I wonder if Orbx will ever wake up!

[Silverbird 115]

At least we have what looks like turbulentdesigns developing for x-plane...maybe developers like that will change orbx mind.

 

https://www.turbulentdesigns.co.uk/forums/topic/major-announcement-future-platform-support/

[sd_flyer 6,041]

2 hours ago, Silverbird said:

At least we have what looks like turbulentdesigns developing for x-plane...maybe developers like that will change orbx mind.

 

https://www.turbulentdesigns.co.uk/forums/topic/major-announcement-future-platform-support/

Oh great! I was just thinking about good L35 for XP11

[zl2bmh 0]

The exact, word for word, post has gone on a few forums.  If you wrote it read some of the replies then you might know why, so then you won't have to write to the newspapers, Presidents, and even higher if mail goes that high.

zl2bmh

[hhbrbg 139]

Hi,

Imho the current success of x-plane bases on two pillars. The forward thinking and advanced Laminar Research software developer and the creative and generous x-plane community. Another pillar (3rd party developer like Hifi Sim Tech, PMDG…)  is under construction now and will drain the pool for other sim developer.

I think it’s not wrong to accept that orbx is neither the greatest proponent of x-planes great and free community nor a fan of tools like Ortho4Xplane.
I wrote in June 2016 at the org forum:

Quote

 

As I see it, it's all a matter of X-Planes success. If the number of X-Plane users continues to grow (we see many positive signs), at a certain point a critical mass will be reached. Then Orbx can no longer ignore the x-plane community, because someone else could jump in. I assume that the guys at orbx understand their business. Therefore, they cannot tolerate another company to be very successful in their core business. Imagine you would run the company ABC and you have success with X-plane sceneries. Will you voluntary limit your expansion when the X-Plane market is saturated or will you expand to new markets (FSX, P3D)?  Success brings opportunities...

 

Cheers
Tom

[jcomm 5,928]

I hope that instead, they can focus on AEFS2, which for me is now the main focus in as far as civil flight simming goes...

For a start their LOWI port into AEFS2 is phenomenal, to say the least... Well, AEFS2 is phenomenal....!

[geedub 15]

Given the sudden about face, to me the words pram, spat, dummy and baby come to mind. Which brings us back to the OP.

I took one look at XP11 and reformatted my P3D SSD within weeks. No regrets. None, nada. I like the non-corporate non-grasping XP culture and the sheer visceral enjoyment of flying XP gives. I guess I speak as someone who knows a little bit about real flying, courtesy of the Royal Air Force training I was privileged to receive. Many others will know a lot more than I do of course, and in the end it's all a 'personal' thing.

[angelotax 4]

If i may..

I just did a flight yesterday with both sims in the same area p3dv4,xp11-GTX 1080ti.

XP11- Rotate MD80 - KSAN-KLAS - Maximum detail, othoxp @17, bing imagery: 45-60 fps.

P3D4.0 - TFDI717- KSAN-KLAS - Maximum detail - ORBX SOCAL - 35-60-100 fps peaks, but generally slowish.  

Now i would post a video on how much embarassingly different these 2 scenarios and simulators look.

I enjoy both, but *******: flying both you can clearly understand why ORBX has no business in Xplane.

[Guest-475 81]

I don't really care if they are coming to X-Plane or not. I think we can carry on without them just fine, as great scenery is coming in forms of free- and payware everyday.

I had FTX Global, Vector and all regions except Australia in FSX and P3D, but I really don't miss them. Everytime i fire up P3D with ORBX for the occasional ride in the Majestic Dash, I can't get over thinking how dated it looks compared to X-Plane.

[tonywob 4,769]

1 minute ago, mgeiss said:

I don't really care if they are coming to X-Plane or not. I think we can carry on without them just fine, as great scenery is coming in forms of free- and payware everyday.

+1, couldn't agree more with this. I don't really care too much. I do like their NA airports, but it's not the end of the sim without them. 

I just hope more devs concentrate on the small GA airfields. I'd love to see some high-quality small untowered airports for touring, payware or freeware.

Additionally, two more of my favourite devs have recently announced they are working on X-Plane, (Robin from NZ Godzone and Turbulent Designs (A fan of Russ White's sceneries)

[pmb 5,137]

7 hours ago, YukonPete said:

Those of us who actually use XP know how beautiful she is   And I really like P3Dv4.Its spectacular.  But I have no interest in a Beta sim ( AFS2 ) with no add-ons 

But perhaps the makers of AeroflyFS2 were more co-operative towards ORBX than that maker of X-Plane?

Personally, I do support AeroflyFS2 and find it a great platform, despite its present shortcomings.

Kind regards, Michael

[tonywob 4,769]

I'm also thinking that ORBX are keen with AFS because they are having influence and a say on how the sim is being developed and moving forward

[Colonel X 1,430]

59 minutes ago, jcomm said:

I hope that instead, they can focus on AEFS2, which for me is now the main focus in as far as civil flight simming goes...

For a start their LOWI port into AEFS2 is phenomenal, to say the least... Well, AEFS2 is phenomenal....!

I don't approve your signature. Liked it a lot better last week!

[jcomm 5,928]

22 minutes ago, Colonel X said:

I don't approve your signature. Liked it a lot better last week!

A week for an UNINSTALLER is an Eternity :-)

But believe me, if you like good flight dynamics, nothing comes even close to IL.2....

If you want to support a good cause, and a rather promising one, IMO, go AEFS2 ...

 

 

[JimmiG 244]

8 hours ago, Paraffin said:

I believe Orbx  isn't making scenery for XP for two reasons, and neither of them have anything to do with personal animosity between company CEO's.

1) I think this is the main one. It's possible to copy-protect payware aircraft and utilities that operate with plugins in XP, because the plugins can include authorization checks.

Scenery in XP doesn't work that way, it's a completely open file system with no built-in DRM. As long as that's the case, it's going to be a tough sell for a company like Orbx that has a lot of product they want to sell in a DRM'd format. 

2) The fact that XP already looks darned good all over the world with Laminar's approach to landclass and OSM-based autogen, combined with the Gateway system for user-created airports and WED to create them. On top of that, it's easy for users to create their own ortho-based scenery as well.

What's left for Orbx? I think they could sell a few "jewel box" airports like those highly detailed small GA airfields. But we already have outfits like Beti-X already doing that (and I suppose, taking a risk on the copy-protection front).

If Austin decided to include a built-in DRM scheme for scenery, I'll bet Orbx would jump into scenery for XP in a hot second. Thankfully, we enjoy a more open system for scenery creation in this simulation.

Those "jewel box" airports are the main reason I still fly P3D a lot (v3 still as they haven't updated them for v4 yet). The details like foliage, animations, custom models and sounds make them so immersive and atmospheric compared to generic airports, that landing at such an airport becomes the main goal of any flight.

While I'm normally against DRM, if that's what it takes to get OrbX on board, I'd be willing to accept the inconveniences associated with such a scheme. However it should be noted that P3D/FSX do not natively support DRM, either. The .BGL files, textures and .AGN annotations are open formats. However OrbX use proprietary plugin .dll's for many season/time of day dependent objects and animations. The airports work without them, but much of the scenery will be missing. Maybe they could do something similar in XP, calling on external plugins to place objects?

OrbX used to say that they were heavily invested in the P3D tech, and didn't have the resources to learn a new platform and develop new tools for it. However since they suddenly started supporting AFS2, you have to wonder if there were other reasons.

[tonywob 4,769]

It would have to me multiplatform because a good sizeable chunk of X-Planers are using Mac OS X (and a small percent Linux). The flow technologies would have to work at least on Mac OS X which is a challenge in itself.

I wonder how they are going to handle this when AFS2 is released for Mac OS X. They have no ORBX Direct centre, etc, so will be interesting if they even release anything at all.