The first Spine update in 2020 finally reaches version 1.15.0 and introduces bugfixes, automated error reporting (for download issues only at the moment) and – as beta feature – Steam support for Gothic 2.

But let’s talk about it a little more detailed. If you think “Automated error reporting? But I don’t want my privacy to be violated!”. That’s no problem. The data doesn’t contain private data, it’s more or less just the file from the server that doesn’t get downloaded properly + the cause for the error (like connection error, not enough disk space, hash failure).

Regarding Steam support: It’s a beta feature, that isn’t available in the Spine UI yet. I tested it with my Steam installation which works fine, but want to get some feedback from others first before unlocking it for everybody. What it does is starting Steam with Gothic 2 when you start a mod which leads to Steam tracking your play time and the Steam overlay should also work. That feature has been requested from time to time and also in our current poll it has been requested a few times.

To enable launching Gothic 2 via Steam, two things have to be done. First the path to your Gothic installation has to contain the word “Steam”. That’s only a problem if you changed the installation folder and is only at the moment some kind of security check. I’ll improve that for the final release of that feature. The second thing is that you need to add the following to your Spine.ini (located at %APPDATA%\Clockwork Origins\Spine):

[BETA]
StartViaSteam=true

Speaking of the poll, we already have more than 100 votes with really great opinions and ideas. But that are just around 5% of the weekly active Spine users, so there are a lot more opinions we didn’t get yet. So please take a few minutes to answer the questions and help to form The future of Spine.

Full changelog

Enhancements:

• Download errors now are automatically reported
• BETA: Gothic 2 now can be started via Steam when it’s the Steam version and so Steam can track the play time

Fixes:

• User management now only shows Spine users
• Fixed typo in English translation
• Fixed bug when uploading new mod files
• Fixed integrity check for Gothic 2

For questions and feedback either use the feedback functionality, have a look into the thread @ World of Gothic or join our Discord server.