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GalvanicQuas: One of my burning ones at the moment is when is the purple dot going to be fixed?
What reason do they have to fix that? Does anybody buy any less on GOG because of it?
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Zrevnur: If you dont like nagging and bitterness - maybe you are in the wrong thread. I would argue the thread title kind of gives this away too?
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toxicTom: Well, if I may politely point out that I was writing about the forum and users in general, and not about this thread specifically?
I just reread the 2 posts and I dont get your point - I was questioning why you are in a particularly naggy and bitter thread...

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toxicTom: It wasn't like that a few years ago. One can argue that GOG has made a lot of questionable decisions in the last few years (and is very inept in communicating them - which would sometimes make a huge difference) - which is undoubtedly true.
But that would kind of explain the negativity. Once there were optimists and pessimists. The world was in a blanced state. But then GOG did bad. The optimists got disappointed by GOG and left. The pessimists (with their negative attitude) expected it and stayed. So only the negative attitude remains.

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Lifthrasil: Which is a very sad state for a company, that used to pride itself on it's transparency and open communication. But those days are long gone. GOG has become what they used to contrast themselves against.
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toxicTom: Has GOG ever been truly transparent? I mean, yeah, back in the good old days staff would more openly chat on the forum, also about some internals. But actual numbers?
Yes. Evidence: https://www.gog.com/forum/general_archive/help_us_achieve_6_million_downloads_milestone/page1
And the text even explains the number instead of trying to obfuscate it.
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nightcraw1er.488: There is obviously no way to convince you.
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toxicTom: No there isn't. Because we have completely different approaches. You judge the game by what it isn't (but should/could have been), I judge by what is there. I'm currently playing it, so this isn't out of thin air.

And what is there simply is not "bad at every level". That's simply not true. There is tons of really good stuff in there. Of course if you expected something else (like most people, me included) you have every right to be disappointed.

Like when you see a movie that was advertised as an action spectacle, but instead get a drama, the movie can still be really good objectively. Maybe it was falsely advertised, maybe you simply don't like drama, only action, the inherent quality of the movie is still there - nobody forces you to like it.

Like I wrote, if the game had appeared out of the blue by an unknown developer, without all the hype surrounding it, people would have loved it (minus the bugs, of course). It simply is a pretty good game in many regards. Not so much in some areas (driving..., oof).

Have you actually played the game? Or is your "evidence" purely "angry people on the internet"?
Again, your missing the point. It is nothing about what I expect, I didn't expect anything. They said it would be an open world game, hence it competes with other open world games like GTA, AC etc.
It is bad at every level. Go through the posts:
Its an open world sim - failed, ther is no AI in th eworld, billboards move in one direction with not interaction other than occasionally some will duck when there is a shot. Traffic stops if you walk in front of it, never moves again. This is not the basis for a sucessful open world sim.
Its an RPG game - failed, weapons are random loot like borderlands, skills make no difference, stealth does not work (even in the example chip the guy gives you, you can't stealth kill the chap - i spent quite some time trying it).
Its an action game, perhaps, however the fact that you cant actually shot anything as hitboxes are all out of whack, I mean it is great having a shooter where you have to run right up in front of someone to be able to shoot them, otherwise you don't hit.
It has origins stories - failed, the origins story consists of one short mission, then a fast forward sequence.
I mean we could go on, but its obviously not going to make any difference.

In terms of whether I have played it, yes, I preordered on GOG and got shafted by the preload not available unless you are a galaxy user or pirate. So I refunded. I have since played a Steam version, after I saw the "Wow this is the best game ever" reviews on places like metacritic, which are obviously brought and paid for after seeing the product. I was actually suprised it was so bad. Its really hard to pinpoint anything worth saving. Graphically the city seems ok, and the models for the cars are ok. Other than that...
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GalvanicQuas: One of my burning ones at the moment is when is the purple dot going to be fixed?
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mrkgnao: What reason do they have to fix that? Does anybody buy any less on GOG because of it?
Probably not, but the dot gets on my nerves everytime I log in here.
Weekly reminder that I didn't buy anything from GOG since their horrible decision to support a vile regime.
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mrkgnao: I thought I'd keep a record of games I would definitely have bought, were it not for the boycott.

GAMES NOT BOUGHT IN 2021
(1) 18/1/21: Dread Nautical - $10
(2) 18/1/21: Operencia: The Stolen Sun - $15
(3) 29/1/21: Way of the Samurai 3 Deluxe - $2.5
(4) 29/1/21: Way of the Samurai 4 + DLC - $3.5
(5) 10/2/21: Drakensang - $3
(6) 10/2/21: Commander Keen Complete Pack - $1.5
(7) 10/2/21: XCOM 2 - $4.5
(8) 26/2/21: Cardaclysm: Shards of the Four - $9
(9) 22/3/21: Raji: An Ancient Epic - $12.5
(10) 30/3/21: Worms World Party Remastered - $2
(11) 2/4/21: Steel Rats Original Soundtrack - $1
(12) 29/4/21: Hob - $4
(13) 30/4/21: The 7th Circle - Endless Nightmare - $5

Total so far: $73.5
I remember you as a pillar of the GOG forums community, mrkgnao.
I'm glad you don't condone this kind of behaviour. *tips hat*
Post edited April 30, 2021 by Shendue
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nightcraw1er.488: I mean the game itself is bad, ...
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toxicTom: We can stop right here, because it isn't.
It's not bad. It's "the video game industry's biggest flop of 2020".

t. J. Schreier
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Shendue: I remember you as a pillar of the GOG forums community, mrkgnao.
I'm glad you don't condone this kind of behaviour. *tips hat*
Thank you.

I'm also trying to post in release threads about the consequences of my boycott, when relevant (like here: https://www.gog.com/forum/general/release_the_7th_circle_endless_nightmare_164f2/post4).
Post edited May 01, 2021 by mrkgnao
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mrkgnao: It's amazing how much people can be impressed by statistically manipulated numbers.
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The_Puppet94: Now I am interested in some evidence for number manipulation.
First part was in post https://www.gog.com/forum/general/boycotting_gog_2021/post2155

"Financial results": As pointed out here https://www.gog.com/forum/general/boycotting_gog_2021/post2161 the +114% include the Cyberpunk effect and the Corona effect. Cyberpunk accounts for maybe 45% of the whole. So without Cyberpunk it would have been about +18% instead of +114%. But note that my 45%/18% numbers are guesses based on the graphics in the link in the link. And I imply here that the two sources 'sales' and 'net revenue' are very similar - I didnt verify that. This is just me pointing out deceptive data presentation and the numbers are wild estimates for those too lazy to check it themselves - aka those more lazy than me here.

"Market split" page. Tangential comment: I remember reading that Russia is considered part of Europe. My guess is they want to grow in Asia with Online requirements (aka DRM) - see the focus on 'Online' in their business plan - as a workaround for (presumably) Chinese not respecting Western copyrights. Presumably this is also the reason nothing about DRM free was mentioned in that .jpg.

"Games released": Considering that even the indie site itch.io has more than 200K games I dont think their <5K games is anything to brag about.
"Wishlist thing": As has been pointed out this cant have been wishlists so it may have some correlation with votes instead. Its also not clear if this is for 2020 only. And the point about duplicate wishlists has been brought up.

"Users and their buying habits" Considering the crappy genre labeling of games on GOG I would be careful with those numbers. Also as has been pointed out the use of "prefer" is at least ambiguous if the data was derived from buying on GOG because GOG games offered spectrum does not properly represent world game spectrum. Especially is GOG not in on much of the multiplayer gaming. According to https://www.gog.com/forum/general/check_these_facts_and_numbers_about_gog_fc178/post221 the recent survey is not the source of data.
"Free games claimed" Is that for 2020 or overall? And what does "goodies" refer to? Do demos also count? Anyway this number doesnt look very high. To me this looks like GOG doesnt have enough active users (in terms of being able to compete with Steam etc). And this https://www.gog.com/forum/general/check_these_facts_and_numbers_about_gog_fc178/post85 points out that bots can also claim free stuff so the real number is presumably even lower.

"Customer satisfaction" As has been pointed out due to leaving tickets open, arbitrarily closing tickets and not making it clear how the customers for voting on that are selected (etc) the only thing this number says is that at least 7% of customers are unsatisfied. Also note that this is labeled not "ticket resolution satisfaction" but "customer satisfaction".
"Refund rate" As has been pointed out here using 'units' without even defining the term is not properly helpful for giving insight. See this post for a hypothetical example showing a potential issue: https://www.gog.com/forum/general/boycotting_gog_2021/post2181 Also it has been pointed out that those 'units' may include free games, demos etc.
"Resolved support tickets": Far as I know GOG is known to just close tickets and consider them as "resolved". So this number just says that at least that many tickets were opened.

"GOG Creators program" I know nothing about this so no further comment.

social media stuff: I dont sufficiently understand that social media stuff to try to interpret those numbers.
Post edited May 01, 2021 by Zrevnur
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nightcraw1er.488: ...
Seems we played different games then. I play it, progression is very noticeable and cool, because after leveling up a bit the different skills and perks really click and form synergies. Stealth works like a charm for me. Although the difficulty mostly comes from interlocking lines of sight, and it's often a real puzzle to untangle enemy groups and patrols to isolate single ones and take them down silently. The "suspicious mode" AI is frankly not very clever. Also stealth and sound are kinda broken - the enemies will hear the breaking of a window from really far away (tip: shoot a window with a silenced weapon and lots of people will go investigate, clearing the path for you), but kicking over cans or bottles does not alert them. That is most likely a bug, because the "I kicked something over" sound is so clear and present, it immediately makes you go "oh shit", but then nothing happens.
Point being, if stealth doesn't work for you, it's either you doing it wrong or a bug. 1.0 was very buggy, but not worse than Oblivion.

If you don't hit anything, maybe practice, I have no difficulty with that. You can even shoot off body parts, and yes, it hits where you aim (with aim assist off). That one is on you. Higher skill level increase damage dramatically, reduce sway and recoil effects (makes aiming easier). Whenever I didn't hit anything it was always clearly my fault.

I do agree that the origin stories are really bare-bone, and I also agree that Act I should be considerably longer, with more missions together with Jackie. Not even many more, but two or three maybe. He's such a great character.

Civilian AI is pretty much shit, I can agree with that. Well it's the same with Witcher 3 where it never bothered anyone. I just don't think that is an important issue. You're of course free to insist on good civilian AI if that is something making a game worthwhile for you.

Combat AI is hit and miss - sometimes they act rather clever, flanking, throwing grenades to flush me out of cover, use weapons that can shoot through cover, switch to melee if they feel I have superior firepower - also depending on who you are fighting they apply different tactics - Arasaka ninjas change tactics often and can be PITA. But sometimes the AI can be really disoriented and end up sitting ducks.

I think something that can't be taken from CDPR is the excellent world building. It's so extremely detailed and created with so much love and care, it actually rivals Witcher 3. There's tons of really impressive environmental storytelling, countless cross references of people and events in emails and logs in places that seem unrelated, and each little alley, dumpster, side road, cafe, apartment whatever of the (pretty huge) city has this handcrafted feel that someone actually paid attention to it, and even placed the litter with thought and care to create a unique thing with character. Explains what hundreds of people were doing those five years...
Might not be important to you, but this is something I cherish very much. I can spend hours just exploring and looking at things and notice the effort that went into them, deciphering what the designer wanted to express. That's not specific to CP, but something where the game really clicks with me.
Also character design, voice overs, mo-cap, acting - that's all top notch. If you are with a group of people where one is speaking, you can actually read the emotions of everybody else from their faces and small gestures - all very subtle and "real".

Judgement about the story I'll reserve until when I actually completed it. Can take a while.

I could go on and on about this game - what is good, was is bad, what is ok, or barely so. It's a rather fascinating piece of software and art.

Point being:
Is the game flawed? Certainly. Too flawed? Up to you. "Bad at every level"? Definitely not. You're of course free to dislike, even hate the game for your own reasons. Like I wrote, if good pedestrian and traffic AI is important to you, well - the game doesn't have it, so you're free to dislike it for that, if it destroys immersion for you (btw. in 1.0 traffic didn't even try to stop for you - they simply ran you over...).

But there is a difference between pointing out flaws and valid points of criticism and blindly raging "everything is shit".

And I also find is weird, bordering on dishonest to complain about GOG preload requiring Galaxy (it's fine to criticise that of course) and then use Steam to play the game. Steam made clients a thing. Without Steam and co I doubt Galaxy would even exist. You gave Valve your money. Go figure.
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fronzelneekburm: It's not bad. It's "the video game industry's biggest flop of 2020".

t. J. Schreier
It's not a flop, it sold many millions of copies. A flop is a commercial failure, a game that didn't bask in the costs of making and marketing it.

Biggest disappointment for the gamers? Likely. It failed the (massively overblown) expectations, but also the promises CDPR made over the years.

You should be aware that Bloomberg is a hedge fund outlet created for spreading "bad news" about companies that their masters are betting on with short-selling. It's a site that creates self-fulfilling prophecies, that's it's purpose. Their modus operandi is:
- write bad things and rumours about a company
- share values drop - which gives credibility to Bloomberg: "See? We were right!", other media pick the story up
- share values drop even more.
- shortsellers make tons of money.

Pretty ingenious in a devilish way.

Of course, the bad media coverage and the short-selling will bring companies to their knees. Many worthy and solid companies have been destroyed this way. And CDP has been in their sights for quite a while now (first it was brought to my notice was 2019).
Think of CDPR what you want, but Bloomberg news always have an agenda attached, even if they are factually mostly correct and often use framing to achieve their goals. Like using the word "flop" here, when in reality the game sold like sliced bread - no matter how bad that bread tasted for many (=disappointment). Commercially it was - contrary to what Bloomberg implies with "flop" - one of the biggest hits ever, even with the refunds and the console store blocks. Bloomberg using "flop" in this article has only one purpose: to put even more pressure on CDP stocks, so some hedge fund can squeeze many millions of out the company.
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toxicTom: And I also find is weird, bordering on dishonest to complain about GOG preload requiring Galaxy (it's fine to criticise that of course) and then use Steam to play the game. Steam made clients a thing. Without Steam and co I doubt Galaxy would even exist. You gave Valve your money. Go figure.
I don't think it's dishonest at all.

If one believes that Steam and GOG are no longer significantly different, which I am slowly beginning to realise, then there is really little reason to buy on GOG.

Here is my comparison, from the point of view of someone who is interested only in fully DRM-free games:
- Both have optional clients: in this respect, Steam is better because when you download the DRM-free game without the client, you are guaranteed to get the same version as that found on the client for every game, unlike GOG
- Both have thousands of DRM-free games: I can't be sure because there is no list of all the DRM-free games on Steam, but I strongly suspect that Steam's selection is larger (or much larger) than GOG's
- Both offer no option to identify which games are fully DRM-free and which are not: In that respect, GOG is still better, because the percentage of fully DRM-free on GOG is still higher, so your chance of blindly hitting one is much better
- Updates, DLCs and changelogs: Obviously, Steam is miles ahead of GOG (see the "second class" thread)
- Price: Again, Steam is much better when it comes to discounts, especially if one makes use of bundles, etc.
- Curation: Depends on your POV, but I actually like the idea of having a curated store, except that I find GOG's curation more miss than hit in my case, but I still think that it's better than no curation at all
- Customer Service: Don't know, as I haven't really used Steam's customer service yet, but it's hard to imagine any service being worse than GOG's is nowadays

I haven't yet bought any games on Steam, but I have recently played two DRM-free games there (without ever having installed the client), one a gift and one a giveaway, so I suspect it's just a matter of time until something tempting enough appears.
Post edited May 01, 2021 by mrkgnao
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mrkgnao: I don't think it's dishonest at all.
It's very hypocritical in my book.

Steam enforced the client with the massive hit HL2. That's the origin of any client requirement. In my book, every dollar spent on Steam is supporting this. I really don't care how many games on Steam are "DRM-free" in some sense (we had this discussion before - I consider every client requirement to even download the game DRM). Valve established the client requirement for "downloading and playing a game" with Steam and HL2. Galaxy followed, years later, because users love the convenience, and it is at least optional, both for installing and running the games, including CP77.

What we're talking about here is a pre-load, where GOG or CDPR decided to make it only available through Galaxy this time. Offline installers would have been preferred, I agree, but I guess with CDPR working on the game to the last minute (with still rather imperfect results), the pandemic and all I guess that was a business decision. Everyone is free to complain about that. But it's still a pre-load - a voluntary service some devs offer. Nobody is entitled to it at all.

And... complaining about the client requirement, and then "out of protest" giving money to the company that started this disease? Really?
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toxicTom: And... complaining about the client requirement, and then "out of protest" giving money to the company that started this disease? Really?
Is it better, in your opinion, to give the money to the company that is spreading the disease?
Post edited May 01, 2021 by mrkgnao
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toxicTom: I really don't care how many games on Steam are "DRM-free" in some sense (we had this discussion before - I consider every client requirement to even download the game DRM).
If I remember correctly, your criterion is to be able to download the game at a library without installing anything on that computer, then take it back home on a USB stick, and play it there. AFAIK, you can do that with steam, using a small portable command-line utility you can keep on your USB stick.

But I accept that you consider that unacceptable, for whatever reason.
Post edited May 01, 2021 by mrkgnao
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mrkgnao: - Both have thousands of DRM-free games: I can't be sure because there is no list of all the DRM-free games on Steam, but I strongly suspect that Steam's selection is larger (or much larger) than GOG's
Dont know anything about these but found in GOG forums:

There is this one: https://www.gog.com/forum/general/steam_games_you_can_play_without_the_steam_client

from https://www.gog.com/forum/general_de/fck_drminitiative_f97a0/post72
https://store.steampowered.com/curator/7540156-DRM-Free-Games/
(same as above I think) https://steam.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_DRM-free_games
https://pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/The_Big_List_of_DRM-Free_Games_on_Steam