So when do the updates stop?

[N1G 88]

When they do stop, and 11 is released, what will you be looking for before you buy it?  Would there need to be some major changes between the last release of 10 before you buy?

 

Bob

[airlinejets 709]

When they do stop, and 11 is released, what will you be looking for before you buy it?  Would there need to be some major changes between the last release of 10 before you buy?

 

Bob

At the pace development is going, I'd hazard a guess we're years away from 11 .

[CyberMike 18]

When we go from 10.8 (or alike) to 11 it will be alike going from 10.2 to 10.3. Nothing special apart you need to buy it again.

So throwing in a wild guess, we might get environment reflections for 11 or something alike in around 3 years?

[N1G 88]

No one is going to buy it right away, unless there is a major improvement somewhere between the last release of the previous version. 

I have a feeling though, just a feeling, but I think XP will go away unless the Steam version is really successful in terms of revenue.

 

Bob

[Longranger 148]

 

I have a feeling though, just a feeling, but I think XP will go away unless the Steam version is really successful in terms of revenue.

Very unlikely, since there are now a number of companies that are coming to X-Plane. Aerosoft seems to be working on their very first X-Plane plane. The EETN Airport was ported to X-Plane, Icarus , the team that made the Mykonos airport is currently working on Manchester, TruScenery is working on EFHK and I don't think that I have to write anything about Tom Curtis.

And if you look at the number of planes that already got 10.30 updates you should really ask yourself: Would they be putting so much work on a plattform that looses money for them and that they expect to fail.

 

X-Plane could simply say: Ok, we are now concentrating a bit more on X-Plane 11, we only add the following  features to X-Plane 10...

 

And there are a number of big features that they could put into X-Plane 11.

A better integration of external scripts, since the current hack to have LUA working in 64 bit is only a hack.

Better integreation of complex Airliner operations, like a capability to detect at least other vehicles and planes on an airport.

Give external applications a better access to a simplified terrain, so that they can program their own Garmin1000 avionic systems.

A working ATC system.

A weather system with more than 3 cloud layers..

 

In fact I expect that they earned much more money with X-Plane 10 than they ever earned with X-Plane 9.

I know several people who add X-Plane to their system since they believe that X-Plane is the plattform of the future.

A P3D in 64 bit doesn't have any appeal for them, since they can't reuese their old FSX stuff anyway.

 

Don't expect any problems for them  to sell X-Plane 11. There will be several companies ready to sell their updated planes for a small fee to show you that the new features are worth it.

[MSFS Ralf 149]

The easiest situation for the add on companies would be 10 as the latest release. See what they do with FSX. They have a stable platform that will never change. What works today will work in 100 years.

Just a "what if scenario". I believe in 10 and hope we'll see 11, 12, 13, ...

[HiFlyer 9,360]

How about finally adding night lighting to all their buildings? Seems a small thing to ask after "20 years of continuous development"  :unsure:

 

Maybe seasons?

[N1G 88]

I agree , there is so much that should be there. Maybe after they add it all in, the frames will be into the single digits. ATC, a little traffic. What are they thinking?

 

Bob

[uwespeed 497]

Maybe seasons?

 See here and here .

[HiFlyer 9,360]

 See here and here .

 

I not sure I buy that.............. Probably people on Steam won't go for it either, especially when such things are among the least expectations for a modern sim. I think that's nearly the equivalent of saying no, the car comes unpainted, but you can get spray-cans fairly easily and do it yourself.......

 

Not attractive.

[uwespeed 497]

I not sure I buy that.............. Probably people on Steam won't go for it either, especially when such things are among the least expectations for a modern sim. I think that's nearly the equivalent of saying no, the car comes unpainted, but you can get spray-cans fairly easily and do it yourself.......

 

Not attractive.

 

Uhm ... some people still don't seem to understand the difference between a nice packing with no or insufficient content on the one hand and quite good content with not so nice packing on the other hand.

Transferred to your example: I for myself prefer a car with bodywork but no paint above a car with paint, but no bodywork (not attractive).

 

Difference understood?

[HiFlyer 9,360]

I understand.... that some people feel that way. I guess its a good thing that Laminar doesn't seem to be driven by any sort of traditional competitive or profit based motive.

[N1G 88]

I understand.... that some people feel that way. I guess its a good thing that Laminar doesn't seem to be driven by any sort of traditional competitive or profit based motive.

OK so their mission statement would be something like this: "We are not profit motivated nor do we care what the other leaders  in the flight simulation/gaming markets products have accomplished, nor what their feature set is, what we are really passionate about and pride ourselves on is ______________xxx_____________xxxxxxxx_____________ and xxxxxx --- and our future goals are xxxx_______ and xxxx.

 

There has to be reason for the season IMO.

 

 

Bob

Bob

[alpha12125 213]

The reason for the season is technical:  It was the way it was designed. i am no technical person but someone explained it a while ago but i do not know  if i can explain it properly.

 

FSX uses a system that uses layers. so seasons are basically layers over the scenery. that way they can have snow or not etc.

 

Xplane is designed differently so it can use the huge amount of freely availalbe sattelite images and osm data. Upside is you can use with Xplane  modifiers to these data like HD Mesh or the phenominal World2Xplane for free and generate complete countries of full 3D houses and objects in a quality i havent seen before at basically not cost. This is limited by the amount of availabe OSM and Sattelite data though.

 

As far as i understood this method doesnt have layers for seasons so you would need new scenery for each season. If this will be changed or not i do not know but i think not including seasons was a design choice in the beginning of x-plane and maybe

[Longranger 148]

 

 

OK so their mission statement would be something like this: "We are not profit motivated nor do we care what the other leaders  in the flight simulation/gaming markets products have accomplished,

At least the second argument is more or less correct. X-Plane doesn't really look at competitors instead they look at their own resources. DUe to their limited crew they can work extremly efficient Since profit is the difference between costs and earnings they can be pretty profitable with a limited amount of customers.

 

And most add on companies would be extremly against a feature freeze.

 

You always have to ask: What is the reason between major versions and minor versions:

Major versions can change their APIs significatly, minor versions have to be extremly careful whenever they change the APIs.