Topic: Microsoft Rewards (Reward Points Thread)

@ralphdibny Yea, whenever I clicked on it it would go to my games library. So naturally, I tried starting the game from that button and unlocking an achievement that way. Still didn't work.

12/04/21 - The Rewards tab on the mobile Bing app appears to have been down since last night.

Not sure when it will come back up. You can still access your MS Rewards by searching for it in the browser and logging into your account like that. Not by going to your logged in profile on the bing app itself - if that makes sense?

Bing App Log in Rewards - not working
MS Account Rewards Log in from within a browser page - working OK

Be sure to do it to keep your daily streak going!

It's always good to check that main page frequently anyway as it shows the MS Rewards Punchcards

Edit:- possibly only me suffering from this?

@ralphdibny I did my daily set his morning at around 8am and it worked fine.

@dmcc0 ahh fair enough, off of the main Bing App>Rewards? Or off of your bookmarked link to the web version? Might just be my app that's messing up then, maybe I'll uninstall and reinstall later

I just played a bit of Street Fighter X Tekken on steam. It's an old Games for Windows Live game, I had to install a community patch to get it working and use my Xbox credentials to log in. But yeah I'm generally unaware of GfWL as I missed that era of PC gaming, well most eras of PC gaming 😅.

Anyway, I unlocked an achievement in the game and I was curious as to whether it would register on the Rewards app on Xbox for that daily 50pts quest and it did! So yeah, just letting peeps know that Games for Windows Live games will still pop eligible achievements for the Xbox Rewards App.

Tip to get the daily 250 Edge points quickly:
Open up the Edge app on your phone. Make sure you are signed in, of course. Type in H element in the search bar. A diagram of a hydrogen atom will pop up. Scroll through 50 atoms using the right arrow button. Each atom counts as a new search, and you can pound out all 50 in a matter of a couple of minutes. If there’s something faster, I’d love to know. It use to be 150 points for the Bing search and that was REALLY easy. This isn’t as good as that, but it works okay.

@Hypnotoad107 cheers for the tip, I wonder if your 250 points is US only though? In the UK we get the following points breakdown

Bing App on Mobile - 60 points (20 searches at 3 points each with a level 2 account)
PC Search - 90 points (30 searches)
Edge Bonus - 12 points (4 searches)

Either way, I'll certainly be trying out the elements method when my daily target resets tomorrow. Cheers for the tip! If it all works out OK then I might add it to the guide on the first page in this thread if you don't mind? I'll give full credit to you for the addition of course

@ralphdibny I use to get 150 for the Bing app before it redistributed the point breakdown. On the Bing app, I would type in a topic in the search bar (like “Xbox”), click on the news tab, then scroll down. Scroll down where it has to update the feed a couple of times, and you’ll have those points cleared out in seconds. I only get 10 points for the Bing app now, unfortunately. And I get 10 points for the bing pc desktop search.

@Hypnotoad107 that's so weird, it's a completely different points breakdown over here. I wonder why it's different across regions.

I've been doing the bing app search in the way i wrote the guide on page 1, it takes like a minute with fast fingers but I am keen to try out this elements method.

I do both the PC search and the Edge Bonus using the Edge app on Xbox as well, takes a few minutes due to slower load times. I normally do it around the same time I check the rewards app and do an achievement in a game for 50 points.

Currently my acheivement a day game is FIA Truck Racer or whatever it was called that was a GwG recently. Winning a race on each tracks nets an achievement per track. Not too hard when you get a handle on the controls and set everything to super easy in a quick race. I know there are easier games to get achievements on but I've got a bank of those games saved up for the next 10K gamerscore for 10K reward points they put up

I thought I'd post about the games I used for the 10000 GS for 10000 reward points May punchcard. First I'd like to say that I used a bunch on Januarys punch card so this is what I have left. Secondly I would say that I have been keen to use non-MS game pass games as these have a time limit on them and may not still be available the next time a punch card like this shows up.

Donut County - this game is short, I did it without a guide and then used a guide to mop up the last few gamerscore.

Doom 64 - I've played this before on Switch. The 1000GS guide on YouTube (I think it's by Maka91) uses cheats to get through it in less than an hour. I'd say you could probably use the guide and it wouldn't spoil the game if you wanted to play it properly in future though you will see what the final boss looks like by doing so.

Subnautica - Again less than an hour for 1000GS using the video guide. It uses console commands to warp you to different places in the game. I've never played it before and I would say my time with the game was so brief that it didn't spoil it for me. Having said that, I couldn't really know if it would.

Day of the Tentacle Remastered - this is a game I have been wanting to play for a while so I played it properly the first time around without a guide. A guide will definitely spoil this game for you as the enjoyment from it comes from solving the point and click puzzles/objectives/whatever you call it. It took me around 2 days to play it properly without a guide, then I used a text Guide to mop up the last ten or so achievements. Luckily once you know how to do everything, the second playthrough takes about an hour or so.

Surviving Mars (Xbox) - there's two mods available which unlock all the achievements called Sebb1 and Sebb 2. Install the game, install both mods, start a new game and it unlocks all the achievements for 1000GS automatically. They may take some time to pop but you don't have to stay in the game, just quit the game and let it do its thing. Again, I used a guide by Maka91 on YouTube, sorry I can't remember the full channel title but just search for it and it will come up. I would say that it doesn't spoil the game because you literally don't see any of the game when you do this method.

Surviving Mars (PC) - this has a separate achievement list and once you've installed the mods on Xbox they will transfer over to the PC version. Install the game, check the mods are enabled and click new game. Same as above really

Five Nights at Freddy's 2 (PC) - Again I used the Maka91 guide and it took less than half hour for 1000GS. It only works on PC and you need a keyboard with a numpad because you need to use the "+" key. I saw very little of the game doing the video guide so I am not sure if there's any spoilers. I saw some jump scares so maybe I became a bit desensitised to them but I guess you could see that as a good thing 😅

Don't Starve Giant Edition (PC) - this will probably be my last game for this punch card but it's currently crashing my computer lol. Will update if I get it to work, aparently it is less than ten minutes...

Other than that, I got the last 200GS on What Remains of Edith Finch that I'd been saving from the last punch card. I also thought linking my high trophy Rocket League PS4 account to the Xbox would pop all the achievements automatically but it doesn't. A few popped but I ended up just playing it a bit anyway and have about 545GS from it. I also just opened all the games on Rare Replay for another 500 or so GS

The games I used in January's punchcard (that I can't use again) in case you were interested were The Walking Dead Season 1, 2, A New Frontier and Michonne, NHL 94 Rewind, What Remains of Edith Finch, The Gardens Between, The Little Acre, Fractured Minds, Roblox and Rec Room.

@ralphdibny how do you get mods on the series x?

@Krzzystuff on the menu screen, click on "paradox account" in the bottom left. Log in/create an account and link it with your gamertag/MS account. Go back to main menu and near the account button in the bottom left is a "mods" button. Click that, search "sebb" and install Sebb1 and sebb2. Check they are both enabled, go back to the main menu, click "new game" in the centre of the screen, click skip tutorial and the achievements should start popping! But yeah, they might not all pop at once but you should get the full 1000 within a few hours, you don't have to keep the game open.

That's the guide but it mentions 3 mods that are no longer available, Sebb1 and sebb2 are the new ones and you only need both of them

@ralphdibny thanks! Surviving Mars is actually leaving gamepass soon so i figured I'll get the free gamerscore as i won't actually get a chance to play it. Subnautica i might get the gamerscore hack and then just play it normally as I'm a certified diver, scuba and muff, so i like the feel of the game and will want to play it fully. I might also just skip the gamerscore and leave it for later. The Korgan free game apperently takes just a few hours to best fully so i'll play that normally as well. I only just realised that I can buy non Xbox headsets through the Xbox store so my rewards points can be used towards that! I wonder if the design lab let's you use rewards points as well once it's opened up again?

@Krzzystuff oh really? That's awesome! Yeah I've heard subnautica is really good, sounds a bit daunting though!

I'm trying to save the free games and GwG for when I've used up the game pass games, it's a bit of a balancing act! Though I have readdicted myself to Rocket League now so I am knocking out a few achievements for it. I ended up playing Full Throttled Remastered in the end and using a guide to mop up the last 6 achievements once I'd completed it properly because I couldn't get Don't Starve to work. Its really good actually.

I don't see why you couldn't use points toward that. I've never done it but I assume you just redeem your points for a bunch of £5 vouchers and they get added to your MS account as credit to use in the store?

Well i just remembered why gaming on my PC sucked arse. I just installed Surviving Mars for the free gamerscore and it's not connecting to my account, don't let me install any mods and is just a pain in the ass. Series X has been such a blessing. PC just ain't my jam

@Krzzystuff ahh lame that really sucks. Maybe you've given up on it already but I thought I'd write a list of things to check anyway. I know this is unsolicited troubleshooting so feel free to ignore it! 😅 Also I apologise if it's stuff you've already done!

1. Make sure you are downloading the game from the "Xbox (Beta)" app. I believe this is the version of the app that includes game pass. You can Google search game pass for PC and it should take you to the appropriate download link. Of course now you have two very similar looking Xbox apps on your PC. During installation, try and check a box that will add the Beta app to the desktop so you know where and which one it is.

2. See above, make sure the Xbox app you've opened is the Beta app. Honestly I'm not sure if game pass is included in the normal app as I've never tried it. When I went to use game pass on PC initially, it directed me straight to the Beta App.

3. When you open the game for the first time, a pop up will appear. This pop up might be stuck behind the game though so Minimise the game and look for this pop up. It should say something along the lines of "Allow Surviving Mars to have access to [yada yada yada] on your Microsoft account? Click to confirm". If you can't see the pop up, it might be a separate icon down on the task bar or it might be part of the Xbox app button (hover over the Xbox icon and see what windows are open, click the pop up window). If it's still not showing, then just check your display settings to make sure the computer doesn't think any other displays are connected, the pop up may have appeared on a phantom monitor!

4. Hopefully the above works, my apologies if I doesn't :/. From there though, you open Surviving Mars, it should be the same menu screen as you have seen on xbox with the options for Mods and Paradox account in the bottom left (edit) corner. Use a mouse and keyboard for this, it's much easier. Click Paradox account, log in with the account you've created. Click Mods and the ones you installed from Xbox should appear after the list refreshes. If they don't then download them. Check they are enabled. Exit the Mods menu and click new game. (Hopefully) watch the achievements pop and click to exit this PC gaming hellscape you've entered into!

Again, I am really sorry if the steps above don't work. I don't want you to have gone through additional effort for it all to just not work again. Hopefully it helps though!

@ralphdibny I'll give it a go again at some point this weekend and see if it works. Thanks for writing all that up.

@Krzzystuff no worries! I hope it helps! I don't think game pass for PC is the most user friendly thing but then again I thought the same about Xbox one when I first got it and I've gotten quite into it now. Anyway I quite like writing guides for convoluted processes 😂 so yeah, no problems there!

Microsoft Rewards has been down for the past day, can't load the app.

@Grumblevolcano same here, super annoying! I didn't check the rewards app before playing Titanfall 2 for my daily achievement.

I didn't know if it was a local issue or not because my Xbox was being a bit slow anyway. I have my Xbox unplugged currently. I was going to plug it in before midnight to see if it works. If not then uninstall/reinstall the app. Might not bother though if it's a xbox-wide issue