14 DAY TRIAL // Barely have DICE and Electronic Arts started the open beta stage for Battlefield 3, the new first-person shooter, and server files were leaked onto the web, prompting hackers to start their own servers and bypass the limits of the beta, like hosting 64 or 128-player matches in other types of gameplay modes.
DICE has revealed that it's aware of the situation but warns those who try to play on these servers that they are exposed to risks and other issues, which ultimately may lead to their Origin account being banned, effectively preventing them from playing the games they bought with it.
Battlefield 3 is awaited by many, so EA and DICE decided to hold an open beta stage across the PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, allowing players to try out the multiplayer mode on the Operation Metro map, in Rush mode, with up to 32 players being allowed on each server.
Sadly, as with many things on the web, the files needed to start up and maintain servers were leaked over the weekend, allowing people to modify and establish their own Battlefield 3 servers with any settings they wanted.
As such, via BF3blog, servers with 64 or 128-player limits started appearing, with Operation Metro running not just in Rush mode, but also in Conquest.
DICE has immediately posted a notice on its forums, which you can find in the screenshot above, that advises players to not join such illegal servers.
"We are aware that a number of servers have appeared and are running game modes and player counts that have not been currently seen. Please try to remain on official servers."
In case you don't want to heed to warnings of DICE, things might get ugly, as the studio could resort to banning the Origin accounts of those that don't play on official servers.
"Playing on those servers can cause your account to become compromised, stats to be altered or other issues to arise which may lead to having your account banned by EA."
If it comes to that, players won't be able to access the games they had bought with that EA/Origin account.
No word yet on if such sanctions were taken as of yet, but not being able to access your games should be enough of an incentive to stay away from hacked servers, at least for now.