Ok, so here is my situation, I only wonder if anyone echoes my feelings/frustrations.

I own around 100 games on GOG now and I have to admit I haven't played at least half of them, I bought most of them during the various sales for a 'rainy day' or for when I have the time spare between work and life to throw a couple of hours at one.

I have been greatly disappointed by the last 5-10 I have 'attempted to play', not by the games themselves but by the lack of TLC they have been given prior to going on sale on GOG, the last 5-10 I have tried to play have had various issues which have either made them impossible to play or so painful to do so that it was not worth it.

A few examples as a mere taste of my problems:

Darkstone - Locked to an archaic resolution that means on modern monitors I can't even read the on screen text without leaning across my desk - Applied a third party resolution fix to this one but the interface remains broke and ruins all immersion for me.
Cossacks anthology - Despite applying various fixes from the GOG forums I couldn't get any of these to run period.
American Conquest - Much like Cossacks, despite various fixes completely unplayable!

Does anyone else feel this way?

Is anyone within the community able to explain what if anything GOG does to prepare these games for modern systems before they take our cash?

Don't get me wrong, I love what GOG are trying to do here and as such my library and those that I have recommended to this site speak for themselves but I do feel like I might as well have thrown my cash from my window at anyone who happens to be passing by at present.

Apologies if this turned in to a bit of a rant/vent (That wasn't my original intention), I do really look forward to hearing the GOG communities thoughts on the matter.

Contacted support at all?

I agree, you should contact support as soon as possible 8).

I've heard a lot of people complain about Cossacks, yet on my recent built PC it works without any issues.

Win 7 x64
Intel i7 4770K
16GB RAM
Geforce 770GTX

Don't know about Darkstone, but I own both American Conquest and Cossacks and they run fine on my 2 laptops and desktop all running Windows 7, just contact support as others have said.

Eh, i agree with you, i found out that:

Corsairs gold - Runs terribly (bad framerate).
Mob Rule - The mouse pointer goes crazy fast making it difficult to play, there was a solution on the forum saying that i needed a crack but the only one available was for the US version (Street Wars) and yet the support gave me that version only changing the name ( -.-" ), anyway, i just quitted.

And thus the reason why game makers love consoles. The amount of possible combinations of PC hardware are nearly infinite. There is just that much varied hardware out there. At some point in time, everyone is eventually going to find some things that don't run well on their particular PC.

GOG can't possibly test every possible configuration before releasing a game. It is literally impossible.

For Darkstone, GOG can't fix things like low resolution issues. Sure, you might be able to force a higher resolution, but if the base game that you're playing doesn't have better art assets, it isn't necessarily going to fix anything. It's an old game. Sometimes, that's just how they looked. Heck, even some of these HD updates that have been released for older games in recent years don't do a whole lot to actually improve things...

As for Cossacks and American Conquest, they were both made by the same developer within a couple years of one another. I imagine they use the exact same game engine, so if you have problems with one, it would make sense that you would have problems with the other.

As everyone has said, contact GOG support. Once they understand your specific configuration, they may be able to better come up with a solution. They're quite good at what they do.

You have set your system to scale stuff up, though, right? I know that Darkstone's interface is very hard to read but you make it seem like you don't even scale low resolution stuff up. And yeah, the game doesn't look nice with its 640x480 or something but I just forced anti aliasing through the control center and the game went from disgusting to gorgeous.

Concerning Darkstone have a look here:

http://www.wsgf.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=64&t=25669

There are resolution fixes for 1920x1080, 1360x768, 1280x720. The Inventory screen and conversation screens are a bit small in the upper left corner, but the game looks a lot better.

I used one of the .exes had then some problems with clipping, rendering, I can't remember what I did to fix it, but do remember I found the fix in the community support forum for the game here on GOG.

edit
Found the fix in here, it was a command line parameter which you have to add to the shortcut that starts the game:

http://www.gog.com/forum/darkstone/graphics_problems_win8_amd_5670

that is also why a lot of gamers like consoles
it just works insert a dvd or blu ray ( sit through the obligatory bloody updates in some cases which are usually skippable sit through the bloody animated logo's and then sit through the unskippable cutscenes and tutoriald and then well you get the idea ) and you are good to go

Exactly. Though it's not like you often get the chance to skip the animated logos, cut scenes and tutorials on the PC either. But yeah, it's plug and play like MS could never achieve, for both the makers and users...

If you any games in the future, keep in mind the 30-day refund policy.

As for compatibility, there is a recent discussion I started here:
http://www.gog.com/forum/general/to_what_extent_should_we_expect_gog_versions_to_run_better_than_abandonwareunofficial_versions

You might find something meaningful there.

________________________
fake sig: help bring publishers

I still can't get Zork Grand Inquisitor to run. My computer just hates the game apparently.

This is PC gaming though, it's kind of part of the animal. I don't blame GOG since most people can apparently run it. Unless an issue is repeatable across many configurations you just have to kind of shake your head and say "PC gaming" with a sigh.

Thanks everyone for the feedback, I do realise issues with games tend to be the nature of the beast whereby PC gaming is concerned, I have played PC games for 20+ years so experienced more than my fair share, I would be contacting support if I had a major issue against not being able to play any particular game and as I have said most of my games have been bought for a 'rainy day' anyway whilst on sale so I am not too heart broken, I do imagine there would be some people out there who felt differently however - I would hate their experience to be a sour one because of a 'dud'.

I was asking more to seek/gauge peoples thoughts and/or feelings on the matter more than seek support or blindly complain about the examples I provided, the post written by tfishell regarding 'To what extend should we expect GOG versions to run better than abandonware' is along the same lines as how I was thinking, certainly an interesting read sir so thank you.