I'm sure they've considered players who are not online, because there are many - I happen to have been one of them so far. Including quicksilver in the "seamless single-player" part, but not letting you spend it unless you "seamlessly multi-play" is what we are calling out here at this point. At least that is what I am calling out as a bad design, and something I'm not eager to see creep onto GOG.

And I'm not saying this is akin to the classical definition of DRM, though if you think of how these games will age it may very well be. What happens when the online servers hosting the "seamless multi-player" parts are gone? You'll have no way of experiencing the let's call it "extra" content you once did, just because it's locked behind your ability to go online.

And... who exactly was suggesting this? Because yes, it would be beside the point, and I don't think anyone was thinking of that type of "main menu" separation or suggesting it. There are other games which feature seamless players dropping into what is essentially your single player game, they just don't have mechanics to reward that in any way except by enhancing your gameplay experience. Which is fair enough - single-player won't ever be on par with multi-player in terms of experience and the reverse is also true.

They also don't cut down on what you are able to experience in terms of content in the "seamlessly single/multi-player game" or find a means of emulating it somehow, like ok, you still have to go on party raids, but you can go with bots instead of actual players if you're offline. The content is still there, not dependent on your ability to be online or not. They could essentially do this easily with NMS, because on GOG it started out as a single-player only game, without any Galaxy integration to speak of.

If I have to play the game online to get access to the second campaign, I would consider it "multi player reward", yes.

My line in the sand is really quite simple:

What parts of the game still work, when mankind is nuked, I'm the sole survivor, and somehow have still power, my PC, and my backup offline installers. If a game - even if it has additional stuff I can't get access to any more because everyone else is dead, including all activation/authentication/content/community servers - is still worth it, I'll get it.

Because I simply care a lot about game preservation, I see them as art, not as some throwaway entertainment product (even if many are - but it's not my position to judge). People in a hundred years or two should be able to play our games (probably through emulation) without being locked out from them by DRM, or even worse (because it can't be cracked) they were something like stream-only.

Coming back to your example: If I could "register my email address" and then get an offline patch or installer, that unlocks or adds the second campaign, and once I have it, it's mine to keep, I'd probably go for it. Sound like free DLC, and throwaway email addresses are a thing. If I somehow had to do that every time I re-install or play the game I'd call it DRM and stay away, because DRM is about ownership. If I don't own the game (or at least the part of the game I care about, which is "the game minus MP" most of the time), I don't want it.
No, I meant the other post further above :-)

Because I was under the wrong impression that quicksilver can only be earned in MP, turning all quicksilver store items into MP rewards. Which is - IMO - fine, if all people know what they're getting into, and that offline players can't have them. And then it would make sense to hide those items for offline players, since they couldn't earn them anyway.

TerriblePurpose corrected me, you can indeed get quicksilver playing offline (the exploit is only to speed it up). If that is the case, hiding the quicksilver shop items until you go online is indeed very shabby, because there is no reason for it at all.
You can go online once, and never again, and still get all those items - they lose their function as MP rewards.

You really have a way with words, you know that? Always to the point.

Just one small correction concerning the quoted part: NMS started out as single-player only game. Period. Multiplayer came much later, and at first really rudimentary (with other players as glowing orbs). MP first worked with the Steam version, and because the Galaxy version took so long they (I think HG and GOG) even offered refunds (when people already were into the game several hundred hours. I was at ~200).
Finally MP worked in Galaxy too, and a bit later they even enabled crossplay, which is sadly still not the norm. Many Galaxy MP games lock online players in the small GOG community, which is why active MP fans prefer Steam, even if they prefer GOG for single player games.

People don't want a divided game, rather for the stuff that is arbitrarily locked behind online authentication when it has nothing to do with multi-player specifically to be unlocked. I'm not talking about MP only maps, or items that are only available when co-opping or PVPing. These things make sense as part of the MP experience. This is taking otherwise SP items and locking them behind online authentication because... reasons? I don't think it's sinister, or a sly move to torture the DRM-Free crowd. But I do believe it should be remedied.

More like Downward Spiral.

I believe I understand your POV now. Thanks.

It's really a shame. The Metal Gear series, Castlevania and Contra would usually be instabuys from me. But so far Support didn't even react to the ticket concerning the DRM. No blue gave a statement here. As long as GOG plays dead, I won't buy anything here! So these nice releases go to the wishlist instead until the DRM is removed from No Man's Sky.

That is something we can - and absolutely SHOULD - discuss. GOG always stood for keeping old games alive. A few years from now, NMS will be old, too. Keeping it alive will become harder with every single online-only decision of the developers. I just don't think it's DRM when there's a multiplayer reward that you can use in singleplayer, too.

That's exactly why I made the GTA V example. There's tons of content in GTA V that is only available in multiplayer. Thus my question: Would a GOG version of GTA V still count as DRM'd when we would get a singleplayer without Rockstar Social Club? All the wepons, cars, outfits and stuff are only be available in online-multiplayer. The only difference between GTA and NMS would be that GTA doesn't even give you the possibility to use these items in singleplayer. Singleplayer and multiplayer are two "different" games.

If this wouldn't count as DRM, we'd have the absurd situation that Hello Games could "remove" the DRM by seperating singleplayer and multiplayer and by removing Quicksilver (and the egg and ship) completely from the singleplayer game. I'm NOT saying they should do this. It's just a thought experiment to show what a strange territory we're entering here when we start to extend our definition of DRM into that direction.

- Is it a bad decision of Hello Games to make that ship an "online reward"? Yes!
- Should we discuss if this is something GOG should allow? Definitely! Because there's a very fine line between a multiplayer reward and a crapload of content locked behind an online-only-barrier in DRM free singleplayer games.
- Should we call this DRM? It kind of depends... One single ship as a multiplayer reward isn't enough to call it DRM (from my point of view). But it could open the doors for "DRM-like" systems. Games clearly go into the seamless multiplayer direction. And GOG needs to make up their minds how they want to handle such games. Is a horribly butchered DRM free singleplayer experience (which NMS isn't) something they want to offer? Is DRM'd multiplayer still an optional extra when a game clearly "forces" you (by the sheer amount of online-only content) to go online for the full experience? Where's the border between "multiplayer reward" and "Play DRM'd multiplayer or GTFO!"?

The difference in GTA V is that the multiplayer is a walled garden. Much of the content isn't available to play in SP. The items are MP specific. They function in MP, and only work for MP. NMS has items locked behind an authentication wall that have no MP implications, and are available in SP if you use online Authentication. You don't have to play MP for the items to be available, just be online. That's an arbitrary distinction. "THESE items are locked behind an online authentication." They don't function specifically for MP, they don't have any extra effect in MP, they don't require MP to access. That's the difference.

So, while I don't think it's a big deal pertaining to these items specifically, it's the designation that the game is DRM free, when some of the content with no specific ties to MP are behind an online authentication DRM. Those items will be lost forever to the annals of history when the game's servers go down. It's a small thing. But then more and more of the games have "online requirements" for larger portions of the single player experience. Then GOG is selling games that are just "log in" to play. Now they're Steam, but worse. It's a slippery slope I do not wish to see GOG go down. I have no problem with Steam. But if GOG wants to be Steam but worse, I'll just stick with Steam.

So the solution would be to get rid of the seamless singleplayer/multiplayer in NMS and to make two different entries for singleplayer and multiplayer in the main menu? The ship wouldn't be available in singleplayer anymore and the game suddenly becomes DRM free. And all this by taking away the option to switch between singleplayer and multiplayer seamlessly?

Again: I know that no one really wants this. I just want to make clear that the definition of DRM becomes very weird when seperate multiplayer is okay, while semless multiplayer is DRM. And yes, I know that this kind of game design can have the same effect as DRM (see this post). So the discussion we're having in this thread is a good and necessary discussion. Asking if this is what we want to see on GOG is the right thing to do. It's just that I see a difference between DRM (which is bad) and games with multiplayer rewards that you can use in singleplayer, too, because it's seamless (which is bad too, but not exactly DRM even though it has similar effects).

edit: I'll respond to your new post in a few minutes. It already answers the questions I just asked you.

See, that's where I have a different opinion. Guns, cars and outfits of GTA Online would work in singleplayer, too. Maybe not all of them, because of "game balance" (which isn't exactly what GTA is about), but most of them could easily be part of the singleplayer game. There are quite a few things I'd really love to have in singleplayer. But I'd never call it (an additional layer of) DRM that I can't have them.

That's only because singleplayer and multiplayer are the same game. If you couldn't switch semlessly, it would be MP specific content. And that's where the whole definition of DRM becomes difficult.

And yet, those items have no MP implication or requirement. You don't have to use co-op to get to the store. You don't have to use MP exclusive rewards to get it. You don't get the items as drops from MP -only areas, raids or bosses. The items do not drop from other players in PVP (nor are they purchased for currency that is MP exclusive). So we can just agree to disagree here that this is something I don't want to see here, because it is a bad precedent. I don't care that much about the items in question, it's a principled matter for me.

Thanks for sharing your opinion.

You're right, it's not that the reward is DRM. It's that the fact that you have to authenticate with third party servers to gain access to that content is DRM.

From a definition-of-DRM perspective, DRM-restricted multiplayer was never "not DRM." It's only tolerated here (by some) because a bunch of people decided it doesn't matter whether multiplayer is DRM'd (perhaps because they don't care about multiplayer; in a similar way to how someone might decide that they don't care whether one ship or cosmetic feature is restricted by DRM). Now we're arguing whether it's ok for that DRM (that wasn't acceptable to begin with for those who didn't want DRM at all) to seep into what is effectively single player content.

It doesn't help the discussion that the GOG forum is full of masters of logic who are like "if it doesn't bother me, it's not DRM" or "you have to be online to play multiplayer, therefore DRM is not DRM." If that's how one's logic is, then yes it is possible to come up with scenarios where a game suddenly becomes DRM-ridden because some feature started to bother someone.

This "weird definition of DRM" is only a problem if you pretend that a game with DRM-ridden multiplayer is fully DRM-free. It's not, it never was, and now something that is quintessentially single-player content has to be accessed via the DRM side. This isn't a game suddenly going from "fully DRM free" to "DRM ridden" because someone added a feature. Does that clear things up at all?

This presupposes anywhere near a majority of GOG users would consider this DRM that violates the store's policies. Remember on this forum and in this thread you're only seeing the most passionate, some might say extreme, viewpoints. The reason I mentioned that the vast majority of GOG users use Galaxy before is to drive home the point that one man's GOG is not necessarily another man's.

Some people here would have GOG delist any game with DLC, or any game with multiplayer that isn't LAN and private server compatible, or whatever else. These things are far more subjective than you guys act like.

I am sympathetic to the idea that bonus items for signing in online are against GOG's general ethos, but I also understand it's not the same as what is traditionally called "DRM" and is bonus content added after the original sale of the game, and completely unnecessary to play and enjoy it offline. So... again, it's more grey and complicated than you guys want to portray it as. In every thread like this you have black and white opinions and want immediate decisive action that fits your priorities, but the world don't work like that. The threats of taking your business elsewhere ring hollow when literally no one is offering what GOG does on this scale.