EA GAmes (Mass Effect, Spore, Mirror's Edge, etc.) now on Steam - WITH NO EA DRM

[Stormwaltz]

http://store.steampowered.com/publisher/Electronic%20Arts/

Note: Crysis, previously released on Steam, still has its DRM.

[Lantyssa]

I don't suppose it's possible to register my Mass Effect key through steam and download their version?  I think the DRM is giving me a general protection fault which makes it unplayable.  The *ahem* other, other version gave me no troubles.  Since I've been wanting to play again, it'd be nice to do it legitimately.

[schild]

Every time a game gets added, this question comes up. And every time, assuredly, I'm a sucker who posts the same link:

Retail CD-Keys

[schild]

Stormwaltz, how does one get Bring Down the Sky from a Steam purchase?

[Stormwaltz]

Stormwaltz, how does one get Bring Down the Sky from a Steam purchase?

"The same way you got it from retail. You get a CD Key with Steam and you register it here and then you get your BDtS CD Key."

http://masseffect.bioware.com/forums/viewtopic.html?topic=660745&forum=125

[schild]

Ah, so it's moddable. Answers my question, thanks.

[schild]

Yea, Bring Down the Sky doesn't work. This'll be fun. Was hoping to play tonight, won't be now! Installing STALKER! >_< ANGER Finally wanted to give this game a fair shake but it doesn't like to be shaken.

[Lantyssa]

Every time a game gets added, this question comes up. And every time, assuredly, I'm a sucker who posts the same link:

Retail CD-Keys

So, no.  But thank you for the link.  I haven't used Steam much, so I appreciate it.

[schild]

No worries.

[BitWarrior]

With the economy in rough shape, is it possible we'll start to see more developers and more games both modern and classic being released on steam as companies explore alternative means of staying afloat? As some have expressed, there are many games which are essentially unavailable via retail outlets which people would love to purchase to re-experience, and although I'm not familiar with the cost of launching a game on the Steam platform, it seems like a great way for a company like EA (and many others), who have a massive back collection of games, to potentially make some extra cash to stay afloat during this difficult time.

[MournelitheCalix]

I am having a lot of problems with the Mass Effect download.  Right now my game is consistantly crashing when you first go to speak to Nihilus in the very first 5 minutes of the game.  Can't progress past this point as there doesn't appear to be any way to patch this game. 

Can anyone else tell me how I get my CD key, I have been trying to find it as well, and no luck so far.  One thing is for sure, it certainly wasn't given to me in any  obvious way.

[Lantyssa]

Nice to know the major crash bugs still happen in this version.  Well, not for you.

It makes me not feel so bad about not trying to buy it again to test though.

[MournelitheCalix]

Nice to know the major crash bugs still happen in this version.  Well, not for you.

It makes me not feel so bad about not trying to buy it again to test though.

No lie the game breaking crash happened in the first 15 minutes.  I called EA and they are clueless on how to help.  I got a guy named Javier and he told me in no uncertain terms its happening to a lot of people with Mass Effect and there is nothing they can do.  Supposedly Bioware is going to be pushing a patch but if I don't hear anything in the next 20 days I am going to charge back the credit card charge. 

This whole thing is utterly rediculous.  It reminds me of what happened to Interplay titles near the end where they kept pushing half finished steaming piles of bug ridden crap out the door and then "patched" it so it somewhat worked correctly.  Hell its obvious that they did no testing of the product whatsoever, Dereck French couldn't even tell people how to get their CD key.  Not only couldn't he tell people how to get it, he posted the wrong instructions.

My advice to anyone thinking about purchasing this title on steam is SAVE YOUR MONEY.     You really don't want to deal with the frustration this game has caused me after two years of waiting.  Its a disgrace to the Bioware brand, but as I understand it from the steam forums par for the course for EA.

[schild]

Mass Effect is the least buggy Bioware PC game I've ever used. It crashed twice, only because I ran out of virtual memory (I played the game in 3 sittings of 10 hours a piece and about 8 hours in two of the times, my memory just dropped out and a box came up, expected really).

So for every sob story, there's an equal and opposite success story. Even with launch 360s.

Anyway, yea, you can't get your CD key yet and can't install Bring Down the Sword, but then, had you read this thread before buying it, you'd have known that, so uh, shrug.

[MournelitheCalix]

Mass Effect is the least buggy Bioware PC game I've ever used. It crashed twice, only because I ran out of virtual memory (I played the game in 3 sittings of 10 hours a piece and about 8 hours in two of the times, my memory just dropped out and a box came up, expected really).

So for every sob story, there's an equal and opposite success story. Even with launch 360s.

Anyway, yea, you can't get your CD key yet and can't install Bring Down the Sword, but then, had you read this thread before buying it, you'd have known that, so uh, shrug.

I am very glad you had no problems schild.   I really wish my experience was like yours.  Obviously mine hasn't been like yours so I highly recommend people SPARE THEMSELVES THE FRUSTRATION AND SAVE THEIR MONEY UNTIL EA PRODUCES THE PATCH.  Right now I am wondering seriously if there is anyone in Bioware actually does testing.  I wonder this because Dereck French didn't even know how to retrieve the CD key in the steam release in fact he told people the wrong way to go about doing things and after expounding on his wisdom had to edit his posts.

Now you seem to be oblivious as to the real reason that I wanted a CD key.  It had nothing really right now to do with Bring down the sky.  It in fact had more to do with being able to access the technical support forums for Mass Effect.  The technical support forums are cd key protected, meaning you can't post on the technical support forums without the key.  After complaining on the off topic forums I found a guy who actually seemed to know more about the Steam installation of Mass Effect then Dereck French.  He gave me a link to EA's support pages which contained the instructions to retrieve your key.  The CD key is actually hidden in the registry.  If you want to register it, here is how you can find yours schild:

1.  Click the Start button on the Windows Taskbar.
2.  Select Run.
3.  Type regedit in the text field and click OK.
4.  Click the plus (+) sign next to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE.
5.  Click the plus (+) sign next to Software.
6.  Click the plus (+) sign next to Electronic Arts.
7.  Click the plus (+) sign next to Electronic Arts.
8.  Click the plus (+) sign next to Mass Effect (tm).
9.  There will be a folder named ergc here, click on this folder.
10. There will be an entry in the right hand window, the Data column will have a 20 digit entry that will be your serial number.


Anyway this is a good illustration of why I am really wondering if anyone actually tested this steam release.  The CD key is kind of important if your going to be password protecting your forums.  Why no one thought of this at Bioware is just one more reason that I think no one actually tested the PC/Steam release.  I am going to give Bioware 20 days and if there is no patch I am going to do a charge back.  Nice thing about credit cards is that you can take your money back if the product isn't functioning as advertised.

[Lantyssa]

Mass Effect is the least buggy Bioware PC game I've ever used. It crashed twice, only because I ran out of virtual memory (I played the game in 3 sittings of 10 hours a piece and about 8 hours in two of the times, my memory just dropped out and a box came up, expected really).

So for every sob story, there's an equal and opposite success story. Even with launch 360s.

The problem is, the game either works or it doesn't.

Mine won't even launch due to a gpf that's been around since at least early this year (isn't that when it came out for PC?), and no one has found a work around.  My roommate's crashes every ten minutes.  It's completely unplayable.

I'll deal with the occasional crash, but at this level it's unacceptable.  What's really sad is the pirated version plays fine.  How's that for encouraging people to buy their products in the future?

[MournelitheCalix]

For those of you with Invidia drivers, I was told of a solution that gets Mass Effect to work on your PC.  The procedure is really simple.  Go to Invidia's site and download past drivers.  I am currently running Mass Effect without issue on my 8800 using the 175.19 archived drivers.  With the newest drivers, Mass Effect is simply unplayable.  With these archived Drivers I am experiencing no issues and am actually enjoying the heck out of this game.  So far its been one hell of a game, now that it runs.  I can highly recommend it if your willing to download the archived drivers.

[nurtsi]

For those of you with Invidia drivers, I was told of a solution that gets Mass Effect to work on your PC.  The procedure is really simple.  Go to Invidia's site and download past drivers.  I am currently running Mass Effect without issue on my 8800 using the 175.19 archived drivers.  With the newest drivers, Mass Effect is simply unplayable.  With these archived Drivers I am experiencing no issues and am actually enjoying the heck out of this game.  So far its been one hell of a game, now that it runs.  I can highly recommend it if your willing to download the archived drivers.

The software and hardware from nVidia has been shit lately. My rig is completely busted with the newest drivers (180.something). I got 8800 GTS 512 and if I install the newest drivers, my system freezes completely few seconds after I log in to WinXP. The 17x.xx drivers work after I lower the clockrates of the GPU (both memory and core). So just a tip for any nVidia users: if you get freezes and maybe artifacts (mine are red pixels on the screen), use older drivers and lower the clock rates of your card with nTune that you can download from nVidia.

[Sky]

nTune sucks, too.

If you have to lower the clocks, you might have a faulty card. I had two bum 8800GTXs before they got me one I could run at the factory overclocks. Bad glue on the memory or something. Underclocked they both worked great, but fuck that noise.

[MahrinSkel]

The entire 8x00 series is filled with dodgy cards, some because of bad solder (tin in it grows whiskers even faster than normal), some because the circuit board substrate apparently flexes as it warms and cools (this apparently effected nearly every 8400), some because the quality control let bad chips through and the drivers simply shut off the portions of the pipeline that use the bad components (bottlenecking the performance) or even silently replaces them with software emulation.

I haven't heard of any similar issues with the 9x00 series, and not all of the 8x00 cards are bad (even the 8400's are not universally screwed up).  But I'm steering clear of NVidia for a while, they seem to have gone the same way as 3DFX (taken over by MBA's that forgot their real business was making electronics, not managing the brand and cutting every possible corner on manufacturing).

--Dave