Until ME3 is released and installed by someone, all we have is supposition. That said, I plan on playing ME3 even though I refuse to support Origin with my monies*, and so I will volunteer to hook Origin's nasty process with my handy-dandy process monitor and tell you what I find.
In the meantime, someone has already done that over on Reddit about a year ago, and the RockPaperShotgun forums were kind enough to capture the gist of the argument in this thread here:
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/forums/ ... r-computer
It has been a year, after all, and I'm as paranoid as the next when it comes to EA, but I watched like a hawk when SW:TOR was installed (which doesn't require the Origin client but *does* require an Origin account, suggesting that they are in fact linked) and I so far haven't spotted any misbehavior. There's a brain-dead stupid move in the launcher that requires admin rights, but that's lazy programming and Ye Olde Process Monitor confirms that it does behave exactly as advertised in that when it closes and launches TOR, it really does close and launch TOR. I also haven't noticed any suspicious port activity, but all that tells me is that if they ARE sending my secrets out over the wire it's buried in the game data itself. I rather doubt they are; they *need* SW:TOR to succeed, and that would *not* help.
So I'm willing to extend the slight benefit of the doubt and take the cautious position at this time that EA is *trying* to play this one straight -- it'd have to be dumber than we know it already to be to not know how much it has pissed off the fanbase lately -- and is just not very bright. Or rather, is very bad at communicating to its legal team that making vague, sweeping, threatening statements in the EULA is a Bad Thing when addressing tech-savvy privacy-preferring individuals who generally know what the hell they're talking about, unlike said legal team.
TLDR version: I'll let you know what I find when I get the demo and/or retail client, but I'm willing to take a risk on it as-is -- and typically I'm one of the ones arguing against such things.
(* I'm hoping that there's going to be a third-party setup like there was for SW:TOR and you don't *have* to have Origin active to play. As in, I'll go buy a boxed copy from somewhere retail rather than order it digitally. If it still requires an Origin client install, I'll be very disappointed. I'm sure EA will recognize my complaint and recant their policy. /sarcasm)
--sofaspud
--"Listening to your kid is the audio equivalent of a Salvador Dali painting, Spud." --OpMegs
In the meantime, someone has already done that over on Reddit about a year ago, and the RockPaperShotgun forums were kind enough to capture the gist of the argument in this thread here:
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/forums/ ... r-computer
It has been a year, after all, and I'm as paranoid as the next when it comes to EA, but I watched like a hawk when SW:TOR was installed (which doesn't require the Origin client but *does* require an Origin account, suggesting that they are in fact linked) and I so far haven't spotted any misbehavior. There's a brain-dead stupid move in the launcher that requires admin rights, but that's lazy programming and Ye Olde Process Monitor confirms that it does behave exactly as advertised in that when it closes and launches TOR, it really does close and launch TOR. I also haven't noticed any suspicious port activity, but all that tells me is that if they ARE sending my secrets out over the wire it's buried in the game data itself. I rather doubt they are; they *need* SW:TOR to succeed, and that would *not* help.
So I'm willing to extend the slight benefit of the doubt and take the cautious position at this time that EA is *trying* to play this one straight -- it'd have to be dumber than we know it already to be to not know how much it has pissed off the fanbase lately -- and is just not very bright. Or rather, is very bad at communicating to its legal team that making vague, sweeping, threatening statements in the EULA is a Bad Thing when addressing tech-savvy privacy-preferring individuals who generally know what the hell they're talking about, unlike said legal team.
TLDR version: I'll let you know what I find when I get the demo and/or retail client, but I'm willing to take a risk on it as-is -- and typically I'm one of the ones arguing against such things.
(* I'm hoping that there's going to be a third-party setup like there was for SW:TOR and you don't *have* to have Origin active to play. As in, I'll go buy a boxed copy from somewhere retail rather than order it digitally. If it still requires an Origin client install, I'll be very disappointed. I'm sure EA will recognize my complaint and recant their policy. /sarcasm)
--sofaspud
--"Listening to your kid is the audio equivalent of a Salvador Dali painting, Spud." --OpMegs