Well said Goran. 

 

I remember what JV said a few years ago, but the guy often says loudly what he is thinking and that's just who he is, I'd guessed the time would come when they would rethink their strategy and when I was heavily into FSX I thought X-Plane was awful as well :wink: . After that comment (and other ones in the past), X-Plane continued on without them and freeware and payware developers continued and made a name for themselves aside from the large FSX companies, pushing the sim forward, and now with the large amount of interest in XP11, they have changed their tune. Can't say anyone is surprised anymore, XP is becoming more popular (I've never seen this forum so busy as it is now)

 

Of course I'd love to see ORBX (who wouldn't?), but there are two things that worry me. One is I hope it doesn't kill the freeware scenery side of X-Plane, and number two, as jcomm said, their stuff is actually rather expensive. I'd love to see their airports ported over (and be as good as Beti-X ;-). A lot of the airport devs I followed in the past (Russ and Bill Womack) from ORBX have gone their own separate ways now anyway, but I'll be first in line to buy their airfields if they start releasing them.

 

He's a good guy , if you met him in person he'd be your drinking buddy. Times change and so do companies . You have to look forward where your potential market is, if you don't you'll be sunk. Honestly can you be held accountable for anything you've ever said? I doubt it.

 

If they wan't to jump in on XP , I'd love it, their number one goal is quality. As far as diminishing freeware, as you know XP has a huge base of freeware devs and community. I'm doubtful that will ever go away regardless of who will enter  into development. No one company will ever model every airport in the world and everyone lives within a few miles of their home field and want a representation of it.

 

I really don't recall anyone complaining when Aerosoft made the move to XP so this thread is just a bunch of to do about nothing. People will speak with their wallets and I will be one of them.

John was way out of line saying what he said.  The timing, the quality of the product...all irrelevant.  I have yet to see a reputable developer make any comments akin to what JV made when talking about Flight Gear, Aerofly, etc...

As a developer, you don't bad mouth a product.  Maybe a little forethought would have influenced his wording.  Perhaps something like, "X-Plane is not for us right now.  The FSX market, in our opinion, is the more viable market.  Down the road...who knows.  Never say never."

Something like that would have gone down far better.  But when you have Austin himself coming in, and commenting about it, it's a big deal.  Austin doesn't do that very often.  In fact, I think this is the first time I've seen him post on any public forum, in the 7 years I've been involved with X Plane.

Well, when your done developing your next plane,mabey it's time to start developing a time machine so you get JV to go back in time and say all the "right things" and we could all just move on.....what do ya say?

"JV ... raid our bank accounts again."

 

Let's hope that day comes soon... 

'Coming 2017'

https://orbxdirect.com/

 

As a developer, you don't bad mouth a product

 

Although I'm more than happy to see JV proved wrong, we should remember Austin isn't averse to very publicly putting down the opposition himself. Remember his sarky attack on MSFlight?

 

http://www.x-plane.com/2012/04/press-release-the-bright-shiny-future-of-x-plane/

Although I'm more than happy to see JV proved wrong, we should remember Austin isn't averse to very publicly putting down the opposition himself. Remember his sarky attack on MSFlight?

 

http://www.x-plane.com/2012/04/press-release-the-bright-shiny-future-of-x-plane/

 

I certainly do.  And that thing lasted about a few months.  If that.

Although I'm more than happy to see JV proved wrong, we should remember Austin isn't averse to very publicly putting down the opposition himself. Remember his sarky attack on MSFlight?

 

http://www.x-plane.com/2012/04/press-release-the-bright-shiny-future-of-x-plane/

 

Yeah, but he was right wasn't he?  :smile:

 

I know there are a lot of people here excited about Orbx working on an X-Plane product (more from FSX/P3D pilots than the old-timers in X-Plane, I suspect). New scenery additions would be great. I'll buy something if it's good.

 

However, unless I'm mistaken, Orbx scenery in X-Plane would be the first scenery product to include DRM. It works for airplane models due to the way plugins can easily run authorization checks before starting the engines. Scenery is a whole different ball game, given X-Plane's open file structure. If whatever Orbx does with DRM is too Draconian, it won't sell.

 

I assume they've figured out something that will work or they wouldn't make this announcement. But we'll still have to see what they're planning, to judge market success and whether the trade-offs are worth it. There is always some kind of trade-off with DRM. 

Although I'm more than happy to see JV proved wrong, we should remember Austin isn't averse to very publicly putting down the opposition himself. Remember his sarky attack on MSFlight?http://www.x-plane.com/2012/04/press-release-the-bright-shiny-future-of-x-plane/

Haha I forgot about that. You see the date that was posted right?

My prediction will be 7000 views in 3 days ! lol... If you multiply that by the price of the PNW ADDON thats almost 250K in potential revenue !  

 

So John is eating crow today ! He will be eating caviar if the views equal sales ! Which is a win for Laminar, other developers and us simmers that crave quality regional scenery ! 

 

Whats lacking in XP right now is quality regional scenery ! There is plenty of good ADDON AC and free airports but not a whole lot of regional scenery, trees, landmarks, autogen, textures, etc... Something simple as trees can make a big difference in the plausible world !

 

 

Whats lacking in XP right now is quality regional scenery ! There is plenty of good ADDON AC and free airports but not a whole lot of regional scenery, trees, landmarks, autogen, textures, etc... Something simple as trees can make a big difference in the plausible world !

 

There's actually a ton of that stuff. Maybe not as much as FSX/P3D but with a some freeware tools and some time you can get very good results.

So John is eating crow today ! He will be eating caviar if the views equal sales ! Which is a win for Laminar, other developers and us simmers that crave quality regional scenery ! 

 

Whats lacking in XP right now is quality regional scenery ! There is plenty of good ADDON AC and free airports but not a whole lot of regional scenery, trees, landmarks, autogen, textures, etc... Something simple as trees can make a big difference in the plausible world !

 

I don't disagree, we would all like better regional scenery on both the micro and macro level.

 

However, there is one important difference in the X-Plane market. It's under constant development as a platform, always adding new things. Some of those things are scenery related, like the new European OSM-based autogen (well, Germany anyway) for buildings and roads. That's being done directly by Laminar, not an add-on developer.

 

That will be a new challenge for Orbx and any other scenery developer. They've had a free ride on FSX and P3D with a static underlying platform that hasn't changed in 10 years. There is no direct competition from the actual producers of the underlying simulation, who left the building years ago.

 

X-Plane is different. I gripe about the weather, but I'm very enthusiastic about what I'm seeing with development of landclass (with free HD and UHD mesh), autogen, and constantly updated OSM data to reflect the real world. 

 

So yes, I think Orbx probably has a market here with the jewel box airfields (depending on DRM concerns I mentioned above). But for anything involving larger coverage of the world, they're in direct competition with Laminar's vision for modeling the world. They haven't had to cope with that, over on the FSX/P3D side of the fence.

Seeing how Austin reacts I get the idea he and JV didn't yet talk about Orbx creating things for XP...? You would expect they have. I also wonder how much Austin have to say before JV backs out again. Other than that: will Austin allow DRM in his sim...? I have the impression he is in the position to stop certain things from happening?

I'm actually quite excited for the idea of regional as well. I still see lots of textures which look less than convincing in default, especially the desert and mountain ones (the snow on mountain tops particularly can be a real buzz killer).

Does it impact you in any way what JV says?

 

Hi Rob,

if I may disaggree. These derogatory words could have (have?) hurt the business perspective of X-plane in the past. It was a statemnet like "Hey guys don't waste your money and invest in x-plane, they have no future". But now he sees people coming from his "preferred" sims to x-plane . I assume he does not like the idea, that talented people like Mr. X forming a new successful company.

Anyhow, as I see it, most people (me too) like the orbx products and the orbx developers. A few like the owner of the company.

 

Hey Mr. X how's about some competition!!

 

Kind regards

Tom

I'm actually quite excited for the idea of regional as well. I still see lots of textures which look less than convincing in default, especially the desert and mountain ones (the snow on mountain tops particularly can be a real buzz killer).

 

 

Regions are fine with me as long as they work as XP works now, so NO city textures with baked in houses and that kind of crap and none of those ugly forest textures. And also none of those floating lightbulbs with the 'light' underneath it being baked into the textures. And all that fake stuff. If they give the current default XP textures an upgrade and add regional autogen (houses and trees) plus landmarks and upgrade all airports, I am in. But do NOT mess with how XP works, please.

 

I think this means they would have to create all regions they have now from scratch so I doubt if this will happen. If they convert their current regions to XP somehow I am totally not interested.

There's actually a ton of that stuff. Maybe not as much as FSX/P3D but with a some freeware tools and some time you can get very good results.

I am not new around here ! There is not a ton of stuff, maybe a ton of ok airports. I am looking for regions, like PNW, etc... I have no interest in tools, nor do I have time or patience, and I'm not really interested in GB of photo scenery. Most of the free airports around me suck. I rather pay somebody for some regional terrain textures, trees and maybe airports !