Online distributor GOG announced

Per said:
Secondly, the games have purportedly been rigged to work flawlessly on Windows XP and Vista, a feat which according to Shacknews has been done with access to the games' source code.
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This isn't entirely a good thing. Recompiling the source code means that sfall wont work, and hence pieces of Killap's patch and restoration project, and also the megamod wont work. The resolution patch, city patch, and all other patches which modify the exe will also need to be modified, along with any mods which rely on them. In exchange for fixing some bugs, most of which have been fixed by the community already, many existing mods aren't going to work without modification. Hopefully none of the data files are changed, so that the new exe can be switched out with the old ones without causing any problems.

On the other hand, most players don't bother with mods, and it's better for them that the game works straight out of the box.
 
Kyuu said:
I'm amazed it took this long for someone to come up with this idea. Of course, the idea has probably been there for a long time, but getting access to the source codes of these games probably took an extraordinary amount of digging, pleading, and finagling.
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I thought that at first as well, but then I realized that whoever owns the rights to those games currently isn't making a dime off of their retail sales anymore; and that they'd probably jump at the opportunity to not only have their games distributed digitally.. but fixed as well.
 
Phil the Nuka-Cola Dude said:
Kyuu said:
I'm amazed it took this long for someone to come up with this idea. Of course, the idea has probably been there for a long time, but getting access to the source codes of these games probably took an extraordinary amount of digging, pleading, and finagling.
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I thought that at first as well, but then I realized that whoever owns the rights to those games currently isn't making a dime off of their retail sales anymore; and that they'd probably jump at the opportunity to not only have their games distributed digitally.. but fixed as well.
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You really would think so would'nt you?
But publishers can be funny beasts about source code and assets.

Of course it does happen. I was majorly gob-smacked when Microsoft publicly relesed the source code and assets for Mechcommander 2 for instance, and I believe that the Homeworld source code was released as well. Of course these are public releases :wink:
 
Jiggly McNerdington said:
Gotta say, CD Projekt just seems to be getting better and better. Admittedly I only know them from The Witcher, but with their support of that and now making a service as cool as this I'm a hell of a lot more inclined to throw money at them.
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With the successful model like Valve's Steam (and the short live
Triton), everyone is getting started to embrace teh powa of the intanet.
What amazed me is CD Projekt's first selection of games. Those are damn good classic. Sweet :D

Jiggly McNerdington said:
Buying the game is just the beginning. With a purchase of any game at GOG.com you'll also get some great additional materials for free, including game guides, walkthroughs, wallpapers and more. No joke.
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Not bad for a bonus of 6 dollars purchase.

Timeslip said:
This isn't entirely a good thing. Recompiling the source code means that sfall wont work, and hence pieces of Killap's patch and restoration project, and also the megamod wont work. The resolution patch, city patch, and all other patches which modify the exe will also need to be modified, along with any mods which rely on them. In exchange for fixing some bugs, most of which have been fixed by the community already, many existing mods aren't going to work without modification. Hopefully none of the data files are changed, so that the new exe can be switched out with the old ones without causing any problems.
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Modders can always choose to mod the revamped games. :)

Timeslip said:
On the other hand, most players don't bother with mods, and it's better for them that the game works straight out of the box.
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They do if they are addicted to the game. Which is where mod comes into.
:)
 
zioburosky13 said:
Timeslip said:
On the other hand, most players don't bother with mods, and it's better for them that the game works straight out of the box.
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They do if they are addicted to the game. Which is where mod comes into.
:)
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Yep, and modding can make a game's lifespan much much longer. Many dev studios recognise this, and making sure a game is moddable often a (albe it minor) factor in game design and development.
 
Ausir said:
The service will be North America only for now, by the way.
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How do you know? It makes sense to me, but I didn't find any information about it.

Madbringer said:
Holy fuck! :shock:

This is great, now i can finally get at least some of the classics i missed out on. I hope they'll deal with games older than those on the teaser screen, too.

XP compatible Syndicate? Magic Carpet? System Shock 1? Toonstruck?
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Don't get your hopes up too high. They'll probably use DOSBox for dos games... see here: http://forums.3drealms.com/vb/showthread.php?t=32172 (look for Qbix's posts). Which saves users trouble, but is not exactly what I would call "XP compatible". :(
 
Ashmo said:
Source? Because that would make me rage-kill them in an instant.
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I skimmed through all three pages of the interview, and couldn't find anything mentioning it being exclusive to the US, and I seriously doubt they'd do that in the first place.


Make sure you register your email at the website to be notified when the closed beta signup starts; if you get into the beta you'll get one of those games for free, no strings attached.
 
Atombunker said:
Don't get your hopes up too high. They'll probably use DOSBox for dos games... see here: http://forums.3drealms.com/vb/showthread.php?t=32172 (look for Qbix's posts). Which saves users trouble, but is not exactly what I would call "XP compatible". :(
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doh ... what did you expect ? o_O
i dont even want to think about effort required to port each of dos games to win32, that would be sick, and stupid

there is dosbox, it works, whats wrong with that ?
if you can run it on XP its XP compatibile (who gives a damn about it running natively?)
that said i do expect some preconfiguration of dosbox for each of released titles
 
kyle said:
doh ... what did you expect ? o_O
i dont even want to think about effort required to port each of dos games to win32, that would be sick, and stupid
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No, that would be great, and wonderful.

there is dosbox, it works, whats wrong with that ?
if you can run it on XP its XP compatibile (who gives a damn about it running natively?)
that said i do expect some preconfiguration of dosbox for each of released titles
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There is nothing wrong with dosbox. But why should I buy these games from GOG, when they already work with dosbox? System Shock 1, for example runs fine with dosbox. This is fine for newbie users, which don't want the hassle with the configuration.

Read the initial shacknews article again. It does imply they are doing crazy stuff with the games, that's (partly) why people got excited over this. I know I did.
 
Because it's illegal to get these games for free on the intranets ? I know what you're thinking but that's probably the reason why they hope to still sell a few of these.
 
Ausir said:
The service will be North America only for now, by the way.
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Way to prick my balloon there Ausir.
Seems a bit odd though, they're European themselves. They should know firsthand how much that shit sucks.

I can imagine there'd be some trouble with games that were censored for release here (like the Fallouts), but other than that I don't see what the problem is.
Probably just the publishers screwing us over as usual.
 
Well for me, I missed out on a great many of those classics growing up. I had a Mac, and my Sega Genesis. While that means I got to enjoy such brilliant games as the Marathon trilogy, Sword of Vermillion, the Phantasy Stars (I had the little attachment for the Genesis that let me play Master System games on it even), and the like, all those old DOS/early Windows games like System Shock and whatever I never experienced.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who missed out on a lot of great old games who'd gladly buy them off GoG once it's up and running. Man it'd be great if they had PC ports of the Marathon games too...

Edit:
Phil the Nuka-Cola Dude said:
I thought that at first as well, but then I realized that whoever owns the rights to those games currently isn't making a dime off of their retail sales anymore; and that they'd probably jump at the opportunity to not only have their games distributed digitally.. but fixed as well.
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As CodeZombie pointed out, you'd think that would be the case. But, experience with the video game industry (and software industry in general) shows that more often than not, publishers are extremely weird when it comes to their assets, particularly source codes. They seem to feel threatened by the very idea that they'd give someone access to their precious code, even when they stand to gain nothing by keeping it to themselves.
 
I'd really like to see Planescape Torment and Daggerfall make it. It's a shame that you have to spend upwards to $80 or more to get either of these titles. :(

I wouldn't mind seeing old DOS games on there either but I have my collection of em' already anyway, so it wouldn't make a difference for me. And DOSBOX is not that much of a hassle so I wouldn't really care if they somehow made it Windows compatible.
 
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