This I could understand

I don't mind Galaxy.

You can launch your games while offline, and of course you'd need to be online to have multiplayer games coordinated. Gwent is fully intended for such a purpose as was AvP2000 back when Galaxy was just a wee tot.

The thing is, Galaxy still needs something a bit more before I consider it feature complete, and there's no Galaxy for Linux yet.

To me personally the issue is not really that there is an option to install Galaxy (or even that it is opt-out); the issue is if suddenly most of my GOG installers have an extra +130MB (the size of the Galaxy installer), for something I don't need, or if I needed it, I could download and install from GOG anyway. If 1000 games have that +130MB extra stuff per game, quite a lot of extra wasted hard drive space (and wasted download bandwidth, in case you are on a data capped connection).

That is why I originally suggested in that thread that if GOG really includes a Galaxy installer on GOG game offline installers, they'd only add a small installer stub which downloads the whole Galaxy installer, if the user wants to install it. E.g. the SteamSetup.exe installer is something like 1.4MB. That would also make sure the user installs the latest version of Galaxy, and not some years old version that was embedded to his game installer. Luckily, it seems GOG listened as they suggested they are looking into reducing the Galaxy installer footprint.

Unfortunately, then that discussion went to suggestions of there being two separate sets of offline installers, one with Galaxy and another without. Depending how GOG would implement that, it could cause massive problems to people who use e.g. 3rd party downloader tools like gogrepo or lgogdownloader, in the sense that they'd be downloading both sets every time.

In the worst case, GOG would even add e.g. the non-Galaxy versions under "Game Goodies", which would mean that also all the different language and OS versions would go there (because the Game Goodies section doesn't care for LANG and OS filtters, that section is common for all). So in the worst case, the users of mass-download tools would end up downloading also all the different OS and language versions, even if they wanted only e.g. English Windows versions.

I guess it depends what games you are playing. The GOG game I am currently concentrating on is Fallout Tactics (Classic), and I guess it hasn't received updates for years, so auto-update wouldn't help me at all playing it. It just so happens that I quite rarely play brand-new single-player games when they are still actively being developed and updated. I usually end up playing games from my collection that have been ripe for some time already.

If you buy in-dev games from GOG, then yes I can see the point. Also for me personally, I feel autoupdate is important for public online multiplayer games, to make sure everyone is running the same version of the game. For me that game is currently Team Fortress 2, which is a Steam game.

Well, it isn't like you have to do that either, if you choose not to use Galaxy. You could still do it like most people do: download the game (with your web browser) from your online GOG collection when you intend to play it. You'd have to manually update it afterwards only if it is a new game receiving updates pretty often (and even then only if the update is meaningful to you). More important for in-dev games, less meaningful for Fallout Tactics.

As for "dutifully" keeping a local collection of your GOG game installers... there's gogrepo and lgogdownloader for that. They put the installers neatly in subfolders, check if there are updates available and download them for all your games, everything pretty much automatically. So in a sense those tools are the "auto-updaters" for your GOG game installer collection. They are autistic for you, you don't have to be that yourself.

This is bizarre... Could you give me a link to the start of that conversation in the forum? You've got a lot of posts, and I can't find it ;)

This is actually the solution that GOG came up with - and yes, it's bizarre. Check Destro's post (first one you'll see) in the following link: https://www.gog.com/forum/general/offline_installers_with_an_option_to_install_gog_galaxy/page1

IMO, that thread is full of valid points made by the users, as well as far better solutions to what GOG had originally planned, and even to how they decided to "compromise". If the implications of GOG's practices and plan(s), not to mention their arguments to justify their decision, are of no concern to you that you take away from the thread "fear-mongering", then we have to agree to disagree.



I don't recall this being a suggestion made by the community prior to Destro's post #929. After that, yes, there was plenty of discussion on that subject. Are you sure it was a community suggestion?

As for the latter, well, since that's GOG official decision, we'll see how they implement it soon enough.


You're overlooking the most serious implication, If that were to be implemented - as reaffirmed recently by GOG (Thiev, IIRC), any installers in the "Extras' section are not officially supported by GOG. Can you imagine what that would mean for the non-bundled with GOG Galaxy standalone installers?

No, and I don't think I really said who made the suggestion (I don't remember). Might be GOG then, as a quick damage control suggestion to stop the heated discussion.

My point was that unfortunately most of the community seemed to think that is a good approach, having two different sets of offline installers which are otherwise supposed to be identical, except that one set has a Galaxy installer (stub?) embedded, and the other one doesn't.

I guess it is an ok solution to those who are going to download their games manually (using e.g. a web browser), carefully selecting for each game which files exactly they download. But it is potentionally quite bad news for people who use e.g. mass downloader tools like gogrepo or lgogdownloader, as they may end up downloading several different sets of the same games.

At that point it may be too late.

I'm fearing they just e.g. slap all the non-Galaxy installers under "Game Goodies", as then they would probably put all the different language and OS versions in the same list as well, as "Game Goodies" doesn't care for the OS and language filters on the page as far as I know.

Or if they just put the two alternative sets under different subtitles under the main download section... again it may be quite hard for an automatic script to detect which files are for which set. It is not reasonable to expect that such a tool would have exception rules for each game separately, there has to be some uniform way to tell the difference, and that way shouldn't change in the future either with newer releases.

Unfortunately, so far it seems GOG has different ways to do the same thing, so I'm fearing it becomes messy. Sometimes they put the "alternative" versions of games under the Game Goodies (e.g. Broken Sword, Stronghold etc.), sometimes they are.under the same main download section (Darksiders Warmastered Edition), sometimes they are under two different titles (Darksiders 2 & Darksiders 2 Deathinitive Edition, Pathologic & Pathologic Classic HD).

I personally am hoping that they don't go with two different installer sets, and that suggestion was merely a quick ad-hoc damage control suggestion to stop the heated discussion. If they embed the Galaxy installer into the game installers, just make sure it is a small stub, like a few megabytes (just like SteamSetup.exe from Valve is less than 2MB; it downloads the actual, up-to.date, installer files online before performing the actual Steam client installation).

Then I wouldn't consider it worse than how e.g. many GOG game installers have embedded Foxit PDF Reader installer (which you can opt-out). We don't have two sets of those games either, one with Foxit Reader, and another without. Everyone understands how stupid that would be. Same with this embedded Galaxy mess, having two sets of exactly the same games.

It's too big. ;)

The negative thing for me is that I don't really need it for anything but GOG tries to force it on me every other time. It's like that annoying ad. Mostly annoying really, but after some time following you around makes you really aggressive. What do you think about that?
That is also fairly straightforward with basic means of the OS.

Yeah, sorry, given that GOG hardly engaged us in the discussion and that Destro came in an announced their decision, not suggestion, in post #929, the phrasing you used made me read it as if you were saying that it was a community suggestion. Which I'm pretty sure it wasn't.


I'm pretty certain that nobody thought it was a good approach; there was a good amount of criticism and alternative suggestions to which GOG has yet to reply or add anything (not that I expect them to).
If you read Destro's post closely, the stub solution seems to be a temp one, and GOG is set to go ahead with their original plan as soon as they figure out how to make the size of the client smaller. The clean installers was a compromise to placate people, which seemed to work to some degree, but more people than not have a hard time seeing them maintain two sets of installers for long.

And seeing that neither has been implemented yet, I wonder if they haven't (finally) realised how impractical the whole situation their decision would create is (though more from their end than the users' one), and won't roll out something more inline with their initial plan in the end. Something that may be more to your personal liking, but not to everyone else's who objected to this for a number of reasons.


Again, in this scenario you are getting ahead of yourself and overlook the most serious implication which is that the installers will be unsupported officially as per GOG's treatment/policy of versions listed there. So, this may result in you not having anything to re-download at any frequency anyway, for the simple reason that you may be left with outdated installers (which is a worry of many of us, regardless of where they place them).

I don't use that tool, so don't know how it works. But I assume that it already has a way to distinguish between different OS and languages, more so for titles that don't come with a single multilingual installer per OS, and allows one to download only the installers of the OS and language of interest. I will further assume that if the current way stops working, the creator of it will update/modify it to restore said functionality, if for no other reason than to satisfy their own needs.

Yes it let's one select which OS and language versions to download. I think it uses the LANG and OS filters that GOG provides, which you can select on the download page yourself (the two dropdown lists).

The thing is, if something is under the Game Goodies, it doesn't care for those filters because the Game Goodies section is apparently always common for all OS and language versions. That's why e.g. Broken Sword: Director's Cut has the Mac and Linux versions of the classic version visible, even though you are using the OS = WINDOWS filter. Or, Placescape: Torment has the Windows, Linux and Mac Russian translatation of the game visible there, even though you are using OS = WINDOWS and LANG = ENGLISH filters.

Hopefully you are right and they don't put the "classic" installers under Game Goodies, but even if they put them under the main "Game Downloads" section, it depends how they name time files etc., whether it is easy for an automatic tool to tell the difference, for all games (which have the two alternative versions). Of course, the best solution would be that they add a third filter (GALAXY or something like that), but somehow I feel they are not going to do such extra implementation, but simply slap the files for the two different sets under the same section, maybe naming them a bit differently. A bit like how they have two different versions of Darksiders under the same section, the older version is called "Legacy" (but the filenames don't include that string "legacy", they are just named "setup_darksiders_2.2.0.9.exe" etc.).

I am unsure what you mean by "current way stop working". Currently it works because there are no two different sets which you'd need to differentiate somehow. For all your games, it downloads all files which are under the main "Game Downloads" section, and also everything that is under the "Game Goodies" (you can also tell it not to download the Game Goodies for any game). And it uses the LANG and OS filters as well so that you can tell it to download only certain language and OS versions (e.g. I download only English Windows versions, skipping all non-English and Mac/Linux versions).

So there is no functionality to e.g. skip downloading certain files under either Game Downloads or Game Goodies, it downloads everything it finds under them (respecting the LANG and OS filters). I guess it would be easy to e.g. skip files whose filename includes a certain string, but then it should be some kind of string that is not used anywhere else. For instance "galaxy" is not a suitable string because there are games whose title (and filename) already includes the string "galaxy", and the same for e.g. "classic".

and you never will

Because a lot of GOG's customers are people who want things to stay the way they are right now. If they wanted a digital store more like Steam, then they wouldn't be a GOG customer in the first place. Some people want as much as much control as possible when it comes to the games, they purchase.

Single player games do not cloud saving. I have my laptop and my desktop computer, and with cloud saving I do not have to transfer my saves between the 2 computers using a flash drive or by email, GoG Galaxy will automatically do the transfer for me.

They are not forcing you to use it all Galaxy is completely optional to use. Also cloud saving is only making backups of your saves, all your saves are still on your HD. Also it is an option to use Cloud saving, you can turn it off.

On Galaxy you can also choose to not have friends on your friends list. So that murder stuff won't happen if you are using GoG.

So it sounds like your fears are based on false information anyways.

I dont mind existance of galaxy, but i prefer to run games offline.
Reason is that extra layer of client could affect performance or create control problems.