53 réponses à ce sujet

[Suilebhain]

Why should I have to be connected to the Interenet to play a SINGLE USER GAME on my home computer? Is this just one more way for Big Brother to take hold of our home computers?

If I pay for a DOWNLOAD, that is what it should be - downloaded to MY computer, not half here, half there. I may seriously reconsider purchasing anymore BIOWARE/EA games if this is going to be their model in the future.

[JironGhrad]

The game's basic requirements clearly indicate that you can play the regular game without being on the internet. The DLC functions just like any other DLC (Fallout 3 PC, XBox 360 or PS3 DLC) and requires you to be connected to the internet while playing.

[fkirenicus]

Oh, so now it's admitted that the DLC requires you to be online while playing?
It wasn't so about a month ago, when I had this type of headache, as you may remember...

Fortunately I've found a way around this (no, I'm not using pirated versions, I'm using the very same DLC I've paid for and installed using the in-game installer - before I knew (more or less) how this "works" (it can in fact be argued it DOESN'T work at this stage!)).

But unless I can't help it I won't ever connect to the DA:O servers again - at least not until EA gives a clear answer about what info they collect their users and their computers while we're online, how it is done, and what they do with the info.
Also it seems IMO quite clear that this system is quite unreliable, since people who DO connect to the servers also run into these problems.

Modifié par fkirenicus, 16 décembre 2009 - 04:08 .

[Suilebhain]

JironGhrad wrote...

The game's basic requirements clearly indicate that you can play the regular game without being on the internet. The DLC functions just like any other DLC (Fallout 3 PC, XBox 360 or PS3 DLC) and requires you to be connected to the internet while playing.

So then it is since certain gaming companies are getting into bed with Microsoft, I guess. I have played games with downloadable content, Oblivion and Morrowind, for example, that do NOT require you to be online while you play.

[JironGhrad]

Well, not just Microsoft since the PS3 has that same issue. It's just getting to the point where high-speed internet is so widespread that it's going to be like the CD-ROM drive was in the 90s. You'll just have to do it if you want to play games.

[Suilebhain]

Yeah, it's sort of like living in a busy city and leaving your front door unlocked. No thanks.

Besides, why play a game that requires me to introduce LAG due to communications bottlenecking? Suddenly, no matter how fast your CPU is, you are dependent on Verizon or Brighthouse to determine how smoothly your game runs. If it is a matter of protecting cinematic cutscenes, perhaps they should just offer us the choice of not using them.

Just because we CAN connect to the internet while playing, does not mean we should HAVE to. I mean, we COULD drive with our head out the window, it is not a good idea to do it.

Modifié par Suilebhain, 16 décembre 2009 - 04:27 .

[Legion-001]

JironGhrad wrote...

The game's basic requirements clearly indicate that you can play the regular game without being on the internet. The DLC functions just like any other DLC (Fallout 3 PC, XBox 360 or PS3 DLC) and requires you to be connected to the internet while playing.

Weird... I've got Fallout 3 for the PC & all of the DLC and yet it doesn't require me to be online at all, it downloads files to the harddisk and runs it from there.
Also of note is that Dawn of War 2 has recently remove the 'DLC only working online' idea because it was really annoying people and I think THQ is doing the same for Saints Row 2 on PS3... It seems Bioware is a little behind in the times.

[JironGhrad]

I'm quite certain it has nothing to do with the cutscenes. It's also possible to play with the DLC offline but it's somewhat unreliable (I don't fully understand how it decides when to authenticate the DLC, just that it seems to try throughout play.)

[JironGhrad]

Legion-001 wrote...

JironGhrad wrote...

The game's basic requirements clearly indicate that you can play the regular game without being on the internet. The DLC functions just like any other DLC (Fallout 3 PC, XBox 360 or PS3 DLC) and requires you to be connected to the internet while playing.

Weird... I've got Fallout 3 for the PC & all of the DLC and yet it doesn't require me to be online at all, it downloads files to the harddisk and runs it from there.
Also of note is that Dawn of War 2 has recently remove the 'DLC only working online' idea because it was really annoying people and I think THQ is doing the same for Saints Row 2 on PS3... It seems Bioware is a little behind in the times.

Has there been a new patch for Fallout 3 lately? Last time I played (3-ish weeks ago) I had to log in my Gamertag to authenticate my DLC "again".  Also, since you have to play DoW2 through Steam, there's no real point to requiring a 2nd authentication online.

[Suilebhain]

Don't get me wrong. I am not a troll who has come here to rip on EA, Bioware, or DA:O. I have been an avid fan of EA since my Sega Genesis days, and Bioware all along through all that they have done. I think that DA:O is one of my top five all-time gaming experiences.



What I also am, though, is annoyed that something that was supposed to fix something I never thought was broken has now corresponded to breaking something that previously worked fine.



Coincidence? Maybe, but the timing is too convenient to be anything other than fact.

[fkirenicus]

JironGhrad wrote...

I'm quite certain it has nothing to do with the cutscenes. It's also possible to play with the DLC offline but it's somewhat unreliable (I don't fully understand how it decides when to authenticate the DLC, just that it seems to try throughout play.)

Unless I'm very much mistaken it's our dear beloved daupdater service that does this (but how I suspect this is done I won't say here, since it could be interpreted as "reverse engineering" ).
That's *one* of the things that service performs. Other things it performs are not meant to be discussed in daylight, I suspect...!

And yes, it is technically possible to play with DLC offline, as long as you leave said daupdater service run in the background (one way to ensure this service starts is to have it start at windows start-up, otherwise it tries to start in the game - but this doesn't always seem to occur, and probably is the cause why some people that are playing online still have problems - as well as of course EA server problems).

Of course, having this service running in the background while you're connected to the internet (but not logged in to the DA:O servers) still makes it possible for it to perform things we shouldn't talk so loud about - if it's made to do so.
So I've disabled it completely.

Ah well. Of course, I don't know if this service is the culprit here. But it is my prime suspect, as I have no other EA/BioWare services that could do this as far as I can see. It might be the information is collected from the server itself, actually. In that case keeping this service running in the background would most likely be quite harmless.

As I've mentioned in another thread about network problems while running DA:O, I have asked both EA and BioWare about this matter.
If they collect info that I don't need to worry too much about, fine. As long as I can get a clear answer from them about what this is about that I can say explicitly "yes, go ahead" or "no, I won't allow this" to, this really isn't a problem.

But I don't get such an answer from them.

Modifié par fkirenicus, 16 décembre 2009 - 05:12 .

[Livanniah]

Erhm, I've played with my DLC's no prob when my cable was down without issue - not sure why people keep being convinced they need to authorize every single time they boot, you do it once and until you do another login it seems static.

[RinpocheSchnozberry]

Man up and get over it, OP. More will be all digital before less is. Before long, everything will be digital. Get a hardware firewall if you are that afraid.



There's no bottleneck from the internet at all. You're machine sends a couple k across the wire to register and that's that. I can play my DLC when I'm offline. So long as it is registered, you should be ok. I spent the other night updating Ubuntu on one system while playing DAO on another.

[RinpocheSchnozberry]

Livanniah wrote...

Erhm, I've played with my DLC's no prob when my cable was down without issue - not sure why people keep being convinced they need to authorize every single time they boot, you do it once and until you do another login it seems static.

It's something to whine about, really.  I used to be in the "WAAAAH INTERNET" camp, but those folks just need to get over it.  Get a good firewall and some AV and plow on.  It's not 1990 anymore, you know?

[fkirenicus]

Livanniah wrote...

Erhm, I've played with my DLC's no prob when my cable was down without issue - not sure why people keep being convinced they need to authorize every single time they boot, you do it once and until you do another login it seems static.

When I started playing DA:O about a month ago, I quickly ran into a problem in that the DLC mangement in the game menu sometimes when I played offline showed that I had installed & authorized Shale (which I got when I bought the game) and Warden's Keep (which I purchased a few days later), but the in-game DLC management told me they were "unauthorized" or that I could buy them for just 560 and 1200 BioWare points, respectively (or somewhere near those numbers at any rate).

Of course, this puzzled me, but since I had just started the game I couldn't check if the content indeed was authorized or unauthorized, so in the end I ended up playing online all the time just to be sure.

Then came the update on the "privacy" policy, and I realized I had to chose between staying online, agreeing to a policy I was advised not to agree to by the National Data Inspectorate in Norway - or go offline and see if I could get it working anyhow (after all, I had paid for WK).

I chose the latter.

[Livanniah]

Well keep in mind sometimes the DAUpdater service seems to install improperly on machines and as a result randomly shuts down which will cause automatic failure to detect content when you try to login.



Wife's machine never had any issue taking the install and never had that problem - I was haggard with autologin frequently "undoing" my DLC's every time until I learned to Ctl-Alt-Del to check if DAUpdater was still running beforehand. (And then shortly after when my new hard drive arrived, I did a fresh install onto the new one and haven't had a DAUpdater issue since)

[RinpocheSchnozberry]

fkirenicus wrote...


Then came the update on the "privacy" policy, and I realized I had to chose between staying online, agreeing to a policy I was advised not to agree to by the National Data Inspectorate in Norway - or go offline and see if I could get it working anyhow (after all, I had paid for WK).

I chose the latter.

Why did they advise you against accepting DAO's agreement?  Or is this a knee jerk reaction on your part to each and every privacy statement you see?  It seems that your government advised you that some sandwiches have bones in them so you should throw out all your sandwiches...  And you're just going along with it blindly.

Modifié par RinpocheSchnozberry, 16 décembre 2009 - 05:51 .

[fkirenicus]

RinpocheSchnozberry wrote...

Why did they advise you against accepting DAO's agreement?  Or is this a knee jerk reaction on your part to each and every privacy statement you see?  It seems that your government advised you that some sandwiches have bones in them so you should throw out all your sandwiches...  And you're just going along with it blindly.

Because it's unclear, e.g. EA says they "might" collect info about your peripheral devices etc. such as mobile phones. Why do they need such info if I'm not using any EA products on my mobile? And what about my mobile do they actually collect info about? They also say they "might" collect information about "media". OK, what media? Pictures, videos, music? Why would they need that info? And I see no reason to hide that I have games from an EA competitor installed on my computer, but that's really not EA's goddamn business, is it?

Also because the collected information may be used to identify/"pin-point" a specific user.

[Lohe]

On my Xbox360 I can play on- or offline with all my DLC. It doesnt matter. Im pleased :-)

[JWT2k6]

I've been playing w/o being connected to the DA:O servers. You don't need to be online w/ DLC installed.

[pipboy2000k]

The cycle:



Online only content games ->

More failures in connection ->

More Pirated games getting around failures ->

less money from pc gamers ->

less pc games ->

no more pc games

[pipboy2000k]

If you have a saved game that has DLC then you can't load up your game without "logging in". IF that fails then you are screwed.

Pirate the DLC... with a pirate copy of the buggy game and be done with it. Show them how profitable this crap is in the long run.

Modifié par pipboy2000k, 16 décembre 2009 - 08:14 .

[Sylvius the Mad]

But you can play offline. There is no requirement that you be online to play using your DLC.



As long as you're not using a digital copy and the game does its DVD check, it doesn't need to be online at all.

[Livanniah]

pipboy - that's quite strange considering I rarely bother to login (just to update achievements really which with the few I have left to accomplish are days between new ones) and have yet to have it say I can't load a save because I'm not logged in for my already authorized DLC.

Unless you've installed new DLC (which you have to be logged in for) - there's no absolute reason to login at all, besides updating the social site.

Now it's possible one of the 4 DLC pieces I do not own (the Pre-order options from other vendors than Steam) requires a login - but that would be an issue with an individual piece of DLC not of DA:O's DLC in general.

And note: Even the Steam version runs just fine in "Offline" mode which requires no connection regarding the DLC, and doesn't need one for when the game is booted.

Modifié par Livanniah, 16 décembre 2009 - 08:45 .

[megapatato]

This looks more as an antipiracy feature (or piracy antifeature) than anything else. In my very personal opinion, all this antifeatures are obsolete/deprecated. Case in point: Sins of a Solar Empire. The game ships WITHOUT any form of copy protection, just a key tied to an account (which I suspect is intended for purposes other than piracy related, and honestly a key for copy protection? this are not the 90's anymore...). The game has won several Best of Month/Year awards, gotten good sales, and been developed with a budget under 1 million USDs. It was a success for Stardock/Ironclad, as it was meant to run well on old systems, and still look good (unlike DAO).

As a programmer, I understand BioWare wanting to protect their software, but frankly such a glitchy game is not worth that much trouble anyhow.

The first time I saw the DAOUpdater on the process list I thought "Hey! this will likely update the game ever so often, so I shouldn't worry too much about glitches". Was my surprise great when not only does it NOT update with the patches, it *might* access private content, and un-authorize running content! Not even Windows' Automatic Updates play that nasty...

Those lucky pirates, they get a pirated game and can reverse engineer all this to get a running game. We on the other hand have to suffer from connection bottlenecks (remember the REST OF THE WORLD doesn't necessarily have Verizon or Comcast like broadband), *mighty* privacy policies, and antifeatures...