jlibster: Thanks for your reply. Yes it is "potentially" a DRM back door and I've said so directly in another posting inviting CDP to prove my suspisions "hasty". I've had no response to it yet. Had I known this would be the case, I would have not done the pre-order. I trusted GOG/CDP to do the right thing and was ready to pay them in advance for doing so. (perhaps, foolishly) I don't consider the verdict final yet; There is still time to do the right thing. The DLC is already on pirate sites and legitimate buys (including GOG buyers like me) are already relying on them more than the in-game downloader. (which isn't working) the patch will be the same story I fear. If GOG/CDP doesn't honor the "no DRM" promise in they made to us trusting GOG purchasers I will consider that a betrayal similar to that of EA/Bioware with Dragon Age 2 which lead me to not buy ANY EA/bioware products moving forward, ever. They outright lied people and hid under "subversions" of secuROM to avoid lawsuits. Fact is, MANY people are unable to play their GOG purchased game without the upcoming patch. MANY people cannot get the free DLC they were promised. If we cannot use our purchase without having our MS Boxes on the Internet, its DRM. Plain and simple. And for GOG buyers this is technically a breach of the "no DRM" contract in writing all over the GOG site.
The reason I bought all my games from GOg.com and not others on-line providers with more selections was that I was assured in writing (and verified) all my GOg games could be run with no Internet connection required ever (the real test of DRM -free software). A big reason my XP box stays off the Internet.
Sorry, this is long. I'm getting downright angry as I read people's reports and inability to use their game without DRM-like mechanisms. We were promised "no-DRM" and they said "we trust our buyers". Where's the trust with only allowing game downloaders to get required files like patches? I am really starting to feel betrayed. That's what you get for trusting people I suppose. I really hoping CDP takes action to renew the faith some of us once had in them. At the moment, it feels like a "bait and switch" in regards to the "no DRM" clause without which I would not have purchased this game especially since they used SecuROM on their Disks which I absolutely will not touch no matter how good the game is. Someon had 2 optical dirves destroyed by that #$% DRM malware/rootkit. when I read about SecuROM I feared it was a sign of things to come. Come one CDP, prove me wrong...
Yep, you're preaching to the choir, jlibster. I said when this first came up that it was DRM in my eyes as well, since I cannot update my off-line machine without somehow connecting it to the internet. You'll get a lot of flak about this from DRM apologists, but that's my criteria for judging and I stick by it.
In this case, i was willing to overlook it for three reasons:
1) the base game is, in fact, DRM free
2) my main gaming rig is internet connected (my off-line rig is secondary, but I do use it to game as well)
3) GOG has said they'll update the game to the latest patch once the patch cycle near its end, which means you'll be able to DL a fully patched version in the not too distant future, which will satisfy the 'no need to be connected to play' criterion.
That last is not ideal, mind you, but I was willing to roll with it this one time. I still consider this a DRM scheme though, make no mistake.