I don't mean to sound accusatory, and I've not played the GoG version of Thief Gold my own self, but I know folks who are complaining because more wasn't done to make it more compatible with modern machines, such as still needing to do the register DLL fix, the no DDFIX and so on.

With that said, are these issues something that GoG could have done with their release, or were these beyond their programming expertise?

Thanks!

I don't think GOG could legally include fan fixes like DDFix, but from my perspective, they still could have at least done a bit more testing to make sure the released package was fully compatible.

GoG has a good side, and a bad side. The good side involves getting distribution rights for games, stripping the DRM, and selling the games to us for generally fair prices.
The bad side involves actually fixing the games. Let's face it -- if they can't dump it to DOSBox, or if it doesn't run out-of-the-box on modern operating system from the original media (read: Win95/98 games), they generally fail, since they generally don't apply ANY community hacks, no matter how well known. Look at the releases of I'76, RB3D, and DK2 -- this is the extreme end of the "bad release" scale. DX, fortunately, tends to run OK on its own, but still needs a little TLC to get up to snuff to with modern resolutions and DX9+. Thief 1 is really puzzling. There are MANY well-known, stable hack/fixes out there for this -- and it just appears that GoG redid the game's installer and used IMAGECFG to kick the .exe to one processor.
Look, GoG, at this point there's getting to be no reason to buy some of these releases from you, since I can get them cheaper somewhere else legitimately and I still have to do all the patch dances anyway.

Regardless of how well known the patches and mods are, there is always the potential that people either want to other ones (if they exist), or none at all. How can GoG have the right to decide.

Further more, what if GoG simply doesn't have the right? There is the possibility that their sales agreements with the various rights holders of these games do not extend beyond simply making the original game playable as a digital distro.

I don't mind buying the GoG version because it is no longer on my discs, which is what I'm looking for more than DRM free or anything else. I have TG on disc as well, but I'll be getting a copy here as well for that reason.

The problem is not a matter of a person's preference about the patches, the problem is that without these fan patches, the game simply does not work on some systems. GOG advertises these products as compatible with modern hardware and OSes, which means they better at least work as the game originally did way back in the day. Wide screen support, improved visuals and sound, control tweaks... none of that needs to be addressed by GOG nor should they even waste time on that because as you say, that stuff is a matter of personal preference. But basic functionality of the software is what we are paying GOG for and far too often, we haven't got that without adding in these fan-made patches.

you have to come to terms with the fact that GoG staff cannot do wonders. it's easy to get DOS games to run on modern systems when you can simply wrap the DOSBOX emulator around them. it's much harder to do the same with W95 and W98 games, and it shows.

thankfully, most older games work fine on modern systems and Windows versions without any modifications.

as far as Thief is concerned, from what i've read, the game plays fine without further modifications, if you can live with the original state of the game, without user-made improvements.

what i'm wondering about is whether the GoG release of Thief is actually any different from the Thief Complete Collection that's still available on Ebay...

I think that's fair. It's a complex problem, but to the point: they shouldn't offer a product under the guise of modern compatibility if it really isn't.

They should put games like these under a separate well-labeled category like 'Fixer-upper' or 'Some-assembly-required'. It's good for people that don't mind the fiddling, but more importantly, it's immediately identifiable for people that expect their games to just work.

Even offering a utility that automates the patching and modernization would be preferable. I think that would help in the long run when advertising compatibility, especially if it could be automated optionally (selected by default) from the installation utility.

These kinds of steps would prevent a lot of turmoil.

Who the hell is GoG? I have no idea why people keep talking about him/her/them here. I guess with this being GOG forums there might be some confusion.

I don't think its a legal issue. When a fan releases something for a game, they release rights of their works as well. While its proper to get permission, mod owners don't have ANY rights of their content... because they built it off of and with permission from the TRUE rights owner. And that TRUE rights owner says that it ALL belongs to them. The better companies have been known to reward, advertise, or even employ the really great fan authors... but none of them were obligated to do anything.

That being said, The fixes that bug me shouldn't have needed to be "stolen" from fan authors... I'm thinking the fix could have been done correctly on the actual installer. Additionally, I think the fans that are still working so that others can play thief this long after release would not deny permissions (even though it isn't really theirs to give) when their whole goal to begin with is to help others play the game they love.

I commented because I think they could have included some fixes that didn't blur that line between original content and opinionated changes.

Ex: Making widescreen resolutions work - changes NOTHING content or design wise. The original intent and scope remains completely unchanged.

On the other hand, including a texture pack that improves all the textures in the game is more subjective. Even though the game looks MUCH better with the new textures... its opinionated and changes the actual design on the game.

In this example, I would have liked to see GoG include widescreen support as part of the actual game install. I had said earlier that they should include the texture pack in the bonus content, but I am seeing how this can cause massive problems if the community is split over multiple packs (something that I don't think exists with Thief, but would with other games).

/my 2 cents

I'm surprised this got released with WinXP/Vista/7 compatability announced. Whilst in principle these OS's work fine, the issues with deprecated DirectX calls by both nvidia and ATI/AMD drivers would have surely been found fairly early on in GOG's pre-release testing - only really the Intel chipsets work fine out-of-the-box these days. Certainly a check at TTLG forums would show that this is the biggest problem, I've lost count of the number of times I've had to help people hex-edit their exe to enable the DDFix dll.

Nice to see the soundtrack here, Eric Brosius' awesome sounds are perfect background music :)

This is the place where we worship the Almighty GoG, they who are un-knowable, ineffable, and able to bring us treats from the distant and not so distant past. We humble ourselves before GoG's divine presence. Without us there would be no GoG, but without GoG there would also be no "us"!

Nonono you're confused. This where we worship the Almighty GOG. Almighty GoG worship is round the corner.

Ok, if we're going to get technical (and this thread is all about technical!) then we should be worshipping the almighty gog.com. Or ALM.ighty GOG.com. I'm not sure since the title bar and logo don't match...
;-)

Just an update, GOG have clearly done something to the executable, I can play the game natively on my 9800GT without any need for DDFix, which was definitely needed before.

Hmm that's interesting, they might have implemented some of the changes (like the multi-core fix) in the executable. I'd still play with DDfix if I were you, though, it implements all kinds of more goodies like 32 bit rendering. It's POSSIBLE they released the game with the fixes from DDfix and didn't tell anyone. That would be hilarious.