Today at 1800 GMT you will be able to meet many of the developers of some of the most popular Battlefield 1942 mods. P.e. Operation Peacekeeper, Promod, Norwegian Restistance etc. and of course FH.

Teamspeak IP: 217.172.177.113:18000

Although the server is located in Germany, all are welcome to join. The only thing needed is a microphone and TS2 installed.

And just a little sidenote:
If you know it is a joke no one - and we mean no one(!) - wants to know that you are so smart and found it. That way the april fool is no more for all your follow readers. But hey - at least everyone knows you are Sherlock Holmes... think about it.

And for all the others:
We hope you enjoyed the joke. We would like to apologize to EA and Microsoft with their XBOX that they were chosen to serve our april fool and hope everyone had a good laugh in the end.

As the title says FH will be in the box - not the box used for the burial by our good, old mortician fellows, but the real powerful XBOX. According to ArminAce negotiations about that had started approximately half a year ago. As conversations were successful Electronic Arts and ArminAce agreed on the remastering of Forgotten Hope as title for the X-BOX. The Forgotten Hope Developer Team will gain an adequate compensation in return. Although money is always welcome the latest actions were total infamy by ArminAce as no one of the other Devs has been informed about the negotiations before today.

Anyway - we were told about ehe main features of the game already and for sure we want to share them with you:

• State of the art graphics and sound technology collide to produce the most breathtaking gaming experience on any console.
• 1-2 player(s) may fight the bots with the newest KI although used in Battlefield - Modern Combat local.
• 14 stunning battlegrounds. Play 12 of the well known Battlefields like Zielona Gora and 2 unrevealed brand new battles.
• Revolutionary gameplay for the console with more than 120 historically accurate vehicles and stationary weapons and 50 weapons for unprecedented and unlimited tactical maneuvers.

As you can see on the photo Forgotten Hope is already available as a beta version on the console. As progress is going good Forgotten Hope will be available for the XBOX in the United States in June 2005 at the price of 59.95 $ only. The release for Europe is scheduled for August 2005. As soon as the US version is on market Europeans will be able to preorder the US-Version at TS-Rent.de .

Many of you might be concerned about what's happening next. We have answers for that. Good and bad...
First the bad news: ArminAce was contracted by EA and has left the Forgotten Hope Dev Team to continue his work under their command.
Now the good news: As Electronic aThe development of Forgotten Hope will at least continue until version 0.7 for Battlefield 1942.

Last point to mention is that the development of Forgotten Hope 2™ for the XBOX has already started (main reason why ArminAce left the team). As the new product shall be unique as possible and the strength of Forgotten Hope always was the great community the developers decided to involve you into the progress. The Forgotten Hope 2 soundartists have set up a hotline which users from Germany may use to give their ideas for voicecomments or ambient sounds (like soldiers' deaths) that must not be missed within Forgotten Hope 2™:

CONDITIONS OF PARTICIPATION:

1. Aged 21 or older
2. The caller needs to have the legal capacity in terms of law
3. The call costs 12 Cent/Minute out of the network of the Deutsche Telekom AG. All other locations/providers may charge different
4. All comments delivered via the hotline may be used and published.

That's all for today folks. The Forgotten Hope Developer Team is looking forward to the upcoming release on the XBOX although we lost an encouraged and motivated leader, although his latest actions were betrayal actually. Anyway - money serves as comfort always and as we still are able to develop Forgotten Hope for the PC out of danger to get in front of court we will be able to cope with the loss.
To make all speculations about Major Hartmann null before you even can think of it:
Major Hartmann did not follow ArminAce. We are still trying to get him back into Forgotten Hope but as we have to admit chances are poor at the moment.
With this unexpected news (even for almost all Devs) there will much room for discussion. We really hope to see you on our public forums to gather your opinion about this newsupdate.

Some time has passed since our last news update. But today we can say once more "Welcome back folks to this weekend's news update". Although there is not any mod development progress to show today we have several community updates for you. We have news about ongoing tournaments as well as information about fan map projects that will bring you great battles in the near future

First of all we have the latest word on two Forgotten Hope Tournaments for you.

Battle for Europe - World at War has started round #10 lately and every player is welcome to join the battle. For anyone who does not know about BFE: WaW, here is a quick description:
BFE - World at War is a tournament-style campaign game for Forgotten Hope. Unlike a clan ladder or other online tournaments, World at War players will participate in a simulated war, complete with commanding officers, divisions, and a grand strategy map showing the progress of the war from week to week. Think of it as a cross between a strategy board game and a first-person shooter, where you can immerse yourself in realistic WW2 environments and experience the results of strategic decisions between battles.

All Portuguese-speaking players are invited to join the recently started campaign #2 of Batalha Pela Europa. This tournament is also trying to replay the events of WW2 in a historically accurate way.

The first fan map project to introduce today is Forgottenmaps.net. With this project the initiators want to give mappers the chance to present their work to the whole community. And with their game server they intend to provide a place where you can play these maps.
This site is supposed to be the home for everything that has to do with Forgotten Hope custom maps. This is a place where mappers can exchange their experiences and where the players can post their wishes and opinions. As you will notice their project still is in its early stages. But with your help they can make it a great asset for the Forgotten Hope Community.

So check out their site and feel free to post what you hope to see from the independent mappers of the Forgotten Hope community.

The custom map scene is growing at the moment. Another project coming up is the Forgotten Hope Community Map Pack. The FHCMP developers are currently working on a custom map pack that will bring not-yet-seen battles to your PC. You are welcome to send in your map or help out with ongoing projects if you wish.

Check out their site and feel free to help in the map developing progress.

And last but not least we have news about the official Fan Map Pack #2. We know it took longer than expected but finally we have a release date for you. The Fan Map Pack will be available for you and your favorite game server on Saturday, April 8th, 2005 at 20:00 GMT. Be sure to grab your copy and join in the new battles coming up in Finland, France, Russia and Burma.

That's all for today folks but be sure to come back next weekend for another news update, to see the latest developments about the mod. Feel free to discuss today's update in our public forums.