters of Battle DLCs for both Warhammer 40,000 Gladius and Warhammer 40,000 Battlesector will be released on December 13th, the same day of Slitherine Live show, Slitherine Next.

As part of our Slitherine Next event, we are going to release a new DLC for Warhammer 40,000: Battlesector and one for Warhammer 40,000: Gladius. Both are going to add in a new playable faction: the Sisters of Battle, the first women-only faction in Warhammer 40,000, will join the game with fifteen new units and special gameplay mechanics.

Warhammer 40,000: Battlesector - Sisters of Battle DLC

A long-standing order with a rich history, the Adepta Sororitas have always lived in service of the Emperor. Their unrelenting faith and rigorous training provides them with a mental fortitude rare among those that serve the Imperium. This divine protection, perhaps from the very spirit of the Emperor himself, makes every sister an incorruptible fortress that turns aside the profane, the blasphemous, the heretic. 15 units of the Order stand ready to turn back the unworthy on Baal.

During the live streaming at Slitherine Next, we will show for the very first time 3 videos, about the new Sisters of Battle units and their unique mechanics as well as gameplay footage of the new Daemonic Incursion mode.

Daemonic Incursion

Daemonic Incursion is an entirely new single-player mode that will be available to all Battlesector players as part of a free update that we’ll be launching alongside the Sisters of Battle Faction Pack.

In Daemonic Incursion, waves of Khornate daemons enter realspace to spill blood, collect skulls and overrun your forces. This is a last-stand mode, in which your objective is simple:

Survive!

Warhammer 40,000: Gladius - Adepta Sororitas DLC

Just like Battlesector, Warhammer 40,000: Gladius expands with the Sisters of Battle as a new playable faction.

A new faction joins the war for Gladius Prime: the Adepta Sororitas, with eighteen new units, new heroes, unique gameplay mechanics, city buildings, a new questline and a new tech tree.

The Adepta Sororitas, also known as the Sisters of Battle, are the militant arm of the Adeptus Ministorum. Pure of heart and fanatical of devotion, they place the worship of the Emperor above all other concerns.

Don’t miss the opportunity to see the Sisters of Battle in action during Slitherine Next, on December 13th. 

See you then!"

Skulls 2024 Update

"Discover the latest major update of Warhammer 40,000: Battlesector featuring 3 new free units: Biovore, Pyrovor and Royal Warden.
In the video, the Warhammer 40,000: Battlesector team talks about the recent releases, Skulls update, the future steps of the game and the next big release."

https://www.slitherine.com/news/warhammer-skulls-festival-battlesector-major-update-and-gladius-demolition-pack

I believe the next faction will be Imperial Guard. Meh, I was hoping for Chaos Space Marines - Death Guard or Thousand Sons. I'll still pick up IG of course - Battlesector is just too good

https://www.slitherine.com/news/warhammer-40000-battlesector-dev-diary-13

"++ Initiating new Vox Channel ++
++ Awaiting Broadcast ++
++ … ++ … ++ … ++
++ Broadcast commences ++

It has been a while since we updated you on how Battlesector is proceeding and we are aware that you would like to know more.

Our last transmission was alongside the Warhammer Skulls festival where we let you know some more about how we would be moving forward with Battlesector, building on the amazing foundation that Black Lab Games have laid. There will be more news in the coming weeks and months about new armies, campaigns and game modes. Today, I’m here to tell you about what we’ve been up to recently and what to expect in the very near future.

The update which added the Tyranid Biovore and Pyrovore and the Necron Royal Warden was our first with Slitherine staff as the main developers. Our team at that point was a very small strike force with a simple remit to learn how to work with the Battlesector engine, add the new units and work with the team at Black Lab to complete the handover. We also released a small balance and bug fix patch (1.4.82) to react to the community experience of the new units.

Since then we’ve been hard at work taking the knowledge and experience that we have gained and using it to grow out “Team Battlesector”. We now have many more hands on deck, with specialists focussing on key areas of the game and working hard making the new content that we’ve told you about.

In the very near future we’ll be releasing our latest incremental “balance” patch. This is our first release for this new team and we’re really looking forward to seeing how it shakes up the current gameplay meta strategies for both Single Player game modes and the Multiplayer Community.

The main balance focus has been on the Ork Faction. They are already great fun to play with, but quite a few of their units ended up stumbling over each other when players were looking to build armies. Our approach has been to look to ensure that each unit has a purpose and that the faction as a whole has enough tools to take on their opponents. For example, the Orks really lacked a cheap Anti Armour option, so we’ve converted the Boyz Rokkits from their current “frag” stats to a more focussed “krak” style profile.

We’ve also been looking at addressing a few bits of the game interface that hadn’t kept up to date with the growth of the game. So we’ve re-arranged the units on the Army Management screen so similar types are now grouped together (rather than the new free units always being stuck at the bottom) and we’ve expanded the options for setting up a new game to allow players to choose if they want to be “player 1” or “player 2” so you can get a real feel of what it’s like to be on the other side of the battlefield.

There’s plenty more in there too, and we’re really looking forward to getting this patch into your hands so you can see what you think.

Expect to hear more from us soon.
The Battlesector Team
"