Fable 2 DLC for offline peasant

[Sam Jones]

I have a friend with a 360 (with hard disk) who has no internet connection in his home. He's a Fable 2 nut and would dearly like to play the new Knothole Isle DLC, and I've said I'll help him. He's going to bring his 360 w/HDD round to my place on the weekend to hook it up to Live, get the New Xbox Experience, patch Fable 2, and hopefully buy and d/l Knothole Isle.

Questions:

1) Can this be done with a free XBL Silver account? There's no point his subbing to Gold when he has no net connection in his place. I also cannot guarantee that either of us has a Gold trial scratchcard lying round (not that I've looked yet).

2) Speaking of accounts, can he somehow convert his existing offline gamertag into an online version, or go online with it (i.e. to preserve his achievements etc) for the purposes of this exercise?

3) What's going to be the easiest way to get the required crazy Microsoft space shillings attached to his account? He has no credit card, though I do. Is gifting points to another account possible, or will it have to be via an MS points scratchcard?

4) Any other stumbling blocks I haven't thought of?

Thanks for any help.

[Fugitive]

1) It doesn't have to be a Gold account just to buy and use DLC.

2) There is a way to convert a purely offline account into an XBox Live Silver account, though I'd have to go searching for the details. There'll be something like a "Join XBox Live" option somewhere when you're online. It might not be necessary though, because...

3) ...one way to do it would be to log in with your account on his box, buy the DLC, and then all of his accounts on that box can use the DLC without any further action. Technically that means that *you* own it though, and if his box breaks and he gets it replaced then he loses the DLC because he can't reassign the DRM. Edit: He wouldn't be able to play it on someone else's XBox either since it's tied only to his box for his accounts.

Otherwise, yeah, he'll need a points card and to convert his account to an online one.

[Sam Jones]

1) It doesn't have to be a Gold account just to buy and use DLC.

2) There is a way to convert a purely offline account into an XBox Live Silver account, though I'd have to go searching for the details. There'll be something like a "Join XBox Live" option somewhere when you're online. It might not be necessary though, because...

3) ...one way to do it would be to log in with your account on his box, buy the DLC, and then all of his accounts on that box can use the DLC without any further action. Technically that means that *you* own it though, and if his box breaks and he gets it replaced then he loses the DLC because he can't reassign the DRM. Edit: He wouldn't be able to play it on someone else's XBox either since it's tied only to his box for his accounts.

Otherwise, yeah, he'll need a points card and to convert his account to an online one.

Thanks dude. Number 3 sounds promising. I thought that the DLC would be tied specifically to the account that bought it. I guess one way to test this before purchase is to hook up his 360, login as my account, then patch Fable 2 and download the free version of Knothole before logging back in as his account and seeing if it's upgraded his "version" of the game.

[Fugitive]

I thought that the DLC would be tied specifically to the account that bought it.
It's tied both ways -- first, to the XBL account that bought it, and they're technically the 'true' owner of the DLC since they can always redownload and use it anywhere.

And it's also tied to the unique hardware ID of the box on which it was bought. That's meant to allow secondary accounts on the box (e.g., your wife, kids, etc.) to be able to use it without having to repurchase it for everyone, but can be used this way to let two people on separate boxes use it as well. The person going through the hardware tie has a much more fragile connection to the DLC though, since he loses it if he replaces his console, or if he deletes it or has the hard drive die he needs you to come redownload it again for him.

Oh, and if you as the original purchaser do the DRM consolidation thing at any point, that invalidates the copy he has. Though I'm not sure how the invalidation works, and he might be okay as long as he never goes online again...

[Griddle]

Pardon the derail, but I was just looking into buying this, there seems to be 2 versions. The first one on the list was free, the second was a "Premium" version. From reading the descriptions, I really am not seeing any real differences. Then again, they were only small blurbs. Any idea what the 800 point version adds over the free one?

[Fugitive]

The free one doesn't actually let you visit the new content, it's just for players who want to continue playing co-op with other players who have the full version (i.e., it fills in missing data for stuff the other player might have).

[Sam Jones]

The free one doesn't actually let you visit the new content, it's just for players who want to continue playing co-op with other players who have the full version (i.e., it fills in missing data for stuff the other player might have).

The free version spawns a bloke with a submarine in the canal in Bowerstone marketplace. He gives you some free items and acts as an "advert" for the premium content, where he will also transport you to Knothole Island.

[merryprankster]

WHy doesn't your friend just bring his xbox over to your place and hook it up online. Silver accounts are free and would allow him to download the DLC. That seems the simplest to me anyway.

[Griddle]

The free one doesn't actually let you visit the new content, it's just for players who want to continue playing co-op with other players who have the full version (i.e., it fills in missing data for stuff the other player might have).
Excellent, thanks for the info.

</derail>

[Sam Jones]

WHy doesn't your friend just bring his xbox over to your place and hook it up online. Silver accounts are free and would allow him to download the DLC. That seems the simplest to me anyway.

That's exactly what I described would be happening. The questions were more related to paying for the DLC, and whether a Silver account was viable for this.

[merryprankster]

That's exactly what I described would be happening. The questions were more related to paying for the DLC, and whether a Silver account was viable for this.

I've never tried, but it says that silver accounts have access to the marketplace. I know some stuff is delayed for silver accounts though. If worse came to worse just have your friend use the 48 hour card that is convienently included in fable 2.

[Coca Cola Zero]

I've never tried, but it says that silver accounts have access to the marketplace. I know some stuff is delayed for silver accounts though. If worse came to worse just have your friend use the 48 hour card that is convienently included in fable 2.

Only free demos are delayed for silver. The for-pay stuff is always immediately available to anyone with a connection to live, including Silver.

Also I'm not sure the 48 hour cards are even that useful as the last few times I've made silver accounts, Xbox Live has given me the option to use them as 30 day gold accounts at no charge. I don't know if this was a limited-time thing or is just the new policy(?).

EDIT: Just googled and it looks like this 30 day free thing has been in place since at least Nov 2007, so I guess it is just the way Live works, which makes me wonder why they bother with those 2 day free cards in games.

[Fugitive]

EDIT: Just googled and it looks like this 30 day free thing has been in place since at least Nov 2007, so I guess it is just the way Live works, which makes me wonder why they bother with those 2 day free cards in games.
That's just for people who already have accounts, to let them do a bit of multiplayer with the new game they just bought and then take it away so that they're tempted into signing up for the full Gold to get it back...

[Sam Jones]

Weirdly, I've never seen a Gold trial card in any of the games I've bought for 360. Is it a US only thing?

[Moore]

I guess so, I've gotten one in pretty much every single game I've bought.

[BDGE]

Might as well have him bring along his entire game library to dl patches as well...

[Sam Jones]

Might as well have him bring along his entire game library to dl patches as well...

Already mentioned that to him. It's going to be a nice upgrade, as he's getting the NXE, game patches and all the DLC he wants.

[Fugitive]

If he's getting a lot of other DLC as well, then you'd probably be better off getting him points cards and upgrading his account to Silver. If you try to use the above trick for all of it, he could lose it all in one fell swoop, too.

[Sam Jones]

Well that went okay. We got his 360 upgraded with the NXE, then had to create an XBL gamertag for him, which also migrated his offline (HDD) tag into itself, so he retained his gamerscore and achievements, so that was good.

I recovered my own gamertag onto his console, then patched and booted Fable 2. As we were logged into my gamertag, it showed that I'd already bought Knothole Isle, and we downloaded it again. However when we rebooted the console into his account, the KI DLC had downgraded itself to the free version, despite the full version being installed, so it seems we couldn't get it for him without his paying for it too. The Fable 2 DLC is apparently locked to the specific gamertag that buys it. I had to buy some MS mermaid groats for his account with my credit card, then go into F2 and buy it while logged into XBL as his gamertag. It did correctly identify that the download package was already installed on the console, so we didn't need to d/l it again, and it unlocked the full DLC in his game.

One annoying thing - after I'd recovered my gamertag onto his console, it now seems to see my profile as the default (i.e. when you boot the console, it automatically logs into my account not his), and it needs to be manually signed out and back in as his profile. Is there any way to set a default profile on a 360 when there are multiple profiles on the system?

[Rock8man]

A couple of things Sam:

1. Remember that DLC you buy is tied to two things: a) the account that bought the DLC, and b) the Xbox that you bought it on. Since you already bought the DLC on your Xbox, that's the Xbox that can play the DLC for anyone who is logged in. So when you transferred your profile to his box, the only person who can access the paid-for DLC on his box is you. If you hadn't already bought it on your box, and had waited until you transferred your account to his box and THEN bought it, then you would have both had access to it on his box.

But hey, that's okay, you found a way around it that works for both of you.

2. When you transferred your account to his box, it's the latest account with the setting "Auto Login-Enabled" turned on. So you need to log in as you, press the Guide button and look around under settings or preferences or something, it's not that hard to find. Just look for Auto-Login, and turn it off for your account. I have mine turned off, so whenever I transfer my account to someone else's box, I don't annoy them by having myself login by default.

[Fugitive]

Yeah, downloading it a second time after you've already bought it doesn't do the hardware tie part that would have let him use it on his own box; that's only done at the time you bought it. Sorry, I'd forgotten to clarify that part earlier.

[Sam Jones]

Yeah, it all worked out in the end. We were perfectly happy to buy it in his name, but thought it was worth a go to see if it would work without paying for it again.

Rock8 - thanks for the autologin advice. Will pass it on.

[Sam Jones]

Oh, and the other interesting thing was that when we were setting up his online XBL/MS Passport account, it offered us XBL Gold (for money), and when we refused, it gave us a month's Gold trial automatically, which was cool. Not that he'll get the benefit of it.

[Roy Ziegler]

any chance this game coming to the PC?

[Fugitive]

any chance this game coming to the PC?
A chance, but Molyneux is refusing to confirm or deny anything at the moment. That's still a softening of the initial stance that no PC version was planned, though.