I think you're splitting hairs here. Part of being professional and dedicated is having passion and love for your busniess and field of work. Very few people can excel in what they do unless they are passionate about it. I've been a business consultant for all of my professional life and I can tell you, passion and love is what makes a difference when times get rough. If people don't "feel it", they rarely have what it takes to rise from the ashes.

 

It isn't black and white, and there is a big difference beween small businesses and large corporations. Sure, lots of business fail because they lacked professionalism. You can't live on idealism alone, but that doesn't mean you can surve strickly on professionalism either. Personal dedication and love is the foundation of success.

 

To name a prominent professional failure: Kodak (cash cow that lost sight of what once made them great).

 

To name a prominent passionate success: Apple (which now struggles because the passionate CEO is gone).

 

Ok last remark from me on this topic (although interesting).

 

It is impossible to point at a single factor responsible for the downfall of any company.

 

Much like the downfall of the Roman Empire was caused by many factors and not just the loss of love or passion for Rome itself. 

 

Reality is not that simple.

Ok last remark from me on this topic (although interesting).

 

It is impossible to point at a single factor responsible for the downfall of any company.

 

Much like the downfall of the Roman Empire was caused by many factors and not just the loss of love or passion for Rome itself. 

 

Reality is not that simple.

 

You are quite right. And that goes for love and professionalism palying a part in the success of a company as well. It isn't either or, it is the sum of all things. That said, some factors play bigger parts than others. When managing a company you need to focus on the factors that you can control, and adapt to the things you can't in the best way possible.

Does negative publicity from a few contribute to the downfall of a company?

Does negative publicity from a few contribute to the downfall of a company?

 

I guess this is a question of how the company actually handles such bad publicity... At the risk of opening a can of worms here, I have to say I've been very impressed by the way JV and Orbx handled the whole "anti-FTXG campaign" by remaining polite and factual, effectively letting the "campaigners" make complete idiots of themselves in front of us all... :rolleyes:

 

Tym

Back to basics :

 

1- I do not know better than John Venema how to run his business ----> CHECK

 

2- I do not know how to probe the heart and mind of a  FSX developper (the "love" issue) ---> CHECK

 

3- FTX products are not machine tooled and therefore are of inequal quality, that being said beauty is the eyes of the beholder ---> CHECK

 

4- The data sources to make that kind of sceneries, specially out of the US, are scarce, expensive and of inequal quality ---> CHECK

 

5- I remember vividly what F2K and prior incarnations were before Justin Thyme, Holger Sandman and John Venema brought their magic, any FTX scenery is several magnitudes better than default ---> CHECK

 

6- I dont know of any developper offering what OrbX does : great sceneries with autogen covering thousand of square miles for a few bucks except VFR France ----> CHECK

 

So anytime I fire up FSX, am I glad to fly over FTX terrain (even the less perfect ones)  ? You bet !

FTX quality has become ... variable due to the increased number of developers and projects.

 

Pretty much the "Aerosoft effect" with their releases from a multitude of different contracted developers.

 

I think that's a very fair observation.

 

I have to add, however, that the fact most of us are so passionate about this hobby sometimes makes us prone to being a bit too harsh in our assessments. I know I'm guilty of that... When I re-read my post earlier in this thread, I think I may well have come across as an "FTX EU/SIM720 basher" myself, even though my intention was simply to emphasize the consistent quality of FTX NA. I do feel a bit like an &@($* now...

 

Of the EU regions, I only own Scotland, and while it may not be as polished overall as the NA regions, I'm really enjoying my flying there. I've flown in the lowland region around Perth/Dundee and loved the area (including airports). At the same time, I have to admit that the way certain things blend together is not as good as with FTX NA, and some low-res textures like the moors in the highlands stand out like a sore thumb. But, as I said, it's by no means bad, just not as near-perfect as some of the other products.

 

Tym

I have to agree with the OP. Living in England, I couldn't wait to see the Orbx U.K Scenery. What a huge disappointment, it's appalling!  The worst things about it are the roads look terrible (most of them just look like the go in straight lines most of the time, and the colour looks just wrong), and the countryside is all the same colour, which it defiantly is not in reality. the colours in the North of England are completely different from those in the South, and the same applies to Scotland, but this is not conveyed in the Orbx scenery.

Areas of outstanding natural beauty, for example the lake district have been rendered bland, you could fly over them and not even notice they existed.

Whilst there can be little doubt that the Orbx product is considerably better than the stock FSX scenery, I do feel that they have failed to capture the beauty and feel of the region, you could be just about anywhere, it's almost as though they have created a generic texture that they could just "slap on" France for example!

 

Ian.

   

@Ian

I find that the flat grey featureless roads in FSX generally look horrid, whether in Orbx or UTX, or whatever. In the comparison shots posted earlier, if you simply removed those bland roads, the EU pic would look a 100x better.

I don't get it. I went to the FTX website and found the FTX ENG is awarded "Best Simulations of 2012"..

@Ian

I find that the flat grey featureless roads in FSX generally look horrid, whether in Orbx or UTX, or whatever. In the comparison shots posted earlier, if you simply removed those bland roads, the EU pic would look a 100x better.

Yes, I have to agree with you on that. But also the Orbx roads in the U.K just go in straight lines with sharp turns in them. This is far from the case in reality (with the exception of the odd road of Roman origin). 

 

Ian.

Yes, I have to agree with you on that. But also the Orbx roads in the U.K just go in straight lines with sharp turns in them. This is far from the case in reality (with the exception of the odd road of Roman origin). 

 

Ian.

 

Sounds perfectly normal. This is how the FSX terrain engine works. I don't know any vector based scenery that has realistic roads with every bend in them. It would tax performance considerably.

Well, but is that really a fair assessment of all their current products? I'd say the whole FTX EU thing hasn't worked as they/we had expected (putting it mildly), and I'm really not surprised that Orbx and SIM720 are now going their separate ways.

 

The quality of their NA regions, however, has been rather consistent, and SAK is believed by many to be Orbx's best product so far. They keep updating their older stuff, including the freeware airports, and I don't really see any signs of dwindling passion or lack of 'love' from the more seasoned developers. Plus, there are some new names, and I'm really impressed by some of their debut contributions -- have you seen the freeware stuff from Vlad Mlady, for example?

 

I'm far from being an Orbx fan-[you know what, it seems to be considered a swearword here], it's just that the quality of the EU regions isn't really representative of all the work they do, and some of the criticism seems a bit unfair.

 

Just my two cents, anyway...

Tym

 

I know Vlad and I can tell you. He's all about "the love" of FS Scenery. He did 2 freeware airports before doing Airdrie and then he re-did Airdrie and added a ton of scenery to the city of Calgary even though the initial wave of sales had subsided. 

 

That's like doing a reno on a house and selling it and coming back and adding a deck and hot tub for free because you like building things so much.

 

I know there is alot of talent at ORBX and they put in more than what they ask for the price. Look at the price of regions! This stuff takes several people more than a year to build. And then they come back and patch several times and add more and more to the areas.

 

I think England was a mistake though. I know if they were not so close to releasing OpenLC and Vector, they would be all over some heavy service packs for that region. But I seriously want them to focus on OpenLC and Vector and free airport packs. 

 

Which is what they are doing right now. There's a whole lotta love there. As in. I love it!

 

Charles.

I don't get it. I went to the FTX website and found the FTX ENG is awarded "Best Simulations of 2012"..

 

 

FTX ENG was pushed out juuust before Christmas 2012. Hard to believe it sky-rocketed immediately into the top titles of 2012.

 

Looks like the darker side of marketing to me ...

IMO, towns and cities never look as good as rural landscapes, whether you are using landclass scenery or photoscenery. I think the real problem with the ORBx UK regions (and one that has been pointed out already in this thread) is that there are texture tiles next to each other that clearly do not match (eg. roads that are suddenly cut off). Flaws like this are like huge flashing neon signs in the landscape that say "this is not real". Photoscenery does not have this problem, although it can easily have others (eg. over saturated colours, and adjacent "strips" of differing quality). However, it's the urban areas that suffer most in both cases.

FTX ENG was pushed out juuust before Christmas 2012. Hard to believe it sky-rocketed immediately into the top titles of 2012.

 

Looks like the darker side of marketing to me ...

 

Please explain precisely what you mean by this comment?