I definitely want more games to work over LAN.

I don't think that Galaxy will make that any better. Galaxy seems to me to be specifically designed to present a nice storefront for people used to a client and to allow people to do multiplayer with Steam owners to remove a barrier to buying from GOG. Somehow including LAN play would be great, but I think most businesses wouldn't do it.

And as Elenarie said - GOG's devs can barely manage to keep the site running most of the time. I shudder at the thought of their networking code in a client. I fully expect Galaxy to be hilariously unusable for several months at least. I might be surprised - the alpha is a good sign - but I'm not really expecting to be.

Given this forum discussion*, why hasn't this been made into a suggestion vote? (or I didn't find it?)
*and previous ones :
http://www.gog.com/forum/general/gog_galaxy_what_about_lan
http://www.gog.com/forum/general/we_need_your_help_join_us_for_the_gog_galaxy_stress_test_a0893/post119

Reposting my comment from RPS :
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2015/05/06/gog-galaxy-download-client-beta/
"I think I’m going to petition GoG (using their voting feedback system) to take a hard stance on games that don’t offer LAN/DirectConnect as an option for multiplayer.
(Is there a difference between “TCP-IP” and “DirectConnect”? Or is it because the latter also includes UDP?)

This is important because I’ve lately seen games that had LAN/TCP-IP removed (Dawn of War 1 and Homeworld : Remastered).
To add insult to injury, these games had old matchmaking systems like Won and GameSpy that weren’t working anymore (which were replaced by Steamworks matchmaking (and game hosting?)) – but why removing the only 3rd party independent way (and I doubt Steam will be there, in a form similar to the current, as long as the Internet) to play these games!?
My suspicion is that it’s not so much because LAN/TCP-IP is hard to maintain (after all, Steamworks still has to use the underlying code managing connections over the Internet through TCP/UDP-IP, hasn’t it?), but because of the “piracy” issue.
And GoG has positioned itself in a stance that it’s better to have some piracy (which even Steam has) than DRM.

By the way, AFAIK, Steam doesn’t force anyone to use DRM in their games, not even their Steamworks games :
http://pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/The_Big_List_of_DRM-Free_Games_on_Steam
(note the presence of several Valve games in the list)

So it would seem that it’s the developers that are the ones deciding to put DRM into their Steam games.

And that’s why GoG’s no-DRM stance is important, and why they should also have the stance :
“if your game has (real-time) multiplayer, you HAVE to offer LAN/DirectConnect as an option”;
rather than just the stance :
“it would be nice if your game offered LAN/DirectConnect as an option, but we’ll still let you to sell your game in our store if you don’t”

Do you see any holes in my reasoning?"

P.S.: This should be more precise as in "direct IP connection support", it would be nice if game developers also added things like automatic LAN discovery and matchmaking, but those should not be manadatory for inclusion in GoG.

I don't like when devs alter the original games by removing content like the LAN multiplayer option. : (

Since GOG seem so proud that the new game Grand Ages: Medieval uses the Galaxy multiplayer function, this thread is especially relevant now, imo.

I have no interest at all in online multiplayer and would like to have some sort of multiplayer option that doesn't depend on a third-party's servers.

If new games like Grand Ages: Medieval depend on Galaxy's match-making function, wouldn't it be possible that Galaxy could just simulate a connection and thus allow you to play your games locally or host games on your own servers?

Probably Larry and his brothers Daryl and Daryl, if they want to maintain the current level of quality.

IMHO, DRM free also includes multiplayer functions.

LAN would be acceptable as a DRM free option, with direct connect being a real treat..

But all in all, multiplayer should NOT rely on any external services..

wouldn't this come down to the developer's initial vision for said game? I mean, if they weren't going to put direct ip/lan in a game, but had galaxy multiplayer... that's not exactly a crime is it?

No they're not planning on doing this because it's entirely up to the developer of the game what game modes they choose to support. There's no law that says a game must support LAN play, and in some games it wouldn't even make sense. Having said that, any sane person would prefer multiplayer to have LAN mode if it is technically feasible and would make sense to have it, which most standard multiplayer games would (ie: non-persistent universes). GOG doesn't decide that however, the developer does and there are zillions of games in the GOG store right now that have online multiplayer that do not have LAN multiplayer.

I say this as a big fan of LAN multiplayer and with that as my strong preference - if a game does not support LAN multiplayer and someone (myself included) considers that a mandatory feature, simply do not buy the game and politely (do not be rude or abrasive) submit feedback directly to the developer of the game requesting (not demanding) that they add or enable LAN multiplayer and why that is valuable to you as a player. Keep in mind though that the decision to not include LAN modes in games is almost always on purpose to avoid pirates from being able to play multiplayer with pirated versions of the games - no matter what nonsense the developer might make to try to paint it in a way that it is good for you, and that convincing them to add LAN modes to their games in a patch or to their future games is probably fruitless if they've decided to go the online-multiplayer only route.

GOG is the small guy in the business compared to the monsters out there, and it wouldn't be in GOG's own interest to exclude games just because they do not have LAN multiplayer mode, especially when there are dozens if not hundreds of games here already that do not have LAN multiplayer. If people want the situation changed - go to the developers, they write the code. Don't spend money on games that don't support the features like this that you want. Hurt their wallets and that's the only way they will listen. To be honest though, I think it's way past the point of no return with the way people will get burned by a game developer 10 times then rush out to be the first on the block to purchase their next ripoff game and be upset about it all over again.

When you have any multiplayer mode over network in a game you already have all that code. It only would require a few modifications. No need for any source code access. Both Valve and GOG provide a client library for that. And you can use such a library from any serious programming language.

Yes, but when you have any kind of multiplayer mode in your game you already have to have all that code.

In a multiplayer game without a dedicated server usually one of the game clients works as a host. All the meta data which would be saved on the server in a server based game can be saved at that host. Distributing the information to all clients so that any other client would be able to re-host the game would require a bit more work though. But of course, any multiplayer mode without central authentication always will require some trust between the players. ;)

Sure.

There's also no law that says games have to be DRM free. Still GOG only sells games which are DRM free. ;)

Your argumentation is correct. But you could make exactly the same argument for having DRM in games. GOG deliberately has decided to sell DRM free games only. And they are successful in doing it. The equivalent of DRM free for single player mode would be not to depend on a central service for multiplayer mode (it does not matter for me if someone calls that DRM or not, I don't even want to argue about that).

So deciding to require a multiplayer mode which does not depend on a central service for any game which has a multiplayer mode and providing support for such a mode through the Galaxy (or any other) client library would only be consequent for GOG.

I don't care either way as I don't do multiplayer. However, one thing that does bother me is that this should be isolated from the main games, doesn't matter how, but I don't want games that I play single player offline connecting to the net or any other kind of intra computer connections. I have noted recently that vvran and vhelsing have both attempted to connect to the network without asking me. I realise some people don't mind this, I find it a.security risk and totally unacceptable. Any external request should be explicitly asked for permission by the user, otherwise it is merely acting.like a.trojan.

Why installing a Firewall? Just DO NOT install the client. That's all, no need to blame yourself more with another software package with elementary risks - most software-firewalls are even nonsense and no further help, also threatens the system integrity. And if the software needs the client: It is another DRM-mechanism. So for me the new game "Grand Ages: Medieval" has in parts another DRM-mechanism for multiplayer.