possible answer to the weather engine for FEX is dead

[c152flyboy 0]

i worte to flight1 today asking them their opinion of why i have waited 18 months for my weather engine. this was their response:We have commented on this in the forum area. We have no contol over the developer's actions... The product you received is very complete in its own right. While I apologize for the weather engine being dropped by the developer, you have used the product for the past 18 months without issue.What is your order number?Jeff SmithFlight One Softwareplease note the words we apologize for the weather engine being dropped by the developer. i think ther weather engine is dead.

[Orlaam 306]

Wow.... :(What is it with some developers???

[David Roch 1,982]

i worte to flight1 today asking them their opinion of why i have waited 18 months for my weather engine. this was their response:We have commented on this in the forum area. We have no contol over the developer's actions... The product you received is very complete in its own right. While I apologize for the weather engine being dropped by the developer, you have used the product for the past 18 months without issue.What is your order number?Jeff SmithFlight One Softwareplease note the words we apologize for the weather engine being dropped by the developer. i think ther weather engine is dead.

Hi,When you ask for a refund after 18 months using a product, please don't say that you just ask an opinion, this is not fair.You already opened a thread about the wheather engine in FEX forum, the guys answered so what are you expecting now?If I was you I will enjoy FEX, forget about the weather engine and forget about polemics.

[MatthewS 761]

Hi,When you ask for a refund after 18 months using a product, please don't say that you just ask an opinion, this is not fair.You already opened a thread about the wheather engine in FEX forum, the guys answered so what are you expecting now?If I was you I will enjoy FEX, forget about the weather engine and forget about polemics.

I was offered a refund 6 months ago because I protested that the weather engine that was promised at time of purchase and had still not been delivered. At the time I said no to the refund because I was told to be patient and wait for the engine.Now I discover that the weather engine is dropped, its official as per Flight1 email above.Flight1 the product I purchase from you was not the product I was promised at purchase. I was promised that a weather engine was forthcoming. I have trusted you and been patient, but to no avail. :( Now that the weather engine is officially canceled I would like my refund!

[Steve Halpern 176]

Matt,Jeff does not know for sure what is happening. He is not a "developer" also. It is just outside Flight1's control. I do not hear the weather engine is dead at all. ZERO word has come in to us that it was cancelled. Aerosimulations is the core developer... do check with them.Without knowing any previous communications with our staff you cannot read anything into the post you replied to.

[c152flyboy 0]

seeing as i was the OP on this let me add something to clarify things.1st i did not ever ask for a refund, if anyone has read any of the posts i have on the FEX forum, i am one of the few i think that has stated he believes in the product and will wait for the updates. all i wanted was someone to comment on why 18 months later i was still waiting.2nd, minutes after i posted on the FEX forum, they blocked out the posting to everyone and today they removed it from the list of open posts. now i for one can not see why a company can not accept open criticism on a forum, why should i be censored. 3rd, someone complained that i got official word from flight1 that the engine was dead, if you read the response i received form flight1 and my reply it stated I THINK the engine is dead. look, there are a lot of people who use FEX and i think it is a good but incomplete product. i think Chris and peter got in way over their head either from a financial point of view or from a programming standpoint. all i ever wanted was chris or peter to say here is where we are in the process, here is where we expect to be in the future and yes we are still working on it. i dont think that is too much to ask for a product i already paid for.as for flight1, i did not have a complaint with them until they censored me. i have seen my criticisms of products before on forums and i dont think they were ever censored for it.

[Guest PPSFA]

I probably shouldn't jump into this, but as a past beta tester for FEX, and checking into this, I can tell you the weather engine isn't 'dead'. However there are some things going on that have delayed it, and I can't go into details. I'm told that eventually it will get finished but I too, as everyone else who has been waiting, am frustrated.

[Guest]

October 12 2008 Chris Norris posted this on the FEX-forum:

I have been puzzling over the report by Charlysix that Flight1 staff had intimated the weather engine wasn't going to be released. I believe this MAY have been a misunderstanding.We had planned a full commercial Environment Simulator, however this now looks exceedingly unlikely for economic reasons. Alot of work has already been done towards that goal however to complete the original vision will require allot more development time. Whilst I am not ruling it out completely, Flight1 staff would have been aware that the idea had been pushed to the background and it is probable that this is what they meant and not the free weather component of FEX.

December 2 2008 Peter Wilding posted this:

Chris is very close to a new update closely followed by the weather engine.

.Well, months have passed without any news (of course, I might as wel add...), but this is still the official information... Maybe you'd better ask Chris or Peter on their official forum. Although it might take some time before you get an answer...P.S. I own FEX for a year or so now (didn't want to wait until REX was released and I am glad I didn't!) and bought ASA some time ago. I can't be bothered with a upcoming free weather engine anymore...

[Steve Halpern 176]

2nd, minutes after i posted on the FEX forum, they blocked out the posting to everyone and today they removed it from the list of open posts. now i for one can not see why a company can not accept open criticism on a forum, why should i be censored.

A moderator there saw that you took what he deemed as private communications and posted it publicly... not that what was posted was needing to be secret, it is just that you asked for assistance through non-public areas, then went to 2 places to post a response from Jeff. There seemed to be something in that, and to be honest I support the moderators view on the post. The forum though open to the public, like most forums, are still private in that it is generally someones "back yard". Create a new post if required, but ask the questions as required there... Your actions seemed agreessive. But this thread likely has already answered your queries.

[Guest rdg]

Hi,Just my personal opinion on weather engines. I think most of what developers try to accomplish with a weather engine is very difficult and aggressive. I say "difficult and aggressive" only because of what I have experienced using them and the problems I encountered first hand, and being involved in forums with those who also have and report problems. Many engines go out to the public to soon, as the length of time necessary for the beta test period is or should be directly proportionl to the complexity of the product. But, at some point the developer needs to be able to be rewared by putting the product up for sale (too soon). So, even though they do go through the formal annoucned process/phase of a beta test, the beta test actually goes on much longer, but the beta testers are actually the simmers who have bought the product. Personally I use FSUIPC now and have given up the weather engines. Certainly it does not have near the features, but it has a few such as wind smoothing, some additional cloud features. Best of all, it works everytime. I use FEX clouds MAX @ 70mi, and, with the combination of FSUIPC, I am flying instead of rebooting. RegardsBob G

[MatthewS 761]

Matt,Jeff does not know for sure what is happening. He is not a "developer" also. It is just outside Flight1's control. I do not hear the weather engine is dead at all. ZERO word has come in to us that it was cancelled. Aerosimulations is the core developer... do check with them.Without knowing any previous communications with our staff you cannot read anything into the post you replied to.

Ok, but at some point Flight1 needs to accept that Chris has gone "walkabout" and the weather engine is never coming (nor any airport texture updates). Rather than a full refund, just a credit (say 25%) against a future purchase of a Flight1 product would make me happy, because I do feel ripped off/let down. I realize Flight1 has been let down by Chris, but still I bought the product from Flight1 not Chris. Apart from the FEX fiasco I am a happy Flight1 customer (LD767, Coolsky Classic/Pro, and probably others I cant remember).

[David Roch 1,982]

OK guys everything has been said.Flight1 provides excellent support on their forumsThanks to stop this discussion here.Regards,

[michal 44]

because I do feel ripped off/let down

It was mighty naive on your part to buy a product based on future promises of serious free upgrades. We all know that many companies in this business make promises and they can never deliver - the bar is simply too high for them. You should learn to buy a product based on its current state, perhaps the only thing you might expect in the future are bug fixes but any promises of future major enhancements should always be treated with a grain of salt. Nowhere was there a contract between you and Flight1 that your purchase was somehow conditional on what happens in the future.

[Guest rdg]

It was mighty naive on your part to buy a product based on future promises of serious free upgrades. We all know that many companies in this business make promises and they can never deliver - the bar is simply too high for them. You should learn to buy a product based on its current state, perhaps the only thing you might expect in the future are bug fixes but any promises of future major enhancements should always be treated with a grain of salt. Nowhere was there a contract between you and Flight1 that your purchase was somehow conditional on what happens in the future.

There are probably more which do deliver than not. Weather Engines are an incredibly complex. Even with FSUIPC, and the experience that Peter does have with the sims over the years, talks about the Visibility smoothing offered within FSUIPC and that there are no guarantees, that is why it is off by default. So if Peter writes something like this, how are the other guys going to do it? Most likely there will be issues that are never solved or functionality that will never work.RegardsBob G

[MatthewS 761]

It was mighty naive on your part to buy a product based on future promises of serious free upgrades. We all know that many companies in this business make promises and they can never deliver - the bar is simply too high for them. You should learn to buy a product based on its current state, perhaps the only thing you might expect in the future are bug fixes but any promises of future major enhancements should always be treated with a grain of salt. Nowhere was there a contract between you and Flight1 that your purchase was somehow conditional on what happens in the future.

I bought FEX based on the advertising, which stated a weather engine was coming. Well it's been coming for years now and Chris (the developer) is no where to be seen on the support forums. The product has been falsely advertised, simple as that.The following quote is from the FEX website.

The Environment Simulator is a massive future project. We will deliver a free upgrade to all customers of FEX to include a light version of the Environment Simulator, which will provide weather depiction comparable to other weather applications. A later full commercial product will then be released taking the concept much further and providing a suite of graphical products which will integrate fully into FEX.

The FEX website is misleading. Flight1 is continuing to sell FEX knowing that there is no chance that Chris will ever release the weather engine. They should at least remove the bit about the free weather engine upgrade.