EA's Origin DD service (not that Origin)

I'm curious how well Origin is going to handle the amount of users downloading BF3 or any other big game at launch and patches. Will it auto resume or validate files if it fails? With Steam I have to switch up content servers from time to time to get a patch to even start the download.

evilseed wrote:

I'm curious how well Origin is going to handle the amount of users downloading BF3 or any other big game at launch and patches. Will it auto resume or validate files if it fails? With Steam I have to switch up content servers from time to time to get a patch to even start the download.

Yes, EA should really have origin in as best shape as they can for BF3 (and SWTOR) as it's their best chance to sell that service. If it doesn't impress then it's going to take a while to turn over people's first impressions. Remember how long steam had it's reputation of crapness from it's initial launch and first few years. It doesn't matter if you've only launched (or renamed and given a high public profile) a few months ago, you get compared against everyone now.

Cross posting for giggles: http://www.bluesnews.com/s/125897/or...

New in the TOS:

By accepting these terms, you and EA expressly waive the right to a trial by jury or to participate in a class action.

YOU UNDERSTAND THAT BY THIS PROVISION, YOU AND EA ARE FOREGOING THE RIGHT TO SUE IN COURT AND HAVE A JURY TRIAL.

YOU AND EA AGREE THAT EACH MAY BRING CLAIMS AGAINST THE OTHER ONLY IN YOUR OR ITS INDIVIDUAL CAPACITY, AND NOT AS A PLAINTIFF OR CLASS MEMBER IN ANY PURPORTED CLASS OR REPRESENTATIVE PROCEEDING.

Scratched wrote:

Cross posting for giggles: http://www.bluesnews.com/s/125897/or...
New in the TOS:

That's similar to what Sony just did after a recent SCOTUS decision that allows arbitration clauses to be enforceable.

EDIT: Just got this client update. Says it has something to do with BF3 prep. Still doesn't add back the ability to disable start with Windows via menu. Annoyed.

I'm still pissed at EA for how they've been acting lately, and for the whole Origin idea in the first place... but I've got to admit, their support for Origin is pretty stellar. I contacted them about a few games that won't register in Origin because they require registration at another site and they just added them all. No hassle, no argument.

Now I'm working on getting some older stuff transferred and merging two accounts (I used a different one in earlier days but miraculously remembered the password). We'll see how that turns out.

A big problem for a bunch of people has been the inability to change Origin ID's, after selecting something years ago that you didn't know would be your public name. EA's now allowing you to change your name.

Recently it had gotten out that with the free iOS or Android versions of some EA games that you could do it, so now they're allowing you to do it from the web.

So... I just saw LobsterMobster log on. I clicked on his profile and saw that it was actually Jakeleg. Anyone encounter anything like that?

EDIT: OK, now someone logged on with NO name. Profile says it's MrGreen.

LobsterMobster wrote:

So... I just saw LobsterMobster log on. I clicked on his profile and saw that it was actually Jakeleg. Anyone encounter anything like that?

EDIT: OK, now someone logged on with NO name. Profile says it's MrGreen.

Haxxors.

I'll probably still stick to Steam solely for convenience's sake, unless there's some other EA/Origin "exclusive" I absolutely must have. Which I can't think of anything off the top of my head, for the time being, at least.

I wonder how exclusive this ends up being. From what I can tell, it seems like it's just another distribution channel, rather than EA offering any services that would tie into Origin.

Competition is goooooood.

Certis wrote:

Competition is goooooood.

Agreed. EA's had some very good sales and promotions on EADM and Origin. They're slowly figuring this thing out.

I'd also like to see the Xbox PC store get active on promotions again. There for a bit during the next to last relaunch*, they had some nice deals for awhile.

I'm all for having a bunch of places competing for my money.

Is Origin a polished place to buy and play games? Nope, not yet. But I hope they continue to improve.

*that was when the last GFWL client went out. Not the more recent relocation to the xbox.com site.

It's going to be interesting to see, right now I see it as just another channel like impulse, gamersgate, etc.

What will really be interesting is how far they take it in future, what will be the range of titles they manage to get on the service. Right now Valve is the Amazon of PC gaming, with a huge variety from big to small (and there's still tons not sold on steam), but EA is a big gun, and is getting other heavy guns on it's service. By not putting a wall around it for just a download store for EA games, but opening it up to externals and eating their own dog food it will hopefully go from strength to strength.

Activision is probably waiting in the wings with battlenet, as hinted by the leaked Blizzard release schedule under "battlenet 3rd parties".

I'd still love for them to get their back catalogue on there, but I'm sure it probably wouldn't be worth the pay-off for compatibility checking and any GOG style tweaks they need to do for modern systems (and running without CDs).

Certis wrote:

Competition is goooooood.

I agree and the only thing I hope that doesn't happen is that games are taken off one service to be exclusive on another.

Something I'm wondering: For a while now there's been rumours of retail telling some companies not to sell their PC games on steam or they won't stock their title on any format, for example allegedly Game in the UK telling Bethesda/THQ to stop steam sales/preorders of their games.

What happens if/when they try and tell EA not to use their own service? Alternatively, is this a reason why THQ is going with EA, because they're too big to say no to for retail, compared to THQ acting alone.

I'm really surprised to see publishers put their titles on a service where one of their chief rivals will get a piece of the revenue. Still though, more competition is good! Origin's got a long way to go before I'll use it for anything but deeply on sale titles but it could get there.

Are THQ and co. really competition to EA?

Scratched wrote:

Are THQ and co. really competition to EA?

I would think so. They're also publishers fighting for the limited gaming dollars that are out there. They're certainly not allies. But I imagine EA's either offering favourable terms to get them on the service or they've realised they even when selling through a competitor's portal, they're still keeping more money than when they have to give a huge chunk of it to crappy brick and mortar retailers.

Parallax Abstraction wrote:

I'm really surprised to see publishers put their titles on a service where one of their chief rivals will get a piece of the revenue. Still though, more competition is good! Origin's got a long way to go before I'll use it for anything but deeply on sale titles but it could get there.

Valve isn't a rival? It's both now effectively a huge publisher/retailer on PC as well as a developer.

Valve is a distributor but it doesn't really publish anything and isn't in competition to sign development studios to make games for them the way places like EA, THQ, Capcom etc. are. Not that I'm complaining, more platforms is better and obviously these publishers think it's the smart move to work with Origin.

Parallax Abstraction wrote:

Valve is a distributor but it doesn't really publish anything and isn't in competition to sign development studios to make games for them the way places like EA, THQ, Capcom etc. are. Not that I'm complaining, more platforms is better and obviously these publishers think it's the smart move to work with Origin.

It is effectively the publishing arm for a lot of smaller indie games. That's the way they get their stuff out and have it marketed for the most part (steam sales, promotion on the steam storefront, etc), which is what a publisher does.

A publisher in digital space is a bit different than one in retail.

It's similar to how MS is a publisher to a lot of XBLA games.

That's an interesting point I hadn't considered. Publishing indie games though doesn't put them at odds with EA and the like though as they don't touch that space. I would love to see EA also jump into releasing indie stuff through Origin. That could lead to some interesting things if they actually started to put some of their weight behind the indie stuff, rather than just give them another download portal to use.

I would bet that EA is undercutting Valve right now on DD fees... I'm very glad that this is happening.. its exceedingly bad for the consumer to have one "primary" player.

I am having a really hard time seeing this as a problem. It really isn't that hard to not be a huge douchbag when typing. You pretty much always have time to stop and think about what you are saying before it gets out there, and I wish more companies would make people see that their behavior can have consequences.

Plus, if they have a "get rid of terrible people" policy, it frees up customer service people to deal with the second examples in that RPS story - someone who got kicked for commercials. It cannot be that hard to fix a problem like that, but when you have to deal with hackers, teabaggers and misogynists all the time, a small problem like that can easily fall to the bottom of a queue.

Atras wrote:

I am having a really hard time seeing this as a problem. It really isn't that hard to not be a huge douchbag when typing. You pretty much always have time to stop and think about what you are saying before it gets out there, and I wish more companies would make people see that their behavior can have consequences.

Plus, if they have a "get rid of terrible people" policy, it frees up customer service people to deal with the second examples in that RPS story - someone who got kicked for commercials. It cannot be that hard to fix a problem like that, but when you have to deal with hackers, teabaggers and misogynists all the time, a small problem like that can easily fall to the bottom of a queue.

Online forum behavior shouldn't affect offline gaming, ever. You could make a case for online gaming, but even that is a stretch.

None of that justifies what happened to the 2nd two cases, especially the guy who is now permanently banned. I don't care how many teabaggers they have to deal with, that doesn't excuse it.

Well that cinches it. I will never ever buy a game off origin. Not ever.

gregrampage wrote:
Atras wrote:

I am having a really hard time seeing this as a problem. It really isn't that hard to not be a huge douchbag when typing. You pretty much always have time to stop and think about what you are saying before it gets out there, and I wish more companies would make people see that their behavior can have consequences.

Plus, if they have a "get rid of terrible people" policy, it frees up customer service people to deal with the second examples in that RPS story - someone who got kicked for commercials. It cannot be that hard to fix a problem like that, but when you have to deal with hackers, teabaggers and misogynists all the time, a small problem like that can easily fall to the bottom of a queue.

Online forum behavior shouldn't affect offline gaming, ever. You could make a case for online gaming, but even that is a stretch.

None of that justifies what happened to the 2nd two cases, especially the guy who is now permanently banned. I don't care how many teabaggers they have to deal with, that doesn't excuse it.

More importantly, just being a douche shouldn't prevent you from being able to play a game. Cheating, sure. But assholes are the reason that mute buttons were invented. I don't see why it even matters in BF3. It's not like there's any builtin VOIP for them to pollute.

Actually being a douche should probably get you banned from everything. Imagine how much better the world would be!?