Nothing wrong with a healthy discussion. :) So XP10 does have landclass definition in place, I see. I was under the impression that the default auto-gen didn't use those landclass definition, but rather the roads themselves to generate the cities (hence why it has residential blocks in industrial/built-up areas and vice versa)? But anyway, while I don't totally agree that XP10 is as "incomplete" as you say, respectfully, I completely agree that the art assets and the "landclassing" should be improved sooner rather than later. After all, we don't want the whole world to look like Seattle. :( And regarding empty airports, LR should definitely release the new WED as soon as possible so people can start populating empty airports.Btw, my hometown of Kaohsiung, Taiwan, looks nothing like the real world in both FS2004 and FSX. Half of the city was replaced by desert and grassland, and the half that does have buildings was populated with generic US style office buildings! Not to mention, the area surrounding the airport, which should be populated with industrial buildings, was, again, an empty desert/grassland combination! lol Now, I haven't seen what Kaohsiung looks like in XP10, but I'd imagine it would only look better since the OSM road coverage for that area looks pretty good, and where there're roads, there're usually buildings (though it'll probably still look like Seattle). :(

I agree about the scenery. The plausible/realistic or simulation/reproduction debate was already kicking when Fly! was alive... And the very only new thing since is to be found neither in FSX nor in XP but in Apple's hands... LR made a radical strategic choice for plausible and simulation, thus virtually eliminating reality/reproduction and trading it for high def. One must admit that was gutsy.I will buy XP10 and probably work on IFR stuff, including night flying, which appears very good and not only plausible but also more realistic than what existed before.

The progress by individuals has been good in this month or so of XP10's existence... however I'm still looking for more concrete information from Laminar Research themselves as to what they will be doing about the crazy bridges, the baffling landclass definitions/missing models, the grassy deserts, and adding some plausibility and legitimacy to the cities.I've read the various blogs and such, but the "roadmaps" being given don't actually map out their timelines or plans - they only discuss some hopes and wishes about what additional features they'd like to code with no indication as to when repairs will be made to the existing data.As great as all of the customer input has been thusfar, I'm starting to get less and less enthusiastic about XP10 and it's significant do-it-yourself level of completeness. I know I've been criticized for focusing too much on the scenery and perhaps not seeing the forest for the trees when it comes to the whole package, but with a simulator already in my possession that provides me with great visuals with great performance alongside good flight characteristics and good weather - I was hoping to up the ante to "great" on all counts with XP10. For me, this is looking less and less likely.Those models you've all been working on do look fantastic, don't get me wrong - but the quiet coming from LR makes me fear that they are quite happy with having all of you do the scenery work while they figure out a way to add another unnecessary decimal place of accuracy to their holy grail flight model. (Sorry, that was snarky - I haven't had my coffee today)-Greg

I don't really like re-posting messages from some people. I respect Tom and know full well he can speak for himself if he so desires. But this is straight from Tom Kyler, one of the key developers for X Plane. He made several aircraft and Seattle Airport.I could take 2 hours right now, place some buildings at KBFI, KDFW, KORD, etc.... upload them to the xplane server and you guys would have them at the next update...which I think might be this afternoon. So why don't I? Well because we have some features...optimization features... that we want to implement before we begin placing buildings on a "production level", but I have to wait for Ben and crew to debug other issues first. So it is simply a matter of a full inbox and many items have to wait for others. We will approach the point very soon where my instructions will be to start populating airports as fast as I can.....followed by, "make the default library more diverse and add new buildings and facades. So hope for around Feb/Mar 2012 for x-plane to start getting fun. This "engine start" has a few cylinders not fully fired up.

That is great news. Were these words in the readme file of the xplane10 install?-cause I sure missed them. I would not have spent so much effort trying to convert Google buildings the last two weeks if I had know this. Probably could have caused a lot of this "ridiculous" discusion on avsim to head a different route. I'll be waiting for February/March. <edit> I see you edited out the "ridiculous avsim" part that was in your original post-though it remains in the link. Just noting...

No, this was posted over at X-Pilot.The entire thread is found here...http://forums.x-pilot.com/index.php/topic/2713-so-wheres-the-airport-scenery/

Ah-I guess we ridiculous people over here at avsim who are providing a home for xplane and trying to encourage it should have simply known that....

You'd have to take that up with Tom. As far as I can tell, he only called the discussions "ridiculous". It's like "The cities have no buildings so lets crucify Laminar and X Plane!" among a few people who decided to kick up a fuss over it. Totally disregarding everything else that X Plane has to offer.

But the cities do presently have no buildings that are recognizable-that is a fact. (except for the space needle in Seattle).

Absolutely. And everyone acknowledges that. But it's the few people over here who think there will NEVER be anymore buildings added to the sim. That the urban scenery issue is a closed topic and it's like Laminar are saying "Deal with it!". They are so convinced of this, that it is, in fact, ridiculous. This isn't FSX where they release a product, wait a year for a service pack, release that, and they're done. Laminar are CONSTANTLY updating, improving and enhancing X Plane while keeping it a stable platform that continues to be compatible with add ons that were made in earlier versions of the current version run. You're (not you in particular, Geof) getting X plane developers making posts here, and these developers are being told that it won't happen by people that don't even know. By people who want to appear to know better. Again...ridiculous. Wouldn't be surprised if Tom stops posting here altogether.

Well until you mentioned this post tonight the future did look pretty bleak in this department. I look forward to February/March and I am sure a lot of simmers that consider this very important in a sim do too.

I know the lake I live on in Michigan was completely missing along with roads being pretty basic. It took utx, and gex, and add in landclass to really get fsx to a good level and if I recall that was about a year before these products started appearing. As far as the seasons-sure there is only one in xplane.

About missing lakes in USA, there's a very interesting post here:http://www.x-plane.com/blog/2011/12/where-is-my-water-the-roadmap-for-osm-and-vectors/And if you know the area where you live, the roads, ways, buildings, lakes, rivers, power lines, you can also consider reading this tutorial. It will help you to get better maps, not only better sceneries for your flight simulator:http://booki.flossmanuals.net/openstreetmap/_full/http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Beginners%27_guideHappy mapping !

Hmm, I must be one of the few who didn't think XP10's future is bleak. :( Plus, with the ease of adding custom objects into XP10, if LR can get the default autogen more varied and more believable (which I'm sure they will), then we'll have the best of both world. February/March will be interesting times indeed.

I said "in this department". I did not say xplane's future was bleak.

Yep, I know. I meant that too. :)

Not to mention a complete lack of autumn, spring, and winter seasons.

What? I didn't know that. No seasons? Everything looks the same all the time? I don't think that's very plausible.