Call of Duty 3 maps broken

By Tom Bramwell Published 19 January, 2007

New DLC doesn't work yet.

Good news and bad news for those of you slugging it out in the third of Activision's Second World War 'em ups: there's a new Xbox Live map pack available, but it, er, doesn't work.

The "Valor Map Pack" costs 800 Microsoft points, as you may recall, and introduces five new multiplayer maps for use online, split-screen and via system link. It follows on from last week's release of the freebie Champs map.

But for some reason it doesn't work. "We understand that there are problems with the Valor map pack once it is downloaded - we are working closely with Microsoft on this right now, and we will have the issue resolved as soon as we possibly can," a Treyarch representative explained on the Xbox.com forum.

Unfortunately, there's no end in sight at the time of writing, with a further post in the same place elaborating: "We've made some progress through cooperation with Microsoft. We had hoped to resolve the technical issues with the map pack by the end of the day today, but it looks like that will not happen.

"We do know that the package posted to Marketplace this morning is not valid and will not work with the game, so deleting the old file through the system blade of the dashboard will at least put users a step ahead when the new package goes live."

Still no word on what caused the problem, but you can keep an eye out for a solution on the Valor Map Pack thread. And if you've downloaded the pack already, the message seems to be to sit tight, and someone will sort you out soon...

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (21) Latest comment 5 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • gizmo #1 5 years ago

    Slack.

  • repairmanjack #2 5 years ago

    Refund?

    Ha, ha, ha...

  • Metalfish #3 5 years ago

    That's a bit off.

  • gamesport #4 5 years ago

    looks like a disgruntled employee, re-arranged some asp or php code to brick the maps :)


    j/k

  • Talha #5 5 years ago

    Why am I not surprised?

  • asphaltcowboy #6 5 years ago

    "Why am I not surprised?"

    Because you're such a pessimist? ;)

  • Darren #7 5 years ago

    As I understand it, Microsoft supposedly have a strict certification process that *all* Xbox Live Marketplace content has to go through before it's uploaded. That's the reason why some demos and patches are delayed, e.g. Crackdown. So if that's the case, why have Microsoft released Call of Duty 3 maps that don't work? Surely as part of the certification process they were actually *tested* at some point?

    And 800 points (£6.80) for 5 maps is a disgrace and reeks of sheer greed. They should cost no more than 400 points and ideally they should be free. We paid £50 for the game and pay £40 per annum to use Xbox Live compared with a PC where games cost half the price, online gaming is free and, Oblivion aside, maps like these are also free too.

    No wonder Microsoft made over $700 million from Xbox Live last year (I think that's right, it was reported on Major Nelson's blog site), I reckon most of the content is sold for pure profit personally, those Viva Pinata Accessory packs certainly are as they're keys that unlock content already on the disc!

    Map packs used to cost no more than £2.99 on the Xbox and now with the Xbox 360 we're paying over twice that for the same amount of content? :?

  • richardiox #8 5 years ago

    COD3 online is broken full stop. Neither myself or my friend who owns the game can ever join or even find a ranked match. Half of the player matches I join hang give me a black screen but with sound for about 2-5 minutes before allowing me to spawn for the first time. Lots of hosts disconnects etc.

  • SBfistfun #9 5 years ago

    Welcome to the Next Gen!

    Piss poor

  • t8yman #10 5 years ago

    Its a shite game anyway, I'd pay good money for some new cod2 maps, but cod3 just don't cut it for me I'm afraid

  • octo #11 5 years ago

    This game has a fantastic online mode. Implemented correctly it could have been the best xbox live experience since Halo2. Unfortunately there were some problems with joining ranked and player matches when the game was released. Then the ranked problem continued. Then the map exploits were found. Now the game is (occassionally) crippled by lag and many of the players have started to move away from it to other titles.

    This latest fuck up just compounds the problem.

  • Eighthours #12 5 years ago

    Muppets. :)

  • kangarootoo #13 5 years ago

    @Darren

    "And 800 points (£6.80) for 5 maps is a disgrace and reeks of sheer greed"

    I agree this is pretty poor, but I am still inclined to play one of my standard recorded messages, and it goes like this.

    "You don't HAVE to buy them, so stop whining."

    Thankyou.

  • Darren #14 5 years ago

    @kangarootoo - What you say is true and I wouldn't mind how much they sold for if I didn't actually want the maps but I'd *would* like them except I'm not prepared to pay £7 for them out of principle.

    Why is it that PC games are cheaper, free to play online and have (mostly) free downloadable content like these maps but we have to pay more for console games, pay to play them online and then pay more for these maps? I don't understand that at all... :?

  • samk #15 5 years ago

    "Why is it that PC games are cheaper, free to play online and have (mostly) free downloadable content like these maps but we have to pay more for console games, pay to play them online and then pay more for these maps? I don't understand that at all... :?"

    Because a loss is made on the console hardware itself and the profit has to be earnt somewhere? Just speculating though, I'm no expert. I'm just not sure you can make a direct comparison between extra content on PCs to consoles since the business model driving each is so different.

  • kangarootoo #16 5 years ago

    @Darren

    Sorry man, I was getting excessive ratty with you there :)

    I'm not sure comparing directly to the price of PC games is ever going to make us feel better. We could discuss where there is a price disparity (I might suggest that piracy acts as a form of competition, but its far from the only factor).

    I think to a point there is a "because they can" situation at the core of why console games cost more. We bought into that situation when we decided to play console games instead of PC games, so we can't really complain.

    Or rather, if we do complain we should back that complaint up with action, i.e. not buying the product we are complaining about. Companies will ALWAYS respond to a lack of sales, they have to. So if we simply don't buy the products we don't like, those products will change over time to suit us.

    Truth is, companies have a different definition of "too expensive" to that held by most gamers (it seems). Our definition is "seems like too much money, but I'll buy it anyway, grumbling every step of the way". A company's definition however is "people won't buy it at this price". In your case, it sounds like you aren't going to buy the maps, which is probably the best option available to you. Chances are though, enough other gamers will buy them to make their current price point legitimate. Which sucks, but thats life.

    Jesus, I just never get tired of "customer power" type rambling posts do I.

  • kangarootoo #17 5 years ago

    @samk

    "Because a loss is made on the console hardware itself and the profit has to be earnt somewhere?"

    I'm sure that is also a factor.

  • Fab4 #18 5 years ago

    I thought most of the revenue from DLC went to the Publisher/Developer, not M$. Ofc, they get a cut, for "hosting" it.

    I totally lay the blame at M$'s door. They (supposedly) have a Certification process which is supposed to eliminate these debacles...especially one as obvious as this.

  • Zero Beat #19 5 years ago

    If Sony had made this mistake, they'd be getting the shit ripped out of them right now.

  • kangarootoo #20 5 years ago

    @Zero Beat

    You seem to be suggesting that isn't happening in this case. This thread is hardly being complimentary is it?

  • Downside #21 5 years ago

    @Darren

    Viva Pinata DLC unlocks stuff on the disk - true, but this was a design decision to allow Core Units (360's without Hard Drive) to be able to "unlock" game assets as well as owners of "premium" consoles - the only way to do this, as the core systems have no HD to D/L the content to, was to include the data "on the disk".

    IP costs to produce and the choice is to how that IP is delivered and over what term payback achieved.