FSX / ESP licensing to Lockeed Prepar3D totally halted the evolution of flightsim

[DannyH73 16]

Hmmmm .... Maybe we stop feeding the troll?

[Bjoern 1,157]

I don't think it is that bleak. The end user does have a say.  I do think that there is a certain P3D-Is-Perfect-Just-The-Way-It-Is faction of customers that takes it upon themselves to stand in the way of constructive criticism, as if it were a personal offense, but I don't at all get the impression that LM itself is deaf to customer input.  Bugs are getting reported, and bugs are getting fixed.

This is so completely untrue that I have to say you are maliciously spreading horse manure with this statement.

 

Lockheed has been extremely receptive to input from not only from third-party developers, but users as well.

 

As a beta tester for Orbx, and beta tester for P3D, I can confirm that many of the new features that are in v2.2 were asked for by third-party developers and included because it not only enhanced the simulator itself, but helps the third-party devs create and sell their products. LM has been working hand-in-hand with not only scenery developers, but airplane developers as well with every new version of P3D.

 

I have NEVER seen such a good relationship between those who are producing the simulator and those producing the third-party products. If a particular developer hasn't taken the time to communicate with LM about Prepar3d, that's not Lockheed's fault, it's the devs fault.

 

You're reading too much into my statement. I was on about core development. Feel free to prove me wrong when I say that ATC and AI haven't been majorly updated since ESP.

 

In any case, I quite like what LM is doing with FSX' code. And deep down I still suspect that the whole "For (military) training" is just a mere frontend to keep developing it.

[EngineRoom 205]

Sure we've got more simulator platforms available than we've had in a long time, but that brings with it market fragmentation. I'd hate to be the developer that backs the wrong horse.

 

Someone above mentioned Dreamfleet.... yep the guys who back in the day made some of the best aircraft available. Many fond memories there. I also remember how Lou Betti jumped into the AirlinerXP project - proceeded to hype it to epic proportions telling us it would be the very best, most amazing addon ever released, and it was just a few months from release!

 

And then disappeared. No AirlinerXP. No more Dreamfleet - highly surprising as it was one of the best known and most popular outfits in FS development. Also interesting to note that the two other developers (also very successful and well known developers in their own right with established product lines and brands) involved in that project also disappeared without trace. I think there was a lot more going on there that we will ever know about.

 

What's more it's almost a crime that the disappearance of Dreamfleet left Paul Golding high and dry with his highly anticipated DC-8 project.

 

As for the OP, probably a troll. However, I agree with part of his sentiment, and that is how slow flight simulation is progressing at the moment. P3D2 came out seven years after FSX, which in turn came out seven years after FS2000. Compare the advances from FS2000 to FSX, and then compare the same from FSX to P3D2. The pace of development and improvement has slowed down dramatically.

[JASPRUDENTE 0]

Uh oh it's time for big-bad-Lockheed again.

 

For years flight simmers moaned and groaned that Microsoft didn't take their suggestions into account. Lockheed came along, hired a community spokesperson, and reached out to the flightsim community. The response they got? Being branded an evil military company who wanted to lock away FS forever. Endless tripe over licenses. Driving the person dedicated to community outreach insane by trying to poke holes in his statements and prove that the project was malicious. Lockheed takes developer and user contribution into account with each patch cycle, to say otherwise and claim that the code has been locked away and flight simulation halted is willfully ignorant at best and downright insulting at worst.

 

The community asked for a developer to take their suggestions into account, Lockheed stepped up to this task, and in response a large portion of the community bit the hand that fed them. 

 

If development stops and flight simulation dead ends, then they have made their beds and they can lie in them.

[N2056 33]

Wow! Now we've got the original topic, a touch of "X-Plane is better", and a dash of "P3D Eula" all in a single thread.

All we need now are some Mentos and a bottle of Coke and we got ourselves a show!

[bonchie 2,305]

 

As for the OP, probably a troll. However, I agree with part of his sentiment, and that is how slow flight simulation is progressing at the moment. P3D2 came out seven years after FSX, which in turn came out seven years after FS2000. Compare the advances from FS2000 to FSX, and then compare the same from FSX to P3D2. The pace of development and improvement has slowed down dramatically.

 

P3D wasn't in development for 7 years though. Development has only just started to pick up with the release of v2. The things they've done under the skin in 2.0-2.2 are substantial. The new eye candy is nice as well of course, but the core changes are the future. 

[Jimmy RFR 406]

 

 

Anyway I think the flight sim market is dying.... I say this because I've heard it from a few devs which shall remain nameless. Sales aren't what they used to be and development time is up up up (unless you're carenado and spit out pretty graphics every 6 months)...

 

I personally think that there's reasons whereby some developers may hold this opinion:  In the steadily progressing competition between developers, they've set the bar far too high.  All of us users expect so much from an add-on now, that we're inclined to pick them apart, bit by bit, focusing on every single possible negative both real and imagined, until we convince, either ourselves or anyone else willing to take half a moment to listen, that said add-on is not worth purchasing.  There's only a very small handful of add-ons that are always recommended without hesitation, the rest are accompanied on release by a forum thread that grows full of people finding something/anything to complain about.

 

Combine that with the situation created by the amount of work going into these current add-ons, and it shouldn't be a surprise that some developers come away disappointed by the return on their time and investment.

 

Add that to the fact that the majority of us likely have an already huge fleet of add-ons, and every new release has to find a 'spot on the shelf', so to speak.  There's only so much room on the shelf, before we start feeling guilty about trying to cram more onto it.

 

I seriously doubt that flight simulation as a hobby will ever perish; there's too many of us who enjoy the hobby for that to happen.  Even if there were never a single new release ever again, I could keep myself going for as long as there's a compatible pc to install FSX onto. ^_^

[EngineRoom 205]

 

 

P3D wasn't in development for 7 years though.

 

You are indeed correct (in fact it's now been four years since Lockheed announced P3D). However, that is not what I wrote.

 

My point was the seven years from FSX to P3D2 has gotten us relatively little when you compare to what we got in the seven years between FS2000 and FSX.

 

 

 

 

I personally think that there's reasons whereby some developers may hold this opinion:

 

Some very valid opinions there.

 

I've been with MSFS specifically since FS98, but with flight sims even longer. I wrote in another thread recently that "we" (as in the MSFS hobbyists) need to take a good look at what happened in the combat flight sim market at the end of the 90's - because right now we are heading in that direction. One change I do see happening is our hobby will increasingly piggy-back on the real world training market. We already see it with the likes of PMDG, Majestic, FS Labs, and indeed P3D itself, not to mention DCS in the combat flight sim market. Ostensiby that's a good thing if we want ever increasing fidelity, but for us hobbyists it could turn out to be a double edged sword.

[tarere 45]

Hey I'm here.

Majority of posters missed my point.

 

I dont't blame anybody. I see the MS / LM contract as a broken deal which is now as a fact counterproductive to Flight Simulation evolution. But MS could not think of it when it sold the licence, it has to get some money from a dead project and it was a great way out for them. Eventually LM might not even think of selling a somewhat licence for personal use, they just see it afterward when they felt the FS crowd pushing at the door : "shut up and take my money" !

 

Still we're stuck. Fact. 3rd party developper are on a closed non evolution loop tied to FSX, some way they are ok with it because they work on still technology which might lower their cost of production compared to moving forward every 2 or 3 years.

 

I was relating with the unbelievable speed of evolution in web developpement tools and plateforms for those who knows it. Since a few years we've seen litterally thousands of open source project that are moving the web forward at a speed unknown before, to a point it is becoming difficult for webdeveloper to keep up with innovation. Smaller, faster, easier, less code, more feature, frameworks, libraries, all you can code style. Free, open source.

 

I know I may be comparing apples and oranges. But I do stand my position that we lost 8 years of progress and what is frightening is there is no credible light ahead. FSX survived because it was such the major and almost only player since twenty years of franchise, and because it has such an enthousiastic community behind.

 

What I regret is that this very active and dedicated community work on a dead software, that is the very point of my post. Where do this work go indeed for the years to come ? Imagine if that community had access to the core of the simulation instead of a 2006 closed SDK ?

 

What if FSX code had been open sourced, where would we be now ? Certainly far ahead.

And in a way some have raised a valid point, maybe the whole community should work toward FlightGear, I'm sure in one years the gap would be inverted. But this involve a collective will, not gonna happen of course.

Just a thought.

[anfield ace 5]

It doesn't matter what P3D do with FSX anyhow, I've got everything installed from Orbx, all sceneries, global, mesh, vectors and airports, the complete collection, it's not FSX flight sim anymore, its Orbx!  flight sim now, and better off it is as well....brilliant!

[EngineRoom 205]

 

 

What if FSX code had been open sourced, where would we be now ? Certainly far ahead.

 

Falcon 4 effectively went open source when the source code was leaked to the community. Lots of development groups doing different things (often working against eachother as much as with eachother!), lots of confusing development fragmentation over many years until BMS were the only guys left standing.

[masneoquil 66]

 

 

What if FSX code had been open sourced, where would we be now ? Certainly far ahead.

 

You mean like FlightGear?  :lol:

I don't think Open Source is the future. And I work as a developer for living.

I do think is a good thing to have it around to keep every company sharp and always evolving.

[ryanbatc 12,857]

Ryan,

No issues with VAS any more now since 2.2, I never get close to the limit.

Give 2.2 a try, we have almost identicle systems and I am getting good performance here.

Oh? People were reporting VAS issues with ver2 - that's what I'm mainly concerned about. But I may end up getting a license for beta testing ...

[Glynn 405]

 

 

Oh? People were reporting VAS issues with ver2

 

2.1 had issues with VAS, in 2.2 they completly reworked the auto-gen system, now you will never get close.

Maybe with every slider full right, but trust me,you and me both are not doing that with our systems.

It is great seeing my GTX570 taxed to the limit but still having headroom on my 2500k, means going forward it's all about just throwing a better GPU into the case, or better still two.

The GTX570 was barely idling with FSX.

[Jimmy RFR 406]

 

 

You mean like FlightGear? :lol:

I don't think Open Source is the future. And I work as a developer for living.

I do think is a good thing to have it around to keep every company sharp and always evolving.

 

There's some pretty amazing stuff hidden within FlightGear. I feel that it would be unwise to dismiss it so quickly.  The capabilities it offers for extremely high fidelity flight models is quite something, for example.  Most of the issues revolve around a lack of resources, in my opinion.