Issue 15 - October 2004

	English Version	http://www.egosoft.com/x/xnews/200410_44News.html
	German Version	http://www.egosoft.com/x/xnews/200410_49News.html
	French Version	http://www.egosoft.com/x/xnews/200410_33News.html
	Polish Verison	http://www.egosoft.com/x/xnews/200410_48News.html
	Italian Version	http://www.egosoft.com/x/xnews/200410_39News.html

	Editor's Note:	*A Very Short Note...*
	X²: Award Finalist:	*Our Main Story: The Golden Joysticks*
	X²: The Return:	*The New Game - Information Here*
	German Collectors Edition:	*Sorry everyone else, not just yet.*
	Credits & Contact:	*The Uninteresting Bit!*

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Editor's Note

A Very Short Note...

Welcome to X-News 15, your very own insight into the series of games and what’s going on behind the scenes. We have some great news about the future of the series and also some more news about how you can help X² win an award. It's just a small issue this month, but be on the watch as we will be starting X-News X-Tra sometime soon. Our on-line only newsletter supplement.

Just a reminder that our forums at http://forum.egosoft.com/ support many languages, including Czech. The Czech forum opened just recently.

So after a few months break, get a drink, turn on some music, sit back, relax and enjoy reading X-News 15.

Jon Handby

X²: Award Finalist

The Golden Joysticks

We need your vote: AGAIN! The initial nominations for the Golden Joystick Awards 2004 have now been whittled down and the shortlists drawn up. We are delighted to be able to tell you that X² - The Threat has been short listed for PC Game of the Year along with only 5 other games.

If you haven't already voted in this final round then please click on the link above to do so. The competition includes the likes of Doom 3 and Far Cry, so every vote counts!

You can vote from wherever you are in the world, but the competition to win free games is open to UK residents only and usual Dennis Publishing rules apply.

Please note that if you vote more than once then all your votes will automatically be discounted.

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/front_joysticks/

The Forum Team

X²: The Return

The New Game - Information Here

This is it, X²: The Return has been announced. The next story in the highly popular X-Series, is expected to be released early in 2005. X²: The Threat stormed to the top of the Media Control Charts immediately after its release on the 4th of February 2004.

The Return enhances the already extensive universe with additional missions, weapons systems and space sectors. A complete new storyline adds further tension. Newcomers will enjoy the additions to the already graphically impressive, almost living X²-Universe, while veterans can expect new construction options and an improved physics model.

X-News has been given the opportunity to let you know about one thing that isn’t currently known.

"The Player HQ"
Introducing the new station type that people have been speculating about. This brand new, fantastic looking station, that will be in X²: The Return is the brand new Player owned Headquarters.
The station will have many new features included to allow the station to act as a functioning Player HQ, we do not want to release everything about this new feature, so most of it will remain a surprise.

The Player HQ however is just one of many new features that are going to be included in X²: The Return. So what are the others?

"Station Hubs"
The giant stations that have been seen in some screenshots are Station Complexes. These are just normal stations that you can connect to each other using tunnel like modules to reduce the transportation issue that you get with slow freighters.

The above was described along with a new ship type in an interview with Bernd Lehahn on our forums. One of the new ships will be a “tug ship" for example. It will be capable of pulling stations inside a sector. This can be used to relocate player factories when forming the new super stations.

There are also several new weapons that you can use to equip your ship, The Yaki disruptor is quite a devastating new weapon. Yaki, (a group of extremely deadly pirates) use this weapon to disrupt ship engines. There will be an anti missile defence, a new very fast firing and deadly weapon and more...

The Return is set to be huge, packed with many new features. Naturally X-News will be covering this story right up to the release, we hope to be able to bring you more news in the near future. In the mean time you can read the interview with Bernd Lehahn by visiting our forums. http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=60568

"More Artwork"
As a little something more, 3 more images are available showing inside of an asteroid, and some X-Universe based artwork.

And exclusively to X-News, as though the Player HQ wasn’t enough, we also have the Games Convention video clip showing off some of the new graphics and improvements. You can watch that here:
http://www.egosoft.com/x2/download/teaser_x2_the_return.mpg (53.7 MB, MPEG2)
http://www.egosoft.com/x2/download/teaser_x2_the_return.avi (80.7 MB, DivX 5)

Jon Handby, Greg Kingston and Michael Baumgardt

German Collectors Edition

Sorry everyone else, not just yet.

If you are in Germany, then you are in for a treat, the Egosoft team and the German publisher are releasing a Collectors Edition of X²: The Threat.

Well what makes this a collectors edition, along with the game, which will be patched upto 1.4, you get two more goodies. One being a DVD in German, along with a copy of Nopileos by Helge Kautz.

The Collectors edition will only be available in Germany for the moment, there is no word at this time if the Collectors Edition will hit shelves elsewhere.

Mehr Details dazu stehen in der deutschen Version dieser X-Universe News

Jon Handby

	*Credits & Contact* *The Uninteresting Bit!* If you would like to get in contact with us, then feel free. E-mail: X-Universe-News@egosoft.com
	Publisher EGOSOFT info@egosoft.com Editors in Chief Darren Astles - Great Britain Michael B. - Deutschland Issue Editor Jonathan Handby Staff Greg "Abyss" Kingston	Translation and Proofreading CBJ Mauzi2 (de) ticaki (de) Confucio (it) Hugoz (it) Sauron11 (pl) Karagan (fr)
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