GOG.com Affiliate program.

[Mrbloodworth]

Is Ultima Underworld on the list of games?


Edit: Wrong game.

[schild]

The open beta will probably have a handful of games for sale. If you could be patient and wait for me to get the affiliate shit up before buying a bunch of shit, that would be awesome. I know patience is the worst thing to ask of a gamer. But that's just how it goes :P

[Mrbloodworth]

The open beta will probably have a handful of games for sale. If you could be patient and wait for me to get the affiliate shit up before buying a bunch of shit, that would be awesome. I know patience is the worst thing to ask of a gamer. But that's just how it goes :P

Oh, its not that, ill buy through you and f13 (if at all). Just wanted to know about the catalog of games really.

[schild]

That was actually towards other folks. We don't know all the games in the catalog yet. I'll be sure to have a comprehensive list as soon as it's available though.

[Mrbloodworth]

cool, my bad.

[schild]

Classic PC Games For Cheap!
The makers of The Witcher prepare to launch PC game download store.

By Jeff Green

It's a little-known secret shared by old people everywhere that things used to be better back in the good old days. You know, before everything started sucking. Thankfully, the folks at CD Projekt -- the Polish game studio behind last year's excellent PC action role-playing game The Witcher -- understand this. Which is why, in addition to making their own new games, they're also about to launch a new website, Good Old Games (GOG.com), where curmudgeonly old folks and curious youngsters can download -- dirt cheap and DRM free -- classic PC games from the days of yore, all completely rejiggered to run under Windows XP and Vista.

Blessed with a fancy-pants beta press account, handed out to ensure enthusiastic coverage -- like what you're seeing here -- I recently made my way over to GOG.com and, for a mere $5.99, downloaded Fallout 1 (complete with PDF manual, screensavers, and the soundtrack). A mere 10 minutes later, I was playing this classic PC RPG in full screen on my 23-inch widescreen monitor, with nary a problem or incompatibility in sight. And once I purchased the game, I could now redownload it to any PC, for free, as many times as I wanted. Kool-Aid now fully consumed, I sent a few questions off to Adam Oldakowski, the managing director of GOG.com, to fill me in on some of the details of the operation.


UP: Don't you guys worry that the no-DRM feature is gonna make it too easy to get these games freely passed around now? I mean, it's one of the biggest appeals of GOG.com for sure, but it's also easily abusable.

AO: The no-DRM feature is something we're really proud of. We know for certain that copy-protection schemes are something gamers really hate, and it's about time they stopped being treated like criminals. In the end, all games get pirated anyway. No matter what type of protection you use, someone will hack it. But we believe that our features like DRM-free games, low price points, and cool additional materials will work like some sort of loyalty program. Hopefully, this will make people buy more games at GOG.com, and thanks to that, we'll be able to offer more games from different publishers.

1UP: The installer worked beautifully for me for Fallout 1. What have you guys done to make this happen? How were you able to go in and rejigger the code to get it to work so easily on XP/Vista? Was it just a matter of creating a new install program, and that's it? Or did you have to go in and futz with game code, too?

AO: We don't have the source code for games, so we can't do the optimization that way. It takes a little magic from our programming team to make it work. The biggest issue with the old games is the installation process -- every old game is optimized to install and run on the operating system from back then. Modern operating systems use different libraries and engines that sometimes collide with old games files, so our programmers search for such incompatibilities and bypass them with their great talent -- and little programming tricks that us ordinary people wouldn't understand.

1UP: Where are you guys getting some of the extra stuff -- like the wallpapers, avatars, and so on -- that come with when you purchase a game? Are those going to be available for every game?

AO: The additional stuff takes a fair bit of extra effort from us, especially for the materials from the games published before the Internet era. We get some of the stuff from publishers, and the rest -- about 90 percent -- comes into play thanks to the hard work of our designers. Sometimes, it's almost impossible to do something cool with the resources we find on the Internet, but we do our best to add some cool additional materials to every game.

1UP: Are you going to require a membership fee or anything like that? Or is this just a pay-by-the-game service? Is the sign-up free?

AO: We want to keep the service as simple as possible, so there are no fees for creating an account at GOG.com. All you pay for are games. Even better, some of the community features don't require users to have an account at all. But to fully experience GOG.com, we recommend signing up. With a GOG.com account, users will be able to buy and download games, write game reviews, rate games and other users' contributions, get support for the games they own, and download tons of cool and exclusive content for every game they buy.

GOG's launch titles

Here's a partial list of the games to be available for download at GOG.com's launch later this month.

From Interplay
Descent 1-3
Fallout 1 and 2
FreeSpace 2
Giants: Citizen Kabuto
Jagged Alliance 2

From Interplay
Kingpin: Life of Crime
Lionheart: Legacy of the Crusader
MDK2
Redneck Rampage
Sacrifice

From Codemasters:
Colin McRae Rally 2005
Operation Flashpoint
TOCA Race Driver 3

[schild]

Lionheart but no Planescape :(:(*:(:(:(:(

[WayAbvPar]

LMAO Redneck Rampage was the first FPS I ever played online. Good times.

[schild]

Here's what's available in the beta. I have no clue what's going to happen with the affiliate program.

Descent 3 + Expansion
shooter, fpp, sci-fi
797.5 MB

Earthworm Jim 3D
action, adventure, platformer
136.3 MB

Shattered Steel
action, fpp, sci-fi
474.9 MB

MDK 2
shooter, tpp, sci-fi
219.4 MB

F/A-18E Super Hornet
simulation, combat, modern
281.1 MB

Shogo: Mobile Armor Division
shooter, fpp, sci-fi
248.5 MB

1nsane
racing, arcade, off-road
474.3 MB

Conquest of the New World
strategy, turn-based, historical
75.5 MB

Descent + Descent 2
shooter, fpp, sci-fi
546.8 MB

Die by the Sword + Expansion
action, adventure, fantasy
482.2 MB

Evolva
shooter, tpp, sci-fi
443.8 MB

Fallout
rpg, turn-based, sci-fi
505.4 MB

Fallout 2
rpg, turn-based, sci-fi
579.6 MB

Fallout Tactics
rpg, strategy, sci-fi
1.6 GB

Freespace + Expansion
simulation, combat, sci-fi
829 MB

Freespace 2
simulation, combat, sci-fi
1.6 GB

Giants: Citizen Kabuto
shooter, tpp, sci-fi
787.7 MB

Invictus: In the Shadow of Olympus
rpg, strategy, historical
669 MB

Jagged Alliance 2: Unfinished Business
strategy, turn-based, tactical
407.8 MB

Kingpin: Life of Crime
shooter, fpp, modern
337.1 MB

Lionheart: Legacy of the Crusader
rpg, action, fantasy
699.4 MB

M.A.X. + M.A.X. 2
strategy, turn-based, sci-fi
613.4 MB

MDK
shooter, tpp, sci-fi
74 MB

Messiah
shooter, tpp, sci-fi
408.5 MB

Original War
strategy, real-time, sci-fi
978.3 MB

Sacrifice
strategy, action, fantasy
562.6 MB

[schild]

Oh, all of those seem to be $6 except 1nsane is $10.

[Yoru]

Holy fuck, there's easily half-a-dozen games there I'll purchase immediately. MAX/MAX2, Conquest of the New World, F1/F2...

That's a lot of value for $6.

[schild]

Yea. I'm hoping they launch everything immediately :(

[caladein]

Shogo!

That is certainly an awesome batch of games.

[schild]

Shogo!

I can't wait for people to complain about motion sickness again.

[Yegolev]

I might try Shogo after all this time, but... Blood 2.

I never played Giants or Messiah, so those might be interesting.

[Mazakiel]

Some excellent choices right out the gate. Now I just need to find time to play them on top of everything else. 

[HaemishM]

Fallout Tactics was the shiznit multiplayer and Shogo kicked ass. I wonder if they'd support multiplayer mods like Mechs vs. Squishies.

[UnSub]

They emailed me about using some guides I wrote. I really should get back to them.

[schild]

They emailed me about using some guides I wrote. I really should get back to them.

Please do. Have them make all checks payable to Eric Schild at f13.net. Thx.

[MrHat]

The gender question made me lol.

I thought this was suppose to have Planescape?

[schild]

That's because You Can't Read Well. Being married made you weak, stupid, and illiterate.

[Yegolev]

I am in but I have not bought anything yet.  I already own most of the good ones.  Is Sacrifice any good?

[Sky]

It was quirky. I loved it and played a lot of LAN games. The spells and creatures were amazing for the time, lots of character. Volcano and Tornado still stand out as a couple of the best implementation of video game spellcasting evar imo.

But...manawhores. That mechanic blew. I put up with it because the rest was so much fun.

[fuser]

Shogo!

I can't wait for people to complain about motion sickness again.

<qq>
RED RIOT IS OVERPOWERED
</qq>

btw the buy one get one free is great... fallout 1/2 for $5.99 legally and not dicking around with custom setups.. cannot complain there!

Get the affiliate program going, if they get lucasarts on board so I could buy SWOTL again with all add ons I'd be a happy camper.

[UnSub]

I am in but I have not bought anything yet.  I already own most of the good ones.  Is Sacrifice any good?

Yes, if repetitive on the 3rd time through. However, each god gets such a unique set of powers you really want to see them all... (or I did, but only managed to make it through about 5 out of 7 play-throughs).

[MrHat]

Hrm, I wonder if these old games + those shitty netbooks = Portal gaming!

[Tebonas]

I took advantage and got Falllout 1+2 for 6$ (had to take advantage of the get one for free deal), downloading and installation worked flawlessly. Better than the hassle with my original CDs. I like it, as soon as you get that affiliate program working, I'll shop around there for more.

[WayAbvPar]

I can't remember if I ever played Jagged Alliance 2. I played the shit out of the first one.

[Rasix]

I can't remember if I ever played Jagged Alliance 2. I played the shit out of the first one.

JA2 is a masterpiece.  I would kill for a graphical update of it. 

Silent Storm came close but... yah, robots (actually power armor/mecha but same difference, it completely changed the game).

[Yegolev]

Hrm, I wonder if these old games + those shitty netbooks = Portal gaming!

I expect this will depend on what they have to do to make it run.  If an emulator is required, it can hammer a modern system.  For example, I had unsatisfactory results trying to play System Shock (CD version) on DOSBox/XP due to framerate.

I have JA2 on CDROM, so... try again GoG. 

[HaemishM]

I got into this but haven't bought anything yet either. That Fallout 1/2 or Tactics deal looks like a very good one. They really need to get System Shock 1 & 2 working with this, maybe even some of the good Ultimas.

[MrHat]

I swear schild said they'd have Planescape Torment.

[schild]

You're wrong, Hat.

[Mrbloodworth]

LMAO Redneck Rampage was the first FPS I ever played online. Good times.

"Get' off ma lawn'" *boom shucka, boom shucka, boom shucka"

[MrHat]

You're wrong, Hat.

If having Planescape Torment on there is wrong,

I don't ever want to be right.