The subject says it all. A few days ago I picked up a mod loader for this game (you can find it here: http://www.moddb.com/mods/battlefront-ii-mod-loader (http://www.moddb.com/mods/battlefront-ii-mod-loader) I got the easy version so I can vouch for it working like a charm) I'm loving launching the client through this loader, I have far more than 500 missions and this helps me get around the limit by quickly selecting which mods I want to play pre-launch. Even before I got this mod loader I worked around the mission limit by switching the 3-character folders in and out of my addon folder manually. That said, tinkering with this got me thinking; why is there a mission limit? Would something happen to the client if you had over 500 missions? I don't think the devs planned to make enough content for that to come into consideration. That said, clearly they anticipated the game be modded or expanded upon, otherwise why would the mission limit be there? I never had an X-box, but I know that this game had DLC for the Xbox, perhaps they wanted to leave the door open to release some kind of content for PC? I dunno :shrug: , I'm just speculating, and anyone who actually does know is welcome to post the real reason :)
Here is a related question:
Why doesn't my computer have infinite memory?
In 2005, computers were not nearly as powerful as they are now. If you go back to when SWBF2 was developed, it was in 2003/2004. You would be lucky to have a computer that had 512 MB of ram at that time.
For SWBF2, the limit is like 512 missions or something. For SWBF1, we have a limit of about 25. In that perspective, 512 is pretty awesome.
The short answer, everything has a limit--and whatever the limit is, someone wants more than the limit.