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[UPDATE: 15.05.2015]
We've started importing the old Private Messages into Chat. :) It's a process so you will see them gradually being added to your conversations.

[ORIGINAL]

Hi all,

Many of you probably already know this - from the various hints we dropped here and there - but for quite some time now we have been hard at work on the brand new My Account section.

Since this is a very vital part of your experience at GOG.com (basically the one place that's 100% yours), and its release day is approaching pretty fast, I wanted to give you some heads-up and a brief overview of the changes that we have in store for you. Read on! :)

New things dedicated to your games:
-- Shared user wishlist. Yes, this highly requested feature will finally make its debut along with the new My Account. With just a few clicks, you will be able to decide whether your wishlist is private (viewable only by you), shared with friends (viewable only by you and people from your friends list, which is the default setting) or shared with everyone (because why not? ;)). You will get a handy link to your wishlist that you can share wherever and with whomever you like (a GOG.com Account is not required to view a wishlist shared with everyone). :)
-- Advanced filtering. We decided that, since your collections are getting bigger and bigger with each passing day, this is the perfect time to introduce some robust filtering options to both the Library AND Wishlist. Now, finding all your RPGs with Polish localization and co-op will be… well... finally possible. ;) It’s worth noting that the filtering options are based on your collection (so if you have no games with a Polish localization, you will not see the Polish option in the language filter).
-- User tags for the Library. With the new My Account, you will be able to create your own tags (up to 50), assign them to your games and movies and later use them to even better navigate and filter your collection. You will be able to assign multiple tags to each item in your collection and doing so will be possible from both your shelf/list directly or from the game/movie details.
-- Orders history. As part of the transition into the new My Account, we are retiring the "gifts" section, but in its place we are giving you a list of ALL your past orders and ALL your gifts, including the ones that have been given to you (finally). The orders history can be tailored and adjusted to your liking with a few clicks (for example, you can change it to list gifts only).
-- Changelogs. You will be able to view game changelogs directly on the new My Account page within the game details overlay. Of course, not every game will have it, but we will be keeping the changelogs up to date for the most popular, latest titles the same way we are doing right now on the forums.
-- Better organization of the downloads list. We improved the way downloads are organized on the game/movie details overlay. It will be easier to download the correct OS and language version of our installers and see which goodies are part of which DLC.

New things dedicated to communication:
-- Friends list. Already introduced in GOG Galaxy, the friends system is making its way to the GOG.com website as part of the new My Account section.
-- Chat. Old and weary private messages are retiring and are transformed into a new, live chat system. Chat will be available from both GOG Galaxy and My Account. Don't worry, all your past conversations that were conducted via private messages will be imported and preserved in the chat (and you will now be able to continue them live!).

Smaller but notable improvements:
-- Proper game versioning. With the new My Account, we will start to display the actual game version in the downloads on the game details overlay, so you will be able to easily identify if the version you have on your computer is the latest one, or it needs updating.
-- Improved navigation. Now it will be easier to jump straight into the store page, support, and forums relevant to each item in your collection.
-- Locale settings. Change your preferred currency and website / newsletter language directly on My Account to have them stored within your profile.
-- Pagination. We brought back the much requested, tried-and-true pagination view to the new My Account. This change is dictated mostly by your convenience but also by performance / stability for accounts with bigger collections (and with better performance, we are improving your convenience at the same time:)). The default size of each page is 100 items, but we believe that with the myriad of new filtering options it won't be a problem.
-- Text titles. The new My Account will display game/movie titles in text form, both on the list and shelf views. No more deciphering the logos on small boxes! :)
-- Mobile device support. Yes, viewing My Account on your mobile device will no longer be a chore.
-- COMING SOON: Proper graphics and links for all titles. We are conducting a little clean up in this area. Pretty sooan all games should have proper graphics and links in place.
-- COMING SOON: 5 new shelf skins. We are starting with only 1 skin (the classic wood), but soon after release we will add a bunch of new styles. It's purely a visual thing, so we didn't want to focus on that before release. Since many of you requested new styles, we will be introducing them pretty soon.
-- COMING SOON: Improved searching. Soon, finding desired titles will be easier thanks to the search improvements that we'll be implementing on the new My Account. Also, as part of the solution, we will be changing the way that titles from a series are ordered (i.e. Broken Sword should always show up before Broken Sword 2).

Of course the full list of changes and improvements is much longer, but highlights should give you a nice overview of what is coming. Hope you like it already, and that you will love it when we release it in just a few days. :)

Lastly, I wanted to point out the two important things that all of you should keep in mind:
-- The change is mandatory. We love freedom of choice, and we love giving it to you whenever it's possible, but unfortunately in this case it's not possible. Maintaining two, completely separate products dedicated to the same things would negatively impact both of them on all fronts. Performance, scalability, our ability to improve and expand them, but most importantly your convenience - as some of the new features were not possible to implement on the old My Account - would all be impacted.
-- Manual sorting is no more. We have decided to skip this functionality because it was beyond our reach to deliver the quality we wanted to. We decided it would be better if we were focused on the numerous other options requested by you.

Hope all of this gives you a clear vision what to expect in the coming days. Also please rest assured that we already have plans on how to develop the My Account section in the near and distant future: what to add, what should be changed a bit, etc., but we are always open to your feedback - so jump in and share your opinion. :)

Take care,
Chamb & The Website Team
Post edited May 15, 2015 by Chamb
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Hi all,

Thanks for all the feeback and keep it coming! We are carefully reading every post in this topic and making some notes (but please understand we cannot respond to each of you ;)).

As for the chat replacing PMs - which seems to be to most hot topic - here are few more details:
-- By default you will be able chat with everyone on GOG.com - they don't have to be your friends.
-- You will be able to change you default privacy settings to "friends only" or block it completely.
-- You will be able to start conversation the same way you did with PMs - by finding specific user on GOG.com. Previously it was limited only to the forums, but with the new My Account we will be extending that to product reviews, community wishlist, GOGmixes (basically to every place user avatar and name appears on GOG.com).
-- You can chat with multiple people at the same time, but each conversation is 1:1. There are no rooms and/or group conversations.
-- The new chat interface look a lot like the PMs, so it will feel pretty familiar.
Post edited May 09, 2015 by Chamb
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Thank you for dropping this on us on a Friday evening, and going offline leaving us wondering and speculating among us what some of what you said actually means. Not to mention that the timing is perfect for fewer people to get involved in the discussion.
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Chamb: […]

-- Advanced filtering. We decided that, since your collections are getting bigger and bigger with each passing day, this is the perfect time to introduce some robust filtering options to both the Library AND Wishlist. Now, finding all your RPGs with Polish localization and co-op will be… well... finally possible. ;) It’s worth noting that the filtering options are based on your collection (so if you have no games with a Polish localization, you will not see the Polish option in the language filter).
-- User tags for the Library. With the new My Account, you will be able to create your own tags (up to 50), assign them to your games and movies and later use them to even better navigate and filter your collection. You will be able to assign multiple tags to each item in your collection and doing so will be possible from both your shelf/list directly or from the game/movie details.

[…]

-- Pagination. We brought back the much requested, tried-and-true pagination view to the new My Account. This change is dictated mostly by your convenience but also by performance / stability for accounts with bigger collections (and with better performance, we are improving your convenience at the same time:)). The default size of each page is 100 items, but we believe that with the myriad of new filtering options it won't be a problem.

[…]

-- COMING SOON: Improved searching. Soon, finding desired titles will be easier thanks to the search improvements that we'll be implementing on the new My Account. Also, as part of the solution, we will be changing the way that titles from a series are ordered (i.e. Broken Sword should always show up before Broken Sword 2).

[…]
I see a lot of filtering and searching being mentioned, but no word on what the available options for ordering one’s whole collection will be – expect for scrapping the manual search. Based on a link provided by a blue text in the GOG Galaxy Alpha thread for the library, they’re limited to “By Title” and “Purchase Date” (there also used to be a “By User Ratings” but I see it’s been removed now).
- Are these all the available ordering options we’ll have on the site?
- Will we be able to use this tagging system for ordering our whole collection or not?
The answer to this will decide how much of an impact scrapping the manual ordering will actually have.
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Chamb: […]

-- Orders history. As part of the transition into the new My Account, we are retiring the "gifts" section, but in its place we are giving you a list of ALL your past orders and ALL your gifts, including the ones that have been given to you (finally). The orders history can be tailored and adjusted to your liking with a few clicks (for example, you can change it to list gifts only).

[…]
I’m sorry, but I fail to see how retiring the Gifts tab, and mixing data for owned games and gifts in one list is an improvement. By definition, gift codes are purchased to be given to others, and it makes perfect sense to have related to them data “stored’ separately from that of titles in our collection. The solution you describe is again based on filtering, and filtering alone. Why does it make sense to be able to either have a big mess of everything, or get an overview of a single subcategory only?

It’s also not clear what info this “orders history” will provide, could you elaborate on it?
Regarding the gifted games in particular:
- Will they list the date the gifter purchased them on (like it is ever since the site revamp), will they list the date we added them to our account? Both?
- Will the gifter be listed?
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Chamb: […]

-- Changelogs. You will be able to view game changelogs directly on the new My Account page within the game details overlay. Of course, not every game will have it, but we will be keeping the changelogs up to date for the most popular, latest titles the same way we are doing right now on the forums.

[…]
I really like how it’s considered natural (that "of course" is really priceless) to not provide changelogs for all games. Tough luck if you have a game that’s not among the “most popular, latest titles”, just be happy it got updated, eh?
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Chamb: […]

-- Chat. Old and weary private messages are retiring and are transformed into a new, live chat system. Chat will be available from both GOG Galaxy and My Account. Don't worry, all your past conversations that were conducted via private messages will be imported and preserved in the chat (and you will now be able to continue them live!).

[…]
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Chamb: Chat in current form is limited to 1:1 conversations... so basically it's a lot like the PM system. The difference is that you will not have to refresh the page to see new message from the person you are talking with. :)
- I’m not sure I understand how this is going to work. The way you describe it does not sound a lot like the current PM system. As things are now, I can reply to user A, then switch to user B and send them a message, then switch to user C and send them a message, then return to read what user A replied back, and so forth. And I can do all this from within a single tab, refreshing the page a only to see incoming messages.
Will we still be able to do this? Or are you saying that if I’m in a chat with user A, I can’t talk/ message user B, until I’m done with user A?

- Do we need to add users to our friends list in order to use the Chat system via the site?

- Will there be an option to export a chatlog for local storage? How will they be stored in our account?

- Can you clarify when the PM system will be replaced with the Chat one? I have a few conversations to save locally before they’ll be imported to the Chat system, and I’d like to know how much time I have for it. Yes, this means that I don’t have much faith that everything will go smoothly, and expect previous conversations to get lost in the transition, partially or completely, and am so not in the mood for getting a "I'm sorry for the inconvenience" reply when asking support about it.
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Chamb: […]

-- Locale settings. Change your preferred currency and website / newsletter language directly on My Account to have them stored within your profile.

[…]
I seriously hope this works well, because I’m sick and tired of having to change my currency preference every single time I log in.
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Chamb: […]

-- COMING SOON: 5 new shelf skins. We are starting with only 1 skin (the classic wood), but soon after release we will add a bunch of new styles. It's purely a visual thing, so we didn't want to focus on that before release. Since many of you requested new styles, we will be introducing them pretty soon.

[…]
I have two requests for this one:
- Please, don’t let the person that made the artistic/ visual choices for the site-revamp even express an opinion; I said it back then, and I'll repeat it now - sorry, but they have terrible taste.
- Take those of us that prefer dark(er) skins/ themes into account; dark puts less strain on the eyes.
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Chamb: [...]. Also please rest assured that we already have plans on how to develop the My Account section in the near and distant future: what to add, what should be changed a bit, etc., [...]
Sorry, but this actually makes me feel uneasy than reassured.


I saw nth in this announcement addressing the completely borked notification system, especially for game updates. Will flags still be a thing in the new Account system? Will they clearly identify what content has received an update? Or will we still have to hunt around the forum to find out what the update is about?

Notification flags misbehave in general, to put it mildly, and it’s been mentioned countless times. Additionally, since this morning, we don’t receive notifications for PMs sent to us. Will anything be done about this?

Last (for now) but not least – I understand why you’re pushing the Galaxy client, I really do, and in that context I also see why you’re turning and adjusting the site around the functionality of the Galaxy client. What I’d like to see for once, is for someone at GOG to finally admit to it; I’ve lost count of how many times “your convenience’ is mentioned in this announcement, and this constant PR hype of what is essentially convenient for you in order to increase your market share feels disingenuous and insulting.
Allegedly, our experience with the site would not change. Well it has already, and, as this announcement shows, it will continue to change, why not admit it finally?
I want to be able to turn off text titles on game shelf.
To be honest, i like old "box-on-shelf" style more.
Maybe it's worth it to add additional library views, like in *ahem* another client?
I understand the whole idea of sinergy with store's game icons (with game's details below) representation, but still... maybe later, you know, when things will settle down...
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mrkgnao: Can you please give a due date for the release?
I will have to take some vacation to adjust MaGog to the change.
Or perhaps this will be so good that MaGog could be retired.
I had not realised you were such an optimist...
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Chamb: -- Better organization of the downloads list. We improved the way downloads are organized on the game/movie details overlay. It will be easier to download the correct OS and language version of our installers and see which goodies are part of which DLC.
But this won't affect the current installers, right? I mean, they still will be standalone DRM-Free installers, isn't it?
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Chamb: -- Manual sorting is no more. We have decided to skip this functionality because it was beyond our reach to deliver the quality we wanted to. We decided it would be better if we were focused on the numerous other options requested by you.
Awww... ;__;
Post edited May 08, 2015 by Gearmos
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skeletonbow: Here are some links to what are possibly what the new account library and wishlist look like. Basically the same view as in Galaxy client is what shows up although this is just a pure guess, they might not have deployed the new site stuff yet and it might be different from what these links show:

https://embed.gog.com/account
https://embed.gog.com/account/wishlist

I tried to find the new account order history pages to no avail so if anyone else guestimates any URLs under embed.gog.com that look interesting feel free to share them back also. :)
Yeah, looks like Galaxy... Well, isn't that, umm, special.

To self: {Reserve your opinion, reserve your opinion, it's not done yet, reserve your opinion}
high rated
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mrkgnao: Can you please give a due date for the release?
I will have to take some vacation to adjust MaGog to the change.
Or perhaps this will be so good that MaGog could be retired.
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HypersomniacLive: I had not realised you were such an optimist...
What I think you may not have realised is that I am a pessimist and a liar.
People you impress, I figured most of the talk would have been about the 5 shelf skins

(My guess : alu, carbon, gowld and cheeze !)


Edit : is it five total or five more ? Bricks and green metal pipes !
Post edited May 08, 2015 by Potzato
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Ganni1987: Can you also please provide MD5 checksums for the file downloads? Some games, especially the Linux tarballs are very large (Witcher 2 being 20GB alone) and would be more reassuring to know everything was downloaded correctly.

Humble Bundle had this feature for a long time and I would really like to see it here :-)

Thanks
I gotta ask, is this really that much of a problem these days? I mean, I remember needing this (a lot) back when all we had was unreliable dial-up internet, but since the advent of things like broadband/robust home networking, self-verifying installers and better download management within browsers... I seriously can't remember the last time a download went corrupt on me.

Just so we are clear, I am in know way suggesting that GOG not offer this (if people want, why not), I'm just curious as to whether it is necessary, or simply an over abundance of caution.
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yyahoo: Yeah, looks like Galaxy... Well, isn't that, umm, special.

To self: {Reserve your opinion, reserve your opinion, it's not done yet, reserve your opinion}
While I'm overall a pretty big fan of the idea of the optional Galaxy client and services, I am not 100% fond of every single detail of its current state, but I've chosen to give feedback on suggested improvements and sit back and wait to see what they do. Some of these things have already been addressed and they've communicated back some responses to me or others about plans to improve some of the other things too although a lot of that has not yet rolled out, so I look forward to seeing the results of some of those things also.

I'm not fond of the paginated Galaxy library shelf view inside the Galaxy client personally but have assumed that it is a placeholder that will either be replaced later or that other options/views will be made available so I more or less consider the current view a temporary inconvenience more than anything. Having to scroll down to the bottom of the page then hit > to go to the next hundred games, then do it again 4 more times just to get to a game that starts with X, Y or Z for example is potentially very annoying and bad UI design, but it's so blatantly obvious that it is such that I assume the benefit of doubt that it is temporary and will be replaced by something more sensibly navigable in the future. I posted a couple of suggestions to better modern pagination controls in another thread a day or so ago as an example, so I hope they do something like I suggested for paginated views.

I personally prefer an unpaginated view of my library though, and I have a similar amount of games on Steam and they line up on one single page and load up instantly so I'm sure GOG can do equally as good if they choose to implement it in such a manner. Just a matter of everything that needs to be done in the wider scope of developments and prioritization of resources more than anything. If the current library view is the final result they have planned though then I'll be disappointed but I'm sure I wont be alone and I'm sure people will let them know. :)
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mrkgnao: What I think you may not have realised is that I am a pessimist and a liar.
Or it could be that my tone eluded you.

Perhaps we should take our differences to PM while we still can without having to befriend each other. Too bad we won't know that one replied to the other though.
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vsr: I want to be able to turn off text titles on game shelf.
To be honest, i like old "box-on-shelf" style more.
Maybe it's worth it to add additional library views, like in *ahem* another client?
I understand the whole idea of sinergy with store's game icons (with game's details below) representation, but still... maybe later, you know, when things will settle down...
Yeah... an option like this would be nice. I never had problems figuring out what my games were.... But I doubt we'll get such an option, when they so proudly announce this new "awesome" feature...
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mrkgnao:
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HypersomniacLive: Perhaps we should take our differences to PM
Are you 2 fighting again?
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HypersomniacLive: <snip>
Not sure if you are checking the wishlist, and since PMs do not work:

The entry for manual sorting was made before this announcement. I just hoped they would add it to the client too. I never suspected they would take away the option on the website *stupid me*
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mrkgnao: What I think you may not have realised is that I am a pessimist and a liar.
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HypersomniacLive: Or it could be that my tone eluded you.

Perhaps we should take our differences to PM while we still can without having to befriend each other. Too bad we won't know that one replied to the other though.
Don't worry. I had no doubts about your tone.
However, I am afraid we don't have any differences to take.
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yyahoo: Yeah, looks like Galaxy... Well, isn't that, umm, special.

To self: {Reserve your opinion, reserve your opinion, it's not done yet, reserve your opinion}
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skeletonbow: While I'm overall a pretty big fan of the idea of the optional Galaxy client and services, I am not 100% fond of every single detail of its current state, but I've chosen to give feedback on suggested improvements and sit back and wait to see what they do. Some of these things have already been addressed and they've communicated back some responses to me or others about plans to improve some of the other things too although a lot of that has not yet rolled out, so I look forward to seeing the results of some of those things also.

I'm not fond of the paginated Galaxy library shelf view inside the Galaxy client personally but have assumed that it is a placeholder that will either be replaced later or that other options/views will be made available so I more or less consider the current view a temporary inconvenience more than anything. Having to scroll down to the bottom of the page then hit > to go to the next hundred games, then do it again 4 more times just to get to a game that starts with X, Y or Z for example is potentially very annoying and bad UI design, but it's so blatantly obvious that it is such that I assume the benefit of doubt that it is temporary and will be replaced by something more sensibly navigable in the future. I posted a couple of suggestions to better modern pagination controls in another thread a day or so ago as an example, so I hope they do something like I suggested for paginated views.

I personally prefer an unpaginated view of my library though, and I have a similar amount of games on Steam and they line up on one single page and load up instantly so I'm sure GOG can do equally as good if they choose to implement it in such a manner. Just a matter of everything that needs to be done in the wider scope of developments and prioritization of resources more than anything. If the current library view is the final result they have planned though then I'll be disappointed but I'm sure I wont be alone and I'm sure people will let them know. :)
The pagination is my biggest issue. But reading the introductory post, they seem pretty dead set on it, and also seem to suggest that *everyone* wanted it (though that seems to be a common refrain when a big change is made). I personally love browsing my library, so I really hate this new "feature".