Easiest fix - keep the installers for the 5 latest versions up for download, same as the rollback in Galaxy. Maybe in a separate section the game's library in the detail. An argument could be made for less than 5 I guess, due to space requirements. Keeping 5 versions of installers for a 100 GB game could get expensive. But even one would help a lot. Would also prevent mishaps like Saints Row 4 from happening again.

Your pedantry here really annoys me.

I started to reply: this post was unnecessary because the game title is already established in the thread.

But I realised it wasn't enough. Every single post by you in this thread is unnecessary. More than half of your posts on this forum are unnecessary. Please think about what you write before you do so. Your default is to attack with cynicism, and it's tiresome.

This is exactly what I meant.



Would it be hard for them to create an automation script to simply extract the offline installers server-side and do the 'installation process' through Galaxy? That is, instead of servers hosting both Offline Installers and Extracted Game Files downloaded through Galaxy, they would store only the Offline Installers and for people that use Galaxy, it downloads the other smaller necessary parts for online use, etc.

With something like this, it would work, it seems to me, to both Offline Installers users and Galaxy users, saving a lot of storage space, if the problem is server storage space price.

A little "mind map" of the idea:
» Stored Offline Installers + Galaxy Online Features files + Extras / Bonuses, stored side by side;
> User download offline installers from the website process (simple, no complication);
^- Galaxy Online functions files, because are separate files, are not downloaded;
^- Done.

> User installs through Galaxy process:
^- Galaxy connects to the server and activate said script to extract files while also downloading them to the user's computer (so it doesn't use more server-side storage space before downloading them as this would probably crash the server with high user demand, if I understand how this would work right);
^- Galaxy downloads the extra needed files for online only functions;
^- Galaxy reorder files extracted from the offline installers on user PC, creates the needed registry entries, etc;
^- Done.

This way, at least the way Im thinking it, it would save enough space for rollbacks for Offline Installers users, well, us. If the problem is really just storage space price.
Because currently Offline Installers users are already being treated as "second class citizens", simply because of Galaxy games being, some times, updated quicker and, obviously, rollback feature that we don't have.

Either way, I'm fine with 3 versions rollback.

My recollection, is that that is how it used to be, and then GOG chose to deliberately move away from that.

That said, I can see where it might be faster, to get up and running with your game, than downloading and then extracting. The penalty though, is no Offline Installer to back up ... not that that seems to bother many folk who happily use the direct install method with Galaxy ... I imagine the majority of GOG customers do that.

That can be very subjective, especially where some games get a lot of updates regularly, almost like nightly builds.
The point of any rollback to me, is being able to go back sufficiently far enough.

Last known OS version would save both space and time(DOS would be the exception; patched base files). Normal offering in the account/games section for offline installers. NOT JUST GALAXY!!!

Anything else, customer service should supply older versions on request.

This would solve the OCD members from excessive backups, while providing a legit good turn to a customer, that needs an old version.

Hi. Good point(s). There is no offline installers preservation program apart from thousands of users keeping them.
We are the Library in this case. Old users have old installers. Please correct me if I am wrong, but there is no piracy in sharing the old_installer with a person who got that game bought and visible on their account. (*edit, here on GOG and after 30 days from shopping, to make refund impossible) Especially on the same street.

New users with new computers will not be affected. I feel this program is pro-future, taking the retro there. But I don't conclude it is trying to push for Galaxy, only for new hardware and new system versions to keep the industry in high gear, just like minimum system requirements for most of the new games.

Ideally, our belived, beloved and bespoke ofeline instellars could contain all the drivers, patches, wrappers, emulators, scripts, and instructions needed to work on all the systems they(it) .... worked originally and up.

It reminds me of Sísyphos pushing the game up to the Win7 just to fall with it and climbing for Win10 on new hardware just to fall with it to go for the Windowsill 11 hill.... not to mention the Linux and Mac mountains.
Sounds like a punishment for something.

Sorry, I may have not been clear.
What I meant is that we would still have Offline Installers for download, but, instead of GOG hosting both offline installers and galaxy game files, they would only host Offline Installers and create scripts to extract and download them to the user PC through Galaxy, server-side.

But those of us that only use Offline Installers, would not be affected at all.
At best, we all would only have 1 version of games, instead of games disparity between Galaxy games and Offline Installers.
...as we know, many Offline Installers are not as updated as Galaxy versions. It would save developers and GOG a bunch of time and money if we had something like this, it seems to me.

Agreed. Makes sense.

I agree with you. What you said about games pushing new updates to work with newer systems is something I'm quite worried about in gaming.

How long will it take for people to understand that Microsoft Windows is a "time bomb"?
Valve understood already. They're creating their own gaming system and it works.

I believe GOG intentions are good and I hope they find success with the games preservation program, but they need to test this a lot still.

Really hoping they have even more good ideas to preserve games, but also keep hearing their community when something go bad, or when we find a failure in the system that needs to be fixed.

Focusing on preserving games for a private owned system like Windows 10/11 is not gonna work for long enough. Windows 12 will probably be fully online (or with many features only working online), AI powered, data collecting, AD based system, and this is as far from preserving something you can get.

It would be great to have offline installers of the game versions before "preservation fixes". Those fixes will likely work for some, but as saying goes: "Don't fix what is not broken".

Some people are sitting specifically on old software in order to not deal with telemetry and other insanities which come with latest OSs and newer software. Those "fixes" might break the games for them. I also dread the possibility that those fixes might make games totally unplayable on anything which is not the latest version of Windows.

Some old versions of installers would also be good for different reasons. E. g., there was a great game named "Grim Dawn". It was great game before the day the global level scaling was introduced to everything (which basically ruins the whole point of leveling and is the cancer to the genre). So those of us, who want the original pre-scaling version of "Grim Dawn", have to go to various shady sites for that.

Another example: "Master of Magic". It is great to have enthusiasts who do their best to make the better version of that game. However, they totally changed everything in the 20+ years old game, many rules are changed, and original is no longer accessible on this site. Sadly, the last I checked, they didn't fix the error with inevitable and unavoidable game crash in long campaigns (saving before crash doesn't help, it might have to do something with turn-count overflow (like gettinng over 255 turns) or something), which was the only major issue with that game.

Please, let your customers have access to the pre-preservation versions of the games :) Maybe there is no need to have installers of all possible versions, but installers before some big changes are applied to the game, specifically the preservation fixes.

You mean MoM Classic isn't the original?

Yes, it isn't. The only available version you can get here is from 9th September 2020 with all the big changes to the rules (and I doubt that these changes are made according to the original vision of developers from 25+ years ago). It is great to have some bugs fixed (but not the aforementioned major bug with crash though), but there are lot of changes to units' cost, etc, which were totally not bugs. Original version from 1994 is not available here anymore.

I was referring to the ones in the extras, not the main installer which includes the community patch. And judging by size, probably the EN and DE ones, 24 MB for Win, 17-18 MB for Linux.

Ah, I see now, thatnks, I didn't think to look for it in the Extras. Yes, file name shows version 1.31, the latest official version from back in time.

Maybe similar approach could be used in cases with preservation-program and big patches, which significantly alter gameplay (like aforementioned Grim Dawn change).

You made very strong points.
I just wish they understand that, yes, not all of us will surrender to the Win 11 TPM 2.0, full telemetry, ad based, AI sharing data collection, just because its "the most recent hardware".

But then again, we're talking about a niche of a niche, that is, GOG is already niched. And to cater for us, a niche, inside that niche, is to ask for bankruptcy, because our niche is just that small.
...but then, again, again, we're talking about GOG, a niche store that can't compete with the big players, *ahem*, THE big player, Steam, so if they focus on the big market, they will lose, sooner or later.

The huge (and good) propaganda that really worked recently was based on:

- Being DRM Free and allowing DRM Free gaming (niche)
- "Updating" and "Fixing" old games for them to work on "modern computers" (nicher)

Two niche categories.
So why not focus on us, the niche market-share that support them and keep listening to users like us?
I do hope they rethink the preservation program because of the issues I pointed, and specially the issues you also pointed out.
Just because a niche is small, doesn't mean it isn't valuable.

...GOG started, thrived and survived because of the niche market after all.


(O.b.s: I think I've never used the word 'niche' that much ever before.
Also, there once was a Grim Dawn version without Global Scaling?! What?!
We need infinite version rollbacks now! We demand :P!)

Honestly, I think GOG has way too many customers now to be still called a niche.
Unless you think any store that isn't Steam is niche, including Epic and Itch.io, etc.

GOG at this point have a significant presence, and many are aware of it.
Go to a well known gaming site like the PCGaming Wiki, and they mention very few stores, and GOG is one of them along with Steam.
Go to Humble, and GOG is often one of the versions mentioned for their games, other than Steam.
Many game review sites mention GOG.
So I reckon you would have to class them as mainstream now.
Just because a store isn't the size of Steam, doesn't mean it is a niche.

You were perfectly clear, so obviously missed the very first line from the post of mine you quoted.
And then I gave you the possible reasoning for that.

Rereading your message I understood what you meant. :)
Thanks for explaining and sorry for misunderstanding your post.

Hm, about GOG being or not being a niche still, I must disagree.

Although you have a point on saying that because a store is not as big as Steam does not necessarily mean its niche, GOG stands for a the principle of DRM-Free gaming.
So the store in itself, albeit being bigger today than before, carries a message: DRM-Free gaming, which people simply don't care at all.

You will see people arguing online in youtube, reddit and other social media about how DRM is terrible. But for them DRM is only Denuvo. For them Steam is not DRM as we understand and know.

So when I say GOG still niche, I'm saying that the idea of a fully DRM-Free 'Launcherless' is not the focus of people when they even understand what the preconceived meaning of DRM is.

...that's why most of them use Galaxy when they come to GOG for the "DRM Free Experience" they heard elsewhere, which for some around here is DRM. I'm not as radical as saying Galaxy is a DRM layer, but for some games it does act as a DRM layer, specially multiplayer games and games that require Galaxy use for acquiring extras or other benefits.

In that way, to me, yes, "GOG" still niche.