Not impressed with Global

[Roger_Hodgson 11]

Hello fellow flyers,

 

My grandson recently purchased Global for me by a company called Orbx and I must say I am very disappointed with this product.  I did not tell him this of course at it would have upset him to see that I was disappointed, but of all the flight simulation accessories I have had for Flight Simulator, this one was the most expensive and also the most disappointing. 

 

Ground textures seem to be highly off in many areas, especially in the southwest.  My wife, who I met in Vietnam during the war commented also on how little Global's version of Vietnam resembled the real one

 

Now, even though I am not a youngster, I am not a computer monkey, so I have visited the forums where the product originated from. I was thinking of posting some constructive criticism regarding this product but holy cow; if you open your mouth you are hailed with a load of abuse and kicked out of the forum.  I wasn't going to have any of that cockamamie crap, so I left.  

 

I have now removed this product and gone back to what I had before, which are two products called Ultimate Terrain and Ground environment, which have served me well (also gifts).  In terms of the Global product and my grandson; well I won't tell him and I won't use them.

 

I posted in here, because I feel that it is a safe place to mention this.  

 

All the best fellow flyers

 

Rod

[Falconfly 61]

Hi

 

From what i understand the product only replaces the textures and does not include land class. Hence you are noticing a misplacement in scenery 

[mganz121 159]

 

 

I was thinking of posting some constructive criticism regarding this product but holy cow; if you open your mouth you are hailed with a load of abuse and kicked out of the forum.

 

Yep, many forums are like this. It's called free speech (or at least that's the guise they hide behind). That's the net for you ..... sadly.

 

Regarding the scenery, Asia is still a mess because the only thing that Orbx have changed are the texture tiles. I hope that this will improve with their new Landclass product, but holding my breath for the Asia / Pacific region.

[zmak 331]

You will need to Buy the land class also produced by Orbx to see the correct color of some regions. They will be about $17 each or around $100 for the world

 

Since you have global free it probably will be worth your while to get this because only then will it be the truly stunning project promised

[sgreen91 182]

I was doubtful of this addon but bought it anyway on release day.  I guess I'm one of the few that am really enjoying the product.  

 

I understood from the outset it is not landclass but textures only and from what I've seen where I fly it really looks good.  

 

This is my first Orbx product so I'm no fan of Orbx;  just a simmer.  Look forward to the landclass releases.

 

Hope you come back later Rod and enjoy it but I understand each person is looking for something different in the product.  

 

 

Regards

[Guest]

Pity you don't like it. You will indeed need landclass to get the most out FTXG but even without landclass the product has changed the sim for me completely. 'Funny' thing is that I convinced someone to get FTXG by posting some screenshots of Vietnam and Thailand and that person thought FTXG did an awesome job on those countries...! Which comes to show that 'you can't please everybody'. ^_^

 I guess I'm one of the few that am really enjoying the product. 

 

Oh no, you're not! Most people actually LOVE the product! Don't know where you get the idea the opposite is true...?

[RudiJG1 172]

I was doubtful of this addon but bought it anyway on release day.  I guess I'm one of the few that am really enjoying the product.

I suspect that there are many of us who are enjoying the product...it's usually the unhappy minority that is more vocal in the forums.

[xplanery 250]

Regarding the scenery, Asia is still a mess because the only thing that Orbx have changed are the texture tiles. I hope that this will improve with their new Landclass product, but holding my breath for the Asia / Pacific region.

 

Actually they added custom landclass for Southeast Asia I believe, at least parts of it.

 

If you ask me Thailand Indonesia etc look way better than before, with GEX they looked just plain horrible, more like dry parts of Southern Europe. I've been in Thailand a couple of times and I sure know which one looks more like what I saw from the airplane and that's FTX Global. 

 

Anyway sure there are green textures in some places where they don't belong to, but that's just FSX limitation. Because FSX uses same textures in very different areas you either have dry textures in some areas that are in reality green or other way around like with FTX Global. 

 

Future OpenLC packs which apply custom textures to different areas will fix that.

[Orbx 123]

I suspect that there are many of us who are enjoying the product...it's usually the unhappy minority that is more vocal in the forums.

Never a truer statement spoken. The vocal minority always seem to make headlines on forums. Typically they represent less than 0.5% of those who purchased the product, likely less.

 

99.5% of those who purchased FTX Global aren't posting on forums, but enjoying flights in the sim.

 

In Roger's case, he called our product "an abomination" which did not endear him to us to be honest. There are more tactful ways to communicate to a product developer and expect a sympathetic ear.

[andrewr 2]

OP,

 

How much money are you prepared to pay to have the world correctly displayed in FSX with a tolerance less than 1% for error? 

 

I for one will be buying the product this month. 

 

 

 

However, beware of the limitations of FTX Global. It is first and foremost a texture replacement and it uses the current 'pool' of textures Orbx has created since 2008. This means that in many places the cityscapes and rural crops and fields won't look right at all. The initial release will have a whole bunch of warts because of the restrictions of the FSX landclass texture system. (This is the very reason we make full-featured FTX regions). We will have a team to deal with obvious landclass back spots first and then slowly begin to add POIs, airports and new content. Think of FTX Global as an upfront investment in an evolving ecosystem which improves over time. We will also invest in code that allows you to auto-update FTX Global or as a mimum alert you to new content and patches.

[ZKOKQ 984]

In Roger's case, he called our product "an abomination" which did not endear him to us to be honest. There are more tactful ways to communicate to a product developer and expect a sympathetic ear.

C'mon John, why don't you PM the OP and discuss with him, and maybe you can snare another loyal customer.

 

Expecting customers to kiss your butt is unrealistic. Maybe you should try a different approach, whether you like the customer or not.

[Rocky_53 1,566]

I have yet to install FTXG, but I know what to expect as I understand it's limitations. I suspect there are a some guys, perhaps like Roger, who were under a misperception of what the product is and what it offers. Apart from a small area of Asia, the product simply replaces textures, nothing else. I find it hard to accept that there are some guys who actually feel that it is worse than FSX default. IMO that is rubbish. OK, there may be one or two areas where it is off the mark, but these will no doubt be corrected in future patches and of course the release of regional lanclass. I think it's far too easy focus on the negatives rather than to look at the positives in a product. It must be remembered that Orbx has undertaken a massive challenge, simply put, to replace all the textures across the globe in FSX! As Jeroen and others have said, there are loads of guys who are experiencing a new and revitalised FSX.

[Orbx 123]

Julian, my approach is perfectly fine, it's worked for me and Orbx since our inception, and I don't do PMs and email - too busy for that and just not interested.

 

Some folks call me arrogant and that's fine, maybe it's the Dutchman in me.

 

I don't put up with BS, call a spade a spade and don't tolerate rudeness, impatience and the instant gratification that seems to be the norm these days.

 

I could care less about arse kissers (if you think that's what people do) but I do get my back up at the vocal minority who post mainly to feed their own egos and agendas.

 

People know how I operate by now and those who don't like it can choose to not buy our products because of my style, again I could care less really.

[OmniAtlas 93]

Pity you don't like it. You will indeed need landclass to get the most out FTXG but even without landclass the product has changed the sim for me completely. 'Funny' thing is that I convinced someone to get FTXG by posting some screenshots of Vietnam and Thailand and that person thought FTXG did an awesome job on those countries...! Which comes to show that 'you can't please everybody'. ^_^

 

 

Oh no, you're not! Most people actually LOVE the product! Don't know where you get the idea the opposite is true...?

I saw a YouTube video -- landing in Thailand (Bangkok) with global and it look pretty impressive.

[pete_auau 1,154]

Can see  where this  topic  is  going to go,  got my pop corn out  and  waiting  to see the  responses