December 2008

Season's Greetings

Egosoft wishes you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

As an eventful year for Egosoft and its community draws to a close, we can reflect on the release of X3: Terran Conflict, the conclusion of the X Trilogy of games. As usual the response of the players and members of the community inspires the team to continually improve this awesome addition to the franchise. No laurels have been rested on as both the team at Egosoft HQ and the extensive network of volunteer developers and testers have worked tirelessly to ensure your contining enjoyment of the game, as well as squeezing in even more game content and new features. The passion and dedication shown by the X Community in playing, breaking and reimagining the games we make continue to be an inspiration to us as we move forward in the development of new projects. You can all be assured that we won't be resting (well, maybe just a little) until we're satisfied that you're satisfied.

We wish all the readers of X-Universe News, all X-gamers and all members of our great community a Merry Christmas and a very prosperous and happy 2009!

Egosoft

Terran Conflict - Going from strength to strength

The 1.4 Update is here...

Following hot on the heels of the 1.3 Update for Terran Conflict, Egosoft is pleased to announce the availability of Update 1.4. It includes a few new features to enhance your gameplay and as usual some bug-splatting has been done. The 1.4 Update for X3: Terran Conflict can be downloaded as usual from the Download Section.

The Update fixes many issues which you have brought to our attention in addition to adding new features such as improved marine usage and we have also taken the unusual step of including a player modification in an official update, in the shape of "Gazz's Turret Fixing Mod". We have also taken note of some of the feedback you leave on the forums and have rebalanced some taxi missions and improved graphical performance still further. A complete list of all fixes and improvements can be found in the forums or during the installation process of this update. A big thank you to everyone who has assisted us in the investigation and testing of some of these issues.

Attention: As usual we advise those running the Steam version that the Steam client will download and install the patch automatically; there is no need to download the update from Egosoft.com.

Toastie

X Uplink: Holiday Stat Attack

A look at some of the best of the uploaded stats

Now that there is an Uplink facility for X2, X3: Reunion and X3: Terran Conflict, we take a look at the stats that have been uploaded so far to see if there are any outstanding achievements worthy of bringing to the community's attention.

Considering X3: Terran Conflict was only released in October, an eye-catching array of statistics and achievements have already been recorded (Statistics used were current on 18 Dec 08). The 141 users who uploaded unmodified game statistics own 17,161 ships (an average of 122 each) and 12386 (88 each on average) stations. These users have nearly 38 Trillion Credits in their accounts and that doesn't include the value of their assets, which comes to an astonishing 147 Trillion Credits.

The Terran Conflict player with the most kills is quarkian37 with an impressive 7,872. The player who owns the most ships is 20koala14, who has amassed a fleet of 2,503 ships. If you think that's good, Mentor Borg [SKHG] has built 1,686 stations! Since its release in October, thousands of players have been glued to their monitors, watching their empires expand but only 181 players have uploaded their stats (40 modified games uploaded). Nevertheless, these players have racked up a breath-taking 4 years, seven months and 17 days of gametime between them. Just imagine then, what the combined stats of all Terran Conflict players might come to!

Moving onto X3: Reunion, 1,118 players have so far uploaded their game statistics. 604 of these are unmodded games, so nearly half of the total are modified games. These players have amassed a whopping 61 years and 2 months of gametime, 235 Trillion Credits of cash and a brain-melting asset value of 3,381 Trillion Credits! These games have nearly 125,000 ships and almost 120,000 stations owned by their players. Nasskalt is the owner of the most ships (3,331) with GamblerX2 owning 2,625 stations. One figure that really jumps out, however, is that during 382 days of gametime, cheeseburger managed to acquire a cash+asset worth of 108.2 Trillion Credits - an outstanding achievement!

In the X2: The Threat arena h-j-a has racked up 108,149 kills, while Targab has clocked up some 218 days of gametime.

We're sure you'll agree that some of these stats are pretty awesome, but they're not unbeatable - you may already have surpassed them but only you know about it. Who knows what other amazing feats lie unshared out there? Upload your X2, X3:R or X3:TC game stats and you can either claim bragging rights or simply just compare your own stats with others'.

X3: Terran Conflict Player Rankings - The Current Rankings

X3: Terran Conflict UPLINK - Upload your Statistics

X3: Reunion Player Rankings - The Current Rankings

X3: Reunion UPLINK - Upload your Statistics

X2: The Threat Player Rankings - The Current Rankings

X2: The Threat UPLINK - Upload your Statistics

Toastie

Creative Excellence:

The X3:TC-Video Competition has a winner!

In previous editions of X-News, we announced a competition for fan-made videos of X3: Terran Conflict. The competition closed and adjudication has now taken place. The competition entries were all seen by Egosoft staff and members of the X3: Terran Conflict development team. Each of the entries is a clear reflection of the passion with which you play the game and also showed the skill with which players can manipulate the game and video-authoring software to harness and show the best the game has to offer.

You can still view the entries in the X3: TC Video Competition thread. It is with great delight that we can announce that with a large majority of votes and an extremely stunning entry, the winner of the X3: Terran Conflict Video Competition is Shadowgaz. He takes away the top prize of the competition, a Matrox TripleHead2Go.

Here is that winning entry...

Given the size of the field in the competition, all of the competitors should receive a prize. Egosoft will, if it hasn't already, be in contact with all contestants to arrange the dispatch of their well-earned prizes.

Toastie