and if somone changes their mind and want to play SP, then they need to reinstall the whole game. And then change their maind again, did not like MP, then they need to reinstall the game again. Makes sense to me.

Again - if you do not go MP, then EGS is inert, it does nothing.


Edit - I bet if they had called it something like 'Multiplayer Network Code', you wouldn’t have thought it was 'obnoxious'.

Also, I kind of regret explaining what EGS is, I should’ve just waited to see how many of you would label it DRM. That would've been more fun. Lesson learned. Honestly, this thread is way more entertaining when I just sit back and read it.

Not sure what you mean here. If an additional component is required for online MP, why would its presence or not affect SP?

Users would have the option to do a full install, if they thought they might want to play MP in the future. I am simply saying it would be courteous to give users the choice/control of what they are installing.

It is taking up space, adding to system bloat. And, who knows what it might be doing in the background?

Incorrect. Epic Online Services is also often used for DLC discovery, Achievements, Mods, Easy Anti-Cheat integration, in-store purchases, Player Data Storage (in-game telemetry & Cloud Saves), and the reason why we often see only 1/2 Epic Store freebie giveaways that get tested each Thursday by drxenija actually work offline, even in single-player games. Perfect example from my former "List of Games that can run without the Epic client" list - Alien Isolation. The base game (Epic version) works without Epic Launcher running, but the game makes EOS API calls that require the client to be running in order for the game to "see" its own DLC. No client running = all the DLC is "missing" despite being installed because the client didn't "unlock" it on each game run (aka EOS often acts like DLC DRM).

And unlike GOG's shitty DLC Discovery equivalent (which has bugged out before in multiple offline installer versions of games since Mankind Divided), there's no equivalent 'backstop' offline mode (reading the local goggame*.info file) as Epic never intended anyone to run Epic Store games without the Epic Launcher. It's luck if an Epic Store game + all DLC works offline and without a client, but if it doesn't then yes, content that only "unlocks" if a client authorizes it each time is exactly what DRM is. Hence why PCGW correctly flags Alien Isolation as having Epic DRM...

"Actual" GOG versions of games that still include these Epic .dll's shouldn't be doing anything - in theory - however these days GOG has increasingly been doing half-arsed releases where they're just selling the Steam versions of games with all SteamWorks intact and fully running but with a "HomeBrew Goldberg" crack (Galaxy Ghost Wrapper) to "intercept" the game's SteamWorks API calls to the Steam client and translate Steam achievements into Galaxy formatted ones, then stamp a GOG logo on top and pass that off as a "GOG" version. So it's not implausible for any new game with EOS dll's included to be an "actual Epic version" and GOG's Ghost wrapper is simply tacking Galaxy API on top as a 2nd layer of client handing all the EOS API to Galaxy translation calls for achievement unlocks, etc. I've no idea if Saints Row IV does this but "All Steam / EOS .dll's are totally inert in single-player GOG games" is about 7 years out of date information that's been factually incorrect ever since GOG started using their "Ghost Wrapper" for the sake of "Discount Galaxy achievements" by reusing all the Steam / Epic ones...

It's definitely a rotten practice. I run a tight ship on my computer, if I don't actually need something, I most definitely don't want it installed.
(No interest in that game personally, but it's a bad precedent, and I'm talking about requiring a service from another platform in general, not to mention installing it automatically, with no option to refuse, even if you won't have any use for it.)

The problem with Quilts and Cats of Calico might be fixed.

I just finished the game (main story, side stories, aftermath stories). I could play everything offline without any problems. So in version 55 (ingame version 1.0.55.0314.1604) the problem seems fixed. But I never had Galaxy installed and don't intend to change that, so I don't know, if there would be offline problems, would the game detect Galaxy to be installed, if that makes any difference (I don't know about these technical things). Also, I used the hint feature for some parts, so if that would prevent possible "background achievements" to trigger, that might be why I had no issues. I don't know.

Thank you for the report

@all can someone verify if the problem is fixed with Galaxy installed or without using the hint feature?

interesting. i never knew. i always thought steam achievements were a bad idea and never wanted them in GOG or Galaxy. i think i only ever tried installing 1 game with Galaxy just to see how it works. don't care about the achievements and game stats. why would i want a game/shop prog to basically track my stats online when i mostly buy offline games on GOG? also sounds like a privacy issue on hindsight.