"Installing X doesn't work", "Game doesn't load", "How do I install that mod?" - questions like that make the majority (not kidding!) of some of my favorite games' forums here on GOG. That has not always been so: Three and a half years ago I preferred the GOG forum, as it had a rather active discussion going for the game I played back then (Wizardry 8, 2001). Later I checked out the GOG forums each time I fell in love with a Good Old Game. The same picture everywhere: Technical questions, little activity. Moreover there's that tendency to bundle up whole serieses into one forum (for instance "the Shadowrun series"): Not sure it would be better otherwise, but if I check a forum that makes for even more posts that "don't count" for me (wrong game).

A few years back GOG had the most active forum for Wizardry 8 for instance. Now Steam does - plain and simple. There's no flood of tech issues, there's guides - great! Moreover that specific game experienced a revival as it appears, possible due to quite a few good guides, Youtube content and the like. All good & proper, only that it isn't GOG that profits. I prefer GOG over Steam any day of the week, as do many that play and love a 19 year old game. Thus I am not at all happy about it. No choice really: Got to follow the discussion if I want to take part.

PLEASE do Your best to keep the forums well alive and active! What can I say? Thank You to those that work on it already - I am probably not the first to spot an issue and I'd sure love the GOG forums to thrive. It pains me to see this sad state of things and I wish GOG all the best improving on that front.

I agree that the game-specific forums do need more activity.

By the way, your preferred party size (judging from your forum title) is too big for my tastes; have you tried running with a smaller party?

Edit: Have you seen my semi-recent post on the Bard's Tale series subforum?

It's only logical that people turn to the game-specific subforums for help (especially after the store page linked to them directly). I have done it on occasion and I did solve my problem without needing to contact Support. I also try to do my part and help other GOGers in need.

I do agree it's a pity they don't have more discussion topics. I have enjoyed some lively threads in my few years here and I wish they were more frequent. Nothing we can do except posting content whenever we can and hopefully others will end up joining.

GOG does make games run out of the box for MOST who run the supported OSs, but they don't provide guides for games & some want a quick response(yet don't want to search online for such for various reasons). Add to that the massive amounts of people who don't know how to do basic things like set up a dosbox config file or tweak settings in other config/etc files & you can see why people would be asking such questions here.Most here don't use the forums...they just DL and go off to play....often on Galaxy. That and the smaller user base(compared to steam) leads to the emptiness you see here, and the lack if guides/etc.

(Plus most of that stuff can be found on steam forums[with pinks and pics, most often] and other sites, so many just don't want to bother re-inventing the wheel, so to speak)It sometimes pains me to see the forums not get much posting of various types, but GOG cannot do anything about that....they cannot force people to post. I wish it were different sometimes, however.

You'd have to be pretty passionate about a specific game to post a strategy guide on the dedicated forums. Unfortunately a lot of gamers these days are single-run players and quickly move on to the next title that interests them. And this is only accelerating with the number of titles available on the market and the shrinking time many of us have to play a game AND talk about it afterwards.

There is also only so many times you can post about a game and hear silence in return, or answer a technical problem and never receive feedback whether it helped or not. Ultimately all these things can cause post numbers to fall and a forum to stagnate.

If you have a simple answer to this complex problem, I'm all ears.

Kindly show the misguided users to the game-especific forums...

Also, it might be interesting to check the hard data on game forums participation over the years. Probably GOG management know it all already (assuming they care).

Then, if there are indeed changes, the reasons for that would be open for debate.

Humm... I went with a XP-less "Tourist" in both Wizardry 8 and Shadowrun: Dragonfall. Basically it comes down to zero main characters and hired ones only. Does that count? So far I actually haven't played Bard's Tale. Guess there's another gem out there, just waiting for exploration :) ...and I certainly don't mean to fault those looking for help. Unfortunately that doesn't make it any less off-putting. You are right w/o doubt. An active old-game forum doesn't require hundreds of hyped up players however: Often times a handful dedicated veterans are enough to keep a good forum alive. In fact a small forum allows to get to know people and facilitate meaningful discussion (try that in a LoL forum...), as well as an active gaming culture. The few draw in a few more and any new players checking in are encouraged to participate, ask questions and keep it all alive. To link content (guides etc) helps to spread the love for an old game that isn't just any old game, but a gem loved by its small community. It's a major part of what keeps those old gems alive I believe: Not just some abstract quality in a program, but a living, breathing gaming culture too. Exactly!
A game w/o such players is as good as dead anyway. Then again That is not dead which can eternal lie. ;) Indeed! If however all players were like that there'd probably not be a GOG. It's a niche old games thrive in and that niche ought to be cozy, right? No, of course I don't. Moderation could remove answered questions quicker, a better infrastructure for "gaming culture" content could be established - only that's not "simple". Perhaps it seems more worthwhile if people like us speak up and mention that it would be appreciated. Perhaps it would even pay off in terms of sales and fame for GOG, but I can't say there's any guarantees.

Still too many.

Here, I'll attach a screenshot (of Bard's Tale 3) showing my preferred party fighting a few enemies.

(No spoilers in this screenshot; it's just a normal early game encounter.) I've always enjoyed that series, though I should point out that the games are not solo-friendly. (I believe BT4 hard-requires at least 4 characters to get through the game, for example.)

Of course, in terms of other first person dungeon crawlers with turn-based combat, there's also Elminage Gothic and Wizardry: Labyrinth of Lost Souls. Except that we *want* answered questions to remain, as other people will likely have the same question and that way the person doesn't need to go to the trouble of asking the question again.

Also, sometimes the answer to the question is wrong, incomplete, or doesn't take into account things that happened after the answer was given (like patches, new OS versions, new discoveries about the games, or mods that weren't around then), so it's useful to leave the topics open.

So wait, you find it offputting that people use the forums as intended? Or you find it offputting that it's less gameplay/etc talk and more technical questions?Agree on most of this, still at least we have other communities for such & GOG at least provides the forum space for people to use which is nice of them.I disagree somewhat.....I think even if a game just has people playing by themselves and having fun it is still alive....just isolated/fractured.Eh, some just like to play alone sometimes or keep to themselves. I wish more would participate in the forums/sub forums/community but I can get why some aren't into that & would rather any additions to the communities be more natural and less "forced". In the meantime we can all hang some rugs and play some music....it'll be fun. :)Um, that's not how it works here.....questions, even solved ones, are never(afaik or have ever seen) removed...and I like it that way(unless it's spam/etc).

========================================Soloing? Like a challenge, then? ;)

Me? I find it boring...I like bigger parties more than being alone....well unless I am sneaking through areas, that is.

Is this not perhaps more about the 'culture' of posting online these last few years vs before. People are used to 'instant' results and stuff like facebook, reddit, instagram etc?

They are probably too lazy to search the individual game forums or do not know where/how to find them so post their request in the general forums? So 'we' see more of them than before.

Plus a few might get scared off by the silly or snippy(yet silly/joking) replies some give when "newbies" post for the first time(usually via galaxy dumping them in the general forums).....some are likely like "Well, if these are the replies I get I should stick to other sites for answers/talk" before never coming back and/or sticking to using galaxy.

In the second generation Pokemon games, one speedrun strategy is to use this sort of party. For example, in the US versions of Gold and Silver, one route gets the Coin Case as soon as possible (while giving the boxes strange looking names), uses it to trigger an Arbitrary Code Execution bug, and has the box names spell the code needed to warp straight to where the final boss lies while setting the number of Pokemon in the player's team to 0. With no Pokemon, if a battle would start, the battle is skipped and the game proceeds as though the player had won.

A Final Fantasy 6 speedrun (featured at AGDQ 2020, I believe) also features a couple parties containing only characters who disappear once combat starts, resulting in an empty party in combat (and an immediate game over, which is intended by the player). While not useful, Final Fantasy 6 also has a trick where you take Shadow and Gau to the veldt, leave Gau behind, then enter Narshe, at which point Shadow leaves your singleton party, resulting in nobody left behind.

Then there's games where it's possible to have a non-empty party containing only dead characters, including second generation Pokemon (via a newly discovered glitch), Pokemon Emerald (Pomeg Berry glitch), Final Fantasy 5 and 6 both have ways to do this, as does Dragon Quest 3.

I don't really play solos, unless I'm replaying the original SaGa.

In any case, have you looked at the screenshot I posted? The party size there is smaller than a solo, and the screenshot was taken during combat (in other words, not in the Refugee Camp where you normally recruit characters to join your party).

(Also, solo leveling is good for giving a specific character experience; see my recent topic in the Bard's Tale subforum for an example of how this can be abused in one game.)

So you're saying you play games with zero players? How is that possible?

I think the efficacy of modern search engines and an increase in computer literacy over the years have increased most folks' ability to resolve the problem themselves.

I think most of the technical submissions I've seen in this forum come from younger gamers trying to get some of these fidgity old titles to work with modern OSs and modern chip-sets. There's little activity in the game-specific forums because most people who play legacy software have a toolbox of tweaks to get it to run.

Steam, I think, has a younger customer-base, and accordingly, they offer a lot of fodder-ware for that demographic. Here's the discussion board for Angry Birds VR: Isle of Pigs. . . ge' onit boyz. Yes, you saw that correctly, it's Angry Birds. . . virtual reality. You need a VR headset to play it. I'm sure some dim-wit will wishlist it here.

At any rate, I think the Steam sub-forums/discussion-areas are going to have a lot more activity, due, by and large, to a younger, generic customer-base. . . virtual Wal-martians, if you will.