Origin is awful

[atpbx]

Origin is fine for me, at least the games work.

As of this moment in my steam library none of the following work:

BLOPS2
Doom 3 BFG edition.
Quake 4.
Bioshock 2
ARMA 2

Just wont start, I've verfied files, deleted files, changed settings, changed drivers, the games are just plain broken.

 

[Drizmod]

Same for me tbh, the only gripe I have with origin is the lack of a backup to disc option. That's if they've not added it, I've not checked for a while.

I just backup the folder in which the game is installed. If I ever have to do a clean OS Install I install Origin and start the game download for like 10 seconds (it creates the directory structure I think) and then cancel the download and exit Origin. Copy the backed up folder into the game folder and restart Origin and restart the download. At this stage It waits for like 5 seconds and says 100% downloaded

Note: I must be one of the few that have never had problems with Origin

 

[Omaeka]

Anyone noticed the hide game feature in the library on Origin!? Just hid all of my Sims 3 expansions and made it look nice and tidy.

Come on Valve, Origin actually has managed to have an incredible feature, that you are lacking and seriously need, sort it out!

 

[TheVoice]

Same for me tbh, the only gripe I have with origin is the lack of a backup to disc option. That's if they've not added it, I've not checked for a while.

There's an option to save the game installers.

 

[WiZZyWiGG]

I must say I don't think I have ever had any issues with Origin and its downloads speeds have always maxed out my connection.

I think EA have made some good improvements to the service, Steam is great and all but its good to have some competition.

 

[VincentHanna]

Anyone noticed the hide game feature in the library on Origin!? Just hid all of my Sims 3 expansions and made it look nice and tidy.

Come on Valve, Origin actually has managed to have an incredible feature, that you are lacking and seriously need, sort it out!

Just select the option that only shows your installed games?

 

[Omaeka]

Just select the option that only shows your installed games?

Workarounds to get half of a needed feature after it's been absent for 8 years, sums Valve up perfectly.

 

[Mockingbird]

Just select the option that only shows your installed games?

I have a category called "hidden" - if I want to hide a game I just add it to that category and then collapse the whole tree of "hidden" games to a single entry.

Incidentally, Origin has been fine to me this week - never used it until this humble bundle and it worked fien first time. Probably worth noting in this age of SSD system drives - it has separate folders for "put the games here" and "put the installers here" and the "put the installers here" seems to default to the system drive.

In my case this meant I installed origin to F:, all the games get installed to F: but the installers go on C:

If you've got not much space on your system drive, this could (potentially) be the cause of some of the "cannot complete downloads" issues.

 

[PESolution]

although i prefer steam - i have to say that when i download from original it always maxes my 120mb connection.

I think the day you tried it was being spammed due to everybdy getting those humble bundles - the majority of us couldnt even activate the game keys for a day...

 

[Ole]

I'm having the exact same problem, it's a bloody nightmare to be honest. Even on a very fast connection (100mb) they pause and lock out every few mins and then Origin needs re-starting (and sometimes that doesn't work either). I know there must be a huge server load, but I set off all the games I could through Steam and they downloaded smoothly.

Does anyone know if the Origin keys will work on a torrent download of the games (I'm particularly keen to play BF3)?

 

[Geekazoid]

Origin has always been stellar for me, whilst I prefer Steam in pretty much every single way, Origin has always massively trumped it for download speeds and customer service. With Steam I'll get 5-7Mb/s which is very standard for my internet, yet Origin will consistantly give 10-15Mb/s which is weird as Virgin cap my packages download speeds to 7-8Mb/s.

Uplay are the same these days, seem to give me 2-7Mb/s extra over what I'm capped to, how either of them do it though is beyond me.

why do Virgin limit download speed to 7mb even in dead of night off peak??? same thing happens to me never understood it...

 

[uncle_rufus]

Regarding steam's "convoluted" folder structure - this structure is what makes steam so easy to reinstall when upgrading windows or your computer. It's a feature, not a bug

Absolutely 100% this... Although not all games play nicely with this method of reinstalling, as noted below:

[snip]
Just wont start, I've verfied files, deleted files, changed settings, changed drivers, the games are just plain broken.

I've experienced this too, it seems that some naive or lazy devs have elements of their game's code where the absolute path of certain critical files gets hard-coded when you first download and install it, so if you move your steamapps folder anywhere it breaks them. When I moved onto an SSD I put my steamapps folder on E:\ rather than C:\ and several games broke as well.

In some cases you can fix it by deleting the executable, then run the "verify" and then hopefully when you try to run it should re-do the initial install/compilation step which may reset the installed path. Another (less nice) option would be to create a junction point at the original location of your steamapps folder, pointing to the new location, which will allow any lazily hard-coded paths to still function.

 

[Atlas23]

Does any1 have same problem as me when downloading? its like 90% done then it drops back to like 74% ?!? like 10 times now what is going on? im sure its not my internet, as I have downloaded few games successful like 2 days ago.

Yes I had that earlier. Got to 60% through Sims 3, then looked back at it 10 minutes later and it was at 30%!! It's literally stealing my game back.

I don't. Competition is good. History has shown that absolute monopolies are bad for the consumer and the government knows this too.

Not when EA have anything to do with it. There's a reason they were voted Worst Company In America again. If anything, Steam aids competition between actual developers by offering Greenlight and reducing the barriers to entry for small time dev teams.

To dethrone Steam, Origin would have to do something innovative, as opposed to just copying what Steam does so that EA can impose more of their 'always online' DRM. If Origin didn't have Battlefield, they would be out of the picture completely.

Absolutely 100% this... Although not all games play nicely with this method of reinstalling, as noted below:



I've experienced this too, it seems that some naive or lazy devs have elements of their game's code where the absolute path of certain critical files gets hard-coded when you first download and install it, so if you move your steamapps folder anywhere it breaks them. When I moved onto an SSD I put my steamapps folder on E:\ rather than C:\ and several games broke as well.

In some cases you can fix it by deleting the executable, then run the "verify" and then hopefully when you try to run it should re-do the initial install/compilation step which may reset the installed path. Another (less nice) option would be to create a junction point at the original location of your steamapps folder, pointing to the new location, which will allow any lazily hard-coded paths to still function.

Steam has its own Backup/Restore feature that I used recently when moving from my old laptop to new desktop (my primary drive letter had changed from D: to E: so a lot of steam games didn't work when I copied over my steamapps folder). You can backup multiple games at once and then just copy the backup files to the new location and restore them within Steam

Blazin

 

[uncle_rufus]

Steam has its own Backup/Restore feature that I used recently when moving from my old laptop to new desktop (my primary drive letter had changed from D: to E: so a lot of steam games didn't work when I copied over my steamapps folder). You can backup multiple games at once and then just copy the backup files to the new location and restore them within Steam

That's good to know, I'll keep it in mind for next time I re-install, as it's a bit late once you've already migrated to your new system. Also does running the "backup" create some sort of duplicate (compressed?) version of the game files? (that could be an issue if your drive is almost full)... It'd be good if there was a list of what games actually require this, as maybe 80% of my large set of games still worked fine by just copying the folder across - and does the backup/restore definitely work on all games which sometimes break when steamapps moves?

 

[Atlas23]

That's good to know, I'll keep it in mind for next time I re-install, as it's a bit late once you've already migrated to your new system. Also does running the "backup" create some sort of duplicate (compressed?) version of the game files? (that could be an issue if your drive is almost full)... It'd be good if there was a list of what games actually require this, as maybe 80% of my large set of games still worked fine by just copying the folder across - and does the backup/restore definitely work on all games which sometimes break when steamapps moves?

Basically, Steam verifies the game cache of each game, and then backs them up to a location that you can specify (i.e. you could back up straight onto an external hard drive if you are low on internal HDD space). It leaves the original games intact.

I've tried it on a number of games and it worked flawlessly. The only thing is saved games (for games that don't use Steam Cloud) etc, but you would still have to move them manually anyway (if they are in My Documents).

See here: https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=8794-yphv-2033

Blazin

 

[Soviet]

The only problem I had with Origin is during the launch of DS3. I bought the game only for it not to appear in the 'My Games' section. Long story short it took a week and a half of complaining to EA online chat, that they finally gave me a code to redeem the game.

I know I wasn't the only person with the problem as their EA help forums were inundated with users having the same issue.

Apart from that I've not had any other issues (thus far!).

 

[Omaeka]

I'd of thought people would be a little less harsh on EA after the Sim City compensation and now raising 7 million for charity without taking a penny. They used to be the best company once upon a time, hopefully the suits on the top floor will let it become that again.

 

[Pottsey]

I'd of thought people would be a little less harsh on EA after the Sim City compensation and now raising 7 million for charity without taking a penny. They used to be the best company once upon a time, hopefully the suits on the top floor will let it become that again.

The fact EA messed up Sim City so bad and had to give compensation just highlights how bad they are. 7 million is very little for a company that size and most likely they only did it to save on tax. EA might have been good in the early days but they have been very bad for almost 20 years now.

 

[ZombieFan]

The fact EA messed up Sim City so bad and had to give compensation just highlights how bad they are. 7 million is very little for a company that size and most likely they only did it to save on tax. EA might have been good in the early days but they have been very bad for almost 20 years now.

If they just wanted to save on tax they could have just donated 7 million straight to charity without giving out any games.

 

[pastymuncher]

Still only at 49% of DS3 downloaded. This is beyond a joke!! I have been trying since last Thursday to download this game. It downloads for 5-10 mins then just stops. I have to close it and then restart it again only for the same thing to happen. I have tried many so called "fixes" such as downloading the latest beat version of Origin, disabling power saving altogether on my pc and monitor and turning off my AV/firewall. Nothing makes any difference at all.