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A point to end all inquiries:

Does GOG's version require you to still login with BSN (bioware social network) for DLC authentication?
In the Dragon Age news topic they said that you dont have to login for anything a few times. So you can still enjoy everything the game has to offer without signing into anything. Thats what I understood.
Nope, no need to login at all. Most of the DLC is already available with a few exceptions but you can just download the dazip files, and add them through the updater and they'll be under installed content.

EDIT: All official DLC have been added to the game now.
Post edited July 20, 2016 by LoveShines
Good to know that it's really DRM-FREE including all of its DLCs and expansion. Cheers everyone.
Hmm, well, the DLC's ERF archives files are still encrypted, though. And their manifest.xml still says RequiresAuthorization="1". So the game is still querying BioWare's servers for DLC auth and to receive the decryption key?
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DrMcCoy: Hmm, well, the DLC's ERF archives files are still encrypted, though. And their manifest.xml still says RequiresAuthorization="1". So the game is still querying BioWare's servers for DLC auth and to receive the decryption key?
Only way for me to find out and confirm it here is to install it without Internet after a couple of hours or so.
Gog version is fully DRM free. You can install DLCs without any login or even Internet conexión. I did install the missing DLCs without problems in my recently purchased GoG,s version. So YES this is the release to buy without any doubt, and you can HAVE everything released so far!!!!
Post edited July 15, 2016 by Lobuno
The question is whether you can use the DLC without an internet connection. Can you play, say, the prequel adventure Lelianna's Song without an internet connection?

Because the ERF archive files, the ones that contain all the assets for the DLC, in Addins/dao_prc_lel/core/data are encrypted. In fact, they're completely identical with the Steam release. How this usually works is that the game contacts the BioWare servers, tell it "Here, I'm CD Key blablablah", then the BioWare server sees that it's the ultimate edition and is authorized to use this DLC and it gives the game the password to decrypt the ERF archive.

If the GOG release does not contact the BioWare servers, it still needs to know the decryption keys for the ERF archives. Those would be stored somewhere in the game date or the EXE file or something. Can someone confirm that this is the case?

Because otherwise, if it still contacts the BioWare servers for the decryption keys, I'm not sure you can really call it DRM-free...
Post edited July 15, 2016 by DrMcCoy
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DrMcCoy: The question is whether you can use the DLC without an internet connection. Can you play, say, the prequel adventure Lelianna's Song without an internet connection?

Because the ERF archive files, the ones that contain all the assets for the DLC, in Addins/dao_prc_lel/core/data are encrypted. In fact, they're completely identical with the Steam release. How this usually works is that the game contacts the BioWare servers, tell it "Here, I'm CD Key blablablah", then the BioWare server sees that it's the ultimate edition and is authorized to use this DLC and it gives the game the password to decrypt the ERF archive.

If the GOG release does not contact the BioWare servers, it still needs to know the decryption keys for the ERF archives. Those would be stored somewhere in the game date or the EXE file or something. Can someone confirm that this is the case?

Because otherwise, if it still contacts the BioWare servers for the decryption keys, I'm not sure you can really call it DRM-free...
I think they are pre-activated. So no connection is happening. You can unplug your internet cable and still play everything. Thats what I understood from the blue messages.
I'd be surprised if EA's servers are still up for this game even to authenticate.

I hope this is a complete edition with all the DLCs and no DRM, or else I wasted my money buying a game I'd already owned in the past.
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Engerek01: So no connection is happening.
My Wireshark logs say otherwise. The game connects to biostore.bioware.com and various other BioWare servers to tell on and authorize the DLCs. This is not DRM-free, this is bullshit. :(
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Engerek01: So no connection is happening.
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DrMcCoy: My Wireshark logs say otherwise. The game connects to biostore.bioware.com and various other BioWare servers to tell on and authorize the DLCs. This is not DRM-free, this is bullshit. :(
Did you install the hotfix since your original download?

Hotfix 14.07.2016 (14 July 2016)
Origin should no longer detect the GOG version of Dragon Age: Origins - Ultimate Edition and attempt to autoupdate it.

No idea if this will do anything for you or not.

EDIT:

Looks like if you got the GOG-4 version you don't need it. If you bought it early in the day, you may have gotten GOG-3 edition.

Also, I realize you are specifically talking about communication between your computer and bioware. I thought maybe this might stop that. Unless you know what the packets are actually doing (update check vs DLC license check)
Post edited July 16, 2016 by unixtroglodyte
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unixtroglodyte: Did you install the hotfix since your original download?
Yes.

The only new Dragon-Age-related files patch_dragon_age_origins_ultimate_2.1.0.4.exe contains are DAOriginsConfig.exe and DAOriginsLauncher.xml anyway.
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unixtroglodyte: Unless you know what the packets are actually doing (update check vs DLC license check)
Granted, I don't know what exactly it is doing. What I can see is that it sends the list of all the DLC to a BioWare server, and then there's several smaller packets between my system and another BIoWare server. The number is just right to correspond to one per DLC, but the replies are too big to just contain the current version number. It very much looks like what the Steam version is doing, too.

But yes, I don't know what exactly they contain.

I'm just...not a fan of it phoning home at all, especially without asking me or even notifying me about it.
Indeed, I can confirm by checking resource monitor that Dragon Age Origins is communicating with something over the network, considering I'm set to not log in automatically, and I don't have any of the social functions of the game enabled, this is kind of strange for a supposed "DRM-Free" release.