Okie dokie. I downloaded the Rivers II expansion pack and it worked fine. Then my Xbox red-ringed... I got the unit replaced and kept my same hard-drive.

Everything works... except the Rivers II pack. Everytime Carcassonne loads, I get an "Expansion Load Failed" message, which instructs me to download it again. Downloading from within the game will let me use the pack, but the next time the game loads, I get the same error again!

I've gone so far as to delete/redownload the whole game and the expansion and it still doesn't work...

Anyone else get this error message? Or, even better, does anyone know how to fix this? Xbox phone support tells me to contact Sierra, and then they're no help either...

A side note: I tested all my other XBLA games w/expansions work fine. It's just Carcassonne...

Thanks in advance! 

No, but have you tried clearing system cache (somewhere in the system blade)?

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http://preferans.de

Emptying the cache did not help. I guess the problem is in the game's individual cache? I contacted Sierra On-Line and they sent me to the Rio Grande Games, the board game manufacturer. I think they misunderstood my question. Maybe they thought I was cramming cardboard tiles into my 360?

Yes!!! I am having this problem! I just bought a new XBOX 360 Eiite - I re-downloaded Carcassone and the expansion. While downloading in-game you can actually play and use the Rivers II expansion - however, when you quit and load up Carcassone it fails to load the expansion and claims it to be corrupt. This is obviously a major flaw in the security of the downloadable content! Who can we contact to get this problem highlighted!?!

Same issue as everyone else, new 360 existing hd.  File repots as corrupt...  Looks like a big DRM boo-boo.

Just got off the phone with support.  Took the better part of an hour to get to a supervisor and get this reported as a software/drm error.  Lord knows what good it will do, I've worked customer service in IT for 12 years and never dealt with a more shoddy operation.  It took twenty minutes alone to get them to understand what the expansion pack was and then the supervisior tried to pass the buck to Sierra.  DRM on the 360 is already a huge pain, but when their own support line needs it explained to them... Argh!  Feel free to call in, perhaps you will be lucky and get someone more familiar with their product.

Same problem here.  Just bought an Elite, and the Rivers2 expansion is the only thing I can't get working.  Works fine on my old Premium, but not on the Elite.  As others, I've tried deleting/re-downloading the expansion and the original game.  What a major fault.

I get the same thing. Restarting the 360 usually helps, but the error presists after I've played something else.

I really hope they fix this.

This is driving me crazy!!!! Yes, it does the same for me after buying the elite and re-downloading it. As mentioned before, it works fine on premium but not on elite. It's such a pain; especially if I'm already downloading demos etc as it then won't let me download the expansion pack again until I either stop the downloads or they finish! Grrrrrr

So they released a new expansion today but still have NOT fixed the DRM Corruption issue with Rivers 2 !!!! This can only raise suspicion that they are still unaware of this major bug. PLEASE !!! If anyone at Sierra or Microsoft is reading this can you get this issue highlighted to the developers ASAP!!

I have the same problem!  Except ALL my expansion content is missing from my XBLA games, and probably retail too, since I bought a new 360 to replace a broken one.  What a waste of money.  I will not buy another MS console in the future until DRM is FIXED!  I think the only thing that will work is to have PICKET DEMONSTRATIONS at Redmond HQ and inform the mass media.

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ECA Founding Member
PAX08 & Video Games Live Attendee

I'd like to add that Crystal Quest packs don't work at all either, if you had your console replaced.

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ECA Founding Member
PAX08 & Video Games Live Attendee

As a last resort I have highlighted our plight to Major Nelson. Lets hope he can knock on the door of the relevant people at Microsoft to get this problem highlighted.

 TinBlue wrote:

As a last resort I have highlighted our plight to Major Nelson. Lets hope he can knock on the door of the relevant people at Microsoft to get this problem highlighted.

Very nice! I'm having problems loading the expansion at all now. It used to help just restarting the game, but now that doesn't even help. Really annoying to not being able to use stuff you've paid for

My 360 RRoD'd on me a few weeks ago.  When the new one came back, Carcassonne refused to load up the Rivers II expansion pack.  Sound familiar? This is just more proof that DRM hurts the customer and doesn't actually help the company.  If anything, this makes me want to NOT buy more products online.  However, because I love Carcassonne so much, I found a work around.  It's an ugly work around, but it works.

First, if you have a memory card, stick it in.  I bought one for easy transportation of my Gamercards to friends houses but it has become instrumental in keeping me sane when MS's DRM fails.  Next, ERASE all forms of Carcassonne from your hard drive EXCEPT YOUR GAME SAVE!  Now hop on XBLM and re-download the game/expansion packs to your memory card.  Once they are downloaded, "move" the gamesaves to the memory card.  You should have no trace of Carcassonne on your hard drive.  Now go back to the XBLA and you'll see that Carcassonne is there, but with a memory card icon next to it.  Load it up. 

You shouldn't have any problems loading the expansion packs from here on out... and MS better get this DRM nonsense under control!

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Arguing online is like competing in the Special Olympics...
Even if you win, you're still retarded.

 Whet Wurm wrote:

My 360 RRoD'd on me a few weeks ago.  When the new one came back, Carcassonne refused to load up the Rivers II expansion pack.  Sound familiar? This is just more proof that DRM hurts the customer and doesn't actually help the company.  If anything, this makes me want to NOT buy more products online.  However, because I love Carcassonne so much, I found a work around.  It's an ugly work around, but it works.

First, if you have a memory card, stick it in.  I bought one for easy transportation of my Gamercards to friends houses but it has become instrumental in keeping me sane when MS's DRM fails.  Next, ERASE all forms of Carcassonne from your hard drive EXCEPT YOUR GAME SAVE!  Now hop on XBLM and re-download the game/expansion packs to your memory card.  Once they are downloaded, "move" the gamesaves to the memory card.  You should have no trace of Carcassonne on your hard drive.  Now go back to the XBLA and you'll see that Carcassonne is there, but with a memory card icon next to it.  Load it up. 

You shouldn't have any problems loading the expansion packs from here on out... and MS better get this DRM nonsense under control!

Good tip, please report this to Xbox support via e-mail. What happens if you them move everything BACK to the HD?

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ECA Founding Member
PAX08 & Video Games Live Attendee

Wurm, your tip worked perfectly for me.  I will check tonight what happens if I now move everything back to the hard drive.  Should be interesting.

In other news, the Crystal Quest folks have promised to fix their DRM issue with expansion content.  So now it's just Sierra that needs to get its act together.  And Microsoft, who claims to transfer content licenses to new console IDs when you get a replacement, but really doesn't.

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ECA Founding Member
PAX08 & Video Games Live Attendee

As a side note, I tried moving everything around again and it failed to load up the expansion pack.  When I move it back to the memory card, it works, but only for that session.  It seems you have to wash, rinse, repeat everytime you want to load the game up with all the expansion packs.  If you leave everything on the memory card, the next time you load up, it won't work.... I hate DRM.  

The alternative is that you call MS and get them to give you the 300 points back so you can buy it on your new system.  If that keeps up, they'll figure out a way around this quickly...

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Arguing online is like competing in the Special Olympics...
Even if you win, you're still retarded.

Glad to see I'm not drinking crazy juice on this one; this happened to me, too. FWIW, I did report this to Xbox support, back in August. The tech sent me a form email telling me to sign out of XBL, delete the expansion pack and then sign in and download it again. If that didn't work I was supposed to repeat the process, but delete the game itself, too.

Nothing worked.

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Victoly!

I got bit by this bug over the weekend when my original 360 finally died.  I kept my original hard drive, plugged it into the new machine, and boom!  my Carcassonne expansion content is all jacked up.  On top of that Puzzle Quest is also bugged i.e. it asks to be unlocked each time I load the game.

So, I've called MS to fix all this.  After numerous phone calls, faxes of original receipts, and lots of screaming I have to wait 30 days for Microsoft to fix all my licensing issues with all my downloadable content.

They are no longer giving out replacement MS points in these cases i.e. machine replacement.  They are now replacing the licensing on the backend and then pushing this information to your GamerTag.  But apparently running a simple script to do this takes 30 days.

I'll keep you all posted.

 Tokeio wrote:

I got bit by this bug over the weekend when my original 360 finally died.  I kept my original hard drive, plugged it into the new machine, and boom!  my Carcassonne expansion content is all jacked up.  On top of that Puzzle Quest is also bugged i.e. it asks to be unlocked each time I load the game.

So, I've called MS to fix all this.  After numerous phone calls, faxes of original receipts, and lots of screaming I have to wait 30 days for Microsoft to fix all my licensing issues with all my downloadable content.

They are no longer giving out replacement MS points in these cases i.e. machine replacement.  They are now replacing the licensing on the backend and then pushing this information to your GamerTag.  But apparently running a simple script to do this takes 30 days.

I'll keep you all posted.

This is all well known info if you know where to look, but thanks for sharing. Puzzle Quest is being worked on by the devs as we speak. Crystal Quest is also buggered, and devs are working on it. But with Carcassonne, no one has even been able to REACH the devs, despite e-mailing Sierra. Bottom line folks, boycott all future Sierra XBLA games until this is fixed!

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ECA Founding Member
PAX08 & Video Games Live Attendee

Devs never responded, everyone affected PLEASE CALL XBOX SUPPORT and report this. It's the only way anything will ever get done.

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ECA Founding Member
PAX08 & Video Games Live Attendee

So, I just got the Hard-Drive Transfer Kit for the Xbox 360 Elite System and was hoping I could start fresh by deleting everything Carcassonne related before I did the transfer.

Didn't work. Still got the same message.



Ps. if there are any digg.com users here, please digg this story. It might help shed some light on the situation and force the developers to look into it.

I get the same problem with the River II, I thought downloading King&Baron might fix it but it did not. Man, it's annoying but I'm sure they will fix it soon. Thanks to those of you that called in to report the issue.

 

 

I just emailed Xbox Support again about it, and cited this thread as evidence that 1) the problem is not isolated, and 2) Sierra is unresponsive to consumer concerns.

Let's see what kind of response they send back.

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Victoly!