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I have a big problem with Battlefield 3 right now. I don't have a problem with the game itself, or with the foul-mouthed community of players.
I have a problem with all the constant bugs in Internet gaming itself.
This month I suffered through some of the worst lagging problems in the Xbox multiplayer mode for Battlefield 3. At times I couldn't even move my soldier and I was a sitting duck for other people to kill me. At first, I thought there was a problem with my Internet connection. However, I tried out ping and trace route tests on my computer and there were no hiccups on my network.
There had to be something wrong with the game's servers. Electronic Arts has a miserable way of assuring the Battlefield 3 community that there is nothing wrong with the servers. They set up a "server status" page to show everyone that the servers are always "up." That's all the page ever says. I have no idea whether this means that they're all functioning at 100 percent. I already know that many of them had horrible glitches where I couldn't even move my soldier.
Oh, it's "up." Yeah, whatever.
An icon in the top corner of my screen is supposed to tell me that I have a bad connection. I can't even trust this stupid icon, because everyone else is running circles around my soldier. I have no choice but to stand still until the other team kills me.
I'm somewhat glad that DICE fixed a few of these glitches on the following week. However, I know from experience that these glitches could resurface again in the future. If I'm playing online, the game shouldn't force me to stand still for two minutes, just because my connection slowed down for a few seconds. Keep in mind that this glitch kept messing people up for an entire week. At one point, I just gave up and bought some different games to enjoy without an Internet connection.
I'm sure that Battlefield 3 is never perfect. However, DICE should have fixed these problems before the release of their newest DLC pack, Armored Kill. I was really looking forward to Armored Kill, but I'll never play it if the servers are this slow. I'm definitely not going to play the upcoming Battlefield 4 beta if I have to suffer through even worse glitches.
Online gaming is overrated, in my opinion. If game companies want to hook me up to Internet games, they'd better fix their Internet servers so that my version is at least playable. That isn't too much to ask, is it?
What are some of the other horrible Internet glitches in games today? Should developers fix all these problems beforehand, or should we just wait two months for the next patch? Write your thoughts in the comments below.