370 réponses à ce sujet

[tilley lite]

I have the same problem everyone else has except I'm in Iraq and my ME1 (which I still own) is back home in Florida. So basically I'm willing to buy the game on Games on Demand but Microsoft won't let me. I sold the XBOX I had before because I was going to buy the COD:MW2 Edition XBOX (which I have now). Had transfered all my saves and whatnot to a memory card, specifically for this game in fact.



I have no options really and I regret buying this game and beign happy I could continue my character from before. Should have known it was too good to be true.

[idoless24]

I have pretty much the same problem as everyone..



I played ME1 on the first xbox which was an arcade (so as far as I know, I dont have an HDD) and that was the first xbox with the memory card. Luckily, after my xbox blew up I moved all the saves from the memory unit to my new xbox (which is the new arcade) and moved the saves from the memory card to the MU of the new xbox (which I thought was the HDD).



Now my saves don't pop up on ME2...is it because I have the arcade xbox and therefore no HDD? Can I just buy an HDD without buying a new system (aka elite) and move them to there and just beat Saren again to get the hidden autosave?



Any help would be great..thank you.

[laertus]

Fourteen pages and two weeks running now and still no word from anyone at Bioware. It's nice that they could officially comment on the Tiny Type Fiasco of 2010 but for a problem that actually involves a truly broken piece of software, the Import Utility, we have nothing but crickets. Someone must be reading these forums because they are commenting on some of the silliest things but apparently not anything serious like this broken utility.



I must say that it takes some true moxie to already be advertising that you can import your ME2 character into ME3 when you still can't import your ME1 characters into ME2 because of this broken utility. Maybe if we start reporting Bioware to their local Better Business Bureau for false advertising then perhaps we'd get a response.

[JFLUX13]

Bioware will sure get a long silence from me when their DLC will be available...

[Leto_Atreides]

I can confirm the solution. I had this problem, because i had a second playthrough partially played through and not finished and ME2 couldnt load my character sooooo.... I loaded up a save before i beat the game for the first time, beat killed saren and then the resurrected saren again and then once the final cinematic ended and the credits started I popped out the game put in ME2 and it then could find my character. So this is the solution to the problem and I highly doubt they will make any fix for this since this problem is based on how ME1 was made (unfortunately for those without ME1) because how are they going to patch the game so that they retrieve some data that was deleted...maybe they could patch it so it doesnt delete anymore but that doesnt help people that much now does it. So for those still with ME1 i can confirm that beating saren again works.

Modifié par Leto_Atreides, 11 février 2010 - 02:19 .

[laertus]

Leto_Atreides wrote...

I can confirm the solution. I had this problem, because i had a second playthrough partially played through and not finished and ME2 couldnt load my character sooooo.... I loaded up a save before i beat the game for the first time, beat killed saren and then the resurrected saren again and then once the final cinematic ended and the credits started I popped out the game put in ME2 and it then could find my character. So this is the solution to the problem and I highly doubt they will make any fix for this since this problem is based on how ME1 was made (unfortunately for those without ME1) because how are they going to patch the game so that they retrieve some data that was deleted...maybe they could patch it so it doesnt delete anymore but that doesnt help people that much now does it. So for those still with ME1 i can confirm that beating saren again works.

Bioware simply needs to patch the Import Utility so it can read any save game file from ME1 after the death of Saren.  Currently it will only read a "hidden" file that is written only once and is overwritten if you do anything like play the DLC you downloaded from Bioware, upgrade your HDD, or replace your RROD 360 with a new model.  The outrage here is that Bioware would code the Import Utility in such a way that it would use ONLY that one hidden file that is so easily destroyed by actions that would surely be considered "normal use" for the game.  Since Bioware touted the character transfer so heavily in its ad campaign it seems like they might want to actually patch the Import Utility so that it does what they advertised.  But I'm from a generation where we do what's right and not just what's expedient.  Apparently noone from Bioware is old enough to have learned those sets of work ethics, sadly.

[Leto_Atreides]

Sure not everything is perfect, why not just beat saren again, it took me 5 minutes...

Modifié par Leto_Atreides, 11 février 2010 - 03:02 .

[laertus]

Leto_Atreides wrote...

Sure not everything is perfect, why not just beat saren again, it took me 5 minutes...

No problem.  As long as Bioware doesn't mind you copying your ME1 disc and sending it out to everyone who kept their save files but no longer has ME1.

The issue is not that there is a workaround for some people but that the silly Import Utiliy was badly written in the first place and needs to be fixed so it works as advertised.

[Leto_Atreides]

Rent it for a day and pick up at one of your saves, doesn't seem a difficult solution.

Modifié par Leto_Atreides, 11 février 2010 - 03:15 .

[DirkBelig]

Leto_Atreides wrote...

Rent it for a day and pick up at one of your saves, doesn't seem a difficult solution.

It's gamers like you, who shrug and cheerfully bend over and grab their ankles for whatever the developers and publishers which to inflect upon them, that make life miserable for those of us not cool with being lied to and then ignored by the companies we've paid good hard-earned money to for products that don't work as advertised. You were one of those kids who volunteered to take the names of classmates who talked when the teacher was out of the room, weren't you?

As has been posted several times on this forum, here's what Bioware told us:
Q: How does the save import work?
[*]If you played Mass Effect 1, and kept your save game files,
you will be able to continue your progress in Mass Effect 2. You will
be able to select the import on a by career basis. From the main menu,
start a new game then choose to Import ME1 character. The save game
import utility will walk you through the rest, including giving you
basic information on the save file. For example, did you save the
council, did Wrex survive, what was your character level, and more. On
PC there is a Configuration Utility that will help you locate and import
your ME1 save games. On Xbox 360 all you need is the gamer profile and
save games to get started.[/list]Nowhere does it say, "If you started a second playthru as we encouraged, but didn't finish it, you're SOL. If you replaced your Xbox for any reason and had stored your saves on a Memory Unit, you're SOL. If you cleared your hard drive's cache as part of troubleshooting, it may have deleted the hidden save file we're using for importing, at which point you are...wait for it...SOL!!!!" It doesn't even explicitly state that you needed to completely FINISH the game once. It makes sense that you'd have to finish the story, but according to this, it doesn't look that way. (Note: I think they've added a new Q&A item five questions below what I quoted. It's both a CYA and more confusion because they can't bring themselves to talk straight.)

Why should we have to rent or buy ME1 again because Bioware screwed up and has chosed to lie and stonewall their paying customers? Why are you so eager to sneer that affected players should either shell out $5-$20 on top of cost of ME2 in order to kludge a workaround to the broken import tool; otherwise, suck it up and just start from scratch and hope the game's default story choices mirror yours. I gotta tell ya, the difference between living with your choices vs. what the devs went with is noticable and better if you can get your character imported. (The extra 120,000 credits that my Level 37 character brought with her was quite helpful.)

[Leto_Atreides]

I just want to let you know that I called people over in my office so that we could laugh at that comment you just left haha. Of course I didn't want this to be a problem, I wanted to just play the damn game, but there was a problem so instead of complaining I submitted a bug report which im sure many other people did, and then I went on with the solution that I knew worked. You gave us a good laugh, that was an absolutely absurd statement... I cannot believe you actually said:

"You were one of those kids who volunteered to take the names of classmates who talked when the teacher was out of the room, weren't you?"

Are you kidding? haha What a retarded thing to say...and to accuse me of wanting the game to have a bug is ridiculous, the difference is that I was willing to give a solution you were just willing to gripe and whine.

Oh yeah, and "gamers like me" don't get rid of my games when I'm done with them.

Modifié par Leto_Atreides, 11 février 2010 - 02:26 .

[Brian Mills]

As Trapper_920 (and possibly others) mentioned earlier in the thread, the major problem people here seem to be having ties into the fact that there are two types of saves created by Mass Effect 1. The first type of save is the one listed in the save and loadgame GUIs, while the second one is hidden on the hard drive and not normally visible. Unfortunately, if you only have the normal in-game saves, you won't be able to import them, as the import tool looks for a specific type of save (both to ensure that the plotstate for the entire game is available to import, and also due to each type of save being stored in a different hard drive location and with different access permissions restricting what we can do with them easily).



If you attempt to copy off the saves to a memory unit, you will copy over the first set of saves, but not the hidden file, meaning you will lose that save and will need to defeat Saren again to have an importable character. As suggested earlier in the thread, this can be done by loading the autosave at the end of each playthrough and finishing that fight - as soon as credits begin to roll, you should be safe.



If you copy saves off of your hard drive using an xbox hard drive transfer kit, the hidden save should have been also copied, and you should be able to import your ME1 savegame without issue.



If you want to confirm that saves are available for import, loading ME1 should display 1 or more savegames available as a "newgame+" option from the new game menu if you have defeated Saren in the past. If those saves are present, you should be able to import them correctly. If you are in the ME1 savegame import tool, and you cannot select your saves for some reason, please note that only the d-pad is used to navigate that tool (vs. the thumbsticks), which has also caused some confusion amongst people in this thread from what I have been able to see. In the event that a specific savegame is missing for some reason, that would be a fault with ME1, which I unfortunately don't know the cause for The solution there would be to defeat Saren again in that case, but I realize that is both aggravating and not always possible due to missing disks and other reasons.



Finally, for a number of legal and technical reasons, you will need to use the same gamer profile that was used for the ME1 playthrough in ME2. To elaborate a little bit: each save on the xbox is keyed by the console with information tying it to a gamer profile and storage device, while additional flags are set on the saves related to the publisher, game it is for, and so forth. Certification by Microsoft heavily restricts access to files flagged to another gamer profile, meaning we are unfortunately not allowed to access them

[scooterbaga]

That's an excellent summary of the entire thread... Um, thanks.

The question is... What's going to be done about it?  I'm thinking one or both games need a patch.

[laertus]

@BrianMills: Thanks for the summary of the issues involved with the Import Utility. I think it summarizes both the issues and workarounds that we have all figured out on our own in this thread over the past couple of weeks. I appreciate the response at all, in fact, as it seems this is something that was being ignored. However, no solution was presented. The Utility still needs to be fixed to perform as it was advertised. If your position is that it simply can't be changed in any way to perform as it was advertised that, at least, is a solution of sorts. It just changes the problem from one of a technical nature to one of competence in the planning stages of development. As I'm sure you've read in the 14 pages here many of us are frustrated because we did what Bioware told us to do to keep our save files from two years ago, when we tried to use them they didn't work, when we reported that to Bioware we were told that Bioware failed to give us the correct information two years ago and, finally, that there is no solution to this problem.



In fact, there IS a solution to the problem and that is to fix the Utility. Of course, this is a practical problem because it is not cost-effective for Bioware. In the end it comes down to whether Bioware wants to spend the money to do what is right or not. I'd like to believe that a company with Bioware's history would do the right thing but with the numerous issues that have been raised with their last two releases I just don't believe they are that type of company any longer.



So, Brian, please let us know if Bioware is going to do the right thing or shirk its responsibilities to its customers.

[Brian Mills]

I wouldn't expect any patch for the import utility unfortunately. Due to both desiring to import full plotstates only and due to the even-more-complicated-than-normal certification process that tool required, any patch to it would be fairly unlikely in my eyes, while ME1 is even more unlikely to be patched (due to the additional costs in ramping up development again on it, and the fact that ME2 not finding saves which are no longer present isn't the fault of ME1). I can certaintly ask about the chances of changing the tool when I am work tomorrow, however.

In the meantime, for those of you who do have saves from two years ago stored on an MU or seperate hard drive, my best suggestion at this point would be to borrow/rent/etc. ME1 and re-defeat Saren with those saves, and then re-try the tool at that point. Even if the import tool was to be patched, getting certification signoff on it would likely take at least a week, in addition to the time to QA and code it.

Modifié par Brian Mills, 12 février 2010 - 08:10 .

[laertus]

@Brian Mills: Thanks for the timely update Brian. I think I've been one of the more vocal posters on this issue mainly because personal responsibility is such a big issue for me. I appreciate your effort to talk to folks at work tomorrow.



Just to clarify: It's not that we're missing saved game files, the frustrating issue is the one particular hidden save file the Import Utility chooses to use and the fact that it can be erased by simply playing the DLC from ME1. Personally, I would be happy if it would recognize any game save file post-Saren.

Since this was touted as a groundbreaking feature in almost every Bioware pre-release interview for Mass Effect 2 I have seen, a reasonable man would believe these are the files to be used. If it turns out to be technically infeasible from either time or monetary constraints that's understandable. I would simply appreciate it, if that is the case, if you could mention to marketing that promising what technically can't be delivered is considered bad form

[scooterbaga]

"...the fact that ME2 not finding saves which are no longer present isn't the fault of ME1"

Isn't it exactly the fault of ME1?  ME1 creating the 'invisible saves' and depending on a particular autosave is the entire problem in a nutshell.  In my mind, any new+/after beating Saren/dlc visible save should contain all the info necessary to import into ME2.  From what I understand, those invisible saves are stored in the cache no less... A place Microsoft has you clear out as one of the first 'cure all' support steps.  And an autosave, an autosave... Come on!  There were some horrible design decisions made here.  It's a shame no one is willing to go back and fix such a glaring mistake.

It's taken me 45+ hours the past couple weeks to get a new playthrough completed.  That's time I could've been playing ME2.  It's time well spent in my case, as I've made the same decisions, built a stronger character, and really enjoy the Mako.  However, what's unacceptable is the 36 hours I spent on my original character that's 'stuck' in ME1.

All because I continued playing after beating the game the first time, and because I listened to Microsoft and cleared my cache.

The line that sold me on the Mass Effect games is "You'll want to replay the entire trilogy..."

What hadn't crossed my mind at the time is that I'd want to replay them because I have to...

[Brian Mills]

laertus wrote...

@Brian Mills: Thanks for the timely update Brian. I think I've been one of the more vocal posters on this issue mainly because personal responsibility is such a big issue for me. I appreciate your effort to talk to folks at work tomorrow.

Just to clarify: It's not that we're missing saved game files, the frustrating issue is the one particular hidden save file the Import Utility chooses to use and the fact that it can be erased by simply playing the DLC from ME1. Personally, I would be happy if it would recognize any game save file post-Saren.
Since this was touted as a groundbreaking feature in almost every Bioware pre-release interview for Mass Effect 2 I have seen, a reasonable man would believe these are the files to be used. If it turns out to be technically infeasible from either time or monetary constraints that's understandable. I would simply appreciate it, if that is the case, if you could mention to marketing that promising what technically can't be delivered is considered bad form

By "any game save file post-Saren", I assume that you are referring to the fight at the end of the game - at that point, there's no longer any chance for the player to manually save, and all autosaves are created prior to that point .  As a result, only the hidden save would qualify in this case - are you referring to some other type of save?  

scooterbage wrote...
In my mind, any new+/after beating Saren/dlc visible save should contain all the info necessary to import into ME2

Unfortunately, a savegame from a newgame+ playthrough has a completely seperate plotstate from the first playthrough, so that would not qualify, and we were prevented from being able to save normally at all at the very very end of the game (which is why we need to ask you about the decision with the councilors). In addition, relying on a manually created save after completely the game or one which could be easily overwritten would mean that a large number of players would likely have lost their import saves by accident.  To elaborate on the newgame+ playthrough plotstate: a few specific pieces of information are carried into the new playthrough, such as player name and class, but the choices made in the first playthrough are not stored (and would be overwritten as soon as you made a new one in the new playthrough even if this was not the case), meaning that even if we allowed you to import a newgame+ savegame, it wouldn't have the information you desire in any case. Each playthrough exists as a seperate entity in that respect, meaning you will need at least 1 save existing in some form from each playthrough completed by players, in case they decide that they wish to import a specific character. 

Regarding DLC removing the hidden savegames, that shouldn't occur, obviously, although it's possible that a bug exists there which I am not aware of. Any save created with DLC present should be no different from a normal in-game save, just with a slightly different plotstate present..

[laertus]

I was, in fact, referring to the same types of files as Scooterbaga, the newgame+ files which would, by definition, all be post-Saren. After you explained the situation with the plot items not being carried over into the newgame+ saves I understand why those aren't used. What I was trying to explain was that, in my case, I finished the game with my level 60 Shepherd. Then you released Bring Down the Sky and Pinnacle Station. In order to get to either of these DLC areas your Shepherd had to be in the Citadel. Well, if you've just beaten Saren the only way to get back to the Citadel is to start a newgame+. Essentially, Bioware has penalized everyone who downloaded the DLC and played it after beating Saren. That hidden autosave file is also overwritten if you do ANYTHING post-Saren. Hopefully, you can see why this is frustrating to players. We were using the game as directed by Bioware in the instructions for the DLC and doing so overwrote our autosave file that would be needed in ME2. If I had known this at the time I would not have downloaded the DLC. I would hate to think that is why it wasn't mentioned in the DLC.

It doesn't look like there is going to be any easy technical solution to this oversight. At this point the best I can say is please do not use this method of character importation in ME3. At a minimum, look at the save file structure in ME2 now, before it raises this exact same issue in two years.

Oh, FYI, if you upgrade your HDD using the transfer cable supplied by Microsoft it does not transfer these hidden files, so you lose your import ability that way as well, as this happened to me with the characters that I had not used post-Saren.

Modifié par laertus, 12 février 2010 - 07:03 .

[Brian Mills]

The hidden autosave file is should not be overwritten by a newgame+; a second completion of the game should create a second hidden file, while saving manually should only touch the normal saves and never the hidden savegames. If starting a newgame+ playthrough does somehow delete the savegame, that would be a bug, obviously. Can you confirm that after you create a newgame+ playthrough for the first time, if you immediately return to the main menu, you are unable to make a newgame+ playthrough a second time with the same career? If you are able to do so, then the save is intact, while being unable to do so would mean it is deleted or otherwise made invalid.



Regarding doing things post-Saren removing the hidden file, since you cannot do anything post-saren (other than make a new game), I'm not sure how it would delete that file as ME1 should only write a new file at that point - making a new character shouldn't refer to those files in any way other than to read data for a newgame+ playthrough. If you can provide any exact repro steps for that, I would be interested in seeing them, as I'm unaware of any specific bugs where creating a new game can display that behaviour. Those saves are intended to only be touched twice by ME1 - once to create them whenever you beat the game, and once to read them if you make a newgame+ playthrough from them. They should otherwise never be modifiable.



Regarding DLC, it's true that you cannot jump into the new planets if you've already beaten the game, meaning you either need to load an existing savegame prior to beating Saren or a newgame+. Unfortunately, adding this would be a massive undertaking (basically requiring a complete rewrite of the end of the game's code plus new scripting and handling on the rest of the game to handle it), meaning I can't see any means to play after beating the end boss ever being added. This does exist in ME2, however.



Regarding ME3, we don't have any hidden saves which I am aware of in ME2, so you'll be glad to know that the same method isn't being used Once you beat ME2, you'll note that you can select to make a newgame+ game with any standard savegame which was created after defeating the endboss and where Shepard does not die. Those saves are, to my knowledge, what we will be planning to use in ME3. Luckily, since ME2 also has the ability to play after defeating the endboss, we are also more able to rely on player making saves manually after that point, although there is the obviously increased risk of people deleting those saves by accident (which was generally speaking much harder with the ME1 approach).

[laertus]

I did as you suggested and attempted to start a newgame+ with my character that is already in a newgame+. His is the only character that does NOT appear on the career list as available to play. Only characters who have not started newgame+ show as available. So, perhaps something really is messing around with the files between the newgame+ and the DLC. Without being able to see behind the scenes it is frustratingly difficult to tell as I can only see the results and not the process. My supposition was that the original plotstate file was being overwritten with the new plotstate file, but I have no data.



It's a pretty thorny issue and I do appreciate the time you've spent answering the admittedly technical issues here. It was nice to finally get a response from someone. Hopefully the experiences of everyone on this thread will be helpful in some way.

[Brian Mills]

I'll see if I can find a development kit here with the DLC present on it to see if I can reproduce that issue here. However, at best, it would only serve to confirm what you've already found, which would be that the save is missing Unfortunately, once it's gone, there's no means to restore it other than beating Saren again. It's possible that the DLC does have some sort of issue related to the saves - I know that the platinum hits version of the game had some issues with how the DLC was packaged for instance, which caused issues for some players.



I'm not really sure what I can do at this point, however, other than ensure that any import testing for ME3 specifically checks the case of ME2 w/ and w/o DLC present (which would hopefully have already been done). Obviously, nobody wants to have the import process be any more difficult or buggy than absolutely required. Luckily, we aren't saddled by some of the biggest technical issues that we had to deal with for importing from ME1, meaning the ME2->ME3 process should be much cleaner and simpler.

[laertus]

Thanks again, Brian.  It's unfortunate that the utility works the way it does as it seems to deny access to the character import to folks who went the extra mile and purchased and played the DLC.  It's good to know that it won't be an issue in ME3.  I'm sorry that there wasn't any way to fix the issue but at least we got a knowledgeable response

[JFLUX13]

I want to thank you Brian for taking the time to shed some light on this Import Utility feature.

I am one of many who got penalized for purchasing and playing the DLCs, and transfering data to a brand new Xbox.



Needless to say, I'll be a lot more patient when ME3 or any DLC will come out. No more first day purchase for me nor pre-order of any kind. I'll wait for the community to tell if everything is working as advertized...



This being said, I'm glad we finally got a knowledgeable answer about this whole issue, however disappointed it may be. Thanks again!