I can jam to this beat. Keep that amp bumping for the future.

For me it's NOT about "OH, gads they is going DMR my A$$!" it's more like they're trying to force a way to use the GOG service that I & some others aren't a fan of (installing & patching straight off the net) as opposed to letting us download the offline installers & install at our leisure .

On one hand, they are saying it's about options but they have admitted that they are discontinuing the option some of us want (the GOG downloader) especially if we're not big on Achievements, a combined MP experience but need more than a browser-based download "solution"

Me too ; i want a simple downloader manager , i think they should consider to continue to support their download manager

if it's optional & the downloader discontinued or integrated in the client, how it's optional if a customer just want the downloader service ? I don't want to have to use a client just for managing the downloads .

so far, we have too few infos about the client, so i give them a chance.... if they build the client with modules , like having the downloader function only (if a user want only this function), well why not. However if they insist on a bloated client no thanks. They opened the pandora's box , and i'm pretty sure some users will want more & more functions in the future.

I would have prefered they improve & fix the website instead , but no.....

So tell them you would like it if they kept the old downloader around either indefinitely or for some length of overlapping time either with whatever minimal maintenance they're willing to compromise on, or to even just keep it around as-is. It's even possible some GOG employee could voluntarily update it on their own time just because they want to (if anyone did want to that is). There is no guarantee that they would agree to this but nothing is written irrevocably in stone in life, we have the chance to make requests and promote positive dialogue towards what we would like to see happening to try and have our needs (or perceived needs) met. Not much is yet known about exactly how Galaxy will work, and it is entirely possible that it will be able to function more or less identically to the downloader client function-wise while ignoring all of the optional other features it has. They've also stated it is not written in a bytecode interpreted language such as Java or .NET like the current downloader is (.NET I believe), but hinted it is written in C or C++ so for all the fear people have about it being "bloated", it is more likely to have 30 times the amount of functionality in code that runs 50 times faster in 1/10th the amount of RAM. It's also possible that if it doesn't mirror the existing downloader functionality quite to everyone's desires that they could enhance it to do so in the future. It could for example have a "Simplified" user interface that has a look and feel similar to the existing downloader but which does not expose the user to other features present, and a menu item "Full client" that turns on the full featured client that has social networking features and all of the other stuff. Doing that sort of thing is probably not very difficult depending on how they've went about designing it. Lots of programs offer "Basic" and "Advanced" user interface options, so they certainly could do something like that if they think there is enough demand for it.

I myself have had to engineer new software solutions in the past to replace legacy solutions that shipped in my company's products but were very limited and I had to endure the same kinds of reactions. Some users felt that the existing software was significantly lacking in features they wanted or needed, while other users just wanted minor tweaks to the existing application which was a jumbled mess of crappy code written by one person and passed around like a hot potato from one developer to the next every 6 months for many years resulting in a terrible unmaintainable mess of spaghetti code. Loud voices demanded the old program stay and that no new program come into existence even as an option, and even providing and supporting BOTH pieces of software old and new. It made absolutely no sense. There were highly demanded features that 50% or more of the customers wanted to have which were literally impossible to implement in the poorly maintained existing application.

In a situation like this you as a developer, have few choices. You completely cater to the people highly resistant to change and forever stagnate your product and the potential it /could/ grow to become, or you redesign a new solution to completely replace the old solution and get rid of the old solution, or you try to do both as best as you can in an ongoing basis, or you provide both for some reasonable period of time such as 6 months, a year, 2 years, whatever is doable and try to create a migration plan where people who want to can adopt the new technology early while others can keep using the old stuff, and you try to update the new stuff to meet more and more of the needs of those who prefer the old stuff, possibly ending up with a solution that an increasing majority of users move to on their own because they see the advantages it has, and they see that their concerns are being met and their fears are largely not necessary. The point is that there are a number of options to move forward while trying to meet everyone's needs as best as possible, and it is a doable thing if everyone is reasonable about it and tries to both keep an open mind and also realize that everyone on the planet does not all want a brown car with 4 doors. Some people want a red car with 2 doors etc.


And they've stated for a good 6 months now that they have hired a whole pile of new employees and that part of what they're doing is redesigning the website, exactly what you're asking for. But yes... :) And they also stated that most of the things they are working on are slated for sometime this fall. I think the problem is that people either have poor memory or possibly selective hearing and hear "we're going to do some cool new stuff" but don't pay attention if there is any mention of when it is going to happen (either exactly or as a ballpark estimate). They've stated they're doing some pretty major serious redesign of the website and the services, and with Galaxy that means they're going to likely have to redesign the entire web backend and possibly the forums and everything on the site. It's hard to say yet as I don't think they've gotten into quite that level of detail publicly yet, but to do all of the things they've mentioned they're probably going to have to revamp the entire website as a major rewrite, and that isn't something that gets done in 1/3/6 months really, it can take a significant amount of time to do and do right. I'd rather see them work at it and focus on quality rather than quantity or winning a horse race.

I'm as anxious as you or anyone else to see something new, whether it is the website, the new client, The Witcher 3, new forums, anything new. It's like waiting 9 months for the next season of Game of Thrones to start hehe! But, in the end we ultimately have to wait 9 months or whatever for Game of Thrones, and we have to wait some amount of time for people to develop software and test it then release it.

This is one of the reasons many software companies straight out do not talk publicly about their software projects at all or even acknowledge that they are even doing anything. Try finding out any kind of information about Halflife 3 for example. People are never ever content with small details, they want to know everything immediately, and then they're excited and they want to have it a week ago, never mind waiting for tomorrow or 6 months from now. I've had to deal with that before too, so I can empathize with companies like Valve or id Software or Blizzard for never saying a word about anything until 10 minutes before they're going to launch something, or trying to do it that way anyways, and I also support the concept of "Valve Time" as it is called (which is really id Software time) == "When will $product be ready?" Answer: "When it's ready." or simply <dead silence> :)

Good things are coming. I can't know either way any more than anyone how things will pan out but I'm excited about it and very much looking forward to it all, and I trust that if something isn't right when it gets here, GOG will do their best effort as our ally in gaming to try to make things right that go wrong.

Well issues with the website are known from one year + . I'm aware they hired some employees for this. And i'm patient , but my patience have some limits right now.

My last sentence , should have been : they didn't speak about the website improvments in the near future , but focused on the client instead.

Sure, I've found a lot of flaws in the website and been a bit frustrated about them too over time, some in an ongoing basis. I got the impression most of it is the type of stuff that is probably not a small bugfix but a redesign level thing though so didn't expect much of it to change until the site gets completely revamped. Hopefully they get all that sorted out with the bigger and better team of web design superheroes going forward. ;oP

I presume you're referring to the E3 twitchtv presentation where they announced Galaxy, The WItcher Adventure Game, and gave updates about The Witcher 3? If so, I believe you're correct that they did not discuss the website or other things they're working on such as Linux support for example. But that is just at what we saw at E3. They have spoken publicly several times this year at other game conferences and in various interviews and I've followed as much of it as I have found (there is a GOG thread that tracks GOG in the media which I try to keep up on), and they have spoken about the website, Linux and other things earlier this year and that these things would be happening later in the fall this year. It's not fall yet, and they never made any promises to discuss it in between then and when it is launched, nor did they need to even tell us anything at all. :) They could have just done it silently and then announced it a week before launch and nobody would be any the wiser. I'm glad they told us they're working on things as it gives me excitement that new things are coming whenever they happen to get here, whether it was 3/6/9/12/18 months from them mentioning it. They've said it's coming and I believe them. Not only that, if they were to be unable to complete it in the timeframe they original intended to (whatever that was) I'd be more than happy to cut them slack and let them focus on quality over quantity or deadlines and get it right than to get something broken and on time. ;oP

When they announced that The Witcher 3 was going to be moved forward to February 2015 instead of sometime later in 2014 it was of course a little disappointing, but it gives them more time to make the game shine and become more stable and chocolatey good. I'd much rather have that than code rushed out the door broken and buggy possibly with developers that want to get away from the stress of rushing something out and move on to something new. Quality code written with passion first! ;)

Actually I would infer that DyNaer was referring to the GoG conference a week before E3. Mostly because it wouldn't make much sense for them to be talking about their website at a game conference. ;P

Anyways, as far as Galaxy proper: I'm pretty excited but wish we had a hard release date and that it was soon-ish. I liked the old model from the NES/N64 era where if you heard about a game at all it was released that following week/month.

Oh. and to address some points I read above: The entire point of this client is that it's optional. So manual downloads of installers from the websites SHOULD still be available. I recall being able to infer that from their GoG conference though I'm not sure if they said it outright or not, I'd have to re-watch the livestream. I don't know what the fate of the actual GoG downloader is but, really, if you're willing to install that, it's not like Galaxy is going to operate in any significantly different way. We know that it will check game files like the current downloader, in order to know when to download patches and do version checking. Afaik that's about as invasive as they said it would get.

If you're not a fan of that, you're doing manual downloads anyways and I'm relatively certain that will remain. Hence the option to not use the client entirely.

I'm ok with not having a hard release date personally but I know that statistically I am probably in the minority in that regard. Comes from being an engineer I suppose and hating deadlines from the other side of the fence and feeling empathy for the other developers out there from direct experience. ;) Having said that though, I also want to try Galaxy out *2 months ago* for crying out loud hehe. I can't wait to see it, but /will/ do my best to patiently wait anyway no matter how long they take. :) Back in the days of the NES, software was so much more incredibly simpler and easy to stomp most if not all noticeable bugs out in development and quality control, plus you couldn't easily fix things after they were burned into a ROM either, but nowadays we have these tremendously complex pieces of software interacting with themselves and other parts of the system and other systems, security concerns that didn't exist back then or just weren't a threat, etc. so it becomes much more difficult to predict how long things will take. At my former job our team leader gave us his personal formula for providing people with time estimates for projects. He said to sit down and legitimately figure out the time you think it will take in different phases of the project etc. and come up with a plan for yourself. Figure out the time estimate, then double that... then triple that and give them the final answer (essentially 6x the developer estimate). This is because: 1) engineers dramatically underestimate the minimum time it takes to do things and the problems that are likely to arise and the time it will take to fix them. 2) managers/customers/etc. dramatically underestimate the maximum time they think it /should/ take, and try to undercut any estimates they are given. His premise was you might think "4 weeks", double then triple it to 6 months, then be told you have to get it done in 3 months. Feign the difficulty it will take to do that but that you'll see how you can try to adjust the project to fit within the constraints. So maybe you go in and it takes 6-8 weeks. almost double your original real estimate, but half the time they expected. Works great. :)

As for the Galaxy client, they stressed throughout the entire video the "OPTIONAL client" (all caps theirs), and that the web downloading would always be there and nobody would be required to use the client to download or update.

Another thing that people should note is that there are at least 4-6 other 3rd party open source GOG clients out there that can be used also. I haven't tried any of them but they're available with their pros and cons and worthy of trying out for those so inclined. They were definitely very insistent that the client would be entirely optional though and that that was a core fundamental to the design of the whole thing.

Having said that though, when Frankenstein sees fire even if it is a single match head burning at 50 meters across the other side of a river, all he can think of is "FIRE!!!! FIREEEE!!!!" and go into a panic and run around in a circle. No amount of assurance to him that he's perfectly safe and the fire is of no harm to him will convince him so long as he sees the fire if you follow what I'm saying... ;)

Somewhere somewhen someone in this discussion about the client programm a list was made with all wished points going a bit beyond making it optional. As long as all or almost all of these points are included everything is fine. For example if I can turn the bloody achievements off I'll be happy.

P.S.: Found the link to the key requirements: http://www.gog.com/forum/general/introducing_gog_galaxy/post127 (bookmarked for later assessment)

For all those repeating that "nth will change for those not wanting to use the GOG Galaxy client" and "the GOG Galaxy client is completely optional" and so forth, allow me to point out some things (again).

(1) Both and [url=https://secure.gog.com/forum/general/gog_galaxy_is_anyone_else_getting_a/post3/?staff=yes]Tolya have said that the way one uses GOG won't change.

(2) Fallen_Zen and [url=https://secure.gog.com/forum/general/gog_galaxy_is_anyone_else_getting_a/post10/?staff=yes]here made it clear the current GOG Downloader will be discontinued.

(3) JudasIscariot post here (points A and B) appears to indicate that two different sets of installers will be available, with only the ones mentioned in point A compatible with the GOG Galaxy client. No GOG staffer refuted this.

(4) The question of whether the GOG Galaxy client will feature the functionality and benefits of the current GOG Downloader (and thus make the download of the traditional standalone installers and patches possible just as the current GOG Downloader) has been asked multiple times by a number of us, yet this very simple question has been either ignored or side-stepped - and yes, I say "simple" because it's something that's either incorporated at the design level or it's not.

If the GOG Galaxy client will also work like the current GOG Downloader (without bloating our systems, which would require for the client to be modular), then yes, nth will change for those of us that use the current GOG Downloader*.
If it won't, then no, we won't be able to continue to use GOG just as we do now and the fact that the GOG Galaxy client is optional or DRM-free, or that there are other third-party downloaders is irrelevant.

* Depending on how the GOG Galaxy compliant installers and updates/ patches will be handled, there's also the chance that the traditional standalone installers and patches will fall behind over time, which will lead to everybody being "forced' to use the GOG Galaxy client if they want to play an up to date game, even if they don't endorse the way the client works.

So, while I'm all for the GOG Galaxy client offering folks all sorts of features they've long craved for, I'm also for offering choices to all of us, those not interested in the extra features of the client included, that won't lessen our GOG experience.

I'm willing to wait given that there's too little info to go by with any certainty, but the first signs are not very encouraging. I don't think that our scepticism is unfounded and given how little info we have on the GOG Galaxy client, I find the ease with which some keep repeating "nth will change if you don't want to use the client, it's completely optional" rather astonishing, to say the least.

In the past when GOG downloader is buggy I use other download client like Internet Download Manager to download my big size files. It is still buggy now as in the event of a crash / power off, it forgot what it download and I must re-add all the files to the GOG downloader. It will then waste time checking the integrity of the files. Not so with Internet Download Manager.

As such the loss of the GOG downloader is not big deal to me. That said I hope for the manual download, they will include the original files and all version of the patch so I can choose what patch to use.

Some patch is not compatible with some modes and some change the balance of the game too much to my liking. For example the old Warlord Battlecry 3 on GOG integrate a fan patch and break the summoning spell so much that you have to adopt different strategy. I had to actively search a "Downgrade" patch to revert the balance back as I am not fond of time constrain. It is a good thing now that GOG patch WB3 to be as close to the vanilla version of the game.

Yeah will "wait and see" on the client stuff. Not a big fan, I'll say that.

But in the set of things that "get my gourd" is when a company will say "this is optional and won't change anything for those that don't wish to use it" whilst also saying, "oh btw were discontinuing the downloader because this new client will handle that".

Reminds me of watching an "official" preview of the new NuThief where the producer (or someone like that) says, "now lookie here; we've turned off ALL THE UI. See - no UI - all turned off. How's that for immersive?" although there were plenty of "I'm a game!" UI elements still all over the place.

Yeah - they're all turned off - except they aren't.

Yeah - the new client will not change anything if you don't want to use it - except that it will.

Guess we'll see.

Well what I'm about to state is all speculative but:

(2) I see the second link where Fallen_Zen states that the current GoG downloader will "go away" which admittedly doesn't leave much wiggle room but one could hope it may continue to exist and just remain unsupported. I don't see the a post anywhere in the first link though?

(3) That's actually not JudasIscariot's post, that's a wishlist post that Judas quoted. Judas DOES state later on down: "As I said earlier, I think there will be settings that will allow you to customize Galaxy to your liking :)" While directly quoting "How about including a downloader function in the client?" from Saiyan. Which could be interpreted
that the method of installation would be up to the user to customize.

(4) Yes and that's unfortunate. I have only recently begun exploring the forums so I'm not sure as to the whose who on here. Perhaps none of these employees have much in the way of first hand experience with the Galaxy client itself and are waiting for the answer from on high(I'm assuming bluetexts are GoG employees and not just forum mods)? Though admittedly it's been a while, since I'm relatively sure these questions were asked when they unveiled Galaxy at the GoG conference.

Since you re-mention that "The way one uses GoG won't change" tidbit here, it seems to me that they're referring to the way one accesses the website itself. Hence Fallen_Zen's "you will be able to use GOG.com just as you use it now." and not the way you're interpreting it, GOG as a service-this includes the usage of the current GOG downloader. Some official clarification on this point would be nice.

That said, if one goes back and looks at the original sticky post thing, it rather clearly spells out: "But, here's the great thing: it is totally optional, so it's all up to you! If you do not want to play online, or use our optional client to access these features, then no worries, you will always be able to play the single-player mode 100% DRM-free, and download manually the latest updated version of your favorite title from our website."

Which, rather clearly paints the picture that those who benefit from error protection and other such from the client would be forced back to manual downloads. This is a term that I thought was used for any non GOG downloader mode but, upon review of the selection, don't see the term there at all. I guess I'm going crazy. I wonder if you can use the galaxy client as if it were the downloader, going to the website, selecting the downloader mode, and downloading the installer *through* the client just as one does today with the regular downloader? Though I'd much rather have the option inside the client itself, as many have previously stated.

You mention that Galaxy might bloat your system, which I'd be very, very curious as to what you mean by bloat? I assume you're not referring to file size or the existence of useless programs installed on machines you purchase from stores (bloatware) but, are infact referring to resources it uses while operating in the background? In other words, memory allocation? In which case I'd again have to ask to sate my curiosity, what amount of resource use constitutes bloat to you?

I'm not sure why you would find it "rather astonishing to say the least." We trust gog and they've never done anything to actually violate that trust-and while this is from the perspective of someone who did manual downloads only until last week, to me, nothing has changed since I started using GoG years ago but granted my purchases are quite limited and I didn't look into the forums or much in the way of their PR until recently.

Small aside: As mentioned, up until last week, all my titles were downloaded entirely through manual downloads, never any issues at all despite the large sizes. So I'd guess I'm lucky enough to have decent enough internet to support that (20mb down). I can see why error protection would be useful for those with slower internet.

Another small aside: Because of my usage of only manual downloads, it's not as if I was ever particulary up to date unless I had just downloaded the installer, I certainly never re-downloaded an installer when it was updated. GoG's releases have been stable enough for me and atm I don't see much in the way of patches in the games I do own on GoG in their forums, atm there's only one in Baldurs gate and that's a recent one which has to do with the languages it installs with. Is there some large existence of patch notes that list off all updates they've done to installers over the years? I'm asking because you seem to place some level of importance on an up to date game.

-Edit: After checking the gogwiki (for the first time) I've noted that there even exists a section for games with known issues, several of which seem to be major issues such as Interstate_76. I can see why patches and updates would be a key feature now. I was rather working under the assumption that most gog releases were, if not feature complete, at least stable working versions. Universally. I can see the issues with my text block above but am leaving my text block in place because....I can, I guess.Some vain hope that there's some value in all the text I took so long to type out.

I'm actually rather curious though, to what exactly is your skepticism actually in regards to? That the existence of a client might somehow alter the way GoG does business entirely? That the convenience you enjoy with the GoG downloader will not carry over into Galaxy? It all seems a bit muddled with the focus on the client itself and if the actual concern was underscored it'd be easier to get a response from GoG proper.

I just checked on my own system and the existing GOG downloader client is currently using 45MB of RAM and is a .NET application I believe which are like Java or any other interpreted languages a bit more resource consumptive than equivalent applications written in a lower level language like C/C++. GOG has not confirmed it 100% but they did state that Galaxy is going to be highly optimized with a minimal footprint and that it is not written in Java or .NET or similar so I'm assuming that it is written in C++ personally and that it will be as they say highly optimized and light on resources. One of the beautiful things that can be done in a language like C or C++ is how you manage resources at a very fine grained level which isn't doable to the same degree (or just doesn't get done normally) by programmers writing in higher level abstractions like .NET. So I'm willing to bet that the new client will do as they have said and use less resources overall - because they said it would and I trust them on that. ;)

Having said that, I have the Steam client running right now at the same time and it is using 248MB with no games loaded, just looking at the storefront page for a game, without any video playing or anything. My machine is very powerful and so I don't even concern myself with that on this machine, but that would not work out well on my older PC which only had 1GB of RAM in it. Mind you, GOG has clearly stated that all of the games are able to be downloaded, installed and played without Galaxy, so if someone does use Galaxy to download and install, they can shut it off so it isn't running while the game is up too.

GOG's customer base is comprised with people with both cutting edge hardware as well as people with 10+ year old hardware who just want to play some older games perhaps and they are not likely to start alienating people or forcing people to upgrade their computers IMHO. It is important to them to give everyone a great experience and I think they're working hard on trying to do just that and that we need to give them a chance to show this to us before we judge them for things that we simply do not know yet. In all likelihood, Galaxy will meet or exceed any claims they make for it or they will improve it to do so on their own or based on feedback from us customers.


They've never done anything to violate my trust in them, however they have made some mistakes in the past that have caused some other people to lose trust in them, but I think they've done a great job at correcting those mistakes they have made in the past and hope that they regained the trust of anyone the lost. They deserve the opportunity to be human and make some mistakes along the way and then to fix them and learn from it IMHO.

I too have downloaded the huge files through a web browser alone prior to starting to use GOG downloader and I've had no problems doings so personally. If someone is using a web browser that does not support resuming downloads after a crash, power failure or temporary Internet outage or similar all I can suggest to them is "use a better web browser" or look for browser plugins/addons that improve their browser's capabilities in this department. I use Firefox and it works great for this in my experience. I can't speak for how other browsers handle it. There are programs like "wget" and "curl" which can do it with a swiss army knife load of options too, so people do have options in that department, and there are 3rd party download clients just for GOG out there also. People simply may not be aware of the different options that they do have available to have a good experience with their setup and it might just be a matter of communicating the options and helping people. I'm game to help folks out personally.