BF3 DLC and bad game UI

There wasn't too much this week that was interesting, at least to me that is, in the gaming world.  We're still a couple of weeks out from the official release of the next DLC for Battlefield 3, Close Quarters but if you're a premium member you can already play on the new maps.

From the BF3 battlelog webpage it appears that there are now 4 new maps available:  Ziba Tower, Operation 925, Donya Fortress and Scrapmetal .

Since close quarters is more of a Deathmatch, run and gun affair it's likely I won't be picking it up so check elsewhere for more details. 

It was obvious that last week's huge patch was largely due to this expansion as well as some interface tweaks to the Battlelog web page.

Speaking of Battlelog, I still don't see why I need to go to a webpage to play a retail game.  At least in Need For Speed, the autolog ( NFS' battlelog equivalent) is rolled into the game.  Oh, and by the way you can't use Internet Explorer 8 with BF3 anymore. 

The last patch removed support for it.  Not that many people are still using it for BF3 as this game won't install on a Windows XP system.  XP is the only recent OS that can't upgrade to IE9 or above.  I suppose if you were attached to Vista and resisted IE9 it's a problem.

That's beside the point, however. 

Perhaps it's a symptom of cross contamination between console and PC gaming that every game has suddenly developed overly complex user interfaces, confusing controls and a need to be constantly connected to the Internet even for solo play.

So begins the era of  "immersion" which went far beyond just better visuals, now we could control  every aspect of our pixilated alter-ego.  We can look over our shoulders, map a key to a specific weapon, program custom taunts for other players.

 It all sounds good till you see the hopeless quandary it created for the developers.  Take a look at any modern FPS or driving simulation and you have a dizzying array of options  which have little or nothing to do with playing the actual game.  I know this because I ignore most of them and do just fine thank you.  Couple that with a kludgy UI designed to allow more advertising space for the publisher and the excitement soon wanes.

Multiplayer gaming is over a decade old now and I've played some great titles from all the major developers over the years.  About 5 years ago the option for Lan gameplay started disappearing from games instead forcing players to log onto an Internet server just to start the game.  This was likely a reaction to all the piracy that was going on and the publishers figured if you could log into their authentication servers you weren't a pirate.

Thus starts the bald-faced admission that game publishers just like their Motion Picture industry cousins think their customers are all thieves.  The worst offenders kept the horribly buggy securom  anti-piracy software  AND forced you to logon to an Internet server just to play the game.  I didn't play those titles too long as one thing or the other was always getting in the way.

S o here we are in 2012, and the state of gaming is this..

The publishers still think we're thieves,  Game controls are either hopelessly over complicated or inadequate and we're forced to be online even if we're not playing online.

It almost makes me want to go back to Galaga...