I think you are simply being naive and unrealistic with your expectations.

Riddle me this: is there any (DRM-free store) operating the way you suggest? Does Humble Bundle or DotEmu or GamersGate or or or keep several alternate versions of their game installers available for download, just because some people are too slow to download the whole game in one swoop?

No, in fact mostly they don't offer even separate updates, but simply update the whole base installer whenever the game receives an update (at least I don't ever recall seeing patches offered for e.g. Humble Bundle's DRM-free installers, you are always supposed to redownload the whole game installer if it gets an update). GOG already does there more than the other stores offering installers.

I presume one reason for this is that keeping several installer versions available simply eats lots more server space. Plus. it should be clear that the development and improvement of Galaxy functionality (delta updates etc.) is on the forefront, rather than improving the way offline installers are offered.

Another (REALISTIC!) option would be that GOG never updates the base installers, but only offers patches on top of very old base installers. That's one solution but I personally prefer having updated installers in my local repository, instead of some initial 1.0 version on top of which possibly several patches to install. No thanks.

Plus, the fact is that even GOG doesn't offer a patch in all cases. For many games they've simply updated the whole installer (same way like Humble Bundle etc. does it), possibly because the game publisher didn't offer a separate patch. It doesn't nullify it, the patch is for those who had already downloaded (and possibly installed) the earlier version. You were a special case because you hadn't yet downloaded the whole (old) game when they updated it. A special case. You just had a bit of bad luck with your timing.

I asked this already before: when then would be the correct time to update the base installer as well, so that there is no one who has only partially downloaded the old installers? Or should they never update the base installers, but only offer patches on top of them?

Not to mention that not all GOG games even receive separate patches, only the base installer is updated if the game receives any updates from the publisher.

It would still be optional. We are not talking about here as if you have no way to install and run the game without GOG Galaxy.

For the record, I don't use Galaxy, but I am being realistic here with my expectations. Bad news: GOG already has lots of games where they never offered separate update patches for the game, but simply updated the whole installer if the game received an update.

For one, it eats more server space when they have to keep several versions of base installers for all their games.

Second, it sure as heck would be confusing to many new users, "why are there several installer versions for this game? GOG fix this!", having a similar tantrum as you.

Third, since I use gogrepo.py to download my GOG game installers, how do I make sure I don't accidentally download all those alternate (old) versions when I simply want to download the latest installers? It is a bit similar problem I am having now as GOG offers a Russian (fan made) version of Planescape Torment in the extras, it gets downloaded as well with gogrepo even though I want only the English version. Normally GOG puts different language versions behind different flags, but apparently that is a special case because it is not an official language version, so they added it into extras instead.

IMO, it definitely isn't in less than 24hrs when there's a patch available, and it's a game with the size of standalone installation files like this one.

You may personally disagree, but it's not unreasonable to be given somewhat more time to complete the download, especially when factoring in that one has to sleep, work, and attend to other matters within a 24hrs day.

Does Gog support it? Meaning can a costumer contact support regarding playing with the Russian localization?
If not, they REALLY should Add Wake Of Gods Unofficial expansion* to HoM&M3 extras. It's also Russian made...
* Might as well also add Horn of the Abyss and and VCMI as well - The last is getting pretty darn close to completion!

Sorry but you are wrong : the amount of time during the previous installer was up , was ridiculous : we are speaking a 20 GB+ game here...

GOG should catter for ALL their customers , either they have a crappy connection or a pretty good one.

If i have started to download the previous installer files i would have run in the same problem as the OP.

I don't like when some users who have a decent download speed give some lesson to those who have a crappy one -_-

their "hotfix" didn't fix nothing either, instead it made it so you can't use dazips, can't play multiplayer, etc..
this is a shoddy port of a descent game, I like my steam version better.
server space is not really an issue.. I have domains, I have 0 space limitation, bandwidth on the other-hand..

I can't tell, better to check the game's subforum

from what i know the hotfix , should prevent the game to call origin server ..... (the changelog only states this, so it shouldn't do anything else.)

the game is tagged single player only on the gamecard

for the rest , i guess GOG will fix others issues later.

but i think the post from HypersomniacLive is a good advice.

I got a problem once with Divinity Original Sin, the support provided me a link for a previous patch, wich got removed (for some reason......) , but the problem if the support answer you after you downloaded the new files , that's pointless.... (it took quite some time before i get an access for what i requested for my issue).... Up to you to follow the advice or start from scratch the download....

Just to sum up, GOG sometimes does "stupid" things or doesn't really communicate with their customers..... i can't help much more

What is valuable here IMHO is understanding the problem itself and communicating it effectively so that the people who can potentially do something to ensure it doesn't occur again in the future are aware of the dynamics of the issue and how it might affect others in the future so that they can adequately assess the problem and plan out a more robust solution which adds to the overall customer experience of all customers in a positive way.

Reading through the thread so far I think I now understand the nature of the problem so I'm going to state briefly what my current understanding is and if I'm mistaken then the original poster can correct me if desired. It is my understanding that the original release of this game came in a standalone installer which was approximately 22GB in size, and that it was quickly replaced with both a brand new standalone installer and a patch for the original installer in a very short period of time of a day or so, and the original standalone installer file was deleted. Assuming that is correct for the GOG side of things, it appears that this can have a negative customer experience on the other end if someone was currently in the process of downloading the 22GB installer at the time and the download hadn't finished yet causing the entire download to effectively be aborted and requiring the customer to re-download the whole thing all over again and excessive Internet bandwidth usage on the behalf of the customer who may possibly be near their Internet cap at their ISP for the month or have a very low monthly cap.

If this is a correct framing of the problem then it is indeed something that should be addressed because it is highly likely to be a very common issue around the world. Many people live in areas which have poor quality Internet access both in terms of speed and bandwidth caps etc. as well as reliability issues, and companies that want to embrace all of their customers with good service need to be both aware of this and try to accommodate the needs of all of their users as best as they can if they want all of their customers to have the best customer service experience - which is exactly what a growing company like GOG is sure to want.

The solution to the problem is likely a very simple one, which is to simply not delete files off of the servers immediately when a new version is available, and instead leave the files available either for some reasonable amount of time for people to finish their downloads safely, or to leave the files there indefinitely. If something is in the process of being downloaded, that should be a testable condition on the server side for active connections, so that's an easy one to avoid programmatically. For the case of unreliable Internet connection or periodically connecting to get increasing fragments of files when one can connect, it wouldn't register on the server side as an ongoing download however, so the only reliable way to avoid stomping on a periodic in-progress transfer like that would be to have a time buffer where when new files are placed that effectively obsolete older ones, to simply keep the older ones there available on the back end servers for a reasonable amount of time afterword. What "reasonable" means is something GOG would have to calculate based on their knowledge of the diverse types of Internet connectivity that their customers have globally. I suspect 2-4 weeks might be an adequate buffer time that would cover most problems of this nature except for perhaps dialup Internet, but if they wanted to cover dialup users also they could certainly calculate what it would take to accommodate that.

As for how much extra space the additional load of files would take up on the servers and whatnot, those are red herring arguments to sweep a valid problem under the carpet. Hard disk storage costs in 2016 are for all intents and purposes an irrelevant cost of doing business for a company like GOG, and their servers most likely have immense amounts of storage available to handle whatever they need to put there, and if they don't GOG certainly has the extremely small amount of money available to upgrade their storage requirements a small amount in order to accommodate solving a small technical problem like this. This is not a problem that solving it would put a challenge on GOG's profitability so lets call it what it really is - it is a small technical oversight that simply may have not been brought to their attention before. This is not an economical problem that GOG would struggle to solve due to hardware costs, it is a small technical problem that might require minor adjustments to automated software systems they have and/or minor adjustments to the policies and procedures their employees follow when issuing game updates.

The dirty details of how the problem would need to get solved on GOG's end do not really matter so much as the important thing, which is GOG observing a valid customer service problem for some probably relatively large (globally) subset of users and acknowledging that it is an area where they could improve customer service for those users to give them a more reliable experience. That is exactly the type of thing a growing company like GOG would likely want to prioritize for their customers as they already have a rather stellar customer service approach. They just need to be aware of the issues like this via communications from the customer base when they happen, which is ultimately what this thread is about, as well as inquiries to customer support directly.

Now on the community side of things - it's always fun to do victim blaming/shaming as we see above in the thread here and is often witnessed here in the GOG forums, but it doesn't actually do anything to recognize, acknowledge and work towards a solution to the actaul real problems. Instead it tries to sweep the problems under the carpet by blaming the customer and ignoring the fact that different people have different circumstances and that good customer service attempts to accommodate all customers as much as possible regardless of their individual circumstance. Knowing GOG as well enough as I think I do I will make the assumption that it is a completely inadvertent mistake however, and casting blame around for the problem doesn't really help anyone at all, nor does it improve GOG's overall appeal and reach to potential customers.

This is a completely valid technical problem being experienced here even if my understanding of the issue is not 100% accurate in my explanation above, and GOG investigating the issue and considering potential solutions to resolve it only stands to increase the happiness of more of their customers and the experiences that they have when offering their patronage to GOG.com. When everyone's reasonable needs can be easily met by observing and acknowledging problems like this and attempting to resolve them - everyone benefits from the greater experience, and there are less problems being reported by people in the forums as a result also.

It's time to stop shaming and/or blaming the victim. We're all should strive to be better than that, myself included.

If you contact GOG support directly at the link at the bottom of the page and point them to the thread here and a detailed description of the problem and how it affects you, they may still have the file(s) you need available but just not customer visible on the servers, or they may be able to make them available to you. They have done this for some people by request previously if I understand correctly, so they may be able to do that for you as well.

On the user-interface side of things however, it can be quite confusing to the average person to see a huge list of various versions of game installers and a huge pile of patches and not know specifically which files one should actually download, so they naturally try to keep the visible list of game installers+patches as small as possible to avoid confusion.

What would really be a nice ultimate solution though, would be to have every game downloader page have a link on it to "Archives" or "Vault" where either all previous versions or even just some number of previous versions of installers/patches/etc. are archived and made available for people who want or need them for some specific reason/need. There are many examples of how this could be very valuable to customers, and even GOG Galaxy implements this to a limited degree by the "rollback" feature which is available on some of the newer game releases and lets you downgrade your game to 1 or more older previous versions. I've seen at least one game offer 3-4 older versions for example, so in theory they could do this in a wider sense for more or all games. It most likely is something they would like to offer eventually and my best guess is that there have just been higher priority things that have gotten their focus to date and this is an issue that may get officially addressed more in the future, but things tend to likely be prioritized based on assessments of customer impact, so it is important that customers communicate both with support directly to air their concerns and to try to have a wider conversation with the community here as well (and as I said above, with the possible risk of receiving back victim blaming/shaming).

Have you see The Witcher 3's list, or Divinity Original Sin's? If not, I'll screen cap for you and you'll see the inconsistency regarding the main point of this thread.
edit: disregard D:OS... the main installer is changed but there are patches for versions all over the place.
TW3 on the other hand, has its main installer sitting at 1.10, and you're only able to download the latest version as a patch.

Would it be possible for me to change my Zodiac sign?