Tinfoil helmets are part of the Paranoia DLC that Owlcat is releasing soon....

basically a VM ensures that it's a completely separate filesystem, kernel, and processor space so there is no chance that something will escape, corrupt, or interfere with the host os. Also it make it very easy to make your games 'portable' or not tied to your OS. i.e. it containerizes them so you can reload/upgrade or even change your host hardware and just start up whatever game you want with no changes needed. (you may be running windows 10/11/server 2019/2022 or whatever for your host, but you guest can be running anything (say XP though W11) and you can keep that static to whatever config you want for that game. i.e. game in 'amber' so you could always just launch it with the known working condition at the time.

just a lot of benefits, the only 'downside' really is DX11 or lower (unless you want to do real involved setups with gpu passthrough but that i've found to be more hassle than it's worth) so I just stick with vmware workstation or linux kvm.

Well, i am no specialist of EULA... But i know many things are very different depending on where you go... And law is different in different parts of the world. I do want to eexplain this in details, and how things can change, using examples.

For example, if you read the EULA that Google applies in the USA, you will see that Google is an actual spyware that even spies on your computer when it is not used. I don't remember the exact terms, but it was something like they spy anything you do on your computer 15 minutes after closing it or whatever. To give a trash example (because i like trash examples), if you go on pornhub, Google will know it. They will know your fetishes, and not only will they keep this information close to their heart, they can even sell it to your neighbourg. But Google is only allowed to go this far in the USA. Anywhere else, they are much more limited. This includes asian countries, and even african countries. And the extreme to that... is the EU, where people are the most protected by law.

So, Google, in the EU, can only store very basic information related to your personal interests. No phone number, no geolocation, no softwares installed or used, and they can't sell your personal information to 3rd parties, they can only use it for a limited time for the sake of advertising or measure performances... AND... Law forces them to delete all the information collected in a matter of month. They can't just keep it. So, even if they know that you go on Youporn, they won't know what you do there, they can't tell your wife and they will be forced to forget about it after 6 months. I know that Google have been prosecuted and convicted several times in France, since they always try to go around laws. Not only Google, but all GAFAM, i suspect because they are used to doing whatever they want in the USA where they hail from. And there is this story about how Mc Donalds got in a bad spot because french raw ingredients providers all refused to honor their deliveries because Mc Donalds was trying to circumvent the minimum wage laws and pay their own employees less... That means that even circumventing law may not allow them to do what they want if the people don't like what they do.

So, all this to say that i am rather surprised to see europeans and US citizens discussing EULA, when laws, cultures, and beliefs regarding what is normal all are inherently different in both places. Are there really ways to use the same EULA everywhere? If so, i did not know about this.

And if I do that, then how am I supposed to access Cloud Saves and Achievements? If the answer is "you can't," then that's not an acceptable solution.

I came to this board because I was about to buy this game but I was stopped in my tracks by many reviews on GOG claiming it installs spyware.

I came to this board hoping to find reassurance that the game isn't actually doing that.

Hence I read all the posts in this thread.

And I don't find the posts that defend the alleged spyware to be particularly persuasive, nor compelling enough to convince me that this game definitely doesn't have any spyware in it; but I was hoping that I would be convinced that it doesn't since I wanted to buy it and enjoy it.

But now, due to this debacle, it seems like a bad idea to buy this game. :(

Oh, and I also do not find this quotation from the dev (as cited by Mean.Jim earlier in this thread) to be convincing: Actually no, contrary to what that quotation says, it's not the end-user's problem if your game has bugs, nor is it their responsibility to allow you to mine data from their machine, and which is probably happening without their consent most of the time since most people will not have read the EULA and thus have no idea that this data mining is going on.

If the devs want to fix bugs, then they should be offering bug-related pop-up windows in which the customer will be openly informed with a "Yes" or "No" prompt as to whether or not they wish to submit data from their machine to the devs; that is exactly what ethical devs do. It should not be happening automatically, behind the scenes, and without the end-users being specifically and directly informed (which the EULA doesn't count as doing that, since most people will never read the EULA).

Yet that dev's quotation is completely glossing over and ignoring these points.

Likewise, the devs locking down that thread on the Steam forum, so that customers have no means by which to discuss & critcize the alleged spyware bundled with the game and/or the devs' very weak defense of it, also makes the game seem very dubious, and it adds credibility to the arguments of the spyware claimants, whilst weakening the devs' own credibility.

I haven't studied exactly what it does but when you 1st launch the game it does ask you if you want to participate in sending data or not. But if you are concerned you could make a bat file to disable your network prior to launching the game & turn it back on after.

From an admin command prompt:

netsh interface set interface "YOUR-ADAPTER-NAME" disable
Run the game
netsh interface set interface "YOUR-ADAPTER-NAME" enable

C:\netsh interface show interface (Will show you your network adapter names)

I don't think there's really any question that WOTR is the best CRPG right now. So if you like that genre I think you should play it.

Steam BS and lies.
Rule 1) Don't trust anything DRM says, they rent games not sell them.
Rule 2) Don't run the games with GoG on, no problem.
Rule 3) Steamedpoop has 8, count them, 8 "browser helpers" running behind your game, they create millions upon millions of memory page fault DELTAs, look up what that is. Any one of them could possibly crash your game.
Rule 4) When in question, run wireshark on your PC and see the traffic.
Rule 5) You have an option in Settings to turn the stats sending off.

So, does this mean this spyware's just shitposters looking for attention? Cuz if so, let's ignore them altogether. Seriously, though, I'd like to buy Pathfinder WotR, but I'd like a detailed, unbiased description, with evidence, if any exists, proving these claims so I can make an informed decision on whether I should or shouldn't buy it. Also, Game of Thrones had the best finale ever............

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! GOD, I LOVE THAT JOKE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! But, seriously, I heard it was shite. Just a silly joke, nothing more or less.

Does this game still have the spyware?

Never has, it is just telemetry of the game. Unless you are a ulta-hardcore privacy advocate or G5 spy, Steam collects even more data than this game. You also can just say no to it, if you wanna.

From looking into this somewhat it seems that at some point during a large (~25gb) patch they altered the EULA which the player is forced to accept in order to play the game to allow them to install a program called "AppsFlyer" which rummaged the player's computer for and then uploaded the information it found. This was definitely more than the default analytics.

To their but no one else's surprise this resulted in a negative response and they quickly backpedalled, apologized, removed AppsFlyer and returned the EULA back to its previous form.

There is still the standard analytical tracking which you can turn off in the game options.

Thx for the information and clarification
way too often it is just "trust me" allegation.

I assume the Gog Version is on that Patch to no? Where it is removed.
(oogling to buy it although i wont be able to play any time soon)