Fernando Melo wrote...
Hi everyone,
My apologies once again for the delay in getting you information (and a solution) for this.
Why so long?
The short answer is that we were caught off-guard by this as a new issue for DAO players, believing initially that this was an existing issue that had a solution already available here on the tech forums.
Some of you may be familiar with it, but for those that were not, DAO has an existing (but low in numbers of affected players) issue with unauthorized DLC which can occur in certain cases - usually stemming from something related with the DA updater service that is either not correctly installed or not started with the game. You can find several help threads here on the site for how to detect this existing issue and fix it manually, as well as a link to a beta tool we've provided to help resolve this (see bottom of this post for links) - and there's been some great posts on this thread as well for how to get the service started or installed.
End of day friday when we received our daily Customer Service reports these did indicate players were seeing unauthorized DLC issues with DAO. However, the numbers were still very low (did not stand out) and the issue was reported nearly identically to the known existing issue normally addressed via CS reps or forums, and as such we provided the same fix information back to CS.
In addition, as there had not been any server side changes made by us on our DAO servers, there were no server or app failures in the pipeline, nor any recent DAO patches that could introduce new client side issues - there was no reason to believe that a new issue had appeared, or that this was anything other than the same existing issue.
It wasn't until sunday's CS report that the numbers of DAO players reporting the unauthorized DLC issue really began to stand out. Although at this point we still believed this was the existing issue, it looked like something was causing a spike in numbers and we did start to investigate a reason for the spike. Our QA was also informed and a request for a sweep of the DAO systems was asked to be made as soon as possible. Given that this was still just investigative at this point, the request was queued up behind the DA2 PC/Mac patch work they were still going through over the weekend.
Normally, we are pretty responsive to activity on the forums, but you may also be aware that our forums are staffed voluntarily - and while we do ensure that additional presence exists when launching patches or server updates, this weekend was not the case. The DA2 patch was not expected to clear QA until at least Monday, and most of the volunteer staff/moderators were focused on the DA2 threads currently. The higher than normal traffic in the DAO support thread was not caught.
During monday, as part of catching up to forums, our own game validation checks, and QA passes is when everything came together. We were able to confirm that there was indeed a new issue somewhere in the pipeline, and this is when Rob began to post on the forums.
The delay and vagueness in information provided to you came from the fact that the issue ended up residing in servers outside our direct control elsewhere at EA - and across timezones it took us a while (most of Mon and into early Tues) to go back and forth trying out different approaches to identify exactly what was causing the issue.
Today (tues) was spent actually tackling this issue. Initial fixes did not work, and only recently this evening do we believe that this new issue has been resolved.
Once again my sincere apologies on the delay and the frustration factor for everyone wanting to play the game and DLCs over this weekend.
Why do I need to be logged in to play DLC or the game?
You don't - or are not supposed to need to be logged in. The system was designed such that after the first authorization you should be able to play offline, and it does do this for the overwhelming majority of players (based on data we see). As mentioned above however, there is a known issue which affects a very low number of players, and can be addressed either manually or with a beta tool we've provided (see below). But otherwise you should not need to login/re-authorize.
While the numbers are still low and manual/separate app fixes exist, there is also a patch for DAO that we had been working on to address this which was temporarily put on hold during the finaling period of DA2, and had already resumed since DA2's launch. We'll be looking into accelerating this now - however, at this point I don't have a timeframe I can offer yet.
Why am I still seeing issues?
Now that this new issue is resolved, if you still encounter issues with DLC authorization this is now 99% likely due to the previous known issue with the DA Updater service. Below are some links for solutions, including the beta tool I mentioned above.
http://social.biowar...8/index/5151520
http://social.biowar.../58/index/81613
http://social.biowar...58/index/759141
Please continue to post on those threads if you experience issues after attempting the fixes recommended there.
F.
Thanks for the information. I also appreciate that you're upping the priority of the DA:O dlc patch.
I don't mean to sound patronising, but I would like to also add that, this situation goes to show that once a sequel of a game comes out, the original game(s) in the series tend to have a resurgence of popularity along side it, and as such, a keen eye should be kept on the associated franchise, in all forms (such as DA:O forums, etc).
Anyway, thanks for the help, and I can understand that with such a huge company, with various departments worldwide, it can be difficult to communicate and address some issues effectively, especially when there are essentially two different companies responsible for, but ultimately involved in very different aspects of the product in question (in this case, you guys and EA).
See you around,
M.
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