urknighterrant: Dude... you do know you're arguing with a sock puppet, right? When more than one rep 1 suddenly appears in a two page thread it's a pretty safe bet the person you're arguing with is a sock puppet.
Hickory: I hadn't considered it, but now that you mention it, it does make sense. Ah well, it's done now.
While your accusations could be true, one's rep points on this forum have little indication as to whether their posts are original or just someone using multiple accounts. If you truly believe that one or more accounts in this (or any other threads) are "sock puppets" as you infer, then I'd suggest you send GOG a complaint listing the suspect accounts and hopefully, they'll take action. Making multiple accounts and using them to respond as if separate personalities is frowned upon (if not actually against a sites rules) on most forums and most Admins/Moderators will take action when notified. Then again, if one can assert that a low rep is a puppet, one could also assert that a high rep points to the user merely being a constant troll. Everyone is free to spin things as they see fit, why should just politicians and pollsters have all the fun?
My own account here is less than a year old. While I've downloaded several games from GOG over the years, I'd forgotten my login password here and it was attached to an obsolete Email address as well, so I couldn't get it reset. When I created a new account last year, it was so I could mainly make posts to advertise my own NWN PW, but after spending some time reviewing the current forums I decided that a PW post would gain little attention and this would just be yet another site to check constantly if folks had questions. Besides, when most folks have issues or questions with NWN and do a Google search, they're most often directed to posts on the Bioware Social Network where there is no dearth of knowledge or individuals willing and able to respond to queries. It was only upon seeing a post on "BSN" that my own attention was directed here.
Now, I'll admit, not everyone needs to install the 1.69 critical rebuild. But, those who play on most PWs or download and play modules built after 1.69 more do still need to do the critical rebuild.
An assertion was made earlier in this thread that it was more likely the critical rebuild was just "fixing" a faulty download from GOG. With the numbers of folks that I've assisted over the years, this seems rather implausible. Just in my own circle of family/friends (including myself) that have used a GOG install of NWN, all but one of us needed the critical rebuild to play smoothly. Even my nephew, fresh back from Afghanistan and reinstalling NWN just three weeks ago needed it.
Why is the rebuild needed? I can't put my finger on it ... yet. The most recent download by my nephew was the same size as my own (I have a hakless, but rebuilt copy on a back up drive incase I ever have need of it to fix one of my other installs) vanilla version that used the rebuild. Still, after double checking the normal "things" like "running as an administrator", CPU affinity, Video/Sound Drivers and various "ini" settings, he was still having bouts of lag and random crashes when playing on my PW. He ran the critical rebuild and "Voila"! No more issues have been reported.
Just six weeks ago, I had five new players show up on my PW. They were all friends that played in PnP in a group over the years, but recently, three had relocated out of the original area and they decided to continue adventuring together online using NWN instead and stumbled across my PW based on it being set in the general vicinity and timeline of their old PnP Campaign. Three used new GOG installs and two had installed from disks years ago and were playing on a variety of PWs prior to visiting mine. Still, four of the five had issues. Of those four, it was three with a GOG install and one with the old disk install that had issues. The old disk install was easy. The player had been playing on a PW that used CEP 2.3. Even though they had originally installed CEP version 2.4, they mistakenly ran the long obsolete CEP Updater which reverted their installation back to 2.3 without them realizing it. Of the three GOG installs, helping one player track down "fixes" for their video driver (it lacked Open GL support) resolved their issues. The other two however had no noticeable game improvement until running the critical rebuild. What exactly did it fix? I've still no clue.
With all that said, I'm not casting dispersions against GOG. They are merely a distributor of software provided by Bioware. If someone wants to complain to them, go for it. At best, I suspect you'd get only an Email back with an audio file attached with crickets chirping. :)
The really sad thing I see in this thread, and others like it, is that just because "I" don't have a problem, everyone else is either crazy or lying. It reminds me of one of the old CEP Admins (Community Expansion Pack - a hak compilation used by many NWN PWs and Modules) that when several folks complained that certain model appearances were bugged, he would go out of his way to discredit and defame the complainers because he himself never experienced the same issues. Even in spite of numerous posts/complaints by a wide variety of folks with different gaming platforms, he lumped most into the category of trolls, haters ... or just idiots. Thankfully, the new CEP Admin has accepted these complaints and added fixes long provided by various community members to resolve these issues in current/future updates. Many folks like myself had long overrode/replaced these bad appearances with our own custom haks too. Still, denying that "anyone" needs a fix based solely on your own experiences is a myopic view of things here.
Lastly, I have an older laptop here that uses a GOG install from about six to seven months ago. I've not yet ran the critical rebuild on it because so far, though I only use it to login as a DM if I'm already playing from my PC and someone else IG needs assistance, I've experienced no problems with it. My PC ... meh ... it uses my original disk/boxed set so does me no good as far as a comparison. My general experience with players online however is that somewhere between 60 and 70% of folks will benefit from it. Not all, but .. a lot. Don't let your personal experiences obscure what others need. I've simply assisted far too many folks and had the critical rebuild fix their issues with a GOG install to ignore the outcomes is all. I.e., even though I haven't needed it myself, far, far too many others have benefited from it to ignore the truth.
My advice ... when in doubt, run it. If you're not sure whether or not you actually need it, it hurts nothing. Here's a fresh link for any wanting it still.
1.69 Critical Rebuild