I know you and I have conversed a bit about Zoom-Platform before but I did not have that store in mind as much here. I am not completely sure there aren't games on Zoom-Platform with online-only multiplayer (granted, without a client being required to play), so for some DRM-free purists they may still object to online-only multiplayer as essentially against the spirit of DRM-free gaming/preservation. So I actually was thinking of other stores where I feel more certain all content is 100% accessible offline...JAST USA and Fireflower Games, for example, I think fit that critera.

And in the case of Absolver, or Two Point Hospital or this DoW2 -- it's not very small.

Stop gaslighting. Skirmish play is the standard way of solo play in games like that. "campaign play" is the newer and more unusual form of playing them. While campaigns are great, skirmishes have long since been the gold standard for mastery of games.
And let's continue to shout it from the tree tops until we go hoarse and blue. This is exactly how Galaxy multiplayer should have been implemented. (Along with the other stuff in your post *absent*. They intentionally decided to make it a DRM-ful API. It was a very conscious choice they made when developing it that they did it BADLY and against the consumers and with DRM mechanisms.

That so many games games can even accidentally use Galaxy as DRM/DRM-like as a bug (let alone intentionally in the case of quotes from the developers of Cult of the Lamb) shows exactly what some useless prick in charge at CDPR actually wants to be.

Yea.. I was actually a little excited when they revealed the AvP multiplayer implementation because I genuinely believed at the time that GOG was expanding their mission from providing DRM-free single player games to providing libraries and compatibility shims + whatever interface is necessary for DRM-free multiplayer, for both old and new games. What a disappointment :\

Well, my point still stands. Both stores need all the support they can get. I have seen the selection of games they have, nothing I would buy. At least right now.
This is more opinion than a fact.

I've literally never played a bot match of anything in my entire life.

So you've never played any games from before campaigns started being a thing?
You've never played a random map in a game?
You've never played Age of Empires, Age of Mythology, Rise of Nations? Rise of Legends? Stronghold? Lords of the Realm? Armies of Exigo? Majesty?

I guess you have no experience to be contributing at all then.

As you're someone so passionate about DRM-free games, tbh I think you're doing yourself a real disservice by not using and supporting ZoomPlat. Even though I imagine you're adverse to using social media, I strongly recommend talking to the CEO and other users on Discord, or otherwise making contact like Z-P's contact form. (The social media buttons are on bottom right of the Z-P site, and contact form is under "Contact")

What time was that? Dune 2 had a story and wo had Warcraft 1.

Random maps ... tried it once or twice, but it just wasn't my thing. I need story progress.


remember: Enemies in Bubble Bobble or Pacman are not bots, they are not meant to simulate other players.
(and that's what bots are made for).
If you extend it to sport games ... sure. Then one could - with a little bit of fantasy - talk about a bot game.

Thanks for that information ... the plot thickens.


I guess to some degree it is, though I also guess we are talking MP maps and MP setup or structure.

I would have deemed it SP, so it is troubling ... though clearly there is a kind of MP aspect to it.

I don't feel GOG are to blame though, as that aspect is down to the game provider, who haven't provided it in that state to Steam either, who are the penultimate DRM store.

To my mind, it now boils down to how much of a SP experience you are getting ... the amount of content etc.

One could argue, that the game is not less than what Steam users get, and more due to no DRM on the remaining SP aspect, which if significant enough, certainly makes it worth having here .... and we can hope for 'Skirmish Mode' and LAN in the future maybe.

In a very real way, even a game coming here to GOG, that is less than perfect is still promoting GOG and DRM-Free to some degree .... better than not at all, when the current default of the world is DRM.

I wonder what has been disabled or removed from DOW 2, that maybe some third party could add back in? Depends on what was done to any existing DRM I guess ... whether removed or just bypassed.

P.S. GOG have been very clear about what is missing in the GOG version of DOW 2, unlike how they were with Hitman GOTY.

People need to remember with the GOG version. You can actually play the single-player without a client. I have DOW 2 on Steam, and you are forced to use Steam. In my opinion DOW 2 single is where the game shines, not the poorly done MP.

I'm happy with the GOG version, but I'm all for it if they can add offline bots to please the upset users.

Doom 1-2 "had a story" too, but it's kinda obvious that single player "Skirmish Mode" (ie, random maps against AI / bots) has been in RTS's since the 90's and forms 95% of playtime for people with +1,000hrs playtime in games like Age of Empires, etc. In fact in Age of Empires 2 the non-campaign AI skirmishes are even called Standard Game as if that forms the normal game experience for most. If that game was released on GOG "DRM-Free" tomorrow but with LAN play stripped out plus the (single player) "Standard Game" gated behind Galaxy because "the game is created in a way that it runs as subcategory of the MP mode", most fans would regard it as 95% broken vs the Actual DRM-Free disc version...

I would have to get the disk version from the basement and see if DRM free skirmishes are playable out of the box, but I don't think so. As far as I recall the disc version needed GFWL to work in the first place.

I don't doubt that the "random maps against AI / Bots" have been around in RTS games from the beginning (or shortly after), but you said that campaigns came later or "became a thing" later. Can you name that early RTS game that had skirmishes but no campaign? Because as I said I am quite sure that the first RTS games also had a storyline.

ps: Did Doom have Bot fights? I don't remember any.

Bullshit.

For what it's worth, I agree with you. Gog was not trying to sneak DRM past us with this, and I guess even Sega didn't plan this situation with the idea of screwing their customers. If anything, I think they had a stupid oversight.

Anyway, I have been thinking what Sega could do to make its DRM-free passionate set of customers happy:
- Recreate MP with LAN: best solution for us but definitely too costly. They'd probably pull the game rather than doing this.
- Recreate the menu screen with a "Skirmish" menu added to the SP button: Not likely at all. Those title screens are, like all interfaces, carefully designed during the creation. Every asset is measured and tweaked to make the game as attractive to the player as possible. They wouldn't want to task a designer with a whole new title screen just for us nor would they risk just pushing a jr dev to spend a couple hours improvising a hackjob for fear of their reputation suffering if it ends up shoddy.
- Modify the title screen to unlock the menu "Multiplayer" and "skirmish" inside it, while leaving the other submenus disabled: I think this is doable. They just need to modify what button enabling the connection check applies to. There is no new technical hardship, no lengthy class to code, no extra feature that isn't already there.

Maybe Gog could suggest this to Sega?