Just hours after finding out that Supreme Commander won’t allow custom maps more damming news comes for the PC modding community. Electronic Arts today announced that the PC version of Battlefield Bad Company 2 will not have any modding tools released. This in turn means custom maps will not be a choice.

Electronic Arts have also decided they will not distribute the dedicated server software to the general public. The battlefield blog states – “There are many factors for why we have decided this with the biggest factor being security & integrity of our game & Dedicated Servers." This means you won't be able to host your own server using your own server hardware, however you will still be able to rent one – unlike in the much publicized Call of Duty 6 system. The vast majority of dedicated servers are rented by the admins, rather than run.

This may be a mid-way between getting rid of dedicated servers, and having the complete server package that previously was shared. If EA pulls it off correctly you can expect the system to be used across a range of future games. As with a lot of recent moves eliminating dedicated servers the core reason EA does not want to give out the dedicated server software is piracy. All the previous games have had the software hacked to be able to allow pirated copies play on private servers. However the software has been made and will be distributed to server hosts, so I would place a bet on it leaking out.

Source: http://aperturegames.com/listn…..ted-server