It's been a long time since GOG has actually stood for Good Old Games.

Create a GOG folder on your desktop and place all your GOG game shortcuts in it.

It's what I do.

For the rest, you'll have to wait for the client :P.

This would go against the idea of cross-play so that's unlikely.

From what the conference said, going online means logging in to your Galaxy account, but I doubt that requires game verification.

A more interesting question here will be, what about cheating, or pirates?

Is this the advent of a multiplayer system that freely allows pirates to play with non-pirates?
How will cheating be handled in a game handled by GOG matchmaking?

there is a lot of potential for this client , hope they let us in already when they want to beta test it

Cheating and piracy are generally handled by the hosting server (and/or anti-cheat software, if applicable) rather than the client software.

Pirates could already play multiplayer in games that don't require a valid account or CD key.

Maybe this gives an upwind to good old multiplayer games like Ultima Online, Ragnarök, etc...
Seeing them here on GoG would be interesting.

Hence why I put forth the question for games that have Galaxy Matchmaking (like their new game)

EDIT:

After seeing this: http://www.gog.com/forum/general/gog_galaxy_is_anyone_else_getting_a/post10

It appears the Galaxy will work with standard GOG games... still confusing to say the least.

Original message:

I would love a clearer explanation on this... if Galaxy is replacing the GoG downloader then will Galaxy be usable with all current GOG games or not (I'm not talking about social features, multiplayer or achievements as they need to be built in the game, but rather the ability to install/update though Galaxy for any current GOG game).

On one side you make it sound like it's not then on the other you make it sound like it will be. If it's not then why would you replace the GOG downloader with Galaxy when we would still need it? And if Galaxy doesn't support current GOG games can we get some kind of (add game shortcut aka like Steam) feature to it to add our non supported gog and third party games?

If Galaxy doesn't work in regards to regular GOG games, how are the games still DRM free? Will we be able to take Galaxy downloaded GOG games and move them to another PC and install? Will the games be playable should we decide to remove or not use Galaxy without having to re-download from the site (aka a stander installer). Would we need to download standard installers as we do now to future proof (aka backup) our games?

Need more info here... I've been wanting a GOG client for a long time but, I'm slightly worried GOG may be going about it the wrong way.

so many questions,.. there have to be an AMA on reddit...

It seems there was a bit of a misunderstanding here :-) What I'm asking is if GOG Galaxy will check my GOG account to see if the game I'm trying to play is legit ;-)

And indeed this question is a preliminary one to the next one I ask, which is the same as yours : if GOG allows GOG and Steam users to multiplay (yes, that's a verb if I want to :-)) together AND there's no check on GOG's end then it's clearly an open door for any cheater/pirate to join multiplayer games.
The alternative being some form of DRM on GOG side.

He he he. Integrated Torrent technology based servers in GOG Galaxy?

There seems to be such a check, which is the same check that allows you to download the game. Namely, log in to your GOG account

See above. Log in to GOG to download your game, log in to GOG to play online. Ignore GOG if you want to play offline.

I'm not saying it couldn't be done but rather I wouldn't expect it at launch; the announcement topic specifically mentions multiplayer with Steam users indicating the focus will be on modern games.

Point, but the main thrust of my argument is that supporting multiplayer for DOSBox games is so ridiculously simple that I wouldn't be surprised if it were available at launch.

All they'd have to do is implement a trivial (fopen(); printf(); fclose()) config-file writer and they'd have DOSBox support. Once they have DOSBox support, supporting each individual game is the work of a few minutes to write a trivial "IPX or null modem?" rule. It's literally just an adjustment to the approach they already use for supporting LAN play in their existing installers.

Even including testing, I don't think I've ever seen anything with a higher return on investment and better prospects for continuing to recoup the initial investment as additional old games enter the catalog.