EA's Origin DD service (not that Origin)

Anybody tried the cloud service with older games? It seems to work great with ME3 (I assume). Haven't had to retrieve anything from the cloud yet, but it does appear to be uploading and syncing. And once when I manually copied some saves to make extra room, it offered me the option to sync from local machine or cloud, so that seemed right.

But when I tried to sync DAO or DA2 just for the hell of it, to backup my saves... it stalls at 5% forever. Eventually I cancel, but the little sync icon is still going in Origin. If I try to do anything else, Origin quits responding and I have to shut it down with Task Manager.

Now I know I have the option checked to only use cloud service with games that support it. But it actually seems to work with ME2, which is even older than DA2. So I'm surprised it doesn't work with all the games.

I'm running windowed borderless mode in ME3, which is just as good assuming you're running at the same resolution as your desktop.

Scratched wrote:

I'm running windowed borderless mode in ME3, which is just as good assuming you're running at the same resolution as your desktop.

I've got two monitors, I could run Origin in the other if I wanted, I was just annoyed it didn't work as it was supposed to. ME is the first game I've really needed it much, but I know it's worked in the past. So I'm not sure if I messed with a setting and broke it, of if the latest version broke it for me.

MannishBoy wrote:

ME is the first game I've really needed it much

Thinking about it, ME3 and BF3 are the first two big Origin titles, with BF3 using battlelog and ME3 in-game but more directly linked to Origin itself. I wonder which system EA high command would prefer developers to use.

Scratched wrote:
MannishBoy wrote:

ME is the first game I've really needed it much

Thinking about it, ME3 and BF3 are the first two big Origin titles, with BF3 using battlelog and ME3 in-game but more directly linked to Origin itself. I wonder which system EA high command would prefer developers to use.

I could see EA evolving the battlelog tech and running it inside Origin's browser for some MP games. It would make sense.

Stele wrote:

Anybody tried the cloud service with older games? It seems to work great with ME3 (I assume). Haven't had to retrieve anything from the cloud yet, but it does appear to be uploading and syncing. And once when I manually copied some saves to make extra room, it offered me the option to sync from local machine or cloud, so that seemed right.

But when I tried to sync DAO or DA2 just for the hell of it, to backup my saves... it stalls at 5% forever. Eventually I cancel, but the little sync icon is still going in Origin. If I try to do anything else, Origin quits responding and I have to shut it down with Task Manager.

Now I know I have the option checked to only use cloud service with games that support it. But it actually seems to work with ME2, which is even older than DA2. So I'm surprised it doesn't work with all the games. :?

Figured it out. I let it sit there for a really long time at 5%, and eventually it went to 10%... finally it popped up saying that I had 2200mb of save files, over my 100mb cloud storage limit for DA2. I went and moved all but the last 7 or so saves to a different directory, and then fired it up, and it properly uploaded all 55mb of my save files.

Why it doesn't check before trying to upload I don't know.

Or why it doesn't just upload the most recent 100mb of files?

Oh well. Poor solution makes the service look bugged. Probably the same thing with DAO. Guess I'll move some stuff there too.

EDIT: All my DAO saves are 12mb each. Just leaving the auto/quick saves in each character directory is more than the cloud has room for. Pretty ridiculous.

You know, just the simple forced advertisement when you start Origin, which you cannot disable, would alone be enough to turn me off the service. Add the ME3 debacle to that, and, well, I don't think I'm an EA customer anymore. I think maybe I'm done with AAA games completely, at least until the terms of the deal shift back to something more like what we used to get.

Well, maybe it's just EA and Activision and UBIsoft I won't deal with anymore. Bethesda's okay still... Skyrim was buggy, and a bit incomplete, and just flat didn't make sense in a lot of areas, but it was still fun, and I didn't leave feeling gypped in any way. A little let down, maybe, when I realized that I had 'finished' it.... "oh, wow, that's all?" But not gypped.

Fortunately, there's such a blizzard of indie titles incoming that I'm not sure it'll be any particular hardship.

Malor wrote:

You know, just the simple forced advertisement when you start Origin, which you cannot disable, would alone be enough to turn me off the service.

I just wish it would be smart and not show me an ad for ME3 every single day since I already own it.

I wish you could turn cloud saves on and off per game. I can't run it in BF3 if I want to manual change any settings in the config files, as it just replaces them.

If there's a way to do it per game, I haven't figured it out.

I'm having a problem with Origin's overlay not working with the Shift+F1 key bind. If you do something in ME3 that would pop it, the overlay is there, and I can see messages and invites, but I can't call up the overlay. Anybody have that problem?

EDIT: Fixed after rebooting for this weeks MS updates. Weird.

You can now access your games single-player when banned

If you find yourself with a disabled account, please note that you can still play EA games in single-player mode. For PC games you will need to enable Origin's offline mode to play games with a disabled account. Go to the settings tab in Origin (the gear icon) and select Go Offline.

For some reason the Origin client takes up 25% of my CPU when it's idling. Very annoying.

kyrieee wrote:

For some reason the Origin client takes up 25% of my CPU when it's idling. Very annoying.

scanning...

kyrieee wrote:

For some reason the Origin client takes up 25% of my CPU when it's idling. Very annoying.

I watched mine off an on for some time while idle.. never went above 0%. You might have some other issue.

From my observations, Origin is pretty 'dumb' in that it doesn't do a lot until you tell it to. There's no equivalent to steam where as soon as a patch is released every client tries to patch in the background, it's on next run. I haven't see it try and be clever and do things, helpful or otherwise, behind my back.

And now on an alternative service: You can now access your games on steam while there's an account issue. Your account goes into a 'read-only' lockdown when there's a payment dispute/ban/etc, rather than being locked out.

Scratched wrote:

And now on an alternative service: You can now access your games on steam while there's an account issue. Your account goes into a 'read-only' lockdown when there's a payment dispute/ban/etc, rather than being locked out.

That is very useful! I had my account "locked" once when my credit card company was futzing up. I eventually had to cancel the order and then replace it with a different card because both Steam and the CC company were telling me to talk to the other company because "it wasn't within their power to resolve".

[edit]
I have to say that, though I'm not usually one to drink Steam's "coolaid" this change in policy greatly improves my faith in the service. That was always one of my nitpicks - you had no way to defend yourself and Steam always were of the opinion that they didn't make mistakes. This appears to be some way along the road to addressing that issue.

Trying to use Origin for the first time.- not all is the fault of Origin. I'm sure I'll not notice it as soon as I get things going. But, until that point- it is not a friendly experience for the end user. It took a couple of hours to download- no big difference from Steam. Once installed I got a message that I needed to install the EA downloader. Ok. After a while I got a message about updating Origin. All of this might mirror the experience of someone trying Steam for the first time, I don't know. I sure appreciate the fact that Steam just works, though.

A pet peeve right now is I'm not sure if I had an older EA account that would work for Origin, or if Origin is completely separate. I went to the password recovery area and entered my email. Spent the last 15 minutes waiting to see if I'd get an email (it said it sent one) and trying to get in a several-year old college one to see if it might be there. I just did a test with an email address I know has never been tied to EA or Origin and it gives the same message- that a validation key has been sent to this email address. It's the tiniest thing in the world, but I hate when I get a message that I'll be sent something like this (where I'm already a bit frustrated because I can't log in) when the system has no intention of sending an email, because it is not tied to an EA account.

I'm know I'm just ranting here. Just my first time trying Origin and posting about the experience.

Figured, "screw it, I'll just create a new account." Turns out that's not an option either. It found an existing account with the one email address (non-work) I actually use (the same one I entered earlier the first time it said it would send an email) and won't create a new account. Ok, so that's a step in the right direction. Only, I still haven't received an email with a validation code despite receiving that message at least 3 separate times now. Maybe it just takes a while? Or, is it really going to require me to use an email address I don't ever check to set up a new account?

I have not received an email- a long time for an automated email. Perhaps they're having issues or the delay is naturally longer, I'll see.

I searched for an email address to email a support question. I could not find an email address to assist me, which is inexcusable for a company that size. I found an email address related to store orders- hopefully they can send my query to the proper department (assuming there is one). Looking at their online help the direction is for me to post my issues on the forums. To do so, I need to log into my EA account. Great.

If I decide I don't care I guess I'll just create a new username and email address to assign this login with. This would be the easiest thing, I just wanted to incorporate my purchases together and use the username I've held onto for years and years. This is a silly concern, sure, but I don't think this is a concern that Origin shouldn't be able to meet. As well, I don't think that my concerns are all that out of the interests of many who play games, though I am just taking a guess.

Hopefully I'll get to play Crysis 2 sometime.

Stupid question: have you checked your spam mail?

Dumb question, but well worth asking. I did check it last night, thanks- it's one of those things that are easy to overlook. Still no email, have to assume I'm not going to received an automated response. I'm probably being dumb for even wanting it to be tied to an email address I use- but this is done in hope of wanting to use Origin in the future as well.

Experiences like that remind me that 'a service' isn't just one thing, but a collection of things that all of them must be working correctly to have a good service.

There is something with Origin servers I suppose, it was impossible to validate my copy of Dragon Age II all weekend. And according to BioWare forums I was not the only one.

Scratched wrote:

Experiences like that remind me that 'a service' isn't just one thing, but a collection of things that all of them must be working correctly to have a good service.

Excellent point. I know some argued in this thread that there shouldn’t be an expectation that these services work fully due to the newness of Origin but I disagree. I think that some of the ways the service fails the needs of its audience.

I also wonder, though, if EA outsources support, support design, and web design to an outside company- I’d be willing to bet an invisible dollar that they do.

wanderingtaoist wrote:

There is something with Origin servers I suppose, it was impossible to validate my copy of Dragon Age II all weekend. And according to BioWare forums I was not the only one.

I guess this blackout is still occurring. Also, I guess Origin has just enough critical mass for this not to be a story most sites seem to be running- that's too bad.

Let Rock Paper Shotgun know about it. They like to soapbox about that sort of thing.

demonbox wrote:
Scratched wrote:

Experiences like that remind me that 'a service' isn't just one thing, but a collection of things that all of them must be working correctly to have a good service.

Excellent point. I know some argued in this thread that there shouldn’t be an expectation that these services work fully due to the newness of Origin but I disagree. I think that some of the ways the service fails the needs of its audience.

I know they slapped the beta tag on origin, and it's still there, but my view is when they're taking money the expectation for it to work is a fair one. Also origin and the EA account isn't even that new, which has been around in many forms for quite a few years (EADM, usage in games).

Everyone deserves a bit of slack when they're getting their act together, but at some point you do need to say "this should be better by now", and EA is hardly lacking in means to support their games/services, so after a while it seems to be about the apparent lack of will to do so.

wanderingtaoist wrote:

There is something with Origin servers I suppose, it was impossible to validate my copy of Dragon Age II all weekend. And according to BioWare forums I was not the only one.

Works now, just ran Dragon Age 2 with no problems.

demonbox wrote:

I searched for an email address to email a support question. I could not find an email address to assist me, which is inexcusable for a company that size. I found an email address related to store orders- hopefully they can send my query to the proper department (assuming there is one).

Got a response that this email was essentially was undeliverable (timed out by trying to send for too long). So they offer no email support, only forum support. If you have a login or ID issue that means you're not to be assisted. Pretty sad for such a large company.

I'm just going to create a new account and tie it to an email address I never use. I'll probably then forget about it, but who cares I guess.

At this point I'd suggest cracking a singleplayer game, but that's a pretty bad 'solution' or even not a solution at all for a constantly online multiplayer game.