I just activated the 48hr trial that came with Halo Wars, but instead of getting a temporarily gold account, my account continues to be silver and I can't play ranked. Alright, I guess that's better than nothing - and I think/hope I can also play custom games, but this isn't what I signed up for!
Try activating it again, and if not I don't really know what to do. With Silver you can't play any games online. Not even Custom games.
I tried signing out and in, turning off the 360 and back on, and signing back in. I can play Team Mythic, Social games, not DoubleExpWeekend, -'cause I don't have legendary -, but I can't play ranked, I can upload stuff to my fileshare etcetera. The card clearly says: "THREE HALO 3 MAPS, HONOR GUARD WRAITH TANK AND 48-HOU LIVE GOLD TRIAL" I'll check if I can play any other games online. If I type the code in again, it says it's already been used*. * on xbox.com, on my Xbox it just says I need to try again/enter a valid code. Edit in a min. EDIT: I can play L4D online.
When I used 48 hour trials they never let me play ranked either, only social. But it does seem odd how it still says Silver, I never checked if this was the case when I used 48hr trials. Maybe it means that it's literally a trial, that you're still technically a silver user but you get a 'taste' of gold account. I think you should be able to play customs though, if you can play social MM then it would seem silly not to be able to play customs.
Ah, well. I can get over not playing MM. I should try to get into a lot of customs next two days, then.
My freind had this aswell I was able to play private halo wars games with him, so i think you can play custom games
The trial only gives you minimal access to Xbox Live. It is meant to let you decide whether it's worth paying for or not.
Yeah, this just happened to me about a week ago. And the weirdest part is that my account was gold while at the dashboard, but the minute I switched over to Halo, it was reverted to silver. Each time I restarted my system it would do the same thing. I never remembered to check a different game to see if it was only Halo. Sorry I can't be of help though.
I remember Bungie saying that you casn't play ranked on a 48-hour trial. Lots of people complained when Halo 3 first came out because they used the 48-hr trial that came with the game because they couldn't play in the ranked matches. Just stop being cheap and buy gold if you want ranked. I know it's stingy that MS even charge you for online play, but if you know where to look, you can be stingy back, and get it really cheap (try eBay or amazon. I got 13 months for £25 from eBay, and the postage is instant and free because they just email you the code)