If that were the case, you'd think the newer releases at least would be more streamlined. They've already said it's the testing itself, and i've had devs tell me this, too. On the flip side, there's still no reason that can't be automated. In a way, it already is.

Possibly. that could also be true. Assuming they are pulling from Galaxy's repo and automically creating an inno installer then it very well could be the testing and web front-end or even back-end that is keeping the entire thing from being automated.

I get the sense GOG wants the best of both worlds, they want to do as little as possible but also maintain complete control over everything and that simply doesn't work. Valve learned long ago that in some aspects it's better to take a hands off aproach. But then Valve took it a little to far.

what makes you think they are not more streamlined than, say 2 years ago?
You got any insights in the internal processes ? ;)

Take a store that used to be client-less till 2015 (or 2014 if we count the closed alpha), mix it with almost no visible improvements to the non-client side of it, add a lot of client-only features and voila! The new GOG!

I'd like to be optimistic, but I believe it will only get worse.

As opposed to older games, not as opposed to previously. I have confirmation from devs that GOG is still manually testing things and that that is the primary cause of slowdowns. We don't know exactly what's being tested (i didn't get that information), but we assume the installation process, not the code of the game. It seems that, as of right now, GOG obligates the developers to write the inno scripts or in a script that translates to innoscripts (for the registry keys and such). GOG then would have to test all that to make sure it's still working, but thy need the dev to do some of that legwork, 'cause GOG can't just know everything. Now, with galaxy, presumably the dev has a better way, but they haven't found a way to convert this better way to innoscripts or something else that can make the offline installers, so everyone's still pretending galaxy doesn't exist when it comes to standalone installers.

I can't say for sure, but it's my understanding GOG handles the offline installers entirely, and that devs have very little if anything to do with them. All devs do is either upload changes via FTP (the old way) or via Galaxy new upload pipe. But I would assume GOG has build tools and such that devs have to use.

I know they do for Galaxy, There is even an image of it:

https://images.gog.com/d01a4c631a0e453e1971dddfc56a6c271dda67bebd55260a567ec44d718741ba.jpg?_ga=2.202083602.268980365.1542476932-1724926635.1542476932

(Credit to Yepoleb)


Exactly. GOG needs to put a lot of work into not only Galaxy but the back-end / front-end of the site too.

I would be rather surprised if they required the devs to write the inno scripts. But then, I don't have any insight as well, so maybe .. ?
On the other hand, they used to use innosetup installers even with Galaxy to set up registry keys and such. Has that changed ? I haven't tested Galaxy in quite a long time.

for me personally I would prefer a little bit of both. For older titles I don't mind if the offline installers take a while longer and GOG does whatever testing they want.
But for newer titles, especially "In development" titles, just create the installer automatically and put it out there. If it turns out to be broken, fix it. Usually there are loads of bugs in a recently released game, and not having access to the latest update because the update sits somewhere in GOGs pipeline is far more annoying than dealing with some broken offline installer every now and then.

Personally I don't mind when the offline installers are delayed by a few days, as long as they are not delayed by weeks or even months. For me an open and transparent installer format is much more essential. Of course it would be nice when GOG would provide new patches as extra downloads as soon as they arrive (even untested and before they are integrated into the offline installers).

Wasn't exactly that the excuse for the ugly new installer format and all the "internal installer updates" a few months ago?

Better not! I still remember the try with password protected archives in the installer. An open installer format is much more useful and you can automate it the same way.

Same for me, I'm here too only because of the DRM-free offline installers and that I can download them without having to use a proprietary client.

That's exactly how I also understand some blue answers about their last changes of the installer format.

Let me guess.

The game OP is referring to is Project Warlock.

It updated Friday night with a major patch, and another this Sunday with a hotfix. The game has yet to have an updated installer.

To be honest, that is not ideal but I would accept it 100 times out of 100 over using Galaxy even once.

My hope is that if people call out the latency now, that will delay any process of Galaxy becoming mandatory.

*shrug*

Then how do they handle install time registry edits? Otherwise, there's no excuse not to use just zip files like humble and others. Do they write instructions for GOG to follow? There has to be a way to handle install instructions that are beyond simply placing files in a folder.

I haven't tested it, either. I imagine that's something Galaxy should be able to handle. I was told galaxy works more like steam in that you download snapshots of the game directories.

I never actually saw a response to that, so i can only take your word for it. If that is the case, that'd be nice, but i'm smelling that there's still alot that goes unautomated, since it still uses inno. GOG staff can't be sitting there playing all these games all the time, so the bug checking they must be doing is most likely the installers. GOG's job is to make the game run, not to make the game play as intended. It's more of a joke. An open installer format really isn't that difficult, and neither is making your own. I could sit here all day and come up with fantastic methods of making installers. It's almost as if they have stock in inno or something.

If they would just make a unified format for both galaxy and offline installers, they wouldn't have to play the silly debug game, anymore. Just make a file format that galaxy would download in whole chunks that galaxy would then read, extract, drop files where they belong, etc. Then the offline installers would have galaxy's extractor using the same archive format, but instead of downloading it on the fly, it would be embedded into the exe file. It wouldn't need to include galaxy, but just the installer script format and archive.

And the best part is, if GOG did it right, or let open source do it, we could handle it the same way you would "delta RPMs," where you have individual files already compressed, then they can update separately, then be thrown together in the last second as a unified file. This saves space without eating alot of cycles on GOG's servers. Using a smart repository system (which i assume galaxy already has), one could easily set this up to work with multiple versions in a very space efficient way so it's not bogging down gog's hard drives.

.
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I don't use the client at all
as using Galaxy feels like yet another 'window' for more eyes to peer through

UTorrent just seems to work properly with Galaxy uninstalled for some reason

Totally agree. It's not too much to ask and GOG should do nothing but strive to update all their release channels equally on time. Everything else is indeed treating some of their customers worse than others (not only feels like it, it is). Technically the hurdles cannot be too big here and it's in general not acceptable.

Still, I don't mind so much. I have enough other games that I can play if one of them is not updated as fast as possible. The advantages of the standalone installers still by far outweigh a small time delay in releasing the same content for me. But others might not be as patient, and they should not need to be either.