Is it actually DRM free or are multiplayer features going to be locked behind Galaxy like Dying Light?

The publisher makes a big thing about 'pay once and no more'. That seems a bit naive, to me. As a MMO, there are on-going costs and they need to be paid for from somebody, somewhere. The more players, the higher the cost and beyond the retail price, no further income. The logical consequence is that the company will run out of money, and the more players there are, the faster that will happen.
To plan on paying ongoing costs with new sales is the approach of a ponzi scheme, so I'm sure they don't really intend that. They need a better business plan, where they earn from the game.

Can't it just be played offline?

But they haven't advertised at as a MMO at all, after all social interaction isn't a strong aspect in this game, it's a large world but it's procedurally done and I bet many textures and objects can be replicated, just use different shapes and colours to cut down coding cost. That said, it seems they are having issues considering the delay but we don't know what they are.

Correct me if I am wrong, but NMS have no multiplayer and is a sandbox game (not MMO). So it should be OK playing it offline. In my mind, network will only be used to sync small data, discoveries, content reshape etc.

Well, if there aren't any nag-screens about skins, or future dlc subscriptions, opportunities to buy hints, elements and beacons, and so on - then good on Hello Games for resisting it. In spite of their lord and protector in Sony disapproving of them very much.

And of course "business-plan" guy over there is right. Servers would cost peanuts, and folks would happily maintain this game for yonks for free - if it turns out to have escaped Sony's approval process in one piece. But what's really going to happen is that unless Hello Games came prepared for this with legal means - they will:
1. Never be able to distribute the server side code in a semi-open format, on any platform.
2. At a very specific point where the sales in a given week is lower than the profit-margin calculated to be needed to justify paying the circus-clowns running around in the background, including the servers (that cost pennies), be forced to take the servers offline.

And the sad truth is that it seems the PC version is actually hung up in the PS4 and Sony BS. So don't have too high hopes - or frankly, any hopes - for any modding or unofficial universe servers that isn't very illegal. And if made available, likely will expose Hello Games to lawsuit for damages thanks to Sony's lawyer-fu. Of the kind that will insist the game and tech is still worth money to Sony, even after they themselves have decided to pull the plug on the servers because it doesn't bleed enough money. Similar things have happened several times before.

Until the game, like many other projects before it, ends up in some sort of safe at Sony, similar to Prince's secret film and documentary vault. So no one is ever going to see it play, or ever make use of the code or tech, or anything whatsoever. But where Sony still owns it, and will have a small army of lawyers equipped to attack anyone ever creating something vaguely similar again (including Sony's own contractors), or god forbid play the game unmonitored and through an unlicensed platform.

The future, people, is shit. And anyone trying to change that will be doing something illegal.

Doubtful. MMOs are geared towards large numbers of players in a relatively small area with a lot of items to keep track of. This requires fairly massive servers.

Server interactivity in NMS is limited to downloading a list of 'discoveries' when you enter a system on the off chance that someone else has been there already (unlikely) and data uploads happen at an upload terminal, not constantly. As far as other players go - how many of them do you expect to be in the same system at the same time? I'd suggest "zero".

No Man's Sky will require bugger all in the way of back end server resources.

Speaking as a UNIX Systems Administrator with 30+ years experience.

It's my understanding that a good chunk of NMS gameplay will relate to trading.

A recent video (that I'm barred from posting a link to), was all about trading.

Now, I get that we could trade with an imaginary market in the game, but I think the point is that it's meant to be real people.

In relation to this, and some of the other aspects of NMS, I'm wondering how it can be played "properly" without an Internet connection?

Curious for people's thoughts on this.

As I understand it, very very little is actually connected, it's as if they did it on purpose as a marketing scheme but on the other hand, the idea that you might meet someone very rarely created a genuine interesting set up rarely seen in video games:
pure loneliness until you actually meet someone instead of the usual constant connection until someone loses.

So far they have mentioned the only gaming component lost if you play online is the connectivity updating planets so you can feel like others have been on planets you visit. If there's a market, my guess it's operated by NPCs.

Personally I plan to play offline because I think this game is going to be all about immersion, finding a planet called "ButtFighters999" is not immersive and definitely not worth the idea, even if very interesting, to meet up someone on a rare occassion.

I hear you on some of those points, Nirth, however I still have a feeling that the market will be player based. People will want to gather resources and, in particular, craft things with the idea that they're selling to real people. Perhaps an offline game will indeed have a pseudo sort of market, but part of me is stuck with the idea that while we don't see other people in the game 99.999999% of the time, we still feel that they're "out there" via the planet naming, market, etc.

In a very particular way, I think the game will start to feel quite "samey" in terms of visiting the planets after a period of time (and depending on how hard someone plays the game during said period), and the longevity in the game will be more along the lines of gathering, crafting and selling things on the market. If people like those three things in MMOs, I think they will like No Man's Sky long-term, after the initial thrill of finding and exploring planets, plus the basic combat, has long worn off.

Just my 2c

It has multiplayer you just cannot control it. The director also compared the multiplayer to "Dark Souls" but again you cannot control it like in most games and is very random.

Of course, it is here on GoG so offline is a must. I would never play ANYTHING online EVER.

Problem is if you don't connect to the server you won't get status updates for the procedural galaxy. I'm betting it will need at least some online content even if you play it as a single player. Similar to Elite Dangerous.

If there is a totally offline version then I doubt you will be able to go online later though, as your discoveries could conflict with the online version. The seed for the procedural universe might also be different online.

That's what I want. I don't want a single person affecting my game whatsoever. I don't want server updates, I want to discover everything myself, I want to see everything myself and I never want to see a real person ever in my game :) I want the universe FROZEN when I play, I don't want it real time. I want to be able to go back on a save and "roll back" time so I can fork saves. This is exactly what I want and how I want to play.

GoG means DRM free and offline. They have stated you can play offline completely and this is how I will be playing. I will never EVER connect.

Another benefit is with mods, I can do what I want and I can also use ANY version of the releases. No forced updates. If I want to play the first build then I do. I can archive all the builds as well, I can choose to play whatever version I have from GoG and install that version.

The entire universe is completely *mine* and that is the only way I want to play it.

GoG says "DRM Free - no activations or internet connection required to play" and that is exactly what it means. My NMS install will NEVER EVER see the internet. :) and I will probably keep certain builds that I like. I love archiving builds. I will not put up with forced updates.