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high rated
[UPDATE: 15.05.2015]
We've started importing the old Private Messages into Chat. :) It's a process so you will see them gradually being added to your conversations.

[ORIGINAL]

Hi all,

Many of you probably already know this - from the various hints we dropped here and there - but for quite some time now we have been hard at work on the brand new My Account section.

Since this is a very vital part of your experience at GOG.com (basically the one place that's 100% yours), and its release day is approaching pretty fast, I wanted to give you some heads-up and a brief overview of the changes that we have in store for you. Read on! :)

New things dedicated to your games:
-- Shared user wishlist. Yes, this highly requested feature will finally make its debut along with the new My Account. With just a few clicks, you will be able to decide whether your wishlist is private (viewable only by you), shared with friends (viewable only by you and people from your friends list, which is the default setting) or shared with everyone (because why not? ;)). You will get a handy link to your wishlist that you can share wherever and with whomever you like (a GOG.com Account is not required to view a wishlist shared with everyone). :)
-- Advanced filtering. We decided that, since your collections are getting bigger and bigger with each passing day, this is the perfect time to introduce some robust filtering options to both the Library AND Wishlist. Now, finding all your RPGs with Polish localization and co-op will be… well... finally possible. ;) It’s worth noting that the filtering options are based on your collection (so if you have no games with a Polish localization, you will not see the Polish option in the language filter).
-- User tags for the Library. With the new My Account, you will be able to create your own tags (up to 50), assign them to your games and movies and later use them to even better navigate and filter your collection. You will be able to assign multiple tags to each item in your collection and doing so will be possible from both your shelf/list directly or from the game/movie details.
-- Orders history. As part of the transition into the new My Account, we are retiring the "gifts" section, but in its place we are giving you a list of ALL your past orders and ALL your gifts, including the ones that have been given to you (finally). The orders history can be tailored and adjusted to your liking with a few clicks (for example, you can change it to list gifts only).
-- Changelogs. You will be able to view game changelogs directly on the new My Account page within the game details overlay. Of course, not every game will have it, but we will be keeping the changelogs up to date for the most popular, latest titles the same way we are doing right now on the forums.
-- Better organization of the downloads list. We improved the way downloads are organized on the game/movie details overlay. It will be easier to download the correct OS and language version of our installers and see which goodies are part of which DLC.

New things dedicated to communication:
-- Friends list. Already introduced in GOG Galaxy, the friends system is making its way to the GOG.com website as part of the new My Account section.
-- Chat. Old and weary private messages are retiring and are transformed into a new, live chat system. Chat will be available from both GOG Galaxy and My Account. Don't worry, all your past conversations that were conducted via private messages will be imported and preserved in the chat (and you will now be able to continue them live!).

Smaller but notable improvements:
-- Proper game versioning. With the new My Account, we will start to display the actual game version in the downloads on the game details overlay, so you will be able to easily identify if the version you have on your computer is the latest one, or it needs updating.
-- Improved navigation. Now it will be easier to jump straight into the store page, support, and forums relevant to each item in your collection.
-- Locale settings. Change your preferred currency and website / newsletter language directly on My Account to have them stored within your profile.
-- Pagination. We brought back the much requested, tried-and-true pagination view to the new My Account. This change is dictated mostly by your convenience but also by performance / stability for accounts with bigger collections (and with better performance, we are improving your convenience at the same time:)). The default size of each page is 100 items, but we believe that with the myriad of new filtering options it won't be a problem.
-- Text titles. The new My Account will display game/movie titles in text form, both on the list and shelf views. No more deciphering the logos on small boxes! :)
-- Mobile device support. Yes, viewing My Account on your mobile device will no longer be a chore.
-- COMING SOON: Proper graphics and links for all titles. We are conducting a little clean up in this area. Pretty sooan all games should have proper graphics and links in place.
-- COMING SOON: 5 new shelf skins. We are starting with only 1 skin (the classic wood), but soon after release we will add a bunch of new styles. It's purely a visual thing, so we didn't want to focus on that before release. Since many of you requested new styles, we will be introducing them pretty soon.
-- COMING SOON: Improved searching. Soon, finding desired titles will be easier thanks to the search improvements that we'll be implementing on the new My Account. Also, as part of the solution, we will be changing the way that titles from a series are ordered (i.e. Broken Sword should always show up before Broken Sword 2).

Of course the full list of changes and improvements is much longer, but highlights should give you a nice overview of what is coming. Hope you like it already, and that you will love it when we release it in just a few days. :)

Lastly, I wanted to point out the two important things that all of you should keep in mind:
-- The change is mandatory. We love freedom of choice, and we love giving it to you whenever it's possible, but unfortunately in this case it's not possible. Maintaining two, completely separate products dedicated to the same things would negatively impact both of them on all fronts. Performance, scalability, our ability to improve and expand them, but most importantly your convenience - as some of the new features were not possible to implement on the old My Account - would all be impacted.
-- Manual sorting is no more. We have decided to skip this functionality because it was beyond our reach to deliver the quality we wanted to. We decided it would be better if we were focused on the numerous other options requested by you.

Hope all of this gives you a clear vision what to expect in the coming days. Also please rest assured that we already have plans on how to develop the My Account section in the near and distant future: what to add, what should be changed a bit, etc., but we are always open to your feedback - so jump in and share your opinion. :)

Take care,
Chamb & The Website Team
Post edited May 15, 2015 by Chamb
high rated
Hi all,

Thanks for all the feeback and keep it coming! We are carefully reading every post in this topic and making some notes (but please understand we cannot respond to each of you ;)).

As for the chat replacing PMs - which seems to be to most hot topic - here are few more details:
-- By default you will be able chat with everyone on GOG.com - they don't have to be your friends.
-- You will be able to change you default privacy settings to "friends only" or block it completely.
-- You will be able to start conversation the same way you did with PMs - by finding specific user on GOG.com. Previously it was limited only to the forums, but with the new My Account we will be extending that to product reviews, community wishlist, GOGmixes (basically to every place user avatar and name appears on GOG.com).
-- You can chat with multiple people at the same time, but each conversation is 1:1. There are no rooms and/or group conversations.
-- The new chat interface look a lot like the PMs, so it will feel pretty familiar.
Post edited May 09, 2015 by Chamb
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snowkatt: and what if i dont want to chat and prefer private messages ?
Yeah, in many cases a PM system works a lot better than a chat. Is the "live" chat going to be like a lobby or is it just between 2 people?
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yyahoo: "-- The change is mandatory."

{shrug}
good
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real.geizterfahr: Where's the difference between the current PM system and a chat? You type something, you hit send and the other guy gets your message O.O
cause with a chat the other person needs to be there as well
if the conversation is in real time
with a pm system you can awnser whenever at your leisure
Post edited May 08, 2015 by snowkatt
Well done, GOG. Admittedly, a lot of that functionality should have been added years ago, but better late than never ;-)
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Chamb: -- Chat. Old and weary private messages are retiring
This is NOT good. There's a reason why asynchronous communication systems such as emails are still used more than skype and other instant messenging tools. Not a clever move, there.
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Chamb: -- Advanced filtering. We decided that, since your collections are getting bigger and bigger with each passing day, this is the perfect time to introduce some robust filtering options to both the Library AND Wishlist. Now, finding all your RPGs with Polish localization and co-op will be… well... finally possible. ;) It’s worth noting that the filtering options are based on your collection (so if you have no games with a Polish localization, you will not see the Polish option in the language filter).
Oh no, that needs to be changed because it's terrible user interface design. If there is no option to filter for a specific language any reasonable person will think that it is not possible to filter for that language, not that the result of the filter would be empty and that the possibility to filter will automagically show up as soon as you have at least one game in that language.

Offer all languages that you support for filtering and let the user decide what to filter for. If the result is empty if the user doesn't have any games in that language that would be expected behaviour, don't you think? An empty result list is not an error that needs to be caught and prevented but also a legitimate and correct result.


Other than that this sounds pretty good.
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snowkatt: and what if i dont want to chat and prefer private messages ?
Wait until the UI changes get applied and see whether you can mostly treat chat conversations as if they were the same old private messages you're used to? (That's what I hope for.)
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snowkatt: and what if i dont want to chat and prefer private messages ?
I dunno, maybe wait 5 minutes before replying when someone writes you a message? Same thing, really.
high rated
Chat in current form is limited to 1:1 conversations... so basically it's a lot like the PM system. The difference is that you will not have to refresh the page to see new message from the person you are talking with. :)
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Chamb: -- Chat. Old and weary private messages are retiring
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Telika: This is NOT good. There's a reason why asynchronous communication systems such as emails are still used more than skype and other instant messenging tools. Not a clever move, there.
I'll pretty much treat chat as I do private messaging, and I hope it won't differ too much.
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snowkatt: cause with a chat the other person needs to be there as well
if the conversation is in real time
with a pm system you can awnser whenever at your leisure
Uhm... No!? Have you ever used Facebook, Google Talk (or whatever it is called now), Skype, WhatsApp or any other chat system that is not from pre-2000? Chat messages don't just disappear because someone isn't online while you're typing ;)
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snowkatt: and what if i dont want to chat and prefer private messages ?
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real.geizterfahr: Where's the difference between the current PM system and a chat? You type something, you hit send and the other guy gets your message O.O
It sets expectations that you're going to answer right away just because you're on-line (or appear to be), I'm with snowkatt in that I'd prefer to have PMs (at least as an option). No big deal, but I dislike the instant connectivity everywhere.




On a side note, I agree the elimination of manual sorting might cause some reaction, but with the ability to set up your own sorting filters, it shouldn't be an issue.
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snowkatt: and what if i dont want to chat and prefer private messages ?
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real.geizterfahr: Where's the difference between the current PM system and a chat? You type something, you hit send and the other guy gets your message O.O
The expectations are not the same (live dialogue with ambiguous start/end presences versus delayed answer with pressure-less time management), nor is the content (fast chat versus constructed/developped messages).
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snowkatt: and what if i dont want to chat and prefer private messages ?
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Wishbone: I dunno, maybe wait 5 minutes before replying when someone writes you a message? Same thing, really.
Exactly, I don't see much of a difference between them beyond seeing new messages instantly, and maybe a UI change (new window, perhaps, as the client seems to do).
Changelogs? What kind of newfangled madness is this? Has the whole world gone crazy?
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Chamb: -- Advanced filtering. We decided that, since your collections are getting bigger and bigger with each passing day, this is the perfect time to introduce some robust filtering options to both the Library AND Wishlist. Now, finding all your RPGs with Polish localization and co-op will be… well... finally possible. ;) It’s worth noting that the filtering options are based on your collection (so if you have no games with a Polish localization, you will not see the Polish option in the language filter).
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Geralt_of_Rivia: Oh no, that needs to be changed because it's terrible user interface design. If there is no option to filter for a specific language any reasonable person will think that it is not possible to filter for that language, not that the result of the filter would be empty and that the possibility to filter will automagically show up as soon as you have at least one game in that language.

Offer all languages that you support for filtering and let the user decide what to filter for. If the result is empty if the user doesn't have any games in that language that would be expected behaviour, don't you think? An empty result list is not an error that needs to be caught and prevented but also a legitimate and correct result.
Realistically, most users will be interested in only one or two languages, namely English and their native one (assuming that isn't English). I predict that having to find the correct filtering option among every obscure language in existence somewhere in the GOG catalog each and every time would quickly get annoying.