My experience with Origin and EA support

Digital Fragger

A Functioning God
2011, pre-ordered BF3 limited edition. Well never got time to play it and was busy with my steam library..
played the singleplayer campaign in offline mode and never touched the multiplayer part.

At end of 2012, decided to give multiplayer a try. Download the whole 15gb game, and tried to play the multiplayer. It took me to battlelog website when i clicked on play in origin. I was able to login into battlelog but strangely when i try to connect to a server, it asks me to buy battlefield 3. i was not able to play the game for few weeks. I was frustrated and very badly regretted my purchase.
One day i decided to contact EA support. Connected to EA live chat.,

The first thing they ask you to do is to verify ownership of the game. He asked me for a photocopy of Disc Serial number etc etc. He added a security question prompt to my account. I didn't knew it was added by the support guy, i thought origin just popped the add a security question dialog box because prolly i should have skipped that step while creating a account. I added a question, "what sucks?" and answer to it as "Origin".

To my astonishment he asked "Can you please provide me the answer to security question, what sucks?"

i really didn't knew what to tell to the Origin support guy. Anyways i answered it. Origin sucks. I explained my problem and after a verifying my ownership of the game, he said i accidentally missed the online access of the game and added it to my account. Well, it worked now, i was able to connect to servers.

I didn't notice it till yesterday. I was not able to connect to Back 2 Karkand maps. It asks me to buy B2K expansion Pack which was supposed to be free with the limited edition.





*i.imgur.com/7F0d3H2.jpg




weird, right ?

Well i'm sick with origin. Contacted EA support again. Explained the problem again.
And as usual, it was a half an hour process to verify the ownership of game. The support guy logged in my account to check the problem himself as he is skeptical about what i said.


He took more than one hour and repeatedly apologized saying "Sorry, it is taking longer than usual. I'll get it fixed soon." "Please be patient" sort of generic answers which probably they have already written down just for copy paste to customers.

I explained him, this was the second time I was contacting the support for the only game on origin. I have many games on steam and had never any issues and never conatcted steam support. Now, i got some interesting responses from EA support..

Support guy: I have never had any issues with steam either. :p

*i.imgur.com/hJN7IXu.png

Well, Steam's good. Everyone knows including EA. But Here comes the Origin goodness.
Ea Support added BF3 Premium(All DlCs in addition to B2K)to my account for free. ;)
 
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cyborg47

Technomancer
Awesome..
They can be really annoying pricks sometimes, but their damage control schemes are pretty good, free games and etc ;)
have fun.
 

CommanderShawnzer

Steam High Templar
i find Origin live chat crap
once i inquired about why i couldn't play mass effect 3 MP after the 1.4 patch
the guy asked me all the usual CC rep crap like "do you have the required ports open on your router"
"please update your game to the latest version" "please update origin to the latest version"
"uninstall and re-install your game"
after he finished his crap i told him that i did all this even before i could chat with him
he was : "i will check with our technical support"
and did not turn up for 1 hour
i closed the chat window
and swore i will never buy an EA product again
 

bippukt

In the zone
I have a lot of games on Steam and a few games on Origin. The advantages of Steam over Origin most people know, but in my opinion there are a few things that Origin does better:

- Better offline mode. I haven't had any problems with it, whereas Steam's offline mode has been really iffy unless I put it into offline mode myself while the internet connection was available.
- Better customer support. The fact that you get to chat with a live customer support agent within 15-60 minutes is excellent. On Steam, it takes 1-5 days unless it is a payment problem and sometimes even then. I played World of Warcraft for 18 months and I paid $15 per month and even there the response wasn't faster than this, except in case of account hijacking etc where it was really fast. And you were just as likely to get the standard CS bull response which might not be related to your query at all. And yes, I was also asked for the answer to the secret question by live chat.
- I can use my debit card directly to buy games on Origin. It doesn't reject the payment even though no 3D Secure password is asked for. I don't know how the bank allows EA to do this, but it is good for me as I do not a credit card.

Overall, Origin is OK. I still prefer Steam, but I won't turn a game down over Origin.
 

cyborg47

Technomancer
- I can use my debit card directly to buy games on Origin. It doesn't reject the payment even though no 3D Secure password is asked for. I don't know how the bank allows EA to do this, but it is good for me as I do not a credit card.

Are you serious!? I want to know more about this please!!!!!
 

akkies_2000

Journeyman
Having dealt with Ubisoft support, I feel EA's support is so much better as you can just get resolution over chat.

Ubisoft will revert with automated response in 3 days and threaten to close the ticket if you dont respond in 48 hours. They will not read the complaint properly, wont even check attachments which you know they will ask for anyways.

I've stopped playing Far Cry 3 for over a month now since it is not saving my progress unless I play a story mission - even that does not work sometimes. People with pirated copies have found ways to move over savegame issue while I'm struggling with their support.
 
OP
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Digital Fragger

A Functioning God
Having dealt with Ubisoft support, I feel EA's support is so much better as you can just get resolution over chat.

Ubisoft will revert with automated response in 3 days and threaten to close the ticket if you dont respond in 48 hours. They will not read the complaint properly, wont even check attachments which you know they will ask for anyways.

I've stopped playing Far Cry 3 for over a month now since it is not saving my progress unless I play a story mission - even that does not work sometimes. People with pirated copies have found ways to move over savegame issue while I'm struggling with their support.

yup, even i faced that with Ubi support. I accidentally got Anno 2070 for free into my uplay account and i mailed to them about it since i don't want to risk my account for something that i'm anyways not gonna play, but they didn't seem to be interested.
First i got an automated email saying my mail was received and is being directed to appropriate dept. or something like that. then another mail from bot that i didn't respond in time and my ticket was closed.
 
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bippukt

In the zone
Indeed. And that is why we should encourage competitors like Origin, Gamersgate etc. You have seen what Microsoft's monopoly has done to the OS market. Valve has a history of being good to its customers, but times change.
 
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