DRM authentication servers stop Dragon Age: Origins from working | Hacker News Reader

DRM authentication servers stop Dragon Age: Origins from working

arstechnica.com

39 pointsmartey14 comments

I think the author's description of the failed troubleshooting he did is as interesting as the issues surrounding DRM:

The overwhelming impression that a user gets from a Google search for this error message is that this is a known, solved problem, and that one needs only to apply the right mix of hacks and tweaks (plus maybe a complete reinstall or two) in order to set things right and get back to playing. So hacking and tweaking is exactly what many of us set about doing. And doing. And doing. And doing. None of it worked. Or, when it did work, it had nasty side-effects like naked party members with no access to their gear. Again, we were vainly trying to fix a new server problem that had the symptoms of an old client problem.

I'll bet the version off pirate bay works fine. I know this is kind of snarky, but if they want to successfully combat piracy they need to make the pay-and-play experience better than the pirate one. DRM only affects those who play the unmodified game.

I bought the mac version from Gametreemac -- when I have periods of dropped connections, my game doesn't give me a warning, it completely dies. This has forced me to save nearly every minute or so. Terrible UX :(

Almost makes me wish I torrented a copy.

You're not being snarky at all, just true.

Do these companies host and maintain their own DRM systems? If they do it seems like they would fall in love with anyone ready to provide a bullet proof 99.99999% uptime DRM solution.

Steam?

Note: we've contacted Bioware and EA PR for comments, and as of press time have received no reply.

Last time I checked they didn't have a press time(not being a print organization and all), so what does this mean? Did they wait twenty minuets for a return phone call then publish?

They probably do have some kind of publishing schedule to space out their articles evenly.

Sounds like no one was at the wheel over the weekend so the problem went unnoticed for a couple of days. Or if there was someone they didn't monitor the forums.

The emotionally charged nature of the article was presumably intended to provoke a sense of outrage/injustice in readers, however it only made me feel pity for the author. He shows signs of being an addict--one whose life has become so narrow that such interruptions in game playing take on monumental importance.

"..spent my free time this past weekend needlessly trapped in troubleshooting hell." You're damn right, it was needless. Here's an idea: when something doesn't work, chill the fuck out. Do something else with your time while the problem is resolved.

"Malicious neglect"? Really? Only an addict could become convinced of that.

Addict? It seems to me that he's merely someone extremely passionate about something.

This is also a case of one of the worst DRM-related fears coming to fruition. You no longer have (legal) access to a product you purchased. You're now essentially licencing games from the publisher and they get to decide when that licencing expires.

I don't think it's unreasonable for someone to decide to do something, then get frustrated when they are unable to do so. For instance, if you bought a new computer and TV, and then it started acting up or didn't work, you might quite reasonably spend time troubleshooting drivers, firmware, maybe even cables, to try to get it working.

It's not that you're an addict to the system. If you knew it was a broken part ahead of time, you might have simply sent it in for repairs and gone skiing instead. But if you decided "hey I'm going to do X this weekend", it's quite easy to lose time trying to do so.

As far as "malicious neglect", you could conclude that the author really thinks EA wants their DRM servers to fail on purpose and has lost touch with reality. Or, you could just read that as an upset and frustrated user (not necessarily an "addict") expressing things with a bit of hyperbole.

I disagree. If I decide to engage in some pass-time and it doesn't work, I'll spend time troubleshooting it even if I don't engage in that pass-time all the time. If I don't fix it now, I'll have to fix it next time, or else give it up forever. If I find out later it's because some idiot made a useless change then that means that person put me in the position of either wasting my time figuring out what happened or walking away from that pass-time forever.

I refer you to Virginia Heffernan's recent column:

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/09/miss-g-a-cas...

In it, she ponders why new pastimes like the internet and video games are treated as addictions when someone uses them heavily, but older forms like opera, reading, etc are considered somehow more worthy passions and therefore not addictions if someone is a heavy "user".

Would you have written the same comment if the article was about an opera-goer being really upset at not being allowed into the theater because a new anti-ticket-counterfeiting system had mistakenly flagged theirs as fake, when they had bought it outright?

I didn't downvote you btw, but just wanted to point out that it's something to think about.

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