Hi all,
We have some great news for PC players! Knowing that RtO has been so anticipated, we worked through the remaining steps in the testing and release process today, and Return to Ostagar will is now available for purchase and download on the PC today, January 29, 2010.
Thanks for playing and have a great weekend avenging the fallen Grey Wardens!
Return to Ostagar PC Release: January 29, 2010
Débuté par
Victor Wachter
, janv. 30 2010 01:32
Retour en haut
#2
Posté 30 janvier 2010 - 04:53
Fernando Melo
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- BioWare Employees
-
- 639 messages
Glad to hear so many of you enjoyed/are enjoying it!
With regards to RTO DLC not appearing for you, it is likely due to one of these reasons:
1) The DLC has not propagated worldwide yet.
Normally we push the content out early enough throughout the distribution network / mirrors ahead of launch so it has time to propagate worldwide and everyone gets it roughly at same time. In this case, with the delays so far and knowing some of you already had spent points etc we really wanted to get this out to players as soon as we could, after the final tests passed.
It may still take a few more hours before this gets everywhere though - but I would expect it to be fully propagated before the weekend is out. Also, given how the interwebz work, it usually has not so much to do with geography, but rather load/connectivity from major network provider to major network provider. So indirectly that could appear as a geography thing for some countries where typically there is one major network, but also explains why one person in east coast could have it and another not for example, where there are multiple networks.
For those still waiting however - you do NOT need to have points purchased for the offer to appear in the DLC menu. So while you won't lose points either, know that you can wait for it to appear before having to spend any money, the two systems are not interdependent.
2) The known issues with the DLC updater service
There is an overhaul of this coming in the next PC patch, but in the meantime the same issues we saw with a portion of players after game launch - including dlc not appearing (service not running), downloads stuck, losing authentication, losing connection, firewall issues, cd key missing from registry and issues with the digital download version of the game, etc - are still possible culprits.
The good news, is that there are workarounds documented in the tech support forums for pretty much all of these (someone pointed out this very useful thread - http://social.biowar.../58/index/81613). And there are already good suggestions on this thread as well.
At a minimum, ensure that the updater service is running while playing the game - that should resolve most of these.
3) General server load
Even if the above appear ok, there are still other server considerations that come into play.
Depending on firewall and your general connectivity to the DA servers, it is likely the dlc offer /content could be trying to download in the background . It is also possible that it could time out during any of the steps (check for new content, get new list, request d/l of new content, etc).
If it is taking too long to get something the system is designed to not allow it to interfere with the main gameplay - and as such it will prefer to stop and wait until next opportunity to try again.
The end result though is that the game may be aware of new content, and is doing its thing, but it just appears that nothing is happening as it won't actually appear in the dlc menu until fully installed. Those moving between main menu and dlc, restarting and refreshing are more likely to see it appear 'instantly' as it is trying more often to update the screens. But ultimately it should appear for all - and is really all dependent on time to download and install the offers.
4) Previous RTO / manual downloads
This one is a bit of an unknown on our side to be honest. But we know there are folks that did grab an early version of RTO using the manual downloads, as well as there being early versions cracked - please be aware that we have not done any testing against these and can't ensure whether adding the new version will create issues around which version you are actually 'authorized' for as far as the game thinks.
One thing I will also call out however - the manual links posted on this thread earlier (as well intentioned as they were meant) appear to be pointing to the OLD RtO versions. Again, we haven't tested this, but it is possible that this could create an issue with the game as to which version of RtO you are being authorized against.
With regards to RTO DLC not appearing for you, it is likely due to one of these reasons:
1) The DLC has not propagated worldwide yet.
Normally we push the content out early enough throughout the distribution network / mirrors ahead of launch so it has time to propagate worldwide and everyone gets it roughly at same time. In this case, with the delays so far and knowing some of you already had spent points etc we really wanted to get this out to players as soon as we could, after the final tests passed.
It may still take a few more hours before this gets everywhere though - but I would expect it to be fully propagated before the weekend is out. Also, given how the interwebz work, it usually has not so much to do with geography, but rather load/connectivity from major network provider to major network provider. So indirectly that could appear as a geography thing for some countries where typically there is one major network, but also explains why one person in east coast could have it and another not for example, where there are multiple networks.
For those still waiting however - you do NOT need to have points purchased for the offer to appear in the DLC menu. So while you won't lose points either, know that you can wait for it to appear before having to spend any money, the two systems are not interdependent.
2) The known issues with the DLC updater service
There is an overhaul of this coming in the next PC patch, but in the meantime the same issues we saw with a portion of players after game launch - including dlc not appearing (service not running), downloads stuck, losing authentication, losing connection, firewall issues, cd key missing from registry and issues with the digital download version of the game, etc - are still possible culprits.
The good news, is that there are workarounds documented in the tech support forums for pretty much all of these (someone pointed out this very useful thread - http://social.biowar.../58/index/81613). And there are already good suggestions on this thread as well.
At a minimum, ensure that the updater service is running while playing the game - that should resolve most of these.
3) General server load
Even if the above appear ok, there are still other server considerations that come into play.
Depending on firewall and your general connectivity to the DA servers, it is likely the dlc offer /content could be trying to download in the background . It is also possible that it could time out during any of the steps (check for new content, get new list, request d/l of new content, etc).
If it is taking too long to get something the system is designed to not allow it to interfere with the main gameplay - and as such it will prefer to stop and wait until next opportunity to try again.
The end result though is that the game may be aware of new content, and is doing its thing, but it just appears that nothing is happening as it won't actually appear in the dlc menu until fully installed. Those moving between main menu and dlc, restarting and refreshing are more likely to see it appear 'instantly' as it is trying more often to update the screens. But ultimately it should appear for all - and is really all dependent on time to download and install the offers.
4) Previous RTO / manual downloads
This one is a bit of an unknown on our side to be honest. But we know there are folks that did grab an early version of RTO using the manual downloads, as well as there being early versions cracked - please be aware that we have not done any testing against these and can't ensure whether adding the new version will create issues around which version you are actually 'authorized' for as far as the game thinks.
One thing I will also call out however - the manual links posted on this thread earlier (as well intentioned as they were meant) appear to be pointing to the OLD RtO versions. Again, we haven't tested this, but it is possible that this could create an issue with the game as to which version of RtO you are being authorized against.
#3
Posté 30 janvier 2010 - 05:51
AdrianaLopezForero
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- BioWare Employees
-
- 88 messages
