I've just spent the last couple of hours writing a careful and detailed review comparing Sword of the Stars with Master of Orion 2, so that people who have played MOO2 can judge whether SOTS will be to their taste or not. I've played both games, but only bought MOO2 from GOG when my ancient and well-worn MOO2 CD refused to play ball with my new machine. SOTS installed fine so I had no need to buy another copy from GOG.

I was attempting to post the review on the Sword of the Stars page.

Maybe the review ran a bit long (approx 1700 wds) but the review text box didn't object, and the "save my review" button was still green.

But clicking on the button didn't do anything. The pop-up window didn't close, didn't react, didn't do anything. I thought maybe it was a Firefox problem, so I've switched over to another browser (Opera) and tried that. Having long and bitter experience of the transience of pop-up windows, I wrote the review in a text editor. So I cut and pasted it in, and tried again. Same big fat nothing.

Can anyone clarify what's happened/going on?

THX.

Forget detailed reviews, GOG's review system apparently has a limit of 2000 characters. Which is why I won't even bother.

It'll also screw up your whitespace and present the whole thing as one enormous wall of text.

It's garbage, and writing reviews on GOG is not worth your time as it currently stands.

Better review elsewhere or maybe post your review on the game's forum so you can write to your heart's content (well, almost) and then also discuss it with others.

It could also be that you've used a Forbidden Word or Phrase, and that's why your post won't make it through.. I don't actually know if they use that system in reviews, but on the forums they do. It's ridiculous, no error message whatsoever, you just sit there waiting for the dialog to close and nothing happens. Because you typed something that was arbitrarily blacklisted.

As Clarry says, the actual review system on GOG is laughably limited; which is why I've taken to writing my reviews as forum posts as of late.

Thanks @clarry.

My review used absolutely no profanity or anything of that kind. A few words like "whitespace" were red-squiggled. But thanks for the advice.

I really think that GOG are missing out here. I basically don't read official reviews any more, because I know they're all advertising garbage, and will often present a buggy, unplayable mess as the greatest thing since coffee mocha ice cream. It's not because such paid-for reviewers are evil or stupid, but simply that it's their job. Unfortunately, they've done this so much that I don't trust them any more: they've poisoned the well, as the saying is. I base my buying decisions on thoughtful, critical three-or-four star warts 'n' all reviews. If all the reviews on a site are 5-star then I'm likely to go (and buy) somewhere else.

Too bad. :(

yes

It doesn't take profanity to get your text rejected (on the forums anyway). In a recent thread where we discussed email hosting and domains, I mentioned that I had wanted to obtain nyu.fi but couldn't due to a trademark by _ew _ork _niversity. I had a hard time figuring out why my message wouldn't get through, but properly spelling the name of that institution was the problem. Wouldn't be the first time.. (and fwiw, profanity makes it thru just fine, thank goodness) I agree they are missing out, and in turn so are we.

Sometimes it's really difficult to understand where GOG's priorities lie and what's really happening over there.

With one little caveat: Writing swear words in allcaps is also forbidden.

I love both of those games., and I just spent a few minutes right now trying to review SotS myself, just to check. Turns out I have the same problem. My browser is Opera. I haven't tried to review any other game, but since there is no deluge of review complaints here in the general forum, my guess is it's a problem with that particular game page.

After a handful of attempts (at least 2 of which didn't post) I don't bother anymore.

Did you try writing a support ticket to gog?

As for reviews, as others have said: ALWAYS save your progress to a notepad/etc while writing, before hitting submit/etc to prevent progress loss.I agree the char limit and wall of text issues are bad, but that doesn't mean the system is entirely bad. Suggesting writing/posting reviews to the game's specific forum is a good idea, though.

(I am no expert on potential gog word blacklists so I cannot comment on that part of your reply.)

Why can't one write New York university? It seems so arbitrary.

EDIT: It will indeed not accept a capital 'U' in University.

EDIT 2: New test: Tokyo University.

Yes.

I was able to post my review now.

I may have forgotten to give the review a star rating the first time I tried - I had rated it previously, so I didn't put much thought to it tbh.