What? Oh.... carry on.... I'm just to fussy with Skyrim over here... I'll come back with a clever reply when I run out of games to play. So, do carry on. Take no notice of me the corner. And yes, I am feeling good thanks for asking. Now, let me just chase down that Dragon over there. NO LYDIA! What the check are you doing?

Why do you assume Heavy online support have to come from the publisher / dev?

Diablo 2 is dead to me without mods.

Skyrim / Oblivion survive that long with mods

Warcraft 3 last that long with mods

You have half life, battlefield 2, dark souls, KOTOR 2, Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines, DayZ, Doom, Minecraft, XCOM, Call of Duty, S.T.A.L.K.E.R, Total War, Deus Ex, Company of Heroes, Homeworld, Baldur Gate, Quake, C&C, Mech Warrior, Supcom, Dungeon Siege......
Oh well look here
https://www.modhof.com/
http://www.desura.com/mods/top
http://www.pcgamesn.com/the-100-best-mods-on-pc

Try this mod on your diablo 2
http://www.moddb.com/mods/median-xl-ultimative

Then compare with diablo 3 to see the difference.

So no, online support is not a valid excuse of cramming always online DRM.

Steam gone? Mind GOG first. They'll be gone before Steam.

That's like asking when Microsoft go down. lmao.
Been there done that, sitll Diablo 3. 3000 hours into D3 to show for it.

Online DRM is not even an issue for me.

Difference is, when GoG goes down we still can play the game without resorting to help from pirates.

Good for you then. because it is a problem for me. I had been replaying diablo 2 with mods recently and find it more enjoyable than diablo 3. But people have their preference and whatever works for them.

Still the discussion I have with mindblast is heavy online support does not comes from the publisher only, and more often then not, it is the mods that do a better job in keeping the game alive when compare to publishers.

It is not a valid reason to cram Always Online DRM down one throat in pretense that it is better for the game. Heck, the console version of Diablo 3 can be played offline, so any pretense that Always Online DRM is good for the game is bankrupt.

Really? That's generalizing everything without taking accounts the details.

There are fifty millions subscribers for WoW right now. That being always online or no play (barring Private servers but piracy is outside of this discussion).

For some genre, it's always online or die. MMORPG being the most prominent.

So you claim the same for Diablo 3?

Oh my, the console owners of Diablo 3 is having a inferior version! So sad for them.

Yes, Always Online is a feature for MMORPG, but what that got to do with games that does not need Always Online DRM? Except the publisher like cramming it down to the customers throat?

So I've been having a streak of good posts recently, and then suddenly, some dolts have gone and downrepped my posts. Damn, I was enjoying it. Have a fun day being dolts, dolts.

So what? One day a hacker could destroy all of Valve's data in one fell swoop, and terminate the company. One day a company could suddenly buy Valve assuming it stops its current 'no-buy' mentality and shutters down the company. Living healthy will let you live longer, but terrorists still exist and may, hope that doesn't happen, take your life away in an instant.

I'm not worried about GOG going down if for the other reason that my games are DRM-free. End of the story.

Okay, now I understand where you come from. Happened to me 3 years ago. I moved into a new appartment, and was without internet for 3 month. Just at the time I purchased a new PC. So I was unable to install my steam games on my shiny new gaming rig, while I was able to download GOG installers at my parent's home during the holidays, put them on an USB device, and play them once back to my appartment.
It was at that time I started buying 75% of my games here, while before it was more 50/50.

Won't prevent me from buying on Steam if they have a game I want to play now, though. I probably won't ever replay most of those games, anyway, as "new shinies" always come up. And if per chance I want to replay one of them after Steam goes out of business, well, I'm sure there will be another way to buy it again dirt cheap.
I prefer to play my games, rather than collect them :)
I've heard people complain about it on this very forum. Which sounds kinda silly, I agree. ^^

and yeah, my "internet free" experience makes me somewhat grumpy about online-only DRM on singleplayer games too.
Did you backup all of your installers?

But the question is, if I hold off on a new shiny for whatever reason there was, college, work, whatever, and when I suddenly think of playing my new shiny, the internet was down for a huge period of time, how will I play it then? I can start playing the shiny the instant I buy it off Steam, but then real life would barge in, and I'd forget about my games until the next time. This is when I'm worried about the DRM acting against me.

With the exception of the Fallout Classics which I don't need anyways, yeah. And they're all going to be burnt soon to DVD for when I need to reinstall them offline in the future.

You don't need Fallout because you've got physical copies of it anyway, I hope!

If you're going to burn the stuff anyway and if you've got enough space, you could also consider this:
http://www.gogcovers.com/index.php?title=Main_Page

I've got two 4tb harddrives for my docking station and have a double backup of all the installers of every game store on those. If I'll have a bigger apartment some day, I will consider having the covers printed somewhere and making a physical collection ouf of it.

I don't need Fallout because I don't need Fallout. Luckily I've got them for free so there's nothing to worry about here.

Anyways, yeah, I like having covers for my physical collection any everything, but that'd be expensive to create the physical collection full. And since I like the smell of booklets and looking at the physical disc for hours and the likes, that'd be a lot of budget just in order to showcase a physical collection of GOG games, not to mention streamlining the installers in order to work as if I bought it from an actual store. When you do this stuff, do let me in on what you do, I'm interested to see how it all turns out.

If anything this is closer to a step backwards. It's such a small, begrudging step forwards and one that just about enough to make the law seem somewhat sane that I can't help but think that this is something of a final offer in terms of DRM-free protester appeasement.

At least before this the law was crazy and biased enough that it remained a possibility that the law could see a dramatic shift. Now, well, to me this doesn't seem like a small step which will be followed by another small step. This seems more like the most we can expect until the next time greedy publishers attack our rights and change the game again. Which is why I think this is more of a step backwards as that's what it will ultimately prove to be.

Interesting way to put it. I seriously hope that it isn't as you see it yourself, the most that can be offered to us. Because if it is so, that isn't going to help a lot. DRM-free needs to win, and only a small step isn't sufficient.

HERESY!