Nice to see a new turn-based strategy game being added to the catalog. Sadly it comes from a company which does not support Linux on DRM-free platforms and is published by a company which is known for spamming DLCs. Too bad!

Perhaps I'll grab it in a few years when there is a stable Wine version which can run it, all DLCs are included in a complete version and the price is down to a few Dollars...

Until then I'll enjoy playing the old Age of Wonders games, unless Triumph Studios surprises me with the release of a Linux version on GOG.

"We don't believe in controlling you and your games. Here, you won't be locked out of titles you paid for, or constantly asked to prove you own them - this is DRM-free gaming."
- https://www.gog.com/about_gog

i want to add "+ gog is bigottry" to my name description but the character limit is expired, same as my good will for gog.

GOG gave up on drm-free a long time ago but are too afraid to say so because it's the only thing that keep them relevant. And they constatly avoid communicating this fact on the news, people have to find out on a small note at the bottom of the game page. Because they clearly care about their customers...

+1

I thought this thread was about the REAL Planetfall:

Dear Paradox Marketing Team,

You are not Games Workshop, and don't know how to pull off over-the-top such that bad dialogue becomes hilariously bad. Please never try again.

Thanks.

How is that drm if for online modes you need to be online?

Heh...;) How could DRM-free keep GOG "relevant" if they "gave up on DRM a long time ago"...? The reason GOG is relevant is because they have no DRM.

Online multiplayer support is not LAN play. If you do not connect to an Internet server you cannot play an online multiplyer game--doesn't matter whose game it is. Doesn't matter in the slightest who sells it. (Single-player GOG games of course, require no Internet connection.)

LAN play allows people on your local network at home to play each other on their connected machines. LAN = Local Area Network. Local area = where you are, a network made up of LOCAL computers, that does not require Internet access for play. LAN does not require the Internet at all.

LAN play and multiplayer are two different things.

An Internet requirement for access to an online server to play multiplayer games is *not* DRM--it is a *requirement* for *all online multiplyer games*--just like installing your game on a hard drive is *required* to install the game--have no drive--can't install the game; have no Internet access, you cannot access an online server for a multiplayer game. Again: not DRM.

You do not sound as if you know what DRM is at all. FYI, GOG doesn't ship any of its games with DRM. I should know, I think--I own 327 games on GOG alone and all have single-player modes that *do not require an Internet connection*, in the fine print or elsewhere. Not a one. You are confused about the difference between LAN play and online multiplayer.

Hope this helps you get things straight in your thinking!

I get an offline installer and my single player experience is completely DRM-free. That is what counts for me.

I get that it's not completely nice that multiplayer has slightly different constraints. I also get once multiplayer is involved, things are significantly more complicated because a pirated game does not only equate "no money" but frequently "costing money" because for a lot of games in the past a not insignificant part of their server upkeep was purely for pirated copies. I also get this is not an issue for pure LAN play and LAN play is a benefit for some people. I get you can wage religious wars about these issues.

I, however, will not participate in these wars because the one experience that counts for me is singleplayer. Singleplayer is DRM-free in all relevant aspects. I get that your priorities might be different but if you make a sweeping, general statement like this you are bound to annoy people. If you want to inspire change, you need to qualify your statements significantly better. If you don't, then what exactly is the point of the post? Just trolling?

Great, but now let's see if we can straighten out yours :)

You state that "LAN play and multiplayer" are 2 different things. The more accurate distinction, though, would be between DRM-free multiplayer and multiplayer that is locked behind DRM.

LAN, hotseat, splitscreen are all DRM-free multiplayer. Online multiplayer that requires a client/signing up for a third-party account = not DRM-free.

Note too that having to use a company server is markedly different from private servers, though even private servers imo do not truly fulfill the "game preservation" aspect of DRM-free that is a major part of DRM-free.

You are not the first to make the "as long as the singleplayer is DRM-free, it's a DRM-free game" (non-)argument. Can't say it makes any more sense now than the last times I heard it, though.

If a mode of a game is locked behind DRM, it can and should be viewed on the whole as "a game with DRM". For the same reason that "A" cannot equal "Not A".

The reason people like me get so up in arms about this is because we have seen our hobby simultaneously vanish before our eyes, and morph into a monstrosity. Please demand actual DRM-free gaming.

That is an excellent point and I would second your "campaign" :) I certainly do not mean to suggest all games should have multiplayer; just that, if a game is going to have multiplayer, I want its multiplayer to be actually DRM-free. I think that is worth supporting even though I would generally be even happier if the resources went towards a fuller singleplayer game.

Thanks to rjbuffchix for getting my point.

Multiplayer without drm and an account can be accomplished (LAN, private server, direct hosting). The fact that is convenient or not doesn't change the meaning of being behind a drm. The same applies to the concept of being partially drm-free: sure, there are different shades of limitation, but you are either drm-free or not. In case of multiplayer game with an account we have a compromise, but still cannot count as drm-free. So it would be fair to properly advertise that. The only kind of game which are not compatible with drm-free by definition are online only games, the other are just a choice to either use drm or not.

When I say that GOG is relevant because it's a drm-free store but that they have given up on that for some times now, has perfectly sense. They are still promoting it but under the hood they are making changes.
I also want to ask: why, even though it is know how that is important to customers, those information are always omitted from the news and put in an inconvenient position on the store page? Seems like they don't want to put the focus on information that could change customers mind, otherwise that could be easly fixed.

Right now on GOG there are the following kind of games behind drm:
- game with multiplayer that requires an account (or sometimes Galaxy)
- games with some singleplayer features locked behind an account (Battletech comes to mind, another Paradox Game)
- legacy games with deactivated drm

The latter has been an issue for some because drm is not removed in some cases but left there even if deactivated. Meaning the files for the drm are still on the system. Sometimes it is not fully deactivated but a fix never came to solve the issue ( an example don't come to mind at the moment). That's mostly due to the fact that GOG pick up crack from warez site to remove drm from old games, and they don't always know if they work correctly or not, so it is possible that issue arise later.

Since I started the one branch...

I'm okay with online account requirements for online play.

I'm not with them required for LAN play.

And I LOATHE when LAN play (or direct IP connections) are passed for server-based-only play. In this case, it's being used as a pseudo-DRM. If a game has Internet play at all, there's no reason not to have DRM-free direct connection and/or LAN play.

I LOVED Age of Wonders 3, but the admission price for the full package (i.e. Premium Edition) is really, really big, plus the game will land only in 5 months from now… and it doesn't even give the reassurance that the DLC included are all that are going to be released.

I wish it was easier to choose and that we had more information about Planetfall.