Linux user accounts. To access your files, you need to log in to an account. No one else can access them without your account info.
As long as there isn't any restrictions on account creation, I wouldn't say there's a DRM concern.

Any MMO or central server Online game by its nature would have to use DRM. There is account Validation and a constant online connection (simply required by gameplay function) that would be pointless to work around, and if it was would provide ZERO protection for player characters against people stealing accounts/cheating in God items. That's not an MMO I'd even want to think about playing.

No i was meaning more he's confusing just a user account and logging in as DRM. Maybe if it's always-online, but an MMO that's intended to be Multiplayer and Online sorta doesn't quite qualify if you can make your own servers...

I dunno how it would work, but I know I won't play it. Just like I don't play multiplayer games that allow cheating.

You can host your own games in Sacred 2 just like the prequel. If I recall correctly you can play in free roam up to 16 players without the campaign but only 4 if you want to follow the campaign.

That's good... I'm thinking back to when i originally played Sacred 2 on the 360/PS3, and for local co-op it wanted you to connect to an online server in order to do local trading... And that there were their servers for a while for console, so i'm not aware of all the differences between them.

An MMO usually always requires an online component and onine connection. So if you see this as DRM no MMO can ever be here. Alternatively since this is the case for all MMOs I guess GOG applied a more "flexible" definition of DRM and mean that there won't be any additional measures.

Maybe one could programm MMO's so that everyone contains the server code and synchronizes with existing players but this would probably require a hell of a lot of communication and effort to programm. A simple, single, central server is the much easier solution. So either you damn all MMOs as DRM or you make an exception.

Pragmatic approach could be that single player parts are without authentification, but massive multiplayer can still also be sold here, since MMO without online authentifications are overly difficult to conceive and realize.

They have the same system as Diablo 2: closed servers (they have shut down for both Sacred 1 and 2) where your characters are stored in the company's servers to avoid cheating, open servers and LAN. I'm not really sure what the difference is between open servers and LAN but it's possible the former takes advantage for some scripts that the company's servers use but your characters are stored locally so technically you can cheat with a character editor but with LAN and a VPN you can play online with anyone, theoretically even with a pirated copy (the only requirement I believe is different CD-keys, legitimacy doesn't matter just that they are different).

I actually wouldn't mind a DRM free MMO as I hate the rules in regular ones, they are always so static and rigid.

As long as you can use the product in its full capacity at any time you want, there's no DRM. Restrictions imposed on you by private servers would not be DRM since they're not restrictions imposed on you by the product, but by other users. You can host your own servers and use the product to its full capacity with your own rules.

Say I host a game of Terraria, but I only want to play with my friends, so I set a password. If you're not my friend, you don't get to join. Is that DRM? No, of course not. It's my server and I can play with whoever I want. Even though you can't play on my server, you can play on your own server.

Say I host a server without a password and advertise it online. I tell everyone that they're free to join but their characters are not allowed to wear hats or helmets while on my server. I kick and ban players who break my rule. Is that DRM? No, it's my server. If you don't like my rules, you can play on your own server.

Say you're concerned about players cheating. You don't want to be worried about players editing their save files and flooding the game with rare items. So the game makes all characters be stored server-side, and you have to log in to the server to access your character. Is that DRM? It's more complicated, but the answer is still No. Why? Because you still have access to all of the game's functions. By playing on my server, you entrust your character's save file to me, and the worst that can happen is that you lose access to that save file. Your game still retains full functionality. If you don't like this risk, you can play on your own server.

Now, just because it's DRM-free doesn't necessarily make it a good idea as a purchase. Playing an MMO on your own might not appeal to many people. So even though the game is DRM-free, you might only buy it because the publisher is still hosting their official servers. Once those servers go down, there might not be any unofficial servers big enough to give you a good experience, or with enough rules and protections to prevent cheating. But that's another matter altogether. The lack of good servers might defeat the point of playing an MMO for you, but all that's required for the game to be DRM-free is for you to be able to play it fully from your offline box. And all that requires is that you can host your own server.

I don't see why that would even be desirable. You need some kind of anti cheat system. Which, coupled with the always online requirement intrinsic to MMOs, makes it impossible.

That said, if they had the time and the budget, developers could put their MMOs out to pasture by Morrowinding them - that is to say, take a game designed to be an MMO and turn it into a single player game. But I just don't know how much of a demand there'd be for a game that was designed to run well on moderate systems using barely adequate American internet connections five or so years ago. Obviously here there'd be some interest. But mass market?

If all important things are computed online and the client is a mere client to give commands and receive feedback I don't think one needs much of an anti cheat system. Authentification however you probably always need.

I didn't specify what form of anti-cheat system they'd need. But you'd need something. If the game is cohesive enough that it can all be handled server-side then great. But there's still no chance of the game meeting the definition of DRM-free.

I could imagine a different solution but it would require an awful lot of effort: Just imagine every client would have the whole gaming world stored on his computer and whenever it connects to the player network the content is check for integrity. I would not really see this as DRM if you could at any time form your own player networks. It would be fully decentralized and cheating would be impossible since anyway everyone would constantly check everyone else.

One could still name it anti-cheat system but I think it would not be seen as DRM because there is no external control, nothing is taken away from the player, it's just that other players can only be found by submitting to their current world view.

If there is only one world and everyone has a copy, how do you want to cheat?

Of course you have to forward updates in this network and that's how the nightmare starts. It didn't say it would be easy, only that it might be possible.

The game would have to be small scale enough that the server could run on a regular personal computer. So the server files are made available to end users, and the end user hosts the server.

Anything else is DRM.

It would still be a form of DRM, just client side. Given that the game is inherently always online anyway, you're pretty much just bricking up gaps in a dam that doesn't actually exist in the first place. Online is a requiement. Making certain bits not require an internet connection doesn't resolve the broader 'problem'. If you can really even call it that. After all, the whole point of an MMO is to play it online.