Q: How can i deal with Gog's own logic in game-database naming patterns...

I am actually having again, and worse than any previous time, an awfully bad time at dealing with GOG database/file naming convention. It is up to the headache now...

What do i mean ? The way the games, their title and their download folders names, are completely lacking any consistancy and are very hard to cope with on a logical point of view. Both on "My Account" library page, on the downloading files, the way some games are "scattered" into several entriesn and such. I realise i am still not clear maybe ?

You can now jump to the TL;DR part of the message, that bears my question/call for help and advice, if you feel so...

So a few examples:

Lets take the adventure game serie called "Blackwell":

In "My library", the whole Blackwell serie is listed as separate entries? The game was released at first on gog as a single item to order, the "blackwell trilogy". Then the 4th game was released, then the 5th. Each blackwell has a sub-title (like Blackwell: Unbound, Blackwell: Convergence, Blackwell: Epiphany)
In the previous exemple, please note that Convergence is the episode 3, Unbound the episode 2 and Epiphany the 5th.
So in my library they are 5 separate entries with just serie name and sub title but not a single mention about the episode number (like, maybe, Blackwell: blablabla (episode X or Y). I can either display them in alphabetical order and so you guess what will happen (episode 5 will be listed before the 3 before the 5), or purchase date (a completely irrelevant way in this present situation)
Recently they finally added more sorting/filtering methods such as Olderst first (it fails, unbound is listed after Convergence and deception), or Tags Order (oooh finally, it is magical... yet i cant combine filters such as all games alphabetically then within some alphabetical range, tag order...).
Could have been simply Blackwell (ep x): sub name and problem solved...

But regarding blackwell, the horrible hell is not yet over, of course not. When i download the game installers and goodies for each entry, there are two problems... 1st) some goodies package are shared with several blackwell entries/episodes but as each episode is now a separate game entry, the same goodies package is listed for each entry, and will be downloaded on each different game folders that shared that goodies package in first place. Which means the same wallpaper zip, the same avatar zip and the same soundtrack zip will be downloaded 3 or 4 times in 3 or 4 different blackwell game episode folder.
Yes, yes, i know i CAN tell my brain not to download it more than once when i realise the same goodies package is shared along several entries. It is not my point is, i am not stating how my brain and lazyness can combine or not, i am explaining how things are currently from gog side (means up the whole stream of data, me being at the down end of it)
But there is not only this thing with the folder names... Lets say i download the 5 blackwell games, then i go on my hard drive and look at my gog installers folder and browse the file and folder list up to B letter... How what ? There is only one folder listed as "Blackwell", it is blackwell epiphany (the), aka 5th episode... Where did all the other 4 episodes go ? I only have blackwell epiphany files in the blackwell folder. No panic, they are convenientely and obvious logically in folders beginning by the "e" letter, as in "episode 1 blackwell blablabla" and "episode 2 blackwell chatty chatty". Ok, fine, why not... Then why the only game in "b" is the 5th episode and not the 1st one obviosuly... or why dont we have "episode 5 blackwell epiphany" just along the 4 other episodes ? Gog (and god maybe) only knows...
But hey... what will happen when OTHER games episodic series will do that too... will i have "Episode X game this blabla" and "Episode X othergame that blablabla" and "Episode X yetanotherdifferentgame thisandthat blablabla" ? Regardless of their capital letter in the title ? Brrr.... shiver

Now lets take a easier case (because your brain may just have melted as did mine earlier):

Elderscrolls Morrowind, Arena, or whetever. Not surprisingly, by alphabetical order, Morrowind is listed first, THEN Arena THEN Daggerfall. Don't freak out, it is perfectly "logical": Morrowind is listed as "elder scrolls III: morrowind", while arena is just "elder scrolls: arena" and daggerfall is not "elderscrolls II: daggerfall" or "elder scrolls: daggerfall" but indeed it is "elder scrolls: chapter II daggerfall". Ok, fine with all that, it is probably not gog fault here it is the way they were published and licensed and as such, gog is not allowed to alter their title at all... Oh and by the way, dont forget the mandatory ", The" at the end of each of those babies, of course, it is THE elder scrolls (and not elder scrolls), and so, there are a lot of game in the catalogue at the letter T :) (or not). They just could have faked alphabetical order with an invisible database abitrary key/number instead just to make sure. But OK, GoG may not have the leasure to modify the licensed/trademarked/copyrighted title of a game from a business partner publisher. But what they are completely allowed to is modify and decide the downloaded files folder name used by their own galaxy/gog downloader software. It is internal use, it is not displayed to the customer, it doesnt infringe the holy sanctified/licensed/trademarked/copyrighted title of a game, and it would help customers.

A little interlude about all the games with their title beginning by "The" but are yeat listed alphabetically by their second word's capital letter for obvious reason, yet those downloaded files folder are even labbeled as "the something" or just "something" at random whim for whatever non obvious reason of why keeping them in the T or not...

Then a last exemple: Earth 2150 Trilogy

There is a Earth 2140 trilogy too, this one is completely simply listed as one single entry in the library, has a single installer, and its files folder named as earth_2140_trilogy, which is totally fine. There is a Earth 2160 (not trilogy-esque at all) in the catalog, and that works the exact same way... Wait, didnt I mention "2150 trilogy" earlier ? Of course i did... Because it is the fun part: Earth trilogy is scattered in "My Library" as 3 entries (Earth 2150 escape from whatever, lost something and the moon project...). This was one single game reference in game catalog. It has 3 installers and so, 3 downloaded files folders... Yet, neither in the library nor in the files folder i can get at first glance whatever single clue about which campaign/game i should play first, and in which order they are... Like Earth 2150 trilogy, part 1 this or part 2 that. The 3 parts of this trilogy share the same goodies package (obviously, cause was sold as a single game reference from the catalog) so i may had secretely hoped that the goodies package would be tied to the 1st part download page and files folder. It is not, the goodies package are on each download page of trilogy parts and in each folder files. Because of course it makes sense, when i get a game as a single reference with 3 distinct campaigns, i may download the goodies maybe when starting to play the part 2 or 3, yes ? Leaving the goodies on part 1 only as a clue about where to start the game from was surely a terrible idea... Puting each of the 3 parts installer on one single download page (and a single download folder) couldnt possibly be considered as relevant either (especially with the 2140 just above)

So thats it: naming has many issues and lack of consistency in the catalog, then scattered even worse in "my account: library", and finally in downloaded files folder.

Short answer:

You can't. As a workaround, you could use tags for your library.

i didnt finish my post because it seems it was too big for the forum ui, and was trying to put a dummy blank message with a second account but with replying first, you helps me a bit. So here is the second part of my intended post

My problem and question is about that:
I keep an offline backup of my gog collection (i am perfectly allowed to do this, i guess, but if not please point me at some source so i can realize i'm doing something wrong), i have my reasons and it's my choice. A couple of years ago, a single hard drive was enough, in a NAS server at my home. As the naming system was already painful, i manually renammed and aggregated each game that needed me to do so. Three problem occured: when i got drowned under the flow of multi updates (sometime 10-15 games in a single week, or 5 games a day), having to 1st downliad them with gog downloader in its own named folders, then manually check for each matching renamed folders, then overwriting or adding updated files... It was a pain. Second problem: my game collection now takes more space than this initial drive. Third problem is that depending on the game, i play it on one different computer out of two (or three) possible one?

Solving 1st problem was a matter of me just "letting go" and leaving the gog downloader's folder naming convention, yet considering that gog scattered many "single game reference" into several entries (Heroes of might and magic 3 chronicles, 8 chapters entries, oh oh oh... give me some gun so i shoot my head now please). And i am currently doing that this week from a brand new drive. Yet i was alarmed by the exemples i listed above, before even reaching the letter F, the drive is already an horrible mess to maintain, keep updated, let alone for installing games from (because finding the one you need will lead to unnecessary frustration)

Second and third problem was rather easy: i took a bigger internal drive, so i could refurbish my NAS for other useful jobs, and i put it into a removable hot swappable cradle that goes into one 5"1/4 sata rack that both computers are equiped with.

TL;DR

The game scatering and game naming convention in GoG catalog, library and downloadable files got to a point i am not clever enough to follow its logic (or to be blunt and frank: is a complete nonsensical piece of hell... to me)
My collection is on a removable (yet internal by design) drive.
I tried before to manually correct folders names and redondant/scattered content but it is just a PAIN to update because gog sometime send waves of updates at the speed and pace of a frantic guinea pig under acid in a spinningwheel.
I tried to figure out by myself some way to combine gog logic and mine:
- manually designed html relativepath web pages in the drive, to put a layer of sorting and folder naming for my use while keeping gog naming convention on a filesystem level. It is just hell
- NTFS junctions or symbolic links; but as i said i am on a removable drive and that will obviously lead to (in the best case) horrible painful hell to maintain and use or (worst scenario) data corruption and really bad stuff for the drive.
- considering a software called virtual folder but 1) i'm not even sure it will fit my needs here and 2) 20 bucks to cope with GoG own logic ?

So if you have any suggestion, idea, solution or documentation to point me to so i can figure out something and work on it, i would be VERY glad.

I hope letting it all out helped you, because there isn't any solution other than sorting by your own tags.

The thing that weirds me out the most however is how gog handles "The". It is just so...odd.
For example: "Book Of Unwritten Tales: The Critter Chronicles, The"
That just seems wrong to me. I mean, it'd already be weird if the game didn't have a subtitle (with its own The), but that in combination is makes it all the more silly.
I wish they'd just have the name properly, and then behind the scenes have their sorting to ignore "The ".

hmmm you realise that my problem was related to physical storage on my side, right ?

i mean, "tags" on website won't help me sorting out the mess resulting of the downloaded files/folders convention.
i still needed to tell out out the discrepency and lack of logic not only between gog and me (for that would be "subjective" opinion) but between gog and gog itself, as the naming mess doesnt match between website and downloaded files

afaic, the website can remain whatever mess they want, i wont bother sorting it out on my account side. Yet it would be "great" to "know" which episodes/expansions/campaigns goes in which order...

so, as i said, i'm looking to trails to follow on the "making a layer of virtual folder on a physical storage drive", and as said earlier, i tried some dummy html index locally, and considered NTFS junction and symbolic links but it is more bound to bring me data corruption and drive damaging than solution. NTFS "links" don't work like linux/extfs file link at all

also, yes, the thing with "the" is complete headscratching. Only for very limited number of games i can accept it, like "the cave" (not on gog) whe it then makes sense not to sort it at c / "cave, the". but right now, 75% roughly of games in the "the something" section could do perfectly fine without it