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DRM Broke Dragon Age: Origins For Days 214
Martey writes "Ars Technica reports that a server problem with the DRM authentication servers has caused Dragon Age: Origins players to be locked out of any saved games that include downloadable content. Quoting: 'Thanks to a combination of DRM idiocy and technical and communications failures on the part of EA and Bioware, I (along with thousands of fellow EA/Bioware customers) spent my free time this past weekend needlessly trapped in troubleshooting hell, in a vain attempt to get my single-player game to load. The problem, it turns out, was the Bioware's DRM authorization servers.'"
An update to the article indicates the problems have finally been resolved.
Once again... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Errr... TFS says it's about savegames with download content activated. If you have a pirated version, you obviously won't have download content in them (at least I'd assume).
OTOH, if you have no download content, TFS implies that everything should have been fine, even with a legitimate copy.
Now I know what the submitter felt. I've had the same problem with my Settlers 7 easter weekend, where the servers sucked donkey ass. OTOH, one must lay part of the blame at our own feet. First we bought the stuff. Then
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Errr... TFS says it's about savegames with download content activated.
Errr...you think DLCs don't/can't get pirated?
Re:Once again... (Score:5, Informative)
Errr... TFS says it's about savegames with download content activated. If you have a pirated version, you obviously won't have download content in them (at least I'd assume).
You assume wrong [thepiratebay.org]. As usual only the legitimate customers are screwed...
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I'm getting to the point where I won't buy anything with DRM in it at all. So far I refuse to buy games that contain significant DRM. And Steam games only when they're ridiculously cheap, typically under $3 or so, with the knowledge that I may live to regret it. And even then it's usually with knowledge that I can use the game files without reactivating them.
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The sad thing is that more and more games will end up only being available online. One thing great thing about physical media is that you can at least sell it again, which makes the $60 price tag feel less bad - at least that is true for console games.
I would love to see a law being introduced that would force companies to allow the transfer of a game license. The only question is how the software could ensure you are using a copy that you still hold a license for, without requiring an online connection eve
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Steam *is* scary. When someone wants to take my money in exchange for a game that they can revoke at any time without providing a reason or change the terms of my using the game at any time for any reason without notifying me; that's pretty fucking scary.
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Sorry, about replying to myself, apparently the agreement is not as horrible as I thought. Yes, they can still revoke your access at any time; yes, your only remedy for any dispute is to cancel your account; yes, they can change the terms at any time and if you disagree you are free to cancel your account; but, they *do* in fact notify you that they change the terms! Sorry to have been wrong.
12. AMENDMENTS TO THIS AGREEMENT
Valve may amend this Agreement at any time in its sole discretion. As a Subscriber, you agree that Valve may amend the terms of this Agreement. If Valve amends the Agreement, such amendment shall be effective thirty (30) days after your receiving notice of the amended Agreement, either via e-mail or as a notification within the Software. You can view the Agreement at any time at http://www.steampowered.com/ [steampowered.com]. Your failure to cancel your Account thirty (30) days after receiving notification of an amended Agreement will mean that you accept all such amendments. If you don't agree to the amendments or to any of the terms in this Agreement, your only remedy is to cancel your Account or a particular Subscription.
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A better analogy would be to compare DRM to older turnstiles as found in subway stations to stop people without a ticket from riding. At a certain (past) point in time, turnstiles were typically simple devices that only let people out, and not in - because they would only turn one way - unless you swiped your card.
Legitimate customers were expected to pull their subway card out of the wallet and swipe it into a card slot to make the turnstile unlock so they could get through. Free-riders would just turn the
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What do all the guards on the transit system cost? I think if you ditched the fare machines, the accountants, the enforcement guards (on Vancouver's system, they aren't the ones who arrest criminals), the signage, stopped inflicting the time-wasting hassle, etc, that you'd end up ahead in the big picture. I'd agree we should do it anyways, but I think it makes sense in a strict economic point of view too.
Similarly, instead of the patent system, government agencies, lawyers, lobbyists, judges, juries, bailif
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This is correct, however both DAO and DA2 have a number of DLC that comes for free either with the game, or other games you buy, so chances that a legitimate customer has at least one DLC are quite high. And of course, pre-order customers are automatically affected too.
The only people who aren't affected by this are customers who either never bother to register their game or buy it used, and pirates, in other words, the more you are willing to pay the more you get screwed...
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If you have a pirated version, you obviously won't have download content in them (at least I'd assume).
Well, yes and no. Popular torrents of a given game usually contain the complete DLC, and this game is no exception. You can always torrent the DLC at a later date if you want, but I can't imagine any self-respecting pirate seeking out a copy with less content and slower downloads.
Of course, without any need for activation servers, the pirates would have been playing their illegitimate DLC quite happily during the unfortunate incident.
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to even think that dlc's wouldn't be warezed easily, even easier than the original game, is just stupid executive daydreaming. it never ever had any proof in the pudding. added datafiles, you see, with one added drm check. there's a dozen ways to approach how to defeat it, but the real purpose is just to screw over people buying used games.
and you're just saying that it's ok that they create shitty games with shitty drm and advetise the fuck out of them and assume we'd buy them and wouldn't be bothered when
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Sure, we bought it and are thus entitled to being able to play it. BUT the way we react to it (being whiny crybabies vs. adults with lives [I know, I know... Slashdot...]) says a lot about our characters and often, it isn't good (not excluding myself from that, obviously).
Certainly, but sometimes one person's cry is a way of warning others what they are letting themselves into. Maybe the way it was presented was not the best, but at least people now know that certain aspects of the game require an online connection to work - which kinda sucks if you were planning to play the game on your laptop while away from an Internet connection on a rainy day.
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> Do something else while the problem gets fixed.
Was it announced anywhere that there was a problem on EA's side? I loaded up the game and it told me I couldn't play my saves. There was no notice on the forums or in the game itself that said that there were problems with auth servers. So how was I to know the problem wasn't on my end?
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Being an adult also means responding to criticism without resorting to name-calling.
I thought that that's what being logical is about, not what being an adult is about. The two really aren't the same as far as I've seen.
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"being an adult" can mean two things. One is having survived on the planet until you reach some age determined to be adulthood by your culture. The other is being some form of ideal adult, within which there can be broad variation but there are behaviors we expect in the ideal adult that are not present in the most annoying characteristics of children. Like name-calling.
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The other is being some form of ideal adult, within which there can be broad variation but there are behaviors we expect in the ideal adult that are not present in the most annoying characteristics of children. Like name-calling.
I guess that is a characteristic of many children, yes. But, again, that also seems to be a characteristic of many adults. I guess those adults don't quite meet the second definition.
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Isn't it great that we've reached a point in our society that expecting to be able to use something you purchased makes you a "whiny crybaby" in the eyes of some?
--Jeremy
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No they did not. Neither did those of us who were smart enough to snag the keys to decrypt the dlc, decrypt it, and set the DLC so it wouldn't be reauthorized.
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No they did not. Neither did those of us who were smart enough to snag the keys to decrypt the dlc, decrypt it, and set the DLC so it wouldn't be reauthorized.
"Smart enough"? I'm a pretty old school gamer and hard core nerd who has recommended CLI fixes for Linux problems to noobs and I still think that's something you shouldn't have to worry about with a game. It's a whole new class of problem, really, this "advanced" DRM. Of course, I think anyone who buys a game and then proceeds to buy a bunch of DLC is part of the problem in gaming today and deserves problems of their own.
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Gotta remember we're a minority of a minority of people who know how to do this stuff. Me? I picked up the ultimate edition for $21 and went happily on my way not getting screwed over by being nickeled with buying DLC.
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Nah I screwed up and reencrypted it. Damn ROT13.
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who would be stupid enough to take such a bet?
since there's no online aspect.. well, that's the friggin way to go of course, and maybe custom mods. even if you're a legit customer and happened to be a fan of the series(dunno why) then you'd want to get the cracked packs anyways for the simple reason of being able to play the game again in a few years once the business case of keeping the servers running has dried out totally.
but there's this thing.. that the publisher is using these dlc's as a way to keep u
Fallout New Vegas had similar problems (Score:2)
Certain missions in Fallout New Vegas would glitch on a downloadable content DRM check, causing the saves to be corrupted if the software couldn't find some non-existent DLC. It took them months to fix it. AFAIK, it happened across all versions of the game. It would seem that this sort of glitching is becoming more common, even on consoles.
Re:Once again... (Score:5, Interesting)
Obvious question though: Does the pirate version include the game's DLC?
TFA notes the problem was with savegames containing DLC content. Put another was, legitimate customers who own "DA:O vanilla" were fine, legit customers who owned "DA:O deluxe" were screwed.
Of course this highlights the real problem. Dragon Age is a single player game. It doesn't need an online component, except for patches and achievements, neither of which should involve any risk of savegame lockout when the servers crash. The sole reason for having severs that can render savegames unloadable in the first place was copy protection for the DLC (not copy protection for the basic campaign), and a fundamental rule all game developers should follow is: Don't let anti-piracy measures get in the way of playing or enjoying the game. Any anti-piracy measure that can fail in this manner should not be included in the first place.
Also, frankly, they'd have never included DLC savegame lockout as a feature if EA hadn't made it company policy to focus on DLC as their financial holy grail. If they wanted to, they could easily make single player DLC work on a machine that isn't connected to the internet. Do they really need additional copy protection for additional content? Are there really paying customers out there who'll buy the game for $40 and pirate the DLC to save less than $5?
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It certainly can, yes. And since step #1 for pirated DLC is "don't let it phone home," it obviously wouldn't have a problem when the auth servers go down.
Yes, they do (Score:3, Insightful)
I got the legit collectors edition but run a pirate version with ALL the dlc even the promotion offers from other shops that I can't buy from.
Yes, truly the pirate version IS the supreme version. And thanks to Bioware lack luster patches, it is 100% up to date.
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That really bears repeating: there is content that paying customer cannot access, unless they're willing to buy the game at full price multiple times from various different stores! In some cases, there's even content that's locked unless you buy other
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I haven't checked for this particular game, but pirated DLC is a very common sight. I know for a fact that every single expansion for Fallout 3 has been cracked, heck I think someone released a tool that unlocks any DLC for that game - even on legit installs!
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That is really crazy. I suppose that's the influence of a Windows centric world where you only get access to one language per install. Then again, it is probably more of a question of localization being an after-thought independent to the OS at play, as they would probably have screwed this up on the Mac too - multilingual installations of software is the norm.
Not new... (Score:5, Informative)
I bought the original for my girlfriend and she had serious issues when the DRM server went down. It was so bad she stopped playing entirely.
If you tried to load a savegame with DLC when the server was experiencing problems, it would silently remove DLC and characters from the game and allow you to continue playing without it. The trouble came when you saved again. The new savegame would be created without your characters or DLC from the originally loaded game.
Well, when you play a dozen hours of the game before realizing that that character you weren't playing at the time and those neat items you picked up poofed 12 hours ago, it turns out you're not really inclined to keep playing.
EA: No thanks. You got me once with your useless support for Battlefield 2, and you got me again with Dragon Age. I won't be buying another of your products.
"There is no right to play" (Score:3, Insightful)
There have always been (and there will always be) shitty or crippled products. Or even otherwise wonderful products that have one huge defect. There will always be stupid managers and lazy engineers. Just walk the other way, don't stick to them - life's too short. In this particular case, every single slashdotter knows that DRM is bad (if you don't, please hand in your geek card on your way out). Do we really need to revel in its failure every single time a major game studio screws its customers?
Re:"There is no right to play" (Score:5, Insightful)
Do we really need to revel in its failure every single time a major game studio screws its customers?
Yes.
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Re:"There is no right to play" (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't know which country you're in, but mine has a law concerning "fitness for purpose" that overrides anything a business puts in its EULA.
(a) Yes. It focuses attention on the problem.
(b) No. But hey, schadenfreude.
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The game corporations will claim that there is no right to play, and maybe even insert a clause that means roughly that into the EULA. It is their right: if you don't agree with their offer, don't buy it!
You shouldn't have to decrypt a load of legalese (which you may not even have access to) in order to work out whether an offer to sell a game is genuine. Purporting to sell a product but designing it so that it refuses to work in certain situations should just be illegal.
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There's unfortunately a huge gap between what should be and what is, and the gap is defended by a bunch of rabid lawyers who will do everything in their power to prevent making them obsolete.
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Behavior like this from EA only hastens the inevitable abolition of copyright as a whole. DRM only leads to paying customers having an inferior product compared to the nonpaying customers. A law is
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Re:"There is no right to play" (Score:4, Interesting)
So what your basically saying, is that for your money you get "a piece of shiny plastic and the possibility that at random points for a limited time the supplier of that shiny piece of plastic may allow you to play a game"...
If people knew what they were really getting for their money, they probably wouldn't pay. The problem is that these companies spend a lot of money on advertising and try to hide the true nature of what your paying for.
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MMOs are not single-player games. The problem is that every major publisher wants to start treating single-player games like MMOs.
I will agree with you that shelling out $50 for a MMO and then having to spend $15/month to play it is kind of bullshit, but that's just how it is with most MMOs. There's no mystery or deception about the fact that it requires an internet connection and to be able to talk to the game's servers to play.
--Jeremy
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It is their right: if you don't agree with their offer, don't buy it!
I wish you lot would shut up about this. They need to know about their customer dissatisfaction. If they don't buy it, then they assume their lack of sales was due to piracy.
The next time you decide to post another stupid vote-with-your-dollars rant, go look up what happened with Spore and Amazon.
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There's some truth here I think. When the majority of people see nothing wrong with this approach to making games, losing a few dissatisfied customers won't be noticed. Especially where there's no alternative.
Voting with your wallet works when you can purchase a competing product instead. When people buy Lemon Scented dishwashing detergent instead of Swine Scented detergent, the manufacturers figure this out. But when every single competitor is also doing the same thing it's difficult to make a purchasin
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Yes, I think we do need to revel in it's failure. Why? Because we still have plenty of DRM fans, and fans of games who don't even know what DRM is. This is even on Slashdot. Everytime someone says "I don't care about copy protection since I'm not a pirate, I just like the convenience of downloading" DRM becomes more entrenched.
DRM is not about piracy. It's about turning ownership into rentals. DRM prevents you from reselling games, giving them away, trading with friends, and in some cases even having
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And how do you read that page when you are *in* the game shop reading the back of the box? And do advertisements provide a link to these terms?
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The issue though is that if you're in a game shop and you see a cool game, is it really reasonable to expect you to pull out a smartphone, navigate to EA's website and read it on that screen? I personally don't think that's realistic. And ultimately even if you do go to the trouble, good luck actually understanding what if any of it is actually enforceable in court.
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they might aswell be requiring you to sacrifice your firstborn at the altar of bioware
You'll get some really nice armor by doing that though... And get this, you'll have it in every future game Bioware too! Pretty sweet, isn't it?
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Only if the DRM servers are up to authorize your armor...
wait wut? (Score:2)
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Key word is "should". But do you think game companies make choices like this in order to get LESS money from you???
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Actually, prices of the -games- went down. As well as amount of content in the games. This is recuperated in premium with DLC which makes the price seriously exceed that of the old, while returning content amount to standard levels.
It broke Dragon Age II as well! (Score:2)
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Meanwhile, pirates can play it just fine. Except most of them won't bother because the game is crap. The controls and camera system are so bad, it's almost unplayable.
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The controls aren't the bad part.
The bad part is, the game isn't about anything.
The first Dragonage had a point. There's a blight, you need to assemble an army, enlisting cooperation from various factions, then go fight it. Fine.
But DragonAge II ? What is it about ? What are you trying to acomplish ? Why ? How many of the quests are even related to the goal ?
I get that they're setting things up for the third, since it's planned as a trilogy. But an -entire- game that is *nothing* more than setting the stage
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And if you WANT to play destitute refugees selling handjobs in the alleys...well, look elsewhere, because DA2 isn't the handjob simulator I was hoping for.
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Yes, but unlike say Planescape:Torment, I just don't give a fig about Hawke, or most of his companions, and the drudgery of combat makes i
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But DragonAge II ? What is it about ? What are you trying to acomplish ? Why ? How many of the quests are even related to the goal ?
I haven't played DA2, but what you describe actually sounds like a good thing to me. It's a typical trait of a "sandbox" RPG, where the main quest exists but can be ignored as there are many other interesting things to bother with. This usually corresponds to excellent RPGs with high replayability value, such as Fallout or Morrowind.
DRM should come with an SLA (Score:5, Interesting)
When a software company embeds DRM into an application, there ought to be an SLA they are held to.
Things like:
1) Availability of DRM servers
2) A warning that unavailability of DRM servers could prevent gameplay
If we must have DRM, can we at least have some level of service with that DRM so we can actually *use* the product?
Re:DRM should come with an SLA (Score:5, Interesting)
I would add a mandatory third clause:
3) DRM cannot be used unless a method is made available to remove it through a certified third party in case DRM fails, whatever the reason. (Failure to meet SLA, software company ceases to exist, etc)
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4) Your product is not guaranteed to work in 5 years when the servers are taken down.
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I Don't and Won't (Score:2)
I don't and won't buy software with this kind of DRM on it.
Took me all of 60 second to fix (Score:4, Informative)
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Sadly, it's an obvious DMCA violation that could put the poster in trouble, isn't it?
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resolved (Score:2, Insightful)
An update to the article indicates the problems have finally been resolved.
It has not been resloved. They may have corrected the issue that brought down the DRM authorization servers, but the problem is still exists. They have *DRM authorization servers*.
It was the DLC (Score:2)
Gotto love the fact the DRM wasn't actually in DA:O, but in the DLC for it. So if you just bought the main game, you were fine. If you had given them _even more_ money, you got screwed.
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The really annoying thing is that they completely ignored it for three days because the DLC system is so bug-ridden that they couldn't tell the difference between the normal level of complaints and the entire system having fallen over.
Was going to purchase this series (Score:2)
But now I won't as the DRM is broken by design.
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Anything with DRM is broken by design. The DRM is the intentionally built-in failure point.
Mind that if DRM did not break anything for anyone, there would be no use for incorporating it to begin with!
You get what you pay for (Score:2)
After 5 years or so.... (Score:2)
And after 5 years or so EA will shut down the servers because they are bankrupt/bought out/waste money and all your games are worthless. There is an easy solution to this: Don't buy DRM'd games. There are plenty of games with don't have DRM and they cost much less, too. Like in http://gog.com/ [gog.com] Or just buy a older game for 10$ and apply a no-cd crack. You won't miss much, I just saw Crysis for just 5 Euro.
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Heck, there are LEGITIMATE no-cd patches for some older games, like the v1.12 patch for Diablo 2.
Even EA has been known to do this... the last update for Battlefield 2 added all the content of the expansion pack(s), and I believe also removes the CD check.
Gamecopyworld. (Score:2)
You can still play all DLC... (Score:3, Informative)
...if you just log out of their server. It's non needed anyway after the content has been authorized the first time. The only people this really affected are either those that bought the DLC while the server was down (since you can't register the content without the server) and those that have no clue that the DRM server isn't needed after the install and still log in anyway. While I'm not pro-DRM, this really is a non-story blown out of proportion.
Fan of Bioware, but even that is not enough... (Score:2)
The DRM horror stories have chased me away from the Dragon Age series. Instead I went to GOG.com and bought the full Baldur's Gate II collection. I own it on a bunch of cds (somewhere); but for 10 bucks I get the classic gameplay with no DRM, not even a cd check, and online download and installation.
Erm.... (Score:4, Informative)
...you guys know that all you had to do was log out of your EA account inside Dragon Age and you could play, right?
I managed to figure that out without even looking online.
The real problem was people attempting to install, as I believe they couldn't activate their copy.
But I started Dragon Age, tried to load a game, got a message about DLC's not being activated on my account, so I, duh, just logged out, and hey, tada, I could load my game. (Yes, with all the content.)
Publishers Inevitably Always Take the Servers Down (Score:2)
I have the Ultimate Edition of Origins -- I got it from Steam. (I really like Steam -- you can use it offline and I never have any problems with playing the games I've bought). However -- DA:O is awful: often the log in lags behind the DLC loading, so it doesn't work first time, so you have to do it again. Very irritating. Also, it clearly means that when EA eventually, inevitably take the authentication servers down, I will lose my DLC and associated saves.
You just have to head over to the Neverwinter
Re:Only affected the PC version (Score:5, Insightful)
Nuff said. Perhaps playing the game on the PS3 or 360 would be a better thing
That's the stupidest thing I've ever read.
Re:Only affected the PC version (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, he does have a point. I personally have largely switched to console gaming, despite the inferior graphics to my gaming PC, the imprecise controller and the noise, simply for less hassle.
I can play single player games offline as much as I like. Even the DLC, bundled or not, works offline. I can even resell my game after I'm finished with it, instead of it being permanently associated with my email address! Imagine that. Legitimate PC gaming is absolutely riddled with DRM. Even steam games come with extra DRM on top, in addition to steam's stopping me sharing games with my wife while I also want to play.
It takes real business genius to make the paid product worth LESS than the free version you can grab from the pirate bay.
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Turns out that myself and many others couldn't save games if the save-game was corrupted. It'd load, but not save after seconds of play time. *facepalm*
"Delete your save!" said EA.
Still not patched since November 2010.
EA - failing every game
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Nuff said. Perhaps playing the game on the PS3 or 360 would be a better thing
That's the stupidest thing I've ever read.
Only if it's a shooty game... which... well if it's on the PC, let's face it, it probably is.
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The PC version was only broken because they broke it.
Ok, now that's the stupidest thing I've ever read.
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Imagine if this happened to wow... man the chaos that would ensue...
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Very poor response for a single player game. Lock customers out for 5 days.
In a few short years, it will be worse. The customers will be locked out forever, as the servers are taken down for good.
Since this is slashdot, a car analogy is in order: Imagine buying a car that authorizes through OnStar before you're allowed to drive it, or use any of the luxury features like the 7-speaker stereo, sun roof or headlight washers. Every time you want to use them. And where disabling this feature is a federal crime.
Can you think of possible ways this could go wrong?
If you live outside t
Re:I too have resolved the problem (Score:5, Informative)
I am lucky that I didn't get screwed with this. I normally do a quick google search on what the DRM of a game is before I buy, and most of the matches were of the announcements that this EA title didn't have SecureROM DRM. There was no mention of the DLC having it. Is this a tactic to look like they are listening to their users' complaints while stabbing them in the back once they have made their purchase?
If you look at the game on Steam (yes, I know that adds its own DRM), there is no mention of the usual EA DRM text on the Ultimate Edition [steampowered.com] that includes the DLC. They sell that version cheaper than the vanilla edition [steampowered.com] to suck you in (your local prices may vary). It is obvious which version EA want you to buy!
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They sell that version cheaper than the vanilla edition to suck you in (your local prices may vary). It is obvious which version EA want you to buy!
That's just how Steam makes money, they don't lower the prices as other retailers do. Oh, the 50-75% off prices may be good, but the full retail price is often *far* higher than other places.
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For most products there is a Manufacturers listed retail price. This price is almost always obscenely high. Like 2-3 times what the market will actually buy the product or sometimes 100 times higher.
manufacturerers then give a retail/wholesale cost to retailers. who markup the product to cover their own expenses, etc.
the trick is if you ever see a manufacturers suggested price being displayed with a deep discount, just walk away. it means they are screwing you and not bothering to kiss you first.
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I've purchased GTA IV on Steam for $4.95. If you keep an eye out, you'll find top-level games for $10 or under quite often. I've found some of my favorite games that way: where I didn't think I'd be interested and then it came out for under $10 so I thought I'd give it a try.
That's how I got hooked on Mass Effect, for example. Yes, Mass Effect was a $10 and under game.
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EA area games company. They sell a service, which is playable games. Keeping games working for paying customers should be what they do.
So, they deliberately introduce a single point of failure (i.e. DRM servers) for a large part of content. If you do this, you better make sure it doesn't fail. If you do, then complete liability lies with you. It's not an inadvertent mistake that couldn't be predicted as a bug in the software that affects some people, it's a decision, made with intent, to deliberately
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Nope, that's a virtuous cycle. More DRM leading to lower profits. Despite their logical fallacy that we can all recognize and ignore, in the end they get what they deserve.