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General discussion++ Introducing gamesieve - a better way to search GOG ++(87 posts)(87 posts)
(87 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted May 13, 2025
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Cavalary: Unless I'm missing something, wouldn't that make it impossible to go directly to any page (via search engine or bookmark)?
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WinterSnowfall: ... on the first access, but subsequent access would work, once you have a valid token. Not the best of design, as I said before, but a valid one if keeping bots in check is a priority.
That'd be a pretty atomic option, blocking first access from search engines or anything for those who regularly clear cookies to any but that landing page. Granted, it's not the sort of site that wants to attract users, but still, it'd make usage really tedious for a fair number, and among GOG regulars you'd probably find a much higher than average ratio of those who do regularly clear cookies.
Posted May 13, 2025
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gogtrial34987: It's been a few years since I did active server administration, and the challenge has grown significantly. Yet another reason to loathe everything "AI", with their insane data hunger. Can't wait for that particular bubble to burst.
That's right.

That's why I put my site (many years ago) behind a moderated registration wall. The result: very few people wanted to register. :-D
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WinterSnowfall: Well, one way is to have a website entry-point that sets a unique cookie token for that user and all other entry-points that check it and redirect to the original entry-point if it's not present. From there on, you have a way to uniquely identify your user. If that's a feasible or user-friendly way to design a website is another question. ...
Exactly, counting pageviews and limiting them.
Just like GOG does with the "Dreamlist."
Today I reached the maximum number of views again. :)
Post edited May 13, 2025 by kultpcgames
Posted May 13, 2025
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gogtrial34987: Just had a first look, now that these bundles have been re-enabled. They've added a bundleType field, with values "standard_bundle" or "partial_bundle" (that seems to be the new type). It's possible there are other types as well? I haven't looked exhaustively yet.
I don't think I'll do anything over the weekend, but should be able to add a filter for these bundles sometime in the next week or two.
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mrkgnao: Thanks!
No other types exist. The "standard_bundle" is only assigned to 18 products (one of which is the not for sale welcome gift). I'm guessing those are simply the bundles for which they've determined that for one reason or another, the dynamic pricing won't be applicable.
I'm combining exposing this new property with previously planned work to expose what's included in bundles / editions, but that's dragged me into the swamp of included goodies, which are an absolute mess due to the game and its DLCs also sometimes being exposed as 'bonuses'. Heuristics are getting me a long way to clean it all up, but urgh... Still, I see light at the end of the rabbit hole...
Posted May 13, 2025
Im quite late, but, Holy!
That's awesome!
Posted May 13, 2025
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Cavalary: and among GOG regulars you'd probably find a much higher than average ratio of those who do regularly clear cookies.
Guilty as charged, I'm one of them. But you can't have your cake and eat it too. It was more of a hypothetical discussion anyway, however the point stands, when you're under attack you have to build a moat and a drawbridge. Sure, that would mean decent folk have to be sieved too, but that's the kind of cyberpunk dystopia we'll find ourselves in ever more often.
Post edited 5 days ago by WinterSnowfall
Posted 5 days ago
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kultpcgames: That's why I put my site (many years ago) behind a moderated registration wall. The result: very few people wanted to register. :-D
Oh, so you still have a site? I seemed to remember one from way back and not sure why but meant to have another look some years ago, but when it seemed locked I wondered whether it had been abandoned or hacked or otherwise taken over and moved along.
And now that I check again, seems like there's nothing there.
Posted 5 days ago
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Cavalary: Oh, so you still have a site? I seemed to remember one from way back and not sure why but meant to have another look some years ago, but when it seemed locked I wondered whether it had been abandoned or hacked or otherwise taken over and moved along.
And now that I check again, seems like there's nothing there.
It never went away, but a few years ago I significantly reduced my small server park and only ran the site in the background with friends on a single shared server. Currently, the domain only shows the homepage without any content; the rest is hidden. The interest in it was simply too low to justify the cost of the servers, so I preferred to spend my time working on the site in the background and invest the money I saved in GOG games. :)
The legal situation in the EU, and especially in Germany, is also unnecessarily risky for website operators. As soon as site users can publish content (forum, reviews, etc.), you're potentially in trouble.

In fact, I'm also very concerned about the performance of modern algorithms (someone likes to call them AI) and their potential for abuse. In such a case, moderated registration won't be of much use to me anymore. :-)

I'm surprised, though, that you know the site, since it was only available in German. I always wanted to publish it in English, but that would have taken even more time, and while my English is okay (reading and understanding), my rhetorical skills (especially idioms) are too poor for compelling texts.
Posted 3 days ago
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mrkgnao: Thanks!
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gogtrial34987: I'm combining exposing this new property with previously planned work to expose what's included in bundles / editions, but that's dragged me into the swamp of included goodies, which are an absolute mess due to the game and its DLCs also sometimes being exposed as 'bonuses'. Heuristics are getting me a long way to clean it all up, but urgh... Still, I see light at the end of the rabbit hole...
*digs himself out of the rabbit cave-system, and blinks wide-eyed at the sight of the world somehow still existing, out there*

So...

A filter for products with "dynamic pricing" now exists: About the game: Cheaper when part-owned. For the moment this is only available when grouping is turned off. If someone has an idea on how to phrase "Return games which have at least one edition contained in a bundle (or edition) which is cheaper when part-owned" in a way which fits within 2 very short lines in the sidebar, I'd love to hear it, as that's an important reason (though far from the only one) why I'm not making this available in grouped view for now.

Games now show included products and goodies. After spending an eternity developing heuristics to filter out duplicate and non-useful data for this (and resorting to a couple of ugly exclude-by-ID fixes until I can properly enrich the data), I then had to spend a separate eternity getting the layout for this to behave in all cases, which is rather annoying when some included products/goodies have titles of 100+ characters, while others are 6 characters long. I'm reasonably pleased with the end result, but only because I saw how much worse it could've been. :)
Post edited 3 days ago by gogtrial34987
Posted 3 days ago
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gogtrial34987: For the moment this is only available when grouping is turned off.
I must admit I find this very confusing, especially since grouping is on by default, making this option invisible to most people who do not read this thread.
Posted 3 days ago
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gogtrial34987: For the moment this is only available when grouping is turned off.
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mrkgnao: I must admit I find this very confusing, especially since grouping is on by default, making this option invisible to most people who do not read this thread.
Yes, that's a consequence of my decision to show items grouped by default. It has a lot of benefits, but when you want to filter on some property that only applies to a dependent product (like a bundle), you first have to switch to non-grouped view.

Since at present there are only 25 products with dynamic pricing, and I'm not seeing the usecase for your average visitor to specifically go looking for this information, it's just not that much of a priority to make this more visible. (I do of course still show that dynamic pricing applies when you encounter one of those products in the default grouped view.)
Posted 3 days ago
The feedback, and responding to it, does help, though! I'm now pondering a filter block "About a grouped product", which would also allow me to expose the "product type" in grouped view. I guess that'd then replace the existing "No expansions" and "Has a demo" filters...

Something to explore next week... :)
Posted 3 days ago
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gogtrial34987: The feedback, and responding to it, does help, though! I'm now pondering a filter block "About a grouped product", which would also allow me to expose the "product type" in grouped view. I guess that'd then replace the existing "No expansions" and "Has a demo" filters...

Something to explore next week... :)
Sounds good. Good luck.
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This is my favourite topic
Community
General discussion++ Introducing gamesieve - a better way to search GOG ++(87 posts)(87 posts)
(87 posts)