Month: November 2009

DA:O Toolset Installation problems for Steam/Impulse users

Posted on by Nimgimli

If you bought Dragon Age: Origins digitally you may encounter problems installing the Toolset. Bioware is working the problem, but in the meanwhile here’s what I did to get it installed.

Run the installer. The problem happens while installing MS SQL Server, and specifically while configuring it. You’ll encounter an error with an ignore/retry prompt. Leave that floating on screen.

Open:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\dragon age origins\tools\toolssql\MSSQL.1\MSSQL\Install\sysdbupg.sql
(substituting paths as required; I did this on Windows 7 Home 64-bit)

Search for:

SELECT @certificate_name = QUOTENAME(@certificate_name, ””)

and replace the line with:

SELECT @certificate_name = ”” + REPLACE(@certificate_name, ””, ”””) + ”’

Now hit Retry. You will probably get a new error along the lines of “Unable to Create database.”

Now open:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\dragon age origins\tools\toolssql\MSSQL.1\MSSQL\Data

and delete these files:
temp_MS_AgentSigningCertificate_database.mdf
temp_MS_AgentSigningCertificate_database_log.LDF
if they exist.

Finally go back to your installer and click on Retry again.

The installation *should* proceed smoothly. If it doesn’t, check the error logs in:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\dragon age origins\tools\toolssql\MSSQL.1\MSSQL\LOG
to see if you can tell what’s tripping things up.

There’s also a problem where the installer tries to write the uninstall.exe file to the wrong directory. Haven’t found a fix for that yet, but hitting Ignore lets you finish the installation and run the tools. Might mean some manual registry cleaning some day when you uninstall the tools though.

More details can be found here:
http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/8/index/109796/1

and here:
http://social.bioware.com/wiki/datoolset/index.php/Installation_with_Steam

I tested this on my Steam install but forum denizens say it works for Impulse as well.

[Updated the steps to take out a shortcut that may have been causing problems (see comments.)]

Dragon Age Do-over

Posted on by Nimgimli

Well after a lot of consideration I decided to restart Dragon Age, replacing my Human/Noble/Warrior with a Human/Noble/Rogue. “Gillain” is a character I created over 20 years ago. He’s a fairly typical charming rogue. Not an outright thief but not above conning a rich man out of his coin. A bit Robin Hoodish, I guess. And he fights with dual weapons. Long ago it was dual axes but these days it’s dual anything. So I created him in Dragon Age tonight.

My first character was a Dual-Wielding Warrior, and I dunno… it just seemed silly to not go sword and board with a warrior, but I love the idea of a whirling dervish of twin bladed death /hyperbole.

I did learn the bonus/dlc rings and things appear for every character, so that was good news.

I thought I’d just whip through the opening moments of the game and catch up, but once again I got engrossed with talking to people and (re)reading the codex. The conversations were different enough to be interesting a second time through.

If you play a Noble, at least the Warrior or Rogue, your first quest is to go talk to your brother, who is saying goodbye to his wife and son (he’s headed out on campaign). Once you find him and do the ‘forced’ conversation, be sure to talk to his son before you leave the room. The kid is a hoot!

And here was a surprise. I was messing with Tactics and just seeing how my party would fight based on my limited understanding of the Tactics system and… my party wiped! Mind you I had a ton of poultices, I just wasn’t paying attention. But the Warrior waltzed through those early encounters on auto-pilot. So either the Rogue is a lot squishier, or my tactics were horribly broken. 🙂

I continue to be amused (and at times slightly disappointed) by the amount of gore in the game. Here is me and my trusty hound Milo after we killed a few rats. Lots of blood in rats, apparently!

rat_killers

Day 1 of Dragon Age: Origins

Posted on by Nimgimli

Last night was all about computer problems and then getting Dragon Age downloaded, unlocked, messing with DLC issues and so on. I barely played.

Tonight was different. Tonight I finally got a chance to really take a small bite out of Dragon Age: Origins. And I’m loving what I’ve seen so far.

Honestly at the low levels I’m at, combat is very simple. I’m sure it’ll get more interesting later on. But with no real Skills yet, I just pick who everyone is going to attack then sit back and watch.

And I turned off Persistent Gore because it was so silly. I’m playing the Noble origin and early on you have to kill some rats (what else?!) and in so doing you get totally covered in blood. Then moments later you have an encounter with some family members and visiting nobles, and there you stand, blood spatters across your face, chatting up some lady in waiting. It was just silly. Toggling off Persistent Gore means the battles are still bloody but afterwards your party takes a moment to clean up a bit. 🙂

What I’m *really* enjoying is the lore that I’m uncovering. I’m so glad I read the novels first because I keep meeting people that were in the books. In fact Duncan, leader of the Grey Wardens, is a newly annointed Grey Warden in The Calling. I’m playing slowly and reading all the codex entries and exploring everywhere I’m able to explore.

It’s been a long time since I played a single player RPG like this one, and I’m actually finding the solo aspect somewhat freeing. I’m not in any hurry to “level up” or anything. Just drinking it all in and having a blast.

Mind you, all told I probably have 2 hours into the game so far, so everything could change. But for right now I’m really enjoying myself. I can’t wait for the weekend when I can just sit down and play for hours straight!

Meeting the neighbors

Dragon Age digital download and DLC issues: Fix

Posted on by Nimgimli

Apologize in advance for any typos; want to pound this out before work.

I don’t think I’m alone in having some problems getting all the DLC coming to me with my digital download version of Dragon Age: Origins. It doesn’t help that there are so many sources of gee-gaws: pre-order bonuses, deluxe version bonuses, store-specific bonuses and stuff you earned playing Dragon Age: Journeys.

I finally got everything working and wanted to share my experience. I used Steam so some of these issues may be unique to that platforms.

First, in the Steam client, under “My Games” right click on Dragon Age Origins and pick View Game CD Key. You can have as many as 3 keys in here. The ones with hyphens (xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx) are redeemable DLC codes (1 for pre-order, 1 for the deluxe version). On the Bioware social site, log in and from the left nav panel (under your portrait) pick Profile and then Redeem Promo Codes. Paste these keys in that field and hit submit. The key with no hyphens xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx is your game registration key. You put that in under Profile and then Register game.

I had to enter keys several times to get them to work, since the site is so overloaded.

The next problem I had was that 1 bit of DLC downloaded and installed, then 4 more downloaded but didn’t install and I couldn’t get them to install. And other stuff I had coming wasn’t showing up at all. From surfing forums this is happening to a good number of people.

To fix that problem, run the Dragon Age Launcher and pick Configure from there. Once the Configuration Utility pops up, pick Repair and then Clear Download cache. Now run the game and check your Downloaded Content. This cleared up the problem for me.

If everything is running right, you should see the Warden’s Keep either available for purchase or (if you got the Deluxe version) installed. Once I flushed my cache it was available for purchase, which told me I had to go back and re-submit my redemption code one more time. Then I hit the swirly refresh button at the bottom right of the in-game download screen and Warden’s Keep and Shale and some other items started downloading.

Hopefully the servers will be a bit less burdened tonight and these issues will go away, but without clearing the download cache ‘stuck’ DLC doesn’t seem to clear up.

I still haven’t figured out how to get screenshots to upload, or to access the characters I built ahead of time with the Character Creator.

I’m looking forward to *playing* Dragon Age tonight. Last night was more or less about wrestling with it (and with my computer, which seems ‘fixed’ now that I replaced the new ram with old ram).

A Dragon Age Music video?

Posted on by Nimgimli

I’ll admit it, I’m surly tonight. Dragon Age ships, and my gaming PC rolls over and dies the same night (unrelated, I hadn’t even run Dragon Age when this started happening).

But the press barrage must go on! 🙂

We have our first Dragon Age: Origins music video. The band is Thirty Seconds to Hell, the song is This is War, and it is debuting in Dragon Age: Origins, or so I’m told. *shoots hateful glare at the gaming PC* You’ve already seen a lot of the footage, but I guess this is a fresh way of looking at it!

I blame Torchlight

Posted on by Nimgimli

So here we are, all snug in our beds (or soon to be) with visions of sugar-darkspawn stuck in our heads.

It’s Dragon Age Eve. Tomorrow we’ll come home from work, bare our teeth at the family to warn them off, and settle in to enjoy Dragon Age: Origins. (Of course some lucky SOBs are already playing…sounds like some retailers broke the street date.)

I realized yesterday… I hadn’t finished Uncharted 2 yet, and here comes Dragon Age. I meant to finish it. I’m really close to the end (I think/hope…it’s getting to where if it goes much longer it’ll feel like its dragging on); who knew it was going to get hard(ish)?

But really I blame Runic Games. Torchlight grabbed me by the throat and wouldn’t let go all last week and into the weekend. And I’m still feeling the itch to play more.

So yeah, backlog of great games piling it (let’s not forget Borderlands). I think Dragon Age will be my last purchase for a while. I need to get ahead of this wave!

This game will unlock in approximately 15 hours

Has Microsoft eased off exclusives?

Posted on by Nimgimli

I was compiling a list of great (and potentially great) games for a holiday gift guide and was surprised to find that I’d listed 3 games that were PS3 exclusives and only 2 that were Xbox exclusive. That’s not enough of a difference to make a big deal about, but it did get me thinking about PS3 & Xbox 360 exclusives.

The way I see it, there are three types of exclusives:

1) Games developed by 1st and ‘2nd party’ devs (quotes because sometimes the company in question isn’t officially connected but may as well be, from the point of view of the game-buying audience). Examples from my list: Uncharted 2 from Naughty Dog for the PS3 and Forza Motorsport 3 from Turn 10 for the Xbox 360.

2) Games that 3rd party developers choose to only produce for one platform. Example from my list, Atlus’ Demon’s Souls for the PS3 and Bungie’s Halo 3: ODST for the Xbox 360. Bungie is almost a ‘quoted 2nd party’ dev but technically they’re now as independent as Rudolph and Hermey (with Halloween now behind us, let the Christmas references commence!).

3) Games with exclusive extras. Examples: playable Joker in the PS3 version of Batman Arkham Asylum or the exclusive (for a lengthy period at least) DLC for the Xbox 360 version of Fallout 3.

While the number of “Type 1” exclusives has remained steady, it seems like Types 2 and 3 are in decline. In the case of Type 2, presumably the PS3 is finally getting an install base that few 3rd party developers are willing to ignore. In prior years of this console generation, the vast majority of Type 2 exclusives have been Xbox 360 exclusives. Supporting the PS3 must just make financial sense at this point.

What’s really interesting, to me, is Microsoft backing off the Type 3 exclusives, which used to be a specialty of theirs. Drop by a dev’s office with a sack full of money and say “How about you take this and then keep your DLC off the PS3 for 6 months?” They did this with GTA IV, Fallout 3, even Netflix, and it seemed to work. People who owned both systems would naturally go Xbox in order to take advantage of the ‘exclusive’ DLC.

But Dragon Age: Origins and Modern Warfare 2 are launching in the next few weeks on both platforms and in neither case have we heard a peep about exclusive content for either system. Microsoft attended the MW2 event in LA (?) a month or so back as if it was a parent company, and they’re rolling out a MW2-branded Xbox 360, but as far as the game and following content goes, both platforms will get the same stuff.

Dragon Age: Origins, with its plans for years of DLC, seems like a perfect fit for Microsoft’s DLC lock-down strategy, but nope…nothing.

So I’m wondering why this is. Has Microsoft just decided that their market share is so dominant they don’t have to spend the money any more (and it’d be hard to argue with that logic). Or maybe there just aren’t enough dual-console owners to make it worth while? Or are the developers not willing to alienate PS3 owners in exchange for Microsoft’s offerings?

Whatever the reason, it’s good news for gamers, and particularly for PS3 owners, who used to so often be left on the outside looking in. But on the other hand, without exclusives, why do we need competing consoles? Are the 1st & 2nd party devs enough to make one system stand out over the other? Or is it the overall ecosystem (Xbox Live vs Playstation Network) enough? Reliability? Design?