Fix Available for Europeans Affected by Latest RB3 Patch
As most of you are already aware, Rock Band 3 received a patch a few weeks backthat added several changes (and songs) to the game. For most people, the patch went off without a hitch, but for some of our European friends, that patch included a nasty side effect. Xbox 360 players in Europe who exported Rock Band into Rock Band 3 found that the European bonus songs that had been working in Rock Band 3 before (Beettlebum, Hysteria, Manu Chao, L’Aventurier, New Wave, Perfekte Welle, Rock and Roll Star, and Countdown to Insanity) were not loading.
Harmonix decided that instead of going through the hassle of creating a new patch, a DLC code for the songs that are not working would be distributed free of charge to affected users. The 204mb “EU Title Update Pack” will restore the songs removed in the most recent patch.
From @HMXHenry over on the RockBand.com forums, here is how you can get resolution to your problem if you are one of the affected players:
Affected users (i.e. EU 360 players that imported RB1 into RB3, downloaded the newest title update and then found that several songs from RB1 import were no longer available) can email support@rockband.com for a DLC code that will reintroduce the missing songs.
Please make sure the subject line of the email reads: Dani California Bug (X360) – Missing EU songs post patch
Also, please include your name, your gamertag and your country in the body of the email. We’ll reply with a code as soon as possible so you can get these 8 songs back in your library.
During business hours, people appeared to be getting a pretty good turnaround on the codes, so definitely hit Harmonix up if you’re missing some of your songs!
Also, if after you download the update pack, and run into issues with Dani California, it may take a few times before the game finally recognizes it.
[Thanks to Mat for the heads up!]
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For those who are just as paranoid as I am, I got a response without including my real name.
It worked pretty fast, didn’t even took five minutes for Harmonix to answer me.
I’ve never heard of L’Aventurier.
Anex Reply:
December 2nd, 2011 at 10:17 am
Me neither.. I never noticed such a song on any of the Rock Band games as an EU user..
Konador Reply:
December 2nd, 2011 at 11:51 am
Nope, never heard of it either!
CloudWolf Reply:
December 2nd, 2011 at 3:31 pm
L’Aventurier was supposed to be included in the EU-exclusive RB1 songs, but never made it. There are several news reports from 2008 that mention the song.
I give it an hour before my code hits, but I’m patient.
Seems like a lengthy process (as in more work for HMX than it needs to be). I guess I will have to poke my game to see if mine is that way (it probably is).
This is amazing news!, i guess they didn’t surprise us with Monsoon from Tokio Hotel it seems?
, i’m happy i will be able to play Hysteria soon again.
So if a US person emails and asks nicely, are they going to get a code for the EU songs?
Whizzer Reply:
December 3rd, 2011 at 11:16 am
Most likely, yes. No use in doing so, however.
Ok. L’aventurier? I have the European export, and I have never seen that in game……?
Cool, got ‘em.
127th time I’ve said it…”HMX is awesome!”
Has anyone figured out what they meant by L’adventurier?
Rawkbox Reply:
December 2nd, 2011 at 1:29 pm
It seems as though it’s a song by Indochine (a French new wave band from 1982, so that fits) but I’ve never even seen it mentioned before.
RockBandAide Reply:
December 2nd, 2011 at 1:39 pm
Since I don’t live in Europe, these were the tracks I pulled, less Die Toten Hosen, of course:
http://kotaku.com/368959/europes-exclusive-rock-band-tracks-no-actual-europe-sadly
Edd Reply:
December 2nd, 2011 at 2:50 pm
Are the risk of sounding rude… you use Kotaku as a source?! Horribly unreliable, as evidenced here.
For future reference, perhaps, the bonus tracks that us Europeans got on the RB1 disc are the nine songs released as Singles in the US store on May 20, 2008 (3 days before the game released in Europe). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complete_list_of_downloadable_songs_for_the_Rock_Band_series
Monsoon didn’t export from RB1, and like you said, Heir Kommt Alex doesn’t work in RB3. L’Adventurier was never released; should be Oasis – Rock ‘n’ Roll Star in that list.
Cheers for this post though, dropped them an email and already received my code
Thanks!
RockBandAide Reply:
December 2nd, 2011 at 2:52 pm
I pulled the list from the email, not Kotaku, sent to me notifying me of this from Mat in Spain. These were the songs he listed, which sounded correct (no, I didn’t feel the need to validate, because it wasn’t a huge issue IMHO):
Blur – “Beattlebum” (Inglés)
Muse – “Hysteria” (Inglés)
Les Wamaps – “Manu Chao” (Francés)
Indochine – “L’Aventurier” (Francés)
Playmo – “New Wave” (Francés)
Die Toten Hosen – “Hier Kommt Alex” (Alemán)
Juli – “Perfekte Welle” (Alemán)
H-Block X – “Countdown to Insanity” (Alemán)
Edd Reply:
December 2nd, 2011 at 3:24 pm
Ah fair enough! How peculiar though…
Out of curiosity/boredom, I’ve done a bit of a search into this L’Aventurier song, and apparently a now-defunct website called ButtonBandits.com played RB1 ahead of its EU release at games festival and reported ten additional tracks for the European release – the nine we received and L’Aventurier (cached link: http://web.archive.org/web/20080510141406/http://www.buttonbandits.com/2008/03/17/playcom-live-ea-rockband-exclusive-pal-version-tracks-revealed/). But the official press release from April 08 makes no mention of that L’Aventurier track, and obviously we never got it.
Interesting. Well, I think it’s mildly interesting, at least.
Adorable quote from that press release though: “Rock Band’s unprecedented offering of over 70 songs to date currently available for purchase and download”
SEVENTY!!
RockBandAide Reply:
December 2nd, 2011 at 2:54 pm
And I’ve fixed it above. Thanks!
Harmonix do not ‘rock’.
They screwed up a title update, rendering a previously working game non-working (these songs don’t just disappear: they stay in your library, you can add them to a playlist, and when the song rolls around the game crashes to dashboard), and (instead of fixing the actual issue and paying to have another title update approved) they’ve now decided the cheapest fix is for me to jump through a bunch of hoops on their behalf to perform an end-run around Microsoft’s QA procedures.
Fix your game, Harmonix.
Test it properly next time.
Don’t presume upon my time in addition to my money.
RockBandAide Reply:
December 2nd, 2011 at 2:21 pm
Have you ever made a mistake? Have you ever released region-centric disc-based game content? Have you ever QA’ed software updates on an international scale?
Mistakes happen all the time like this (http://www.joystiq.com/2011/12/01/bethesda-teaching-dragons-to-fly-correctly-in-skyrims-next-patc/). What matters is they are fixing the problem… for a game that came out well over a year ago. Feel free to list all the other developers/games that do that in your reply.
kffjcsb Reply:
December 3rd, 2011 at 11:06 am
You’re seriously saying they’re awesome, because they’re better than Bethesda?
The Bethesda that brought us Morrowind (Crashlands bug), Oblivion (didn’t work on launch), Fallout 3 (didn’t work on launch), Fallout New Vegas (didn’t work on launch, no-one bought it because by now they’d spotted a pattern), and Skyrim (bucket bug and backwards dragons).
Gee, if they can do better than that, they must be Lord of the Game.
Compare, for example, Rovio, who release new content, monthly, for free, in updates that don’t break the game. Or Valve with Portal 2 and TF2. Or Infinity Ward, or 343, or 2k (MW2, Reach, Borderlands). Extended support is not unusual, especially for games that sell you DLC. Or Apple, who support their phones for over three years, introducing massive new functionality. Or Microsoft with the dashboard and Windows XP.
Title updates that introduce CTD bugs not being fixed because it’s cheaper to make customers perform a time (and disk space!) consuming workaround, those are unusual.
tl;dr:
- If the testing departments were up-to-snuff, there’d be nothing to fix
- Saving money by not doing another title update is not ‘fixing it’
- Doing better than Bethesda is pretty poor benchmark
RockBandAide Reply:
December 5th, 2011 at 9:54 am
I didn’t say they were awesome. I was highlighting an example that releasing patches with unknown bugs is not an uncommon thing. What IS uncommon is releasing patches that enable additional features well over a year into a game’s lifecycle. And this was for free, not as part of a premium-priced “map pack,” unlike some of those titles you mentioned above.
Harmonix is under no obligation to continue to support their game/product after launch. In fact, most companies don’t. It’s a sign of a good company that DOES continue to support their product for free (i.e. Apple).
There are many more things I would understand justification to be bitter about. This is not one of them.
FoxForever Reply:
December 2nd, 2011 at 2:43 pm
Harmonix rocks because they DO something about it and get it fixed. A lot of game companies don’t care and don’t try to fix something because it won’t really profit them (at least immediately). So yes Harmonix does rock because they are devoted to their fans (seriously they give away DLC like all the time).
Does this also resolve the issue of Dani California and Black Hole Sun not being playable in RB3? When I try to play one of those, the game crashes.
RockBandAide Reply:
December 2nd, 2011 at 2:29 pm
Yes… at least, it should. Can’t test it, myself.
Toothball Reply:
December 3rd, 2011 at 4:58 am
I got my code through last night and Dani California works now. The email suggested I may have to delete my Song Cache from the RB3 save files which I did, but once that had rebuilt I was straight on to Dani California.
OniRyo Reply:
December 3rd, 2011 at 4:27 pm
Both works yeah with the new patch, but Black Hole Sun already worked for us before the patch btw.
One of the posts in the thread mentioned that “these songs don’t work for Europeans”:
Dani California
Hysteria
Perfekte Welle
New Wave
Beetlebum
Manu Chao
Countdown to Insanity
Note that there are THREE other European-special singles not included in the above list and not included in today’s pack. Those are:
Rock ‘n’ Roll Star – Oasis
Monsoon – Tokio Hotel
Hier Kommt Alex – Die Toten Hosen
I am an American and I got my hands on a code. I already had Hysteria in my collection from a previous purchase, and I already had Dani California re-imported and working. The result of using the code was:
Dani California – Already had it/no change.
Hysteria – Already had it/no change.
Perfekte Welle – Got it!
New Wave – Got it!
Beetlebum – Got it!
Manu Chao – Got it!
Countdown to Insanity – Got it!
jim0wheel Reply:
December 3rd, 2011 at 5:44 am
The Oasis, Tokio Hotel and Die Toten Hosen songs were blocked from being played in RB3 from the start (for some reason)
kffjcsb Reply:
December 3rd, 2011 at 11:08 am
‘some reason’ being, of course, that they signed exclusive deals with Activision and Guitar Hero. See also Muse.
jim0wheel Reply:
December 4th, 2011 at 6:55 am
I wouldn’t necessarily say it was because of GH. My money would be that they wouldn’t agree to being licensed for the third time.
And ‘Hysteria’ has worked with all three main RB titles and L:RB (if I remember correctly)
Hayden Reply:
December 5th, 2011 at 10:40 pm
So the title update DLC adds new songs to accounts that didn’t have them already? I have the Australian copies of the game, and I am also affected by the bug, but I’ve never previously had the European-only songs. If I’ll have them once the title update is applied, that would explain why it’s 204.92mb.
RockBandAide Reply:
December 6th, 2011 at 8:58 am
No. For players who had exported Rock Band 1 into Rock Band 3, they found that two songs that had previously been available in Rock Band 2 were no longer playable. The title update enables those missing songs to be playable in Rock Band 3.
If you didn’t export the European version of Rock Band (with the bonus songs), you are not eligible for the code.
Hayden Reply:
December 7th, 2011 at 6:18 pm
I did have the bug, but I don’t have the European version. I explained myself to support, and they supplied me with the title update code. I am yet to check if I happened to get additional songs because of it.
Paul Reply:
December 8th, 2011 at 6:00 pm
I have the American version and I was having trouble with my RHCP song. So I wrote them and got a code. I did get those other songs too when I used it.
So I sent hmx an email last night, reading that it’d take ~5 mins to respond.
Got really pissed when it got to 5pm today.
Then realised it was Saturday.
D’oh!