Press Release (German)

[Steel]

Hi all,

http://www.pcgames.de/index.cfm?article_id=138840

Some pics and some interesting text.....

Afraid it's in German. Good job I made the effort to learn some

Cheers,

Steel

[SteveMill]

Hi all,

http://www.pcgames.de/index.cfm?article_id=138840

Some pics and some interesting text.....

Afraid it's in German. Good job I made the effort to learn some

Cheers,

Steel

Sadly Steel , your knowledge of German is failing to transmit itself directly to my brain to supplement my german, (learned exclusively from 60's Commando comics and so of limited utility here ).

Anyone up to a translation?

And, horrors, it seems to list THQ ( ) as publishers. Say it ain't so!

[Steel]

Well I have deciphered it using my "schoolboy" level German and having various books in my study.

But throw it into an online translator and you'll get the gist of it. Which is what I did and realised the translator (although terrible) is still better than me

Steel

[Arsaneus]

I can german but not so good English that I can translate it...maybe you ask BurnIT?

But I try it!


New is that X2 plays too on planets. You can talk to peoples on Planets!
(its not translated word for word but in my own words)

And: There's a new ship-class: the Cruiser is now know as " corvette"
its bigger than a M3 but smaller than a M1. They've more than 2 guns and
they can carry 1 M5!

[Arsaneus]

done...I hope you understand my English!
Its my first try to translate something (okok...the second thing...first was X2...into spanish)

[Dutchman]

My German is a bit rusty but I gave it a try :

----------------------
We just got new X2 screenshots from Egosoft on which you can see cockpits from this 3d-spacesimulation. You can find the shots in our gallery.

New features are also there regarding gameplay that will add a new face to the game "The game will now be partly played on the plante's surface. Especialy in the gameplot the player will find characters on the planet's surface" Bernd Lehahn told us this thrue an e-mail.

There will also be a new name for the cruiser, it will be called "corvette". This class of ship possitions itself between the smaller and agile M3 class ships and the M2 destroyers.
They will mostly have multiple canon-mounts and can hold a M5 in it's bay.
---------------------------------------

When I read all this I almost flipped !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Wow !!!!!!!!!


Cheers

[Al]

Partly taking place on planets surface? Can it be true? After all the denials from Egosoft regarding this I want to hear more.

Al

[SteveMill]

Partly taking place on planets surface? Can it be true? After all the denials from Egosoft regarding this I want to hear more.

Al

Seems highly unlikely. Probably it'll be done, if at all, like privaterer 2, which would be a nice bonus. Certainly no, Frontier-like, whole planets to fly over.

[Al]

Thats exactly my thoughts. I have no idea what Privateer2 is like as I've not played it. Would be interested to hear what form it takes.

Al

[Dutchman]

I see that they kept the "Mako", great I liked the design of this little ship despite the argument about "it" being able to fly straight ot not.

I also Love the idea of the "corvette" holding an m5 in it's bay

And I'm stunned by how the cockpits look, specialy the Argon M2 where you see a navigational plot table and some chairs in front view, it realy gives ya the feeling of being in a huge ship.

This is getting better by the day

[SteveMill]

Thats exactly my thoughts. I have no idea what Privateer2 is like as I've not played it. Would be interested to hear what form it takes.

Al

Planetfall via cut scene. Then you could travel to different planet locations via clicking on a travel map. Other planetary functions such as accessing work boards, hiring wingmen done via your pda, which in practice meant clicking on options on animated maps.

Very old hat, very standard RPG stuff, but did what it needed to do. Freelancer has this approach. If i was fitting it into the x engine I'd make each trading station into several locations on a map, (bars etc) and have an orbital shuttle as one selection to take you to the planet via a cut scene.

[WarpPig]

Thats exactly my thoughts. I have no idea what Privateer2 is like as I've not played it. Would be interested to hear what form it takes.

Al

Essentially, when you got within range of a planet, you could radio to request landing permission. You then were transferred to a starport scene (which was different for each planet), where you could visit a shipyard, access bulliten boards, and so on. There was also the chance, on some planets, to go to special locations, which furthered the plot. It was quite simple, yet effective and lots of fun. If this were developed further, all sorts of things could be implemented!

This, if true, makes for news which could be very significant indeed!

[Dutchman]

Personaly I liked it how Privateer2 presented the planetfall scenes, not to complicated but it gave you a feeling of actualy being on the planet's surface. This would be a great addition to X2, and give you more sence in being in contact with the locals.

Whatever this planetside feature will be, I'm sure that X2 will exceed our expectations, every week we learn something new, something more stunning and exhilarating.
Take the new cockpits for instance, they look just awesome and will add a lot to the fun because the cockpit is the place where you will spend most of the time.


Cheers

[Al]

One thing thats worrying me is that if Egosoft have decided to put a lot of effort into planet side stuff then it might mean that other more important areas will have been neglected to a certain extent. Above all I want to see competition for trade, decent AI and battles like nothing before. Planet side stuff comes a distant 4th after those.

Al

[Tiberian Commander]

I wonder in X2 their maybe a high yield weapon from the new enemy, that can destroy a planet.

[SteveMill]

One thing thats worrying me is that if Egosoft have decided to put a lot of effort into planet side stuff then it might mean that other more important areas will have been neglected to a certain extent. Above all I want to see competition for trade, decent AI and battles like nothing before. Planet side stuff comes a distant 4th after those.

Al

Amen. I'd hate to see x2 being "all fur coat and no knickers", so to speak, with the bulk of the imporvements being in the graphics engine, a big proportion of the improvements being irrelevant to those who aren't willing to pay £250 for a graphics card and £300 for a monitor capable of displaying 1800 plus resolutions.

[Dutchman]

One thing thats worrying me is that if Egosoft have decided to put a lot of effort into planet side stuff then it might mean that other more important areas will have been neglected to a certain extent. Above all I want to see competition for trade, decent AI and battles like nothing before. Planet side stuff comes a distant 4th after those.

Al

We will all know when X2 is released but I don't think you'll have to worry to much. X2's logo still says:

Trade
Fight
Build
Think

I think those items are the main items that make X2 what it is.
I think that trading, fighting, etc, will only be made better compared to X-Tension. X-tension could have functioned as a great testplatform regarding trading etc.
The developers will have learned a lot since then I suppose.

[pjknibbs]

One thing thats worrying me is that if Egosoft have decided to put a lot of effort into planet side stuff then it might mean that other more important areas will have been neglected to a certain extent. Above all I want to see competition for trade, decent AI and battles like nothing before. Planet side stuff comes a distant 4th after those.

Al

If all Egosoft had to do to create X2 was beef up the graphics and add a planetside aspect, it wouldn't have taken them this long. I think we can rest assured that they did all the major improvements to the existing items right back at the start of the project--what's happening now is that they're installing all the bells and whistles (and debugging a lot, of course!).

[Al]

Ok so I could have explained it a little better. I hope you're right and I do believe in Egosofts ability to make X2 a great game. Mind you a little more proof wouldn't go amiss

Al

[crunn]

And I'm stunned by how the cockpits look...

They really are fantastic.

But one thing puzzles me about them...

[ external image ]

Where are the hull/shield indicators,
and where is the spherical scanner display thing ?

Perhaps there is an option to turn these on/off, which would be cool.