Hello there, I just want to know if anyone of you girls and guys has the same problem: When I started the game, my firewall warned me that it wanted to go online. If I allow it to do so it runs without a hitch. But if I block it from going online it freezes. Have you had a similar experience?

I might be old-fashioned but I like to play my single player games (especially the drm-free ones) offline, so I'm a bit disappointed at that.

Weird, my firewall didn't do that

Windows firewall warns me too but I cut my connection and tried . There is no problem .

It is apparently my COMODO firewall that's causing the problem. I tried allowing Shadowrun to pass my firewall and started it with my laptop in airplane mode. It worked like a charm... Which is weird as it still freeze every time I disallow it from passing my firewall.

maybe the firewall is halting the game process while waiting for you to give it direction (allow/refuse)

I am weirded out that it even goes online as mine didn't

yeah taltamir said also . A while ago I have too much problems with COMODO and unistalled it :S Really horrible firewall . Every new application gives a pop-up and freezing computer :S

It just occured to me, it is possible it is asking the moment it identifies a new application without actually waiting for the app to try to access the internet.

On the downside, it makes it seem like an app goes online even if it doesn't.
On the plus side, by doing that you are likely to get the question when you can see it. Oftentimes I have had issues with video games that happened because the firewall blocked then while waiting for my decision and I never actually saw the popup asking me to decide because of fullscreen mode issues hiding it.

It is possible that it's not the game that wants to go online, but the Games Explorer that wants to see what the game is. If you do encounter that problem again, I'd suggest trying to run the game again (so you have 2 instances running) and seeing if the second instance works. If yes, it is a Games Explorer thing and it should be possible to remove.

@JMich: Thank you for the tip. I tried it out, however both instance of the game freeze.

I don't know, maybe my whole gripe with the game is a petty one, but I do think that it's strange...

How is finding out the game you paid for that was sold as the new DRM free version actually has DRM or is infected with a virus a petty gripe?

If he was ok with DRM he wouldn't be a gog customer and would have bought it from steam. Nobody is ok with viruses.

... or in this case it actually shows he is using a really bad firewall and needs to upgrade it to one that doesn't suck

I don't understand still this thread why goes on ? It's totally COMODO firewall related problem . Uninstall it and use another one . Because pop-ups freezing computer or application .

I have zonealarm as a firewall and encounter the same problem. I use the current gog version of the game including the expansion and when I start the game my firewall tells me, that shadowrun.exe wants to access the internet.

If I don't allow access to the internet, that the game does not respond anymore. I have to allow access to be able to play the game. And I don't like my games to do that.

Of course I could go offline to play, but that is a workaround I would rather not have to bother with. And no, changing the firewall because one game acts up is no option either. I'm quite satisfied with zonealarm because it does reliably what it is supposed to do.

Btw: If I start two instances of the game and deny both access to the internet, then I'll have two non-responsive games running.

I haven't installed the game yet.
I'm thinking if it's implemented in a client-server model and it doesn't actually try to connect to the internet but to its local server instance. Check if the IP address is localhost (127.0.0.1). The port number doesn't matter.

Sacred 2 was implemented that way.

Shadowrun uses the Unity engine, which shouldn't be trying to connect to anything, even itself. AFAIK it doesn't operate in that kind of freaky client-server fashion, though there are many engines that do (mainly FPS engines like HL2 and the like).

However Shadowrun does also use GoogleAnalytics to send statistics etc., which for some reason you can't actually disable within the game, at least not as far as I know. I've blocked all of this crap and the game runs fine, although it does appear to take a long time to start up - I suspect since it has to wait for all that network crap to finish (or fail) before continuing.

This can make it appear like it's crashed, but it actually hasn't. So I'd suggest give it some time.

I'd also suggest shooting an angry email at the devs for this "feature". The fact that the game didn't openly disclose what it was doing from the get go - with an opt-in/opt-out feature - isn't really good enough IMO.

Hm... then I'll block it again and give it more time. Thanks!

And yes, all that underhanded data gathering is very poor form.

PS: No, sadly that doesn't work for me, because after 15 minutes the game tries to access the internet again. And if it gets denied again, it tries again after another 15 minutes and stays non-responsive the whole time.