Mass Effect 1 on PC: What a PITA

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rampantandroid

[H]ard|Gawd
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Jun 14, 2006
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So...I finally wanted to give Origin a whirl. OK...here we go, can't be so bad, right?

Buy Mass Effect 1 on PC (I've got 2 for PC, and 1&2 on XBox...wanted to do a full play through on PC...)

Fine...works well enough. I can see pinnacle station there to...well, for shits and giggles let's also grab that....

DL it all. OK, not so bad. Install pinnacle station.
Complaint 1: Why the hell is Pinnacle station on my top tiered list of games? It's DLC, NOT a game, right? Ugh, what the hell guys...

Anyway, Bring down the sky. It's free, right? Yeah! Let's go DL it. Wait, it needs a CD Key...which I need to get by registering the game. OK. Click register link....and the link is gone. You have to go to their forums, which tells you to...contact EA!

Screw you too, Bioware. Congrats - because you took down the lousy registration page you have pissed me off enough that I want to just go back to my XBox and whine about the Mako some more. What a broken experience this is...

Origin though isn't so bad...and the EA support guys seem helpful enough as well.

Edit: EA Support rocks. 10 minutes waiting...30 seconds typing up my problem, 5 seconds later I had the key I needed. lol...
 
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ME1 wasn't done that well on the PC. That was before EA bought Bioware when Bioware was going through their consoleitis bout. It actually came out a year after the console version and the port was done by Demiurge. There's a few issues with it.

However, I will say that when up and running it is extremely pretty (better textures than a console, and of course higher rez) and the controls work really well. Sound is great too... If you have an X-Fi. the game uses ISACT which is a Creative Labs technology that uses OpenAL at its core. Net effect is you need hardware OpenAL for the nice surround sound and effects.
 
Sycraft said:
ME1 wasn't done that well on the PC. That was before EA bought Bioware when Bioware was going through their consoleitis bout. It actually came out a year after the console version and the port was done by Demiurge. There's a few issues with it.

However, I will say that when up and running it is extremely pretty (better textures than a console, and of course higher rez) and the controls work really well. Sound is great too... If you have an X-Fi. the game uses ISACT which is a Creative Labs technology that uses OpenAL at its core. Net effect is you need hardware OpenAL for the nice surround sound and effects.
Click to expand...

Well, I bought it knowing Demiurge addressed a lot of my complaints about ME1...frankly, the port was rather well done...and before EA bought them, the DLC was free on PC, which strikes me as being pretty good too. I just fault Bioware for removing the registration link.
 
The only issue I have with ME 1 on the PC is the piss poor Mako controls. Other than that, I absolutely loved it and I'm actually replaying it and ME2 so I have another character to import to ME3(already have a good guy, need a Stalinist type now).
 
rampantandroid said:
Well, I bought it knowing Demiurge addressed a lot of my complaints about ME1...frankly, the port was rather well done...and before EA bought them, the DLC was free on PC, which strikes me as being pretty good too. I just fault Bioware for removing the registration link.
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Only the first piece of DLC was free on the PC, IIRC. You have to pay for the rest.
 
Brind Down The Sky is free, and from what I heard, Pinnacle Station wasn't worth the cash.
 
If you torrent a copy that works, I'm sure your download would be counted among the piracy numbers, despite the fact it is the easiest option to get what you paid for.
 
ME1 on PC was still a great game - I didn't really have any issues with it. Bring Down the Sky really didn't seem to add that much for all the hassle you have to go through to get it working. They really just need to add it as a permanent part of the game in a patch and forget about making people download it separately. I'd say it's not really worth bothering to download and install it yourself.

And what is this Origins thing you mentioned? You mean DA:O, or is there an Origins DLC for ME?

I'm sure I'll be playing through the first two again before the third one comes out - they are some really great games.
 
madFive said:
ME1 on PC was still a great game - I didn't really have any issues with it. Bring Down the Sky really didn't seem to add that much for all the hassle you have to go through to get it working. They really just need to add it as a permanent part of the game in a patch and forget about making people download it separately. I'd say it's not really worth bothering to download and install it yourself.

And what is this Origins thing you mentioned? You mean DA:O, or is there an Origins DLC for ME?

I'm sure I'll be playing through the first two again before the third one comes out - they are some really great games.
Click to expand...

Origin is EA's replacement for EADM (EA Download Manager)
 
Godmachine said:
Seriously.

OP walks us through his install experiences then gives props to EA for the quick turn around on his key :confused:
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The shitty DLC system...at least DOA and DA2 have a decent in game DLC system...ME1 does not.

And giving props to EA support is a totally separate issue, yes? I'm giving credit to EA for taking care of my problem. Quickly.
 
Sickb0y said:
About EVERYTHING man! complaining is in, being satisfy is out! ;)
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You'll note I end up satisfied, largely. ME1 still doesn't feel RIGHT on the PC - movement feels a little off. Probably just used to the 360.

But were I not a power user, this would be the shittiest experience EVER. I mean, come on - if the DLC is free, why do I need a key for it?

That said, I played ME1 for a few hours...and it then crashed with a memory violation. Fun stuff...
 
Freezebyte said:
Its more enjoyable on a the 360 on a big ass TV screen with surround sound
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No it's not. Driving the Mako on the 360 is a pain in the ass and is even less fun than scanning planets in ME2. The elevator rides are insanely long and stupidly boring. Controlling the fucking retarded AI of your squad mates is significantly better on the PC. The inventory system is even worse than the PC version, plus the game looks worse (and if I remember correctly you can't disable motion blur or the shitty film-grain filter on the 360 version). Also, you can hook your PC up to that same set up kiddo.
 
rampantandroid said:
But were I not a power user, this would be the shittiest experience EVER. I mean, come on - if the DLC is free, why do I need a key for it?
Click to expand...

Was an anti-piracy thing. You had to register and all that to get it with your key. Not a useful one, but that was the idea.

That said, I played ME1 for a few hours...and it then crashed with a memory violation. Fun stuff...
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Probably your X-fi. Mass Effect being fairly stock Unreal Engine 3 supports X-RAM. However Creative, being fairly dumb, crashes when it is used. You need to disable X-RAM in your registry and that'll fix the problem. Doesn't hurt performance any as near as I can tell.

This only applies to using 5.1 hardware OpenAL of course. If you are using the 2.0 software sound then no problems.
 
Sickb0y said:
About EVERYTHING man! complaining is in, being satisfy is out! ;)
Click to expand...

I am disappointment *submit thread*

and wtf does pita have to do with this? Don't drag tasty Mediterranean food into your dropped snickers bar nonsense.
 
Sycraft said:
Was an anti-piracy thing. You had to register and all that to get it with your key. Not a useful one, but that was the idea.



Probably your X-fi. Mass Effect being fairly stock Unreal Engine 3 supports X-RAM. However Creative, being fairly dumb, crashes when it is used. You need to disable X-RAM in your registry and that'll fix the problem. Doesn't hurt performance any as near as I can tell.

This only applies to using 5.1 hardware OpenAL of course. If you are using the 2.0 software sound then no problems.
Click to expand...

2.0 software sound being used :)
 
ME1 is one of those games that I couldn't play just once so just work through the issues because the game is one of those rare instant classics that you'll install on every system in the future.
 
Hallowed are the Ori, and blessed are those who follow the path of Origin!

Actually, I had an experience myself with EA customer support recently. When Origin was first announced about a month ago, I went to the website see if my copy of Pinnacle Station and my registered retail copy of ME2 would show up. It could tell I'd associated games like BC2 with my EA account, but other than that no dice. I figured it was an account issue - maybe those two products were associated with my old account with my old e-mail address. So I went to the contact us link - at which point it prompted me to log in. I gave it the exact same credentials I'd given it a second ago, and it wouldn't let me in.

So I give up for a month or so, then try it again Saturday. I can get to the chat support link so I use it. After waiting for about 20 minutes (though not actually waiting; went and cooked a meal) I finally got someone. Apparently Pinnacle Station WAS associated with my account, but it didn't show up among my orders because it was a DLC for a game I didn't own (I'd bought ME1 through Steam). Of course the conversation was more frustrating than that. I asked if I could combine with my old account, he said no. I asked if I could transfer the purchase, he said no. I asked if I could get into my old account, they said they had no record. I finally asked what account that purchase was associated with, and he gave me my current account name - leading to the explanation above as to why it wasn't showing up. Since one of the first pieces of information I gave you was the order number, why didn't you lead with that?

Later that night my curiosity got the better of me, so I downloaded and fired up origin. There in my games list were ME2 and Pinnacle Station. :rolleyes:

They've got a bit of polish to go before I'll consider them a serious Steam competitor. I realize they're trying to integrate two, probably more separate systems into their new savior digital store, but if your goal is to supplant the market leader, you really need to have the little things working properly.
 
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