Origin and Battlefield 3 Suck

This is actually a really old post that I meant to write a long time ago, but I kind of simultaneously stopped playing Battlefield 3, and Origin seemed to improve itself (in addition to the fact that I didn’t actually have a blog when this issue presented itself). As such, I more or less indefinitely shelved this post, but recent developments frustrated me and prompted me to decide to actually post it. First, the old/original problem(s):

Basically, I was having issues with both Origin and Battlefield 3 in some manner or another. At first Origin worked fine enough, but Battlefield 3 was just bugged beyond being playable. The major issue I had with BF3, other than some random bugs, was that my character would start spinning uncontrollably whenever I did some keystrokes, like changing the volume, which was sometimes necessary as I started a game and realized the volume was too quiet or loud. Anytime I change my volume, or a few other commands, my character would just spin in circles, and there was no way to stop it, forcing me to quit the game. Added with the fact that it took a few minutes to connect to any server/game, and it was a frustrating experience having to quit out and start over all the time. After looking in the forums I found that a lot of people were having the same issue. Luckily, a solution was to be had, and some laptops had functions to control things like the volume, and they usually had some interaction with an “Fn” key, commonly found on Acer laptops (which mine was). The solution was to go to your processes and close “lmanager.exe.” That would fix the issue, but that also shut down all Fn key-related commands, so I could no longer change the volume… It was annoying that tons of people were having the issue I was having, but that the developers never figured out an actual solution, although the cause and issue were known.

So I begrudgingly kept playing BF3, albeit without volume control, but then Origin itself had to start having issues (for those of you don’t know, Origin is a program you have to open in order to play Battlefield 3, just like Steam, if you are familiar with Steam). Origin started having an issue in that I just simply couldn’t click on anything, meaning that when I opened Origin, I couldn’t click on Battlefield 3 to start playing the game itself. It was as if there was an invisible layer on top of the Origin window that made me clicking on anything impossible, although it was all there. Because this happened while I was trying to reinstall Battlefield 3 due to a lot of server connection issues I was getting, it meant that BF3 wasn’t installed while the Origin bug reared its ugly head, and I couldn’t click on the option in Origin to download it again. I tried restarting my computer, and that didn’t help. I eventually reinstalled Origin itself, and it worked long enough for me to reinstall BF3 before becoming unclickable again. I could at least right click on the Origin icon in my taskbar and start BF3 that way, but the inability to use Origin itself got on my nerves. This eventually seemed to get patched after a month or two.

I then ended up taking a break because I got fed up with the game’s other bugs I was having, and I came back a few months later. More issues. Now Battlefield 3 would just crash after every 5 or so minutes of playing. I looked on the forums, and there was a post with 99 pages (which is about 2,000 comments) of people complaining about the same issue. Each page in a forum thread can have 20 posts, and there were 99 pages in a forum thread specifically talking about this issue, and the thread had maxed out – nor more comments could be made in it. I unfortunately can’t find the thread anymore, which is a shame because it was almost comical how long it was, and I can only assume that the thread was deleted. Regardless, if you google for “battlefield 3 keeps crashing,” you still get plenty of results to illustrate my point. It was astounding that there was a thread in the game’s support section that had maxed out, and yet there was no response from the developers that I saw, and no solution presented itself that actually worked. I kind of lost respect for DICE as a developer at that point, which has made me terribly hesitant to buy any more of their games. There were some solutions that others posted, but nothing worked for me, so I again just stopped playing (although I didn’t even really start this time).

A few months passed, and I again decided to try playing BF3 again. This time I kept getting kicked out of games because of PunkBuster, which is an anti-cheating program, although I never cheat in games (I don’t really see the point). It seemed that PunkBuster wasn’t installed or set up right, and the game figured I was cheating. I tried messing with the setting, but it seemed that the only solution was to actually download PunkBuster, which I did, and it luckily did solve that issue. I was able to log in and play for a solid half an hour. I unlocked some attachments for the M249, which was my favorite gun, and as it goes, I again took another break for a little.

I came back after a couple months, ready to rock-and-roll with my M249, but all my unlocks were locked again. It seems that the server had no memory of me ever using it, although I definitely had. I tried contacting support, but they were worthless. Trying to get a hold of DICE just got me forwarded to EA’s general support (EA is the publisher of Battlefield 3). They seemed to just ignore actually reading what my issue was, and went through the typical questions asking if my internet connection was fine, or maybe it was a latency issue due to my internet provider, or maybe my cache was bad and needed to be cleared. While these are all generally good IT steps, the fact that the server lost my progress was nothing I could cause, influence, or change. The guy did not help me at all, but he did end up giving me some coupon for like 15% off the Origin store though (although I ended up giving it away because I just didn’t feel like buying anything through Origin). So I started playing the M249 again and got some of my old unlocks, but at this point, my patience with Battlefield 3 had gotten at about as thin as it would.

I played BF3 off and on (luckily without many more hitches), and I continuously considered buying BF4, but after all the issues I have had with BF3, I just couldn’t pull the trigger on that purchase. DICE seems to always have buggy games that only get good after a few years, but I most notably didn’t want to buy Battlefield 4 because DICE, among other developers/publishers, have got into the bad habit of forcing you to buy season passes because they sell you the base game, but a bunch, if not all of the expansions like new maps have to be paid for. That always rubbed me the wrong way, especially because it can leave you on desolated serves if everyone ends up playing on maps you didn’t buy. I am fine with cosmetic DLCs, or at least DLC content that doesn’t create exclusivity, but that is absolutely what you don’t get with the Battlefield franchise.

Note that I also had purchased the first Titanfall in the past, which I also played from time to time, without any real issues. Titanfall 2 just came out recently, and one of the things that attracted me to it was that they said that they would never charge for more map packs or any other actual game changers. I bought it about a month ago when it was on sale, and I have been having a blast with it. I actually just ended up uninstalling Battlefield 3 without any hesitation as I am now a bigger fan of Titanfall’s developer, Respawn. I also haven’t had any major issues playing Titanfall 2, and it has been fun, so I will just let that be my shooter of choice for now instead of the Battlefield franchise.

With all that being said, now to the new issue:

This post has been mostly anti-BF3, although Origin had its issues at one point. Regardless, after a few months, the only Origin issue seemed to get patched out, and then an entirely new version of Origin made things even smoother. However, about a week ago, I came home after drinking a bit, and I just wanted to play a few games of Titanfall 2, but Origin just wouldn’t work. It kept showing up in the taskbar, but with no options if I clicked on it. I would close the process, but every time I tried opening it, I would get the same issue in that it would only show an icon on my taskbar and not actually let me play the game. This happened whether I started Origin or Titanfall 2, and in either case, Origin would start, but then it wouldn’t continue farther than only Origin appearing in my taskbar. I ended up looking on some forums and some people recommended clearing my Origin cache, which I did, although it didn’t help. I eventually reinstalled Origin, and that luckily solved this issue.

Like I mentioned, I mostly just forgot about this post, but this recent run-in with Origin rekindled my memory, and I felt like letting all my frustration about Battlefield 3 and Origin out. I don’t even play Battlefield anymore, and I don’t plan on buying one unless they get rid of the season passes like Titanfall 2 did. I can’t say I have really had any serious issue with Titanfall 2 luckily (knock on wood), and Origin has largely behaved for the past year or so. Let’s just hope that this one issue I just had was the only I will have for a while.