Hi,

i recently bought Expedition Vikings.
The game is very buggy and nearly unplayable. But there is a patch that fixes many bugs (v 1.0.3).

Problem:
That patch is avaliable for GOG Galaxy only. But using Galaxy means adding DRM. Without the patch, the game is unplayable (for me at last).

Why I claim that Galaxy is DRM:
A Games ore patches tied to GOG Galaxy cannot be installed without an active GOG account. If GOG is shut down for some reason, all GOG Galaxy games / patches are wothless and cant be installed anymore. For me, this is DRM.

So the question ist:
Do they do that on other games? Meaning: delaying patches?
Where can I see, if a game has an accepteble patch level on the non-DRM-Installer BEVORE buying?
Why the hell are they claiming, Expeditions Vikins is free of online activation? That is a plain lie!

Welcome to the new GOG, where installing Galaxy is fully optional, but not installing it results in a crappy user experience (missing updates, missing notifications etc.)

Well, I am personally really against Galaxy, however I don't believe they are actively doing this to force Galaxy. What you will likely find is that a patch does come out for the standard installer at some point coming up. It takes a little while to get this - one of the "excuses" for pushing Galaxy was that patches can be pushed out quickly by devs. And Gog have always been far behind on patches and things.

No. No one at GOG is going "Let's purposely delay patches so they are forced to use Galaxy."
Developers find it easier to patch through Galaxy, and GOG is too lazy/incompetent to try and enforce patches for offline installers.

The end result might be same for the end user, but there is no conspiracy theory. If you mean "do other games suffer from the same issue?" then, yes. A distrurbingly large number. But there is no purposeful delaying as explained above. Check for the game here:
https://www.gog.com/mix/games_that_treat_gog_customers_as_second_class_citizens
Also you could try the game's forum. It's not. There is no online activation to play the game. It's not patched fully, but there is no "plain lie" about it being activation-free.

Yes, most games eventually get patches but some really late eg. The Flame in the Flood only just got patched about a week ago, 3 weeks late, so don't panic yet

This thread really needed more tin foil.

Relax, this has nothing to with them trying to enforce Galaxy. Devs can push updates to Galaxy directly, hence Galaxy will get patches quicker. Usually within a few days (perhaps within a week or two) GOG will roll out the patch for standalone installers. This will take longer and be slower because someone from GOG still has to manually do this and then test said patch. This is basically the time frame you would have gotten the patch, had Galaxy not existed so it's really business as usual.

Also Galaxy itself is not DRM, it delivers the same files to you that you get with the standalone installer. With enough know how, it's a simple matter of copying the games and in some cases the registry to a new PC, and the games will work fine. But I get what your saying, hopefully GOG will in the future add some form of backup features to allow re-installation of games without Galaxy as they have hinted at before.

Why is everything a conspiracy?

Why quotation marks? Rapid patching and micro-patching is not an excuse, it is a fact that it is much easier via clients instead of packing installers.

They used it as an excuse for including Galaxy in the installers, because that way we would get patches quicker.
Me, I just avoid day 1 releases (well, I did get MOWCorsair and regret it every time I see it on my shelf), no problems with patches then. Cause and effect, people wanted half finished indie titles, now they realise they need a client to keep patching ad infinitum.

But you don't have to do that. Galaxy gives you the option to download the standalone installers (besides directly installing the game). It's located in the extras section. The issue I see here is if Galaxy can't run on your computer (or properly anyways, which was my experience), and if they ever delete the ability to download your games from your web browser, then you are pretty toast.

That reminds me of al lot of discussions I hat at the release of Half-Life 2. Your thread could be from that time.

"No, they will not use Steam as DRM". "No, not all games will require online activation in the future". In my experience, gamers are the dumbest bunch of customers in the world. They accept anything without thinking of the consequences.
Online activation, Origin and all that other **** didnt have to happen.

Galaxy is DRM (or at least can be used as DRM). If too many people will accept it, they will drop the classic installer at some point. And then, all your games are tied to the account.

Anyway, if is really the case they are always this slow witch patching, then I can wait a bit.
Lets hope for the best...

Yes i was talking about in the confines of GOG ever shutting down and the standalone installers not having all the patches etc., you can technically move your games even if downloaded via Galaxy. It's just more complicated. Also not everyone may want to waste the bandwidth, time, and hard-drive space getting standalone installers... so a some kind of backup feature would be nice for these people.

Yeah, they've always been a bit slow, but it seems with the advent of Galaxy that the wait times for standalone patches have become longer. Perhaps it's just my impression though. Anyway, I posted my thoughts in the Expeditions forum, but to summarize: I don't give a crap as to the reason why this is happening - if the standalones are going to be delayed this much as a matter of course, I'm pretty much done with buying games on release day. I'll just do the same as I do with DLC-riddled games: wait for a few months until everything is out and then grab it at a discount.

I would have disagreed with this 2 weeks ago. But the Gremlins, Inc happened. That has me VERY worried about the future of DRM-free here.