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Mass Effect Legendary Edition made me just realize what a broken mess console gaming has become

kingkaiser

Member
So, a few hours ago my physical copy of the game arrived and after a nice Saturday brunch I decided to install it to my Xbox Series X. First surprise was when I opened the game case and saw that it comes with two discs. A game and an installation disc. Having dealt with such before I decided to insert the “Data” disc first but just got the message to insert the “Game” disc instead. Whatever, I thought and acted as instructed. Turns out it’s a rather small installation with 10GB from disc and a “glorious” day one patch via internet around 9GB heavy. My internet speed is not the greatest so it took like half an hour or so to finish.

There we go! Game launched and took me right to the main menu, here you can decide which game of the trilogy to play. ME1 was ready to go but ME2 and ME3 require installation. No problem there, or so I thought when seeing the “Install” button, but to my irritation the game started to download the data despite a disc being inserted. I stopped the process and put in the data disc instead, as probably any sane person would do. Guess what? Yep, the game tells you to insert the “Game” disc instead. Being pretty pissed at this moment I decided to check online what the problem was and the solution seemed to be just going offline with the Xbox and let the game being installed via disc. BUT this did not work either, the game just stopped to react when pushing the installation button while being offline. The game actually managed to crash multiple times while trying so.

Now I got somewhat mad and decided to just shut down the whole system and do something better with my time. After a cool down period I decided to just wipe the game from my system and do a clean install while being offline. Finally all seemed to work BUT to my surprise again, the game refused to start after installation. All I got was the message that the “process” was not finished yet. So I waited and waited, nothing happened. So I turned my system off and on again and while trying to launch the game a new message popped up, saying I would need to go online again to be able to start the game. Online check, great.

At that point I kinda felt being pranked here and feared that going online would automatically start the “day one patch” bringing me to square one again. Having no other choice though, I went online again. Will wonders never cease! The game managed to launch and I was back in the main menu. Having learned from previous mistakes, I switched back to the dashboard and into settings to go offline once again, and after that FINALLY the game started to install from disc.

Final thoughts…What the fuck is wrong with the people who programmed this and why is not patched by now? The game comes with a friggin 9GB day one patch, but this shit has not been solved yet? Am I like one of the very few fools out there actually buying a physical copy so EA just do no care for us few “morons”? Is it maybe even intentional to make us jump through multiple hoops? Making us realize what assholes we were not buying digitally? Why even bother and including a data disc when you try to force your customers downloading 90GB in the first place. I am so close giving up this whole video game thingy but unfortunately Mass Effect 1 and 2 are and always will be in my all-time top five and thus I will have to delay ending gaming after at least finishing this “Legendary” edition.
 

Sorcerer

Member
How does the pc version install. Do you have to download all 3 games at once or are they all separate downloads? (I understand Mass Effect is sold as a trilogy, but options are always nice). Anybody know?
 
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Hari Seldon

Member
EA coding is a particular pile of shit. I got a free month of game pass on PC. Literally impossible to link my EA account because I apparently had an old EA account tied to my Xbox account from 360 days. So I uninstalled the EA app that I was forced to install and cancelled auto renew.
 
How does the pc version install. Do you have to download all 3 games at once or are they all separate downloads? (I understand Mass Effect is sold as a trilogy, but options are always nice). Anybody know?

They download all 3 from steam, but they're in their own separate folders that you can manually delete if you want. After i finished ME 1 i just went in its instalation folder and deleted the ME 1 folder. After i finished me2 i just deleted the ME2 folder. No issues there
 

Hendrick's

If only my penis was as big as my GamerScore!
Sigh, once again I am telling you that with my internet speed it would take like 8-10 hours to download 90GB. Sadly a 50Mbit connection is the fastest my provider can offer in the "third-world" area I live, aka Germany's 9th biggest city.
More like 5 hours at that speed. I mean, it's not the end of the world, just download stuff overnight.
 

SkylineRKR

Member
discs are worthless nowadays. its nice that you can score them for a lower price generally and you can sell them. But for the rest there is hardly a benefit. Standard casing, no manuals. Its not anything like collecting SNES games. Discs likely will stay for some time but little by little they make them less worthwhile to own.
 

Andodalf

Banned
EA coding is a particular pile of shit. I got a free month of game pass on PC. Literally impossible to link my EA account because I apparently had an old EA account tied to my Xbox account from 360 days. So I uninstalled the EA app that I was forced to install and cancelled auto renew.

You gotta call em, I went through this in 2015 and it was a pain in the ass
 

Faust

Perpetually Tired
Staff Member
Physical is dead. Move on already.

Physical isn't dead, far from it! Most games I have purchased physically (which is well over 90% of my purchases in the past 7 years) have had the games almost entirely on the disk. Its really only a handful of AAA games that are the exception.

As someone who lives in a very rural area with poor internet, physical will always be preferable to me. Plus I enjoy being able to sell, lend, loan, and trade games. It also looks nice in a collection on the shelf :p
 

Mithos

Member
As someone that had much worse Internet speeds before today...
I remember when Destiny 2 went free2play, took ~40 hrs to download over a 3 day span to download, I could not hog the internet 100% all the time, so had to stop the download during the daytime or major complaints.

Stop thinking all people have Internet to go full digital, nor that other people think speed X is good enough to go digital or think digital is worth the price asked.

I went from a bad ADSL 8/1 Mbit Internet connection to a 4G connection that "officially" on paper gives me 10-40Mbit, the speed is not consistent and I have anything from 20-50Mbit during downloads.

I STILL won't go digital... Price per game and not being able to download 1 game in sub 1hrs is whats stopping me from that.
 
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GuinGuin

Banned
Games start getting printed sometimes months before release. Day one patches are unavoidable. Just go digital and save yourself the headache.
 

DenchDeckard

Moderated wildly
I feel for you op, I really do. Any game on disk I pretty much treat it as a digital key unlock now and just leave the thing to install whatever hellish process it needs to go through.
 

GrayFoxPL

Member
U have a series x you need to online to activate your disc game. That's why my x box one x will be my last ms console ever. 🙄
What? Seriously?

Chris Pratt What GIF
 

Bo_Hazem

Banned
I love how many idiots keep telling the OP to go digital, despite the OP clearly stating that his connection is very slow and going digital only is not a realistic option for him.

Honestly though I've been digital since 2014 and had 16Mbps all that time and only upgraded to 200Mbps a year ago. You can just let it download overnight but also we shouldn't force him to go digital.

Games should be playable on the disc form, no excuses are accepted here, and you don't need to run DRM checks online like Microsoft forces you on Xbox Series X|S.
 
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DaGwaphics

Member
I love how many idiots keep telling the OP to go digital, despite the OP clearly stating that his connection is very slow and going digital only is not a realistic option for him.

Is going digital really a choice at this point, whether or not you have the disk or not? Most of the games I have won't even let me start them if I'm not running the latest available version and those patches can be as large or larger than the original install. What does the disk really do for you these days, that's the question. Assuming of course that you are a normal user and your console is connected to the internet.
 
J

JeremyEtcetera

Unconfirmed Member
discs are glorified keys printed on plastic nowadays.
200.gif


This is only going to get increasingly annoying for disc purchasers every gen. For those of you with slower internet, tech/game stores like Gamestop should offer scheduled download and installation services. Drop off your console, get the game downloaded on their internet speeds, they call you when it's ready after 30 minutes to an hour later depending on the file size.
 

Blond

Banned
Honestly though I've been digital since 2014 and had 16Mbps all that time and only upgraded to 200Mbps a year ago. You can just let it download overnight but also we shouldn't force him to go digital.

Games should be playable on the disc form, no excuses are accepted here, and you don't need to run DRM checks online like Microsoft forces you on Xbox Series X|S.
I have the series X version and you can play games minus the initial activation offline. Unlike PlayStation when a patch it detected on Series X it forces you to download it vs at your leisure in the background. Microsoft can easily change this but I have no idea why they won’t.
 

Bo_Hazem

Banned
I have the series X version and you can play games minus the initial activation offline. Unlike PlayStation when a patch it detected on Series X it forces you to download it vs at your leisure in the background. Microsoft can easily change this but I have no idea why they won’t.

There are many differences as I see here and combining both as "console gaming" at the title is unfair to PS5. Thanks for the details.

Not only that, I can play while uploading videos to youtube in the background.
 
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M1chl

Currently Gif and Meme Champion
I have the series X version and you can play games minus the initial activation offline. Unlike PlayStation when a patch it detected on Series X it forces you to download it vs at your leisure in the background. Microsoft can easily change this but I have no idea why they won’t.
Yeah reminds me Windows Updates, in last years of Windows 7.

Does Series X really needs authentication online (auth for install) to be playable? Or isn't it Smart Delivery feature with version of both games?

I find the answer rather quickly:

Xbox dev here.

Some very precise clarifications when installing various types of content from discs
- OG Xbox/Xbox 360. Need to be online to install as the disc is just a key that allows you to download the game and emulator (same as on Xbox One).
- Xbox One games. Need to be online one-time during install to download specific config files (separate from actual game patches).
- Smart Delivery games. Depends on how much is actually on the disc; if the X|S version is on the disc, then can install offline, but if it is a stub only, then the Smart Delivery portion is delivered as an upgrade patch. This does a hybrid install using bits from the disc and bits from Xbox Live.
- Native X|S games. Can install offline.

-Oscar
Bolded is still some bullshit, but I guess it's the "residue" from Xbox One era. Or maybe a BC shit, but that's on EA in this sense.
 
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M1chl

Currently Gif and Meme Champion
As long as the Xbox is set as your home console you don't need to be online to play anything. People keep spreading that 2013 always online DRM FUD and getting away with it.
I meant first install, sorry. What I found on era, clears that up.: )
 

Ma-Yuan

Member

ManaByte

Gold Member
Both statements are not. 🤣

Statement 1:


Statement 2:

Won't buy a new ms console.
Only if you proof me wrong I would reconsider 🤔

That's clickbait FUD from November that's been debunked multiple times. But keep fighting the good fight warrior.
 

Blond

Banned
Yeah reminds me Windows Updates, in last years of Windows 7.

Does Series X really needs authentication online to be playable? Or isn't it Smart Delivery feature with version of both games?

I find the answer rather quickly:


Bolded is still some bullshit, but I guess it's the "residue" from Xbox One era. Or maybe a BC shit, but that's on EA in this sense.
I’m guessing that dude isn’t a developer because I can pop in any game on series X and play offline. Unless we’re talking smart delivery because you need to download the series X upgrades. But you can play anything without having to be online once you do the initial activation when you set up the console. I believe your console shouldn’t have to the touch the internet at all, though.
 
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