Let me get something straight...

[HK-47]

Originally posted by Biotic Geth Prime:

You people are not the victims, but deluded offenders seeking for ways to "enable" you to vandalize.

People who paid for the game and can't play it aren't the victims?

Instead, the poor EA, a multi-billion dollar international corporation who took their money while they:

- Provide abysmal service and even worse support (maybe slightly better than Comcast)
- Ignore all bug reports and requests for improvements in their EA App feedback forum ever since the app got out of beta back in November 2022
- Collect detailed telemetry through EA App (which they don't need given that they apparently don't use it to fix anything)
- Track people through EA App using well known advertisers (Google Analytics, New Relic, NR Data, etc) without acquiring their informed consent
- Violate basic human right to privacy (and probably GDPR) by not allowing opt-out of the telemetry and ad tracking

Is a victim of harrassment?

Get the f*ck out of here, corporate shill.

[Ihateeverybody]

Only thing I can suggest is don't let them #($* you anymore. You can't have helped being #$(*ed by them before, but you can make a point of not being #($*ed in the future.

All it takes is removing all traces of them from your computer and never buying anything else from them.

That's what I am doing. Abandoning All my Sims 3, Sims 4, Mass Effect, Dragon Age and whatever other content I have bought from them. Literally the day I bought Legendary Mass Effect on Steam they (EA) released the EA App replacing the the lobotomized Origin Client I was told was there. The EA App proved too much trouble.

So....yeah. EA is off my buy list. Don't care what they put out.

EA, Ubisoft and Paradox. They can all rot for all I care.

[HK-47]

Sadly, expecting gamers to boycott their favorite game franchises to make a point is like expecting crack addicts not to smoke crack.

The EA boycott should have started with that half-assed Mass Effect Legendary Edition remaster.

Sadly, the current crop of gamers has no artistic taste and for them the new flat lighting which kills the game atmosphere and makes Jacob look like a tanned white guy looks "better" than the old, meticulously done, spherical harmonic lighting, not to mention they are uncapable of noticing that the whole shadow map is missing in Lesuss Monastery Great Hall in LE3, or that the lack of geometry details in LE2 in several levels (Collector ship, Jacob's loyalty mission , etc) has been obscured by slapping in some fog.

And if p*ssing on the legacy of great artists who made the original trilogy wasn't already good enough reason to boycott EA, then the launch of EA App should have been the tipping point where everyone should have just signed out and uninstalled EA App.

Given the current trend where someone's opinion is as valid as someone else's educated and factual argument I don't see anything changing for the better anytime soon.

[enderbeta]

Originally posted by HK-47:

Originally posted by Biotic Geth Prime:

You people are not the victims, but deluded offenders seeking for ways to "enable" you to vandalize.

People who paid for the game and can't play it aren't the victims?

Instead, the poor EA, a multi-billion dollar international corporation who took their money while they:

- Provide abysmal service and even worse support (maybe slightly better than Comcast)
- Ignore all bug reports and requests for improvements in their EA App feedback forum ever since the app got out of beta back in November 2022
- Collect detailed telemetry through EA App (which they don't need given that they apparently don't use it to fix anything)
- Track people through EA App using well known advertisers (Google Analytics, New Relic, NR Data, etc) without acquiring their informed consent
- Violate basic human right to privacy (and probably GDPR) by not allowing opt-out of the telemetry and ad tracking

Is a victim of harrassment?

Get the f*ck out of here, corporate shill.

It's worse then that. People that purchased older EA games had to play them on Origin but Origin had an offline mode that persisted between application restarts and computer reboots. THe EA app doesn't. EA forced people to use the EA app by killing the Origin app. So a offline single player game is no longer playable offline like a Steam game.

I hope a lawyer sues them and cleans them out.

[HK-47]

Originally posted by enderbeta:

It's worse then that. People that purchased older EA games had to play them on Origin but Origin had an offline mode that persisted between application restarts and computer reboots. THe EA app doesn't.

I am well aware of that.

The worst part IMO is that they also re-released some old games that didn't require a launcher like Mass Effect 2 (2010) under new title -- Mass Effect 2 (2010 Edition) on Steam.

Literally the only difference is that they are not labeled as Steam games in the EA App and Origin but as EA games and now require the launcher.

Those who still own the old game can continue to use it (for now?), but anyone trying to buy the original is out of luck -- you can now only buy the repack with EA App on Steam, the original has been removed from the store.

I am of the opinion that any introduction of new requirements for running a game which didn't exist when you purchased the game should be flat out illegal.

Someone might ask "but what if they add raytracing for free and change the requirements that way?" and I say great -- let them release that as a new game and gift it to the existing game owners.

Sold games should only be modified with bugfixes and DLC, changes that don't benefit our gaming experience in any way such as adding a crap launcher are pure evil.

[Just Chill]

Originally posted by HK-47:

Sold games should only be modified with bugfixes and DLC, changes that don't benefit our gaming experience in any way such as adding a crap launcher are pure evil.

Well... We all are on thin ice here.

We do not "own" the games here per se,
We only own the right to play them, by downloading, installing and running through Steam as DRM.
Or additionally running it through some useless game launchers from other companies instead.
I got used to Ubisoft (as you basically were able to buy their games from this monopoly), but I never followed EA and Origin.
Just owned M3 there and funnily as I recovered my Origin it again shows up in my library, while the EA App only showed ME LE and Fallen Order.

BUT... I still have a retail copy (with DVD) of Crysis 2 and I played through that YEARS ago.
This one does NOT show up in my Origin account.
So apparently EA really deletes games from an account after a while. :O

However, as I am into stability over performance... NOT being able to start a game is a stability rating of 0%. :P
Absolute NO GO therefore I fully feel that quote of yours and my review will stay on thumbs down.
It's a pitty as I love the game and BioWare, but EA is just making everything worse.

About the person you quoted there... Don't let me get started. XD

But kudos to the moderation for just deleting the meltdown.
Not sure why some people always react like that when I ask simple questions, but I really appreciate the understanding that it was not my intention to cause harm.

[HK-47]

I know that we don't own the digital goods such as games and software.

However, the contract that we enter with EA, Ubisoft, Bethesda, Steam, Microsoft, ... upon our purchase of a license to use a specific product should be final, not perpetually changing to their favor and to our detriment.

[Doragor]

Was wondering
If I firewall the EA app after I'm done installing the game, can I stop it from mining my personal information?

[HK-47]

Originally posted by Doragor:

Was wondering
If I firewall the EA app after I'm done installing the game, can I stop it from mining my personal information?

The EA App uses HTTPS (TCP on port 443), and websockets traffic.

You cannot indiscriminately block everything using firewall or it won't be able to login to your account, do a cloud sync, or connect you with friends. Also, since all the traffic is encrypted, you cannot even easily inspect it to see if they added some new data and advertising connections. I used Fiddler with HTTPS inspection to figure out what it does at the moment.

What you can do is block these domains on your network (for example if you are already using PI-Hole to block ads, or if your router has a DNS forwarder with the ability to add static entries):

bam.nr-data.net
c.go-mpulse.net
js-agent.newrelic.com
www.google-analytics.com

That's for advertising and tracking, for telemetry data it uses:

ratt.juno.ea.com

There's no guarantee that this won't change or get obfuscated in the near future.

The only way to be truly in control nowadays is to buy a router / firewall which allows HTTPS inspection (i.e. the one that can transparently decrypt HTTPS traffic between all your devices and internet servers so you can see what data is sent, where, and by whom) such as one of those FortiGate firewalls (at least FortiGate 60D, lower models have way too little RAM and CPU power for proper HTTPS inspection at 1GBps speeds).

Note that just buying it isn't enough, you need to know a lot about networking and protocols to set it up, not to mention to monitor and recognize what is used for legit purposes (game or game related app traffic) .vs. pure data thievery.

That's the most convenient way, you can do the same with open-source firewall and HTTPS proxy but that's way more complicated to setup and maintain.

If people knew the extent of the tracking in Windows 10 and 11 as well as in browsers (Microsoft Edge is worst offender), modern apps (all based on Electron or MSEdge WebView2 control), not to mention websites unless you are using an adblocker extension, they would scream bloody murder.

[Septimus-Prime]

GREEDY CORPORATIONS!

[usafirefly]

Your point is taken. Could be worse? You could have got suckered in again to put $70 in COD only to find the cheating just got worse and worse again after dropping another $70 into the same ole' same ole' !!!!!

[Korinth]

It's crazy because now I'm missing their old Origin launcher... aha I had no problems to play Mass Effect Andromeda and Mirror's Edge Catalyst on Steam, I tried Dragon Age Inquisition this year with the new launcher...
Come on the tricks you need to actually play a game you bought on an official store are ridiculous! (all keys shops are for origin / EA launcher)

I want to buy ME Legendary on Steam (I already own all the games individually on EA + the lengendary was in a humble choice) to unlock all the achievements and put it in the front of my profile like a peacock, but I'm not so sure I can even have the 100% on steam with their buggy stupid new launcher...

Why did they changed it it worked perfectly fine before

[Just Chill]

Originally posted by Hahli:

Why did they changed it it worked perfectly fine before

Because "Never change a running system" got destroyed by "Give me your ♥♥♥♥♥♥' money!".

[Tealius Maximus]

WILL NOBODY THINK OF THE POOR EXECUTIVES WHO WOULDN'T BE ABLE TO AFFORD THEIR YACHTS?!

[HK-47]

I miss the good old days when you could have bought the game on a CD or DVD, and it was actually a finished product which you could play offline with no 0-day multi-gigabyte patches and 1-day DLC which should have been part of the game to begin with.

Add to that the current lack of artistic vision and distinctive visual style, poor story telling with forceful insertion of LGBTQ ideology into almost every game for the sake of "inclusivity, diversity, and tolerance" mantra regardless of whether its addition makes any sense for the particular story, and you get the idea why I have stopped buying games two years ago and just keep replaying old stuff.

Now excuse me while I go back to waiting for the return of common sense.

[Korinth]

Originally posted by HK-47:

I miss the good old days when you could have bought the game on a CD or DVD, and it was actually a finished product which you could play offline with no 0-day multi-gigabyte patches and 1-day DLC which should have been part of the game to begin with.

Add to that the current lack of artistic vision and distinctive visual style, poor story telling with forceful insertion of LGBTQ ideology into almost every game for the sake of "inclusivity, diversity, and tolerance" mantra regardless of whether its addition makes any sense for the particular story, and you get the idea why I have stopped buying games two years ago and just keep replaying old stuff.

Now excuse me while I go back to waiting for the return of common sense.

Yeah not really, sometimes you cannot finish games because you had a game breaking bug, and patchs weren't a thing.
Last example in mind is for french / european version of some Digimon World game where you couldn't talk to a character and thus never finish the game