I've just bought Shadowrun Dragonfall Directors Cut, installed it OK, patched it with the GOG update file but when trying to run it, it only gets as far as a black window and won't do anything else except tell me that it is 'Not Responding'.

When it finished installing it wanted internet access which I denied as the game page specifically says "No activation or online connection required to play" so I don't know why it needs internet access or where it is trying to connect to.

If it's any help, I downloaded the game via the GOG downloader (not Galaxy) and have also tried running it with admin rights. My virus is up to date and I've checked with Malwarebytes too and everything on my machine comes up clean.

Any ideas on how to get this game to start?

Thanks.

EDIT; OK I've just found this thread - https://www.gog.com/forum/shadowrun_series/not_able_to_start_the_game_without_going_online/page1 - which covers the same problem I'm having. Anyway, I've disabled my Network Connection and then allowed the game internet access and it loads OK so I guess that's the solution. Still don't quite understand why it needs any kind of connection though.

Post #34 has the stated reason. From the comments it seems the game engine uses localhost (127.0.0.1) as well. So, just allow access to localhost in your firewall? It's the loopback adapter so no packets ever leave your NIC.

I don't have Dragonfall installed yet, but I did double check this with Shadowrun Returns. The Linux version actually binds the socket to ALL (0.0.0.0), but the game itself doesn't try to connect to the net. I know this as I blocked & logged all traffic from my PC during my initial play-through.

Yeah it's dumb.

And that thread is awful. So many apologists. How can it be a firewall/AV problem? First they tried to blame a specific one, and then when people pointed out other ones they dropped that and just went back to blaming all firewalls.

The game shouldn't be looking for an internet connection, period. That's the point of GOG, that's why we pay for these games.

I think it connects to check that you have the latest version of the campaign, and on a few other GOG games to get the news feed, for patches for instance.

If you allow it to connect the first time and then block if afterwards it usually works fine. Personally I think it should have an option to check for news/new campaigns and not automatically do it.

It's best to call it out and tell the devs what we think, instead of just making excuses. I'm one of the more supportive posters of HBS here, there's a possibility they genuinely have no idea about this or it's an oversight on GOG, pretending it doesn't happen is pointless. Let them know instead, and from what I've seen of GOG and HBS probably they'd try and fix it anyway.

It isn't, period. The engine creates a "local" TCP/IP socket that it uses itself. This is a common technique for interprocess communication. I say "local" as on Linux at any rate it technically binds it to ALL vs localhost. Shadowrun Returns however does not attempt to reach out to the net.

Yes, you are right. What threw me off is blaming all firewalls, instead of people understanding it's a setting. Some firewalls have an option to block loopback traffic. There are some reasons to do that, but not really many I don't think.

Thank you, this was helpful to me as well.