Of course. My advice is to do that. Just download the game(s) with Galaxy (This will skip downloading voice packs for languages you don't need) and then just create your own archive from the game's install folder.

I deliberately asked "regardless of its footprint" because I don't think most people are keenly aware of, or care about the size of their games, except that they work and they are fun. And installation has usually involved some kind of waiting around, so my assumption was that people will accept some measure of waiting just because it's new and installing stuff takes time.

But I also remember installing Civ IV multiple times from CD or DVD (I forget which) and it took about 10 minutes then too, again, not due to the footprint, but due to the thousands of small files.


Personally I don't care if something takes significantly longer to install than is technically possible, if there's some reason for it. But for me, there is a limit, as I said, 15 minutes. More than anything because I would be worried that the installer had crashed or something like that.

And were GOG actually to do that, then they would probably be going bankrupt shortly thereafter, since a GOG employee admitted on video years ago that way more of GOG's customers do use Galaxy than those who don't, and that majority of GOG's customers are not going to tolerate the loss of Cloud Saves, gameplay-time tracking, and/or Achievements.

Certainly not all GOG customers care about those things, and definitely many on the forums hate some and/or all of those things; but that doesn't change the fact that were GOG to alienate the majority of its customers by totally eliminating Galaxy, then GOG would soon after have major financial problems as a result of that decision.

Having said that, I agree that offline installers should not be made worse than they otherwise would have been due to Galaxy files being included in them.

Although I don't think Galaxy is entirely to blame for the issue of GOG's offline installers not being that great.

They would still be crappy bin files even if Galaxy was never a thing.

They'd still have number discrepancies which make them a pain to use even if Galaxy was never a thing.

They'd still be needlessly divided into multiple parts, instead of being just one single file, as they should be, even if Galaxy was never a thing, etc. etc.

So let's not scapegoat Galaxy for something that has many problems irrespective of Galaxy's existence or non-existence.

You misremembered.

They are indeed, atrocious.

I was reminded to dig out the old definition, and sure enough it applies here:

From urban dictionary:
Top definition
Trolling
Trolling – (verb), as it relates to internet, is the deliberate act, (by a Troll – noun or adjective), of making random unsolicited and/or controversial comments on various internet forums with the intent to provoke an emotional knee jerk reaction from unsuspecting readers to engage in a fight or argument

edit: don't feed the trolls

It depends on the game really, but some installers can be excruciatingly slow, and it's definitely not something Wine is responsible for, I can tell you that much. I've had one take around 30 minutes on a top-tier NVMe... for a glorified archive extractor, that's just horrendously bad.

Edit: Oh, yeah, in fact it WAS Civ IV :/.

I am quite sure there would be a big backlash if games like Cyberpunk were indeed in one big file. Some have flakier internet connections and they rather download a massive game in parts, or only try to re-download a 4GB corrupted file instead of a 100GB corrupted file.

I personally don't really mind either way (I have a 600Mbit/s connection at home and there is apparently a GOG content server 13 km from my home so I get nice download speeds too, e.g. yesterday around 300Mbit/s or so I think). Neither one gigantic 108GB Cyberpunk installer file, or the same divided into 28 parts, really affects me how I use it.

For all the hate Civ IV is getting in this thread, I feel like I have to say, it's worth the time it takes to install :)

True story - I thought of you the other day. There was a cute looking game "The Spirit And The Mouse" on sale on both GOG and itch.io for the same price. Guess what? I bought the itch.io version because it didn't have Steam / Galaxy achievements, and thus was guaranteed to not come with crappy half-bugged "ghost wrapper" client code that's messed up several GOG games for the sake of someone's "I want Steam cheevos in my GOG games, f*** the consequences". So if you're looking for examples of the flip-side of your threats, ie, GOG customers not buying the GOG version because they do have achievements, there you go... ;-)

Sea dogs Coas also installs long but i think it has many files with different names i think.

I also can care less about achievements and find them distracting and would like a way to turn off, unless it's integral part of the gameplay.
That said, I don't think Red Dragon is wrong here. The sheer number of people that registered in GOG just to buy Cyberpunk to sUpPoRt ThE dEvElOpEr (don't even start me on that one) is orders of magnitude more than we that frequent the forum, prabably was was the same with the Witcher 3 to a lesser extent. I assume most of those people do want cloud saves and achievements.

You can. It's an option in galaxy.

They probably did indeed sign up to "support the developer". Very few people (other than ARD) however, would throw away a perfectly good collection of several hundred GOG games for lacking a glorified egg timer and a pat on the back...

I guess. But I think you are overly dismissive of achievements. There are multiple ways to have fun in a video game. Trying to get achievements is one of them.

Like many others here, I only started to become anti-Galaxy, anti-Achievement, when they both started negatively impacting offline installers. If it weren't for that, I wouldn't be so "dismissive" of something that wouldn't be negatively impacting me (as it currently does)...

As I posted on the other thread, this bugged Galaxy-wrapper (in offline installers) issue has been going on 5-6 years now:-
https://www.gog.com/forum/bioshock_series/slow_startup_time_on_both_bioshock_remastered_titles

Wake me up when someone at GOG wakes up and fixes it...