Interesting Video

[Bobsk8 12,492]

 

[KavindaJD 31]

Thanks Bob. Pretty eye opening IMO.

Starting to appreciate DTG a little more.

[philphy42 15]

Yeah, interesting video.  Puts perspective into the current situation.  Thanks for posting.

[MadDog 353]

What a fantastic video !!!  Thanks Bob.  I would hope that we can have similar civil, intelligent, and constructive discussions here on Avsim in the coming months!

[himmelhorse 1,276]

Bobsk8,

Great find and thanks for sharing this with us.

Again, and like others this puts much more into perspective for me but also raises some questions. I for one, would have preferred DTG to develop the existing FSX-SE (complete) into a 64bit platform. As stated in the video, this alone is probably a massive undertaking. I just feel that, whilst what is presented is early access, it could have been better managed.  

The sim community, as a whole, MAY have appreciated a longer wait (with more progress information) to get the entire FSX or FSX-SE as a 64bit platform .... make that the early access to iron out the bugs, and then start to update the entire platform. This is, of course, only my opinion but it is what I expected from the very beginning of the initial announcement.

I cannot imagine LM approaching V4 with this attitude, if and when, V4 is 64bit. but that in itself, is another topic and will remain speculation until "IT" happens.

So, I would guess the main question to ask is ... Why has DTG approached the new  platform in this manner and why the progress information has not been a little more forthcoming.   I am not, in any way, questioning their right to their methods and it may well be a great business model for them. It does however, seem to have raised a lot of ire which I believe could have been avoided with a better level of communication at least.

Again, just my thoughts.

Regards to all (particulaly DTG)

Tony Chilcott 

[JDWalley 354]

45 minutes ago, himmelhorse said:

Again, and like others this puts much more into perspective for me but also raises some questions. I for one, would have preferred DTG to develop the existing FSX-SE (complete) into a 64bit platform. As stated in the video, this alone is probably a massive undertaking. I just feel that, whilst what is presented is early access, it could have been better managed.  

The sim community, as a whole, MAY have appreciated a longer wait (with more progress information) to get the entire FSX or FSX-SE as a 64bit platform .... make that the early access to iron out the bugs, and then start to update the entire platform. This is, of course, only my opinion but it is what I expected from the very beginning of the initial announcement.

I'm thinking that this is precisely what FSW is intended to be -- 64-bit FSX (with a few enhancements).  As the podcasters mention (particularly the helicopter guy with coding experience), that's a huge undertaking; it's possible that the early-access version we're seeing here is "feature-limited" because the rest of it hasn't been converted in an acceptable-for-release manner yet.  We'll have to see what comes next.

As to the question of "why not wait longer?" -- I'd give two possible answers: 1) The failure/withdrawal of Flight School meant they had to act to show that they were still committed to the project (I'm guessing that most installs of FSW have gone to Flight School owners for free), and 2) the worry that LM is about to release a 64-bit version of P3D; if they waited much longer after that happened, they may have found their market had moved on.

 

[himmelhorse 1,276]

James,

That is exactly my point in asking "why" 

Prematurely releasing what they have, has, I believe, simply alienated the consumers who would have to pay for the new platform. By all means announce "flight school owners to get new sim free of charge. They could even have embellished the bejesus out of that. Great PR in fact.

They then could have elaborated at length and frequently, on the progress and development of the new platform and hype that up. Again, great PR. Instead, they opted to remain silent, which, I guess, prompted a lot of speculation and/or largely misinformed conversation on the forums.

LM now know exactly what they are up against (not that they will acknowledge caring because it is a "different" target audience) and further, I believe they can now take their time to deliver a professional package. That scenario is absolutely ideal for LM and detrimental to DTG This is borne out, as we speak, by the enormous amount of negativity on the forum boards. The other startling thing is that DTG is STILL largely silent defending what they have done and in doing so, I think they are compounding the problem.

I am NOT a PR person nor am I in marketing, but in saying that I still cannot see the logic in what they have achieved with this early access release. They supposedly have the experts in these areas and may well be proven right.

Whichever way it goes though, I think it has promise/potential and it would be foolish of me to dismiss their efforts.  It is hard, however to dismiss the negativity coming through and I believe it could all have been avoided.

I now implore Aimee to get busier that she is normally, because she and others have to get busier to counteract the perceived damage done to this point.  I am NOT saying or inferring that she is not doing her job either.

Thanks again for your input guys ... this thread has been very very interesting.

Regards

Tony

[fs4fun 366]

2 hours ago, JDWalley said:

it's possible that the early-access version we're seeing here is "feature-limited" because the rest of it hasn't been converted in an acceptable-for-release manner yet

That's been my assumption, it could be functionality that broke in the 64-bit conversion that hasn't been fixed yet, or hasn't passed QA, or the user interface isn't done yet. If working functionality was stripped out with the intent of up-charging, I don't think that's going to go over well.

[JDWalley 354]

47 minutes ago, fshobby said:

That's been my assumption, it could be functionality that broke in the 64-bit conversion that hasn't been fixed yet, or hasn't passed QA, or the user interface isn't done yet. If working functionality was stripped out with the intent of up-charging, I don't think that's going to go over well.

If it gets restored in later releases, I suspect it will "go over" just fine.  Most people understand that "early access" implies a work in progress.

[Rimshot 1,131]

An interesting find Bob, thanks for the link. Everyone with a strong opinion on FSW should watch this.

[ZKOKQ 984]

I have high hopes for FSW now, more than I did on release day. DTG's sister product  TSW which is also EA, is now on 4.5 Beta and has improved 10 fold.

[CFIJose 5,485]

Bob,

Thanks for sharing the video.

"Great start, but it has a long way to go!"

That summarizes it for me.

[carbonbasedlifeform 179]

8 hours ago, himmelhorse said:

James,

That is exactly my point in asking "why" 

Prematurely releasing what they have, has, I believe, simply alienated the consumers who would have to pay for the new platform. By all means announce "flight school owners to get new sim free of charge. They could even have embellished the bejesus out of that. Great PR in fact.

They then could have elaborated at length and frequently, on the progress and development of the new platform and hype that up. Again, great PR. Instead, they opted to remain silent, which, I guess, prompted a lot of speculation and/or largely misinformed conversation on the forums.

LM now know exactly what they are up against (not that they will acknowledge caring because it is a "different" target audience) and further, I believe they can now take their time to deliver a professional package. That scenario is absolutely ideal for LM and detrimental to DTG This is borne out, as we speak, by the enormous amount of negativity on the forum boards. The other startling thing is that DTG is STILL largely silent defending what they have done and in doing so, I think they are compounding the problem.

I am NOT a PR person nor am I in marketing, but in saying that I still cannot see the logic in what they have achieved with this early access release. They supposedly have the experts in these areas and may well be proven right.

Whichever way it goes though, I think it has promise/potential and it would be foolish of me to dismiss their efforts.  It is hard, however to dismiss the negativity coming through and I believe it could all have been avoided.

I now implore Aimee to get busier that she is normally, because she and others have to get busier to counteract the perceived damage done to this point.  I am NOT saying or inferring that she is not doing her job either.

Thanks again for your input guys ... this thread has been very very interesting.

Regards

Tony

Please. Lockheed Martin doesn't care about the private flight sim market. Even if you think you are hardcore. They are a huge defense firm that makes actual planes!

If so many people are abusing their EULA, it's because they probably don't care enough to enforce it.

[dz006 0]

I think DTG have to be careful how they communicate their next steps - they mustn't go "dark" like the guys behind No Man's Sky did, they need to be open and tell people what they are doing and working on. I am happily creating bug reports to try and help BUT (a) there doesn't seem to be any feedback - or even acknowledgement that they have received them and (b) with out some form of decent feedback on the forums it is difficult to determine what is a bug and what is a feature they haven't implemented yet. For instance, the lack of aircraft lights actually illuminating the area, is that a bug or a feature they haven't implemented yet?

[MadDog 353]

3 hours ago, Travelling_Wilbury said:

DTG's sister product  TSW which is also EA, is now on 4.5 Beta and has improved 10 fold.

Train Sim World is no longer early-access; but I agree that it has improved steadily since release.  I'm aware of at least 3 significant patches that have been applied since March and the performance of the sim has improved dramatically.  This latest patch appears to be aimed at improving the braking systems, so DTG appears to be concentrating on more issues than just visuals (which are admittedly gorgeous... far superior to FSW).

In the past, DTG's reputation has been "less than stellar" and probably deservedly so.  However, I do believe that they are making a concerted effort to change their business practices and improve both the quality of their products as well as their communication with consumers.  With that said, I still think there may be a disconnect between their development and marketing teams.  If they had waited just a few more weeks to release TSW, they probably could have avoided a lot of the initial complaints and criticism... it's hard to overcome a bad first impression.  The same can be said for FSW.  Yes, it's "early access"; but why not wait until the obvious issues are addressed first before unleashing it on the community?  Certainly they don't need a cast of thousands to figure out that the current lighting system is harmful to the retinas.  As another forum topic stated, I think DTG's heart is in the right place and they're on the right track... they just need to work a little bit on their timing.