Dragon Age: Inquisition Diary 1, December 5th, 2014

Dragon Age: Inquisition Diary 2, December 9th, 2014

I’d been so looking forward to the launch of the game. Perhaps more than any game since Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. I had pre-ordered the game and the strategy guide. In full geek mode, I planned on starting the game the day it was released.

But, as it turned out, the Universe didn’t really so much want me to start playing the game immediately.

First, delivery of the game got screwed up, so I didn’t get it until two soul-crushing days after the release date. (I know, you think YOU have problems??)

But that was small potatoes compared to what came next. I launched the game, installed the updates, logged into the Dragon Age servers, went to import my World State from Dragon Age Keep¹ … and my World State was not there.

Nonsense. How could this be? I tried again. And again. To my horror, the only World State available to me was the default one.

Where’s my save file???

Well, I didn’t spend hundreds of hours on earlier Dragon Age games and dozens of minutes on the Dragon Age Keep recreating my personal saga just to end up having to play the generic World State! This would not stand!!

So I tried to call Origin, which is Electronic Arts’ extremely irritating attempt to compete with Steam. Bad idea. After spending enough time online to finish an online bachelors degree, the person was just starting to help me when the call disconnected.

I sighed. Took a deep breath. Called back. But NO, it was now twelve minutes after Origin phone support was closed for the weekend.²

Next I get in the queue for online chat support. This takes over an hour of waiting, and the helper I got only had stock answers for my questions. I had, of course, tried everything he was suggesting. He told me he was escalating my issue to the hifalutin tech support. He promised me that Hifalutin Tech Support would email me with a response at some unspecified point in the future.

I am not embarrassed³ to admit that I became a bit unhinged at this juncture. “OH, NO YOU DON’T!!” I screamed (via keyboard). “YOU AND I BOTH KNOW THAT THEY WILL NEVER EVER CONTACT ME.” “Of course they will,” purred my helpful chat robot. “Don’t worry.”

And for the record, it took OVER THREE WEEKS for anyone at EA to get back to me! THREE WEEKS. And the response was in the form of a very pro forma email with stock troubleshooting tips that, of course, I’d already tried the first night. Bioware should be embarrassed to be in business with a company that treats its customers so poorly.

Anyway, by this time it’s already 10 on Friday night. The game has been out since Tuesday. And I was still not playing it.

I earn most of my income as a tech trainer. So the irony is not lost on me that when my own personal tech is failing me, I tend to absolutely lose it. When the internet goes out at my house it isn’t pretty. At this point I was on the verge of becoming full-bore insane when I remembered something.

A faint bell began tingling at the back of my brain, barely able to make itself heard above the din of the crazy. Wasn’t there a problem with my Sony account? Was it possible that I had accidentally created two accounts, and that Origin was only able to talk to the wrong one?

I took a breath, and got Sony on the phone. YES, you can get Playstation Network tech support on the phone late on a Friday night! It turns out that yes, I had two accounts. The super helpful and nice tech person worked with me to create a dual login setup on my PS4. My optimism began to grow. It helped that the tech was, of course, a gamer, and he was utterly sympathetic to how upset I was. “I’d be nuts, too!” he told me soothingly.

Within another half hour, I was operational, and successfully imported all 300 of my choices and decisions from the earlier Dragon Age games into my new game. Huzzah!!

This is me after talking with Playstation Customer Support

Up Next: Why importing these choices matters so much!

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¹ See the last installment

² This sordid scene is happening on a Friday night

³ Much