DRM Server Failure Knocks Out Dragon Age DLC for Days - UPDATED

[DTWolfwood]

got to love it when they slap you in the face for giving them money ^-^

DRM, the most facepalm inducing piece of technology in videogaming.

I have never once bought 'DLC' and never will. This is why. I refuse to support any sort of business ethic where developers and publishers not only nickle & dime their customers but then have the gall to treat those customers who're loyal enough to buy these things like criminals with draconian DRM.

Which is a pity. I really want to find out what happens with Liara and the Shadow Brokers. But likely I never will and this is why.

You make me very sadface sometimes Bioware. Why do you treat me like dirt?

agree on all fronts, If you really are never buying DLC, (my very first ever DLC was THAT DLC tbh, which i still have not played, thanks Shogun2 >.<) Heres a Let's Play [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZQdJwCaCFE] of it done by Shamus Young, one of the contributors/staffers of this site, if you are interested in finding out. ^-^

 

[eNTi]

i so do love it when stuff like that happens and all the fan-boys and anti-piracy-advocates are proven wrong time and time again.

in your face!

 

[ImprovizoR]

This is why I always use a crack on single player games. Funny how hackers are the ones I have to turn too when I want my purchased game to work without problems. Fuck DRM! If consoles don't have DRM neither should PC's. Piracy is plaguing consoles just as much as PC's but no one talks about it. And we all know that as long as you ignore the elephant in the room he doesn't really exist. I would love to see the reactions of console gamers if they're introduced with DRM.

 

[Wicky_42]

Point 3: Refusing to buy games from a company because they (much like others dealing with large cost productions) try to protect their products is not valiant or honourable--or hip, alternative, rad, steadfast--or whatever other positive trait you are headed for, but selfish.

I'd counter that with: blind faith and continued support of companies heading down an industry-killing path by implementing a constrictive practice that demonstrably only causes inconvenience, and only to paying customers at that, is foolish and blind; during and after companies make mistakes it's pretty much expected for there to be a loss of faith in them and they should at least consider a change of practice to prevent those mistakes from ever happening again.

According to sources you yourself quoted, not only had they been aware of and not patched an issue before launch, but they then put that patch on hold at the detriment to some of their customers. The complaints about this issue were sufficient to initially mask reports of a new validation issue, indicating the size of the problem being causally ignored by the company.

Does that sound like a company you should blindly and faithfully support? One that releases a game with known bugs, and procrastinates on getting them fixed whilst other issues start mounting up? I'm not even going to start referencing all the complaints of lazy design from the sequel.

In closing, selfishness has nothing to do with refusing to buy from a company. Bad choice of word, and poor sentiment.

 

[jpoon]

Hah, hilarious, only one more reason why Bioware is supporting piracy by supporting lame ass DRM.

 

[newwiseman]

This is why I buy games and then crack them.

 

[SanguineSymphony]

The sad
Point 3: Refusing to buy games from a company because they (much like others dealing with large cost productions) try to protect their products is not valiant or honourable--or hip, alternative, rad, steadfast--or whatever other positive trait you are headed for, but selfish.

My opinion. Not like it matters. Make of it what you wish.

What purchasing decision isn't driven by self-interest?

 

[Therumancer]

This is exactly why something needs to be done to stop DRM entirely, there is no excuse or justification for this from a multi-billion dollar industry. The "Well someone might pirate our game" excuse was fine before the industry started doing worse things to far more people, legitimate paying customers no less. Piracy is bad, but it's hard to accept it as the greater evil coming from a billion dollar industry looking down on us peons from their giant castle made of money and denying us access to the goods we rightfully paid for. If they weren't putting DRM and such into the products, there would be no need for online connection and verification, and then people wouldn't be dependant on the company keeping their system running, and being at the mercy of whenever they happen to notice properly and get it fixed.

What's more I think them being focused on newer games at the expense of their older ones demonstrates a HUGE problem here, because again, people paid for these products. It doesn't matter if they aren't making as much money from it right now. Heck, 20 years from now these people STILL have a right to their products. I'm waiting to see if (all EULAs aside) we ever see a successful lawsuit down the road when a popular game & DLC set like "Dragon Age Origins" is no longer supporting by the company. Look at how there are fanatics who still play games like "Ultima 7".

I think doing away with DRM on later releases is a good thing, but companies need to find ways to remove DRM from current products to restore functionality.

 

[Mutak]

DRM hurts legitimate customers way more than it hurts pirates. Incidents like this turns customers into pirates. How many more incidents like this do we need before publishers get this through their thick skulls.

 

[Doom972]

While I don't want to sound like I'm protecting draconic DRM, I have to say that this game works fine, as long as you take some time to google the problem.
I bought the Digital Deluxe edition from Steam two days before this problem started.
After a quick look at the official forum I saw the AddIns.xml fix and the DLC was working properly again.
Also, today I didn't have internet access for a few hours and I managed to run DAO via the Steam offline mode with my DLC still active.

 

[Eternal_24]

I wondered why the hell my DLC suddenly became unregistered to my account, I've been having to play offline just to access my save files. I don't understand why this mechanic is even part of the game, it does nothing to prevent piracy, all it does is cause hassle for people who actually paid for the DLC which seems rather counter productive...

This also happened to me when I transfered my Steam installation over to a new hard drive, suddenly I was no longer able to access my save files or DLC because the registry item for the stupid updater service needed to be pointed to the new location, even though none of the other 15 games I own through Steam had any issues at all with me changing the installation path.

Pirates don't have to worry about any of this, all they do is change the settings so that the game doesn't connect to BioWare's servers and they can play whatever DLC they like, whereas people like me who bought it can't even play their DLC, don't even get a hint as to why and are forced to adopt the solution that pirates use in order to play the game they paid for.

 

[Imre Csete]

Gamers are guilty until proven suspicious.

I love DRM! /yay

 

[BehattedWanderer]

Wow. A point in consoles favor. But at least they fixed it. On the other hand, great news--DA2 is getting a patch! Horrah!

 

[trollnystan]

Long story short, my computer is totally banjaxed because of this, sigh. Although to be fair, it was almost entirely my fault, but this was the catalyst dammit! Along with my ME2 not working...

 

[frago roc]

I imagine in 10 or so years I may want to replay a game like this. Too bad chances are all the extra content, if not the entire game, will be inaccessible because it is no longer feasible for the company to keep the servers running. Be afraid consumer. I think I'll 'backup' a 'working' copy of this game... I DID buy all the DLC individually and I demand that it works for as long as I care to have it.

 

[ImprovizoR]

DRM hurts legitimate customers way more than it hurts pirates. Incidents like this turns customers into pirates. How many more incidents like this do we need before publishers get this through their thick skulls.

It doesn't hurt pirates at all. That's why we all hate DRM. The only people who have to deal with that shit are legitimate customers.

 

[Stevepinto3]

I was experiencing this problem. I tried logging in and out of my bioware account several times, and then tried exiting and restarting the game. After restarting it the second time everything came back.

I've come to accept DLC, but the least they could do is not add a bunch of stuff that's just gonna screw up and keep me from playing the content I legally paid for. Especially when that DRM is nothing but a speedbump to pirates. It would be great to think that this case might show developers why DRM is so flawed, but realistically it won't happen. A few days of people having a log-in, log-out issue? That's not even a blip on their radar.

I desperately await the day when some company finally realizes, "Hey guys, this shit doesn't work! Maybe we should stop using it." I will buy fifty copies of any EA game that does this.

 

[Traun]

I'm still confused how this got passed by anyone. "We'll make it so they have to log in to access all their content, that'll stop people from pirating." Uh..what about the fact that they're....um..pirating and will take all this protection out anyway. "Eh it'll surely stop them somehow! Right?"

Nope it doesn't. Anyone else miss when Expansion Packs came on a disc and it was yours?

Amen, but this DRM thing isn't targeting the pirates, it is to prevent second-hand sales.

 

[Snotnarok]

I'm still confused how this got passed by anyone. "We'll make it so they have to log in to access all their content, that'll stop people from pirating." Uh..what about the fact that they're....um..pirating and will take all this protection out anyway. "Eh it'll surely stop them somehow! Right?"

Nope it doesn't. Anyone else miss when Expansion Packs came on a disc and it was yours?

Amen, but this DRM thing isn't targeting the pirates, it is to prevent second-hand sales.

Which STILL makes no sense since I can give my friend my password on EA account and he can now access all my DLC.

 

[Traun]

I'm still confused how this got passed by anyone. "We'll make it so they have to log in to access all their content, that'll stop people from pirating." Uh..what about the fact that they're....um..pirating and will take all this protection out anyway. "Eh it'll surely stop them somehow! Right?"

Nope it doesn't. Anyone else miss when Expansion Packs came on a disc and it was yours?

Amen, but this DRM thing isn't targeting the pirates, it is to prevent second-hand sales.

Which STILL makes no sense since I can give my friend my password on EA account and he can now access all my DLC.

Yes, but you can't sell it to Gamestop.