Some MASSIVE issues with Patch 1.03

[DarkeWolf]

There is no DAO:A. That would be Dragon Age Origins Awakening. Its just simply Dragon Age Awakening. :wink:

When you are playing in the expansion itself, I dont believe that those scripts will work, as they were not included with the expansion's core. I just ran the runscript zz_createrunes script earlier tonight on a newer runthrough in Origins and it worked. I didn't give me ALL The runes, only the Elemental Damage runes, but it worked.

[brokenergy]

Looks like BW needs to go bug hunting!

[DarkeWolf]

Thats an understatement my friend.

There's a theory running around that patch 1.03 has a block list in it. Which is the method in which they used to try to prevent the dlc items from being used in DAA in order to prevent issues with some items glitching each other, since some of the old items use new tints for new items, and it causes graphics errors. (Which you also get if you try to use some DAA items in DOA).

it is THIS LIST, which is blocking mods from working also. Because for some stupid assed reason, they didnt write in a parameter for it to ignore Origins, and it's blocking items from loading which use certain meshes, and certain names.

 

What this does, is this block list runs BEFORE the items are generated on your character, when your game loads. Anything that uses that mesh, or has a name similarity, is blocked, and it never shows up on the character. These items of course, being armors and weapons.

 

And since right now, we can't access any of the needed files for DAA, we havent at this time been able to devise a FIX for their EFF UP. Tho, there's been some experimentation going on with an event loader program which listens in for events and is supposed to be able to kill it, when it occurs. But that conversation was so far over my head that I didnt understand it.

 

To be honest, this pisses me off. I pay 40 dollars to be forced to install a patch which breaks my ability to fully mod a game, which was made with the intention of being modded. Thank you EVER so freaking much EAgames.

Needless to say that I've come to the conclusion that 2-3 days worth of gameplay on the expansion is NOT worth this headache, and I'll be doing a reinstall of Origins. And will not be updating to patch 1.03, or reinstalling awakening, until the issues are resolved.

[Thandal]

... Needless to say that I've come to the conclusion that 2-3 days worth of gameplay on the expansion is NOT worth this headache, and I'll be doing a reinstall of Origins. And will not be updating to patch 1.03, or reinstalling awakening, until the issues are resolved.

 

I have to agree. My copy of DA:A arrived last Tues, but I won't be installing until there's at LEAST an official fix for the 1.03 problems, and at LEAST a community fix for the mods I use.

 

More to report on experimentation to get 1.03 to run. Did a full install in a VM WinXP environment. All seemed to be going smoothly until I clicked "Play". At which point I got a "Failed to authenticate disk" error. No DVD drive spin-up, no activity light, just an immediate error message.

 

Anyone else tried to install the retail PC version in a VM?

 

So, it's back to DA:O and 1.02 for now. At least there are still several specializations I haven't even tried yet!

[DarkeWolf]

I considered trying to run it from a sandbox, but dummy me... I thought, ah hell, the game alone is hard enough on system resources!

 

does your vm have access privaleges to the drives?

[brokenergy]

I have DA:A too but I'll be waiting at least for an official patch or a community one as well. During this time I'll be doing different scenarios to see how it impacts when it is transfered over. Plus it has been two weeks since release and it would take time to get rid of the kinks in the system. I wonder what is the "big" community announcement that BW being hyping up about?

[DarkeWolf]

I was really curious about that also. I didnt see anything about it over at biowares official site. tho I was too busy reinstalling Origins for the second time to do a whole deep search.

 

about the virtual machine run. In a lot of vm software, the programs are clouded away from being able to reach the registry. So that may be why you're getting the disk read error. As there's no registry setting telling it "Hey, don't look for a disk! "

You'd probably have to use the downloaded version of the game to run it in a virt machine.

[Thandal]

I considered trying to run it from a sandbox, but dummy me... I thought, ah hell, the game alone is hard enough on system resources!

 

does your vm have access privaleges [sic] to the drives?

 

Yes, MS Virtual-PC allows access to the host machine's physical resources; DVD/CD, floppy, and (some) usb. But it takes explicit instructions within the VM to "capture" these devices. I assigned the host's DVD/CD drive to the VM WinXP machine, where it is mapped to Drive D: by default. Then did a full install of DA:O on the VM from the disc in "Drive D:" normally. The install went smoothly with the disc detected, and all folders and files found and read normally. But, when it came time to "Play", I got the "Failed to authenticate the disk" error almost immediately. No sign of disc access. No spin-up. No activity light. Just the error message.

 

My *guess* is that EA (still!) uses some copy protection scheme that relies on a direct call to the hardware, (even though Windows XP/Vista/7 isn't supposed to allow that) for non-standard access to some part of the "genuine" disc.

 

 

Anyway, I'm still trying to find a way to play DA:O *with* 1.03, and *without* CtD, so I can enjoy DA:A.

[brokenergy]

If EA is doing that, then it is against the law and they would be prosecuted under the fair trade act (or the nearest thing in your country) as they stated that there is no copy protection besides normal serial key. Know your consumer rights. Also the big community event was a competitions of sorts.

[Riddleofsteel]

I jumped on the 1.03 wagon but I think I'm going to re-install until the bugs are squished.