Is DTG FS World "restricted" to GA ?

[pmb 5,137]

What about developers like Simaddons or LLH Creations? They're already at the margin of rentability (at least LLH explicitely statet this) while distributiing their offers via their own shops exclusively. While their shops may look a bit strange, I enjoy their fine creations. Given the proposed add-on model they will certainly be excluded from access to FSW. Not to speak of our talented freeware developers - think of NL2000 or OZx and the like - offering their creations very generously to the public.

No need to talk about boycott, and I certainly will not go that route, even less before judging the sim myself. And after all, things usually regulate themselves - as they did for some of the closed predecessors.

Kind regards, Michael

[188AHC 2,138]

I don't understand why there is page after page of members debating business decisions made by companies that none of us are stockholders in. The only stock we could possibly own would be to either purchase their products as the market is defined, or not. That's simply how business works. I suggest we all wait and see how this all washes out.

As has been said several times, you don't have to worry about not having a producers product because you can clearly purchase it directly from them. You don't have to go through Steam or the DTG store.  So what's the problem?

 

[rheinis 105]

39 minutes ago, 188AHC said:

I don't understand why there is page after page of members debating business decisions made by companies that none of us are stockholders in.

 

Here's why:

https://www.avsim.com/forums/topic/509763-07may17-the-sorts-of-behaviors-that-cause-me-concern/

 

And we ARE the stockholders of these companies, WE pay their bills so they can invest in better products so we - as a community - can get a return of invest in the form of more pleasure from our beloved hobby.

 

[vortex681 806]

3 hours ago, bedgie said:

FSX finally dies its long overdue death as it is not supported anymore yet again.....................................RIP FSX you served us well.

FSX is far from dead (much as some people would like us to think). It has a large and extremely active community and, more importantly, new, high quality, add-ons are being released for it almost every week by enthusiastic developers. Which other 10 year old sim/game can say that? The likelihood is that FSX will be used as a yardstick by which to measure the success, or otherwise, of FSW. As I said in another thread, if FSW isn't at least as good as FSX, including the sort of add-ons that most of us have, then what would be the point of moving to the new platform? You have to weigh up the potential of a new product like FSW with the probable time it would take (if ever) to actually realise that potential. If it isn't immediately impressive, I'm not sure how many people (including developers) would be prepared to take the gamble that it might, one day, come good - Microsoft Flight springs too mind here!

[n4gix 4,947]

On the topic of percentages, perhaps it's not quite as bad as it first appears. As I understand, DTG only takes a percentage of the remainder after Steam takes its cut. So:

$100 x 30% = $30 Steam's cut

$70 x 30% = $21 DTG's cut

$100 - $51 = $49 Developer's net-net

Even so, that's only nine dollars more, but still better than only $40 net-net.

[188AHC 2,138]

3 hours ago, rheinis said:

 

Here's why:

And we ARE the stockholders of these companies, WE pay their bills so they can invest in better products so we - as a community - can get a return of invest in the form of more pleasure from our beloved hobby.

No my friend you are no more a stockholder than you are with McDonalds or any other place you purchase a product from. You are a customer. .  And, I will repeat, DTG has stated that for an entity to be a part of the FS World venture they have to have a presence in DTG's store. But by doing so, they are not prevented from selling their product through other channels including their own storefront. So I still don't understand all the hubbub about this. Either purchase from DTG or the developers store. Simple as that.

 

3 hours ago, rheinis said:

 

 

[DrumsArt 270]

3 hours ago, vortex681 said:

FSX is far from dead (much as some people would like us to think). It has a large and extremely active community and, more importantly, new, high quality, add-ons are being released for it almost every week by enthusiastic developers. Which other 10 year old sim/game can say that? The likelihood is that FSX will be used as a yardstick by which to measure the success, or otherwise, of FSW. As I said in another thread, if FSW isn't at least as good as FSX, including the sort of add-ons that most of us have, then what would be the point of moving to the new platform? You have to weigh up the potential of a new product like FSW with the probable time it would take (if ever) to actually realise that potential. If it isn't immediately impressive, I'm not sure how many people (including developers) would be prepared to take the gamble that it might, one day, come good - Microsoft Flight springs too mind here!

That's exactly what I think. Currently, my Fsx works perfectly with excellent addon as PMDG, (all) A2A aircrafts, some Milviz, Realair, FsLabs (Concorde, A320), Flightsimware, Aerosoft, Fsuipc, TacPack, ActiveSky, 3 different ATC programs that I use depending on mood and/or type of flight., MCE, Gsx, ORBX Global, Vector, OLC, multiple airports, all regions ORBX...

64bits ? Sure (FsLab A320, PMDG) but especially with P3D V4 in which I have more confidence...until proven otherwise...Clearly !

In addition to all this, if I give a chance to another simu, it will be Aerofly because imo radically different in terms of graphics...

Regards,

Richard Portier

[skelsey 765]

3 hours ago, vortex681 said:

FSX is far from dead (much as some people would like us to think). It has a large and extremely active community and, more importantly, new, high quality, add-ons are being released for it almost every week by enthusiastic developers. Which other 10 year old sim/game can say that?

The FSX community is not dead, but FSX as a piece of software is down there with the dodos.

Here is the problem: OK, great, 11 years on we still have an active community (bear in mind the close to 1,000,000 users who have bought FSX Steam Edition since DTG re-released it -- OK, that number includes people who already owned the boxed version of FSX, but as we see from these and other forums daily, it certainly also includes a large number of brand new users).

What about in another 5, 10 years' time? Will you still be able to buy a boxed version of FSX? Will FSX-SE still be available to new customers? Where are the new entrants to the hobby going to come from?

3 hours ago, vortex681 said:

As I said in another thread, if FSW isn't at least as good as FSX, including the sort of add-ons that most of us have, then what would be the point of moving to the new platform?

How many PMDG aircraft could you purchase for/install in to FSX on the day it was released?

Nobody is going to install FSW on release day and immediately wipe all traces of FSX from their hard drive any more than they did with FS9 when FSX was released, or FS2002 when FS9 was released, etc etc. It will take time for the third-party market to catch up, just as it did with FSX, and in that time people will generally do just as they did in the past -- run both sims dependent on what they're doing and what is available. But if what we've seen from DTG so far holds to be true (i.e. there is a decent SDK available and third-party development is both permitted and encouraged) then just as with previous sims, the direction of travel will gradually move in FSW's direction.

Don't get me wrong -- DTG need to understand that this is a long-haul, not a quick win; FSX took a long time to get properly established in the market and even now there are still some stalwarts who refuse to move on from FS9. It will require a bit of nerve from DTG to stick with it over a period of time, or else it will indeed end up as another white elephant. But I think the foundations are there.

3 hours ago, vortex681 said:

If it isn't immediately impressive, I'm not sure how many people (including developers) would be prepared to take the gamble that it might, one day, come good - Microsoft Flight springs too mind here!

I don't think Microsoft Flight is really a fair comparison. FSW, for a start, models the entire Earth by default, and DTG have indicated it will be possible for third-party developers to create content for the sim. The lack of the first was probably the thing that really killed Flight before it was even born: annoying really, because actually I think Flight itself had some potential as a core sim. The exciting thing about FSW is that it could well be everything Flight could have been.

Regarding developers -- going back to my first point to an extent, if FSW establishes itself as a reasonable mainstream sim, then in some ways whatever we do as the 'established' community will become slightly irrelevant. The developers we have now didn't just spring up fully-formed: most started tinkering with freeware and gradually improved their skills and level of complexity until they reached the point at which they were able to charge for their products. If the youngsters (and older chaps/chappesses!) entering the hobby in the future do so with FSW rather than FSX, it will grow its own development community with its own budding Robert Randazzos, Lefteris Kalamarises et al.

As I say, I'm not saying that FSW is going to immediately replace everything we have or indeed that it is definitely the future -- DTG definitely still have it within their power to cock it up. But fundamentally I think it is the best chance yet of a decent long-term successor to FSX. It has the right ingredients in terms of base functionality and openness to third-party development. 

Ultimately what it really needs to do is:

• Look better than FSX
• Run better than FSX

Given modern hardware, I would suggest that both of those ought to be eminently achievable. If it can also be made to interface with things like VA ACARS systems, online flying networks etc without too much hassle then there will be a market there for third-party developers to provide the sort of complex simulations we have come to get used to within a modern environment (relatively) free of concerns around VAS and more efficient in terms of frame rate and hardware usage.

We shall see, but as I say I think from what we've seen so far DTG are broadly on the right path.

[vortex681 806]

17 hours ago, skelsey said:

The FSX community is not dead, but FSX as a piece of software is down there with the dodos.

But, if that's the case, why do the top developers continue to produce new products for it? FSX is just the basic environment in which all of the add-ons run. What does it matter how old it is if it still does the job? Developers are finding more innovative ways to overcome the limitations of FSX and, certainly in my case, the competing products haven't improved on it enough to tempt me away. I think that a new, really good flight sim is long overdue and I hope that FSW will be it. However, I'm not patient enough to wait (possibly years?) for it to slowly develop into a great product.

17 hours ago, skelsey said:

How many PMDG aircraft could you purchase for/install in to FSX on the day it was released?

None! But you're missing the point - they're all available NOW for FSX and almost certainly won't be for some time (possibly never, in some cases) for FSW. It's a catch 22 for DTG - without the 3rd party developers FSW will almost certainly not succeed. But if it doesn't look as if it will be successful, why would developers commit time and resources to it? There needs to be some incentive for developers to gamble on FSW and making them sell their products through Steam would not, on the surface, appear to be it.

The problem is that some of the excellent products released over the past few years have significantly raised the bar for what we expect of a desktop flight sim. FSX now is almost unrecognisable from what it was when it first hit the shelves all those years ago and that sort of standard, in my opinion, needs to be the starting point for any new sim.

17 hours ago, skelsey said:

But fundamentally I think it is the best chance yet of a decent long-term successor to FSX. It has the right ingredients in terms of base functionality and openness to third-party development.

If you're using base functionality and openness to third-party development as criteria for success, then surely P3D has to be the best prospect for the future. It already has a large customer base with many committed developers and it certainly has the commercial clout, funding and technical know-how to succeed long-term (and I'm not even a P3D user).

17 hours ago, skelsey said:

Ultimately what it really needs to do is:

• Look better than FSX
• Run better than FSX

Given modern hardware, I would suggest that both of those ought to be eminently achievable.

I agree completely, but neither P3D nor X-Plane would appear to be finding that to be quite as easy as it sounds. I took a bit of a beating on the X-Plane forum here recently when I asked if anyone could explain why FSX with many payware add-ons seemed to run better on my system than vanilla X-Plane 11 did. One responder actually asked me why I would expect a new flight sim to perform better than one that was written 10 years ago! Apparently new, multicore-aware, 64-bit software and a modern graphics engine is not necessarily a recipe for success - DTG take note.

DTG has a mountain to climb but I'm keeping my fingers crossed for something special.

[virtualstuff 751]

On 5/7/2017 at 10:40 PM, n4gix said:

If you consider 60+ percent as just a "slice" I suppose. To me that's darn near the whole pie!

Actually that is a no go lol  ;-)

[bedgie 12]

It does seems funny that there are no large jetliners.........

It's also funny that the 3rd party devs who make such said jetliners are the ones that told them to get stuffed.......

I wonder if thats the reason?

something to think about......................

[arsenal82 120]

On 5/12/2017 at 6:04 PM, awf said:

Actually that is a no go lol  ;-)

 

On 5/10/2017 at 10:49 PM, n4gix said:

On the topic of percentages, perhaps it's not quite as bad as it first appears. As I understand, DTG only takes a percentage of the remainder after Steam takes its cut. So:

$100 x 30% = $30 Steam's cut

$70 x 30% = $21 DTG's cut

$100 - $51 = $49 Developer's net-net

Even so, that's only nine dollars more, but still better than only $40 net-net.

+ tax office on top  and all other expenses

= you work to keep the others going rather than yourself ?  some wife here would not be happy !

[Paraffin 2,197]

1 hour ago, bedgie said:

It does seems funny that there are no large jetliners.........

It doesn't seem odd to me, since even a mid-level model (not a study-level sim) is a major project that takes a lot of time and testing to develop.

The reason there are two fairly basic airliners in XP11 as default planes, is that both models were already in outside development for a while, and Laminar was able to contract for them to be included as default planes. 

FSW is a new launch platform, without the same ability to co-opt projects already in development. Maybe they could have gotten somebody onboard a year or two ago, but that would be a risk for a brand new product launch.

Tubeliner sim pilots also expect support for things like ATC, AI planes with realistic routing and liveries, ground ops, VATSIM etc. It's not enough just to throw a Boeing or Airbus into the sim without all the rest. X-Plane still gets grief about this, even though the planes are becoming more deeply modeled, and the "airline environment" is steadily improving. So I'm not surprised at the lack of airliners in the first FSW release. That was a smart move, I think.

I am a little surprised that it's just piston engine planes. That means we can't see how they're handling turboprop and jet engine modeling (smaller jets, not airliners). But it's a base to grow on.

Quote

 

It's also funny that the 3rd party devs who make such said jetliners are the ones that told them to get stuffed.......

I wonder if thats the reason?

 

No, I think that was more about the Steam distribution issues. It would have taken PMDG a while to get a FSW product in the pipeline anyway. I think it's more about the lead time for development, and the other things I mentioned. Of course I'm just guessing here, so maybe there were other reasons. 

[bedgie 12]

2 hours ago, Paraffin said:

No, I think that was more about the Steam distribution issues. It would have taken PMDG a while to get a FSW product in the pipeline anyway. I think it's more about the lead time for development, and the other things I mentioned. Of course I'm just guessing here, so maybe there were other reasons. 

That what I meant it is all about the Steam distribution

 

On ‎5‎/‎5‎/‎2017 at 0:11 PM, rsrandazzo said:

For a period we were in fairly regular communication with DTG regarding their plans and progress, but that communication dried up shortly after we declined to offer our product line via the DTG controlled Steam channel for FSX-Steam Edition, and we haven't really heard much of anything from them since that time.

Edited May 14, 2017 by n4gix
There's no reason to re-quote that entire post. I have edited your reply to remove all but the first paragraph.

[barrel_owl 304]

2 hours ago, bedgie said:

It does seems funny that there are no large jetliners.........

Neither funny nor unexpected. Complex aircraft can't be part of the stock hangar in an early simulator with an announced very low consumer price. Liners, turbotrops and all kinds of complex aircraft may only be provided by third parties, if any.

2 hours ago, bedgie said:

It's also funny that the 3rd party devs who make such said jetliners are the ones that told them to get stuffed.......

We know about PMDG because they made a public statement here explaining their concerns. May I ask you who are the other "3rd party devs who make such said jetliners"?
Any news or indication from FSLabs, Aerosoft, Majestic and others? Just asking.