I almost made the mistake of buying something on Origin

C

collegeboy69us

Supreme [H]ardness
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Jul 27, 2003
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So I played a little bit of the Sim City beta... and will admit that I liked it.

Was reading some reviews and places I could buy it - saw that the best deal seems to be straight from origin where I can get "20 off my next purchase". Not that I buy crap on there anyway.

Reading the fine print -- say I pre-order the digital edition, bam 60 dollars gone. the 20 dollar discount they give, according to their fine print. Expires March 18 of this year.

So basically - unless I cough up another wad of money to EA before then the entire point of going through origin is negated.

Seriously? They almost had a sale if they would haven't been so god damn greedy/pushy about sales.
 
That's why I went with the Amazon preorder, a $20 gift card that I know I will use.
 
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Origin is a great program, people just like to hate on EA. They have been releasing some awesome games lately.

Businesses since the beginning of time have offered future credit bundled with a current purchase. Amazon, Kohls cash, Newegg etc. How you find it "being pushy" about sales is beyond me. It's a common marketing tactic.
 
jbonez21 said:
Origin is a great program, people just like to hate on EA. They have been releasing some awesome games lately.
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Funny - when I was exploring their little store -- I got multiple server errors not being able to pull some of the links they had on their own site.

It's well documented how once EA gets it's claws on something there is a higher than normal chance of them running it into the ground.

I use origin for BF3 -- it works (most of the time) but it's clunky and no where near as smooth, sexy, or fun as Steam.
 
collegeboy69us said:
Funny - when I was exploring their little store -- I got multiple server errors not being able to pull some of the links they had on their own site.

It's well documented how once EA gets it's claws on something there is a higher than normal chance of them running it into the ground.

I use origin for BF3 -- it works (most of the time) but it's clunky and no where near as smooth, sexy, or fun as Steam.
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I personally dont consider Steam to be ANY of those...
 
collegeboy69us said:
Funny - when I was exploring their little store -- I got multiple server errors not being able to pull some of the links they had on their own site.

It's well documented how once EA gets it's claws on something there is a higher than normal chance of them running it into the ground.

I use origin for BF3 -- it works (most of the time) but it's clunky and no where near as smooth, sexy, or fun as Steam.
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Half of the time various pages fail to load in Steam, such as the "My Profile", "My Inventory" and "Community" tab. This has been a problem on multiple PCs (both mine and others) ever since Steam implemented these various features. Sometimes it takes hours, or even a full day before the Steam Inventory can load.

I have had some issues with products bought via Steam (they forgot to give me a CD key). Steam has issues where you can not play certain games online, requiring you to delete some .dll files in the Steam folder if I am not mistaken.

Origin has no such problems for me. Though I mostly only use both for launching games (and of course, updating). To top it off, Origin offers quicker downloads (though longer install times).

I do prefer Steam over Origin, but Origin is not as bad as some people say and Steam is not as good as some say.
 
I've had such a miserable time with Origin and its customer service in the past that I pretty much just avoid it and (sadly) all games exclusive to it.
 
There is nothing wrong with Origin. It has worked perfectly fine for me since day one.

Now Steam on the other hand has been complete shit. Takes forever to start, crashes sometimes causing the game I'm playing to crash, won't load shit, download servers can be slow as fuck, updating can BREAK it, oh...did I mention shit won't load? Yeah...Origin has none of these issues. Origin is fast as shit often times maxing my 10MB connection, loads up quick, hasn't crashed or cause my games to crash, etc.

Origin is hated simply because people want to hate. That's all it boils down to. Sure EA is a shit company for sure, but that doesn't mean Origin is.
 
JoeUser said:
There is nothing wrong with Origin. It has worked perfectly fine for me since day one.

Now Steam on the other hand has been complete shit. Takes forever to start, crashes sometimes causing the game I'm playing to crash, won't load shit, download servers can be slow as fuck, updating can BREAK it, oh...did I mention shit won't load? Yeah...Origin has none of these issues. Origin is fast as shit often times maxing my 10MB connection, loads up quick, hasn't crashed or cause my games to crash, etc.

Origin is hated simply because people want to hate. That's all it boils down to. Sure EA is a shit company for sure, but that doesn't mean Origin is.
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Funny. My experience is completely opposite. That's how individual experience works.
 
Maplehamwich said:
Funny. My experience is completely opposite. That's how individual experience works.
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Ditto

I also love the fact that even though I have BF3 on my machine, when I format and install origin it thinks it's not there and requires me to download the 16GB file again. Origin is awesome.
 
Hornet said:
Don't read it then?

EA hasn't exactly been making popular decisions butchering good franchises. Origin is the least of their problems.
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then there would be nothing left on hard forum for me to read.

hahah
 
Rusty4560 said:
Ditto

I also love the fact that even though I have BF3 on my machine, when I format and install origin it thinks it's not there and requires me to download the 16GB file again. Origin is awesome.
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I just redid my OS. I ended up copying the entire Origin folder to a backup drive. Then when I reinstalled it I took the entire original directory and copied it back after I reinstalled Origin. Then I clicked on BF3 and hit Download. It then said, "Installing" within a minute. and I was up and running in about 10 minutes. Did this with Medal of Honor: Warfighter as well.

I hate EA. I don't care for Origin either. But I don't buy many of their games that often.
 
collegeboy69us said:
Funny - when I was exploring their little store -- I got multiple server errors not being able to pull some of the links they had on their own site.

It's well documented how once EA gets it's claws on something there is a higher than normal chance of them running it into the ground.

I use origin for BF3 -- it works (most of the time) but it's clunky and no where near as smooth, sexy, or fun as Steam.
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This. And funny how the apologists in here make no mention of origin's serious spyware/file scanning beginnings which they got caught with their pants down on then quickly changed the behavior like "oh howd THAT get in there? Heh!". Way to make a first impression.

@college boy do what I do and run the modified awc.DLL for BF3 (Google it) which bypasses origin - it literally never even loads on my machine the way it used to insist on every time I joined a bf3 server. The day they forced Battlelog friendslist copy-pasted to Origin friends and losing half of them in the migration because of their shitty code was the last straw - they desperately tried to co-opt BF3's success since no one used Origin's friends features.
 
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jbonez21 said:
Origin is a great program, people just like to hate on EA. They have been releasing some awesome games lately.

Businesses since the beginning of time have offered future credit bundled with a current purchase. Amazon, Kohls cash, Newegg etc. How you find it "being pushy" about sales is beyond me. It's a common marketing tactic.
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Agreed. People are just whinging a lot about EA.
 
odditory said:
This. And funny how the apologists in here make no mention of origin's serious spyware/file scanning beginnings which they got caught with their pants down on then quickly changed the behavior like "oh howd THAT get in there? Heh!". Way to make a first impression.

@college boy do what I do and run the modified awc.DLL for BF3 (Google it) which bypasses origin - it literally never even loads on my machine the way it used to insist on every time I joined a bf3 server. The day they forced Battlelog friendslist copy-pasted to Origin friends and losing half of them in the migration because of their shitty code was the last straw - they desperately tried to co-opt BF3's success since no one used Origin's friends features.
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Except there was nothing malicious about that, just idiots getting worked into a frenzy over something they didn't understand.

edit: To clarify, it never read any files. There is a difference between walking some directories and actually reading files. Doing the former does not mean you're doing the latter. This is what people saw, this is what people failed to understand.

And it never transmitted any meaningful data from you, period.
 
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I've actually noticed that there are a lot of EA/Origin apologists on this forum - more so than I have seen anywhere else actually.

Individual experiences aside, it isn't hard to see why Steam/Valve is so appreciated and EA/Origin is so despised.

Recent improvements for Valve/Steam:

  • Big Picture mode
  • Greenlight
  • Steam Guides
  • Steam on Linux
  • Steambox...coming soon

All since Origin was launched...

Recent improvements for Origin/EA:

...um ported to Mac? Oh, and they started putting microtransactions in full priced games that are direct console ports (DS 3)! And they took Simcity and shrunk it down to bite-size and made it "social"!

Guess which one is pushing PC gaming forward...

Valve and EA both want and succeed at making boatloads of money. Valve's philosophy is that if you build what people want, they'll happily pay you for it. EA's philosophy is find something people want and see how much money you can extract from them before they will walk away.
 
Rusty4560 said:
Ditto

I also love the fact that even though I have BF3 on my machine, when I format and install origin it thinks it's not there and requires me to download the 16GB file again. Origin is awesome.
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I heard this thing called google can be quite helpful!

I don't have the link for the way I did it, it was with a system link, but there are new methods now and honestly, is it asking too much to google something these days?

I like Steam, but I also like Origin. I prefer steam because I am used to it and have most of my games/friends there, but that piece of shit wastes so many resources its ridiculous. Origin on the other hand runs pretty nicely, but I couldn't care less about the interface/friend system.
 
Dolor said:
I've actually noticed that there are a lot of EA/Origin apologists on this forum - more so than I have seen anywhere else actually.

Individual experiences aside, it isn't hard to see why Steam/Valve is so appreciated and EA/Origin is so despised.

Recent improvements for Valve/Steam:

  • Big Picture mode
  • Greenlight
  • Steam Guides
  • Steam on Linux
  • Steambox...coming soon

All since Origin was launched...

Recent improvements for Origin/EA:

...um ported to Mac? Oh, and they started putting microtransactions in full priced games that are direct console ports (DS 3)! And they took Simcity and shrunk it down to bite-size and made it "social"!

Guess which one is pushing PC gaming forward...

Valve and EA both want and succeed at making boatloads of money. Valve's philosophy is that if you build what people want, they'll happily pay you for it. EA's philosophy is find something people want and see how much money you can extract from them before they will walk away.
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steam is about to pass up its ten year anniversary this year..


obviously the one thats ten years older is going to be significantly better is that even the debate?

i dont think anybody is saying origin is better then steam jesus hahahah so dumb
 
Origin is no Steam but I have no issues with it...I only have 3 Origin games- Mass Effect 3, Crysis 3 and Crysis 1...my only complaint is having multiple gaming clients installed...sets a bad precedent where soon every gaming developer will require their own separate client be installed (Bethesda, Ubisoft, Crytek etc)

as for the OP...that's the way discounts work...you don't get the $20 applied to your original order, it's always on your next order...Amazon works the same way, they give you $20 credit towards a future purchase...no need to read the fine print, it's common sense
 
dremic said:
steam is about to pass up its ten year anniversary this year..


obviously the one thats ten years older is going to be significantly better is that even the debate?

i dont think anybody is saying origin is better then steam jesus hahahah so dumb
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PRO TIP: read a post before criticizing it.

All the changes I mentioned were "since Origin was launched". That is why I didn't include Steam on Macs etc.

Even though it wasn't my only point, yes, some people do argue that Origin and Steam are the same or even that Origin is better - even in this thread.

A discerning reader might have seen that my point is Steam is improving faster than Origin even though Origin is newer, has the example of Steam to draw upon, etc.

Even though Valve is the best and most successful and could easily coast on their success, they aren't. Instead, it's EA that's acting like the incumbent and doing almost nothing to improve their service. My point is that is why people like Steam/Valve over EA/Origin, and it is a reasonable thing for them to feel.
 
Dolor said:
PRO TIP: read a post before criticizing it.

All the changes I mentioned were "since Origin was launched". That is why I didn't include Steam on Macs etc.

Even though it wasn't my only point, yes, some people do argue that Origin and Steam are the same or even that Origin is better - even in this thread.

A discerning reader might have seen that my point is Steam is improving faster than Origin even though Origin is newer, has the example of Steam to draw upon, etc.

Even though Valve is the best and most successful and could easily coast on their success, they aren't. Instead, it's EA that's acting like the incumbent and doing almost nothing to improve their service. My point is that is why people like Steam/Valve over EA/Origin, and it is a reasonable thing for them to feel.
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I read your post thoroughly; I dont think you read mine though.

you use the word recently for steams accomplishments that you have listed. All of these things have come from valve over a ten year period of time.. Origin is two years old and works perfectly fine depending on the user apparently.

you then mention that steam is progressing considerably quicker, but I am pretty sure in 2005 two years after steam came out it wasn't exactly pushing the envelope in terms of content delivery which goes back to my point that they have only begun to recently make changes and advancements after ten years and running.

think about it man.


yes.. steam is significantly better and after ten years theyre working towards bringing content to you in better ways then just one. Thats dope, but valve isn't exactly known for their fast progression ( see valve time ).



dont mistake my post for defense for origin, personally I find it annoying that I need it and steam to play my games. Its a nuisance and nothing more. However for me it has worked perfectly fine. . . I also think EA does okay on game making most of the people on here bashing probably still buy their games.
 
dremic said:
I read your post thoroughly; I dont think you read mine though.
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I am pretty sure I read it in its entirety until I got to the "so dumb" part.

you use the word recently for steams accomplishments that you have listed. All of these things have come from valve over a ten year period of time..
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I think you are claiming something here that you cannot know unless you work for Valve. I don't know when they started developing these features. I would actually guess given how effective they are at producing content that they started these things recently. All I know for sure is that in the last year, their accomplishments have been coming fast and furious.

you then mention that steam is progressing considerably quicker, but I am pretty sure in 2005 two years after steam came out it wasn't exactly pushing the envelope in terms of content delivery which goes back to my point that they have only begun to recently make changes and advancements after ten years and running.
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That is grading on quite a curve in my opinion. It is harder to do things when you are the first one doing them because no one else has done it before. Origin has the benefit of Steam showing them exactly what they need to do. Steam had no such luxury. It's like complementing someone for completing a puzzle in the same amount of time as the person they just watched finish the same puzzle.

yes.. steam is significantly better and after ten years theyre working towards bringing content to you in better ways then just one. Thats dope, but valve isn't exactly known for their fast progression ( see valve time ).
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I suppose we will see if EA/Origin actually makes the improvements that Steam has made to date. While not being able to divine their intentions, my guess (supported by the last year of non-developments) is that EA is perfectly happy with Origin being no more than a store to extract 100% of the revenue from willing participants. Without being able to know, I would guess they simply won't make many significant improvements to the service beyond ensuring it is effective at selling people stuff. You certainly can't claim that they don't have as many resources as Valve to develop features for their service.

dont mistake my post for defense for origin, personally I find it annoying that I need it and steam to play my games. Its a nuisance and nothing more. However for me it has worked perfectly fine. . . I also think EA does okay on game making most of the people on here bashing probably still buy their games.
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Actually, I have never had a problem with Origin as a service either. Before I developed strong opinions of EA, I purchased BF3 and used Origin, but I stopped buying their games once I realized what kind of company EA is (cliff notes: anti-consumer). I agree that most people probably just buy EA games anyway, but I am not one of them anymore. If they come back on Steam or Origin actually becomes better than Steam, I'll gladly throw them some money, but not until then. Luckily, I have some 400 games on Steam (some even by EA) that I can gladly play until they get their act together.
 
eh why does blizzard get no criticism, those assholes dont even let you select which account you want to pay from in your paypal account, they just go ahead ping any account they want and have free reign to do so pretty much afterwards WTF how can they do that its the only site ive been on where they have their own custom paypal system.

also enjoyed being locked out of my game from overzealous security forever as i really can't be assed going backwards and forwards with those assholes over email, pirate or watch HoS vids on youtube, either way your not getting one red cent anymore blizzard, a cd-key site got your money last nite when i bought the last blizzard game ever for a freind, all because you want a dictatorship over my paypal account.
 
socK said:
Except there was nothing malicious about that, just idiots getting worked into a frenzy over something they didn't understand.

edit: To clarify, it never read any files. There is a difference between walking some directories and actually reading files. Doing the former does not mean you're doing the latter. This is what people saw, this is what people failed to understand.

And it never transmitted any meaningful data from you, period.
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This, and Steam scans for games too. I actually PREFER Origin nowadays to Steam... their customer service is far better and I like the box art game panel. Additionally, the games actually download quickly and reliably, unlike Steam.
 
Dolor said:
PRO TIP: read a post before criticizing it.

Even though Valve is the best and most successful and could easily coast on their success, they aren't. Instead, it's EA that's acting like the incumbent and doing almost nothing to improve their service. My point is that is why people like Steam/Valve over EA/Origin, and it is a reasonable thing for them to feel.
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PRO TIP: Understand a post before yelling and ranting. What the hell do you want out of a game launcher other than for it to download fast, and launch your games, that Origin doesn't do? Steam has a ton of crap I've never even touched and probably never will, all I use it for is to get my games going. I'd say most people don't need or use Origin/Steam/etc. for anything but the DRM to launch their games with, actually. At this, they are functionally identical, and Origin is superior as it doesn't even have to be running for a lot of the titles to launch.
 
GoldenTiger said:
PRO TIP: Understand a post before yelling and ranting. What the hell do you want out of a game launcher other than for it to download fast, and launch your games, that Origin doesn't do? Steam has a ton of crap I've never even touched and probably never will, all I use it for is to get my games going. I'd say most people don't need or use Origin/Steam/etc. for anything but the DRM to launch their games with, actually. At this, they are functionally identical, and Origin is superior as it doesn't even have to be running for a lot of the titles to launch.
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Well, conveniently, I listed (or "yelled and ranted" if you prefer) some examples in my earlier post. I use Steam's big picture mode religiously on my HTPC, so I would like that in a service. I use their guides and walkthroughs surprisingly often as well. I like that they are developing a console so I can play console games with the same account and buy the game once for both the PC and the console and play it however I want. I appreciate the thought behind Steam Greenlight and like that it puts more power in gamers' hands as to what ends up on Steam.

Shoot, I completely forgot Steam workshop, but I would like built-in mod support in a service as well.

I like that Steam does crazy amazing sales that allow me to bloat my games backlog and ensure that I will be entertained twice over until age 121.

I like that Steam is run by a company that has always focused on PC game development first and isn't just chasing whatever is the latest trend.

Other than those things, I guess they are the same...
 
one quirk about Origin I find annoying is that it doesn't remove beta games from your Games list even if it's not active anymore...my Crysis 3 beta is still listed in my Games list and there's no way of removing it...I can only Hide it from appearing...the beta expired a week ago
 
polonyc2 said:
one quirk about Origin I find annoying is that it doesn't remove beta games from your Games list even if it's not active anymore...my Crysis 3 beta is still listed in my Games list and there's no way of removing it...I can only Hide it from appearing...the beta expired a week ago
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Steam does the same thing. But there's no hide option. :D
 
DeathPrincess said:
Steam does the same thing. But there's no hide option. :D
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Sure there is. Set up a Library category called "Betas" in your library, move your beta games into that category, and hide that category. Not all that difficult.
 
polonyc2 said:
my only complaint is having multiple gaming clients installed...sets a bad precedent where soon every gaming developer will require their own separate client be installed (Bethesda, Ubisoft, Crytek etc)
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Thank you. That's my only real problem with Origin - encouraging other me-too Steam clones from devs and publishers which in turn will keep their games exclusive to their platform, and slowly the convenience of all your games being in one place erodes into meaninglessness not to mention multiple clients sitting resident, multiple in-game overlays, friends lists being fragmented, on and on. Just like I dont want multiple virus scanners sitting there resident in the tasktray, I dont like the idea of many game clients resident.

And nevermind that supporting EA makes my skin crawl given all their effort to consolize and water down their franchises to the lowest COD/Activision common denominator with every iteration. As well, Valve seems to understand the value of things like mod tools, free DLC's, community support. Can you even fathom the notion of EA allowing free DLC or ever encouraging modtools on Origin - neither can I. I'm sure some would disagree but relatively speaking, Valve/Steam is demonstrably more of a "good guy" company than the MBA's and robots that run EA/Origin will ever be.
 
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Dolor said:
Sure there is. Set up a Library category called "Betas" in your library, move your beta games into that category, and hide that category. Not all that difficult.
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How is that hiding it? If I use Big picture/Grid view mode it's still there...
 
Dolor said:
I like that Steam is run by a company that has always focused on PC game development first and isn't just chasing whatever is the latest trend.
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So the crApple and Linux clients and chasing the "console" market are what exactly if not pointless "trend" chasing? :p

By most rules for "consolized" games, pretty much every recent Valve game would fall into that (DX9c, linear, built in autoaim, terrible textures, terrible lighting, controller support, small playercount multi, multiplayer focus, released on console at the same time with no real additional graphical features for PC, day 1 DLC, no VoIP, no plot, 3 hour campaign, built for Intel HD graphics...) Portal 2 even had "push start to begin". When was the last time Valve pushed some kind of technological envelope? HL2? That was almost a decade ago...

The Steam client is getting worse and worse, their games are getting worse and worse, their support is terrible, but everyone constantly asskisses Valve. If people didn't pander to them quite so much, and criticize them as much as they deserve, there would be more chance that shit would get fixed, and they would be a better company.
 
Origin is utter shit. I have an issue on multiple video games, I ran over the maximum activation limit ( of 5 rofl) due to many reformat of my rig, It happened before, and when contacting ea support they would reset it. Now since the implementation of origin they removed access to those tool to their call center agents, when I contact them they have me waiting for an hour to tell me they put my request in a level 2 queue for the activation reset... Hasnt been done in over 2 month. If I put the game serial in origin it added the game to my account, but the digital version still require the activation..... So if you buy an oldie on origin you get 2 drm for the price of one....
 
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