1 hour ago, HiFlyer said:

Well, There are always going to be the exceptions. To me, though, if everyone stayed where they were, where would anything new come from?

New developments come in two different flavors. One way is starting something new from scratch like Aerofly FS2, which I don't deny is a different approach with some advantages for those who aren't put off by the orthoscenery approach. Especially, jacking up the frame rates to enable VR.

Another way we get new stuff, is when a developer that's been around for a while analyzes the market, and tries to give people new things they've been asking for. Even if it comes more slowly than some people would like. That's the path LM is on with P3D, and Laminar with X-Plane.

We didn't get some things we've been asking for in XP11, but we sure did get a lot of new stuff -- a new lighting model, new pbr rendering, turboprop and jet engine changes, a new UI, and a better fleet of default aircraft. LM's P3Dv4 is a big move to 64-bit, with better LOD, and at least a stab at better night lighting. You can't say all this isn't "new," it just isn't a brand new sim platform. 

And back to Aerofly FS2... to be honest, if I wasn't waiting for the next generation of VR before buying into the hardware, I'd probably be trying Aerofly FS2 just for the VR experience... while moaning about the lack of helicopters.   I know I'm not going to get VR frame rates in XP11 with the eye candy settings I'm used to, even after it goes native VR support (soon).

Well,

my hopes are also very strong regarding the future of AEFS2.

Recent posts at one of the threads where I had raised a question regarding the modelling of the turbines in the upcoming Q-400 showed an attention to detail and complexity in the turboprop modelling that is totally ahead of what I was expecting - and we're talking about a "default" aircraft.

With the tremendous support from ORBX, which will actually make me buy their regional / specific offers for the first time in my simmer life, starting with the upcoming LOWI ( I only owned FTX Global for FSX and P3D, but those two are history... and unfortunately they skipped X-Plane :-/ ... ) I believe more 3rd party devs will have good reasons to start seriously considering AEFS2.

I would really love to see A2A offers, but also Aerosoft with some of their best models, Carenado with at least the excellent b1900d ( my only Carenado product for FSX / P3D ) and others...

Weather engines are another area from where AEFS2 could certainly get interesting support in the future. How I would love to see Active Sky for AEFS2 :-)

Meanwhile, enjoying the unique fluidity, and trying to learn how to tweak some flight dynamics, given the very open nature of the flight dynamics configuration files, and the evidence of a rather powerful and complex physics model, still under development, and certainly bringing in even more details.

16 hours ago, HiFlyer said:

Realistically, I think most people would just download areas of interest to them, as all evidence seems to point to users flying mostly to relatively few favorite destinations, rather than wandering the entire world equally......

That's me in a nutshell.  I have been flying GA exclusively around the Caribbean the last year or so with FSX-SE.  Any sim that allows me to add "eye candy" for the places I like to fly is right in my wheelhouse.  I see no need to carry xtra baggage if I'm never going to fly there.

As a developer... I'm open to new platforms.. but finding platforms that are as easy to work with as the MSFS-based ones... doesn't exist yet.

However, the SDK doesn't support custom display programming yet. While you can re-use all existing displays, there is no way to get your display code into the simulator. This will be addressed in future versions of the SDK.

That statement eliminates pretty much all my addon work, for now.  LOL

 

Just trying to understand what's being offered by AFS2 and ORBX: photoreal scenery with accurate autogen? Isn't this what France VFR has produced in their regional sceneries since FS9? Which many of us (at least I) have thought was an impressive (though limited) set of sceneries, but have stopped using them because their autogen is not compatible with ORBX FTX regions. It seems that the idea now is to have a very limited scenery area of great accuracy and detail, and to not fly from one "region" to another, so compatibility among various developers would not be an issue?

While I can agree that photoreal has its limitations currently,  I feel that the objects placed on top of that PR are capable of making me not care so much about its appearance.  The default AFS2 city of Las Vegas is a good example.  Those buildings - the models - are incredibly well done and if you fly in close and watch the dynamic reflections in all the windows and then start noticing all the little detail signs and such that they've put in that area, you start to pay more attention to whats on top of the PR than to the PR itself.  and I think that can be done well everywhere by a company like Orbx especially if they some new tech that allows them to do it quicker over a larger area. I hope that when Orbx does cities for AFS2 that they maintain that quality of modeling and Im sure they will.

 

I also think that in the future it will be easier to clean up PR using the same new tech that can recognize trees and buildings in the images.  If it can see those objects by texture comparison then it should also be able to learn what various other embedded objects like power lines and HV towers and approach lighting and cars and boats and other stuff looks like and maybe the new tech can help remove such items.

 

Xplane has talked about procedural rock slides and you wont get that if you use Ortho4XP but I don't know why a sim couldn't be written to allow for any such things (procedural rock slides, snowfall, etc) to exist in conjunction with PR.

 

AFS2 has a ways to go but it really could be the future.  It needs to feel more alive for me though.  XP11 creates a pretty amazing world and I feel dead set against anymore P3D sims.  I want either XP11 or AFS2 or FSW.  one (or all) of those has just got to do well.

Fact is, anything based on legacy 32 bit will be at a disadvantage in the 64 bit world. This would include all MS flightsim derivatives, leaving only XP11 in the developed pool.

I am hoping the increasing interest in AFS2 will produce a 21st century product we can live with for a long time.

Until then, FS2004 does everything I would want from a PC based flight simulator.