» Fri Dec 31, 2010 7:44 am
Didn't check if this has already been mentioned:
Trying to preform the steps as described in the opening post, things turned out okay, but different then expected.
Step one requires me to enter my key, as I enter multiplayer-mode, so I skipped entering my key at startup. (The fact that you can enter your code at startup, before given the chance to select multiplayer, wasn't taken into acount by the O.P.)
After preforming steps one and two, the game didn't even allow me to preform step three. The key-code was already locked in there. And indeed, after rebooting the game, step three turned out to be unnesecery.
So:
1: When first given the chance to enter your key at startup, select "skip"
2. Enter multiplayer (which gives you the same screen you get at startup) and enter your key.
3. Et voila.
The problem appears to be, that the game stores your key online, and will only do so while in multplayer mode. If you enter the code at startup, and go to multiplayer next, the code-entering takes place too early to trigger the storage. But that's just my layman's anolysis.