If all that was hidden behind a client that doesn't give much of feedback to the end-user other than maybe a progress bar, then I presume e.g. this thread wouldn't have been created. The OP would have probably just noticed that for some reason the Shadow Warrior "update" (meaning at worst uninstall + download new installer + install + download new patch + update) seems to take much longer than normally.

Then again, the same sometimes happens also with Steam games, several gigabytes being re-downloaded just to "update" the game.

I agree the main blame probably goes to the developer in the Shadow Warrior case, if they can't make incremental updaters that work with all earlier versions of their own damn game. That's pretty basic stuff on PCs for decades already. Having to run several updates one after another just to update a game to the latest version has always been frowned upon on PC.

The fact you think you caught me in some kind of fuck up because you can redownload and reinstall the entire game on top of the old installation without having to uninstall is frankly funny as shit. The process is still terrible, thanks anyway.


A client with autopatching and no installation at all, like Steam. Let it have an actual working toggle for blocking patches, unlike Steam.

A client does not mean DRM, despite what conspiracy theorists here will say.

Oh I see. It is not whether you agreed or disagreed with me, it was that I had the audacity of posting what I did. In that case, I do appologise, I credited you with the wrong fallacy.

To avoid this mistake in the future, is there a list somewhere about what I may or may not post about? and what attitudes I am allowed to have? I am glad we have you to make sure that the right people post about the right things, if not this forum would just collapse into anarchy *shudder*

(and by the way, you are making this too personal again and you are again putting words in my mouth. If this is the level you want to continue discussing these things, then I am going to withdraw. I have better things to do.)

No clients. GoG does not need to go down that road. When the DL worked, All I do is click the update, the patch downloads, the executable asks me to install, done. That's how it should work. All of it without a software client, which as I understand them, are meant to be the only means of patching a game. A bad idea.

(Note: I've only read the original post)

I just want to mention that I bought Shadow Warrior here and I've had no problems whatsoever with it, including after installing the latest patch (the one from a day or two ago).

If you just bought it, then you lucked out. If you bought it at launch, there was a slew of issue, the main one being Steam was getting patches a week or two before GoG.

Ah that's not cool. Is that something that happens to a lot of the new games here on GOG? I bought Shadow Warrior about a week ago here, so yeah looks like I'm a bit lucky then.

If you already have the game installed, and then have a "huge update", you run into the same issues with a game dev's poor and inefficient patching (e.g. uninstall/reinstall a game just to patch it, redownload large parts of the game again).

If you're only talking about someone who hasn't downloaded the game yet, and is just starting now with the "base installer"... in that case, I still see the base installer as the same as you buying a retail game from the store (let's say a CD-ROM), which serves as the base installer. The CD-ROM for Grim Fandango is never going to change, and anyone who buys this game starts with the base installer. Then you update it with patches. It's up to the game developers to design patches that are efficient and reasonable.

But I remember many older games having alternate patches (even for the same patch version), some incremental, some cummulative, and gave that choice to the user (e.g. a smaller patch for v1.2 to v1.3, or a larger cummulative patch to v1.3). I don't know if GOG allows it at the moment, but perhaps GOG should allow the devs to upload alternate patches (giving the choice to the user). Then if there's a more efficient way to patch, the devs should make that patch available (including a direct patch from the base installer directly to the latest version).

and why this is may be due to Valve do not going through rigorous testings for the patches, but leaves this to the developers and let them upload the patches as and when they seem fit. Who may say that not GoG or Valve did not receive the patches at the same time (or fairly close to each other...) but that it went 'live' on Steam the soon as the patch was in, but at gog it took some time as it needed to be tested first.

I am not saying that one approach is better than the other, they both have negative and positive sides, but may this not also be the case since the Steam back-end is open to the developers?

(I know it is for Desura, and they also insist on testing all patches. But then they have a team of 3(?) people, while gog has over 50)

I was agreeing with you too. Sorry if it seemed like I was trying to correct you - that wasn't my intention.

and Desura is not even auto-patching as such....

You get a notification in the client when the a game has an update. You can there read the patch notes and decide whether you want to update or not. If you do, the client download and patch the game as it seems fit.

(I know you know this, just pointing out to those who dont that there are systems between GoG's and Steams).

I like Desura's patching system also, but I still prefer Steams, as I like the invisible background patching. Yes, I can see where it can become a problem if you are heavily into modding, or have a limited broadband, but neither apply to me so I just prefer that my games are constantly up to date when my gaming machine is on.

Having said that, if gog adopted a system similar to Desura's, that would be a massive improvement, I think. It is DRM free, and it allows the user to decide whether a patch should be downloaded and applied or not.

I think it would be a high economic risk for GOG to allow developers patching without approval of GOG before its release because it is GOG in the end that are responsible that the game works or at least they will be held accountable if the customer wants to return the game because it does not work. Especially under the light of their new 30-days money back guarantee.

To be honest I can live with those 1-2 days it probably takes GOG to test a release. If you look at how long it sometimes takes for the developer to get a patch for GOG anyway, maybe weeks after a release on Steam in the worst case, these 1-2 days of quality control won't matter.

The developers don't create GOG patches, GOG does. All the developers do is provide the updated version of their game to GOG. It's because of GOG's current patching scheme that having to redownload large parts of the game ends up being necessary, because GOG offers only a single cumulative update along with the base installer. So the latest update has to include all previous updates so that it'll work on any version (back to the current base installer), and as soon as there's a huge update... all subsequent updates will be huge as well, unless the huge update is rolled into a new base installer instead.

I can understand why GOG does it this way though (it keeps things simple). It's not a real problem for me personally, but I can see why it's potentially a big issue for people with limited bandwidth etc. and I think it's something that GOG should look at & consider alternative solutions for. I think a mixed approach would probably be better, providing cumulative patches but with additional, separate patches after larger updates.

e.g.:

Patch 1 - 100MB
Patch 2 - 100MB
Patch 3 - 3GB
Patch 4 - 100MB
Patch 5 - 200MB

The first 3 updates would be provided as updates to the base install. Then, due to the size of patch 3, patches 4 and up would be provided as updates to patch 3, until there's another large update at which point subsequent updates would be provided as updates to that version. And so on...

After a while you'd have to install a few updates to reach the latest version, but you wouldn't need to redownload the base installer nor would you have to download & install each individual update separately. Also, such large updates don't happen very often anyway.

GOG could even still replace the base installer with the release of the larger patches to make things easier for new users, as long as the earlier patches remain available (perhaps in a different part of the download page) to enable users of the old version to update without having to redownload the entire thing.

For me the ideal solution for downloads menu would be this:

1- original iso\zip (info about version)
2- single patches\dlc (link to list and changelog)
3- cumulative single patch\dlc (info about gog version)
4- optional gog installer\emulator (info about gog version)
5- bonus content (link to list and gog versions)

After goty\complete\etc final releases, maybe substitute the first 3 entries.