Microsoft support was quick to respond to some late night twitter-requests to the @XboxSupport on our behalf. The initial responses were just what Andrew noted; they asked me to restart my modem, plug in my xbox directly to the modem, etc. The usual hoops were jumped through with no result, then the playing field changed.
During this time I was attempting to communicate with Andrew with some strange results. Not only was Party Chat not working for us, but joining in-game for some Gears of War action wasn’t working either. At this point I change my question from “Internet no worky, why?” to “connecting for co-op isn’t working, please help.” Aside from the happy reception of an intelligible question, I was offered a few new solutions.
First was the knowledge that the latest Xbox Dashboard update has changed some of the online safety that may block some communications. First go to My Xbox, click your Gamercard, scroll over to Online Safety, and check to see what’s not allowed. If you’ve had any parental settings, something may be awry - blocking your co-op capabilities!
Then some magic mumbo-jumbo that may help others, but didn’t get our game started. What does Xbox want us to do when we’re paying for online co-op!? Move to Playstation where they can patch us out of our Black Ops co-op network?. No thank you.
Please get your co-op stuff together guys, we can’t do Google voice chat for everything or single player games. Blech! This goes across the board to Xbox, and PS3. We’re supposed to have flying cars and stuff - this is the future! At least give us some fun co-op good times with solid voice chat!