With all due respect gentleman, XP has survived without ORBX, and will continue to do so, the fact the ORBX does not currently exist in the XP world has opened up the door for other developers like Alpilotx with his HD Mesh or Mr X with his airport scenery, I mean just take a look at Boston International as an example (freeware by the way), he's done an amazing job and there are others like him out there that deserve lots of credit and encouragement.

 

I rather spend my money or donate to encourage these developers to produce even more high quality products then to spend it on ORBX. Lets give these guys credit and stop saying that ORBX is the holy-grail of scenery, which is not and AlpilotX, Mr. X and all others have proven that.

 

If ORBX joins in, great, if not, great too.

"Seasonal ground textures and trees would be available."

 

Snow on the ground and seasonal tree textures have been available for XP as mods for years. The file structure of XP10 (and now XP11) does not easily lend itself to adding worldwide changing seasons.

With all due respect gentleman, XP has survived without ORBX, and will continue to do so, the fact the ORBX does not currently exist in the XP world has opened up the door for other developers like Alpilotx with his HD Mesh or Mr X with his airport scenery, I mean just take a look at Boston International as an example (freeware by the way), he's done an amazing job and there are other likes him out there that deserve lots of credit and encouragement.

 

I rather spend my money or donate to encourage these developers to produce even more high quality products the to spend it on ORBX. Lets give these guys credit and stop saying that ORBX is the holy-grail of scenery, which is not and AlpilotX, Mr. X and others have proved that.

 

If ORBX joins in, great, if not, great too.

 

There is no "if not" at this point. They are developing for XP. It's 100% confirmed.

 

I'm not even interested in Orbx airports. I'm only interested if they develop some global updates/fixes for the plausible world. More varied autogen, trees, landmarks, etc. Things the freeware community probably won't touch anyway.

 

 

I'm curious what has actually changed for people recently.

 

In almost chronological order:

 

1. The new reflections and lighting system was the first thing that got me interested when I watched a few announcement video's. This is what made me decide to try the XP11 demo.

2. The new interface was the second thing: all the talk about the old one held me back before.

3. German autogen and the news that new local autogen would be possible also got my attention.

4. The news of the almost payware quality Cessna (the new sound system being a major part here!) made me even more interested.

5. The way XP works with roads and OSM already had my interest, specially after seeing the new video's: the old plausible world of XP10 looked awful to me: this looked better.

 

After some initial problems (almost wished for a refund option) I am now quite hooked on XP! I mainly use the default sim with freeware airports everywhere I fly. My main reason to stick with XP for now are the graphics: when it comes to the actual simming I do miss my Cherokee and Airbus but XP11 simply looks too good! I can't stand the P3D scenery anymore (popup, loading of textures, baked in houses, etc.). The only thing I am missing is a good weather engine with good looking clouds. I know there are options but I find them too expensive and limited for now.

"Seasonal ground textures and trees would be available."

 

Snow on the ground and seasonal tree textures have been available for XP as mods for years. The file structure of XP10 (and now XP11) does not easily lend itself to adding worldwide changing seasons.

 

That's true, but it's why having a bigger developer tackle the issue might be valuable. There are several things Orbx does in FSX/P3D that people originally said couldn't happen.

 

 

I think a worldwide landmarks and autogen package that at least fills in the gaps

 

You can get lots of landmarks for free already on X-Plane.org. e.g. Somebody has even taken up the task of doing landmarks for various German cities (Although I think they are just models converted from Google Warehouse). There are also packages for Wellington, NZ and I think I even saw some UK landmark packages as well. The issue is that the packages are fragmented and users need to search around and grab the files they need. A country wide package adding landmarks and regional autogen I think would do quite well.

You can get lots of landmarks for free already on X-Plane.org. e.g. Somebody has even taken up the task of doing landmarks for various German cities (Although I think they are just models converted from Google Warehouse). There are also packages for Wellington, NZ and I think I even saw some UK landmark packages as well. The issue is that the packages are fragmented and users need to search around and grab the files they need. A country wide package adding landmarks and regional autogen I think would do quite well.

 

I know, but they are still sparse, especially for people like me that fly in the USA. I downloaded a few in XP10, but the quality was really low and I think it only covered 15 cities with a few downtown buildings. There was a freeware package for Las Vegas as well, but it was cartoonishly bad. Don't get me wrong. I used it and was thankful to have anything, but there's still plenty of room for a payware developer to really do a more encompassing, quality package that adds landmarks in one install.

 

You ask any FSX/P3D user about XP and the first thing they are gonna cry about is the lack of landmarks along with the clouds.

With all due respect gentleman, XP has survived without ORBX, and will continue to do so, the fact the ORBX does not currently exist in the XP world has opened up the door for other developers like Alpilotx with his HD Mesh or Mr X with his airport scenery, I mean just take a look at Boston International as an example (freeware by the way), he's done an amazing job and there are other likes him out there that deserve lots of credit and encouragement.

 

I rather spend my money or donate to encourage these developers to produce even more high quality products then to spend it on ORBX. Lets give these guys credit and stop saying that ORBX is the holy-grail of scenery, which is not and AlpilotX, Mr. X and all others have proven that.

 

If ORBX joins in, great, if not, great too.

 

I do indeed think that XP can survive without ORBX.  I had many dollars worth of ORBX products for P3D and they looked good.  But, I just made a flight across the Yucatan peninsula in XP11 and could not really say that all of ORBX stuff looked any better.  The lack of seasons and missing landmarks in major cities is, however, a continuing issue for me.

In almost chronological order:

 

 

1+

You can lead a horse to water but

  The lack of seasons and missing landmarks in major cities is, however, a continuing issue for me.

 

And, there's my point being proven

 

Whether it's Orbx or someone else, a global landmarks package would sell like crazy.

I would be first in line if there were a global landmark scenery package available.  I'm from Chicago and made a flight from KMSN to KMDW the other day and would have loved to see just a few things that are there in real life.

 

 

I do indeed think that XP can survive without ORBX.  I

 

Of course, just like it can survive without PMDG, A2A and the like. I remember reading lots of posts about people refusing to use X-Plane because PMDG don't develop for them. In fact, PMDG do now develop for X-Plane, but it did little to bring over piles of users (Possibly because everyone wants a 737/777). ORBX just like PMDG will be joining already well-established developers, so they won't automatically jump to the front of the queue.

And, there's my point being proven

 

Whether it's Orbx or someone else, a global landmarks package would sell like crazy.

 

It's also quite a monumental undertaking. But since I'm sure ORBX already have lots of the models and artwork done, it would be a good start.

I'm not sure I agree with the posts about how more FSX/P3D developers coming over to XP will hurt the freeware scene. I honestly don;t see the connection. If anything this will force payware devs to put out a superior product. When you have the likes of MisterX putting out payware quality freeware scenery why would anyone pay for the same scenery unless it's even better? This puts pressure on devs like ORBX not the other way around.

 

 

This puts pressure on devs like ORBX not the other way around.

 

Couldn't agree more!

To add onto why XP11 is drawing so much more interest than XP10, here's a video that illustrates just how much better the plausible world and autogen are in XP11. I stopped using XP10 because I just couldn't get along with the scenery rendition, but XP11's out of the box scenery the best ever for any flight sim regardless of addons you could get in other platforms (talking OpenLC, FTX Global, etc., not hand placed regionalized sceneries). Cities are so much more uniform and look so much more dense and correct. In XP10, cities looked really bad IMO with lots of green blank spots, buildings looking like they were in a random field, very grid like, etc.

 

As long as you set objects to maximum in XP11, this is basically solved. Not to mention XP11 having European specific autogen now. My computer isn't that great (2500k and a 970), but I've found maximum objects does little to hurt my FPS. No reason not to run it.