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A Rather Selfish PSA For You Mortal Kombat Players

If you've been unable to play online, there's something we can all do about it.

The desynch error message feels a lot like this.
The desynch error message feels a lot like this.

Look, it sucks when the games we buy don't work as intended. It's almost worse when a game that used to work just fine actually becomes broken for one reason or another. That's been the case with Mortal Kombat lately, which was working just fine online for awhile, but now that there's DLC and "klassic" skins packs out there to purchase, things have gone way, way sideways.

The problem, apparently, lies in the classic skins that came as part of various retailer-specific pre-order packages. If you downloaded these back in April and have them on your system, every game you attempt to join will, if my experience is any indication, totally fail to stay connected. According to a post on the game's official forums, a patch is in the works to fix this issue once and for all. However, you can do your part today by simply deleting and redownloading any of those individual skins that you might have on your Xbox 360. The PlayStation 3 was also suffering from this issue, but it looks like a patch is already available there that fixes this. I assume you could also just delete the skins if you've purchased that skins pack that came out awhile back, but I haven't tried that.

I'm mostly posting this information because getting it from the official site is something of a nightmare. Even a direct link to the thread would just throw the site's age gate in your face, following by a redirect to the homepage. Super annoying! This seems like the sort of info that they'd want to blast out onto the homepage of the site and the in-game Message of the Day, since it's an issue that effectively makes the game unplayable online, and both players in a match need to have performed this fix to make it work.

So, do your part. Go redownload those skins, and while you're at it, download all of the compatibility packs for the DLC characters. Because the other incredibly frustrating part of the process is that those are optional downloads, so if the person you're playing with hasn't grabbed those packs or purchased the three available downloadable characters, you can't use the characters you've paid for! Insane, right? This one can't be laid at the feet of the developers, though. This one's an issue with Microsoft's rules regarding maximum patch sizes, I believe. Stuff like this is what makes me want the next generation of consoles to come sooner rather than later. Hopefully they'll be able to guarantee hard drives in all machines next time and force multiplayer patches down to all players to keep everyone running the same stuff at the same time.

Oh, also, Rain is available today. He's pretty crazy, I bet the combo videos will be nuts.

Jeff Gerstmann on Google+

76 Comments

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Ares42

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Edited By Ares42

After being away for a few weeks while the new chars were coming out, I apparently managed to install/patch things in the wrong order and ended up with the game crashing before title screen =/ Had the same kinda nightmare of trying to find any info on what the problem was etc. Would think that most big titles these days should manage to arrange it so if you search for "game title forum" on google the first choice would be to an official forum where you can get technical assistance.

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xpgamer7

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Edited By xpgamer7

Time to kick butt as rain.

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gunstar

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Edited By gunstar

Don't you mean next generation Konsoles

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PrivateIronTFU

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Edited By PrivateIronTFU

I got rid of my Mortal Kombat a long time ago. Mostly because I just suck at it. But shit like this makes me mad. Seriously, is there no QA at game studios anymore?

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musubi

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Edited By musubi

Selfish people who don't download the FREE compatibility packs piss me off.   If everyone would just download it we would have no problems everything would flow and I wouldn't have to think  "Gosh, I hope this guy has the compat back for the new DLC I just bought..." 
 
Having to go OUT of my way to use the stuff I purchased is what is irking me.

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mnzy

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Edited By mnzy

I don't know if it ever worked "just fine" online. Maybe it's because I read SRK and stuff, but people hate the online portion of the game.
From my experience it was always very laggy and gave you alot of disconnects even without this thing pushing it to the extreme.

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OneManX

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Edited By OneManX

So I just got a patch today on PS3, played for about an hour, no drops or desynchs, and a few matches I couldnt use my DLC or Free Skins (but I could use the klassic ones?) So I guess they got that problem fixed, i guess it's just an issue of making sure EVERYONE can use EVERYBODY they paid for. And the story going around the webs is that the MS patch restrictions prevent them from being a mandatory thing, if that is the case... that is kinda lame.

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rtroock

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Edited By rtroock

@HatKing: people like that existed long before there was a quest to reward them for it.

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Enigma777

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Edited By Enigma777

Man this makes me want to jump back into MK but then I remember I lost my save with all my progress and unlocked characters and I feel like crying...

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slantedwindows

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Edited By slantedwindows

so in other words, make your website SUPER annoying to navigate, and journalists will give you free press!

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jacksukeru

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Edited By jacksukeru
No Caption Provided

Still no Rain here yet. can't wait though.

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UncleThursday

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Edited By UncleThursday
@KingPossum said:
I still don't get why it doesn't prompt what save device you want to use on the xbox version upon start-up.  So far that's messed me up a few times.
For those of us who don't have memory units or USB sticks plugged in, having the games prompt you for which device you want to save to is the most annoying thing, ever. If there's only one place to save (the hard drive) then don't prompt us. Shame that that sort of coding (if, then statement) wasn't implemented. Instead we get games that every time we start them up ask us where we want to save to, even when the only option is the hard drive. Which gets very annoying, very quickly. 
 
If MS would properly implement the if, then statements, then people like you can save to wherever you want, and the rest of us can just save to the hard drive without being prompted "oh, hai, there are only one place to save, please choose where you want game to save to, even though there are only one choice, because this game am smart."
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RuneseekerMireille

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Thanks for the message, Jeff. My games been randomly freezing up every time it tries to connect online, hopefully this fixes that problem.

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UncleThursday

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Edited By UncleThursday

I really can't understand why there's such a desyncing problem when it comes to the pre-order skins. They're already on the disk. Everyone with the game has them, they just either needed the pre-order codes or need to DL the classic skin pack to get them unlocked (which I will admit, even though I bought it for both systems, paying $5 for something already on the disk is a bit wrong, the skins should have been a free DL to unlock).  
 
As for the problems with people not downloading the free classic skin packs that have the compatibility updates... well, that's on them. They're free and have classic skins to use; so why wouldn't you? But I have played people on both systems that didn't do it, which then made either Kenshi or Skarlet unavailable to me.

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buft

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Edited By buft

crZY 

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Rolyatkcinmai

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Edited By Rolyatkcinmai

@KingPossum said:

I still don't get why it doesn't prompt what save device you want to use on the xbox version upon start-up. So far that's messed me up a few times.

Because everyone agreed that was the absolute worst trend ever and Ed Boon didn't want his game to be a piece of shit.

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studnoth1n

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Edited By studnoth1n

is it just me or does this seem unnecessarily complicated? was the intent to make a playable game between two players online so complicated it would ultimately force people just to pony up for the dlc? the only reason i doubt how "unintentional" these snafus have become has to do with the overall experience and competency of the developers and publishers involved. this isn't their first rodeo, so what gives with the amateurish b.s.?

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deactivated-589cf9e3c287e

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I dun have Xbox Live, but I may end up doing it anyway?

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rmanthorp

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Edited By rmanthorp  Moderator

@JJOR64: Now, now.

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Stubee

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Edited By Stubee
@JJOR64: The DLC for SSF4 works in MK?!  Sweet! Now i can play a Ryu in a good fighting game!
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RE_Player1

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Edited By RE_Player1

I haven't played MK in awhile, this has reminded me to pop it in.

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JJOR64

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Edited By JJOR64

At least the DLC with Super Street Fighter IV works. Harharharharharharharharharharharharharharharharharharhahrharhahrharhhrhrhraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

In all seriousness though, that totally sucks ass. Thought about playing it later today so I will definitely do that.

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Protonguy

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Edited By Protonguy

Pity they're having so many problems. Awesome game.

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Edited By KingPossum

I still don't get why it doesn't prompt what save device you want to use on the xbox version upon start-up. 
 
So far that's messed me up a few times.

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honeycut1

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Edited By honeycut1

So time to get the DLC then?

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Edited By jeff
The desynch error message feels a lot like this.
The desynch error message feels a lot like this.

Look, it sucks when the games we buy don't work as intended. It's almost worse when a game that used to work just fine actually becomes broken for one reason or another. That's been the case with Mortal Kombat lately, which was working just fine online for awhile, but now that there's DLC and "klassic" skins packs out there to purchase, things have gone way, way sideways.

The problem, apparently, lies in the classic skins that came as part of various retailer-specific pre-order packages. If you downloaded these back in April and have them on your system, every game you attempt to join will, if my experience is any indication, totally fail to stay connected. According to a post on the game's official forums, a patch is in the works to fix this issue once and for all. However, you can do your part today by simply deleting and redownloading any of those individual skins that you might have on your Xbox 360. The PlayStation 3 was also suffering from this issue, but it looks like a patch is already available there that fixes this. I assume you could also just delete the skins if you've purchased that skins pack that came out awhile back, but I haven't tried that.

I'm mostly posting this information because getting it from the official site is something of a nightmare. Even a direct link to the thread would just throw the site's age gate in your face, following by a redirect to the homepage. Super annoying! This seems like the sort of info that they'd want to blast out onto the homepage of the site and the in-game Message of the Day, since it's an issue that effectively makes the game unplayable online, and both players in a match need to have performed this fix to make it work.

So, do your part. Go redownload those skins, and while you're at it, download all of the compatibility packs for the DLC characters. Because the other incredibly frustrating part of the process is that those are optional downloads, so if the person you're playing with hasn't grabbed those packs or purchased the three available downloadable characters, you can't use the characters you've paid for! Insane, right? This one can't be laid at the feet of the developers, though. This one's an issue with Microsoft's rules regarding maximum patch sizes, I believe. Stuff like this is what makes me want the next generation of consoles to come sooner rather than later. Hopefully they'll be able to guarantee hard drives in all machines next time and force multiplayer patches down to all players to keep everyone running the same stuff at the same time.

Oh, also, Rain is available today. He's pretty crazy, I bet the combo videos will be nuts.