Arkose: The Sims 3 has the same protection scheme; however, in order to download any patches (or additional content?) you must register the product with the EA Download Manager and download the updates through it. This effectively turns the product into a service, allowing EA to change the DRM or take away your access to the game (except in its unaltered, out-of-box form) at their discretion. I suspect that Dragon Age will be using the exact same system.

DarrkPhoenix: Thanks for the info- one more trick to keep an eye out for. Not so much of an issue if the game is mostly bug-free out of the box (and thus patches aren't a necessity if one must eventually do without), but seeing as both Bioware and EA aren't companies that I'd trust to get things right on the first go such a system would quite possibly be a deal-breaker for me if used in Dragon Age.

Faithful: Thanks for the info- one more trick to keep an eye out for. Not so much of an issue if the game is mostly bug-free out of the box (and thus patches aren't a necessity if one must eventually do without), but seeing as both Bioware and EA aren't companies that I'd trust to get things right on the first go such a system would quite possibly be a deal-breaker for me if used in Dragon Age.
It is stuff like this that makes me distrust what is said, and as I posted one page 1, their wording seemed a bit odd, but it seems no one is asking about it. I can't ask on their boards as I have deleted my account there.

deoren: I saw your post. I hope you get a straight answer.
Don't worry about that, as I imagine a lot of people will be hitting them up with the hard questions. I signed up for an account today in the hopes that I'd get some clarification.

Arkose: The Sims 3 has the same protection scheme; however, in order to download any patches (or additional content?) you must register the product with the EA Download Manager and download the updates through it. This effectively turns the product into a service, allowing EA to change the DRM or take away your access to the game (except in its unaltered, out-of-box form) at their discretion. I suspect that Dragon Age will be using the exact same system.

sheepdragon: Holy dicking fuck!

chautemoc: Bioware just confirmed they'll be issuing standalone patches as usual.

deoren: So far it seems they've ruled out about anything that would be a real problem. I would like them to go a step further like Ubisoft and not require the disc to be in the drive at all.
One would hope that they'll eventually release an official NOCD patch which will disable that.

Cliftor: That's ok, the whole reason I'm ok with a simple disk check is because WE can all GET our own NOCD patch ourselves :)
Seriously, who DOESN'T crack their own games? Disk swapping got old years ago.

deoren: I'm with you on that, but at some point obtaining the cracked exes will become much harder (legal issues perhaps) than it is now.