I totally understand why some things are authenticated before working and while most* of the time it doesn't affect me I get that it's a big deal for some people. When my internet has gone out similar things have definitely annoyed me. Seems to be a big sticking point for people at GoG as well (understandably I suppose given the general stand of the site). Hopefully eventually a useful solution can be found that still serves some of the original intent.

• if I play during my commute I never have internet, although ToME doesn't easily lend itself to comfortable play on what I use then. If it did I'd frequently be running into this I imagine

I also find this bothersome. Perhaps each time you log in, the game could drop a token on your machine that validates it for 24 hours. That way you only have to "phone home" once a day, instead of constantly.