Well, I managed to fuck up my Dragon Age save files. This is on the Xbox.
This past Thanksgiving, I went down to Florida and visited my old pal, Justin. Back in the day, when working at Toys R Us, we played a whole lot of video games together, and talked about them quite a bit. We don't have identical tastes in gaming, but many of our favorites cross each others paths. Dragon Age is definitely one of those games, and we spent a good amount of the weekend playing the game and talking about it.
Previously, I had played about 8 hours into the game, but I added another 10 hours after this weekend. My human warrior princess saved the mage circle, completed the Shale DLC quest, helped Lelianna out with some personal issues, and then spent a lot of time with her in bed. Lesbian sex confirmed!
Justin had a couple pieces of DLC for Dragon Age on his harddrive, which automatically showed up in my game when I started playing. My inventory automatically had that Dragon Armor, and a Memory Ring, which boosted experience. Additionally, the Shale quest line and Warden's quest line opened up on the map.
I didn't have any of DLC for Dragon Age, since I was merely renting the game. We had wondered what might happen when I return to my Xbox with all these new items and quests and things that I shouldn't have. Well... It labels your save as CORRUPT, that's what. Even though, I was able to copy the files that contained those items onto my memory card, and even though those files weren't attached to a specific Gamer Profile, the game still didn't recognize them as correct.
I complained that I needed 4 pieces of DLC to run my save file. Downloading the "Stone Prisoner" and "Warden's Keep" was an easy task to fix, since those are available on the Xbox Marketplace. But, the "Dragon Armor" and "Memory Ring" are preorder bonuses. They aren't available on the marketplace.
Some dudes are selling their preorder bonuses on eBay. It didn't long for me to find the Memory Ring and the Dragon Armor. And they really aren't that expensive. So, I bought both of these a few hours ago. I already got a reply from the Memory Ring guy. I still need the Dragon Armor guy to respond with his code, and then I can play my save file on my console.
On the main menu of Dragon Age, there's a link for Downloadable Content. Download codes are entered in here, rather than the Marketplace. This also has a full list of all the Downloadable content available in this game.
If you decide to bring your saves around to your friends house's, ensure that the items on this list match your own. If you have things on this list they don't, you won't be able to play your game. If they have things on this list that you don't, and you decide to save your game, you will find yourself in the same situation I am.
I guess Bioware expected that whoever was playing their game wasn't going to play it at a friend's house on occasion. It's a real easy way to lock yourself out of the game, too. Especially when these items and quests are automatically given to you the first time you log in. I wonder how many other people have run into this issue, and if Bioware has some sort of solution to this.
Buying the quest DLC is easy enough, but those preorder bonuses are not available to the public anymore. How are people supposed to get around that without Bioware issuing a bunch of codes?\
If you are bringing your Saved Data on a Memory Card over to a friend's house to merely show off your character, you can save yourself a couple steps. Throughout the game, Dragon Age is sending information to Bioware's servers about everything you do in the game. Things like complete character information, stats, story choices, achievements, etc.
Here's my Dragon Age profile: http://social.bioware.com/playerprofile.php?sku=dragonage1_xbox&nid=2263281259
To look at your stuff, and sign up to see it, check out social.bioware.com.
Update!!: I got both codes from eBay, entered them, and my save files work again. So, I guess that's what you need to do to fix this problem. I'll probably play some more tomorrow night.