I hate computers.
I was rather hoping that all my game-related bile had dried up from yesterday's prolonged outburst at DLC. Unfortunately not, as an infuriating experience this morning has proved.
What is it with games (and for that matter, other online services too) having ridiculous account systems that make the user fly through freaking hoops just to do the simplest things?
Ages ago, I enjoyed playing Company of Heroes, a WW-II themed real-time strategy game, made by developer Relic. Then I bought the expansion, Opposing Fronts, and much fun (read: swearing) occurred while I faffed about trying to get the two products to work in harmony due to the game's bizarre online account system.
Recently, after a long absense from the game, I picked up the mini-expansion, Tales of Valour (I refuse to spell it the American way!) for a sweet £2.50 deal on Steam.
Right, I'm thinking, just fire up Opposing Fronts, key in the ToV code from my steam purchase, and everything should work. I can have a brief game against the AI, play with shiny things, done.
No, of course it is never that simple. I'm greeted with the Relic Online login screen. I've long since forgotten my account, so I get the piece of paper I wrote it down on (after forgetting it once in the past and having a massive pain in the neck).
Login! Oh wait, I can't, because it tells me the details are wrong. They can't be, since I haven't changed them since writing them down. That means that the game needs to be patched before it will recognise my login details.
This leads to a lengthy attempt at installing a small 26mb patch through the game's updater.
Does that work? No prizes for the answer. I open all the router ports the game requires for updating, to absolutely no avail. It just tells me that the download failed. No reason or anything, natch.
I then sod around for about 45 minutes (no exaggeration, I've been sat here for a full hour now) Googling how to actually find the patch version of the game, so I can manually update it, and then perform that. Naturally that required this weird "Cancel download to get up prompt for disc validation." dance.
Excuse me, but how the bloody hell am I meant to know cancelling the download instead of just letting it fail will let me validate my game with the disc?! Why is there no "use disc" button? /tearhairout.
Apparently all this assorted bollocks is in place to provide an easier experience for the user. Since that is obviously rubbish (having to download at least 10 patches does not equal user friendliness), it is clearly a purely anti-piracy measure. Got to love how those have a tendency to screw up the experience for legitimate customers only.
I'm pretty sure the pirates don't even have a login screen on their version, so no need to bull around with all this kind of rubbish, plus they get the game free.
Nice job gaming industry, nice job!
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