It's the typical discussion you face when customers who know 10% of the facts (which are publicly availalbe) and base their descisions on that. And i dont mean that in a bad way. People need to realize that AVSIM (or any flightsim related forum) is an echochamber. Views of the most "hardcore" simmers are present as the general consensous and then it is derrived from that info why it is a bad business descision to do such and such.

 

Laminar released the usage data from xp10 and the most used interface to fly planes is still the mouse. Who here uses the mouse to fly the plane or has done so recently? You are pretty much considered a total noob if you do not have rudder pedals and a joystick. Most flights are still done on the default planes.

 

X-plane mobile, has just on the google play store close to 25.000 ratings. Thats more than the entire userbase of PC Flightsim. Mobile is even bigger than desktop already.

 

And that is only part of the 10% of the information that is available on the net.

When people say "why doesnt he add all the functions we want?  It is so easy to be successfull its a bad business descisions etc." People tend to forget that they are the very vocal minorty of a niche. I know you would love an xp11 that looks like xp10 but has all the "under the hood" things that people love so much on this forum. Things like 200 layers of weather, towering cumolous, snow textures, correct moon cycle, etc.... You would make 3000 users happy and maybe convert 1000 fsx/p3d users. These users then go on to spend all the money on 3rd party developers. Other than that not many people will have interest, because the quite huge majority doesnt care about these features at all.

 

You can slack Austin all you want for going his way, hell i have been annoyed more than once by his stubbornness, but this is his 11th release of x-plane and each version has been more sucessfull than the old version. So he must be doing something right.

 

And regarding their business descisions. During Xp10 lifetime they focussed on unifying the codebase with mobile, so they do not have to do double work. XP11 released with instantly recognizable graphic updates, so the casual user notices the difference. The new planes are also a big part, because they can be now converted to the mobile client. Its quite normal for a new XP release to be rather "shallow" in the feature department. Because usually the under hood changes come during the lifecycle. XP10 brought us new GPS, extended DSF, multicore optimized loading, the WED and tons of other stuff. 

 

So from that perspective they are quite on target.

Certainly, if it is the case that a majority of purchasers use the mouse to fly, the more esoteric things that we discuss here become less important and put things into a clearer perspective.

About seasons and weather, Alvin said this in his interview with Avsim:

http://www.avsim.com/index.php/_/interviews/interview-avsim-welcomes-austin-meyer-the-ma-r3839

 

21 – Are we likely to see seasonal textures in X-Plane 11? Is it a consideration?

Austin - NO!

SORRY!

We have decided to NOT just ‘jam in some winter textures’.

That’s a hack.

Here’s what we gotta do: Build trees that understand that their leaves come off in the cold, and a real 3-D model for accumulating SNOW.

 

About seasons and weather, Alvin said this in his interview with Avsim:

http://www.avsim.com/index.php/_/interviews/interview-avsim-welcomes-austin-meyer-the-ma-r3839

 

21 – Are we likely to see seasonal textures in X-Plane 11? Is it a consideration?

Austin - NO!

SORRY!

We have decided to NOT just ‘jam in some winter textures’.

That’s a hack.

Here’s what we gotta do: Build trees that understand that their leaves come off in the cold, and a real 3-D model for accumulating SNOW.

 

Someone spending time in a PT6 equipped aircraft should have observed and realized that Winter is not just a matter of tree leaves. Fields get ploughed and therefore change color to brown. Wheat fields turn yellow in Summer and become inexistent in Winter and so forth and so on..

Someone spending time in a PT6 equipped aircraft should have observed and realized that Winter is not just a matter of tree leaves. Fields get ploughed and therefore change color to brown. Wheat fields turn yellow in Summer and become inexistent in Winter and so forth and so on..

 

He only mentioned snow and tree leaves in the interview, but I suppose their general idea is to have also ground textures change dynamically their color/features according to the season. It's called "procedural seasons" and are partly implemented (experimentally) in Flight Gear, and I think that's what Ben and Austin are considering for the future.

i think he is wanting to simulate the plausible world reacting to the weather conditions.   . But I am happy with the fact that it will not be some texture changes and perhaps open the scope for modelling more of the effects due to weather changes using particle effects