gooberking: It's an interesting situation. I tried reading what was going on in the game's forum, but without trying it I'm not sure I know enough. There are games that have MP requirements here. Two Worlds comes up a lot, but as someone who has put probably a hundred hours or more into that game, I can say that there is a sizable amount of single player content to play outside of any MP situation.

If AoW3 has a good single player experience then it feels less fishy, but If the point of the game is very MP heavy, then it's tempting to feel like there is some PR magic at work to hook people into getting something without them really understanding what they are getting into.

Any Devil's advocacy aside, the idea of needing an account to save your settings is hard to justify. I suppose if the settings in question were all account and MP related then whatever, but if we are talking about controls and graphics settings then that would seem like a deliberate act of douchebaggery that I have no interest in defending.

Yes or No on the DRM conclusion it sure looks like they are walking the fence line as close as possible. For anyone trying to go DRM-free I would prefer them just to commit to it, and not try to get creative about trying to find a way to check the DRM-free box without having to give up the control. We shouldn't have to have long philosophical discussions about if a game is or is not DRM-free. If it takes walls of text to try and convince half of the GOG consumer base that a game meets GOG's standards, then maybe something is a little off.

OldFatGuy: Exactly. All those walls of text are just attempts at defending gog. It happens all the time, it happened when the did away with regional pricing. There were walls of text defending that too. that's what many consumers do today, defend whatever some company does, just because they're a fan.

When you have a single player game, that won't let you do what every other single player game in the history of gaming does (save your resolutions, keyboard mapping, sound settings, AA settings, etc) because you aren't logged into an account, IT IS DRM.

I would challenge anyone to name any other single player game that requires one to be "logged in" as guest to save a game or change all of their specific settings before each gameplay. And if anyone can name such a game, then it's a game with DRM.

JohnnyDollar:

gooberking: ...
Yes or No on the DRM conclusion it sure looks like they are walking the fence line as close as possible. For anyone trying to go DRM-free I would prefer them just to commit to it, and not try to get creative about trying to find a way to check the DRM-free box without having to give up the control. We shouldn't have to have long philosophical discussions about if a game is or is not DRM-free. If it takes walls of text to try and convince half of the GOG consumer base that a game meets GOG's standards, then maybe something is a little off.

OldFatGuy:

JohnnyDollar: It's better than being tied to an account, but it's forcing you to be online, and it's not keeping your config settings.

Assuming what you say is accurate with this game, then it's hard for me not to look at it as crossing the line, because that's an online requirement for single player.

cmdr_flashheart: The game fits a tenuous definition of DRM-free, but it does in fact do that overall. Any game which needs UPlay does not.

Whether or not you like that definition to be part of GOG's repertoire is up to you. Personally, I don't.

At this point, I am just hoping it's an oversight, and future patches will resolve the issue.

ggf162: No it's not, the only reason I can see this happening other than it being some really large oversight is to deter pirates. That makes it DRM.

OldFatGuy: It's not forcing you to be online per se, from what I understand (I'm downloading now to do some trials) but it won't let you save game settings unless you're signed online. So it's like starting over every time regarding getting all of your video, audio, and control settings set up, and the REASON they're making you feel like you're starting over every time is because you're not signed in..

OldFatGuy: It's not forcing you to be online per se, from what I understand (I'm downloading now to do some trials) but it won't let you save game settings unless you're signed online. So it's like starting over every time regarding getting all of your video, audio, and control settings set up, and the REASON they're making you feel like you're starting over every time is because you're not signed in.

That's DRM. Nothing at gamers gate comes close to that. Once you download a file at gamergate, you never have to be signed on again in order to install, reinstall, and play the game and use all of it's single player capabilities. the problem with gamers gate is that you have to go through an "unofficial" process to make that happen. But because you can do that, completely offline, without ever having to sign in again, I think that can meet the definition.

But you aren't able to take advantage of certain aspects of a single player experience, and that aspect is setting up your video, audio, and control settings ONCE and save it just like you save anything else. It is not allowing to fully utilize the capabilities of the single player experience, that being setting up and saving your single player settings.

OldFatGuy: And now it won't even start the download. It insists I contact support. The fact it won't let me start over is a bit puzzling, and disturbing, as though this error is also some form of DRM related problem.

Arkose: If restarting the Downloader doesn't resolve it you might need to clear the cache location: %LOCALAPPDATA%\GOG.com

Another solution would be to turn downloader mode off temporarily and download manually through the browser or a download manager.