Jump to content
Sign in to follow this  
rsrandazzo

[25APR18] New Product Reveal at FlightSim Expo'18 - Las Vegas 09JUN18

Recommended Posts

 

Was not really surprised by the presentation of GFO. I myself already suggested an external program to be used alongside the sim (page 10 of this thread) We all knew it wasn't going to be an airplane or new sim, right? So, after having seen the presentation twice now and having read this forum, here are my thoughts on it.

 

Well, I really like the idea of having CPDLC and ACARS - means more buttons to push on the FMC and more flight related info to read during cruise. And of course a greater understanding of real world operations. These features alone make it worthwhile for me to consider the product. Small features, maybe. But still, I like to get to know them since they're used on a daily bases in the cockpit by real world pilots. And, like I said, it gives me something more to fiddle with during cruise  :happy:

But to be honest - having the info that's available at the moment - I'm not really sure how the rest of GFO will fit in my FS immersion. I already continue every flight exactly from where I left (just saving the flight via the FSX-SE menu) so that function is not really worth the extra money for me since this already works absolutely fine on my setup. If I'm parked a bit next to the yellow line and accidently left a door open, it will be parked the same way with the same door open when I reload the saved flight and the panel will be in exactly the same state as I left it in. Just have to use AS16 for updated weather and I have to set the correct time of course. And to keep things organized, I just keep a simple text file containing the whereabouts of all my aircraft, so I can choose where to depart from.

Also, I consider myself the proud owner of most of the PMDG fleet. For me to fly when I want and where I want. That's part of the magic of Flight Simming for me. If I want to go island hopping on Hawaii in a KLM 747-400 or a 777-300, I can do that (in real life KLM doesn't fly to Hawaii and the only hopping they do is Cityhopping) So for me, having restrictions on what I can fly and where I can fly is not a selling point. And the only one who may fly my Boeings around the world...is Me, period. However, if I were able to create my own GFO VA, only to be used by me, then I will most likely consider the product even more.

Nonetheless, I'm very curious how GFO will handle the 'one-airframe-available-at-a-time' concept. For example - according to planespotters.net - KLM only has/had 26 747-400's (current and historic airframes combined) So, what if 2500 people want to fly a KLM 747-400? Not even mentioning the fact they had only 10 MD-11's and only 5 737-900's.. I'm sure you thought of that (I really am) but I'm just genuinely interested in how GFO will handle that (multiple sessions maybe, so if GFO is out of airframes requested by the user, it'll open a new session, for others to join?)

Another letdown for me is the fact that it will be subscription based. The only subscription I really want is the one of my paycheck, where my boss pays me for having me around. Getting a bit annoyed to be honest that more and more companies are demanding a periodic fee to use their software. May be small amounts per month, but if you add it all up over a couple of years then the price you pay may - or may not - scare the sh*t out of you... "Wait a minute, did I pay THAT to use this software???"

Concluding, I'm actually only really interested in the things that I can use in the cockpit, like the CPDLC and ACARS. Like I said, the 'shared airframe' concept is not really my cup of tea and all the info about the flight history of an airframe is also not something I consider a selling point for me personally. But, if the GFO software will be sold at a fixed price, in which I can create my own VA to be used by me alone, I will buy it in a heartbeat. If it will be subscription based, without the freedom of flying my own fleet, I think I'll pass.

Still, many thanks for the effort. I'm sure there are a lot of people who will greatly benefit from this software. And sometimes you just can't please them all, which is absolutely fine.

:wink:

 

Edited by rheinis
  • Upvote 2

Robin Heinis                                                                                                                    SIM Pilot 
FSX-SE DX10 Preview mode with Steve's DX10 Fixer..PMDG MD-11..NGX..777..747 v3.."PMDG made EZ" (EZdok / ChasePlane profile package I made for all PMDG airliners, see AVSIM library)
Addons: ORBX..REX 4..REX SF..AS16/ASCA..EZCA..FS Global Ultimate NG..FlyTampa..FSFX..FS Passengers X..FS Real Time..FS2Crew..GSX..Navigraph..PFPX..TOPCAT..Pro-ATC/X..UT2..
PC specs: Intel Core i7 4790K @ 4.6 GHz..ASUS ROG STRIX-GTX1080-O8G-GAMING..Corsair Dominator Platinum 16 GB..4x Samsung 850 EVO..2x WD Black in RAID 1..Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit

Share this post


Link to post
20 hours ago, scandinavian13 said:

This isn't my point, and you know that. Perhaps I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt on the latter, because that's more than I've gotten so far...

...

The latter part, again, isn't about the criticism, it's about the criticism being aimed at a misrepresentation of what the product is. Criticize the thing all you want, but do it from a position of knowledge, and facts:

 

I haven't said anything about the product other than to wonder how it would affect VAs.  I want to wait until I see more about it before making any decision and I was never expecting an airplane.  The message of yours that I responded to did, indeed, make it seem as if criticizing the product was criticizing you personally.   I'm sure you felt that after all your hard work everyone would have stood up and applauded, but the world don't work that way.  A huge number of the comments following R obert's talk were childish and your response can be seen that way as well.

Anyway, it's all water under the bridge.  I have great respect for anyone who works hard at developing anything and I'm sure  things will calm down.  Someday, I'll tell you about some of the reactions I get from people over what I did for a living.

Edited by Bob_Z

Bob Zolto

Boeing777_Banner_Pilot.jpg

Share this post


Link to post
5 hours ago, rheinis said:

So for me, having restrictions on what I can fly and where I can fly is not a selling point.

I don't recall us saying anything about what you can fly, and where. You just need to pick a plane up where it is. You can take it wherever you want from there.

5 hours ago, rheinis said:

However, if I were able to create my own GFO VA, only to be used by me, then I will most likely consider the product even more.

This will not be an option. Providing everyone their own VA is unsustainable, and defeats the entire purpose of the shared resources.

5 hours ago, rheinis said:

(multiple sessions maybe, so if GFO is out of airframes requested by the user, it'll open a new session, for others to join?)

Nope. Again, it defeats the concept. Find a different plane, or wait.

5 hours ago, rheinis said:

Another letdown for me is the fact that it will be subscription based. The only subscription I really want is the one of my paycheck, where my boss pays me for having me around. Getting a bit annoyed to be honest that more and more companies are demanding a periodic fee to use their software. May be small amounts per month, but if you add it all up over a couple of years then the price you pay may - or may not - scare the sh*t out of you... "Wait a minute, did I pay THAT to use this software???"

So you should pay once for access to a system indefinitely, while taxing it with an actual cost that whole time? The internet you're using right now...you paying monthly, or did you pay them once and they just said "sure, use this until you feel like you're done?"

5 hours ago, rheinis said:

But, if the GFO software will be sold at a fixed price, in which I can create my own VA to be used by me alone, I will buy it in a heartbeat.

I'm kind of baffled as to how you think this is not only logical, but fair, and reasonable.

5 hours ago, Bob_Z said:

I haven't said anything about the product other than to wonder how it would affect VAs.  I want to wait until I see more about it before making any decision and I was never expecting an airplane.  The message of yours that I responded to did, indeed, make it seem as if criticizing the product was criticizing you personally.   I'm sure you felt that after all your hard work everyone would have stood up and applauded, but the world don't work that way.  A huge number of the comments following R obert's talk were childish and your response can be seen that way as well.

Anyway, it's all water under the bridge.  I have great respect for anyone who works hard at developing anything and I'm sure  things will calm down.  Someday, I'll tell you about some of the reactions I get from people over what I did for a living.

wished they would, but I don't expect anything from anyone, except the truth. My point about working on the project alone was - clearly - aimed at the misguided point that we should've worked on something else, as if the GFO was done in place of an aircraft. It was literally established in the first few words of my post. Interestingly, that part of the sentence that made that abundantly clear was selectively hacked out by you when you quoted it. Sorry, but the only way that can be regarded as childish is if you're intentionally manipulating it to be...and, well, the selective quoting would be exactly that.

Again - I'm all for criticism, and I realize I'm not above it. When people manipulate words to stir up drama, however, I'm going to address it, head on. There's no excuse for that kind of thing.

  • Like 1
  • Upvote 3

Kyle Rodgers

Share this post


Link to post

Kyle, is someone going to explain what it actually is (I don't want to watch the videos)? I'd love to see a PMDG style, long forum post, explaining it in-depth as well as all the different applications it may have. As best I can tell it sounds almost more like a framework or backend for something else...not sure. 

I am genuinely intrigued, but at this point, the only information about the product I have received is the angry internet people yelling at each other and you firing back at them. 

I find myself in a position where the only reason I don't fly P3D more is it's hard to find a "point." FSE is so 2002 and lacks heavies, AH2 is close, but still a bit too exploitable for me...VAs are also somewhere between...

I can't tell if this is something that may interest me or not and I'd prefer to hear it from your mouth. 

  • Upvote 2

Noah Bryant
 

Share this post


Link to post

Okay, so here's my question. I understand that providing everyone their own VA is unsustainable, but then is it still possible to use ACARS and CPDLC without having to use this shared airplane function (it's 22:52 PM and I don't know what else to call it, so bear with me). For the most part, I only really fly one plane, and that's my own, so I was wondering if I could still fly my own plane on my own and still be able to use ACARS and CPDLC, or would I be forced to share my plane with others (which I really don't want to do).

  • Upvote 1

Captain Kevin

nGsKmfi.jpg

Air Kevin 124 heavy, wind calm, runway 4 left, cleared for take-off.

Live streams of my flights here.

Share this post


Link to post
28 minutes ago, NoahBryant said:

I'd love to see a PMDG style, long forum post, explaining it in-depth as well as all the different applications it may have.

+1     It would be great to get a forum post with screenshots of how GFO works.

Are you looking for beta testers?  If GFO is subscription based I'd be happy to start paying now for beta access...

Though probably it needs the 747-800 released to take full advantage of GFO? and also updates to the 747-400, 777, 737??

Edited by MatthewS

Matthew S

Share this post


Link to post

Congratulations, PMDG! GFO is something I was waiting for years! Finally we can feel like we are working in a airline company! Thank you!! Can't wait for GFO!

  • Like 1

Share this post


Link to post

I'm not quite sure what you mean when you say I hacked something out.  I didn't say anything about PMDG not working on anything else.  I  only commented on your statement  that people should try doing something for a long period time and then see how they felt when criticized. .

I realize this will go nowhere, so lets drop the whole thing and see what GFO has to offer.


Bob Zolto

Boeing777_Banner_Pilot.jpg

Share this post


Link to post

Maybe if there was a feature where we could look at the map and go join that A/C as a passenger or in the jump seat it would be really neat, or brings in a new shared cockpit experience (that would be cool)

But it really depends on the price, i don't mind spending $140 on PMDG A/C as they are worth that much, but spending over $10 a month on this would mean its just not worth it imo.

Well done on it though PMDG it does look quite good!

  • Upvote 1

Share this post


Link to post
47 minutes ago, Bob_Z said:

I realize this will go nowhere, so lets drop the whole thing and see what GFO has to offer.

I would really love to see people calming down in flight sim forums and fa facebook groups etc. This (flightsim in general) is such a great opportunity for everyone to get in touch with aviation, independent from profession, age, nation, we could create an amazing community, there is something out there for everyone. I personally love A2A for the opportunity to continue to fly GA airplanes, props, even amazingly recreated radial engines. I love to combine them with AirHauler and I could spend eternities doing so. Also I absolutely love the tube liners, the system management and studying all this „airline pilot work“ made available by PMDG, FSL, Majestic, TFDi..... damn, I even like the AS CRJ :D. Who would have expected a 747 simulated down to every bolt and screw just a couple of years back? FSX was dropped and the flightsim development seemed to stagnate.. ORBX, all those amazing scenery developers, airplanes, weather... this is so mind blowing if you actually take a minute and think about it. The absolute majority of developers love to talk to their customers in forums, fb groups, making jokes, sharing their experiences. Dudley Henriques at A2A, amazing experience and loves to tell about it. Kyle here, has worked a lot with ATC, knows a lot about that stuff, if he is asked he searches for links, gives advice, helps to solve issues and so on.. I could continue with other developers, but one gets the point I think. This is an amazingly widespread comunnity sharing its knowledge with every newcomer for free. Professional simulations for 100 something dollars/euros, that‘s actually ridiculous. That‘s nothing compared to the software published for the real pilots. 

And then people have nothing better in mind than arguing with each other because ONE product of THOUSANDS doesn‘t match personal taste? THIS is so killing the fun, the immersion, the hobby. It could be so great if at least the adults here would behave as mature as they are in the real world... 

 

and to the subscription thing: it‘s a perfect try and love or leave opportunity. So what... as kyle said: it‘s a continued service that needs constantly being worked with. PMDG isn‘t perfect, so isn‘t Aerosoft, so isn‘t A2A, so isn‘t someone who desperately tries to protect their ideas... but actually they all do it because they love their work and have made their passion to become profession. All we should do is support them or let them do their thing and ignore them. But we shouldn‘t constantly bash against them. And PMDG will definitely continue releasing new airplanes or updates, upgrades and so on. There‘s no need to shout out to them just because they haven‘t talked about future airplanes at the flightsim expo... just another PR event, announcements have always been made by RSR in the forum. Why should he change something that has always been a successor?

  • Like 1
  • Upvote 1

,

Share this post


Link to post
11 minutes ago, boeing777300er said:

shared cockpit 

The problem with shared cockpit is always the constantly shared data between computers and continents. Assuming you sit in the USA and I sit in Germany and we want to share the 747 flight deck... there‘s a constant data flow half around the world... we all know the effect when FSUIPC only saves the data.. this isn‘t as easy to accomplish like with a „standard“ addon... there has a LOT to be shared. Saving is simple. Sharing is hellish.


,

Share this post


Link to post
9 hours ago, NoahBryant said:

Kyle, is someone going to explain what it actually is (I don't want to watch the videos)? I'd love to see a PMDG style, long forum post, explaining it in-depth as well as all the different applications it may have. As best I can tell it sounds almost more like a framework or backend for something else...not sure. 

I am genuinely intrigued, but at this point, the only information about the product I have received is the angry internet people yelling at each other and you firing back at them. 

I find myself in a position where the only reason I don't fly P3D more is it's hard to find a "point." FSE is so 2002 and lacks heavies, AH2 is close, but still a bit too exploitable for me...VAs are also somewhere between...

I can't tell if this is something that may interest me or not and I'd prefer to hear it from your mouth. 

Every time you load the sim, you get whatever panel state you load with - perhaps you save a continuous state each time, perhaps not - at a location you set up through a menu structure, with whatever hours you put on the plane yourself. The plane doesn't quite have the feeling any plane out there in the real world does. After all, you're simply flying a copy of a plane thousands of others potentially have a copy of. You can't do that out in the real world. If you were to go to Dulles right now, you'd find N422WN at gate B50. Once the crew takes that plane, that plane is gone. I can't magically conjure up a second copy of it and start flying it around. When it gets to ATL, any other crew picking it up will get the aircraft in the state the last crew left it in - switches, accumulated hours, position, and so on. If a switch is out of position, the next crew will have to handle that. If the last crew parked it a couple degrees off the line, the next crew will notice (though it's not a big deal, it's just the imperfection of daily life). GFO brings that kind of experience into the sim. Oh yeah, and any airliner can be used in this system. You have the TFDi 717 and want to fly that around? Go for it. While the various devs may have differing levels of integration so far, updates to existing products could further integrate them, and/or new product can be developed with GFO integration in mind.

While you're in the plane, getting set up for departure, you may think to check the weather to throw in a departure runway. Right now, you might look at your weather add-on, or perhaps pull up a web page with a METAR on a second screen, or on your phone. Either way, you usually have to break some of the feeling of realism in order to do so. Same goes for checking the current and forecast weather for your destination, and maybe an alternate or two. As you get closer to your destination, you might look at FlightAware to get a gate assignment, if it's available - again breaking the realism in order to do so - or you might just "assign" yourself one. For some people, who are into statistics and data collection, they may manually write down fuel loads they start with, and end with, along with the various times - gate departure, takeoff, landing, and gate arrival - or they may log in to VATSIM to have all that tracked by VATAWARE, or a similar site. GFO brings that into the sim in an in-depth simulation of ACARS. You can request weather data via the CDU in the sim itself, which will get the data for you either from real world sources, the sim itself, or your add-on weather program (useful when you're using historical weather). You can request gates for an ever-growing list of airports, and it will give you a proper assignment for your aircraft type, operator, and so on. All of your times are tracked online, as well, so you don't have to manually track it, or log into an online network. Given that ACARS is out there, this opens up an interface for VAs to communicate to their pilots with ops messages. CPDLC will also be available down the line, so that controllers can log in and handle those functions: clearances, route changes (route pushes), and so on. That means Cross the Pond, and similar events will be slightly less painful, and quite a lot more realistic: position reports over HF are rare now.

Less interesting for the pilots here, but this also allows for ADS-C simulations (yes, -C, and it's oddly much older than -B ) for controller clients.

The short version? It's a way to take your simming experience and make that much more in-depth...no matter what you want to fly.

9 hours ago, Captain Kevin said:

Okay, so here's my question. I understand that providing everyone their own VA is unsustainable, but then is it still possible to use ACARS and CPDLC without having to use this shared airplane function (it's 22:52 PM and I don't know what else to call it, so bear with me). For the most part, I only really fly one plane, and that's my own, so I was wondering if I could still fly my own plane on my own and still be able to use ACARS and CPDLC, or would I be forced to share my plane with others (which I really don't want to do).

So, in a system that gives people an opportunity to get the more realistic experience of flying in aircraft that have been flown by other people, accumulate hours on a more realistic basis because of that, and so on how is it logical to expect that we would give everyone their own personal airplane to fly around in that system? Not only does that entirely defeat the point, it makes no sense in the context of what we're providing here.

If you're not using the system, you cannot utilize the messaging of said system. You're either in, or you're out.

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding you. I'm open to hearing an explanation of what you're requesting, and the logic behind it, but as I see it, I'm seeing a request to allow you to wall yourself off in your own world, but selectively capitalize upon the resources everyone else is sharing. Somewhat of a "have your cake and eat it too," situations.

7 hours ago, Ephedrin said:

Saving is simple. Sharing is hellish.

Yes and no...

Saving is actually quite an intense process. Set your autosave down to each minute and see how your sim eventually gets brought to its knees.

  • Like 1
  • Upvote 1

Kyle Rodgers

Share this post


Link to post
1 hour ago, scandinavian13 said:

Yes and no...

Saving is actually quite an intense process. Set your autosave down to each minute and see how your sim eventually gets brought to its knees.

And now go and share this data constantly between two PCs half way around the planet. 


,

Share this post


Link to post

I think this concept is really cool, and honestly I'm very excited for the release.

That said, I see two possible abuses of the system and I'm curious how you guys have looked into possibly mitigating them:

1: People leaving the plane in a terrible state (i.e. fire handles pulled, tires blown, pressurization set to manual, etc). You've mentioned the upvote/downvote system, but how will it deal with repeat offenders? or people abusing the voting system? will frequent "bad pilots" have their privileges revoked? or will their planes be reset to a "default" shutdown state upon being taken over by someone else? the former seems heavy handed, especially for people paying to use the service, but I'm not sure how feasible the latter is, and either way, both are subject to abuse of a downvote system.

2: people taking planes and purposefully flying them to the middle of nowhere on unrealistic routes. Plenty of airlines have a small enough number of certain planes that it's theoretically feasible to fly all of them to airports that don't exist in their route network or are otherwise completely isolated from their hubs or actual destinations. Will there be any curation of the fleets, making sure that for example there will always be a BA plane at Heathrow, or an Air China plane in Beijing? Or perhaps another way of dealing with such issues.

Again, I'm very excited for this and I think it's an excellent platform for really nailing down the parts of flying that have as of yet eluded flight sim. That said, in any online system abuse is to be expected and coming up with constructive ways of dealing with these kind of issues is important, especially when it can be difficult to tell the difference between intentional malice and merely noob-ish or otherwise benign-but-unexpected behavior as could happen this environment. 

 

I'm also a bit concerned about the price. The subscription system makes perfect sense to me, and I think for a reasonable price it'll work well. That said, when sims like iRacing cost in the $5ish/month range, I that going too far beyond that price range will make the product prohibitively expensive. I simply cannot see myself spending more than $5, maybe $10 a month on something like this when products like iRacing, Navigraph, and even mainstream things like Spotify or Youtube Red don't cost more than that.

 

-Steven

Edited by Steven Agre

7800X3D - RTX 2080 FE - 64GB DDR5 - Dan C4-SFX

Share this post


Link to post

 

15 hours ago, scandinavian13 said:
20 hours ago, rheinis said:

So for me, having restrictions on what I can fly and where I can fly is not a selling point.

I don't recall us saying anything about what you can fly, and where. You just need to pick a plane up where it is. You can take it wherever you want from there.

Actually, you did say something about what I can fly. Twice in this very same post. From the remark above: "You just need to pick a plane up where it is."

And 2 remarks down the line...

15 hours ago, scandinavian13 said:

Nope. Again, it defeats the concept. Find a different plane, or wait.

Bottom line: if I can't pick up a plane I want at the location I want, I can't fly it. Sounds like a restriction to me.

However - semantics aside - you may have a valid point about the subscription. Maybe it is unfair to pay you once for software this elaborate, that has to be maintained and be online at the same time 24/7 for years to come. So how about this then, as an alternative option: GFO Lite ? GFO, but without the need to get your data online from your server or share airframes, so this specific version can be sold at a fixed price. Aimed for all of us who like to get comfortably walled in - in our own private virtual world where there are no restrictions, but do like functions as CPDLC and some of the other benefits GFO will offer. From what I hear there are hundreds of functions yet to come, of which I'm sure there will be some of them I will definitely like but are not necessarily dependend on 24/7 online data.

Anyway, looking forward to the final product. My curiosity has been awakened  :smile:

 

Edited by rheinis

Robin Heinis                                                                                                                    SIM Pilot 
FSX-SE DX10 Preview mode with Steve's DX10 Fixer..PMDG MD-11..NGX..777..747 v3.."PMDG made EZ" (EZdok / ChasePlane profile package I made for all PMDG airliners, see AVSIM library)
Addons: ORBX..REX 4..REX SF..AS16/ASCA..EZCA..FS Global Ultimate NG..FlyTampa..FSFX..FS Passengers X..FS Real Time..FS2Crew..GSX..Navigraph..PFPX..TOPCAT..Pro-ATC/X..UT2..
PC specs: Intel Core i7 4790K @ 4.6 GHz..ASUS ROG STRIX-GTX1080-O8G-GAMING..Corsair Dominator Platinum 16 GB..4x Samsung 850 EVO..2x WD Black in RAID 1..Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit

Share this post


Link to post
Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
Sign in to follow this  
  • Tom Allensworth,
    Founder of AVSIM Online


  • Flight Simulation's Premier Resource!

    AVSIM is a free service to the flight simulation community. AVSIM is staffed completely by volunteers and all funds donated to AVSIM go directly back to supporting the community. Your donation here helps to pay our bandwidth costs, emergency funding, and other general costs that crop up from time to time. Thank you for your support!

    Click here for more information and to see all donations year to date.
×
×
  • Create New...