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General discussion (archive)Site Update: Game Series Discounts, DLC Sorting & More!(260 posts)(260 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted August 05, 2013
GOG.com is getting an update today! Learn about the new features and improvements.

Today some new features and improvement are coming your way on GOG.com. Our web dev team did their best to improve your experience with our store and implement some of the requested changes. The update also facilitates a new kind of bundle deals, allowing you to save money when completing game series in your collection. All of the new features and improvements will be rolled out today. If you don't see something mentioned here working for you yet, just wait a bit and check again in a couple of hours. Let's go into some detail and sum up all the changes, shall we?

Let's start with the new sweet deals we've prepared for you. A while back we did a test run of game series bundles that allowed for purchase of full series of games at a reduced price. This will now be a permanent feature on GOG.com. We've prepared over 80 such offers, so those of you who like to see a complete set of your favorite games series in their virtual shelves, can achieve that goal up to 57.89% cheaper (that would be the case of Telltale's Sam & Max series). If you already have a game, or some games, featured in the bundle, you can always complete the collection and get the remaining ones with a discount.

Sam & Max game series discount

The gamecard pages are getting an overhaul. The new version brings more focus to the game's trailer, as we have those available in most cases nowadays. As they say, an image is worth a thousand words, and a trailer is a set of images displayed at ~29 frames per second. Then, we've altered the way that screenshot thumbnails are presented, just to make watching all the visual content for the game easier and more intuitive. All this doesn't mean we're giving up on text! The "what's cool about it" bullet points, as well as the description are still a prominent feature of the design, now displayed side-by-side with the frame informing you about other associated titles and deals.

Ever since we introduced DLCs to GOG.com, the most popular comment from you guys was: "make them display relative to their main game, not as a separate product". That was our intention from the start, but it took some time to whip-up such a system. Today, we're happy to say it's ready. The DLCs will no longer display as separate boxes in your collections. They'll be merged and folded out from the main game box. Similarly, in the catalog, if a game offers DLC it will be all linked together, and the downloadable content will be also enumerated in the appropriate gamecard. All downloadable content items will be listed with a "DLC:" prefix in GOG.com catalog, to avoid any confusion. Entering a game's title in the search engine will display all the available expansions as well. This mechanics doesn't only focus on DLCs, but will also allow us to support new types of gaming content, like episodic titles.

Sword of the Stars: The Pit + DLC in the catalog

We're almost there, just two more things we'd like to point out. The catalog search and sorting has been updated to work faster, so browsing our offer should go a lot more smoothly now for you. And finally, a new system of check-out notifications has been implemented, to inform you about the system requirements of the games in your order. It will also warn you, if you try to buy a DLC or an episode that requires a title you don't have in your collection.

We hope you'll find that our newest update improves your experience with GOG.com! Be on the lookout for a special contest we'll be launching very soon, that will involve you taking an in-depth tour of the new gamecard layout.
Post edited August 05, 2013 by G-Doc
Posted August 08, 2013
It's certainly a very good thing to attempt to make life easier for all customers by showing a person the page in their native language, but I recall some attempts at browsing with TOR where I, a native English speaker, was incapable of following the link to the English version of the page and I kept getting Swedish the first day, and German the day after that, regardless of how many times I clicked the link to go to the English version of the page.

If gog.com pays attention to GeoIP for language, I'd strongly agree with the previous statement about using country codes for a language regardless of IP location (and for countries with multiple, you could pick one for all English, one for all Spanish, etc), and there should be a link at the top of the page with the flag for the current country code that links to a page with links to the country code version of each language's page.

I'd also advocate picking the cheapest/easiest country code for each language. As a US native, I don't really care which English-speaking country's DNS you pick for the "English regardless of GeoIP" site, as long as I have an easy way to figure out which one it is if I forget and am getting a language I don't understand. If you, as a company, think a large portion of users would have an issue with using another country code for their language, do another poll asking "Would you pay more for GoG to have a country code listing for all countries whose primary/official language they support?" and then go by those results.
Posted August 08, 2013
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BinaryPoet: Switching the language according to the user's IP is something that I personally dislike very much. In my oppinion it is sufficient to have all web sites in English only. It is not worth the effort to translate all the text to many different languages. English is the language everyone should speak nowadays. My own homepage is available in English only, too. GOG should continue to concentrate on high quality content instead of wasting manpower for translation work.
Seriously?
Posted August 09, 2013
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BinaryPoet: Switching the language according to the user's IP is something that I personally dislike very much. In my oppinion it is sufficient to have all web sites in English only. It is not worth the effort to translate all the text to many different languages. English is the language everyone should speak nowadays. My own homepage is available in English only, too. GOG should continue to concentrate on high quality content instead of wasting manpower for translation work.
Absolutely agree.

Google and a few of the bigger sites often automatically just send me to the Thai version of the site because I'm in Bangkok.

I don't bloody READ Thai, so I can't even find the instructions to tell me how to get off the Thai version and back to the English version I wanted in the first place.

it's one of the reasons I stopped using Google (that, and that they're willingly giving everyone's personal information to the US government :)

EDIT: Plus, as a former English teacher in Thailand I love that most websites are in English. A huge percentage of my former students are gamers and I noticed their English skills got a lot better when they were 'forced' to read their favorite games or gaming sites in English. If they hadn't been, most of them would still only know how to say "I'm fine thank you, how are you?"
Post edited August 09, 2013 by Bloodygoodgames
Posted August 09, 2013
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Digital_CHE: The GOG's interface MUST be MULTILANGUAGE..

The GOG's system, automatically MUST detect the user's country and show the website's interface in a language acording to that:

Example: If the system detects that the user IP is from Argentina, all the gog's interface must be shown in Spanish.. If the IP is from France, the site interface must be automatically switched to french..

But the user must have the option to configure manually the main language...
That would be incredibly irritating. My workplace allows you to browse the net in your own time, but to save costs locates servers in other countries. Having to reset the language every time would be a pain in the arse.

If people are keen on multi-language, make it an option, but don't force it down people's throats.
Posted August 09, 2013
The benefit of an multilingual interface would be minimal, in my eyes maybe more irritating as long as the rest of the website like news articles and gamepages are in english only. To translate and keep everything multilingual running isn't really possible for gog, so better keep it simple and everything in english. I think the interface is already easy to understand for everyone, my hope is that gog will try to get more mulitlingual releases in the future and maybe will upgrade some old releases.
Posted August 09, 2013
I'm glad to see that GOG used the site development resources to fix the stuff they already have that is broken and implement a test suite, rather than adding new features that break unrelated parts of the site because they don't have a test suite.

EDIT: Updated attachment.
Attachments:
2013-08-09-14363.png (43 Kb)
Post edited August 09, 2013 by xyem
Posted August 09, 2013
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BinaryPoet: Switching the language according to the user's IP is something that I personally dislike very much. In my oppinion it is sufficient to have all web sites in English only. It is not worth the effort to translate all the text to many different languages. English is the language everyone should speak nowadays. My own homepage is available in English only, too. GOG should continue to concentrate on high quality content instead of wasting manpower for translation work.
Indeed.

Heck, I hate translations so much, that my OS in is english (region and everything but the keyboard).
It's such a PITA when I go to some sites not from my country, and yet it still forces the pages to my native language...
I'm *that* close to using a proxy for this.
Posted August 09, 2013
You, people, don't undestand!!
Even if I can understand english, I DONT LIKE ENGLISH.

I want THE OPTION to see GOG in spanish because is my native language!!...


I want a confortable website

If the STEAM website is available in A LOT of languages, then why not GOG??..

To traslate the info of all the games and the NEWS, IS NOT thaaat hard to do.. Especially when I can do it for free, like I did with the Crysis Wars Mod: Wreckage :)
Posted August 09, 2013
For some reason the bold tag doesn't parse when forums notify me of unread thread replies.
"You have 1 topic with unread replies." - the "1 topic" just shows up surrounded by bs.
Post edited August 09, 2013 by grviper
Posted August 09, 2013
I liked the new game pages, where the screenshots take up less room, but are still easy to access. That info that goes on the column to the right I hardly ever use, but it's easier to see now.

I can't believe there's still no date/time flag on the news of the site.
Posted August 09, 2013
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Digital_CHE: The GOG's interface MUST be MULTILANGUAGE..

The GOG's system, automatically MUST detect the user's country and show the website's interface in a language acording to that:

Example: If the system detects that the user IP is from Argentina, all the gog's interface must be shown in Spanish.. If the IP is from France, the site interface must be automatically switched to french..

But the user must have the option to configure manually the main language...
Ugh, no way about the auto-switch, can't stand sites that do that, especially seeing as they do it just like you say, by IP and not by checking my language settings, and unfortunately the number keeps increasing. I see even multi-language options to be a waste of resources. When it comes to languages, we first need everyone to know one language well to be able to communicate properly regardless of where we are, then worry about the rest. And when it comes to sites, first worry about content, adding non-English versions of international sites only has a point when those sites have a particular focus on countries with other native languages and it's very important to attract a high participation from there.
Posted August 09, 2013
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Cavalary: Ugh, no way about the auto-switch, can't stand sites that do that, especially seeing as they do it just like you say, by IP and not by checking my language settings, and unfortunately the number keeps increasing. I see even multi-language options to be a waste of resources. When it comes to languages, we first need everyone to know one language well to be able to communicate properly regardless of where we are, then worry about the rest. And when it comes to sites, first worry about content, adding non-English versions of international sites only has a point when those sites have a particular focus on countries with other native languages and it's very important to attract a high participation from there.
That's exactly what I wanted to say! You obviously share my point of view.

To Digital_CHE: I understand that not everyone likes the English language, but please bear in mind that GOG is surely a much smaller company than Valve with its Steam platform. When your resources are limited, you have to focus on what is essential first. GOG has a worldwide audience and English is an international language, the most popular one on the web.
Althought German is my native language, I have set Steam to English and play most of my games in English. Nevertheless, I understand and respect your preference for your native language. But setting the language according to the user's IP address is the worst thing to do.
Posted August 09, 2013
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Digital_CHE: You, people, don't undestand!!
Even if I can understand english, I DONT LIKE ENGLISH.

I want THE OPTION to see GOG in spanish because is my native language!!...


I want a confortable website

If the STEAM website is available in A LOT of languages, then why not GOG??..

To traslate the info of all the games and the NEWS, IS NOT thaaat hard to do.. Especially when I can do it for free, like I did with the Crysis Wars Mod: Wreckage :)
I think it's a bit unfair to say that people don't understand.

I understand your preference, but at the end of the day, the biggest problems are cost and usability. A lot of people have pointed out the issues of setting language based on IP. You also have to consider that GoG would need professional translators for each language they wanted to put the site and game cards in - you can't just use Google Translate, because the results are, quite frankly, pretty poor.

Let's say you only go for the major languages that people on this site are likely to use - for argument's sake - English, Polish, German, Russian, French, Spanish. Given GoG updates daily, you need at least one employee or translator fluent in each language - Polish and English are covered off, but you need another four employees for the rest. You need more than a gifted amateur.

You yourself highlight another problem of translating everything - which is - why bother? You might not *like* English, but you can understand it enough to use the site. Which at the moment is all GoG needs.

In short, the most efficient outcome is the one we have at the moment. That's not to say multi-language won't happen in the future, but in the meantime, I still think the best thing is for GoG to focus on increasing the number of games available.
Posted August 09, 2013
I don't like how the Screenshots are in the Game description now.. It makes the page unnecessarily long and all the game cards were just fine before. You can keep the way you scroll through the screenshots, just put them back where they were above the "Customers who bought this game also bought:" window.
Posted August 10, 2013
@GOG

There's a number of games that show "Be the first to rate this game!" (some are part of the Weekend Promo) - is this caused by the recent site update?


EDIT: And you can't search games by Snowbird Games (nor Alexey Bokulev) - they don't show up in the developer/ publisher drop-down menu.
Post edited August 10, 2013 by HypersomniacLive
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Community
General discussion (archive)Site Update: Game Series Discounts, DLC Sorting & More!(260 posts)(260 posts)
(260 posts)