Question for people who use GOG

[Edmond Dantes]

I've heard that some re-releases (such as the Vivendi compilations of Sierra adventure games and a recent Command and Conquer box-set) actually reprogram the games so extensively that you NEED to use a newer OS to play them, despite them being older games. IE if you tried to copy the original Command and Conquer (from the 10-year boxset) over to an MS-DOS 486 and play it, it wouldn't work.

Now, I know GOG has its games packaged with Dosbox so they'll run in modern operating environments. But do I also still have the option of copying them over to an actual Dos machine and playing them that way, or are they hard-coded to require Dosbox no matter what?

Thanks in advance.

[drauch]

Hmmmm, if I recall, don't most GOG DOS games come packaged with the original setup files and the like? I'd say the only games that need newer operating systems would be later titles. Stuff like Thief, System Shock 2, etc.

[Ghegs]

But do I also still have the option of copying them over to an actual Dos machine and playing them that way, or are they hard-coded to require Dosbox no matter what?

I'm guessing you have the option, but since the GOG releases come with installers that certainly won't work in MS-DOS, you'd have to first install them to any modern system, then take the files it creates and move them to your actual DOS computer. Then you can just run them normally.

[Mortificator]

Yeah, the games that were designed for older versions of Windows were altered to make them run on newer ones, and I expect that may or may not break compatibility with the original hardware... it might vary from game to game. The DOS games are just the files packaged with a preconfigured DOSBox installation.

The first three Command & Conquer games were released as freeware years ago, though.

[drauch]

Yeah... that's the thing: a lot of older games released on GOG are freeware. People are just lazy and don't want to figure out DOSbox.

[Ghegs]

dracuh, can you actually name a single game that's been officially released as freeware (and still is, some titles were only free for a limited time) that GOG is charging money for? They do have a dozen free games in their catalogue as it is.

The double hashtags seem to break the forum's link function, but they're here: http://www.gog.com/games##price=free

[drauch]

dracuh, can you actually name a single game that's been officially released as freeware (and still is, some titles were only free for a limited time) that GOG is charging money for? They do have a dozen free games in their catalogue as it is.

Might just be me jumping the gun, actually, as I don't use GOG. I'm a diehard old PC gamer, so I have no use for emulation. A friend informed me on multiple titles, so he may have just been referring to some of the free titles. Probably my mistake.

[Edmond Dantes]

The first three Command & Conquer games were released as freeware years ago, though.

When you say "first three" do you mean C&C, Red Alert, and C&C 2? Or do you mean C&C 1, 2, and 3? (the former would be the first three in release order).

Actually the main games I was lookin' at were Blood and Shadow Warrior. Kinda on a classic FPS/Build Engine binge right now.

[ZellSF]

GoG usually doesn't do much to their releases. They'll generally work as the originals did. Same applies for all re-releases of old games (Steam, Retail compilations) really.

They'd like you to believe there's some extensive reprogramming made to work it on newer systems, but it's generally just fan patches and in cases of big publishers: some additional DRM.

[drauch]

Ha... C&C 3 freeware? That was fast! He's talking about C&C, Red Alert, and Tiberium Sun. And yes, they are indeed.

[ZellSF]

I'm not sure they are any longer.

[drauch]

I did a quick search across various abandonware sites. Still seem to be readily available, legally, or at least looks that way. I know they've re-released them in a few collections now, but I think at this point they just don't care anymore. Much like Bethesda with the first few in the ES series.

[lilmanjs]

I've only used GOG for a few games, but it looks like most of the titles are just packaged with a GOG installer, and are just the original game once installed. Though the first game in the Command & Conquer series was never a freeware release strangely enough. They decided at one time to release the Gold version for free. I've never played that,(not included in the first decade release and I think not included in the ripoff download only collection released years later) so what is different?

[ZellSF]

I did a quick search across various abandonware sites. Still seem to be readily available, legally, or at least looks that way. I know they've re-released them in a few collections now, but I think at this point they just don't care anymore. Much like Bethesda with the first few in the ES series.

Abandonware isn't legal.

Neither is distributing the games without EA's permission,unless they actually changed the license. I'm thinking EA gave it away for free for a while under the terms that it not be re-distributed.

That's guesswork of course, but the point I'm trying to make is that it was free once does not necessarily mean it's always free.

[Edmond Dantes]

I've only used GOG for a few games, but it looks like most of the titles are just packaged with a GOG installer, and are just the original game once installed. Though the first game in the Command & Conquer series was never a freeware release strangely enough. They decided at one time to release the Gold version for free. I've never played that,(not included in the first decade release and I think not included in the ripoff download only collection released years later) so what is different?

I've only ever played the Gold edition (I have the "Worldwide Warfare" compilation--C&C and Red Alert with all expansions. This was before C&C 2 came out) but from what I understand the basic difference is just that Gold is for Windows 95 while regular C&C was for DOS. I'm not sure if anything was updated or improved.

Drauch mentioned "Bethesda and their ES releases." Didn't Bethesda make a compilation recently of all five Elder Scrolls games? (I already have Arena and Daggerfall tho, the latter complete with box and documentation).

[CStarFlare]

Yes, it's quite nice. Hard to get used to Daggerfall after playing Oblivion and Skyrim. :X

[Edmond Dantes]

I've played Oblivion, and to my surprise I quite liked it, but I still like Daggerfall more. If anything just because I don't have to borrow a friend's X-Box 360 to play it.

[drauch]

Drauch mentioned "Bethesda and their ES releases." Didn't Bethesda make a compilation recently of all five Elder Scrolls games? (I already have Arena and Daggerfall tho, the latter complete with box and documentation).

Yup. This was after they released them free to download on their site. Don't have it myself, but their anthology set looks quite nice in person.

Yeah, guess "legal" probably wasn't the right way to define abandonware. I guess I should have said "much easier to find and download without many people batting an eye."

[Mortificator]

Reminds me that Bethesda's one of the few companies to complain about replacementdocs making scans of their game manuals available, even for the games that are free.

[ZellSF]

I've only used GOG for a few games, but it looks like most of the titles are just packaged with a GOG installer, and are just the original game once installed. Though the first game in the Command & Conquer series was never a freeware release strangely enough. They decided at one time to release the Gold version for free. I've never played that,(not included in the first decade release and I think not included in the ripoff download only collection released years later) so what is different?

I've only ever played the Gold edition (I have the "Worldwide Warfare" compilation--C&C and Red Alert with all expansions. This was before C&C 2 came out) but from what I understand the basic difference is just that Gold is for Windows 95 while regular C&C was for DOS. I'm not sure if anything was updated or improved.

Drauch mentioned "Bethesda and their ES releases." Didn't Bethesda make a compilation recently of all five Elder Scrolls games? (I already have Arena and Daggerfall tho, the latter complete with box and documentation).

Gold is also the version included in the First Decade, and pretty much all re-releases, it's just not labelled as such. Gold just means the Windows release, which at the time ran at 640x400 over the DOS version's 320x200.

Of course with fan patches you can run the games at any resolution you want (depending on how tolerant you are about glitches when viewpoint exceeds map size, but even if you can't tolerate that you can still get widescreen with no glitches).

[Aguraki]

love gog but had some displeasant surprises with the no drm thing.
I bought spelunky there and the gog version doesnt have leaderboards or daily challenge (steam only).
was pretty pissed but my own fault for not reading it I guess.

[Ganelon]

I've played Oblivion, and to my surprise I quite liked it, but I still like Daggerfall more. If anything just because I don't have to borrow a friend's X-Box 360 to play it.

Daggerfall still has the raw ambition and unparalleled (if somewhat flawed) scope that was never captured by later Elder Scrolls games. It's always been my favorite of the series and probably the RPG I've spent the most time on.

The Elder Scrolls: Anthology is solid but not including the side games (which aren't compatible with modern systems last I checked) and putting in the floppy version of Arena instead of the CD version (that included voices) were big let-downs.

[lilmanjs]

For C&C, is gold the version with all the extra music?

[Edmond Dantes]

Well, I decided to find out for sure using some of GOG's free games.

The result?

Tyrian 2000 and the Worlds of Ultima games, at least, will work on a native DOS platform. So I can assume other games will as well.

*Eyeballs those low prices on Blood and Shadow Warrior...*

[Illyrian]

They actually fix problems with some games as well.

Commandos: Behind Enemy Lines runs at superspeed on anything more powerful than a Pentium II, but they fixed this in thr GoG release so it runs at standard speed all the time.

And yes, in most cases the original installing methods are included.

[Ed Oscuro]

*Eyeballs those low prices on Blood and Shadow Warrior...*

Both of these have pretty competent third-party options. Shadow Warrior via JonoF (or something similar) is pretty good actually - and there's been some rare stuff (like a whole unreleased episode, Sunsoft Interactive I think, which is now released for free) out there too.

[ZellSF]

They actually fix problems with some games as well.

Commandos: Behind Enemy Lines runs at superspeed on anything more powerful than a Pentium II, but they fixed this in thr GoG release so it runs at standard speed all the time.

And yes, in most cases the original installing methods are included.

Usually (I'm not saying always) they don't fix anything, but include previous official and/or fan fixes.

I just don't like GoG getting credit for work they're not doing (most of the time).

For C&C, is gold the version with all the extra music?

Depends entirely on what you mean by extra music, though with the latest fan patch (which is only for C&C Gold) you can pretty much choose any version of the soundtrack you want. C&C Gold with the latest fan patch is pretty much the definite version of the game and runs nicely even under newer OSes. If you want perfect native resolution graphics you need a display and graphic card driver that does 640x400 though. If you don't, the fan patch can do aspect ratio correction.

[Edmond Dantes]

Both of these have pretty competent third-party options. Shadow Warrior via JonoF (or something similar) is pretty good actually - and there's been some rare stuff (like a whole unreleased episode, Sunsoft Interactive I think, which is now released for free) out there too.

I think the GOG edition actually comes with that expansion.

Of the two I'm more interested in Blood at the moment, but I'll need Shadow Warrior sometime. "Holy Cow! Look-a-like Duke Nukem!" (spoken with a heavy accent)

Damn, Blood is hard. I usually have trouble getting past E1M1, despite knowing where all but one of the secrets are. I want to blame my cat, but that would be dishonorable.

[drauch]

Blood is quite brutal, but each level is fun and inventive and quite rewarding. Some pretty frantic boss battles and tons o' enemies, just the way I like it. Plenty of obscure references to horror movies and other fiction (you start off in the cemetery from Phantasm, even.) As much as I love Doom and Duke, Blood is probably my favorite of the classic FPS games, and the most technically impressive. I attempted a run through on the hardest difficulty a bit last year. Didn't last too long. Even on just standard difficulty those goddamn fire dogs can chew your health away in no time, and a sneaky cultist that gets the drop on you can run down your entire health in mere seconds.

[Edmond Dantes]

Blood is quite brutal,

Would you even say... bloody brutal?

Blood so far strikes me as the "Rise of the Triad" of the Build engine. Both are games that were overshadowed by technical marvels (ROTT by Doom, Blood by Quake*) and which offered their own unique spins on a genre that even back then was becoming formulaic and stale. Part of Blood's difficulty (as well as its awesomeness) I find, comes from getting used to the weapons. The Flare Gun isn't a pistol, not really, but once you know how it works, it's powerful. I actually hate the "Guns Akimbo" power-up because a lot of times, I feel it just causes me to waste ammo when I don't need to. If one flare sticks to a zombie, you don't need to shoot him again--just dodge him until he goes up in flames. But then again, I still haven't managed to get past the Train...

... And I'm resisting the temptation to save-scum. For some FPSes I'll save at the end of the level or just before a dangerous situation, but that's usually only when I'm getting bored, since save-scumming tends to kill the game's funfactor (and really make the player suck at the game). It's just more fun to learn the levels.

Altho, I hate rats and bats. They're so hard to hit, they're honestly more annoying than the zombies and cultists.

By the way, what the heck is BeastVision supposed to do?

* "Rot by Doom, Blood by Quake" could almost be the title of a gothic horror novel. Somebody write it.