I'm tired of having to do this every time, but I will do it and get my voice out anyway, cause it's why I'm on GOG to begin with.

Components or content that needs an internet connection to be accessed in single player games is not OK!

This kind of shtick is why I'm not buying Ubisoft games to begin with. This kind of shtick is why I ditched the swamps that are all the Steams out there. This kind of shtick is NOT what many others and I have associated with GOG's promise "DRM-free." I came here to buy games that will work when my internet is down or even when GOG is unavailable for any reason, and singleplayer content that needs online connectivity to be accessed just kills the whole point for me.

You do realise that not everyone in the universe already bought the game, right? It's still being sold, people can buy it at any point. So what, is this some kind of "Shroedinger's content"? It's a bonus for those who bought it a year ago but part of the base game for me if I buy it today?

And why exactly do online players deserve "rewards"? Are they paying more for the game? Can I get a discount if I check some "only interested in single-player" box when I buy it?

In the end none of these mental gymnastics over "gifts" and "rewards" and "nothing is being taken away from you" matter one bit. The only thing that matters, THE ONLY THING is that GOG is knowing allowing a breach of their DRM-free policy for a game they are selling, and is itself using it as an opportunity to break it's promise of Galaxy being "optional". Nothing else - what that locked content is, how much it matters or when it was introduced matters one bit. It's completely, entirely immaterial.

Of course not, but that's clearly not what I said. Needing a client to access something locally in the name of "online only community content" is a level of BS that few are falling for here.

You seem to be wildly missing the point that this is GOG not Steam, ie, it isn't just about the game being DRM-Free in a vacuum on a store with no guarantees, but rather the store as a whole has a DRM-Free requirement & expectation. If Dishonored (non GOTY) were here from launch and I bought the base-game here in 2012, I wouldn't expect The Knife of Dunwall or The Brigmore Witches expansion content for free. I would however expect though that future patches & expansions would not add DRM when it's a specific requirement of the whole store for GOG versions to remain DRM-Free (regardless of whether the content was free or not). You're arguing the wrong argument for "entitlement".

And I don't think one single person here other than yourself is that naive they can't figure out that a lot of post-release work on NMS involved upgrading a variety of mechanics & visuals so that it actually finally matched the originally dishonest pre-release claims. A large chunk of post-release patching is definitely not "bonus content" by any measure.

I'm glad you used the words "as long as it's not in-dev" because when a studio specifically budgets and pays for full-time employees to continue to work on a game (that was originally widely poorly received upon release for a variety of reasons including fake E3 "bullshot" demos and multiple claims of features that were missing at launch) for 4 years after release, that's not "adding bonus content", it's finishing an incomplete game whose "In Development" flag was dishonestly removed 3-4 years too soon.

The new account is for privacy reasons and that's all I'll say about it.

As for the thread title, it's accurate to how I and evidently others see the situation: If a game has single-player content that isn't available offline, it isn't fully DRM-free. GOG was contacted about this issue privately first and the result was this little notice on the store page with no change to the problem. As I said before, the only way to get GOG to do the right thing most of the time is to have public backlash. That requires a thread title that will get people to pay attention. There was no intention of blowing anything out of proportion though, and I don't consider the title to be "outrage" at all.

If you buy it today, and content they promised being available in offline single player is locked behind MP/online - that would be false advertising and a real reason to complain. Is that the case? I honestly don't know, I got the game since day one. And it's pretty crazy what has become of it - all for free.

You do realize that a game which has MP will always offer more content to players who actually use it than players who only play offline. Did you get a discount on Quake, when you only wanted to play the SP episodes?
Regarding NMS, they offer "community missions" for online players, and if I understand it right, the reward is the quicksilver stuff. Maybe the quicksilver store shouldn't be even visible when offline, but like I said, hard to do, since you can switch modes any time in the game.

Well, I don't see a breach of DRM-free here, or not more than usual regarding MP stuff - which is a shitty and convoluted situation in general.
So the real question is: Are we talking about single-player content here? Obviously Hello Games regards the stuff as MP or "community content", or it would be available for pure SP. So isn't the real question "Why, Hello Games, not give offline users the opportunity to get the same stuff?"

Not in this way. MP is not synonymous with content usable in single-player being locked behind an online connection.

Your entire stance seems to be based on willing misunderstanding of the situation, fueld by the fact that you got lot's of stuff for free, so it's all cool.

We are talking about single-player content, at least in regards to the quicksilver shop and the stuff it sells. From what I understand, the content:

1. Doesn't require other players in any way.

2. Works in offline single-player if you hack it in with a save editor.

3. Is partially available offline already with the limited selection the quicksilver store has offline.

4. According to some posts I've seen on the subject, the content stays available if you just go online with Galaxy in the game once (or go to where the content is under those conditions) even if you play offline after that.

Unless I'm mistaken, there's no way to regard the quicksilver shop's items as multiplayer content that isn't entirely arbitrary.

Well, it mentions something about requiring GoG Galaxy for some features in the fineprint. And singleplayer is not mentioned, just a very nebulous clause about "online components"

But, let's be real here. GoG has always stood for being DRM free, so it is very reasonable in my opinion that this clause in the fineprint is very easily overlooked.
Heck, i don't even remember when i actually checked system requirements last, because i luckily own a decent machine.

So, this should at least be a big banner at the top of the store page. Even Steam does that if there are unexpected pitfalls like additional DRM, additional EULAs or other limitations out of the ordinary.
But GoG knows just as well that to announce this bigger would open a *very* large can of worms.

What now should happen is that this discussion and revelation should not just go under in a couple of days, like so many issues do. This must be kept fresh for everyone (at least those that look into these forums :p) until it is *at least* acknowledged.

Additionally, if this *really* can be circumvented by modifying save files, this issue becomes even more ridiculous. I am reminded of the "fact" that it would be *impossible* to play Sim City without an online connection...

Indeed. The content on offer in the store is completely suitable for full SP gameplay, is built into the game files already installed on the player's machine (static content, not dynamic), and bypassable by savegame editing. Basically it's server authentication for content which by no means requires server authentication.

We're not talking time capsules in Subnautica here, which are dynamically created and moderated by online servers, this is content which is "right there" and requires no other input from the server but to "open the shop doors for business".

Suppose Aerodight in TW3 was locked behind an online server: you couldn't get it unless your system was online at the time you started the quest. Doesn't make much sense to have such authentication, but CDPR could have done it to stop, I dunno, software pirates or cheaters from gaining arguably the best silver sword in the game without online access - not ideal. What if they said it wasn't that, but "a reward for sharing your game statistics with the game server online". Does that make it alright?

I'd like to take a moment to remind people that we also shouldn't assume malicious intent from Hello Games here. GOG fumbled badly, that's plain to see, but for all we know this is just a bug that happens to be fixed by connecting with Galaxy. Maybe there's something in the game that checks the offline store stock versus the online one and forces it to update properly when you go online. It'd be an easy thing for the developers to not notice.

Honestly I think that sometimes something can slip through the cracks but what I find dissatisfying is the reaction of GOG in the form of a warning in the game's page.

This shows the unwillingness to fix that according to GOG's own rules.
It would've been, at least, appropriate to warn customers that the game has online DRM and a solution is being worked on, but apperently, at the moment, that's not the case I guess.

I really don't know since I don't play MP/community stuff. In my understanding, you need to do community stuff to earn the quicksilver ("online currency") to buy stuff in the shop. Meaning, when the game thinks you could play MP (by going online at least once) it starts to show you the rewards it has to offer for that.
Can you actually earn this quicksilver playing offline? If yes, it's indeed silly to hide it until you play online. If not, it's clear that it's indeed intended for "community stuff" only, as are the things on offer in the store.

Given that it's GOG we're dealing with, I'm not ruling out the possibility that when informed about this they didn't even bother contacting the developers. That game page edit may be 100% GOG's. Like you said though, regardless of the intent or anything the problem is what it is and needs to be fixed.

According to the game's wiki, you can get quicksilver offline via the Condensed Stellar Ice space encounter:

https://nomanssky.gamepedia.com/Condensed_Stellar_Ice

So it should indeed be possible to get quicksilver offline, and a small part of the shop's stock is available. The whole thing is bizarre, really.

My guess is that the intention was something like "We give you Aerodight as a reward for teaming up with other Witchers (other players) and solving this quest. After that you can keep it offline too."

I think Dying Light also has rewards like this, but I could be wrong. Never play online.