No, the core of our disagreement is the fact you truly seem not to understand that what's at stake isn't any single case of missing "unimportant extra" content, but how GOG's rule either applies, or it doesn't. I am not arguing whether the content in this case is "essential" or not". I am saying it doesn't matter. The rule either applies to everything, or it doesn't apply at all, since the loophole you're defending allows the introduction of any sort of online-locked content. I keep showing you how your excuses can verbatim apply to far more egregious violations of GOG's rule, and you in response keep going back to how this is a case of "non-essential extra" content, which, as repeatedly explained, is not a relevant argument.

You seem utterly unable to understand that it's the principle of the thing and the implications of it that are my concern, not "outrage" at the "intent" of a particular single developer you happen to like and therefore seem to feel obliged to defend.

My point being, this ship has long sailed, when MP through clients became a thing. So "everything" is out of the question, unless you want GOG to remove all games which require Galaxy for MP.

My "loophole" is treating stuff that is only accessible or obtainable through MP/online as "nonexistent", and then I judge the game for what is left. If it's still a good game, it's still a good game, and this is true for both NMS and DL.

If it's a broken SP game with great online MP I simply don't buy it. But MP fans: Have fun!

If it's a broken game which can be fixed only by online locked content - well that's cheating, and I want my money back and the game delisted. I think that was the issue with some games which got delisted in fact.

You can get quicksilver offline:

one of the random encounters you may get while using the pulse drive in a star system is Stellar Ice. Sometimes this will yield quicksilver. I don't know if the latest update has changed it, but you can check some youtube videos or google for coords to systems where the Stellar Ice spawns.

You can also add it with the save editor on PC, which is what I do, as I refuse to do mission after mission every time I start a new game.

I agree that the Void Egg, at least, should be obtainable in another fashion as well though.

I don't like HG especially, and NMS, while I like the game, is not even in my top 20 list of favourite games. I just don't like lynch mobs and witch hunts. And I'm only "defending" HG so far. I think they made a shitty decision and should rectify it. I just don't think they (and their game) should burn for it.

But then your loophole doesn't fully apply to NMS. Because you do get some quicksilver offline, just for a little taste of it. And then you get to think about all that you're missing for not going online. It's not "nonexistent". It's a bad practice and ultimately unfair to offline players.

But anything can be made obtainable through MP/online only. At this point it only becomes a matter of what someone arbitrarily judges "essential", which can mean cutting out almost any chosen content. What you are saying is essentially that GOG shouldn't have any rules left, because they are entirely meaningless anyway, and each of us should just judge if the DRM/content locked behind online in every particular case is bad enough not to play the game or not. Well in that case we can all just be on Steam anyway.

Yeah... that's how I treat all games not available DRM-free too. "Nonexistent on my platform". Not always easy ;-)
Actually, I judge if the content not locked behind some online requirement is good enough. Which means Steam and the other DRM stores are out of the equation.

Not sure how much QS you get per encounter, Tom, but you can make the ice respawn by landing at the space station and reloading, then pulsing again. Again, assuming it hasn't changed in the latest update.

This thread is weird... As far as I understand, there's some kind of currency in NMS that you only get when doing "community misiions". With that currency you can buy different items. One of these items leads to a player ship. And because you can use that ship in singleplayer too (which is the same game as multiplayer, just with an un-checked multiplayer box) once you found it in multiplayer, the game is full of DRM?

Let us try to define that new DRM border a bit clearer. Let's say GTA V would be released on GOG. Singleplayer is 100% offline, no DRM, no Rockstar Social Club. But for multiplayer you'd have to be online (plot twist!). Would singleplayer be DRM'd then? Because GTA online definitely has LOTS of content that isn't available in singleplayer! And all that prevents that content from being available in singleplayer is an artificial barrier. Stuff is already in the code, but someone at Rockstar decided you can't use it in singleplayer.

So, there are two possible answers now:

1. It isn't DRM'd singleplayer. But why would the same thing be DRM in NMS then? Because in GTA you have two seperate game options in the menu? Singleplayer and multiplayer? So all that Hello Games would have to do to get rid of the "DRM" is to get that multiplayer checkbox out of the ingame menu and move it into the game's main menu? That'd be a weird definition of DRM!

2. It is DRM'd singleplayer. You can play it offline, keep your installers, play the entire singleplayer campaign... Heck, you could even drop the files on a million sticks and give them away to random people on the street. But it is DRM'd, because the online game has different content than the multiplayer game. I guess we'd have to remove a few more games than just NMS from GOG's library then...

Look... I'm not a fan of such things either. You're right that there's no reason to make that ship a "community missions exclusive" - at least no reason for Grumpy Old Gamers like us (dev's reason is to promote community missions). But that's not DRM. It's only a decision that we think is stupid. The only difference between NMS and GTA is that GTA has two different entries for multiplayer and singleplayer in the main menu. And I don't think anyone here would call a GTA V without Social Club and with an offline installer DRM'd...

Let us have a discussion if GOG should sell games which have online-exclusive content (online multiplayer basically always is online-excluive content). But let's not start calling multiplayer a DRM measure for singleplayer, as soon as it has exclusive content.

Thank you. I don't even know how many times I hit the +new post button only to delete what I wanted to say all along. And you've expressed what I wanted to say in one go.

Thought about this, and I changed my mind.

If what TerriblePurpose is true (and there's no reason to doubt the guy with 2.700 hours into the game) and quicksilver is indeed obtainable in offline single player, this changes quite a bit for me.

Before I was under the impression that you could only earn quicksilver in online play (except for the first 150 from the main mission to "hook you"). Which means the quicksilver store was purely "rewards for online play". Shitty decision, esp. the Void Egg, but hey, ok, I can live with that.
But actually being able to farm quicksilver offline (even if it's a PITA), but have the shop offers hidden from you until you come online at least once really smells of DRM. A very silly form of DRM - have come online once in an otherwise completely DRM free game - but still.

Some people choose to play offline, some people can't go online from home (Oil rig? We had someone here). It's not "special reward for community players" any more when you can get the stuff elsewhere just fine.

I might be an oversight, bug, or maybe not. Hard to tell. So all HG would need to do is unlock the full qs shop for all players, and the thing would be fixed. And they really should do that, because in the light of TerriblePurpose's info there is simply no justification any more to hide the stuff. I thought quicksilver to be "unobtainium" for offline players, and I was wrong. It's actually already as I suggested further above, except for the broken shop.

I'm still not sure if delisting the game would be right, or too harsh a measure. It's really a last resort thing leading to all kinds of bad blood and problems.
I thought so too, but I was wrong, see TerriblePurpose's posts above. That IMO changes to issue to a bit more ugly.
Much ta for the info. I never stumbled across the stuff, but then, me always starting over didn't get me very far in each attempt.

I'm still curious to understand where your line in the sand lies.

Imagine a game that has a full long single-player campaign that is completely available offline and which you played and thoroughly enjoyed. The kind of campaign you would gladly call "good enough". The game also asks you to register your email address online, but you decide not to. All good so far.

Unknown to you, so you don't know what you're "missing", the devs decide to reward anyone who registered their email address by unlocking a second full single-player campaign, just as good as and just as long as the first one, also fully playable offline, but only after you go online and register your email address.

Assuming you now learn about the second campaign's existence. Would you consider the second campaign to be multi-player? Would you call it just a reward for registering your email address? Would you consider it non-existent? Would you consider it single-player content locked behind an arbitrary online-only wall? Do you think such a game should be on GOG?

Landing on a space station and reloading the game to respawn something "if the devs didn't change this in an update" could either be intended game design (which would be another weird decision), or exploiting an oversight of the devs (or a bug). Now we're entering a territory where we first have to decide if it's an exploit or stupid game design, to then define whether it's DRM due to the dev's stupidity, or DRM-free. Doesn't make the discussion less weird.

It basically all boils down to the fact that games have changed a lot. Multiplayer and singleplayer often can't be clearly divided anymore. Hello Games probably just wanted to include some multiplayer reward. I'm pretty sure they didn't think about if someone could see this as DRM for the singleplayer of their game, since it's... well... a multiplayer reward. It's hard to draw a line in a seamless single-/multiplayer game. And it'd be absolutely weird to "solve" this (to "remove" the DRM) by creating a new multiplayer entry in the main menu. Take away the seamless experience from everyone to please some Goglodyte's definition of DRM. It'd still be the same singleplayer game, just that you can't get into multiplayer without going to the main menu anymore :/

Another stupid idea: Would the game still be DRM free if multiplayer still wasn't possible with the GOG version?

(nevermind)