Time for us to see what's there, in the four gigabytes of stuff, instead of obsessing over what's not.

 

Four gigabytes! In my day, a 10MB hard drive was to die for......

I'm not saying JV is wrong but his product appeals to customers all over the world, not just Australia. You need to tuned your PR for the non Aussie folks.

 

I remember when I first moved to Australia, the yanks are known to be the neediest and loudest customers

 

 

Time for us to see what's there, in the four gigabytes of stuff, instead of obsessing over what's not.

 

Four gigabytes! In my day, a 10MB hard drive was to die for......

 

FTXG takes up 9 to 10 GB when installed. And when you get all OpenLC regions, another 10 to 12 GB will be added to it. And yes, I remember paying a fortune for a 64 MB hard disk... I could buy an entire desktop PC for that same money now...!!!

lol....it's a balancing act whatever you do. to make things work in one area it breaks it in another simply because of the design choices MS made in the fist place. ftx global has chosen a certain route to make it work for them. the open LC addons will fix remaining issues. GEX has been though this too and in many areas where it should be greener, it isn't because of this same problem. take a look at GEXin Northern Europe and USA. the textures are very arid and dry looking with nowhere near the right level of green. This is especially noticeable in the UK. it looks more like Southern Europe because those same textures are also used in Italy, Spain, France etc.

 

is it perfect?, no. A worldwide texture addon without custom landclass cannot be by definition.

 

You're right.  Unfortunately Microsoft didn't really do the job right the first time and skimped a bit on the scenery system by having too many textures shared by multiple regions of the world. 

 

I have no doubt that ORBX openLC will fix these issues. 

 

Like I've said before, and despite my occasional criticism, we're lucky that a company like ORBX came along to provide us with fantastic scenery for FSX.

Easy. FSX landclass is using green textures in a place that should be using brown textures. The only thing that makes it look more "realistic" compared to FTX Global is the fact that FSX's greens are muted. That's why forrests look terrible with the default textures. That's also why, until the OpenLC comes out, I'll stick with my photoscenery in the southwest so that I can see deserts again.

 

No, I beg to differ. It is not FSX landclass using (muted) green textures where they are supposed to be brown. Default deserts look brown, GEX looks brown, FTXG looks green. This seems to be a result from a general ORBX bias towards green textures which is quite all right by me.

 

But don't blame it on FSX landclass when it is a result of ORBX design decisions.

 

For people flying in "lush" areas this is fine but guys flying in desert areas take a hit.

 

So it is understandable that they are disappointed after paying 90 #*!!@ dollars and then are told to wait till they can spend a further $100.

 

It seems a bit harsh to call complaining about that whining.

 

IMO there are both too many ORBX fan boys and haters shooting off in the forums.

 

It seems to make civil discussion and constructive criticism a bit strained at times.

 

Add the caustic personality of the ORBX CEO and you get an unpleasant mix.

 

Sascha

As someone pointed out earlier, it's his playground and he makes the rules of his games.

I agree up to a point. JV does tend to fly off himself though and doesn't want to take it from (his) paying customers himself.

 

Now I think civility is not a one-way road.

 

You are right in that ORBX forums are JV's playground, in that people over there occasionally show behaviour patterns you'd expect in a sandbox and not a professional support forum for paying customers!

 

Why does it seem impossible to just civilly warn people and if they don't comply give them a polite kick off the premises?

 

What I really hate is the way this behaviour on both sides makes it so difficult to get an unbiased opinion and have some constructive debate over pros/cons of ORBX products.

 

I don't understand how the traditionally civil FS community has deteriorated into these flame wars, with respected developers joining in enthusiastically and even pouring oil into the fire with imflammatory remarks like "We don't care, if people don't like our style they just don't need to buy our products?"

 

People are being so disrespectful, calling the product in question awful, positive comments as being bought or deluded or justified complaints whining or moronic!

 

Sorry for ranting but the state of parts of our community as seen in this debate is seriously hacking me off!

Yes, yes, we trust your familiarity with the Southwest. I'm more than familiar with the Southwest, as I live in Albuquerque, NM myself. But, then again, that has no bearing on the issue.

 

It's a landclass problem. Period. This explains why the deserts in the Middle East and Africa look good--because FSX didn't try to cover the place with "shrubs."

No! This is exactly the kind of derogatory attitude I bemoaned in my previous post. Dave2013 post is quite polite and he makes a big effort to explain what he means.

 

Whereas you do not seem willing to explain why GEX manages to replace the very same textures in question here with adequate textures of their own.

 

Sascha

http://forum.avsim.net/topic/414750-there-is-an-answer-from-flight1/

Whereas you do not seem willing to explain why GEX manages to replace the very same textures in question here with adequate textures of their own.

 

Sascha

I'm from the Southwest. I've flown around New Mexico, Arizona and Texas. Neither FSX default nor GEX gets this area right (with the exception of northern New Mexico (Taos, etc.). The landclass in this area is horrific. How anyone could be content with it, whether with default, GEX or FTX, is beyond me. That's why I use Sim Savvy in the Southwest.

 

All FTX Global did was refine the textures. It didn't turn brown to green. It's simply made the landclass shortcomings more noticeable.

All FTX Global did was refine the textures. It didn't turn brown to green. It's simply made the landclass shortcomings more noticeable.

 

With all due respect, IMHO, this is exactly what it did - the same land class information is being used for both FSX and FTX-G until OpenLC hits the scene, and the texture set that ORBX has provided with FTX-G has a green hue bias in exactly the same way that the stock FSX palate has a brown bias. For most folks this appears to be a good trade off and they are well pleased, while others (myself included), got a bit surprised at the result of installing the product - no big deal if you are in it for the "long haul" with ORBX as I am, but some people made the purchase without necessarily considering the ramifications, and they now feel like they have just swapped one set of problems for another. These people need to be civil when voicing their confusion and/or disappointment, but they are more than allowed to do so, and if they are not able to be satisfied in any other way (and won't be an OpenLC customer), then ORBX should graciously offer them their money back, and everybody should just move on...

These people need to be civil when voicing their confusion and/or disappointment, but they are more than allowed to do so, and if they are not able to be satisfied in any other way (and won't be an OpenLC customer), then ORBX should graciously offer them their money back, and everybody should just move on...

The OpenLC has been on the table for some time now because Orbx knew from the beginning that the default landclass was broken. And they told us as much. The fact that some people prefer one inaccurate representation over another is beside the point.

The OpenLC has been on the table for some time now because Orbx knew from the beginning that the default landclass was broken. And they told us as much. The fact that some people prefer one inaccurate representation over another is beside the point.

 

And in a perfect world, everybody would have read and understood what was being presented and made their buying decision accordingly, but since this never happens in total, engendering a good public precpetion for ORBX is in their best interest, so again, they should just give folks their cash back who want it, and get on with providing the supporting product line. Whether or not somebody prefers one representation over another was never the point...

And in a perfect world, everybody would have read and understood what was being presented and made their buying decision accordingly, but since this never happens in total, engendering a good public precpetion for ORBX is in their best interest, so again, they should just give folks their cash back who want it, and get on with providing the supporting product line. Whether or not somebody prefers one representation over another was never the point...

If we want our hobby to thrive, and development to progress into the future, the last thing we want is developers subjecting their income stream to the whims of the multitude.

 

Maybe a preview is the way to go. Of course, previewing a texture set covering the entire world is a lot more difficult than previewing an airport (Flightbeam style).

If we want our hobby to thrive and development to progress into the future, the last thing we want is developers subjecting their income stream to the whims of the multitude. Maybe a preview is the way to go. Of course, previewing a texture set covering the entire world is a lot more difficult than previewing an airport (Flightbeam style).

 

We all vote with our wallets, but in the grand scheme of things, I am pretty sure the number of folks that are upset enough to want their money back is pretty trivial - and in the end, those folks might come back to the ORBX product line for a dedicated region and then airports etc, if they have a good experience with the company when things go slightly sideways - I don't believe in karma per se, but the golden rule works pretty well...

 

I think the screencaps that ORBX provided on their website was a decent attempt to give folks an idea of what was coming, but they didn't provide any shots of areas that weren't just flipping perfect (but marketing is like that), and they sometimes showed stuff that was "enhanced" with other products as well - now, in their defense they did note this when they did it, but it was mixed in with a lot screencaps, and the ramifications of using these add-ons may have been lost on some people.

 

In the end, I am very excited and interested to see just how well FTX-G, OpenLC and other products yet to be named from ORBX (by other than vague reference from JV), are going to continue to breathe new life into a nearly decade old software product - and as a software developer myself, I have to say that for all its short comings, FSX/ESP has proven to be a remarkably open platform, and the fact that folks like JV/ORBX are savvy enough to exploit it is a really good sign for us flight simmers - I just wish I could still afford to keep flying in real life... :blink:

In Denmark with UTX, FTX Global is near perfect!

And it doesn't hurt i have 10m mesh. :-)

Maybe a preview is the way to go. Of course, previewing a texture set covering the entire world is a lot more difficult than previewing an airport (Flightbeam style).

Or a 30 day money back policy like flight1.

 

But as you said it may be difficult to implement with a texture set.