Judas or whoever misunderstood the patch notes: https://www.gog.com/forum/general_archive/weekend_promo_big_games_big_sale/post96

Sounds like.

Hm.. I'll try messaging support. Who knows, might help.

Yep, LAN has DRM. This is the reason I refuse to buy this game and expansions while loving and owning all past games.

I logged a ticket to GOG about false advertising, and am awaiting a response.

"DRM-FREE. No activation or online connection required to play."
"Modes: Single-player - Multi-player"

Is what is says on the store page; blatant false advertising and a EXTREMELY bad precedent to set for the 100% DRM free website.

When Triumph's servers inevitably shut down multiplayer will become 100% unusable, unlike previous games.

Just got a response to my ticket. They changed it according to my suggestion, and the multiplayer notice now reads:

"Multiplayer notice: Currently, the multiplayer options available are: Hotseat, mutliplayer over VPN, Play by Email and Online Multiplayer. All modes except Hotseat require a unique CD key, which will be located in your game shelf, and an on-line account with Triumph Studios."

A typo aside, there are no more inaccuracies now. I'm still not too enamoured of Triumph's account system, but now everybody should have fair warning. I'm glad they fixed it.

Triumph's current activation system is no different than a CD activation required to play online back in the day. That or Steam, I'll take that by a long shot.

Thank you for the update, I'd really love to buy this game but obviously the DRM continues to be a deal breaker.

The fact that GOG has allowed this to go on has really damaged my opinion of them. I spend quite a bit of time now researching the games I'm about to buy here, no more impulse buys. I hope it was worth it to lose my loyalty.

Here is a new community request asking for GOG to remove DRM content. The latest addition to GOG's library, Victor Vran, also seems to have DRM, though I'm not sure to what extent. Hopefully we can get GOG to see the mistake they are making.

http://www.gog.com/wishlist/site/get_rid_of_the_drm_in_your_games_details_in_description

That's an impossible request.

Multiplayer only works through Triumph's servers because that's how the game was designed by Triumph. And you need a game-key to get an account for those servers. GoG can't change that. They'd have to reverse-engineer the game and host their own servers or something. And that would A] take a ridiculous amount of effort and B] be illegal. Not going to happen.

You could petition Triumph to make a real LAN mode or something, though I doubt they'll invest the time and money either. Still, it would have a better chance of success since it's at least possible.

It is what it is. AoW3 doesn't have any DRM for normal single-player or hotseat, but you need the game-key for multiplayer. Which happens to be true for lots of games. If that's a deal-breaker for you that's unfortunate, but GoG can't do anything about it unless it is not stocking any games which have some kind of protected multiplayer mode.

And I for one am very glad we can get those games on here anyway. Most people only play single-player, and for them it's not an issue at all.

You have misunderstood what I am asking for. Obviously only Triumph can make changes to their game. What I'm requesting is that GOG requires them to do so and if they will not they should remove the game from what is supposed to be a store for DRM-Free games.

People have petitioned Triumph to allow a LAN or Direct connect mode, but thus far Triumph has not done so.

Personally I don't have a problem with having a game key, other games such as Neverwinter Nights have keys and it doesn't bother me because I can still play without obtaining permission from a 3rd party service. Once this service goes down, and it will, no one will be able to play. Furthermore I shouldn't have to provide my personal information to play the game.

I don't agree that most people only play single player and anyway it is irrelevant, GOG claims to be DRM-Free. If you can't play the full game without DRM then it can't possibly be considered DRM-Free.

I agree that there are many definitions of what DRM is, so lets accept GOG's definition for now. The problem is, if you can't play sections of the game without asking permission from a 3rd party, then you don't own the game. Downloading the installer won't help once Triumph turns off its servers. If you own it, no one should be able to stop you from playing your game, and that's not the case here. Furthermore, why should you need to provide Triumph with your personal information in order to play a game own? Even using GOG's definition you can't say this game is DRM-Free, and so I think you can rightfully say they have betrayed their principles.

If you needed to log on to Triumph's servers to play the game, then I'd absolutely agree. But you don't. You don't need an internet connection at all. So it won't matter if Triumph's servers go down either, for single-player at least.

If by "sections of the game" you mean "multiplayer," then yeah, that'd be a pain, but it's not covered under Gog's definition. Unavailable multiplayer is a risk with older games.

As for "personal information," though: do you mean an email address? Other than email, you don't need to provide Triump with anything.

Not sure what you mean here; GOG has hosted the AoW3 Installation File, DLCs, and Patch Files on their own network, (as has Steam), so even in a worst-case-highly-unrealistic-scenario of "Triumph Declares Bankruptcy Today and is completely Liquidated Tomorrow", you'll be able to download your AoW 3 games at any time (as long as you made the purchase before-hand, of course). And, although it may be difficult to play Multiplayer in such a case, it's feasible that third-party network providers will step in to take in the MP community (as was the case when GameSpy shut down -- not to mention other services such as Hamachi, Tungle, GameRanger, and so on).

Even if Triumph Studios disappeared in an sudden attack by outer-space-alien invaders, you'd always be able to play AoW 3 offline and enjoy all its features (save, possibly, Multiplayer) as you can now.

Yes for single player. You do need to log on to Triumph's servers in order to play multiplayer though, even if you want to setup a match at home on your LAN. So you do need an internet connection, and it will matter if Triumph's servers go down.

It seems like you logic can be summed up as: I don't personally play multiplayer therefore the DRM in multiplayer doesn't exist.

Why don't you think "you own the game" includes playing with someone else? GOG's "DRM definition we talked about earlier does not give any sort of exclusion for when playing with another person, why wouldn't it be covered?

Unavailable multiplayer is not a risk with games that don't have DRM. It's not a risk with Age of Wonders 2 for example, we will always be able to play it.

Sure, that would qualify as personal in my book.

I don't think Triumph declaring bankruptcy is unrealistic at all. Many larger development studios than Triumph have. Who will pay the developer to remove the DRM if they do go bankrupt? Would that programmer even have the legal right to remove it? They would need to clear it through the company. They don't even have to go out of business, at some point in the future they will decide to save money by turning off the servers because not enough people are playing.

Hamachi, Tunngle, GameRanger all just setup a VPN, and you can't play in LAN mode without permission from Triumph's servers.

Could the game be made available for multiplayer? Yes. Being DRM-Free means we don't have to hope they do this later, because we have everything we need now. There is no reason we shouldn't expect to be able to play all aspects of the game, including multiplayer.