Yesterday I thought I’d buy the latest Mass Effect DLC - Pinnacle station. I bought the points required, downloaded it and it didn’t work. “Damn!”, not quite my reaction but you get the idea. So I turned to trusty google, and there I find there is a problem when using Pinnacle station when you have installed ‘Bring Down the Sky’ from the platinum edition, like I had. So a little more googling and I find on the bioware forums that I need to contact Xbox support. I dropped them an email explaining the problem, quite clearly I thought. They however respond with a link on how to fix a problem with Halo 3 maps, real helpful guys.
I figure I’ll phone them, it’s a free number what could go wrong. So after waiting for ages I get to talk to an operator. He has no idea what I’m talking about and he seems to have a problem understanding me, the reverse is also true. Do they purposely get people with the thickest accents possible to run tech support, but that’s not his fault. After countless times trying to explain the problem, I think he gets it and puts me on hold for a while to look into it. He comes back and says that I shouldn’t have downloaded it as it is not compatible with the platinum version. Complete BS (and I can prove it, keep reading) and that I can’t get a refund as it’s my fault, more BS. Even if it was, there was no warning about incompatibilities when I purchased it.
I start to get a little annoyed. I stay my polite self and use the magic words when talking to tech support and getting nowhere - “Can I speak to your supervisor?”. So I get connected. I tell him the problem, he doesn’t really care so he just refunds the microsoft points. All is well. I figure I could always use them to purchase “Bring Down the Sky” online and avoid the compatibility issue. However before i did that I decided I’d do a little more googling. The problem has been around for a few months now, and I thought it might be fixable. There I come across a different thread on the Bioware forums with step by step instruction on how to fix it. Simple, turns out there was an update released but to install it I need to use the bonus disk. What is really funny as this fix was given to the guy on the Bioware forum by microsoft tech support. They couldn’t have just given me the simple fix over the phone or by email.
Oh well, I guess I get my copy of Pinnacle Station gratis. It appears to be working, so much for the incompatibilities. I’m not overly concerned about depriving them of my money. Well I guess they still have my money, I just get to buy something else.
