That would make even less sense than it being a PR stunt. Seriously, to spend that kind of money to get us to shut up about Regional Pricing - and at least one of us (namely, me) never complained that vocally about it in the first place? That's beyond ludicrous.

And they invited me, I don't care about Regional Pricing at all. They also invited a number of Americans, who aren't effected by Regional Pricing (though that doesn't preclude them from having opinions on it).

The point is that having a poll is fine, but it's of limited use when you can't give the people being polled the information they need to answer the questions. Also depending on how it is done the results can be tampered with (often quite easily) so may not give a true or clear picture of things.

It seems to me that what GOG wanted was to take a selection of people from the community, with varying view points, and have a full and frank discussion about where they are now, what they have done in the past and will do in the future etc.
I don't really think they did it for our benefit, it was basically a focus group to see exactly how their decisions are being perceived by their customers.

I think they did it for both sides.

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People have already given various reasons as to why Skype would nod have given anywhere near the same experience. That discussion started here with a post saying basically the same thing as yours.

Careful with those slashes. One too many can destroy a link.

Thank you, I don't know what came over me, for a second there I thought the GOG forum was a sane piece of software.

Btw. if the goal is just to preserve the knowledge then kind of a static version of the older threads may suffice. No need to run two forum software. If they would not want to host a static archive, they also might be able to hand it over to the internet archive.

I would prefer a migration if possible.

Was there any timetable given for the introduction of a new forum software? (Hopefully it's not a very custom solution again.)

Because in any community large enough, trying to listen to everyone becomes harder and harder until it is impossible.

Suppose they did a poll. They would get the opinions of (wild mass guessing OR number pulled out of my ass) 20000 users. Now think about the average forum user. Most of these answers would be just "Yes/No" with nothing written about what is wrong or how to fix it. Even those who could have good points to bring may not feel in the mood to go farther than that in the poll (Yes, even those 6. Polls are as far from personal as can be; if I were flown to Warsaw I would say a lot of things I wouldn't in my almost blank poll reply).
Then you get those who would take the opportunity to write angry rants devoid of actual content, or write incomprehensible stuff. By the time they read through all that stuff, they get maybe 15 useful opinions. Of which they can't do a back and forth with those users, after all they have signed no NDA. Besides, when those 6 came back with explanations about specific topics (like regional pricing) that say "It's more complicated than we thought/hoped and I can see why GOG treats the question the way they do; sorry but the rest of the answer is 'NDA'", I may not know the answer GOG gave them myself but after years reading their posts in the forum I was already under the impression they're capable of judging it on their own. This brings some sort of feedback the community simply wouldn't get from a poll.

Asking the questions in an open forum would be even worse. In every community large enough that would be a nightmare. Can you say "thread derailment" before it happens? We wouldn't get past the first page on topic. Which naturally brings us to the same problem of the poll: too much noise to actual data.
With all that considered, calling a few handpicked members isn't a bad idea, even if costly. At least they know there will be useful data to show for the effort. Even in the physical world, if I were managing some large community of people in equal standing I would do just the same. Not forgetting: not just 6 were called, but only 6 had the time and passports to go. They wanted more opinions than just those 6. If that was their intention they are very stupid. Should have called robertgg and zoidberg . Let's give them a little time. Their actions will speak louder than any words they said.

So, static html?

No.

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Beer Tower!

Besides, the meeting gave proof that DRM-free Pizza is not a mere myth

Yes, static html (delivered as stored) of at least the content. The layout/framing/header could still be dynamic if necessary to adapt to future gray level adjustments or so. Doesn't need to be a full forum software functionality for that, just an archive.

Without any timetable I speculate that it won't happen before spring/summer next year.
Working yes, but to not much effect recently, if I'm not mistaken. This year's haul of good old video games released on GOG is not really that big or impressive. Might not be a mistake of the people at GOG still working on it. Might just be a sign of the difficulty of the task.

Do me a favour, will you dear Fairfox? Don't ever change! :D

I understand but I'm afraid red wine towers are mere figments of your red-nosed social hoe imagination.

Clearly, they should have invited you, though, for a wee demonstration of your Nox™ mastery.

Almighty wise cat you seem to now in which way this forum is broken. Could you please tell me a safe way to post hyperlinks or is there none at the moment? I am asking because I still have an OP that looks like crap because of my hyperlinks and it once looked quite good. If there would be a way for ME to fix this (I know that it would be better if GOG would do it but ...) I would love to know it.