I've had Dragon's Dogma on my wishlist for some time, but have always had a few doubts that have prevented me from purchasing.

To quote the store page:

Full GOG Galaxy platform support – Includes Achievements, Cloud Save, Pawn Hiring between players, Trading, and Leaderboards.

None of those things actually appeal to me. I could care less about "achievements" and "leaderboards" as features. I've read a little on the forum here about the "pawn" system being broken or problematic, whilst also noting suggestions that some people have encountered saving problems.

I just want to enjoy what otherwise looks to be an interesting single-player RPG game, so my questions are:

1) I'm always connected to the internet, but can my game status be switched to "offline" whilst I play if I prefer, without actually unplugging my internet?

2) Can cloud saving be disabled in favour of normal "offline" saving?

3) Pawns... Do these NPC characters work well in "offline" play, or are the "online" aspects of the Pawn system integral to normal gameplay?

4) Does the game, generally speaking, work better utilising Galaxy to download and play, or does the classic installer version work fine and without any annoying problems? I prefer not to use Galaxy where possible, but do use it with one or two games which are, sadly, otherwise broken. The broken "offline" save mechanism of Tempest being a good example.

Thanks in advance for any thoughts, as they'll probably tip the balance in whether I buy this game or not.

1) yeah there is a setting in options to set it to offline

2) if you run it outside galaxy it should not deal with cloud saves since that is a Galaxy feature

3) there are npc pawns that you can hire though they prpbably wont be as efficient in their setup as those of players
nor will they be likely to have endgame gears
overall you can play without ever hiring any other pawns, one class in particular supposedly does better when you have no pawns with you (note i havent used this class myself)

4) even if you use galaxy to download it you shouldn't have a problem running it off a desktop icon especially if you intend to play it in offline mode though to be honest i do run it in galaxy myself so i dont know for certain


and as to the pawn system being broken
Its only broke in the sense that you likely wont get rewards from people renting your pawn, or at leas i don't get the interface after resting that shows completed rents and rewards thereof
i can still rent pawns of those on my friendslist

1. Yes.
2. Yes. Cloud saving is only available via Galaxy.
3. Yes. When in offline mode the pawns you see wandering around will be offline pawns; pawns created randomly. They won't be optimised, but then again most online pawns are not optimised.
4. Classic installer works perfectly: I use it.

Thanks for the feedback Vyraexii and Hickory, much appreciated.

Your words helped swing the decision for me, plus there was a nice fat discount on the game today, which is always a bonus. ;)

i hope you have alot of fun with it friend