Making some very bold statements there, Alan.  Let's just keep it safe and agree to disagree.  I've been making add ons for X Plane, full time, since 2009.  I've seen a LOT on this side of the fence when it comes to choices developers make.  Things that would make you cringe.  But i won't get into that here.  

The market is there for FSX, P3D and X Plane.  You mentioned PMDG.  PMDG are FSX developers.  They're good at it.  I won't say they're not good at developing for X Plane.  They're just not AS good at developing for X Plane as they are for FSX.

6 minutes ago, MikeT707 said:

For me it would be better generic visuals in terms of having high end regional ground textures supported by a good variety of regional buildings, houses, vegitation and other autogen structures. Orbx would have provided this, but unfortunately for the XP consumer base, Austin had to be a total jerk to John Venema at Orbx and publicly scold him on some prior comments that John had made, to which John promptly ended his plans to work on the much needed enhancements to XP. I feel many people lost out on that, but at least Austin got to proclaim how great XP11 was.

Austin was a jerk???  You do know John said X Plane had no future.  Austin had no idea that John said that until it resurfaced not long ago.  And even after he found out, he said he didn't understand why John would say that, and he went on to say that ANY developer was welcome to develop for X Plane. 

Austin is one of the kindest, most generous  and welcoming people you could ever meet.  For John to make those statements about Austin's life's work was way out of line.  I'd re-evaluate who the jerk is in this situation.

3 hours ago, Boomer said:

so that the commercial airliner environment is simulated.

Do you have a shortcut on your keyboard which you can just press whenever you need this phrase? ;)

5 minutes ago, GoranM said:

Austin was a jerk???  You do know John said X Plane had no future.  Austin had no idea that John said that until it resurfaced not long ago.  And even after he found out, he said he didn't understand why John would say that, and he went on to say that ANY developer was welcome to develop for X Plane. 

Austin is one of the kindest, most generous  and welcoming people you could ever meet.  For John to make those statements about Austin's life's work was way out of line.  I'd re-evaluate who the jerk is in this situation.

Yes, Austin was a jerk about that specific situation and from a business perspective as the steward of X-Plane made a bad decision to rant like he did. John should have been better behaved as well during his evaluation of xp10, but when he decided to support xp11, Austin should have been grateful to receive support from such a significant player in the third party community. Let's be honest, XP needs help on the visuals and Orbx would have done a great job. 

16 minutes ago, MikeT707 said:

For me it would be better generic visuals in terms of having high end regional ground textures supported by a good variety of regional buildings, houses, vegitation and other autogen structures. Orbx would have provided this, but unfortunately for the XP consumer base, Austin had to be a total jerk to John Venema at Orbx and publicly scold him on some prior comments that John had made, to which John promptly ended his plans to work on the much needed enhancements to XP. I feel many people lost out on that, but at least Austin got to proclaim how great XP11 was.

Much needed? are you kidding me? have you loaded in well done ortho tiles? they destroy FTX global and that's a fact. 

9 minutes ago, MikeT707 said:

Austin had to be a total jerk to John Venema at Orbx and publicly scold him on some prior comments that John had made, to which John promptly ended his plans to work on the much needed enhancements to XP

There is no evidence that Austin's comment was the reason for ORBX to withdraw from XP development. And even if it was, it certainly wouldn't shine a favourable light on JV and ORBX as well. My guess is, the reason might have more to do with DRM, but that is just a guess as well.

Apart from that, ORBX's "big R&D commitment" seems to have been the porting of one airport to XP so I certainly wouldn't have expected much from them anyway.

1 minute ago, wiler said:

Much needed? are you kidding me? have you loaded in well done ortho tiles? they destroy FTX global and that's a fact. 

The unfortunate thing about Ortho is the amount of space it consumes, but I am glad this is something that can be done. 

Trust me, Mike.  Austin does not "need" OrbX.  He does not need to be grateful to OrbX for considering to make scenery for X Plane.  That whole episode was over before it began for Austin.  I promise you, Austin is the type of guy who would have gone out for a burger 5 minutes after he finished talking to JV.  

2 minutes ago, domae001 said:

There is no evidence that Austin's comment was the reason for ORBX to withdraw from XP development. And even if it was, it certainly wouldn't shine a favourable light on JV and ORBX as well. My guess is, the reason might have more to do with DRM, but that is just a guess as well.

Apart from that, ORBX's "big R&D commitment" seems to have been the porting of one airport to XP so I certainly wouldn't have expected much from them anyway.

It is pretty reasonable to believe that Austin's comments got under John's skin to the point where John decided to not move forward with XP, although I am sure he would say otherwise, but from a spectators point of view it sure seemed that way. By the way, if this is the case, I agree with you that it would not shine a favorable light on John and he should have moved forward with Orbx in XP11. I would have loved to have seen what the team could have done to bring high end regional textures, trees, buildings, houses, and other great content. Would have blown FSX/P3D away.

6 hours ago, tonywob said:

It's not hard to see that the X-Plane community has grown a lot over the past year, but where do people think X-Plane could go now in order to attract more users and grab some of the market, attract new developers and stay relevant?

Nice post Tony! X-Plane never enjoyed such a market share before, and at the same time never faced such a competition before.

For me the priorities (all equally important IMO) should be:

. Performance improvements. It's a good thing LR is already focusing on this. This will become ever more important in the next years with the expected improvements in VR and a larger adoption rate.

. ATC + AI improvements, in order to have a more lively world adding to the immersion and giving 3rd parties the chance to produce realistic AI traffic in terms of density and routes.

. Environmental effects improvements. Notice I didn't say just "weather effects", but more broadly "environmental effects". X-Plane is still poor in its representation of many environmental effects, not only clouds. Some examples: rain depiction is very poor, snow depiction is very poor, wet pavement (runway, apron) depiction is non-existent, snowy/icy runway depiction is very poor, PBR (e.g. sunlight reflection) is non existent on runways/aprons, water depiction is still poor (e.g. clouds shadows do not influence the sunglare on water). These effects are already present in the competitors (some of them for more than a decade ago) and they add significant immersion in some specific conditions. This is one area where X-Plane lagged behind, and I would be happy to see it improved for the future.

 

5 hours ago, tonywob said:

I use other sims for fun and actual flying, but spend a lot of time in X-Plane as a developer.

I think the "curse", if you're working for a platform, is that suspension of disbelief does not work anymore.

For example, I'm implementing a SID/STAR support in the vFlyteAir SR20 at the moment, but I won't be able to enjoy just flying this SR20 for a long time now, because when I see it on my screen, I don't see an aircraft, I just "see" a lot of source code affecting some computer output.

I think if I'd work for P3D development, I'd use X-Plane for re-creation. :D

1 minute ago, MarioDonick said:

I think the "curse", if you're working for a platform, is that suspension of disbelief does not work anymore.

For example, I'm implementing a SID/STAR support in the vFlyteAir SR20 at the moment, but I won't be able to enjoy just flying this SR20 for a long time now, because when I see it on my screen, I don't see an aircraft, I just "see" a lot of source code affecting some computer output.

I think if I'd work for P3D development, I'd use X-Plane for re-creation. :D

If you can use any sim for recreation, my hats off to you.  I haven't flown, for fun, in a flight sim since I started making aircraft.  8 years.  I can say I find it fun when i test aircraft.  But I've never actually sat down and planned a flight since I started doing this for a living.

3 minutes ago, GoranM said:

Trust me, Mike.  Austin does not "need" OrbX.  He does not need to be grateful to OrbX for considering to make scenery for X Plane.  That whole episode was over before it began for Austin.  I promise you, Austin is the type of guy who would have gone out for a burger 5 minutes after he finished talking to JV.  

The point is not if Austin needs Orbx. The point is Austin is the steward of XP for the user community and that carries some accountability to those who use it. There are many people who hold flight simming as an important part of their life and it can matter greatly to them. Maybe for some people XP helps them get through a difficult time in their life, maybe it helps keep them away from drinking, maybe it gives them some purpose in later years, etc. As the steward of this experience for many, many people, it would be good of him to treat it in a manner that he is doing something for a greater common good rather than just something that he does for himself and does not care if people like it or not.

It's 1AM here, Mike.  So forgive me if I misunderstand you.  But Austin doesn't care if a developer or simmer doesn't like his product.  If a developer, states in an interview, in a public forum, such as a magazine, that X Plane has no future, then he'd better be prepared for backlash.  Austin didn't say a word because, frankly, he didn't even know what was said.  I'm not sure what more you would have wanted him to say, other than what he said   "All developers are welcome to X Plane."

He wasn't angry.  He was more surprised at John and what was said.  A reputable figure in the community, saying something so stupid.  But he certainly wasn't going to beg him to make scenery for X plane.  And to clarify something...from what I saw, it was the X Plane community that was laughing at how John NOW wants to make scenery for X Plane.  They were relentless!  And they made sure JV remembered what he said 3 years ago.  That, I think, is why JV quit X Plane.  

As far as the general simming public, and Austin's attitude...I think you're going deeper than is necessary here.  Austin made a flight sim.  He's not responsible for the reasons people choose to use his product.  If they like it, great.  He'll offer support.  He'll improve it.  He'll even communicate with people sometimes.  He's done it before.  But he won't lose sleep over people not liking it.  

i use Xplane since v10 come out

i build cockpits either for myself or friends that ask to make one for them; GA type 

Xplane since v 10 has become along with p3d the sim i always load into the systems.  It is fantastic when flew on cockpits; even without addons. It is updated constantly and is Laminar hard work  there to be seen in V 11.

What i would really like to see in V 11 is the possibility to drag windows out of main monitor  -  this way we can make the touch screen usable with clickable instruments such the Gtn 750.