I'm personally against the idea of delisting the game. What I'd like would be for hello games to fix this up, which not only isn't a difficult thing to achieve (considering the fix another user proposed in another thread), but it's also unneeded, especially so for GOG userbase.

I have nothing against GOG. my issue is with hello games and their modus operandi on this matter: if they are selling the game here, they could have at least enabled these events with no issues on offline play too.

More than having something against GOG, I would like them to enforce more the drm-free policy (and no cut/limited content due to online features when it comes to SP content).

Btw apologies for my rude behaviour in my previous post, I was kinda angry as I wanted to make the purchases later today, and your previous post (the one with the drama joke) kinda triggered me.

I would agree. The quicksilver shop contains static items which are used in single-player gameplays. The game connects to an online server to authenticate the user before allowing access and purchase of said items.

You can hack the savegame and give yourself access, so it's not dynamic online content getting downloaded. It's DRM authentication at play. The least they can give offline non-client users is a standard set of items hard-coded and enabled to the player from said shop. I would think this would satisfy most users who don't like a DRMed version..

It's bad implementation GOG allowed the devs to keep. They knew about it, they allowed it to be listed regardless. It's time they did something about it - it's quite an expensive game as well, so it'd be even more frustrating when features are locked behind DRM walls.

This is messed up, the devs knew fully well that gog is a DRM-free store, implementing server side authentication in a DLC later down the road should be a no-go for the gog version, yet here we are. :/

That addition on the store page about needing Galaxy to access some features just adds fuel to the fire, it's the same as them saying 'yes, we know about the problem, we just don't give a fuck'.

Well, thanks! :P

Guess, I'll have to keepy my eyes open for these kinds of things in the future now, huh? :/


Edit: I like the typo at the end and will keep it. :P

I think it's time to stop buying GOG games until they're actually DRM free again. It's not good enough. I'm not buying a hybrid game. I want to buy my games the way you're supposed to buy them like in the 90s and 2000s. You buy it, you own it and nobody can put their filthy hands on it.

On top of the DRM issue, I'm seeing more and more censored games here on GOG like Commandos 2 HD where they even removed multiplayer. Unacceptable. Nope. Not good enough.

Looks like I'm done buying games.

Supported!

I don't care much for NMS, especially when they pull a stunt like this after what they did in the beginning, but putting DRM on singleplayer is not something we should tolerate on GOG. If we loose the fight it's "well, hello Steam! (or cracked Steam-releases again)".

That said - let's see if GOG have a backbone and says/does something within reasonable time...

I somehow fail to see what is the really big deal here.

They released a game which was perfectly playable offline.
They released tons of content for that game for free (other companies would have made most of it payed DLC) as patches and upgrades which is also playable offline.

They released a some content which is MP only, even that there is MP at all, came as a free upgrade. It even supports cross-play now, which not many games do.
They released a little content (compared to the rest) that is MP only, although it wouldn't have to be (the Living Ship). Ok, that's kinda shit, but it's really only one small thing compared to how huge the game is even in pure offline mode.

Why they made this effectively MP only, I can only guess. Maybe as a reward for playing online "community" stuff, to lure offline players to join online "community" play. You'd have to ask Hello Games.

Fact is, if they had never released the free Living Ship stuff, nobody would have ever batted an eye. I can see how now that it exists offline players can get envious, especially since there is no obvious reason to make it an MP only thing.
But the (massive!) rest of the game is still there, for anyone, on- and offline. If they now simply removed this stuff in the next update, creating parity between on- and offline players, would offline players be happy again?

I don't see this stuff as "single player DRM", since Hello Games clearly decided it to be an online "community feature". You can call this a bullshit decision by Hello Games, and maybe if enough people complain they may change this in a future patch. Chances are though, that if they add the Living Ships to single player, they will also add some new reward to community play which in turn pure single player users will complain about. And all rewards they can offer must work both on- and offline once you have them, since you can switch between the modes on the fly.

I would understand all the drama if a lot of the game was locked behind an online requirement. As it is, the Living Ship is bonus content for community players (I don't say that's a good decision), not something that was removed from offline play.

You take the "Devil's Advocate" thing way too seriously.

Absolutely, undermining or trying to rewrite history is worse than the events itself, but most humans are incapable to learn and see longer than their own feet and nose.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUdcmkmlOTo

EDIT: The devs themselves are to blame for this - not GOG (both issues, just to be clear on that).

In practicality, if I'm understanding correctly it's not a big deal. Supposedly, everything missing from the quicksilver shop offline (including the egg that leads to the living ship thing) can be added with a save editor. The big deal is the principle behind it: When I buy a game on GOG, all of the single-player content is supposed to be available offline and DRM-free (without needing to use third-party programs to hack it in). If exceptions are made for content that's arbitrarily deemed "online content", suddenly there are serious cracks in GOG's DRM-free policy. Suddenly there are exceptions, and maybe you buy a game a year from now only to find that a more substantial bit of single-player content has been deemed "online content". Maybe a few years later it's just okay for games to require Galaxy altogether. Do I actually expect that to happen? No. But even a small violation of their DRM-free principle is unacceptable. If I was okay with DRM as long as it wasn't too bad from a practical standpoint, I'd just buy games on Steam.

I want to be clear: The purpose of this thread isn't to bash Hello Games or GOG. The entirety of No Man's Sky isn't suddenly worthless because of this, nor does it make Hello Games bad developers. I wouldn't be surprised if the quicksilver shop issue is just a bug. But it is an issue that needs to be fixed, and seeing GOG do their usual move of trying to sweep it under the rug instead is frustrating to say the least. GOG has shown repeatedly over the years that in many ways they really don't care about their customers, only doing what's right for them when there's enough public backlash against something they already know is wrong. As a result, threads like this become necessary as the only chance of invoking change.

So much this.

Also, the more we allow this, the worse it will become as time passes and new games get released with further butchered content SP/offline.

I couldn't agree more. The developers are the ones making the change, however, ultimately GOG is more than often just silent or just don't care to act (about a lot of things, yes). If they really believed in the FCKDRM "mission" they really should be more open and vocal about it to it's customers, otherwise it's just empty words.

^ If that's true, then that instantly kills off any excuse for it not being rapidly fixed on the GOG version. Hopefully this will be the solution.

Even the worst case (removal from the store) doesn't mean the devs can't continue to update it for existing buyers, just that it can't be mis-sold to non-owners as "you won't be locked out of titles you paid for, or constantly asked to prove you own them" when checking to see if you own DLC each time involves exactly that for part of the content. And even then there are alternatives, eg, when the developers of Supraland removed their game from GOG, they offered a Steam key to anyone who e-mailed them their GOG receipt. No reason why NMS devs can't do the same. After all, take DRM-Free away and there's no practical difference between Galaxy and Steam, so...

To me this is one of the real problems with NMS - given the major changes the devs keep adding which are far greater post "In Development" than what many other games experience between Beta and release during In Dev phase, NMS should honestly still be flagged as "In Development" (whether the devs agree or not) and an extended refund window provided around that. Only call it "finished" when it's actually finally finished.

The decision to buy a GOG version of a game (as a whole) specifically for DRM-Free doesn't exist in a vacuum for the base game or stop one day after purchasing. "Well technically they didn't take anything away (shrugs)" really is a poor excuse since whether future expansion content is likely to be DRM'd obviously affects the decision for many to specifically buy a GOG version of the base game for DRM-Free in the first place (as a whole game) at the time of buying the base game. It's not just the "what" (DRM) that's the issue for many people, but also the "when" (bait & switch) and "Buyer Beware" excuses only works when the buyer is actually made aware at time of purchase, not months / years later.

If Sea-Ra's claim in #23 is correct that the offline version can have the supposed 'online-only' Quicksilver content added via an offline save-game editor, then it clearly isn't just an "online community feature" if it's in the offline game. And when we start normalizing "Our online content checks aren't DRM, they're 'community bonus content!'" excuses, then we can unfortunately expect to see more games in future pull similar bait & switch tactics with similar "Not DRM, honest!" marketing redefinition BS word games. That's the last place I want to see GOG end up in 5 years down the line.

Well, so you have to be online and have Galaxy running.
Only one of those won't suffice from what I gathered.

That's carp.

As I see it, everything Hello Games put out after release is bonus content. They could have just walked away and leave the game as it is.
To tie some of this content to online play even if it makes no practical sense... maybe not the best decision, but really - literally nothing has been taken away from offline play, on the contrary. Now that would be a whole different thing, and would indeed be a breach of DRM-free.

Like I wrote, would you be happy if they simply axed the Living Ship for all players? What rewards for community play would you be fine with, which pure single player users couldn't get?

I don't see any connection to that, tbh. I see the danger more from GOG's side, if CDP suffered a hostile takeover, or if they decided to save the time/money to maintain the offline installers (patches, DLC...). Or they could even have the silly idea of promoting Galaxy with "Galaxy exclusive bonuses" to some games - I wouldn't put it past beyond them....

MP is often tied to Galaxy already, but GOG is between a rock and a hard place here, when the devs simpley refuse to implement client-free solutions:
- Not list the game at all, people are angry
- List the game without MP, people are angry
- List the game requiring Galaxy for MP, people are angry

And why a brand new account and locked profile than? Why not post under your real name?

Why a provocative "outrage" title like "No Man's Sky isn't fully DRM-free", when it should be "Hello Games declared perfectly fine SP content MP only?". Because that's the real problem, no? "Online players got some candy I didn't get", in the end.

I'm all for all players getting this candy, but things are really being blown out of proportion here.

Everything in the online game is also in the offline game somehow. Because you can turn MP off any time.
I guess the quicksilver stuff is meant to be rewards for online play. It's in the offline save file because there is only one save file. Would your rather have the save on some server? Once played online, no way back?

As I see it, you buy a game in a certain state (as long as it's not in-dev). Everything they add after that is other than bugfixes is indeed "bonus". And if you can only access that bonus by playing online, or by sending the dev a postcard, or by faxing them a photo of your girlfriend, and your not fine with that - nothing is taken away from you, you've never been entitled to it in the first place.

If they had sold the Living Ship as DLC for single player - and then it was only acquirable in online play - then I would get all the outrage. This way I see it as a gift made - for whatever reasons - only for online users. From a company that "gifted" tons and tons of content to all players over the years.