No, many people play multiplayer saves without all their farmhands around at the time. When you go to watch a Queen of the Sauce rerun, it checks all players' cooking recipes whether they are playing or not and then picks an episode that has already aired that at least 1 player has not seen... whether that player is currently playing or not.
He's asking that it checks ONLY currently playing characters (aka online characters) for recipes needed. He's not asking it to see if the player has an internet connection.