Is ti just me?
Sacred 2 just hangs if there is not internet connection?

I had the same problem. Had to unblock it in my firewall and allow internet access or i just got the cursor and a black screen.

OK, I know this is GOG release but isn't always online a DRM?
They could at least mark it as DRM game then.
Well, times have really changed here.

You could send a note to the suppport team. It may just be a simple fix or something they've missed and will alter in the next update.

It's related to windows detection of no longer supported implemented multiplayer feature but since servers are taken down the only viable option is via LAN. Windows on the other way still detect multiplayer module and ask user what to do with that. Obviously by blocking part of the game, other thing doesn't know how to react and crash itself.

It's not DRM and not the game problem, just retardiness of Windows OS monitoring and identifying type of modules/functionality of launched executables and in case of this game MP module always launches even if it's LAN because whole game shares design/uses similiar solutions in MP and SP, you can see it if you click arrows on left side of in-game screen.

Just thought I'd throw this in here to hopefully help clear things up a bit.

The game doesn't require internet access and this behaviour is in no way a form of DRM. The game does this because the game developers choose to.

The game is not trying to go online, it is trying to access the IP 127.0.0.1 often referred to as LocalHost or doing a loopback. It is basically connecting to itself, as if it is hosting a server and client on the same PC (the PC the game is running on).

The IP 127.0.0.1 basically means "this computer" in a sense somewhat like "My Computer" does.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Localhost

So as long as you allow the game access to the IP 127.0.0.1 through the firewall etc it will work fine even if there is no internet access available at all, it is connecting to itself and not going online, something you can easily test by disconnecting from the internet and and still playing the game.

Edit,,,,

I also feel the need to add, this is not some "retardiness" of the OS, this behaviour was chosen and implemented by the game designers, they chose to make use of a feature, other games also choose to do things this way, even some applications do things this way. There is nothing retarded, strange or even interesting being done by the OS here, it is not detecting anything game related, it is not messing with the game etc. This isn't even something that's only Windows related. It's a standard, a feature, that Windows supports and obeys, that the game developers have decided to use.

Windows/Microsoft is not detecting the game or anything related to its muliplayer, Microsoft has better things to do and doesn't have the time to do any such "detection" for every program/game that runs on Windows and has multiplayer features. This behaviour happens for only 1 reason, the game was made that way.

All that the OS is doing, is redirecting traffic that goes to the IP Address 127.0.0.1 to LocalHost as defined in the "hosts" file. On Windows you can usually find this file in the location "C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts" it is simply a text file, in there usually on the first/top line you will find "127.0.0.1 localhost" which is telling it to redirect anything going to 127.0.0.1 to localhost. End of story, that is all the OS is doing because the application/game/developer choose to use this functionality.

Thanks...great answer...was about to write something similar, myself...;)