bad company servers

[Jeffro]

interesting....

DICE explains Battlefield Bad Company 2 dedicated server rentals

[BlackArrow]

As promised here is the PC Blog on the Beta & a few other things, yes some people, places, and things may have leaked a little something, but we are here to clarify everything and make it all official since we can now commit to the listed dates! :-)



BETA Details:

Beta Begins/Ends


Jan 28th/Feb 25th

Map Name


Port Valdez

Players


32

Game Mode


Rush

Environment


Snow

Theme


Vehicle and Infantry

Back Story


The battle for Port Valdez is fought alongside the waterline towards a great oil industrial landscape in the Alaskan mountains. Using basically everything they've got the Russian forces are launching an airborne assault to knock out the oil industries in the area. In their arsenal there are Main Battle Tanks as well as fast-moving Quad Bikes and mobile armored AA. It's a vehicle focused battle, but with plenty of infantry combat.



How to Download: Check back to the Battlefield Bad Company 2 for a new Beta Page closer to beta launch date for download instructions.

How To Get Access: Reserve Battlefield Bad Company 2 is the most sure fire way, but we are still working with some other Retailers & e-Tailers that wish to participate. If you're eager to ensure you get in the two confirmed distributors to Pre-Order are the EA Store, Amazon.de and at GameStop.com. We'll have another Blog at a later date with an update on the retailers & e-Tailers that have teamed up with us as well as alternate channels to obtain a Closed Beta Key.

*NOTE: This promotion is with participating retailers only. Please check with your local retailers if PC Beta Code is available through their stores.



Misc. Details

Steam Beta: Yes there was a leaked image of a Package file we propped on Steam. People with illegal accounts can see games in this environment, but this is not a Beta in the term of Public Test Beta, but a real development Beta installer client for the Steam version of the full game. We are however working with Steam to have the Public PC Beta available on Steam, but can't confirm this quite yet so cross your fingers Steam users. :-)

Anti Cheat: We're going with PunkBuster supporting the same options BF2 and BF2142 had to run unranked without PunkBuster.

Mod Tools: There will not be mod tools for BFBC2. However a majority of the the games logic is controlled by the server and there will be Serverside control options for the dedicated servers.

Public Server Files: We will not distribute these publicly. There are many factors for why we have decided this with the biggest factor being security & integrity of our game & Dedicated Servers.

[Duke{CLR}]

I imagine the server rental will be about the same as the other BF games which means they will be expensive and a bit of a PITA. I think people may be a bit more tolerant this time around because of the need for a tactical FPS game.

[KurlonT]

Sounds like the usual deal of ranked vs. unranked servers just like BF2 and BF2142. I'm guessing for a 32p ranked it will be around the $1.99 per slot range but who knows could be higher if the game is a resource hog.

Unless Cain is going to run two BC2 servers it should be cheaper than the monster 64p BF2 server...

[Duke{CLR}]

Unless Cain is going to run two BC2 servers it should be cheaper than the monster 64p BF2 server...

Good point.

[K PhaNTOM]

Aren't all BF games resource hogs for their time?

[Jeffro]

what do you mean phantom? not quite sure i understand your question.


if you mean resource hog graphically, i have never really had a problem with the graphics... however bad company looks like a little bit of a leap.... hopefully my 8800gt can handle it.

[Rand{CLR}]

Only on unoptimized maps with massive, Cain's Lair-like player counts. There were reasons Cain didn't run some of the larger BF2 maps.

For most maps it was smooth as buttah even with 64 players. You can't judge by 2142 standards either--Titan mode was just godawful terrible when the Titans could move. That's just unbearably poor coding there.

-Rand