XP vs Real life

[alpha12125 213]

...and when a  new company, which has always been leader of generic scenery (autogen, landclass) in the competitor sim,starts to develop for Xplane what does Austin do? Provoke them to the point they dismiss their project. Quite logical, you don't invest in scenery development but at the same time you fight who shows interest to do that.

Lets be honest here:

 

since it is all speculation, what is more realistic:

 

1. The scenery leader, with a proven track record of disliking the sim, comes onto a new sim with no experience whatsoever and tries to takle one of the biggest problems there is.  He will do that with software developers that have no idea whatsoever about x-plane. Works on something that probably 10 to 15 people in the world know something about in more detail. Spends 3 years trying to create it and effectly gets one product out that he needs to sell.

 

2. He uses his gigantic back catalouge of great GA and other airport gems and small localized photoscenery and pumps out easy repeatable airports that can be converted somewhat easy and generate sellable product after product. The technology is not complicated to learn and other fsx/p3d scenery developers have proven that you can convert the products.

 

 

I think some people have the impression that OrbX have 10 developers sitting around waiting to do some work. I know there was this whole "the saviour has arrived" kind of hope, but really, one thing makes financially sense and the other is wishful thinking that somehow gained knowledge from an old different plattform can somehow be translated into an advantage in x-plane

[Desaix 235]

Well, that could add some more colour to the picture but I don't think DRM is enought to make them suddenly change their mind.

It's just like saying that Aerosoft, Justsim, PilotPlus,... produce sceneries for Xplane just for mere generosity because in XP it's easy to copy and move scenery around. We know that there's a slice of potential buyers resorting to piracy to get scenery but I think Xplane community is even more mature and legal in attitude compared to the mass FSX community. Aerosoft has always complained about piracy of their packages none the less they has a strict installation system enforced.

 

Honesty for honesty, if you have a product ready for XP and you're a new company in this sim you're really interested to know how big and rewarding is your potential market here, not just giving up last second for a DRM problem.

On a commercial note stopping release of an already finished product is a non sense, on a personal note it makes sense: "I'll show him who's the tougher here, I don't give a damn about 10000 more bucks if I can teach him who's got the last word"

 

This is my human view, but I admit I'm a touchy person. Remember ORbx is a one man company, don't think he has to report to any stock holders. Again however not a big deal, what we need is PMDG, ATC and AI and career packages not more sceneries.

[hhbrbg 139]

 

 

I'm betting it was that Orbx couldn't figure out a good enough way to protect their scenery with DRM on X-Plane's open scenery file system

 

Yes, this was my first tought, maybe jv demanded restrictions in scenery access from Austin...?

 

Tom

[bonchie 2,305]

... and i repeat, that even though it might sound easy-peasy for some users, creating that artwork (ground textures / autogen) is likely one of the most time consuming / resource hungry tasks ... Thats why there has to be some prioritization and not everything (by far) can be had.

 

I can accept the reality of the situation without accepting the excuse. Nothing is stopping LR from hiring another developer to work specifically on those areas that have been severely lacking since the simulator's inception. XP11 has it's best opportunity in the franchise's existence to actually take a big market share of the community.  The hype may never be this big again. Wasting it by prioritizing things most don't see as deal breaking while continuing to ignore things many see as deal breaking is just bad decision making. The false dichotomy we are constantly faced with is one of the major drawbacks of being a primary XP user like many of us are. The sim is so close to being a complete, feature rich product, yet the areas it's lacking continue to move at the pace of glacial encroachment or ignored all together.

 

Heck, where would we be without you choosing to do they work you've done as donation-ware?

 

But I digress. I know I'm just wish casting and talking into the wind. He's not going to hire another developer or start to prioritize the things people continue to ask for the most.

[alpha12125 213]

I can accept the reality of the situation without accepting the excuse. Nothing is stopping LR from hiring another developer to work specifically on those areas that have been severely lacking since the simulator's inception. XP11 has it's best opportunity in the franchise's existence to actually take a big market share of the community.  The hype may never be this big again. Wasting it by prioritizing things most don't see as deal breaking while continuing to ignore things many see as deal breaking is just bad decision making. The false dichotomy we are constantly faced with is one of the major drawbacks of being a primary XP user like many of us are. The sim is so close to being a complete, feature rich product, yet the areas it's lacking continue to move at the pace of glacial encroachment or ignored all together.

 

Heck, where would we be without you choosing to do they work you've done as donation-ware?

 

But I digress. I know I'm just wish casting and talking into the wind. He's not going to hire another developer or start to prioritize the things people continue to ask for the most.

 

this point always comes up in aviation forums. It is basically a result form staying inside an echochamber. We here are a vocal minorty and that is the reality. The usage data says 2/3rd of the logged flights are in the stock planes of x-plane.  The most used input device to fly a plane is the mouse. When was the last time you used a mouse and tried to fly the stock 747 in xp10 ?

 

It is also no secret that x-plane mobile is supporting the development of x-plane desktop for a while now. amd that thing is as casual as it gets

 

Lets face it, we are a minority that talk to other minorities on a minority forum. If everybody agrees with you on here that does only speak for a small part of the userbase.  I refuse to believe that a company releases 11 consecuitive versions of a software, each more successful than its previous version, has no idea about its market.

[bonchie 2,305]

this point always comes up in aviation forums. It is basically a result form staying inside an echochamber. We here are a vocal minorty and that is the reality. The usage data says 2/3rd of the logged flights are in the stock planes of x-plane.  The most used input device to fly a plane is the mouse. When was the last time you used a mouse and tried to fly the stock 747 in xp10 ?

 

It is also no secret that x-plane mobile is supporting the development of x-plane desktop for a while now. amd that thing is as casual as it gets

 

Lets face it, we are a minority that talk to other minorities on a minority forum. If everybody agrees with you on here that does only speak for a small part of the userbase.  I refuse to believe that a company releases 11 consecuitive versions of a software, each more successful than its previous version, has no idea about its market.

 

Great. They can have that attitude and continue to ignore the requests for (mostly basic) features that have existed in other simulators for decades and enjoy making money on mobile phones.

 

Maybe having to have mobile phone development support your main simulator is a problem? Maybe something should be done to change that? Maybe their development plan for XP is a reason for that?

 

The fact is, their current market share is small for XP (desktop). They are a tiny minority of flight simulation users in the genre compared to the "other" platforms. They have a golden opportunity to convert a lot of users, not abide by the status quo, and perhaps not have to have mobile phone development support their flagship simulator. If they don't want to do that, that's their choice. I don't have to support that decision or make excuses for it, though.

 

The whole "they know best so you shouldn't question them" point of view just doesn't fly with me.

 

 

[tonywob 4,770]

We are all just speculating here (including myself), but there are also some glaring technical issues in X-Plane that users may not be aware of:

 

• The big one, the inability to edit mesh locally. Any modification requires redistribution of a large 1x1 degree tile. I am currently working on ENOV and the inability to make the terrain more hilly around the airport (and flatten it elsewhere) makes development very hard and also very frustrating. What also works in one mesh, doesn't work in another. Their small GA airports are beautiful and fit in with their mesh perfectly, now go and try this in X-Plane and be prepared for swearing and frustration.
• Whilst not a technical difficulty, it's multi-platform nature is an issue for any potential developer who wants to extend beyond what the base sim is possible. I'm thinking ObjectFlow, PeopleFlow, the ORBX application etc. I can imagine this is difficult to do for them (not impossible I imagine)
• It's difficult to secure scenery using DRM. I guess it would need some sort of plugin to do so
• Incomplete development tools and documentation. The plugin for Blender for example is buggy and doesn't support various features correctly. Documentation is old, inconsistent and sometimes just wrong.

However, there are also features in X-Plane that would make their scenery approach in FSX/P3D redundant or a step back, e.g:

 

• X-Plane has very good default scenery, in a sense that the roads, mesh and coastlines are already quite accurate. No roads running through houses or off cliffs, but it also has the roads running through fields problem.
• X-Plane has lots and lots of freeware that can make the sim look super accurate. e.g. Ortho4XP mixed with W2XP, MisterX airports, etc..
• Beautiful night lighting. 
• Nicely rendered mountains, with crisp clear textures

Whilst yes, it could have been JV and Austin having a tiff, there are also many other reasons why it might be impractical for someone like ORBX to invest in X-Plane. 

[Murmur 3,944]

I'm with Bonchie.

[nanosour 9]

This is just conjecture, but I suspect ORBX chose not to continue with XP development b/c it's just too easy for users to download photoscenery nowadays.  With applications like xOrtho4XP, it takes all of 5 minutes to download a ZL 16 tile and only 2-3GB of disk space.  I downloaded to entire country of Ireland yesterday in 3 hours.  VFR flights are simply amazing throughout the country.  I also had all of Ireland downloaded for XP10 through zonephoto.fr website some 2 years ago.  The xOrtho4XP scenery I downloaded from Bing is so much better and uniform.  With xOrtho4XP you can go all to way up to ZL 19 and it is incredibly sharp and clear.  

 

I highly encourage any XP user to check out this video and explore xOrtho4XP.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhr4xYosVvI

 

For me, I prefer no autogen roads or buildings when flying over well presented photoscenery.  The autogen takes away from the realism IMHO and also lowers your frames considerably.   I only want buildings/objects at the airport when I'm on the ground and can therefore run objects on low.   Once in the air, I just want the ground to look as it actually does when flying.  I get the most joy from simming by looking down on places I've been during my life and recalling the memories from my time there.  Your nautical miles my vary

[Desaix 235]

We all agree on Ortho4XP, but disagree whether 3D buildings are necessary or not. I personally cannot stand just a flat landscape, it kills the beauty of any L18 scenery.

 

But, we always speak about US, Canada and Europe. Even there try to make a L17 of Slovenia, or Romania or continental Greece...impossible. Not to mention Asia or South America. This is where an Orbx package could really win. Anyway they stated that airports were about to be ported, not any landlclass autogen scenery.

 

We can love Orthophoto but at airport we still need a realistic depiction of terminal, aprons and sorroundings to stay immersed in the realistic scene so I don't see any incompatibility for Orbx with Ortho4XP.

[sascha 314]

It's ridiculously accurate, now I understand what LR means by plausible world!

[alpha12125 213]

Great. They can have that attitude and continue to ignore the requests for (mostly basic) features that have existed in other simulators for decades and enjoy making money on mobile phones.

 

Maybe having to have mobile phone development support your main simulator is a problem? Maybe something should be done to change that? Maybe their development plan for XP is a reason for that?

 

The fact is, their current market share is small for XP (desktop). They are a tiny minority of flight simulation users in the genre compared to the "other" platforms. They have a golden opportunity to convert a lot of users, not abide by the status quo, and perhaps not have to have mobile phone development support their flagship simulator. If they don't want to do that, that's their choice. I don't have to support it or make excuses for it.

 

The whole "they know best so you shouldn't question them" point of view just doesn't fly with me.

 

 

I never said they know best and you shouldnt question them. i merely said they are not idiots. regarding market share they are number 2 or 3 (depending if you count fsx/p3d) as one or two entities. and the last numbers i had was around 20% margin afaik. A minority but not a tiny minority.

 

The problem is that professional flightsimulation is not really sustainable unless you are basically the supplier of the addons aswell (like dcs, aerofly etc.)

I have been here a few years and everyone always seems to know what is magic missing link to make x-plane great. During the XP10 run some of these things have been fixed and lo and behold something new was the reason that needs to be fixed in order for them to switch. At the end of the day if you have a carbon copy of p3d and name it x-plane people would still not switch. People dont want to switch, because the real reason is something else entirely.

 

It's the surrounding ecosystem. trying to get people to switch the ecosystem is extremly hard. thats why people are either IOS or Android, because switching and loosing apss/ cloud etc. or moving it is extremly painful.  People moved to p3d because they could move their addons with them. Thats why it is the logical sucessor of FSX, because spending three or four digit sums on addons keeps you in that ecosystem.  You will be frustrated with that ecosystem, but you will stay in it because you are used to your addons and dont want to miss it.  You stay with your iphone because of that one app that you really like and doesnt have on android even though you dont like your iphone.

 

Now when p3d 64bit hits and addons will break and need to be rebought, then i think we will see a higher amount of change because the ecosystem is collapsing.

 

x-plane is not perfect, austins decisions are sometimes mind boggeling, sometimes genious but ben is a visonary that knows exactly where he wants to see x-plane in 5 years. switching the sims is not a problem of "killer functions" that are missing, its about leaving your ecosystem and that is much harder than you think.

[Humpty 751]

Is it popcorn time ?

[bonchie 2,305]

We are all just speculating here (including myself), but there are also some glaring technical issues in X-Plane that users may not be aware of:

 

• The big one, the inability to edit mesh locally. Any modification requires redistribution of a large 1x1 degree tile. I am currently working on ENOV and the inability to make the terrain more hilly around the airport (and flatten it elsewhere) makes development very hard and also very frustrating. What also works in one mesh, doesn't work in another. Their small GA airports are beautiful and fit in with their mesh perfectly, now go and try this in X-Plane and be prepared for swearing and frustration.
• Whilst not a technical difficulty, it's multi-platform nature is an issue for any potential developer who wants to extend beyond what the base sim is possible. I'm thinking ObjectFlow, PeopleFlow, the ORBX application etc. I can imagine this is difficult to do for them (not impossible I imagine)
• It's difficult to secure scenery using DRM. I guess it would need some sort of plugin to do so
• Incomplete development tools and documentation. The plugin for Blender for example is buggy and doesn't support various features correctly. Documentation is old, inconsistent and sometimes just wrong.

However, there are also features in X-Plane that would make their scenery approach in FSX/P3D redundant or a step back, e.g:

 

• X-Plane has very good default scenery, in a sense that the roads, mesh and coastlines are already quite accurate. No roads running through houses or off cliffs, but it also has the roads running through fields problem.
• X-Plane has lots and lots of freeware that can make the sim look super accurate. e.g. Ortho4XP mixed with W2XP, MisterX airports, etc..
• Beautiful night lighting. 
• Nicely rendered mountains, with crisp clear textures

Whilst yes, it could have been JV and Austin having a tiff, there are also many other reasons why it might be impractical for someone like ORBX to invest in X-Plane. 

 

I've asked you this before, but is there no way to have W2XP buildings simply sit on plausible textures the way autogen does? The main reason I no longer use it (with default scenery) is because you end up with a skyscraper sitting on a green square or buildings everywhere under brown/green textures.

 

To me, with the increased data of OSM growing and growing, having an ability to place W2XP buildings in a more plausible manner (i.e. better underlying textures) while surrounded by default autogen filling in everything else would be an incredible default scenery presentation. I've often wondered why LR hasn't taken this approach themselves.

 

You've already accomplished most of what I just listed. The W2XP buildings just look weird without photoscenery underneath them though. If default autogen can have a yard or parking lot under a building as it's placed, is there any way for you to incorporate that in the future with buildings derived from OSM?

x-plane is not perfect, austins decisions are sometimes mind boggeling, sometimes genious but ben is a visonary that knows exactly where he wants to see x-plane in 5 years. switching the sims is not a problem of "killer functions" that are missing, its about leaving your ecosystem and that is much harder than you think.

 

That's some of it, but I was a P3D user. So was Richard. So were a lot of people who've recently moved over.

 

While I don't think LR could monopolize the market, there are end roads to be made if the right features are focused on and finished sooner rather than later.

[Paraffin 2,197]

To me, with the increased data of OSM growing and growing, having an ability to place W2XP buildings in a more plausible manner (i.e. better underlying textures) while surrounded by default autogen filling in everything else would be an incredible default scenery presentation. I've often wondered why LR hasn't taken this approach themselves.

 

It may be for performance reasons, if landclass + autogen = higher frame rates. Or it could be that the distribution size would be too large. Remember that X-Plane is distributed on a set of 8 DVDs, or a fairly massive download. Covering the world with combined ortho + autogen in one distribution package probably isn't feasible.

 

It might also just be design philosophy. IIRC, Austin has said in the past that orthophotos are not the way to go, so he's fully behind the current "plausible" approach. Others can still add orthophotos if they want, but I'd be surprised if it's ever made part of the default scenery system.

 

Personally, I think that's fine because I like this approach (and strongly dislike orthos for low altitude flying).