Dragon Age: Origins PC servers experience 'unidentified failure,' DLC unplayable

Shall I be the first to say DRM is AWESOME!!!1!!1!oneone!!1!1one!!1!!

Why do we have this problem on console i understand on pc because of the serious piracy issue. This another reason im against dlc once i paid for i expect to be able play it all time especially since it an rpg(no reason for this game to be connect to a server).

Hmm, thought I was the only one. I worked around it by setting the DLC to RequiresAuthorization="0" in *user*\My Documents\BioWare\Dragon Age\Settings\AddIns.xml though, if anyone else is still having problems.

"unidentified failure" (read: Bob from the server maintenance department accidentally spilled his coffee over the machines)

Yeah.........I hacked it.

For some of us, all the offline fixes have failed, for others who bought the UE or DLC and had not authorised it once still cannot use any DLC

As a player and Bioware Social Network member, I can tell you that the issue was handled pitifully, the server is still not back up after 96 hours and the workarounds given out by EA support do more harm than good. Add to that the fact that Bioware itself didn't post an Offical announcement about a prblem that started Friday 4/8 until Monday 4/11 and the whole thing adds up to a load of dung!
If you were unlucky enough to follow what you were told to do by EA "Support" than there is a very good chance you can play off-line but only without any of the DLC.

Hah. These 'accidental DLC failures' brought on by server issues always reek of 'testing the reaction' to me. How many people will bitch if our server shuts down? Is it not many? If it's not many, let's do it!

But it's usually many, so they claim it's an accident.

They're trying to get people used to the idea that their games will gradually become unplayable,

Hmm. Are comments working?

We made a little clip on youtube about this ordeal with a bit of comic relief:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwrYT30ckYg

Enjoy.

Sorry, was having a little issue with the posting: What I meant to type in before that Youtube link was:

"I am one of the Bioware
community members who has been quite vocal about this issue. I would
like to add that the game is not entirely playable offline perse. If
you had already added DLC to the Save Game file, then although there
are workarounds to get to load the game, you'll have issues accessing
the DLC items, or features."

yeah, this happened to me. raged for a while

The real issue here is that the DRM in the the Permium Contect does not have any other method of authorisation other than talking to a server that judging by the 4 days to notice a fault is not monitored by anyone.

I doesn't help that if you login to allow your profile to sync with Bioware's Social Network, it also checks the DRM every time you start the game.

This sort of DRM has real issues both about how a company sees it's customer base and for the long term use of the game, also this problem is not just on PC but on all 3 platforms.

Over all the issue has been mishandled.
If someone was aware of a problem on Friday 8th when it started, then why didn't they notify their Customers and EA Customer Support then.
Or if the problem was not noticed until 17:00 UTC on Monday, why was it missed for that length of time?

It doesn't help that this game is still being priced like a new one, and support is horrible. Not to mention that it took 2 to 3 days for an acknowledgement of the problem, and still no ETA nor a gist of what the problem is.

As a side note, I remembered that some of the users were posting their problems regarding this in one of the Dragon Age Origins Announcement thread or something and a Moderator commented that we should post problems in the technical support subforum or contact EA support directly. He IGNORED and didn't even acknowledge the user's grievances. Class act.. really.

and here it is
http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/94/index/4925624/37

We had been trying to get a response all weekend, only yesterday did they respond.

Glad you guys did an article on this and hope others pick it up

I played my Steam version of Dragon Age origins last night and I had this problem as well. I've seen it before and thought it was just me. I was logged in but all my DRM was unauthorized which meant I couldn't load my save, a huge pain in the butt.

I had to close and reopen the game a couple of times but it started working eventually last night around 12am EST, so I'm glad they fixed the issue but obviously disappointed that for while I couldn't play content that I paid for.

I am one of the unlucky people with a new copy of DAO, and I'm completely locked of out authorizing my DLC content.

More importantly, how can I have any confidence that the DRM wont breakl my game in the future? 1 year from now? 5 years? I still play rpg games made in 2001. Will that be possible in a drm laden world of failed game companies in 2021? Will bioware even be around 5 years from now? Not at this rate of failure and decline. Especially not if DA 2 is any indicator of the direction in quality control and depth story telling and gameplay. This DRM display of instability may be the first real nail in their coffin though.

I was previously an owner of the Steam version but after Dragon Age 2 came out, I thought why not buy Dragon Age Ultimate Edition? So I did, it came in post last Friday. After installing it I found the servers were down, but believed it was an issue with my instalment itself just to stumble on a forum on Monday to find it was a EA/Bioware issue and that I didn't actually need to try all the things I had.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwrYT30ckYg Alone - Spoof
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HwvROAO6bQ Only Exception - Spoof.
The Above are about the Server problem. I sang them because I hoped something like those would at least help others find out about the problem we legal players of the game are facing.

@Padme4000

I did exactly the same, well disappointed in EA/Bioware, customer support sucks

The issue was fixed today at 12am EST.

I like how everyone is anti-DRm in this thread, but the garry's mod thread is all WHOOOO! DRM ROCKS!