Can't you play Spore offline without the need for all this crap?

No

Here's EA's first E-mail response; which had arrived Saturday, October 4, 2008 at 5:56pm.

Please remember that I brought this issue to EA's attention during my phonecall on Thursday, October 2, 2008 at 8:00am.

Thats more than two full days for a real response. Note that my issue is still not resolved, as they need even more proof. As if I couldn't have done this during the phone call... I don't see why I had to wait two days for this.

Anyhow, I turned this into a thumbnail to make it easier for people to read this thread:

This screen-shot shows the date received:


Don't spam my E-mail in that picture please, I use it for all of my forum registrations.

This screen-shot shows the entire message:


Apparently they either don't believe that an error has happened or my particular error is so outstandingly rare - that they just felt the need to have me take a screenshot of it. After I respond, I'll make another post so we can accurately time how long their response takes. Please note I won't count the time between the E-mail's time, and the delayed time it took for me to actually respond.

So thus far, the total time to get this issue resolved is: 2 days, 9 hours.

Issue Status: Unresolved.

Wow... I'm speechless. Honestly, it seems to me that EA's actually trying to kill and bury their own product. Or maybe even their PC development teams. Because I cannot find any other rational explanation for this blatant disregard for their paying customers.

Went to EA's site to see if I can find out information on my account and this came up on the front page. I think it's quite fitting.



Is there a way to find out how many installs they've charged your Spore account so far? I want to be able to know if it strikes off a second one so I know why it did it.

ZsoSahaal wrote:Is there a way to find out how many installs they've charged your Spore account so far? I want to be able to know if it strikes off a second one so I know why it did it.

I just tried doing the same thing, 1 - the "My Account" page seems really sluggish and bugged, with images not loading etc, and 2 - I didn't see anything like that, so for the time being I assume we can't.

Sunday, October 5, 2008:

12:20pm: Started E-mail
12:27pm: Finished and sent off the E-mails.

Another seven minutes of my time spent trying to resolve this issue, on top of the twenty minute phone call, and two day wait. So far this easy resolution is becoming quite difficult.

What I did:

Quite simply, I followed their instructions to the Letter.

- I clicked Start
- I clicked Run
- I typed in DXDIAG
- I clicked Save All Information
- I saved it in My Documents

Then

- I tried to start Spore again on the upstairs computer
- I took a screenshot of the error by pressing Print Screen.
- I pasted the screenshot in MSPaint.
- I saved it as a .jpg.

I then clicked the exceedingly large link extended from http://ea.custhelp.com/ given to me in the E-mail.

From there I typed in, "I've enclosed the SporeCrash.JPG and DXDIAG.txt here."

I uploaded both attachments. I sent the reply there.

Then I returned to the E-mail, and I clicked "Reply". There I typed "I've enclosed the SporeCrash.JPG and DXDIAG.txt here" and I uploaded both attachments again, and sent yet another reply.

We'll just have to wait and see how long it'll take for them to respond. I'll be watching: I hope you guys are too.

Total Time I've Wasted: 27 minutes.
Total Time I've Waited: 2 days, 9 hours.
Issue Status: Unresolved.

Well, I just checked my E-mail again; and this is what I see:



Naturally EA thinks the problems instigated by SecuROM's SPORE like licensing policies are caused by my video card drivers, a full temp folder, background tasks and of course, Hardware Sound Acceleration settings.

For the sake of amusement, I'm going to do all of these tasks before responding to them.

Total Time I've Wasted: 27 minutes.
Total Time I've Waited: 2 days, 9 hours, 30 minutes.
Issue Status: Unresolved.

Sunday, October 5, 2008:

2:02pm: Started updating the computer.
2:34pm: Finished updating the computer, and sent off the E-mails.

I've responded again after following each of the suggestions made by EA's automated response system.

I took another DXDIAG, and another screen-shot of the error.

Then I responded attaching both the .txt and the .jpg of each again with the following message enclosed:

Dairuka wrote:While I realize your last response was more automated, or copy and paste than anything - I still took the time to follow every step presented to me. The video card is fully updated. The sound card is fully updated. The hardware sound acceleration has been changed to Basic. The temp file has been removed, and I tried Spore both with and without something running in the background. I've enclosed my latest DXDIAG, and another picture of the error message.

It's clear to me that none of these actions will work in my favor - because the problem I'm having with Spore is caused due to the fact that I've already used up my 3 "Total" installations. Two of which had been wasted due to reformatting two computer hard-drives that the game was originally installed on. If it's not too much trouble, I'd like to have two of those activations de-activated, so that I can actually play my copy of Spore on my computer upstairs.

Lets see if I get a proper response.

Total Time I've Wasted: 59 minutes.
Total Time I've Waited: 2 days, 9 hours, 30 minutes.
Issue Status: Unresolved.

Man... Forget the EA SPORE.-up... YOur wasting your time... and money... Cant you see? They are trying to say that you have to go to the dark side...

Well, I got another automated response pretty quickly telling me I should tweak my firewall. Considering the computer in question doesn't have a firewall as of yet, (I just reformatted it, and haven't touched it since.)



So, I pretty much turned off Windows Firewall, and naturally I got another error. No point in taking a screenshot of it this time.

I responded again:

Dairuka wrote:I turned off Windows Firewall, and naturally it did not work. No screen-shot enclosed.

Because this is a problem with SecuROM's 3 computer licensing. I need an actual person to speak with, so I can hopefully get two installations de-activated, or at the very least garner more activations so that I can play Spore on my other computer.

Naturally I turned on Windows Firewall after trying Spore out.

This is getting kind of sad. I feel sorry for everybody else who has to go through this bull-crap to be able to play Spore.

Total Time I've Wasted: 1 hour, 2 minutes.
Total Time I've Waited: 2 days, 9 hours, 42 minutes.
Issue Status: STILL Unresolved.

Wow, just wow. Hey did you check to make sure that your computer was plugged in? Why do they always ask you this question when you call tech support.

LOL at Roddy. I had to deal with him when securom first infested and nearly destroyed my pc back with sims 2: bon voyage. EA for months even refused to admit that securom was on the game. Then they made people jump through hoops saying the problems were due to insuffient pc specs or a virus or game custom content.
It wasn't until someone from sony who deals with the securom tech support posted- nearly 5 weeks after the bv release that EA finally admitted they put securom on the game.

I spent a total of 19 hours and 41 minutes on the phone talking to EA tech support people over the course of a few weeks. All who barely spoke english by the way- and none of them even knew anything about securom. My issues and tech support tickets are still opened after over a year. EA never bothered to even help anyone over at the sims 2 forums. After 6 months they finally released a securom uninstall program. LOL it doesn't work. It only removes part of the securom program. And it only ran under the version with bon voyage. Once securom was updated and patched with newer versions and new sims 2 expansion packs- the EA program didn't work at all.

The hoops that EA made us jump through were amusing. The logs and their totally foolish "tips" were just lame. I still have to laugh at the " are you sure your pc is plugged in?" I was on the phone with the rep and he asked me for the dxdiag log and for me to read it off to him. Then he asked me that. I was like duh...... I just read you the specs after running dxdiag. His reply was.... "well did you check anyway?" I had to stop talking to him for 3 minutes and just laugh. Honestly, their tech support leaves a lot to be desired. IF you have ever played the sims or posted on the sims forums.... you would really see how bad their support is. There are countless posts and copies of tech support emails that people have put up. People over there have learned to trouble shoot the problems themselves or turn to the community for help. EA still has done nothing over the whole problems with securom and the sims 2 players. People can't even install the games, still.

holy crap!!! that might explain why when i tryed to reinstall spore after it got erased it didnt work!!!!!! thank you holy crap man THAN YOU!!!! but... now my game wont work [b]SPORE IT!!!!

This is truly incredible.

I bought Spore with the belief that the whole 3 install thing was a bit of a storm in a tea cup and that if the limit was reached through actions such as upgrading then a simple phone call or email would be able to rectify the issue.

After reading this thread I'll almost certainly never buy an EA product again, I've already used up 2 of my installs on the same computer (dual OS - Mac and PC, the Mac version didn't work properly), to think that I can only (legally) install it once more if I upgrade is just ridiculous. Obviously I can pirate it so it's not a big issue for me, but it's incredible that a company would actually treat its paying customers with such contempt.

incredible.