Triple Pack DLC compatibility

Borderlands 2 [Xbox] Borderlands 2 Tech Support
#1

I recently purchased the Triple Pack, despite already owning two of the games, specifically to gain all the DLC that it had. I purchased it brand new, paying money that went to Gearbox, not just some retailing reselling the product. Another big selling point for me buying it was all the announcements of how all the Borderlands games and DLC were not backwards compatible with the XBox One, which, at that time, I was planning to purchase once money allowed.

Yet, to my horror and dismay, once I purchased the XBox One, I found that it would not accept any of the DLC disks that came in the Pack, meaning that I would have to buy it all AGAIN in order to play it on the new console. This has me quite upset, especially given that the games and DLC are being so totted at being Backwards Compatible and the Triple Pack came out AFTER that announcement was made (which would lead one to assume that it would be put into a format that would allow it to be used by this console).

I would really like to not feel that I have been ripped off by Gearbox here, so is there any way that this can be rectified? I would appreciate at least a response from someone with the actual company.

Thank you for your time.

#2

First thing I would suggest is powering down the XB1 and giving it a full reset (disconnect the power brick for at least 10 seconds before plugging it back in). Then launch the game, load a save or start a new character, and see if any of the DLC starting locations show up in the nearest fast travel menu.

Which disk of the set was the very first you put in the XB1 to trigger the download of the backwards compatible version of the game? There have been previous reports of issues with multi-disk versions of the game when the main game was inserted first. These were resolved by deleting the game from the XB1 and then inserting the DLC disk first. If I understand correctly, this may be an issue with the way DRM works within the XBox ecosystem since the backwards compatible version of the game downloads as a complete file, not separate parts.

I don’t personally have any experience with the triple pack on XB1 since I sprang for the Handsome Collection digital edition when it went on sale. My BL1 backwards compatible (installed using the game disk from the GOTY edition) worked fine, but others had issues which were resolved by deleting and reinstalling.

You can also file an official support ticket via the link on this page:

https://gearboxsoftware.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/categories/200330410-Borderlands-2

Good luck - hope you manage to get a speedy resolution!

#3

The Triple Pack had six disks, two for each game. The second disk for each was all that game’s DLC, loaded to the disk on a special installer. On the 360, you could insert the DLC disk and it had a little menu that popped up asking what you wanted to install. When I went to install the games on the XBox One, I first tried putting in the DLC disks, before I installed the games, but it claimed that the disks were not backward compatible. I tried installing the games then, hoping maybe that having the games installed would somehow prompt the console that the DLC disks were for them. Once again, it gave the ‘Not Compatible’ message.

What I have learned since however:

Borderlands (1) installed with all the DLC already put in. I’m guess this is just something that either the XBox or Gearbox people set up, as I’ve seen elsewhere that most people have been sort of ‘gifted’ all the DLC when they installed the original game.

Borderlands 2 has a sort of ‘exploit’ where, once you’ve installed the game, you can put in the DLC disk and then go into the marketplace and install all the DLC from there, as the disk in the drive apparently cues it that the content is owned. HOWEVER, if you don’t have the DLC disk in the drive when you play, it will put up a message that you aren’t allowed to use the DLC. That’s honestly not an issue, however, since the XBox One basically uploads the whole game to the hard drive and you don’t need the game disk anyway, so that sort of fixed that. (Though it took about an hour to download all the DLC)

Borderland: The Pre-Sequel came up as not compatible for both the DLC AND the game itself, which, when I checked, seems to be true. They haven’t made that one Reverse Compatible yet, it seems. I’m hoping that when/if it is made Reverse Compatible, the same as above will be possible to do (or like the original game, they will just sort of give you all the DLC right out).

So, I’m sort of 2 for 3 at the moment, thanks to a little finagling, but I still find it kind of rude that Gearbox designed a product in such a way, put out AFTER the games were announced as being Reverse Compatible with XBox One, that it would cause such issues with things. I get that programming on games these days isn’t as easy as it may have once been, and making old games run on new consoles isn’t as simple as just adding a little patch and go, but you’d think that when they designed the set-up for these DLC disks, knowing that the games they were for were being set up to play on the new console, they would have put in some kind of compatible delivery system.

Thanks for the link though. If i run into any further issues, I’ll make use of it.

#4

That’s actually on Microsoft, not Gearbox. The game data stored on your hard drive is basically what you’d get on a 360 for the digital download or installed-from-disk version. I don’t think there are actually any changes to the game code itself, since the whole point of having a virtual 360 to run in is that there are no code changes to the games, and no individual code “shims” required to get things to run.

This is why MS has been able to push out so many backwards compatible titles so quickly (unlike the case with the Xbox -> 360 transition). Basically, they’re only limited by the time taken to get permission from the publisher, check each game works in the VM ok, and get the assets and DRM sorted for the store. I imagine the decision on whether or not to make TPS available the same way will depend on how much demand MS anticipates and whether or not 2K allows it.

#5

I sort of wish they could just create a ‘360 app’ sort of emulator that just worked like an actual virtual 360 console, the way black market Nintendo emulators work. Then you just installed a single program that made the One work like the 360 when a disk for that console was inserted, instead of eating up tons of memory to have each and every game upload the patched version to the core hard drive. (Though it does make it nice to not have to have the disk there to play the game).

However, I get that the current gaming market is so tangled with legal these days that they can’t just have an open emulator able to play whatever without getting sued. :frowning:

#6

Thing is, the virtual machine 360-in-an-XB1 is actually the more efficient route for many reasons. I can only speak for my situation, but BL1 just looks better on my XB1 than my real 360 (and both consoles play via HDMI to the same screen). The code on the hard drive is basically the same as what’s on the 360 disk. The difference is that read/write performance is better from the XB1 hard drive, which means the performance hit taken by running the virtual machine 360 is negligible and allows all games to take advantage of the better graphics processing of the XB1 hardware without having to recode or patch (and then re-certify) the game. Compared to the individual game shims used for original XBox games running on the 360, the whole thing is easier, more flexible, and prone to fewer bugs.