Dragon Age: Inquisition... ownd, pwnd, and bwnd by XBone.

Boaz

Happy Easter!
Joined
Jul 14, 2005
Messages
6,545
Pack it up,
Pack it in,
Where do I begin,
If you buy DA:I... that's a sin.

So... I've played Dragon Age: Origins and Dragon Age II (and the Mass Effect trilogy). And I sat down over the weekend to watch a friend start playing Dragon Age: Inquisition on his XBone.

He spent forty minutes tweaking his character to look like Kurt Russell's character, Jack Burton in Big Trouble in Little China. And then he played for three and a half hours with me making all the correct observations while observing the gorgeously rendered CG world invaded by demons arriving through green fire.

"It exploded in a ball of green flame. Green flame!!!"

"With light coming out of his hand?!?!"

"First time you ever plug somebody?" "Course not."

"Look, I'm not saying I've been everywhere and done everything, but you've got to be some kind of fool to think we're all alone in this universe."

"I never hack'n slash faster than I can see and besides... it's all in the reflexes."

<chugging health potion> "What does this do exactly?" "Huge buzz!" "I'm not scared at all. I feel kind of invincible."

<after getting knocked down> "Son of a b!@#& must pay."

<being confronted over first weapon> "Trade ya!"

"Demon standoff. Don't make a sound."

The story starts with a demon invasion during a civil/religious war between the Templars and the Mages. Sounds like great fun... right? I watched him play two hours on Saturday and two more hours on Sunday.

Well, three and a half hours into the game, my friend became unable to switch between his character and his party members. After running around for a while, this became problematic. He needed to use his rogue to open doors and was unable to do so. So he saved and the real problem started.... When he tried to just continue, the screen told him the save file was corrupted.

His save file was corrupted immediately after saving?!?!

Luckily he had an auto save from just two minutes before. It was also corrupted and unable to load. As was the save from half an hour before... as was the save from an hour before... as were ALL the saves from Saturday. His character was gone... because he saved?!?!

So, he made a new character... and was unable to save after creation and the obvious tutorial.

He was also unable to delete all of the corrupted saves.

Hmmmmmm.....

So he uninstalled DA:I and reinstalled... we'll see what happens today.

Anyway.... after looking online to see if he ran into a glitch or if there is a solution... we learned that EVERYONE has this problem. The game is bugged. It was released in North America on Nov. 18 and the first reports of the save game bug were reported on the 19th! My friend did not buy the game until December. There has been one patch... which has not fixed the problem...

...and they're still selling the game! It's unplayable! It is unconscionable of Bioware and Microsoft and Best Buy to continue to actively market and sell a completely broken product.

Owned became ownd which begat pwnd which begat bwnd. XBone will bwn you.

The second patch is due today for all platforms except for XBone. But this patch will not affect the save game issue... Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?!?!

Oh, and patches three and four are in the works...

Microsoft has his money and all the suckers who preordered it... so what incentive do they have to make it right now? If this were an automobile, there would be a worldwide recall...

This is the first time I've had a negative experience with a serious glitch from Bioware. Sure, ME has a few spots where Shepard will walk into the ceiling... and then there is the abysmal ending of ME3, but that's it. Microsoft is Microsoft... what are you going to do?

But this is exactly the kind of behavior I expect from Best Buy. They have zero concept of standing behind their products. Once you've bought it, you're stuck. Even if the product is defective or obviously broken. I will never buy from them ever.... and that's a decision I made thirteen years ago. I wish my friend listened to me.
 
Brian, it didn't affect mine. Er, you might want to steer her away from a bearded character though (facial hair looks poor. Or abysmal, depending what you go for).

Also, it's very worthwhile doing the Dragon Age Keep (might be tricky if you're trying to keep DAI secret from your lady wife).

I posted this (an early review of DAI for PS3) a couple of weeks ago: http://thaddeusthesixth.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/early-thoughts-dragon-age-inquisition.html

Boaz, that's a massive problem that needs fixing pronto (reminds me of how Skyrim froze very often before it was patched). I do miss the olden days when you not only got an instruction manual but the game would actually work.
 
Thing is games didn't always work in the past; but you couldn't much vent or do anything till the magazine came out next month with the patches to fix it all up.

Consoles though really shouldn't get these game breaking issues - its a fixed software and hardware environment. At least on PC you can accept that you will always get a degree of errors because of the mind boggling number of different setups of hardware and software; consoles though really should not have any game-breaking bugs unless its a result of players doing very odd things themselves. Still least the developers will get it fixed up - my view is so long as they keep talking and keep fixing then there isn't a problem. It's only if you really have a disaster at launch (like Sword of the Stars 2) or when the developers just up and run off or close down (Disciples 3 had that problem ) when you have to worry.
 
thad, yeah. Big ole manuals. And it's good to know you've not run into the problem. It seems that some combinations of quests will wonk the save files... and especially selling large amounts of items to a vendor will very likely ruin the game as well.

Brian, it affects all platforms... since they've gotten two patches out in in twenty days... they might resolve it before Christmas. I wish you a blessed Christmas with your bride.
 
I also know that my anger and disappointment in Bioware are because they've released some of the most enjoyable video RPGs I've played.

I've played Knights of the Old Republic on my PC, on my PC through Steam, on the XBox and I'm still playing on iPad. Jolee Bindo is my favorite Jedi... period. Malak is the original meatbag.

DA was a ton of fun. I got to name my Mabari, Alistair. I got to make fun of the real Alistair. Shale was a woman! Elves or Werewolves? Templars or Mages? Dwarves or Golems? Enchantment!!!!

DA2 was fun, even if the story lacked the epic feel of DA. Merrill fixed everything with blood magic. Is that wrong? Varric is humorous. And Isabela positively, absolutely, definintely, and immediately... needs that bath. (She probably needs a spanking as well.)

Mass Effect and it's successors were even better... and I'm a fantasy guy, not a sci-fi guy. Mordin. Wrex. Miranda. Garrus. Probing planets in our own system.

I am the very model of a scientist Salarian,
I've studied species Turian, Asari, and Batarian.
I'm quite good at genetics (as a subset of biology)
Because I am an expert (which I know is a tautology).
My xenoscience studies range from urban to agrarian,
I am the very model of a scientist Salarian.

I was excited to see the characters, the witty comments, the comedy, and the epic story.... I was not expecting to run into a dead end.

Hopefully it will be fixed. I just think it's ridiculous that this has become the standard of the industry.
 
Update:

After re-installing the game... my friend's character came back (he made his Cloud save roll) and he can switch between characters.

And the best news is that he can now save again...

So it looks like this bug can be fixed by re-installing the game. (Do it before you go to work.)

I'll let you know if the bug comes back.
 
Cheers, Boaz. Although it doesn't affect me (I did, just the other day, have the switching character bug, but got killed shortly thereafter and everything worked again) it is useful to have this sort of info out there.
 
Update:

So... the XBone still has a save issue... My friend made a new character and saved it during the tutorial (full party, but not yet closed the main rift) and after finishing the tutorial the game will not save.

The saved games are not on the console. It's some issue regarding the cloud save. Bioware may not be a culprit at all. My friend says the issue is between EA Games and Microsoft. Somewhere in the ether, they're having cloud connection or permission problems.
 
Always online is [MODERATED]. I know Xbone doesn't have to be online (even though Microsoft said it had been designed that way...) but I do dislike the necessity for a connection because of things like this.

Could he just turn the net connection off, and play offline? That's what I do most of the time (apparently it makes the game run a little smoother as well).
 
I'm finishing DA2 for the first time, and was literally just playing it. I sided with the mages, so I guess I'm going to fight Meredith at some point. I'm playing as a duel wielding rouge specializing in the assassination branch. Aveline is my tank, Anders my healer, and Varric as an additional DPS. Now I'm glad to say all these folks appear to be joining me in the final fight since I was really at risk of losing Aveline.
 
Ah... my story was quite different. I won't spoil your next play through, but suffice to say that Mered.... uh, sorry, I was about to spoil it... anyway, Anders wanted to... whoa, almost spoiled it again... so after the Deep Roads, Aveline decided... oops... and then Isabe.... forget it... I'll just, ah, stop posting now.
 
Hey Boaz,

I was going to fire this one up tonight. You mention a cloud save that may be giving an issue. Is there an option to avoid this entirely and just save on the HD?
 
Chris, That's exactly what thaddeus6th mentioned in an above post. He says it works, but my friend has yet to try it. The game itself looks fantastic... and the story seems very promising (which is exactly what I expect from Bioware). I may not talk to my friend for a few days... if you have luck with a patch or just saving locally, please post.
 
I just submitted a report to Microsoft that began... "I'm gonna tell you about an accident, and I don't wanna hear "act of God".
 
After a short hiatus (I've finished it twice) I had another go, but think I may leave it for a bit now. (PS3 version, for those wondering). The freezing irks me more than it did for Origins or Skyrim [well, except pre-patch Skyrim which was almost unplayable] because of the little 'your system *might* be corrupted' message afterwards. It never is, but I am Captain Caution, whose superpowers include patience and waiting. Freezes seem to be circa once every 8-15 hours (NB I have downloaded the 1.02 patch which does not appear to have rectified or worsened the issue). Not sure whether this is a common problem or limited according to PS3 type [mine's a fat 40GB].

Edited extra bit: was checking Twitter to see if there was an update on the next patch, and happened to see patch 2 is reportedly out for the Xbox One.
 
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