GOG patches: is this how it is going to be...

[EndlessTest]

Dont take it the wrong way but who made you buy from GOG?

GOG has always been slow on patches. Its not the developer's fault. This is valid for most games on GOG, you will always get patches later than everyone else.
I thought this was common knowledge by now.

As for mods, idk. If the game uses steam workshop, i dont think you can get mods.

Again, why did you get the game from gog?

 

[Prismo]

This is the first new game I've bought on gog, I did it because I had some money in my gog wallet from I don't know where. Rest assured I will not be doing it again, I am thoroughly fucked off about this whole thing. As far as I am concerned gog are selling an objectively inferior product and if all these posts about how long it has been going on for and how everyone apparently already knows, they have done less than nothing to fix the problem.

Also I don't know where I am supposed to have gleaned that if I bought a game from gog that it would be a toss up as to when I would be getting patches for said game.

 

[EndlessTest]

Also I don't know where I am supposed to have gleaned that if I bought a game from gog that it would be a toss up as to when I would be getting patches for said game.

Well you're not the first one to be wondering where are mods and patches for gog games, i keep seeing people complain about this very thing on all sorts of forums ...

 

[Fensfield]

I think I remember hearing that Valve set Steam up in a way that if they thought they were going under, they can send out patches to remove the Steam requirement from all games bought through it. ...

I remember this, and I'm afraid it was just a, 'We'll send out DRM removal patches if we ever go under' said in response to the controversy. As far as I know there's no system or failsafe in place to do it automatically, and even if there were.. it could only ever be on Valve games and maybe companies close to Valve. I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be legal to remove DRM provisions on other companies' games without taking significant time to arrange it on a per-company basis (or trusting those companies to do it themselves if necessary, which does not have a good track record).

And all of this assumes Valve even has time to remove DRM. If the company folds, something tells me they'd have more important things on their minds than honouring a reassurance made off-handedly a decade or more ago. A reassurance that even at the time, most commentators branded silly and unrealistic.

GOG meanwhile, for all its flaws, arranges a lack of DRM wherever possible from the get-go. The paranoid will still want to have their library backed up in-case of the sudden or unforeseeable, but in the majority of company collapse cases there should be time for customers to at least acquire installers for important products. This is something the customer is actually motivated to do too, rather than the responsibility being on a company busy with a potential collapse and with other things to worry about than the enormous effort of patching out their DRM (which might still only be one of multiple DRM provisions anyway).

My aversion to DRM (for all sorts of reasons) drives me to turn to GOG wherever possible; it's a company stance I want to support. But in the case of Surviving Mars I just can't; the game needs a degree of support in all sorts of areas that GOG can't seem to provide.

 

[nccvoyager]

Regarding mods, it's a bit complicated.
Steam workshop mods can't be downloaded directly without the game on Steam.
That said, for GOG-released games, mods are sometimes available on third party sites.
By the descriptive text provided when opening the mod manager or mod editor in the GOG release of Surviving Mars, I get the impression that there may be plans to create a mod distribution service separate from the Steam Workshop.
I could be wrong there, but that's the tone I get from the wording.
It may be possible to find websites that allow you to download Steam Workshop mods without actually having the specified game on Steam, but I do not know of any that are currently functional.

Regarding patches, as mentioned, CD Projekt tend to take time in testing patches.
From what I understand, having learned a bit about the process while waiting for The Long Dark updates, this is to reduce bandwidth costs on their end, while ensuring a working patch for the users.
It takes time, unfortunately, as the CD Projekt team isn't particularly large, and they do have a relatively large number of things to do each day.
It can sometimes take up to two weeks for patch to be released publicly.

In regards to GOG versus Steam...
Specifically speaking of Paradox and Surviving Mars in this case.
Paradox has stated that all games they release will be DRM-free; even the Steam releases.
If they have kept their word, then the Steam release of Surviving Mars should be DRM-free once you have started it once.
It doesn't come with a nice installer like the GOG release, but it should work nonetheless.

(I don't mind the wait on GOG too much. This is partly due to my situation though. There is no internet access available where I live, and I must drive 20km to town to use free WiFi. Wouldn't be too bad if I had a relatively good laptop. Unfortunately, I only have a cheap Dell Latitude 2120 netbook. I literally cannot even play Gwent on this thing.)

 

[Cymsdale]

Do you people who think Steam is going under store 2 years worth of canned food and bury gold in your backyards as well?

 

[Herbert West]

Do you people who think Steam is going under store 2 years worth of canned food and bury gold in your backyards as well?

I'd love to see your reasoning why entertainment companies going under (happens all the time, will happen with Valve, especially once anti-trust gets involved) is comparable to doomsday prepping.

 

[Fensfield]

Do you people who think Steam is going under store 2 years worth of canned food and bury gold in your backyards as well?

I'd love to see your reasoning why entertainment companies going under (happens all the time, will happen with Valve, especially once anti-trust gets involved) is comparable to doomsday prepping.

Ditto. Or indeed why wanting to own our purchases as products rather than services provided at the whim of corporate servers - and encouraging companies that feel similar - is so terrible.

 

[Kwami]

Dont take it the wrong way but who made you buy from GOG?

GOG has always been slow on patches. Its not the developer's fault. This is valid for most games on GOG, you will always get patches later than everyone else.
I thought this was common knowledge by now.

As for mods, idk. If the game uses steam workshop, i dont think you can get mods.

Again, why did you get the game from gog?

No DRM, control over my purchases, etc. I want to support GOG and the company behind it because I prefer their business practices to Valve's. I still use Steam, since so many games are exclusively available there, but I purchase from GOG whenever possible.

If you open the mod manager in the GOG version of SM, it says that downloading mods is "not yet" supported, implying that future support should be coming. Hopefully, said support comes very soon. It's quite BS to charge full price for a version of the game that's missing such a major feature as mod support. And no, telling me to use some sketchy third-party site to download Steam Workshop mods and jump through hoops to get them running in my game is not sufficient.

 

[Prismo]

Well I complained about how long the patch was taking to come out and they offered me a refund. Got to say they may be pretty lack luster where patching is concerned but absolutely phenomenal customer service. Still, think I'm going to stick to buying old games from them from now on.

 

[alka_setzer]

I also own the GOG version of Surviving Mars, and what pains me is that this last patch is very helpful for the Linux version.
In any case, as long as Haemimont, Paradox and GOG suply me with updated versions of the game, I'll prefer GOG to Steam.

I would like to know what is the hold up on this case, but this could have gone much smoother with a lesser ammount of serious issues on the initial release..

Also Paradox's own Laucher only serves the original version of the game (227.831) and not any new version.

 

[Ri0Rdian]

This probably will not happen (costs and likely no earning to be made from that), seeing games developed/published by PDX, they should have their own Mod Hosting / Installation solution for their games. The ease of modding and the popularity of various mods speaks for itself. But it sounds costly so back to what I said, not going to happen. But it would make sense to have something like that.

 

[Cymsdale]

This probably will not happen (costs and likely no earning to be made from that), seeing games developed/published by PDX, they should have their own Mod Hosting / Installation solution for their games. The ease of modding and the popularity of various mods speaks for itself. But it sounds costly so back to what I said, not going to happen. But it would make sense to have something like that.

They did have their own distribution thing, but then they dropped it because Steam was simply better.

 

[Ri0Rdian]

They did have their own distribution thing, but then they dropped it because Steam was simply better.

Didn't know that! When was it? I think first time I hit PDX was back with HoI 2 and really started to check mods at the end of EU3 period.

Though I would disagree Steam was better... still plenty of trouble for games that have mods of certain size afaik. Or maybe I am just to old school and prefer to work with Nexus Mod Manager and the website itself.

 

[Kwami]

Well, the mod manager inside of Surviving Mars says that the GOG version of the game doesn't "yet" support downloading and managing mods, which implies that it will in the future. If a small studio like the folks behind Factorio can do it, then so can Haemimont and Paradox.

Frankly, that they charge full price for a version of the game that's missing such a big feature is kind of BS already.

 

[Napean]

Paradox may need to reevaluate distributing via GOG for their newer titles, if patch latency doesn't get better. (Well, would also be nice to not need so many patches so soon as well).