More Awesome Than You!

For those of us who use the Exchange and original BBS [hey, there are some nice lots on there you know.] EA's new roll out of the My Page services have had an unexpected side effect.
To post on the BBS or use the Exchange you have to register your game in Origin. I had an EP registered and previously had zero issues with the TS3 site, other than the tards.

As of yesterday it tells me I am not game registered and cannot post/download/etc. I refuse to let Origin anywhere near TS3 since it has broken every game it has touched.

Damn EA and Origin.

Edit: It wouldn't let me link it to my existing Origin account, instead insisting I create a new one. I hate Origin.

That sucks. I do not know if you are aware of this, but there is a trick to downloading from the exchange without needing an account.

Just go to the page where you would usually add the content to your game and right-click the page. Then select "View Page Source" and in the little window press "Ctrl" and "F" so the Find box appears. Simply type in "sims3pack" without the quotes which should bring you to a url that starts with "llnw.thesims3.com." Select the url, copy it, and paste it into your browser. The download should pop up and now you can use content from the exchange. This is assuming you have Firefox, but I'm pretty sure it works on any browser.

I hope you find workarounds to the other features.

That is a very neat trick. Thank you.

There's a greasemonkey script on this site somewhere that automates that business entirely, bypassing the entire login bullshit completely.

Using my web browser (*not* the Sims 3 site link), I went to Origin's site and made sure I had an Origin ID.  Then I went back to the Sims 3 site and logged in with my old info.

What do you mean by this? My mother is trying to get to her account and has the "Origin" crap appearing telling her she can't, but I told her to wait.

On another note, if we do not have origin installed, but have the account, does this do anything to us game wise?

Nah, you're fine.  You can't patch with the launcher unless Origin is installed, that's all.  As long as you have an EA/Origin account, that's all you need.  You can use the MTS patching tool to download patches and not have to install EA's clumsy spyware on your computer.

Good to know, my mum literally read through the entire Terms of Services and got to the bit where it said "By using Origin you forfeit your legal rights to privacy on your computer" and went "NOPE NOPE NOPE".

Okay, I DO NOT have Origin installed on my machine yet the launcher has NO issues downloading and installing patches.
I also have no recollection of ever creating an Origin account yet have not been asked to do so in order to continue using the site.
Would this have anything to do with me being in the UK?

I'm just going by the information EA is giving us.  It is entirely possible -- and likely -- that they are not actually implementing these things the way they say they are.  Or they could be telling us about it first and springing it on us later.  It's not like them to warn us like that, though.