Most of the games I get from GoG are old. So the off-line installers are normally up-to-date with the last version. With other games that I got at the time they were released (Mostly from Obsidian and Inxile), we were always able to get their patches with a delay relatively tolerable (2 - 5 days) in relation to Steam. Even when GoG Downloader was put on deprecated mode getting the patches and the games didn't change that much.

But now, with Wasteland 3 my experience is totally different. In the first place, the special DLC seems to do not load properly on offline installed games. You need GOG Galaxy yes or yes. And the last patch, as far as I understand, seems to be already available with GOG Galaxy but is still not available for direct download.

Is this the new way ? Gog Galaxy is OK. But a magical interface to all my game stores (with their DRMs if they are not from GoG) and the games achievements is truly irrelevant for me. The experience that GoG was given to its clients originally is what got my interest on them.

P.s. Of course, this could be a problem from Inxile, but after at least 4 games released on GOG on the last 5 years. I'm very sure they know how to tackle the patches for this platform.

EDIT: I lost Internet entirely two days before Wasteland 3 release, and until now I recovered it. So, I was depending on the offline installers.

This has been the way for frequently patched new releases for quite some time now.
Two examples that i personally had massive problems when they were released have been Spellforce 3 and Pathfinder: Kingmaker.

That is why i do not buy those on GoG anymore.

Offline installers are not priority for GOG anymore. Galaxy is. Sad but true.

I had the same experience with Pathfinder: Kingmaker, a year and a half ago.

It would be less of an issue if devs released finished games... Did they stop entirely with offline installers?

No, they did not stop.

The issue was that the game was patched *often*, occasionally more than once per day.
They (or GoG) even made those patches available without having to download the full installer again.

But for some completely unknown reason, GoG only kept the last four patches avialable. So, if you did not check for a couple of days, bad luck, download the whole package again. And then, if i remember correctly, they messed up with some minor sub version, so all patches after that were actually useless, forcing you to download the whole installer again, anyway.
Can't download in a single day? Too bad, over night we updated the installer, download it all yet again!

I installed Galaxy *very* grudgingly, disabling every feature and the included services, just to update Pathfinder...

They cant release finished games, first because people buy them half baked anyway so why should they , second games are way more complex now and would require too much money to bug them out completely. Just wait a year after release to buy the new games. Cheaper, no scam, and mostly bugfree there are basically no downsides for waiting.

I believe I've read that this is a problem with GOG itself, since if I recall correctly, devs cannot directly upload new offline installers to GOG, but rather, they have to send it to GOG staff and then wait for GOG staff to do it for them.

So if that be true, then that's GOG's fault for forcing an inefficient system upon all the devs. And GOG needs to change that. And until they do, the devs can't reasonably be blamed.

Nah it was changed years ago as far as i know.

This is normal:
https://www.gog.com/forum/general/provide_a_full_and_complete_changelogged_download_system

U fortunately they do not want to change the offline installer setup to allow downloading any version etc.

It happens from time to time on newly released games that are updated often, the offline installer can be out of sync for a couple of days, but usually it goes back to normal once patched are released more sparingly.

That is untrue. In fact one reason for Galaxy was so that devs CAN upload their own builds. However GOG is not forcing the devs to do so so some still use the "old" system and send their builds to GOG for them to upload them. The offline installer will always be created later since it uses the files uploaded to GOG galaxy to create the installers. Unfortunately (afair) the devs have to flag an updated game for the offline installers to be created and sometimes this does not work correctly so someone will have to tell GOG about the update so that they start the creation process manually.

Is Wasteland 3 full of serious bugs?* Is there something wrong with the game AS IS?* Why this obsession with updates?
It's not a live service game, is it?

If answer = yes - wait for final release or use Galaxy. I'd wait for the final release, I have plenty of other games to play / other things to do.

Why? So the devs can force updates on people's libraries without any testing(by GOG)?

Tbh, i've had patches/updates before where the thing borked the game....and since GOG usually only keeps the latest version(for offline installers) i'm actually somewhat glad steam users get to (in a way) "beta test" new updates/patches first.

Just unsubscribed from all email from GOG. This thread explains why I've decided to invest nothing more in my failed GOG collection. Can't play XP games under XP. No more simple downloader. Games sold as compatible that are not (Myst IV). Many old games simply crash under Windows 10.

I've been buying games I wanted to play alone or with kids for my retirement. I have build two retro systems, and am ready for gaming under Win98SE, XP, 7, and 10. GOG is not.

Goodbye, GOG. When you trash your primary value proposition (Grand Old Games), you trash your customers and your business. Tell the suits they need to repeat Marketing 101.