In which way did Aerosoft notice the 'open arms' and do you think that if Aerosoft wouldn't have been welcomed by a few guys, they wouldn't have started developing for x-plane?

??? Mr Stolle.What do you want to say , can`t follow you here.

In light of M$ laying what seems like an egg, it all depends Austin's emphasis - whether freeware or payware. Over the past half a dozen years or so, he has been going around seeking more exposure to his pride and joy. His emphasis in the older days was to have formats that were ascii based and fairly simple to create for the average user/developer. His emphasis was predominnently on the flight model. He had two fairly wonderful programs for the creation part - Planemaker and Worldmaker.With Planemaker, anyone with some basic understanding of 3d geometry and some understanding of aviation theory and knowledge perhaps, could create an aircraft for use in X-plane - not great, but flyable to an extent. That was an achievement and thankfully, that standlone Planemaker program continues to be bundled with X-plane today.Similarly, there was Worldmaker, which could edit, create, delete, modify, correct terrain, airports, landclass, etc. Again, a brilliant, simple but effective achievement - again, bundled with X-plane upto v7 but broken, in disrepair and ultimately deleted form v8, v9 and v10. Fortunately, there is the World Editor, which is essentially an airport editing tool, todate, not quite comparable to Worldmaker of old.With all that in mind, it is not hard to understand why X-plane has a lot more aircrafts developed than scenery, comparatively speaking.Effective tools and appropriate, clear documentation are what is lacking - particularly in scenery development.

Edited January 5, 201214 yr by m_av

I don't know why this discussion went this way, but Aerosoft embracing XPX is big, big news. When Mr Kok says FSX owns 2012 but XPX owns the future of flight simulation, people should listen. He discarded Flight a long time ago and was right. They will port a few sceneries over to P3D but as far as I can see, he knows enough about P3Ds future plans to stay away. So here we are, back at square one. Do you continue to develop for FSX, do you go to a hybrid P3D and wait till they finish their beta process and pull the plug, or do you look to the future? The decision belongs to them. Let's see how many get it right.

Wow! Ok, If that's your opinion, then sure, you're entitled to it. I won't say what I think about some of the aircraft listed in your signature. I respect what you have worked on enough to not comment. Sorry to see you don't feel the same way.

Treading in carefully to the mine field...You are to commended for researching and gathering material for your projects. But sometimes other people's opinion can be more valid than what's in a book. If someone has the background that Bernt has, I will pay attention to his opinions. Being an ATP, rated on a 767 lends itself to a level of credibility. I have no doubt that he's forgotten more about aviation than I could ever learn by reading a book or surfing the WWW.On another thread I posted about the emotional attachment people have towards their choice of flight software. There was some ridicule for me saying that, yet it's fully on display here in this area and now raging full bore in the Flight forums, here and elsewhere. Within that emotional attachment are those that want to portray themselves as some sort of victim. It's just my opinion (not a professional review or anything), but being a victim is quite in vogue in today's world. If critical comments aren't framed here in a precise format and within a narrow window, the victims appear. And they fight back against those that expose the emotional attachment they posses for their favorite flight software.You write of being swamped with work, three projects IIRC? Yet there is time, during morning and afternoon and night, to be responding to any criticism here and maybe elsewhere. I think the term you used was "retaliate". A very interesting choice of words, IMO. I just wonder if you somehow see yourself as a victim of the uneducated Microsoft Mafia and that's why you need to defend yourself and your choice of flight software so fervently and so frequently?I don't live my life looking to be a victim of something, somewhere, somehow. I'm passionate about my flight gaming experience, but I won't let it get to the point of controlling my life.

On another thread I posted about the emotional attachment people have towards their choice of flight software. There was some ridicule for me saying that, yet it's fully on display here in this area and now raging full bore in the Flight forums, here and elsewhere. Within that emotional attachment are those that want to portray themselves as some sort of victim. It's just my opinion (not a professional review or anything), but being a victim is quite in vogue in today's world. If critical comments aren't framed here in a precise format and within a narrow window, the victims appear. And they fight back against those that expose the emotional attachment they posses for their favorite flight software.

I must have re-read this paragraph 10 times in order to savour it. Not because I actually enjoy reading the gloating and "I hate xyz sim because of...." stuff....but this little written gem elegantly summarizes the current strange polarization theme running through the boards at the moment.

meshman is one of the most passive-aggressive flame-warriors I've encountered in some time.

i dont know what the background is but orbx are not keen at all.#14

That's a shame. I would really like to have orbx. Plausible is quite ok, but orbx is way better. Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk

I can't contribute much to the technical ins and outs of this discussion but I can talk about the impact the big FSX developers might have on X-Plane. I work in corporate communications. Over the years, I've worked with many companies that are the second, much smaller supplier in a market dominated by somebody else. Right now, that's roughly the position Laminar is in. Remember, we're talking numbers only here - it's about the number of customers, not the merits of the product. Now, let's say Laminar's business goal is to grow its own market share. That's an assumption on my part - maybe Laminar doesn't want to do that (there are plenty of good companies that are content to remain small and that have a superior product - think of any luxury brand). But let's assume. The easiest way to win more customers is to appeal to FSX users, since there are a lot of them and they're already pre-sold on flight simulation as a genre. Those people are very attached to their third-party developers (probably much moreso than to FSX itself, which functions more and more as an operating system - it's the third-party developers who provide the user experience). So those developers have a bond with customers, they're well known and they're instantly credible. If one of them moves into X-Plane, that's a signal to the user base that X-Plane is worth considering, maybe even worth trying. X-Plane developers might be as good, they might be better (I'm sure many of them are), but since they're not household names on the FSX side of the fence, they can't have the same impact. Again, this says nothing about their merits. This exercise is only about reputation and the impact it can have on market acceptance.Again, Laminar and the X-Plane community might not want all those FSX users coming over - they might prefer to grow their own even if it happens more slowly. Nothing wrong with that as a business plan. But if you did want to grow fast and grow by attracting FSX users, then a "vote of confidence" by a major FSX developer would be a way to accelerate the process.Something else worth thinking about - and this favors the ability of X-Plane developers to take over the foreground - is that the list of top FSX developers changes over time. Back when FS9 was the only MSFS offering, Dreamfleet was the leader in GA. For whatever reasons, they chose to close up shop, and others have taken over the space. Similarly, PMDG wasn't the first to do a study-level airliner sim for MSFS - I think that might have been Level-D (were they the developer of the Pilot In Command 767?) So if X-Plane succeeds in becoming a more dominant platform, I don't see why, say, IEXG couldn't emerge alongside PMDG or even surpass it at some point. Nothing is set in stone.I'd like to see some of the FSX developers come in, both because of their market-tipping effect and because I'd like to use some of their products in X-Plane. But I'm equally open to seeing X-Plane developers take over the lead.

Edited January 5, 201214 yr by Alan_A

+1 to that Sir, very well said.

a "vote of confidence" by a major FSX developer would be a way to accelerate the process.

I enjoyed reading your comments; however, wouldn't Carenado and Aerosoft count in this context? The folks at REX?Additionally there really are some wonderful XP-native developers already. While competition is great I personally look forward to seeing what they accomplish over the next year or two. And looking at some of the released WIP images of incoming projects from these folks newcomers arriving from MSFS will be playing catchup for a while.

wouldn't Carenado and Aerosoft count in this context? The folks at REX?

Yes, they would and they do. I'm sure they've had some effect already. Aerosoft in particular counts because they represent both a developer's and a publisher's commitment, bringing a lot of talent to the table. Their impact will be greater when they start rolling out more X-Plane product. I also suspect they have more impact on European audiences than American ones - I could be wrong about that, but their development focus is on Europe and their "presence" is somewhat European. So those might be limiting factors, but only minor ones. Carenado puts out some good product (and some questionable ones - their flight models have needed a lot of tweaking at times). Also, they're a somewhat quiet company - they only recently opened a support forum and you don't get to know their developers in the way you get to know, say, Robert Randazzo at PMDG or Scott Gentile at A2A. Now, if one of those gentleman was to make a vocal commitment to PMDG (or even just put a toe in the water), that would count for more.As to REX, I'm not sure why they haven't had more of an effect but it may have to do with the nature of their product. I think airplanes generate the greatest amount of emotional "heat," followed by scenery. REX does generate some passion, but it's not quite at the level of PMDG or ORBX, or A2A within their somewhat narrower niche.I think the process has started and Aerosoft to date represents the biggest commitment, but others could accelerate it still more.

there really are some wonderful XP-native developers already

Couldn't agree more.

Edited January 5, 201214 yr by Alan_A

Treading in carefully to the mine field...You are to commended for researching and gathering material for your projects. But sometimes other people's opinion can be more valid than what's in a book. If someone has the background that Bernt has, I will pay attention to his opinions. Being an ATP, rated on a 767 lends itself to a level of credibility. I have no doubt that he's forgotten more about aviation than I could ever learn by reading a book or surfing the WWW.On another thread I posted about the emotional attachment people have towards their choice of flight software. There was some ridicule for me saying that, yet it's fully on display here in this area and now raging full bore in the Flight forums, here and elsewhere. Within that emotional attachment are those that want to portray themselves as some sort of victim. It's just my opinion (not a professional review or anything), but being a victim is quite in vogue in today's world. If critical comments aren't framed here in a precise format and within a narrow window, the victims appear. And they fight back against those that expose the emotional attachment they posses for their favorite flight software.You write of being swamped with work, three projects IIRC? Yet there is time, during morning and afternoon and night, to be responding to any criticism here and maybe elsewhere. I think the term you used was "retaliate". A very interesting choice of words, IMO. I just wonder if you somehow see yourself as a victim of the uneducated Microsoft Mafia and that's why you need to defend yourself and your choice of flight software so fervently and so frequently?I don't live my life looking to be a victim of something, somewhere, somehow. I'm passionate about my flight gaming experience, but I won't let it get to the point of controlling my life.

I know who Bernt Stolle is. We've had a few clashes before in private and in public, mostly about flight model accuracy. He has qualifications, but at the same time, I am in contact with 1 Regional Airline captain from Australia, 1 Regional Airline FO from Sweden, 1 flying school instructor from Sydney, who used to fly for Swiss Airlines before he semi-retired as a CFI, a 747-200 Flight Engineer from Europe, and a 747-400 Captain from the US. So I put my faith in their advice just as much as you, and most probably the entire FSX community, put your faith in Bernts. As far as being "swamped" with work, actually, that's not true. I have a few projects going, but I'm not really swamped. The Saab is in the hands of my programmer. My work on it, for now, is done. When I get it back, then I have some things to do on it. I can't do them until programming is finished. The 747 project is also being "slowly" programmed. I'm sure you can understand that a 747 is not something to rush. The modelling is about eighty% complete. Personally, I can't work on something continuously for more than an hour or 2. I'll work on something for a little bit, then take a break. That break can mean getting a snack, sitting back down, checking the forums, watching a music video on youtube, just for maybe 5 or 10 minutes, sometimes half an hour, then I'll get back into what I was doing. It's not just me doing add ons. I have up to 4 people working on my add ons at any one time. Sometimes I have nothing to do because I have to wait for something to get back to me before I can continue with it.

The way it comes across, if you really look at it, is not in a very positive way. Maybe he could have worded it better so as to avoid any misunderstanding. When people start saying "If PMDG go to X Plane, I'm getting X Plane for sure!", that is NOT for extra content. That is for particular content.Sure, to increase content, more than welcome. But if read in the context of "X Plane developers need to be replaced by better developers" which, let's face it, is the mindset of a vast majority of people not familiar with x plane, you can see why it would come across as insulting.I certainly don't mean anything bad by it. I'm very blunt and very honest. I just want to set the record straight and fill in the gaps.Tierborn, I'm not attacking you. Why is it when someone disagrees, they're considered "attacking"?

disagree is fine .. its when you start with the names "narrow minded" .. your point was stronger without calling me narrow minded. Watch of this tendency in your other posts as well.

meshman is one of the most passive-aggressive flame-warriors I've encountered in some time.

I'm sorry you feel that way. Most people who get to know me realize I'm a level-headed, pacifist. I'm also a realist and someone who studies people, so that I can better understand them. With that background, I do not understand why people like yourself feel a need or a desire to be confrontational. See, I might have replied earlier but I had to make a run to Wal-Mart for some food and then catch up on all the postings in the Flight forum by the X-Plane crew. That took a L-O-N-G time to work through.Since I readily admit to not understanding some things in life, let me ask for some clarification, please? Just what exactly is your desired effect in posting in the Flight forum? What is your motivation to do so? What do you personally hope to gain by posting in the Flight forum? I'm really curious and would appreciate your taking the time to explain it to me.