The Blogtastic Blogfest That Is Getmeoutofthis.net!

I had heard lots of good things about Age of Empires Online from Giant Bomb, and I wanted to try it. Since it is free, that seemed easy to do! So I went to the website, where I clicked a button that said “Download now!” It downloaded a little thing which, when run, downloaded another thing, and had the game installed, which then needed to patch, but that’s cool! Once it was all patched up, I could play.

I get into the game, and click to start. It asks me to sign in to my Live ID, which I do just fine, but then it asks me for a “Live Access Code.” I have no idea what that is. I go to the main website of AoEO again, and it doesn’t mention anything about an access code. What the fuck? So, of course, I go to the forums, because surely there’s a solution there.

You see, the Access Code is basically a CD key. You get one when you download the game through the Games for Windows Live Marketplace. You can look it up there.

I didn’t get the game from there. I used the button on the website that it was telling me to use very eagerly to try the game. It gave me nothing. When I opened the Marketplace, it didn’t show that I had downloaded AoEO. It didn’t have a code for me. I had to download it AGAIN, though the Marketplace, to get a code to be able to start the game.

Nice going, Microsoft!

(The game’s kind of cool once you get into it, though.)