Hello,

<angry rant>
This is for the original version of TW3, not the GOTY version.

Your patch policy _sucks_. I did not play the game for a while, but would like to return to it. I have all the extensions, and my game version is 1.21, complete.
Now I look into my account, and see:

1) You offer a patch from 1.10 to 1.31. Why thank you! I now have to uninstall the entire game, install it to the release version (which I did save), install the patch 1.10 (which I did save too), and then I can patch the base game to 1.31. While not impossible, it is annoying. But this is not all by far...

2) You offer the free DLC as a package. I have this package (16 small DLCs) in 1.21. Since you offer no patch, I have to download 523 MB _again. Thanks, I already downloaded this several times, since release.

3) But you top all of that by offering the 2 paid DLCs _ONLY_ in 1.31. No patches at all. So I have to download 9.3 GB AGAIN. Thanks a lot...

Question: Are you sure you are entirely sane? Or do you somehow profit from senseless internet traffic? I am really fed up. This is worst with TW3, but I saw this also in other games I purchased from you.

You seem to think that downloading huge releases every time is funny or something. Well - I download with 30mBit/sec (= ~3 MB/sec) and fair use policy, and I will delay playing this game until I am willing to DL nearly 10 GB for a change from version 1.21 to 1.31. 10 Gigabytes! This is just careless and lazy !
I understand, that you cannot offer the entire version collection and patches from these. but the last version - stable enough - you offered was 1.21. I would expect at the least that you offer patches for the entire game including paid DLCs from the previous version. But no. (If the existing patches offered to download are able to patch the base game _and_ _all_ DLCs (free and paid) from 1.21 to 1.31, it would be bad enough, for it would force me to DL 6 GB. But I fear this won't work. Or it is not well documented, what is possible. And sorry, downloading 5 and more GB big packages to find out, that they do not work is even more annoying and silly.

If I want to avoid the hassle with a completely new installation (see above) and patching from 1.1 to 1.10 and then to 1.31 (which in itself is 6 GB, since it simply ignores all the downloads of interim version I have saved too), the I would need to DL the _ENTIRE_ game AGAIN.

I am sorry - I already criticized this with TW2, and it is even worse with TW3. You seem to think everybody has a 150 Mbit line. I do not know how many GB I already downloaded for this silly game. As good as it is - it is too much. I will NEVER again purchase a game from you until it is ready and patched fully. I simply disagree with your careless patch download policy.
And please do not tell me to use GOG Galaxy. I do not use it, and never will use it. (Btw. I also think, that it would 'automatically' download even more). I could use Steam if I would care for spying software which patches my games 'automatically'. I can do this myself - you just need to offer patches and version trees, that make sense, and not this nonsense which you offer here.
</angry rant>

And yes, I mean it. I am fed up and it does not help to gift me with GOTY TW3. I just abandoned the return to TW3, since I am NOT WILLING to DL 10 or even more GB. I am surely not willing to DL 33 GB. Again.

M.

While I don't dispute the observation that the patch policy is far from ideal, if you already have game version 1.21 with all its expansions and DLCs, why not simply continue playing that version and forget about the 1.31 patch for now? Unless you've encountered some gamebreaking bug in your version, there's no reason you're forced to adopt the latest edition of the game.

I also have 'fair use policy'. I am aware, that I could download all of it, in much less than a night.

This is not the problem. My complaint is, that GOGs patches are much bigger than they should be. I always save downloaded patches and games, so I could every time go back to TW3 1.1. Not that I will, but this is how I do this. Minimizing downloads saves time and bandwidth.

That said - I am complaining not about the time for the download, I am complaining about the thoughtless waste of all users download bandwidth. And I complain, because while my 'fair use policy' has no hard limit, it has a soft limit of around 100 GB a month. I can go over this, but if I do too often, I will receive complaints. And why should I waste my download allowance for this nonsense??? I have a lot of other things I want to use my bandwidth for!

It is not always a question of 'can do' and 'possible'. It is also a question if it is a wise and thoughtful use of resources...

So you got a cap, find another ISP, problem solved. These days, everything's downloading stuff, all the time, the phones are always connected, windows is phoning home, and you complain about patches to games. Don't download them, if that bothers you so much but that's the way of things these days. It's not like the 90s when everyone is on dial-up and media distribution industry is based on disks, it was much worse back then. Now, you can't avoid downloading shitload of data everyday, no matter where you go. GOG is just like any other media outlet, they provide access to stuff, how you access it, is your own responsibility. Your problem is with your ISP, not GOG, because GOG follows the industry-wide model, and it's all the same everywhere. If you got a problem with the way they provide patches, well, there's just no way around it, they are not in business of saving user's bandwidth, no one is.

Not to start an argument or anything, I have the 1.04 and it does have some very serious issues. Galaxy says that it needs 10GB to get it to latest version but my bandwidth is capped and less than 4Mbps what should I do? Can someone advice me on some way I could get it up to date or at least til an acceptable version? (Not necessarily 1.3, just need the inventory system overhaul and some critical fixes that came up in the next patches)