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GOG | July 2014 - Classic games. Big, beautiful pixels!

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Minsc

Minsc

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What is GOG? 100% DRM free games of the past and present available for Windows and Mac. Pay a few bucks, download an installer and play!
Thread info pt 1: Above: Links to GOG.com, GOG's forums, Recommended games by GAF members, MRORANGE's thread of PC gaming threads.
Thread info pt 2: Below: GOG's recent releases (current/past month), followed by a section of quotes for any of the recommended recent releases.
Past yearly threads: 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010

Releases should start picking up again with the Summer sale behind us, as well as the first half of the year. Guess it's as good a time as any to highlight the
recommended games link in the above banner has now past 100 games (in case you're looking to fill out your wishlist). Shovel Knight is the newest (and only)
addition from last month so it gets the banner art no contest. Looks like Divinity: Original Sin will be missing in action until GOG Galaxy launches unfortunately.​
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Week 31, 2014 (July 28th - August 3rd)​

- Tetrobot and Co. (2013), Action / Puzzle
- Blocks that Matter (2011), Action / Puzzle
- The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky (2014), RPG
- Space Run: Fast and Safe Delivery (2014), Strategy​
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Week 30, 2014 (July 21st - July 27th)​

- Gods will be Watching (2014), Adventure
- Space Pirates and Zombies (2011), Action
- Unrest (2014), RPG
- OlliOlli (2014), Action / Sports
- Black Mirror 2 (2009), Adventure
GOG.com Now Supports Linux (NeoGAF thread)​
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Week 29, 2014 (July 14th - July 20th)​

- Monster Bash (1993), Action
- Gray Matter (2011), Adventure
- Schein (2014), Action​
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Week 28, 2014 (July 7th - July 13th)​

- DROD RPG: Tendry's Tale (2008), RPG/Puzzle
- Quest for Infamy (2014), Adventure
- Divinity: Original Sin (2014), RPG
- MouseCraft (2014), Strategy
- Anomaly Defenders (2014), Strategy​
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Week 27, 2014 (June 30th - July 6th)​

- Z (1996/2014), Strategy
- The Black Mirror (2003), Adventure
- The Guild 2: Renaissance (2010), Simulation​
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Week 26, 2014 (June 23rd - June 29th)​

- Shovel Knight (2014), Action
Summer Sale 24-hour ADRENALINE RUSH! (NeoGAF thread)​
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Week 25, 2014 (June 16th - June 22nd)​

- Xenonauts (2014), Strategy
Summer Sale Giveaway: Magrunner: Dark Pulse FREE for 24 hours! (NeoGAF thread)​
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Week 24, 2014 (June 9th - June 15th)​

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Week 23, 2014 (June 2nd - June 8th)​

- Lifeless Planet (2014), Adventure
- Labyrinth of Time, The (1993), Adventure
CD Projekt RED & GOG.com Summer Conference (June 5, 6:00pm GMT)​
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Shovel Knight on GoG is tempting...but I think I'm just going to get it for my 3DS whenever I do get it.

Anyways, Divinity: Original Sin is excellent
 
Oh, right. I totally forgot about Original Sin. Been so busy with moving that I barely paid any attention to the sale... let alone played any games. Divinity would be a good way to get back into things in a few weeks.
 
If it has a Mega Man 2-like checkpoint structure and is perfectly playable sans saves/passwords, then maybe I'll check out Shovel Knight. I'm immediately skeptical of all games going for an aesthetic like this, even if they're well-meaning.
 
Minsc, I know this is a GAF policy, but does GOG really, really need a monthly thread? The last one had 3(5/6 for 50ppp) pages, couldn't we just have the older one renamed?

Monthly threads make sense for high post per minute, like the Steam or NPD ones, but here it's just... counter-intuitive.

Also, the OP post seems to be missing links to previous monthly threads, it has just the main 2014 one linked.
 
The 2014 DRM-Free Summer Sale is now over, but that doesn't mean we don't have more excitement in store for you. Quite soon, you can expect news about GOG Galaxy, our up-and-coming DRM-Free online gaming platform, The Witcher Adventure Game, CD Projekt RED's newest addition to the gaming Witcherverse, and an interesting update on our planned Linux support. Not to mention some fantastic new releases coming your way… Truly, this is an exciting time to be a Gogger. Thank you for choosing to be one!
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I hope the NOLF games are some of those new releases.
 
Dragoon En Regalia said:
If it has a Mega Man 2-like checkpoint structure and is perfectly playable sans saves/passwords, then maybe I'll check out Shovel Knight. I'm immediately skeptical of all games going for an aesthetic like this, even if they're well-meaning.
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I'm not quite sure what you mean by those criteria, but:

* There is no life limit
* There are several checkpoints in a level - not Mega Man's one-in-the-middle-one-at-the-boss (IIRC)
* There's a risk/reward mechanic tied to a checkpoint: You can break it for extra loot, but it becomes inactive and you'll go back to an earlier one if you die.
* It has modern autosaves.
 
Knurek said:
Minsc, I know this is a GAF policy, but does GOG really, really need a monthly thread? The last one had 3(5/6 for 50ppp) pages, couldn't we just have the older one renamed?

Monthly threads make sense for high post per minute, like the Steam or NPD ones, but here it's just... counter-intuitive.

Also, the OP post seems to be missing links to previous monthly threads, it has just the main 2014 one linked.
Click to expand...

The actual links to previous monthly threads from the year are immediately below the banner art, where you see the little thumbnails near the header "2014 Monthly Threads." The N/A ones are not clickable since there were no monthly threads prior to June, but if you click on the thumbnail of Sim City 4's banner it will take you to last months thread. I figured this way it looks a whole lot cleaner, and I'll still have the year in review links below.

I'm not incredibly worried about length, I think I've seen some media create threads that go under 2 pages, and those are weekly, and at times the iOS thread isn't much longer, last month's was about 2x the number of posts, but we did have a whole sale thread outside the main GOG thread last month with extremely limited releases.

I feel like the monthly format is fine, it makes people look at the OP a bunch more anyway, where you can see all the recent releases and recommendations. NeoGAF's stance now on platform threads is very strongly in favor of monthly threads (practically) regardless of activity, so it's unlikely we'd see an exception, unless some problems come up I'm not aware of. If anything more of the annual threads may see transitions to monthly ones in the future.
 
Minsc said:
The actual links to previous monthly threads from the year are immediately below the banner art, where you see the little thumbnails near the header "2014 Monthly Threads." The N/A ones are not clickable since there were no monthly threads prior to June, but if you click on the thumbnail of Sim City 4's banner it will take you to last months thread. I figured this way it looks a whole lot cleaner, and I'll still have the year in review links below.
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Ah, you're right. Sorry, did not notice that, was looking for links below the yearly thread ones..

Is there a list of games GOG offers that aren't DRM free? I know they advertise otherwise, but at least one game from my collection (Heroes of Might & Magic V) has a serial key, which is a copy protection scheme AFAIK. I've heard that Neverwinter Nights 2 does the same, any other games like that?
 
Knurek said:
Is there a list of games GOG offers that aren't DRM free? I know they advertise otherwise, but at least one game from my collection (Heroes of Might & Magic V) has a serial key, which is a copy protection scheme AFAIK. I've heard that Neverwinter Nights 2 does the same, any other games like that?
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Interesting question, I found this list from a quick search but it's hardly even close to complete (as it is clearly missing HoM&M V from it. Strangely enough, The Witcher 2 is a game that issues out CD-Keys as well, despite being from well, essentially GOG.

I guess that makes more sense when you start reading various posts on GOG not viewing a CD-Key as DRM. There's a thread with quite a bit of back and forth here that you may find interesting to read through, though it's a year or two old now. Highlights of the blue postings are:

The key isn't DRM, actually. It's used by the games to differentiate between two different clients. It's how the game knows who's giving what commands via network. While it's possible to architect a game in a different fashion than this (and, indeed, many older games do use a different system for it), it is how the games that require serial keys work, and short of getting access to the source code and rewriting the entire way the multiplayer code functions, there's no addressing this.

As for why we don't give you more than one key, well, technically you shouldn't be playing co-op with a friend if you only have one license for the game anyway. Of course, we don't use DRM so we can't exactly enforce this, but the general analogy we use is "treat your download like a CD". If you loaned the CD to your friend to play, you wouldn't be able to play it until he gave it back. Treating GOG.com downloads the same way seems fair to us, so that you can still share your games with your friends--but only if you're not using them while you do.
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In our T&C, you are correct. But if you ever read any of the EULA's for any game you download ever, you'll see you're actually purchasing a single-use license. If you install the game on eleven computers that you own, that's fine, as long as you're the one playing it. After all, a game installed on eleven computers doesn't matter, since you can only physically play one computer at a time.

Okay, it's probably possible to play more than one computer at once, but it's hardly practical.
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Do we tell you that you are free to use your game unhindered by DRM? Well, yes. But we don't say you're free to use your game unhindered by any EULA anywhere. These are specific legal contracts.

Yes, some games allow you to install them multiple times and play them via LAN; those very same games don't require a CD key to play online and--presumably--have a different EULA.

Some games don't. Their EULA tells you that you're buying a single-use license. As such, only a single person is allowed to be using it at a given time.

On to the root of your question, though: I would argue this kind of CD check for online play is not DRM. It's more like a philosophy of multiplayer design. Some programs are built to allow you to communicate with other players. Some aren't.

Arguing that JA2 has DRM because it's not designed to let you play it in the manner you want to because there's no online mode is incorrect. Likewise, I think that saying that a game has DRM because it doesn't have "everyone in my LAN can play off of my one CD" is fallacious; the designers elected to make the game a certain way. Either you play along or you go and buy another game.

Now, you may argue that any CD check at all is DRM. That's a harder argument to defend against, simply because there are very differing opinions on what DRM is. Suffice to say, GOG.com does not agree with you in this regard, given how very anti-DRM we are.
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Generally speaking though, games that require keys like HoMMV like you mention only need them for multiplayer, if you use HoMMV to play single player or hotseat or just skirmish vs AI you're not prompted for anything.

There's quite a bit of debate in there whether a CD-Key (and by extension perhaps those checks where you have to spin a wheel or lookup a word - perhaps even scratch and sniff) is really DRM or not, guess it goes down to how you define it. By some people's definitions perhaps even a DOS game calling to check if a CD is in the drive is DRM, and they don't go in and remove those checks when DOSBox emulates the CD being in the drive virtually and satisfies those checks.
 
Examiner wrote a summary of the situation around the release of Divinity: Original Sin, in case anyone is interested.

GOG has also posted an update on their forum.

We'd like to make sure that our reasons for delaying Divinity: Original Sin are clear. The game has multiplayer features to play with friends online. In the future, we will be supporting such multiplayer features in new games thanks to GOG Galaxy (and bringing you more games along the way), however, as of today we do not provide multiplayer backend and components for games.

We did not believe it would be fair to offer you a version of Divinity: Original Sin that does not include these features, we also, without a doubt, underestimated the number of people who would want to play the game regardless. We wanted to make sure that the GOG.com community gets the complete Divinity: Original Sin experience.
Guys, your voices have been heard. We have to admit that we should have done it differently!

We will release Divinity: Original Sin in the next few days. We are working on the Windows version of the game right now and waiting for the Mac build to arrive. The version of Divinity: Original Sin that will be available for sale, will be complete content-wise, and will allow for local/direct-IP multiplayer, but will come without the online matchmaking component and game auto-updating, which will be introduced as a later updates.

Please bear with us and sorry for not providing full explanation in the first place.
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I still love GOG, but their PR and decision-making leave quite a bit to be desired.
 
I consider CD-keys DRM. Also CD-checks, but no one cares about them for older games because they offer a workaround.

I'm therefore not too happy about GOG's new client Galaxy and how it will give publishers an easier way to include multiplayer DRM in their games.
 
Nice to see GOG be reasonable and turn around on their stance of making everyone wait for GOG Galaxy with Divinity: Original Sin. I had hoped they simply under-estimated the number of people interested in solely playing the game single-player... it's not really essential to the game to play it co-op, despite being a selling point.

Teppic said:
I consider CD-keys DRM. Also CD-checks, but no one cares about them for older games because they offer a workaround.

I'm therefore not too happy about GOG's new client Galaxy and how it will give publishers an easier way to include multiplayer DRM in their games.
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I wonder just how many well known multiplayer DRM-free games that use central servers there are (not counting local/direct IP multiplayer DRM-free games).

Looking at Divinity: Original Sin on Steam, it is said to be DRM-free. But if you want to play co-op via Steam, is it really DRM-free? If you (illegally) copied a single version on to two PCs with the intent to play it with a friend using Steam's built-in features for joining the game, it wouldn't work, despite being DRM-free. You'd still need Steam to recognize it to use Steam's enhanced connectivity and Steam wouldn't accept the copied version in to it's servers.

So will GOG Galaxy basically be DRM? It could be I suppose, all games that use GOG Galaxy could require serial keys to be supported (or perhaps easier, just require you to be logged in in only one instance and have the purchased the game on your account), not at all unlike how games now require keys for multiplayer. I suppose if you're looking to pick up an older game for the single player campaign (which is a perfectly valid thing to do with HoMM V or a similar title) the multiplayer key would be a rather insignificant form of DRM, much like you say a CD-check is.
 
Thinking about it some more I'd like to alter my previous statement. I'm fine with it as long as there's an alternative way to play the game online without using the servers through GOG Galaxy. What I like about DRM-free is that I can play the game long after support has ceased for the game, but if the online part only works through Galaxy that part of the game will dissappear when the servers goes down.

What I'm afraid of with the introduction of Galaxy is that more games will only work with multiplayer through GOG or Steam resulting in a lot of games with multiplayer will stop working in a not so distant future.
 
Interesting stats from a forum user:

Compared to the 07/12-06/13 period, in the last 12 months GOG released 21 more games, 28 more Day 1 releases, 9 fewer pre-2K ones, and 19 fewer 10+ years old.

And the yearly data:

July 1st, 2008 till June 30th, 2009
GOG Released 128 games. Out of those, 58 (~45%) were pre-2K ones.

July 1st, 2009 till June 30th, 2010
GOG Released 101 games. Out of those, 42 (~42%) were pre-2K ones.

July 1st, 2010 till June 30th, 2011
GOG Released 71 games. Out of those, 1 (~1.5%) were Day 1 games, 34 (~48%) were pre-2K ones, and 39 (~55%) were 10+ years old.

July 1st, 2011 till June 30th, 2012
GOG Released 116 games. Out of those, 5 (~4%) were Day 1 games, 52 (~45%) were pre-2K ones, and 66 (~57%) were 10+ years old.

July 1st, 2012 till June 30th, 2013
GOG Released 171 games. Out of those, 39 (~23%) were Day 1 games, 46 (~27%) were pre-2K ones, and 64 (~37%) were 10+ years old.

July 1st, 2013 till June 30th, 2014
GOG Released 192 games. Out of those, 67 (~35%) were Day 1 games, 37 (~19%) were pre-2K ones, and 45 (~23%) were 10+ years old.

Release dates have been taken from GOG pages, data is compiled here.
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Minsc, your recommended games posts are really useful. I've been sending them out to a few friends and have personally spotted a few future purchases on them.

I love reading what people have to say about some of these games, too. Thanks for spending the time putting massive posts like that together.
 
mclem said:
I'm not quite sure what you mean by those criteria, but:

* There is no life limit
* There are several checkpoints in a level - not Mega Man's one-in-the-middle-one-at-the-boss (IIRC)
* There's a risk/reward mechanic tied to a checkpoint: You can break it for extra loot, but it becomes inactive and you'll go back to an earlier one if you die.
* It has modern autosaves.
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Hmm. I'll get it on discount, just to be safe. The risk/reward thing sounds more like my style, is there an alternate path for challenge freaks like me? (Think Volgarr).
 
Gattsu25 said:
Minsc, your recommended games posts are really useful. I've been sending them out to a few friends and have personally spotted a few future purchases on them.

I love reading what people have to say about some of these games, too. Thanks for spending the time putting massive posts like that together.
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Same here, I've shared them with friends. It is truly appreciated.
 
Thanks for the kind words on the recommended games, it is a little time consuming searching for a balanced set of quotes (at least imo) or quotes in general, but I do often learn a bit myself about games I never was interested in so at least it's beneficial to me too lol.

spatenfloot said:
Is the Seven Cities of Gold any good or just nostalgia bait?
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When I searched for impressions on it, I came up short. A lot of people recalling it fondly as their entry in to computer gaming, or people that really liked it back at release, but no real detailed impressions or more recent impressions. I don't doubt it was a good and unique game, but there doesn't seem to be enough for it to be recommended.
 
Tizoc said:
Persona7, are you sure that the Fallout trilogy key won't work now?
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I can't dig it up right now but I remember they made a news or forum posting that said they had to deactivate any keys from the free offer.


If you actually bought the gift keys before they pulled them, then they should still be valid.
 
www.gog.com/forum/general/removed_from_catalog_fallout_1_2_tactics

All those who acquired Fallout, Fallout 2, or Fallout Tactics on GOG.com prior to the date of removal (that is before Tuesday, December 31st 2013, at 3:59PM GMT), will still be able to download the games' install files (as well as the bonus content) via the "My Games" section of their user accounts. Gift-codes for these three games acquired in our recent giveaway are no longer valid. However, if you own a gift-code for any or all of them that was purchased outside of the said giveaway, you'll still be able to redeem it in the foreseeable future.
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I'm having troubles logging in, I fear I may have been hacked. WTF do I do?

EDIT: according to GOG forums this is a site issue? Anyone else affected?
 
I wasn't able to log in on a PC which i wasn't already logged in either, but on the PC where I am logged in, it seems to be business as usual.
 
AHA-Lambda said:
When you tried to log in on the other PC what sort of error did you get?
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GOG just dimmed to a gray-tint over the whole page and got a spinning loading circle (or nothing in another browser) like it was trying to load, and that's it.
 
Minsc said:
GOG just dimmed to a gray-tint over the whole page and got a spinning loading circle (or nothing in another browser) like it was trying to load, and that's it.
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Hmm, I'm getting an incorrect password message and not receiving any password reset emails either =/

I can't tell if it's related or if I've been hacked!
 
They are apparently doing a bunch of back end stuff on the website for the upcoming features and galaxy stuff. This morning a bunch of people had their forum names randomly changed due to some new stuff they implemented.
 
The Black Mirror released today (2003, Adventure), don't see much about it here from a quick title-search though. Screenshots look quite promising to me however, for a horror adventure game. Which seems to be quite the popular combination, I never really realized just how many horror adventure games there were.
 
Nice release! The Black Mirror is a good game and worth playing for adventure fans. There's a solid variety of puzzle types and challenge. The major drawbacks are all the backtracking (many times you see an item with a hotspot but can't yet pick it up) and voice acting of the lead character. The biggest selling point is probably the atmosphere, and while the story is interesting at times it has a fair share of clichés.

That list of bonus items is awesome, too. :)
 
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