GOG/Steam: Cross-play status & save game compatibility?

So, with the expansion coming out today (really looking forward to it! ) and about 18 months after Grim Dawn went live I think it’s time to talk about cross-play support again.

What is this about?

Back when Grim Dawn was released on GOG.com many players about the possibility to introduce a cross-play multiplayer feature allowing GOG.com and Steam users to join the same gameplay sessions without much hassle. This has also been brought up by Crate staff:

So, GOG has mentioned cross-play to us and asked us to look at setting that up so users can play mp between Steam and GOG. I think for LAN it may already work but I’m not 100% sure. For matchmaking, we need to get some info from them on how that has to be configured and then we’ll look at possibly doing it, depending on the amount of work involved. I think it would be great to allow people to play across platforms but I have to weigh the cost. We’ve already invested way, way more time setting up the GOG build / implementing Galaxy features than I anticipated. I’m going to say, we’re interested and will probably do it but I don’t want to promise anything yet.

Source: grimdawn.com/forums/showpost.php?p=359283&postcount=23 (not allowed to post links right now)

Nothing has happened since then and I don’t know if this is still on Crate’s agenda for the game. Steam and GOG users are still forced to use the LAN mode via Tunngle or Hamachi in order to play with each other.

I still like to see cross-play support! Many GOG and Steam games already have some kind of cross-play implemented and with such a dedicated and active Grim Dawn community around it would help to bring a lot of players together and and deal with the frustrations of many GOG users who are unable to find other people to play with. Maybe Crate devs should get in touch with GOG again? I’m pretty sure things have also moved forward on their side.

On a side note: About a year ago one was unable to transfer a Steam save game to GOG versions of the game. It worked the other way around though. Is this still the case? If so I would really like to see a fix for this too!

Best,
ShadowOwl

On the second point are you using Cloud save? Also are you talking about multiplay or single play for the saves? Because I playtest on Steam, but have my main game on GOG and have no problems accessing my toons on either using local saving, not Cloud.

AFAIK the GOG version didn’t pick up up save games from the Steam version once they have been saved to the cloud at any point. I will have to verify that once I’m back home.

I would not expect the GOG version to do that, because the local copies of your Steam cloud saves are in a different location than when you do not use Cloud Saving.

But you find a download option on the Network tab in the GD options - Cloud Saving needs to be enabled in your Steam version. If you do not have a Steam version anymore, you can do it manually.

I’m pretty sure that what i have done back then: I manually moved the Steam saves (once available on my local drive) to the default GOG save game location. The caracter showed up in GOG version but always crashed when trying to load/continue the game.

GOG and Steam versions store save games in the same location, if you are not using Cloud Saving. medea and I have been able to continue with chars, when we switched to GOG and also, when a new build went into closed testing and we had to switch back to the Steam version.

If you crash, then the char seems to be corrupted. Does it still work with the Steam version?

Have you updated the GOG version to the latest build? The format of the save game files was changed in preparation to the expansion, and updated chars do not work with V1.0.0.9 and older versions anymore.

Unless we launch our own servers (not likely), it’s up to GOG and Steam to play along.

Back then both versions were the same and the GOG version would just crash when trying to load the one from Steam.

I have tried to import my char from Steam yesterday and had no such trouble this time. :slight_smile: Thanks for your input!

Thanks for your reply, I understand. It still might be worth to get in touch with GOG again to explore any alternatives (if you haven’t done so already). On a side node, THQ Nordic is obviously running its own master server for Titan Quest AE as Steam and GOG players can join each others games just fine via server browser.

According to GOG’s website if you have GOG Galaxy installed you can crossplay with Steam.

I love the way they say that Galaxy’s an optional feature, but installed it anyway when I downloaded and installed the expansion.

That’s a general feature they mention to advertise GOG Galaxy but it ultimately depends on the game.

Direct quote from the Grim Dawn product page on GOG.com:

Multiplayer available only between GOG.com users.

https://www.gog.com/game/grim_dawn

Yeah, it’s never as simple as they make it out to be.

I bought Grim Dawn on GOG because I absolutely hate the Steam DRM, and therefore I hate buying anything on Steam, and because I wanted to support you, the Grim Dawn developers.

I was tempted not to buy Grim Dawn at all due to the lack of crossplay with Steam. I knew before I bought it that this would result in me, as a GOG user, receiving a poor multiplayer experience with Grim Dawn due to the small player base of GOG.

Yesterday when I browsed the multiplayer games on GOG, literally zero games were listed.

I then hosted my own multiplayer games for about 6 hours. Within all of that time, only two people joined my games.

I think Grim Dawn is a great game, but playing alone in this genre of game is not nearly as much fun as is playing with other people.

The designers of the Diablo games made them robust multiplayer experiences, and that is why they sold and continue to sell many millions of copies. Great multiplayer is the reason why Diablo II has remained extremely popular for an extremely long period of time.

Therefore, I believe it will be a win/win situation for everyone if the makers of Grim Dawn start to buff up the multiplayer experience and make it great. That will give your Grim Dawn games longevity and many new sales long into the future to an extent that they will not have if Grim Dawn multiplayer remains as is. Buffing up multiplayer will also establish goodwill among the gaming community and likely ensure strong sales for all of your future games.

One great way to begin buffing up multiplayer is to implement crossplay between GOG and Steam versions. That is also the right thing to do ethically: GOG users shouldn’t be getting shafted on the Grim Dawn multiplayer experience just because they didn’t buy from Steam.

The implications of this statement are not clear.

Does it refer to crossplay, or to save game compatibility?

Have the Grim Dawn developers ever tried to make crossplay work?

Will they try to make crossplay work [again] now?

Are the Grim Dawn developers never going to bother even trying to implement crossplay? If they are not, that would really suck, but at least a definitive statement from the developers which declares that no crossplay is ever coming will be better than saying nothing, because then at least all GOG users will know before they buy that they are definitely getting a sub-par multiplayer experience if they buy Grim Dawn on GOG.

Yes, it refers to Crossplay. My understanding is that GoG promotes Crossplay, so they should be able to do Crossplay? Not sure what if anything the devs need to do, but from Zantai’s post it seems nothing - it’s on GoG/Steam. So I guess press GoG?

The save games are compatible as a number of players use Steam and GoG and are able to use the same save game files as they are stored in the same location.

I don’t know what GOG and/or the Grim Dawn devs need to do to make crossplay work, but I bet if they communicated with each other, then they can figure out how to make it happen. Or if they can’t, then at least they could tell us they talked about it, and it won’t work, and tell us the reasons why it won’t work.

That save game compatibility is a small light at the end of the tunnel, but as a solution it’s still shafting GOG users because they have to buy the games twice whereas Steam users only have to buy the games once. With crossplay, no one gets shafted.

There is no save game compatibility issue between Steam and GoG versions of Grim Dawn.

If customers read the product they were buying, then they wouldn’t shaft themselves.

From the GoG store page for Grim Dawn:

Multiplayer Notice: Please note that the GOG Galaxy Client is required to access Multiplayer

Multiplayer available only between GOG.com users.

Local Area Network (LAN) does not require the GOG Galaxy Client to access.

While it’s something that might be on the devs wishlist to do sometime in the future, Zantai has said before that only around 10% of the player base mutliplays. How big a percentage of that 10% would want to crossplay I don’t know, but Crate have better things to spend their money on imho.

Yes, I realize that there is no save game compatibility issue.

My point was only that your solution for allowing GOG users & Steam users to play together is still unfair to GOG users, because that solution requires GOG users to buy the games twice and therefore pay double the cost in real dollars than do Steam users, in order to have the same experience as Steam users.

As for your point that reading the information on the GOG website means that GOG users won’t shaft themselves, I disagree. My rebuttal to that point is:

a) GOG users do not know that crossplay will never be implemented. In fact, the Grim Dawn devs have commented a long time ago that they are looking into implementing crossplay. But after that, as far as I can tell, they have said nothing further on the subject. Therefore, based on those words from the Grim Dawn devs, GOG users may still hold out hope that crossplay will be coming eventually.

and

b) When GOG users read the GOG webpage, that will not tell them that in actual reality, “multiplayer between GOG users only” will result in them having literally no multiplayer games listed to join and no one else to play with. In other words, they are actually getting a singleplayer-only experience in a game that is advertised as multiplayer.

But if the game had great multiplayer, then the percentage of the player base that multiplays would drastically increase. And so would the sales of Grim Dawn.

a) Presumably neither do Steam players.

b) Nothing the devs can do about the fact that GOG simply sells less copies than Steam.

The same issue applies to Steam. There is no guarantee that a game on Steam will have other people who play that game to play multiplayer.

It’s just Steam is bigger and been around longer, so its more likely there will be other players.

I’m sorry that you are unable to find players for GD multi-player. Perhaps posting a thread in the forums about looking for players using the GoG version might get you something?

Are you saying that Steam players don’t have Grim Dawn games listed to join? I wouldn’t know, since I hate Steam and rarely buy from them.

But if that is so, that sucks. Why aren’t the Steam players multiplaying Grim Dawn?

Yes, the devs can do nothing about GOG selling less copies than Steam. However, the devs can mitigate that problem by implementing crossplay so that the small player base of GOG becomes a moot point in regards to Grim Dawn.