Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - Suggestions and Feedback ... Still waiting for a retail PC version ...

Hello,

I've never bought so far DOS2, because I've always been waiting for a PC retail version ... And yes, I'm THAT old.
Unfortunately it never came, and that's what saddened me - especially since DOS1 did have such a version.

I fear that I must buy a PS4 version if I want to have something physical ...

And yes, I'm one of that stupid old people who do want to hold game packages in their hands ... Buying games that are available online only is like buying dust to me ... Servers can be switched off one day (and the usual argument goes like "but steam will be there for a long time now"), but even big companies like Microsoft and EA turn servers off ... So why should be any other company be any different ?

Having a game sitting on my HD alone is like dust to me : Magnetic particles can wear off, and there's always the possibility of an HD headcrash, too ... No, I want games on discs ( okay, discs might not hold their data for 30 years as well ) so that I at one point in the future manage to get a virzal machine up and running, I might play a game that's still on my CD / DVD / Blueray ...

I had hoped that there would be at least some sort of "definitive edition" in retail ... But, well, it actually WAS there ... but only for the PS4 ... ( "What do PS4 users have what PC users don't have ?" )

... So, I'm still waiting, even although I'm far in the minority ... And yes, I do feel old ...

Regards,
Alrik

One has to order a DvD drive to get one anymore so there may not be enough demand. Still, couldn't cost that much to make them on order, I suppose - that could be done in-house.

There is a limited physical release for the Switch version, as well (Larian Merch Store).
For the PC version, you can back up the installer for the GOG version, or install folder for Steam or GOG.

Then GOG is your friend. DRM free, you can use Galaxy for convienice but you can also download installers of your games and create backups in whatever manner you want with no DRM attatched.

Granted it is usually against Microsoft and EA interests to keep the servers on, while they are in interest of steam as long as they exist. But I am a GOG man these days.

There isn't ever going to be a retail PC version because it is no longer cost-effective to produce a retail PC version for the publisher (Larian). It is not cost-effective because retail stores no longer sell PC games. It sucks, but that is reality.

Well, it depends on the country, I guess.

And, I don't like this extreme thinking about "cost effectiveness" ... Because, if you follow that train of thought until the bitter end, then there's a degradation of humanity ...

Nah, I just don’t like leaving evidence of how many games I bought lying around. But seriously, every time I buy a boxed or collectors edition, with the nearest cleaning it all lands in a bin anyway.

Make your own custom Retail PC Copy.

Get a DVD Cover Printer from Office Depot, design a custom cover
Get a Cardboard Box and design it and have it printed at a print shop.
.
Then put it on your shelf and take snaps.
Then you can say, "I have the only Custom Boxed Copy of Divinity Original Sin 2"

GOG is the best option if you need a setup source.
Don't copy to CD/DVD, they will lose data after a few years (maybe safe for 2 to 5 years, but every bit of loss could lead to an useless setup) and they can't be fixed. Use those USB flash disks instead, they are cheap and can store far more than DVD.

If you really want or need to have the setup offline, for multiple games, use 2 or more hard disks or SSD, and make them an exact copy of each other; in case one of these disks dies, you have the other.
Even these can lose data, so move all that data around (copy to another place, delete original, then copy back, so will become fresh)

Google this term "How much time until an unused hard drive loses its data?" for more info about this.
This doesn't mean that the disks will die that quick, just that some data loss will occur in time, so having multiple and periodically refreshed backups is the way to keep data safe for a life time and beyond. Quote from a discussion on this topic "Archival over 20+ years? I'd be really leery of that without regular refreshes and migrations to new hardware."

There are programs that can help recover from minor data corruption, such as ICE ECC, by creating recovery information which can be later used to verify or repair the original data.
The program CDCheck can try to recover files off damaged disks, replacing unreadable sections with zeros. The CDCheck website also lists some other (mostly older) recovery software.

Both programs are for Windows; if there are similar open source or cross platform programs around, they may have a better chance of maintaining backward compatibility.

There are many data recovery programs, some of them very good, but sometimes just isn't possible to recover. Worth trying though, if there's no backup.

Preventing data loss is still the way to go. After all we have a huge amount of data these days, and they just get larger in time; and they need to be maintained by "copy over to another place" to refresh the written sectors on the disks. Having multiple copies is even better, and if they are kept far from each other, the chance that one copy survives is even higher, maybe using online backup services in this case.