FSW from a 3rd party perspective.

[DTG_Cryss 244]

9 hours ago, tlorey said:

This has been an interesting discussion! The future of flight sims looks very bright.

I've been away from flight simming for a couple of years now - I totally lost interest after the MS Flight meltdown. The announcement about FSW has made me want to come back. I'm very excited about the visual improvements - that's important to me now that I've had experience with other games and sims (FSX and FS 2004 look very dated). 

I still have to decide which sim to purchase: FSW, X-Plane 11, or Aerofly 2. I'm leaning towards FSW for a couple of reasons - price is one, and the fact that FSW is based on FSX is another. Since FSW is based on FSX, transitioning to it should be pretty easy for those of us who are used to FSX. Will the keyboard commands remain the same?

I also like the fact that there will be a MIssion Maker included right from the start - I used to enjoy making missions for FSX. How will we be able to get those mission out to the community? Will it be through sites like the AVSIM library? Will this also be true for freeware models and repaints? I agree that forcing us to go through steam with freeware isn't a good idea.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed - I sure hope this works out better for the community than MS Flight did.  

Welcome back, 

Content created in the pro mission editor will be able to be shared when we add Steam workshop functionality during Early Access. 

Hopefully that clears up one of your questions! 

[Heimi 91]

28 minutes ago, DTG_Cryss said:

Content created in the pro mission editor will be able to be shared when we add Steam workshop functionality during Early Access.

As i remember right when i used STEAM workshop with "DiRT Rally" the maximum number of STEAM workshop items was limited to 100. It was easy to fill it up, and i think it will be even more easy to get it full with FSW. Did that already changed to a higher number? If yes, how many items can be installed via workshop?

[Heimi 91]

I mean 100 item subscriptions, not 100 items in workshop.

So from 1000 items you can only choose 100. That was in Dirt Rally e.g.

[Lorby_SI 2,042]

17 hours ago, DTG_Aimee said:

Those developers who are developing for FSW now are the ones who are talking to us. We want to help people take the best advantage of this new platform as much as possible. In order for us to help devs do that, communication is essential. We aren't asking anyone to sign their soul (or money) away. We aren't imposing strict limitations or trying to monopolize anything. We just want to have a conversation. 

Hello Aimee,

how does one go about to be part of that discussion?

Lorby addons probably don't fit the bill for FSW, but I would like to make sure.

Best regards
 

[G-RFRY 1,712]

I take heart in Roberts post and aimee`s reply and hope that problems can be solved, the platform flight simmers use is down to personal choice as it should be and would not like to see any fail in there efforts to enrich our hobby, with flightsimcon just weeks away one hopes the industry will work together to give the user the widest possible choice of content for the flight sim platforms available. In that way we will be winners developers and user`s.

Ray Fry.

[TheFlightSimGuy 514]

8 hours ago, kevinfirth said:

Robert, just the last paragraph would have sufficed I think.  The comments prior to that arent congruent with your usual professional approach, and whilst I understand the feelings being expressed, I would have to question - is Aimee really the right target for the expression of those in that way in public fora?  My perception of PMDG as a customer has declined a little I'm afraid :(

 

PS I understand youve replied privately as well and the content of that is rightly none of our business..

+1 This is just getting unruly now. Aren't all of these people all trying to make money together? Why implode so preemptively? 

[Gibbage 199]

26 minutes ago, TheFlightSimGuy said:

+1 This is just getting unruly now. Aren't all of these people all trying to make money together? Why implode so preemptively? 

For many of us, it's well beyond just making money. I can safely speak for most 3rd party developer's and say its a passion.  It's our hobby!  To some, it's our livelihood. That's why some of us can get heated if they feel slighted, wronged or left out.  I don't know of any developers that got rich from doing this, so it's not about the money. 

Kevin "Gibbage" Miller 

[n4gix 4,947]

9 hours ago, Wobbie said:

Methinks I detect a bit of petulance out there?

More like flatulence is what I detect...

...oh wait. That may have been me. Never mind!

[TheFlightSimGuy 514]

12 minutes ago, Gibbage said:

For many of us, it's well beyond just making money. I can safely speak for most 3rd party developer's and say its a passion.  It's our hobby!  To some, it's our livelihood. That's why some of us can get heated if they feel slighted, wronged or left out.  I don't know of any developers that got rich from doing this, so it's not about the money. 

Kevin "Gibbage" Miller 

 

I agree, when I say "may money together" I dont mean amass a fortune, I mean pay for, or enhance their livelihood together. 

Robert is probably by definition "rich" but it isn't off just the back of us, he has a deep and vast business in training, commercial development, etc. So he deserves every dollar he has to his name. 

[Longranger 148]

1 hour ago, TheFlightSimGuy said:

Aren't all of these people all trying to make money together? Why implode so preemptively? 

Well, to make money you really have to earn money. To earn money you have to absorb the costs.

A new plattform means in the first place additional costs and you can expect that many of the new customers aren´t new customers at all, but many of them are shifters. So you don´t really earn additional money. There is a small hope that you might find additional customers. But in reality most customers won´t buy a single Add-on. The more money they have to pay the less likely it is that they buy this add-on.

For a single developer the risk is  limited. If they see that they don´'t recover their costs, thy simply drop their losses and leave the plattform. But if you have to pay wages, you have to be more carefull in your decisions.

[TheFlightSimGuy 514]

5 minutes ago, Longranger said:

Well, to make money you really have to earn money. To earn money you have to absorb the costs.

A new plattform means in the first place additional costs and you can expect that many of the new customers aren´t new customers at all, but many of them are shifters. So you don´t really earn additional money. There is a small hope that you might find additional customers. But in reality most customers won´t buy a single Add-on. The more money they have to pay the less likely it is that they buy this add-on.

For a single developer the risk is  limited. If they see that they don´'t recover their costs, thy simply drop their losses and leave the plattform. But if you have to pay wages, you have to be more carefull in your decisions.

 

For aircraft developers, wont they have that same expense with P3D if it goes 64 bit? 

[kevinfirth 1,396]

3 minutes ago, TheFlightSimGuy said:

 

For aircraft developers, wont they have that same expense with P3D if it goes 64 bit? 

A little but not a lot hopefully, it depends how theyve done their code I believe?  Most who have been expecting the move to 64bit may only have to recompile the dlls - the model assets themselves should make little difference I thought..

[Longranger 148]

2 minutes ago, TheFlightSimGuy said:

 

For aircraft developers, wont they have that same expense with P3D if it goes 64 bit? 

You shouldn´t expect that 64 bits will be the real problem. While P3D and FSW had the same ancestor their SDKs will have moved in different directions. For a long time P3D versions were simply FSX versions with a different installer path.

But this won´t work anymore. P3D users expect the special use of the capabilities oftheir plattform. Furthermore we already had several versions of a P3D SDK and they more or less expect that they will continue this path.It would be a real surprise if the SDKs of P3D and FSW would look the same. We can only guess how different they might be and how different they will become.

WHile you will be able to hold development together to a certain point, after this point you will have a completely different development process for each different plattform.

The big problem with simulators under constant development: You always have to adjust and tune your models, so you will have continious costs. When can I ask again for additional money and so on.

[HughesMDflyer4 470]

57 minutes ago, kevinfirth said:

A little but not a lot hopefully, it depends how theyve done their code I believe?  Most who have been expecting the move to 64bit may only have to recompile the dlls - the model assets themselves should make little difference I thought..

Indeed. Developers who do lots of hooks/hacks to get the data they need will have to spend some extra time updating their code, as would be the case for any 64 bit platform. However, if the code strictly uses the SimConnect API, it will be a much quicker process, assuming SimConnect hasn't changed much (I don't know if it has, so this is just guessing). Visual assets such as models and textures would likely require a bit of reworking due to the addition of PBR - at least to take advantage of the new visual effects.

[TheFlightSimGuy 514]

51 minutes ago, Longranger said:

You shouldn´t expect that 64 bits will be the real problem. While P3D and FSW had the same ancestor their SDKs will have moved in different directions. For a long time P3D versions were simply FSX versions with a different installer path.

But this won´t work anymore. P3D users expect the special use of the capabilities oftheir plattform. Furthermore we already had several versions of a P3D SDK and they more or less expect that they will continue this path.It would be a real surprise if the SDKs of P3D and FSW would look the same. We can only guess how different they might be and how different they will become.

WHile you will be able to hold development together to a certain point, after this point you will have a completely different development process for each different plattform.

The big problem with simulators under constant development: You always have to adjust and tune your models, so you will have continious costs. When can I ask again for additional money and so on.

You literally just described the state of FS today.

• Devs have to hit a moving target
• There are 2 platforms with similar core traits, but do different things in terms of models and sim integration
• So you pay for the platform you use and the devs update us just as they do today. You want to fly both? Likely there will be a cross functionality "cost" of sorts if any.