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Author Topic: Electronic Arts (Compliment)  (Read 6767 times)

Deozaan

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Electronic Arts (Compliment)
« on: January 10, 2009, 07:23 PM »
Dear EA,

Thank you for your wonderful support! You have fixed my problem entirely!

In the process of following the latest troubleshooting steps, I followed the directions very carefully. I made a copy of My Spore Creations and then manually eradicated every last trace of Spore from my system as per your instructions, with the exception of the My Spore Creations backup, of course. Isn't this long entire process of removing everything from all these obscure locations on my hard drive and from within the registry supposed to be done by the uninstaller? Alas, I admit my own shameful ignorance in comparison to the great intelligence of EA's tech support and dutifully followed all instructions you have so generously imparted upon me.

Then I reinstalled Spore, signed into my Spore account and attempted to install the patch. It was here that my own stupidity temporarily foiled my progress.

In my foolishness, I launched the game and allowed it to download the patch. I don't think the crashing problem wanted to be solved, because it made every effort to keep me from patching the game, starting first by purposely limiting the bandwidth allowed from your servers to my computer. Nevertheless, I persisted and waited about 45 minutes for the patch to finish downloading. Take that! I thought my victory was close at hand. The game asked me if I wanted to install the patch, and naturally I said I did. But then the wily game crash retaliated by giving me an error saying the patch could not be installed. I knew this wasn't OK, but I clicked the OK button anyway and it brought me back to the main menu. This was indeed a tricky beast to slay, and I figured I would have to resort to tricky tactics as well.

I was wise to this particular trick, as I had similar problems the first time I tried to patch the game from 1.0 to 1.1. So I checked the cache folders for the EA Download Manager, but to my chagrin they were empty (just as they were the last time I encountered this problem). At this point I began to wonder why I even had that useless EADM installed. It never seems to do anything. Unwilling to spend another 45 minutes downloading a patch that won't install again, I retreated from my attack and accepted defeat. For the time being! The crashing bugs may have won the battle, but I knew that through following your enlightened instructions, even a simple fool like me would be able to win the war!

Today I decided to give it another try and had a much more successful experience. I must have caught the bugs off guard as they didn't have time to limit my bandwidth or keep the patch from installing. The patch downloaded from within the game in about 10 minutes and installed correctly without a hitch. At this point I realized it was practically guaranteed to be blue skies and vast space from here on out! So I launched the game again, or maybe it automatically launched itself, I can't quite recall at this stage. (I hope you don't hold it against a simpleminded idiot like myself that I don't remember this exact detail.) I let the intro movie play and allowed the game to log me in to the Spore servers. Success after success!

All that was left for me to do to ensure my victory over the bugs was to load my game and see if these extraordinarily complex troubleshooting steps actually allowed me to visit my home planet without crashing the game. It was at this point when the crashing bugs revealed the aces up their sleeves. There was no saved game to load.

Apparently, if you only back up the contents of My Spore Creations, which consist of various image files and videos of your creations, it doesn't actually back up the save data for the game!

"Oh no!" I thought, "I've lost all of my saved games and hours spent building, creating, exploring, expanding, etc." And with a heavy heart I felt the hopelessness of defeat.

I began to ask myself questions such as: How could the brilliance of EA Tech Support have failed me? How could the well trained, highly educated, unimaginably omniscient technicians at EA have failed me?

It took quite some time to understand, but the gears started turning, and the fleas jumped off my head as the temperature began to rise to uncomfortable levels they weren't accustomed to, and I realized that you had not failed me. You are, in fact, saviors! You absolutely solved the problem beyond a shadow of a doubt!

Now, forgive me for being a little bit slow. As I alluded to earlier, I'm not the sharpest spoon in the drawer. But what I eventually realized was that with no saved game data to load, there was absolutely no way the game could crash when I visited my home planet. I don't even have a home planet anymore! Indeed, as I let it sit here on the main menu, showing the spiral galaxy and six uninhabited planets on which to start new games, the application is very stable and it does not appear as though it will crash any time soon.

Victory is ours! Your plan was incomprehensible genius! I'm sorry I ever doubted you. Will you please forgive my unfaithfulness?

Forgive me if this is out of place, as I would never assume to understand your brilliance, but I think I have an even better method to keep the game from ever crashing again. If I just follow the steps you outlined previously, except just stop before reinstalling the game, I'll have no game to crash either! No home planet, no game, no crashes! It's absolutely brilliant.

Though there is one area of your ingenious plan that I could use a little more clarification on. Without a home planet and without a game, what am I supposed to do with those tiny little images of my creations that I backed up? The game (I haven't eradicated every last trace of it from my system again yet) doesn't even recognize half of them as being my creations anymore, and they won't really do anything neat like they did when I spent so many hours building, creating, and perfecting them. I'm almost beginning to think I should just delete these as well, but I know, with your unending intelligence, that you told me to back them up for a reason. Please shed some light on a poor halfwit who lacks the understanding.

I praise you for your incredible and undeniably great wisdom! You have helped me so much, every step of the way. I am completely and absolutely satisfied in every way possible, thanks to your generous support. You have my eternal gratitude.

Thankful always,
Deozaan
« Last Edit: January 10, 2009, 10:21 PM by Deozaan »

Deozaan

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Re: Electronic Arts (Compliment)
« Reply #1 on: January 10, 2009, 07:26 PM »
By the way, here is the brilliant tech support that finally solved my problems I was having with Spore:

Greetings,

Thank you for contacting Electronic Arts.

I’m sorry for the difficulty that you are having with Spore. With regards to your concern, it is possible that the issue is caused by an improper installation or corruption in the registry. When such an occurrence happens, it’s best to manually remove all of the components.

You can manually uninstall the game by removing the files and registry keys associated with it. Be sure to follow these steps exactly as they appear to prevent accidental file/program deletion on your system.

Backing up the save files:

1. Click on the Start button (Windows button for Vista).
2. Choose the My Documents folder (Documents for Vista).
3. Right-Click the My Spore Creations folder, then choose Copy.
4. Right-click on the desktop, then choose Paste.
5. Go back to the My Documents folder and right-click the My Spore Creations, then choose delete.
Note: To restore your SPORE progress, simply move this folder back into the My Documents folder.

Delete the game folders (in the default location):

1. Click the Start button on the Windows Taskbar.
2. Click My Computer.
3. Double-click the Local Disk (by default, it should be C
4. Double-click the Program Files folder.
5. Double-click the Electronic Arts folder.
6. Right-click on the SPORE folder and choose Delete.

The Spore settings also needs to be deleted in the Documents and Settings folder. Here are the steps:

1. Click the Start button on the Windows Taskbar.
2. Click My Computer.
3. Double-click the Local Disk (by default, it should be C
4. Double click the Documents and Settings folder.
5. Double click the folder with your Username.
6. Double click the Application Data folder.

If you do not see Application Data simply do the following:

1. Click on Tools from the menu at the top of the screen.
2. Choose Folder Options from the drop down menu.
3. Choose the View tab.
4. Click on the Show hidden files and folders radio button under Advanced settings.
5. Click on Apply and then OK.
6. The Application Data folder should now be visible.
7. Right click the SPORE folder and select Delete.

Next, delete the game registry keys:

1. Click on the Start button.
2. Click on Run.
3. Type regedit in the text field.
4. Click File and then choose Export.
5. Name the file reg_backup and make sure the Export Range is set to All.
6. Click Save you will now be returned to the Registry Editor window.
7. Click the plus sign next to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE.
8. Click the plus sign next to Software.
9. Click the plus sign next to Electronic Arts.
10. Right-click on the key named SPORE and choose Delete.
11. Right-click on the key named SPORE(TM) and choose Delete.
12. Click on the minus sign next to Electronic Arts, if there is one present.
13. Click the plus sign next to Microsoft.
14. Click the plus sign next to Windows.
15. Click the plus sign next to CurrentVersion.
16. Click the plus sign next to Uninstall.
17. Right-click on one of the following keys and choose Delete.

{9DF0196F-B6B8-4C3A-8790-DE42AA530101} - SPORE

18. Close the Windows Registry Editor.

Delete the uninstall files:

1. Click the Start button on the Windows Taskbar.
2. Click My Computer.
3. Double-click the Local Disk (by default, it should be C
4. Double-click the Program Files folder.
5. Click Tools on the Menu Bar and select Folder Options.
Note: For Windows Vista, if no Menu Bar is shown, click Organize; highlight Layout and click Menu Bar.

6. Click the View tab.
7. In the Advanced settings box, under the Files and Folders menu and under the Hidden files and folders menu, click the button next to Show hidden files and folders.
8. Double-click the Install Shield Installation Information folder.
9. Right-click on one of the following folders and select Delete.

{9DF0196F-B6B8-4C3A-8790-DE42AA530101} - SPORE

10. On your desktop, right-click the Recycle Bin and choose Empty Recycle Bin.

SPORE will now be uninstalled from your computer.You should now be able to install SPORE without any issues.

Now you need to update the game with the latest patch available for the game. Please click on the following link to download the latest patch for the game:-

http://spore.com/patch

If you need any further assistance regarding your question, please let us know by updating this incident.

Sincerely,

EARep Matteo
Player Relations
Electronic Arts

EA really are the best!  :-* :-*

gexecuter

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Re: Electronic Arts (Compliment)
« Reply #2 on: January 10, 2009, 09:53 PM »
Poor Deoozan, maybe you can still recover your saved files if you try a file recovery program. It's a longshot tough.
Mouser is made of win and awesome!

housetier

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Re: Electronic Arts (Compliment)
« Reply #3 on: January 10, 2009, 10:10 PM »
That's a game people pay money for, right?

gexecuter

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Re: Electronic Arts (Compliment)
« Reply #4 on: January 10, 2009, 10:17 PM »
That's a game people pay money for, right?


No, you pay the game with your soul.
Mouser is made of win and awesome!

Deozaan

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Re: Electronic Arts (Compliment)
« Reply #5 on: January 10, 2009, 10:23 PM »
That's a game people pay money for, right?

$50 for the standard version or I think $70 for the Galactic edition.

fenixproductions

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Re: Electronic Arts (Compliment)
« Reply #6 on: January 10, 2009, 10:24 PM »
2housetier
You're paying for a possibility to gain knowledge from tech support and for making You realise how small You are ;)

PS. I could never get through instruction because:

1. I am always trying to avoid "Program Files" directory while installing stuff,
2. no "Recycle Bin" icon here (I've disabled this feature long time ago).

I would rather like to ask EA about "Should I create missing elements first?"...
« Last Edit: January 10, 2009, 10:31 PM by fenixproductions »

housetier

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Re: Electronic Arts (Compliment)
« Reply #7 on: January 11, 2009, 08:02 AM »
Since their tech support is vastly superior to their product, shouldn't they turn things around and give the game away for free and then charge for the support?

I think people would be happy to pay for a good quality "product".

Deozaan

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Re: Electronic Arts (Compliment)
« Reply #8 on: January 11, 2009, 11:01 AM »
Since their tech support is vastly superior to their product, shouldn't they turn things around and give the game away for free and then charge for the support?

They'd probably make more money that way.