GOG - How GOG.com Save And Restore Classic Videogames (+ newer)

[wanderer27]

Here's an interesting Article on how they track, recover, and add games to their Catalog :

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2015/09/16/how-gog-com-save-and-restore-classic-videogames/



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[Zenoth]

Read it, very good article, thanks for sharing.

I still remember when I first heard of Good Old Games, I thought that it was one of the best things to have ever happened to video gaming as a whole (and still believe so today).

 

[bbhaag]

Neat article and worth the read. I like the part toward the end about not only getting the games to GOG but also acquiring the original boxed art/content.

When I was a kid the ship blueprints that came with Wing Commander kept me fascinated for hours on end as I pored over them. When I bought WC through GOG it came with pdf's of those blueprints. Truly neat stuff.

 

[BSim500]

Here's an interesting Article on how they track, recover, and add games to their Catalog :

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2015/09/16/how-gog-com-save-and-restore-classic-videogames/.

Good read. I've always been impressed at how well DRM is stripped out and the quality of GOG's reverse engineering coders without access to source code. I think it was The Longest Journey that suffered a progression bug in one chapter. They released a new .dll file that fixed it pretty quickly. Modern resolutions and widescreen / FOV patches are seamlessly integrated for many games. Some even have whole new renderers, eg, Deus Ex and Dark Engine games Thief 1&2 + System Shock 2, pre-patched from DX 7/8 to DX10. Free soundtracks, avatars, etc, are always nice. Some games have free walkthrough guides too. Best thing that's happened to us "old-school" gamers in my opinion.

 

[Lonyo]

For various games the community has already done the work, so it's not all about GoG doing it (not to downplay what they do manage to accomplish).

e.g. DX10 render for UnrealEngine: http://www.kentie.net/article/d3d10drv/
System Shock 2 already had a lot of user mods and upgrades as well, WSGF has modern resolution and widescreen/FOV patches and has done for a long time for older games.
They do the integration part though.

 

[HeXen]

Good read. I've always been impressed at how well DRM is stripped out and the quality of GOG's reverse engineering coders without access to source code. I think it was The Longest Journey that suffered a progression bug in one chapter. They released a new .dll file that fixed it pretty quickly. Modern resolutions and widescreen / FOV patches are seamlessly integrated for many games. Some even have whole new renderers, eg, Deus Ex and Dark Engine games Thief 1&2 + System Shock 2, pre-patched from DX 7/8 to DX10. Free soundtracks, avatars, etc, are always nice. Some games have free walkthrough guides too. Best thing that's happened to us "old-school" gamers in my opinion.

I dunno, Robin Hood's resolution was still pretty screwed up for me. I had to play it with all the sides blacked out using maybe 1/4 of my screen. I had some funky control issues in one game, I think it may have been Omikron but I quit buying games from them.

Would be awesome if they started investing in remaking some of those old games using modern graphic engines though.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

Could someone explain why a games original source code is so important? What is the difference between that and a retail disk/CD?
Was a cool article

 

[Piotrsama]

Could someone explain why a games original source code is so important? What is the difference between that and a retail disk/CD?
Was a cool article

It's way easier to modify/fix a program if you have the source code, otherwise you have to deal with assembler (reverse engineer the code).

 

[Lonyo]

I dunno, Robin Hood's resolution was still pretty screwed up for me. I had to play it with all the sides blacked out using maybe 1/4 of my screen. I had some funky control issues in one game, I think it may have been Omikron but I quit buying games from them.

Would be awesome if they started investing in remaking some of those old games using modern graphic engines though.

If you contact them, they will try and help you resolve issues, and if you can't manage to resolve them they will give you a refund.