Posted December 27, 2022
high rated
mechmouse: The problem here is some games come with a significant service portion. NMS from the outset had this "wikipedia of planets", it was a core part of the game play. One that can only works with an account based online element. The only way GOG can be be 100% offline is not to sell these types of games.
The uploading of visited planets is disabled when offline, but you still get some benefit by clicking the upload button. I can understand that server access might be needed to organise and deliver specialised content like seasonal missions and the like even if you're playing by yourself. There are situations where server-delivered content makes sense because to code it in would take much more work and drastically change the game in doing so. But the devs locked simple things like free daily derelict transponders and new planet discovery quicksilver payments behind a server check, and the devs didn't offer a viable way of earning Quicksilver - a premium currency which still exists in offline games and can activate things within an offline game - without an always online server check. This is where it got iffy. The game will give you just enough Quicksilver in an offline game to buy one egg for the living ship quest to unlock, and maybe a misc cosmetic. This quest is genuine SP content, but if you don't know about it because you didn't read up on the game first you could waste your coin and never see this content unless you go online. See my point? The devs will argue there's content which is by necessity server-locked, and yes that exists, but there's a tiny bit there around the edges which gets wilfully ignored by both parties. And that's the part I've deemed unforgivably DRM.
Post edited December 27, 2022 by Braggadar