Re: The Games Come In, The Games Go Out

On Sun, 05 Jan 2025 14:38:07 -0500, Xocyll <Xocyll@gmx.com> wrote:

Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> looked up from reading the
entrails of the porn spammer to utter  "The Augury is good, the signs
say:

Of course they removed doom2, it's now bundled into Doom + Doom2 - you
gave out a code last month for it I think.

Technically, the Doom I + Doom II is a completely different game,
featuring an entirely different engine and significantly updated
visuals. It's still (largely) compatible with existing WADs but if you
want the original game (DOSBox and all) you can't get it on Steam
anymore.

The original version isn't available on GOG either, now that I check.
So it looks like, if you want to play Doom II now and don't own it
already, you're options now are: a) pirate, b) use a source port, or
c) use the Kex-engine version sold with the Doom + Doom II edition
being sold. But you can't acquire the classic Carmack-programmed
version of the game legally anymore.

Was rather displeased with GoG, downloaded Blade of Darkness (or so I
thought by pressing the download game button,) only to find I'd
downloaded a stub installed that installed GoG Galaxy (once I shut off
the firewall, cause it generates a random temp dir every time it
unpacked so you couldn't simply unblock.)

Once that was in I could finally install the game, and fucking GoG gives
you a desktop icon that doesn't start the game, it wants you to log into
GoG to play it.   FUCK THAT, it's a single player game!

Set up a direct link to the exe manually.  FUCK YOU GOG!

Whether you find value in it or not, many people like using the GOG
Galaxy client (I happen to agree with you and prefer an offline
version, but IIRC, GOG reported than half GOG users prefer the
client,** so we're in the minority here). Nonetheless GOG offers both
options, which is more than can be said for almost any of its
competitors. That you picked the wrong one is your mistake, not
theirs.

GOG has forever offered manual offline installers, including for Blade
of Darkness (both versions). You downloaded the clearly labeled
"install game with GOG galaxy" version and not the one that is
"offline game installer" that's directly beneath it. Installing with
the offline version gets you a shortcut  pointing directly to the
executable, just like you want. (you can even disable desktop icon
creation entirely, if you so desire).*

Now, you _could_ argue that GOG promotes the Galaxy version over the
offline installers, with the former getting a big blue button whereas
the offline installers just get bare links. Then again, if most of its
users prefer Galaxy doing otherwise would annoy THEM, so I can't
really hold it against GOG for making it easier for the majority. It's
not like they're hiding the offline installers; it's literally right
below that aforementioned big blue button.

TL;DR: you download the Galaxy version of the installer and then got
upset that it used Galaxy. ;-)




* I actually downloaded and installed the game just to make sure this
is still the case. It is.
** or at least they did. I can't find the original article, but it was
a report from several years ago, and it showed something like 60% of
GOG users preffered using Galaxy over the offline installers. It's
possible that number has dropped over the years, although I'd be very
surprised if that were actually the case.