Thanks to GOG for doing this.

I hope GOG does not stop there though!!!

GOG needs a site-wide overhaul whereby either GOG either themselves add Achievements to every single game in the GOG catalog that is missing Achievements, or otherwise GOG should give the community the tools so that volunteers in the community who want to contribute towards getting that job done will be able to do so if they wish.

GOG has legions of games that are missing Achievements for no good reason, and fixing that problem for just one of them is only a drop in the bucket.

Please do something to fix the entire problem so that no game on GOG is missing Achievements any more.

I wonder that too...

Both is not possible if the game did not have achievements before on Steam. The achievements need to be implemented in the code before you even could adress them with any plugin at all. If there has been achievements before - just not on GOG - this technically would be possible but I doubt that either GOG or the devs/publishers would be okay to let the community handle a part of their game release ... so this leaves GOG doing the achievements as the only realistic option imo. Seeing how many construction sites GOG still has, starting from the website to the forum and ending in Galaxy I doubt that they will find the time for an additional task on a daily basis.

But of course these are just my thoughts and it is just my opinion and I could be completely wrong as well (except for the first part which is a fact).

Well even that is so, that premise still should be and needs to be tested out in real-life.

The community could approach each of the devs/publishers on an individual basis, to ask whether or not they'd be open to community-implemented Achievements for their games that are missing them. In the worst case scenario, then some of the devs/publishers would say no, and nothing is lost from having asked the question.

And even if some or a lot of them say no, that doesn't necessarily mean that all of them would say no, meaning GOG customers would still be better off if GOG put the option of Community-implemented Galaxy Achievements on the table in the first place, so that further options about that matter can then afterwards be looked into.

But it all needs to start with GOG finally taking some initiative to at least try to start fixing this problem, as opposed to continuing the status quo where absolutely no solution to this problem is even attempted.

Better to have an attempt that tries & fails, rather than zero attempt at all.

What a nice little download size.
Only ~25GB.

I almost forgot that new games were so "small" at some time...

:)

Ok I have tested it now. The game doesn't store achievement data in the save file, but some achievements that require certain statistics will still unlock:

Backbone
Craft a suit of armor from elements of the kayran's carapace.

Gambler
Win an arm wrestling match, a dice poker game and a fist fight.

Miser
Collect 10000 orens.

Journeyman
Achieve character level 10.

Master of Magic
Acquire the Sense of Magic ability.

Swordmaster
Acquire the Combat Acumen ability.

Guru
Achieve character level 35.

And if you load your last autosave you can get:

To Be Continued...
Finish the game at any difficulty level.

So we'll still have to replay the game, but it's a good game.

It's still not a problem because games are better when there are no achievements. Achievements hurt the play experience.

Nice!!

It's 99% true that it's impossible if a game doesn't already have achievements, but technically it is possible, using the same tricks that speedrunners' clock tools use to detect the split times.

Even for games that have Steam achievements, while enabling the existing achievements would be possible with the source code, how easy it is to enable in a binary depends on how the developer removed them for the GOG build.

Always funny when people state their subjective opinion as a fact.
Also, please tell me why you think that optional achievements (all achievements tied to the client are optional) would ever hurt your personal game experience? Yes, achievements you can't switch off (ingame achievements) might do this for some but the usual achievements we are talking about here won't even get noticed from those who don't want them while they are fun for those who want them.

Yup

Speaking of CDPR-published game achievements, I'd like to take this opportunity to make a request about a problem that was just brought to my attention: the GOG version of The Witcher Adventure Game has 13 more non-working achievements than other platforms, probably thought of during development but never really implemented.

Would it be possible to remove them? Here is the list:

Alzur would be proud
Born under a lucky star
I should be so lucky!
I was born ready!
Killing all the monsters!
Killing monsters
Killing more monsters
Northern Globetrotter
Slaves Shall Serve
Speedster
The Fellowship is Complete
The toxicity is over 9000!
True detective

Thanks!

Yeah, these aren't present on Steam. On GOG the description for these listed achievements is "N/A". They lack an unlock number too, indicating that no one has unlocked them. Best to just remove them if all development has ceased for this game.

more achievements = more Galaxy players
Good! I will play it again.
Appreciate the team who made it and thanks for the official announcement looks nice and credible.
Pls, continue with your work...

That might be more arguable if achievements were off by default and one were to have to opt in to them. But that's not how it works. Achievements ruin play experiences all the time, from immersion breaking, to spoilers and similar. They rather often reduce the joy and discovery while playing games. They're also sometimes used by developers as a crutch so they don't have to spend effort to design something better (e.g., "an achievement will point the player in XYZ direction" rather than the game itself doing that.). And they hurt people who chase them.

Online communities are greatly hurt by "prove you are allowed to talk about this game, share your achievements showing you've platted it" mentality. Which is sadly not uncommon.

People engage longer with titles they should have stopped for one reason or another in the hunt to complete all of the achievements. Often to the their own detriment.

Games with multiplayer achievements have sessions wrecked by people achievement hunting online. And they're usually asking for degenerate activities, too.

And, before you discount people who are compelled to go for all the achievements, don't be an asshole. It's as system explicitly designed* [originally -- and persists] to exploit people into "engaging" with a title longer/in different ways, so that they're not going to competitors titles or keep with a title until the next update or patch lures them back in.

One case study of many: The people whose whole play experience of Stardew Valley is ruined by the Fector's Challenge achievement. It completely fucks up the game for them. Their experience on GOG, where they'd never be introduced to the concept of "I must complete and perfect this mini-game that completely clashes with the overall game".

Another: Blue Dragon's "get classes to max level" achievements. You'll have literally everything else in the game done long, long, long before these. Uncountable games have those like this.

I have gone into greater detail in previous posts; they should be findable by search. But I know you're not interested in engaging in a good faith discussion. I'm glad I am not of the personality to have them drag me through the mud like that. But a member of my household definitely is, as are a few of my friends.

Would gaming be better if the idea of achievements had never been dreamed up? Yes. No one would be missing anything of value, and plenty of people who do have problems created by them would have that problem solved.

* In addition to their design of "drag people in to our ecosystem", which is also their purpose for Galaxy -- something that shouldn't be reinforced.

^ "It's optional" is never an excuse for anything. See also: "it's optional!" for "microtransactions-are-OK" arguers.