Is GEX an interim until FTX takes over?

[Orbx 123]

We'd love to do the whole world FTX style, but it won't happen. FTX just costs too much money to make. Maybe if some large corporation bought us we could expand and achieve our dream. Maybe.. :( But PNW is not far off, and will be priced at AU$49.95 or AU$59.95 on DVD. That's about $45 USD for 300,000 km sq.There will also be a 100% free time-unlimited demo, in the Olympic Mountains area.We'll also have 1S2 Darrington and 7S3 Twin Oaks ready as well priced about USD$32.Plus we have 20 airports planned in the region, included KSEA and a few other Kxxx airports we're not quite ready to announce yet, but you'll get VERY excited about ;)

[tohughes76 0]

What I would love to see as FTX makes its way into the U.S. market is a Yankee division of OZx. The availability of that many freeware airports that enhance FTX perfectly adds so much value to an already wonderful product. Hopefully we can put together enough fledgling freeware airport designers to have a community as strong as OZx.

[Orbx 123]

What I would love to see as FTX makes its way into the U.S. market is a Yankee division of OZx. The availability of that many freeware airports that enhance FTX perfectly adds so much value to an already wonderful product. Hopefully we can put together enough fledgling freeware airport designers to have a community as strong as OZx.

The OZx team are already working on a bunch of freeware airports for the PNW region. If you want to contribute, just head on over to the OZx forums and pick an airport to develop.Orbx is also working on freeware airports for PNW as well.

[Blaze 102]

I love Orbx and FTX sceenery. I own everything they have made with the exception of Avalon and Caldoura airports and I'll probably end up with them at some point.I would love to see Orbx expand their coverage of the USA after PNW. Really anything they do will be great but I would like to see them expand off of it rather than jump to a whole new area. Expanding coverage over the Rocky Mountain states and south through the desert southwest would get me giddy! I am really looking forward to what they will offer in 2010. I think PNW will cause their popularity to explode in the US market.Thanks for the heads up on the KSEA airport, I didn't know they planned on that ;) KPDX would be awesome too for a large airport but right now I like flying in and out of regional sized strips with the PMDG J41 which is small enough to get in and out of most of the add on airports in the FTX line up.Cheers,Robert

[cmpbellsjc 2,963]

I am surely excited about the PNW release. As great as their products look, I also haven't purchased any other titles since I am not very interested in flying in Australia. Granted if I tried one I might like it so much that I wouldn't want to fly anywhere else. Most of the time though, when I purchase sceneries for places outside the US, except for FlyTampa's St. Maarteen, I hardly ever use them and they become a waste of money. This has been my experience for everything I have purchased for Europe anyway.I just bought GEX Europe the day it came out, installed it, defragged, load a flight to try it out, and haven't been back to Europe since and that was two or three weeks ago. Granted it's just a texture replacement and doesn't do what ORBX does, but I just don't get excited about flying outside of the country which I am familiar with.Hopefully the release of the PNW product will garnish enough sales to get ORBX to develope more for the US. I think if they tap into the US market with other products beside PNW they could do quite well.

[Naji 5]

I'll put it this way: I won't fly anywhere in FSX without FTX :( . On my recently set-up Windows 7 RTM machine, after I installed FSX + Acceleration, I took a flight with no addons; pure defaults. I couldn't believe this is our beloved flightsim! It was awful. The machine now is exclusively set up for all Orbx FTX regions and airfields with REX2 and UT2. This is flightsimming at its best IMHO. I would advise folks not to try FTX, for once they have tried it, they will become addicted and won't want to fly elsewhere!If only Alaska would get the FTX touch...

[PingPong 60]

I'll put it this way: I won't fly anywhere in FSX without FTX :( . On my recently set-up Windows 7 RTM machine, after I installed FSX + Acceleration, I took a flight with no addons; pure defaults. I couldn't believe this is our beloved flightsim! It was awful. The machine now is exclusively set up for all Orbx FTX regions and airfields with REX2 and UT2. This is flightsimming at its best IMHO.

I agree with you to a degree, Orbx is the cream of the crop, but after adding GEX Europe plus landclass plus mesh I have had some real moments flying over Europe. Especially coastal areas. The same could be said about Megascenery Socal, Oahu, and City Pack Salt Lake City. Even some of the default scenery in the mountainous parts of South America looks and performs great. I have the Orbx DVD and some Airports but I have no connection to Australia, so while I certainly recognize the quality, it's almost wasted on me. This is why I am so excited for PNW (and hopefully Florida).

[duckbilled 311]

I installed the FTX demo and I must admit it is fantastic. I am on the fence about purchasing it though becasue I know I will never use it. I might do the southern and eastern packages and get Melbourne and Brisbane. The only way I see myself flying there is doing long-haul from PHNL or some flights from NTAA. I will definitely buy PNW when it is released. I also put a plea in for them to to the Great Lakes region - something no one has ever done and probably never will. If they included Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, Niagara Falls and Toronto, they would have a huge customer base - far larger population than PNW. The Great Lakes region is such a beautiful area of the US (especially northern Michigan) and it gets absolutely no respect. Some of our award winning tourism videos below - they really showcase some of our scenery. Please watch them. They used to be on national TV but the budget was cut due to the terrible economy here. Oh, and BTW, sorry for the mild hijack.

[Orbx 123]

I completely understand the parochial nature of some simmers, and their desire to fly in their backyard - that's absolutely natural of course. The first thing I did when I got FSX was to check my local township and airport, only to be completely and bitterly disappointed and underwhelmed.But for me, I spent the bulk of my FS2002 and FS9 simming time in spectacular locations around the world; and that usually meant PNW, the lakes in Italy, the EU alps, and of course many parts of Australia and NZ. The beauty of FSX and flight simming in general is that it provides a cost effective way to visit and discover the whole globe. To me, that's the key reason I began using flight sim - not to land at my local, but to broaden my horizons and discover far away places.We did AU first for the simply reason that we are parochial too, and we cut our teeth building the tech. But PNW is a whole level above AU again, with many improvements and enhancements, and double the texture pallette. After PNW, we'll go where the revenue is - for the simple reason that we have the desire to survive as a company and strangely enough than means selling lots of FTX, and in places around the world where our customers want us to focus on.For those on the fence, try the free FTX demo and then get AU GOLD and YSTW Tamworth. Those two alone will give you the size of Texas (or more) to explore, and the world's only 7cm/pixel airport. It's a pretty new and compelling experience, that much I can guarantee. If that gets you hooked, then AU GOLD has pretty much all our other newer airports in it, so it's a good smaller area to focus on for a blend of coastal and inland flying with plenty of mountains, lakes, beaches and more.There's no reason to deny yourself the AU experience because it's not your back yard. Live a little :)

[jackcnd 0]

This is getting interesting.... prices posted, specific details from orbx.Loved the FTX demo, but have no interest in AU flying, been waiting on PNW.Are we looking at having this installed for holidays?

[Orbx 123]

This is getting interesting.... prices posted, specific details from orbx.Loved the FTX demo, but have no interest in AU flying, been waiting on PNW.Are we looking at having this installed for holidays?

We're at the pointy end of the project and we're well past texture and feature lock-down, and we've said that Xmas is our target, but generally we don't do release dates since the nature of our projects is that they're done when they're done.Count on a northern hemisphere winter release though.

[Noel 4,580]

Your views appreciated...

FTX spoils the rest of the planet for me! Unfortunately, since I am not familiar with Australia and it means so little to me because of that, I find myself flying in my own back yard, or at least the Western US. I am very much looking forward to the PNW release and I will be purchasing it as soon as it is released. I lived in the PNW for about 8y so this will be especially meaningful for me. Bring it on!I think what is truly called for, is a realtime scenery feed. We are so close to that now with Google Earth. I guess when Internet 2 comes along this may happen--when bandwidth becomes huge. At that point the client machines won't have to be nearly as robust I would think. One can easily imagine a very cool front end and a realtime, photoreal 3D scenery feed on a subscription basis. I'd certainly be willing, though what we have now is still a wonderful thing. Especially with FTX driving the visuals.Noel