There was some discussion almost exactly one year ago about Defender’s Quest not being DRM free, because it is not installable and playable without an internet connection (A “lorum ipsum” screen would appear). Unfortunately, I can’t find the thread (the forum has moved and looks completely different now), but I remember that it was said to be a bug which was to be fixed soon. Well, I just tried the current version (gamersgate) of Defenders Quest, and the same problem persists, I still can’t install and play without interent connection. So, why does it take so long to fix this bug?
[FIXED] Defender's Quest still not DRM free
Wow! You must be one of our few dozen gamersgate players.
As far as I know, DQ does not require an internet connection to play. Did Gamersgate install some of their own crap or something? What is the exact error you’re getting? Post a screenshot if you can and we’ll do our best to sort it out.
In the last couple of days I remembered a few more details from last year. You found the bug back then, apparently it was some exception in the exception handling code, which would not be caught. It occured when the update server was not reachable when starting the game.
More importantly, I realized that the current gamersgate version, 1.1.00, is not the most recent version on other platforms. I didn’t catch that in the beginning, because the official wiki also mentions 1.1.00 as the current version. So, chances are that the bug has been fixed months ago, but that no new version has been pushed to gamersgate.
Is there any chance of an update of the gamersgate version?
Also, I have not yet pre-ordered DQ2. But now that I found the blog post about DQ1HD, which should be a huge reduction in wasted heat and noise while playing thanks to replacing Adobe Air, makes me much more interested. Can we be assured that DQ1HD and DQ2 will be playable without internet connection, and that this will be tested before release? In that case, I will preorder soon. If not, I won’t, because my gaming computer (deliberately) doesn’t have internet access.
Hey, the problem is almost certainly because we haven’t updated the gamersgate version in a very long time. The reason for this is that we have extreeeeeeeemely low sales with them (literally in the tens of copies) and after a host of problems I’ve had with them I’m honestly considering canceling the account entirely.
The best way to solve this problem is by giving you a new download key from Humble store, which has all the latest updates, which should include the bug fix that makes the game 100% playable without internet connection.
And yes, the new DQ1HD and DQ2 will have an adobe-air free environment (it’ll be Haxe baked down to C++), and the auto-updater shouldn’t have the problems you had with the v 1.1.00 build. We’ll be sure to add this to the pre-release checklist.
Ok, I completely understand that you don’t want to use gamersgate any more. I have stopped buying from them quite some time ago, hate their stupid downloader which changes the downloaded game executable so it is not usable any more if one doesn’t copy it before exiting the downloader.
I now get my games almost exclusively from GOG, with the occasional humblebundle (though they do way too much DRM nowadays).
A download key for the humble store would be awesome. Given your great support and also as a thank you for your very interesting blog posts, I will preorder DQ2. So in case you decide to give me a humble store key, I would use the second key from the pre-order as a giveaway. If you don’t give me a new key, no problem either, as I will get one from the preorder.
Thank you for your support, and happy coding on DQ2 and DQ1HD 
No problem! Check your PM