What's up with this? Galaxy told me there was an update (which I performed), but there is no description of what the update does, and the backup download is still at 1.0.5

--edit--

Oh, it's Good News. Now there is a Runtime Error on starting the game... XD


--edit 2--

Confirmed:

I uninstalled and I installed again with the 1.0.5 backup installer. Ran the game without issues.

Used Galaxy to update to 1.0.6 again, and there is a Visual C++ Runtime error ("R6025, pure virtual function call")

Aditionally, the game's exe is now trying to create outgoing connections to 46.4.120.253 and 194.110.240.182. The first a datacenter in Germany and the second a CDProjekt IP in Poland.

That is not gonna fly boys.

24 days old 1.06 plays well through my Galaxy.

1.06 is now available through the website. Whether or not it's still bugged and/or data collecting, I don't know yet. That said I do view over a year between updates with zero changelog as probably not worth my time.

What about the outbound connections reported by the OP? Especially the one to the data centre in Germany?

My firewall doesn't react. Or maybe it had long ago (before 1.06)? and I don't remember I must have say yes without reading the firewall warning, being (too much) confident in GOG games.

I've just downloaded and installed the offline version of 1.0.6 and can confirm that the game does need an outbound connection to a data centre in Germany to work (188.40.118.133 and 46.4.120.253). If it is not allowed to connect then the game will not even start.

This flies in the face of the no DRM policy of GOG and I will be contacting support about it. I will report back here if/when I hear back from them.

EDIT: OK, ticket opened, let's hope this is sorted soon.

Okay, I uninstall. I'll ask refund soon if it's not repaired.

And there goes the "DRM FREE. No activation or online connection required to play" on the game page out the window... anyone else still remember the time, not that long ago, in a Galaxy far far away, when one could be certain that games bought on GOG were actually DRM and shenanigans free?

Eagerly waiting to hear what GOG support has to say.

At the moment support and I are going through the general things like changing the installation folder (I always install into C:\GOG anyway), vcredist re-installation and various gameuxdll and rundll32 issues which has made no difference at all. Unfortunately they can't recreate the problem but I have sent a screen shot showing my firewall blocking KoDP making the offending connections so hopefully they'll be able to get to the bottom of this. Will keep you all posted.

I too am eager to find out what transpires.

I'm currently running 1.0.6, have blocked it via my firewall, and it seems to work fine. I installed it manually though, not via Galaxy - maybe the Galaxy version has some extra stuff, e.g. Galaxy overlays or something? Doesn't Galaxy tend to record game progress/achievements/etc. (unless you disable them of course)? That would explain the CDPR server...

I installed via the offline installer as I don't use Galaxy but I have discovered that the game only connects to this data centre once right after first installing the game, all other times it just wants the home IP (127.0.0.1) which is easily fixed.

I have expressed my concerns to GOG support about this unwanted behaviour of the KoDP exe and have asked if they are going to contact the devs to find out the facts as to why this was happening as it seems to me that no single player game on a machine with no Galaxy installed should ever try to connect to an outside agency. I'll let you know what they say when/if I get a reply.

Thanks for the info/update.

Since it definitely works despite me blocking all connections to/from it via my firewall, I'll still keep it.

However I do agree that this is dodgy thing for the devs to be doing - even if it's just going for updates, the polite thing to do would be to 1) Inform the user this is happening, and 2) provide an option for the user to turn it off. On top of that, the fact that GOG only provides a "maybe" for what it's possibly doing, is kind of shady...

Apparently the Android version is even worse in this regard - it sends game stats regularly, and requires access to various elements of your phone in order to run (disallowing access actually stops the game from even starting). Which is a damn shame, since I would have bought it for Android otherwise.

As for the PC version - the devs should patch this "feature" out, or at least make it obvious and optional.

Reading about what the game does on Android makes me trust the devs/publishers even less! Although so far as I could test it, the 1,0.6 version only connects to the data centre once straight after installation which is bad enough. I do agree that it should be patched out especially as GOG isn't sure of what it's doing.

Thank you all. I will be contacting the developer. The game might work after connecting once, but I will not allow it to connect out of principle. Many games, even here on GOG, have telemetry and other call home "features", but none of them created an error when blocking the connections, until now.

I will later today create a diff patch between either the backup installers from 1.0.5 and 1.0.6, or the respective installed game files (whichever turns out to be easier), for anyone who did not have the old version saved and wants it. If you are interested, send me a message.