Patches 1.10 to 1.11, 1.11 to 1.12 and 1.12 to 1.13 are available for download without Galaxy, but not 1.09 and 1.10

I have the main install files for 1.08, so how is one supposed to get all the patches without using Galaxy? Would one have to download the complete 10GB 1.13 installer? Would that patch 1.08 to 1.13?

[Edited for typo]

Welcome to GoGs stupid patching policy.
For new games you should check daily if there are any new patches, since old ones will bremoved regularly.
For Spellforce 3 they even improved this handling, but for Divinity: Original Sin 2, they only had one patch up at any time...

They seem to have done it again.

After the weekend of not adding any newer patches, on Monday they now have the complete installer (all 10GB of it) for version 1.16, but the only patch available is "patch_spellforce_3_1.15_(17178)_to_1.16_(17220)".

Over the weekend version 1.13 was the most up to date, so in the space of one day (Monday 18th Dec) patches 1.14 and 1.15 came and went? I've still not been able to get patches 1.09 and 1.10 and have apparently now missed two more.

I'm curious though about what you say about "GoGs stupid patching policy". I've not encountered any problems getting patches in the past (or at least that I know of), so what's GoG been up to with this?

As a side note I thought the cumulative patch concept was something that had been worked out a while ago now. A one patch to patch them all sort of thing. I hope they're not looking to 'encourage' people to use Galaxy.

The first game i noticed this policy was, as i already said, Divinity: Original Sin 2.
It was not updated as often as Spellforce is, but they only ever had one patch up. There is even a mirror site, where a user uploaded all patches. No idea if something like this exists for Spellforce 3.
I have no idea why they are handling it this way. If they want to reduce clutter, just move the patches to a new category.

That the patches are not cumulative is most likely not GoGs fault. That is most likely due to the way the developers create the patches.

EDIT: Regarding Spellforce 3, i was quite pissed on release. On release day, there was 1.00. The day after, on a Friday, there was 1.01 (ironically called "Final #2"). I downloaded this version during the weekend. Beginning of last week saw 1.08 released. And the stupid thing for my slow internet connection: No patch at all... So i could not patch my version 1.01.
During the week, i think everyday saw a new version, with newly updated installer, so no chance of downloading, since i can't download 10G in one evening.
I now have to check essentially everyday during the week so that i do not miss any patch.

I do not want to use Galaxy, and i have a slow internet connection which i have also to share with four people.

Thanks for the replies.

I didn't know patches were being limited like this. I don't know if GoG have any sort of position on any of this, but if it really is a matter of clearing perceived clutter, then that seems bizarre to me. It's a list of patches. 1.01, 1.02, 1.03, 1.04... you get the idea :o) The point being, that it's just a straight forward numerically increasing list, in order of the patches release, in the Patches section of the game, so I'd be interested to know what's happening here. It seems to me that a list of the patches, for people to just choose which ones they want, is a lot better than not being able to download the patches at all. That's terrible. And based on even a small window for download of one day (Monday), I still couldn't get patches 1.14 and 1.15 . Were they ever even available?

I contacted Support over the weekend, so I'll see what they say.

I noted your edit though. So this is now the third time that a bunch of patches have been unavailable for this game.

As for cumulative patching [is it cumulative or accumulative - I have no idea :o) ], yes you may very well be right about that being on the developer. Although there seems to be a thing where GoG take the patches from the developer (or publisher as the case may be) and package them up manually for the manual download, it would probably be a different deal altogether to combine them all into one. Not sure though why it seems that Galaxy can have the patches pushed by the developer, but manual patches have to be packed individually by GoG, but maybe I have that wrong.

(Interesting to me that you mentioned Divinity OS 2, as I decided to leave purchasing that until it had been patched up.)

Just a small heads up:
Notifications seem still somewhat broken, i did not see 1.17 as an available update without manually checking.

Also, while yesterday only Patch 1.16 was visible, today they seem to have re-enabled some older patches, from 1.13 to 1.17

Thanks for that. I managed to get the re-enabled ones. So... I have all but 1.09 and 1.10. Not heard back from Support yet.

Does anyone know what happens if one tries to install a full 10GB later version of Spellforce 3 over an earlier version?

I installed from the full 10GB version 1.13, to the same path and it completely reinstalled the whole game, so no patching. Kinda optimistic of me that it would just update the necessary files, even though I've had games do that in the past (not many).

But it did keep the saves and setting and the like (I backed them up anyway), so all seems to be okay.

Messy situation on the whole, I think, but thanks for all the info Ranayna and I still haven't heard back from support.

Thanks for starting this thread, I have the same problem and same frustration - cant update every day, miss a patch and then need to download 10GB over a slow and shaped link.

I think in future I'll try Steam for new games that are likely to need lots of patching, and GOG for just old games. I guess the hint was in the the name.....

For me at least, it's becoming increasingly bizarre. I can understand why people would look elsewhere.

I can't think of a reason why all patches for a game wouldn't just be listed. *Maybe* only have the most recent patches on the front page of a game (to keep things a little tidier?), but in the "MORE --> GOG DOWNLOADER LINKS" section just list all released patches.

This seems like it's going out of it's way to stop people getting Patches (as existing links are removed), yet people can download the full game again (which isn't easy for many like yourself and others). I could be wrong, but I've still not had any word back from GoG about my Support Centre Request. And that was 11 days ago. So without hearing from GoG themselves, I can only speculate.

Weird thing about 'Good Old Games' is that I was very much under the impression that they had been moving away from just being about old game and just using 'GOG'. The idea being to move into brand new games for sale at full price, on day of release. Not being able to keep up with patches isn't going to help them with that. Additionally, modern games seem to need patching more so than ever before (Spellforce 3 is up to Patch 22).

I really hope they get this sorted out, as this seems to be a more general issue.

Also suprising that the complete patch cluster cant be found on the official Spellforce sites though.

I guess GOG has to balance the cost of maintaining all patches vs the cost of bandwidth of people having to re-download the whole game. Luckily its been stable for a week now.

As mentioned above, just re-installing in the same location worked for me too, save game was fine.

I couldn't find any patches for Spellforce 3 between spellforce.com, it's forum, Nordic Games and Grimlore Games, but the sites have the odd broken link and pages that, are/want to be, in German, even though English is the route. I did find patches for Spellforce 1 and 2, so maybe you were referring to that.

I would have though that once the patch is available, the only maintenance would be disk space and I would say the cost of that would be minimal. Also, I'd say the cost of bandwidth in having people download the whole game again would be higher. I don't know. The size of the patches are minimal.

To be honest, I stopped playing a while ago. Kinda regret buying it. I'll probably come back to it when things have cleaned up fully and just download the full game again and install that. Still no word from support, so overall I'm not sure what the point of buying games new even is.