Mass Effect 3 time activation

Kalmah

Diamond Member
Oct 2, 2003
3,692
1
76
<rant>
I've re-installed 3 times allready. A new motherboard and processor should be arriving any minute now. It looks like from reading other peoples experiences that my game is going to disable itself. My legit payed-for copy. I will have to go download a crack so that I can play what I have purchased.

I love Bioware. But since EA bought them.. ugh.

I always thought all the moaning and bickering about the activations on EA games was kind of silly. But now I see the pain. If they don't release a de-activation tool within the next hour EA is being permabanned.

</rant>
 

EvilComputer92

Golden Member
Aug 25, 2004
1,316
0
0
I think if you have reinstalled 3 times on the same machine it should be ok. I think the limit is 5 times across different systems each time. In any case the crack will fix your issue.
 

Red Storm

Lifer
Oct 2, 2005
14,233
234
106
You know, before you immediately jump on the crack bandwagon, you could do what they suggest you to do, which is give them a call and request more activations. I've done it before, and it works.
 

Kalmah

Diamond Member
Oct 2, 2003
3,692
1
76
Originally posted by: Red Storm
You know, before you immediately jump on the crack bandwagon, you could do what they suggest you to do, which is give them a call and request more activations. I've done it before, and it works.

That's wasting my time when I could have just pirated the damn game in the first place and never have to worry about it.

I don't pirate software.. But EA's anti-piracy strategy makes me wish that's what I had done in the first place. Shows how reduntant it is.
 

geoffry

Senior member
Sep 3, 2007
599
0
76
Originally posted by: Red Storm
You know, before you immediately jump on the crack bandwagon, you could do what they suggest you to do, which is give them a call and request more activations. I've done it before, and it works.

I was wondering how successful people had been with that, how many times have you phoned in?
 

MustISO

Lifer
Oct 9, 1999
11,927
12
81
I've been planning on buying a used copy of Mass Effect. I guess I need to make sure it has some activations left. Hopefully this will be removed in a future patch.
 

Fenixgoon

Lifer
Jun 30, 2003
33,566
13,242
136
Originally posted by: MustISO
I've been planning on buying a used copy of Mass Effect. I guess I need to make sure it has some activations left. Hopefully this will be removed in a future patch.

fwiw, you can get it $20 new from amazon. i was thinking of picking it up.
 

Red Storm

Lifer
Oct 2, 2005
14,233
234
106
Originally posted by: Kalmah
Originally posted by: Red Storm
You know, before you immediately jump on the crack bandwagon, you could do what they suggest you to do, which is give them a call and request more activations. I've done it before, and it works.

That's wasting my time when I could have just pirated the damn game in the first place and never have to worry about it.

I don't pirate software.. But EA's anti-piracy strategy makes me wish that's what I had done in the first place. Shows how reduntant it is.

Downloading a crack is also wasting your time, but why not go with the option that's legal? Seriously, what is up with people about this? Phoning in works as long as you're a legit customer who paid for it.

If a game's lousy DRM irks you, you're well within your rights to be mad at the publisher's decision to use it. But that doesn't mean you should go pirate it. If you're against the DRM, don't buy or pirate the game.
 

Fox5

Diamond Member
Jan 31, 2005
5,957
7
81
Originally posted by: Red Storm
Originally posted by: Kalmah
Originally posted by: Red Storm
You know, before you immediately jump on the crack bandwagon, you could do what they suggest you to do, which is give them a call and request more activations. I've done it before, and it works.

That's wasting my time when I could have just pirated the damn game in the first place and never have to worry about it.

I don't pirate software.. But EA's anti-piracy strategy makes me wish that's what I had done in the first place. Shows how reduntant it is.

Downloading a crack is also wasting your time, but why not go with the option that's legal? Seriously, what is up with people about this? Phoning in works as long as you're a legit customer who paid for it.

If a game's lousy DRM irks you, you're well within your rights to be mad at the publisher's decision to use it. But that doesn't mean you should go pirate it. If you're against the DRM, don't buy or pirate the game.

What's wrong with downloading the crack for a legit copy? Even for games with simple cd checks, I make sure to do that. It reduces boot up times (since the drm-free exes are often like 1/4th the size, plus no cd check), gets rid of my need to have a disk in the drive, and half the time the cd checks fail for me anyway.
 

Red Storm

Lifer
Oct 2, 2005
14,233
234
106
Originally posted by: Fox5
Originally posted by: Red Storm
Originally posted by: Kalmah
Originally posted by: Red Storm
You know, before you immediately jump on the crack bandwagon, you could do what they suggest you to do, which is give them a call and request more activations. I've done it before, and it works.

That's wasting my time when I could have just pirated the damn game in the first place and never have to worry about it.

I don't pirate software.. But EA's anti-piracy strategy makes me wish that's what I had done in the first place. Shows how reduntant it is.

Downloading a crack is also wasting your time, but why not go with the option that's legal? Seriously, what is up with people about this? Phoning in works as long as you're a legit customer who paid for it.

If a game's lousy DRM irks you, you're well within your rights to be mad at the publisher's decision to use it. But that doesn't mean you should go pirate it. If you're against the DRM, don't buy or pirate the game.

What's wrong with downloading the crack for a legit copy? Even for games with simple cd checks, I make sure to do that. It reduces boot up times (since the drm-free exes are often like 1/4th the size, plus no cd check), gets rid of my need to have a disk in the drive, and half the time the cd checks fail for me anyway.

Well I was talking about pirating games, not downloading cracks to games you've paid for. But my whole point is that people seem to view contacting the publisher or developer as this great, terrible thing, when in fact it's not.
 

Kalmah

Diamond Member
Oct 2, 2003
3,692
1
76
I'd rather not. But honestly, my point was that those who pirate the game have less crap to deal with than those who legally purchase it. The publisher makes it harder for the legit buyer with their anti-piracy crap than it does the illigal downloader.
 

Excelsior

Lifer
May 30, 2002
19,047
18
81
Originally posted by: Fenixgoon
Originally posted by: MustISO
I've been planning on buying a used copy of Mass Effect. I guess I need to make sure it has some activations left. Hopefully this will be removed in a future patch.

fwiw, you can get it $20 new from amazon. i was thinking of picking it up.

For $20, definitely. I didn't regret it at $40.
 

mindcycle

Golden Member
Jan 9, 2008
1,901
0
76
The point of limited installations is to hinder the used market. It's not to protect anyone from piracy. What it does to the consumer is add extra roadblocks so they'll consider pirating the game instead of paying for it, which was shown with Spore.

I bought Mass Effect and couldn't even play it for more than an hour before it crashed on me. I used up two installation trying it on two different machines. The second machine was too outdated to run it properly. I guess I could sell it, but I don't really want to call up EA, get more installations, then make $15 or less selling it on eBay or whatever. Or I could screw whoever I sold it to and not tell them. Looks like EA's goal has worked nicely, at least in my case.
 

TheVrolok

Lifer
Dec 11, 2000
24,254
4,092
136
Originally posted by: Kalmah
I'd rather not. But honestly, my point was that those who pirate the game have less crap to deal with than those who legally purchase it. The publisher makes it harder for the legit buyer with their anti-piracy crap than it does the illigal downloader.

These generalizations, like most, are false. Not that I enjoy DRM, but I will say that with Crysis, BioShock, Mass Effect, Spore, etc. I have had absolutely 0 issues. So clearly pirating it is not always easier.
 

Maximilian

Lifer
Feb 8, 2004
12,604
15
81
Originally posted by: Kalmah
<rant>
I've re-installed 3 times allready. A new motherboard and processor should be arriving any minute now. It looks like from reading other peoples experiences that my game is going to disable itself. My legit payed-for copy. I will have to go download a crack so that I can play what I have purchased.

I love Bioware. But since EA bought them.. ugh.

I always thought all the moaning and bickering about the activations on EA games was kind of silly. But now I see the pain. If they don't release a de-activation tool within the next hour EA is being permabanned.

</rant>

Yeah well like you all the other people who think its "silly" *cough* chizow *cough* will learn the hard way. Phone them up and explain your situation, they might give you another key or yeah just get a crack.
 

zerocool84

Lifer
Nov 11, 2004
36,041
472
126
I'm glad that I don't have any games with activation limit. I've reinstalled my OS 3 times within the past month because I've been tinkering with it. I'd already use up all my activations.
 

PhatoseAlpha

Platinum Member
Apr 10, 2005
2,131
21
81
I don't get it. They'll happily replace your activations with a single phone call. It's not like going a getting a crack is zero effort either. And the while that latter will probably work, it's still got a significantly better chance of not working or being packaged with malware then the former.