Mild complaint about the P3D platform

[windshearDK 52]

On 8/9/2018 at 2:35 AM, pmb said:

Not anyone will see all of these issues. I'd guess, 80% around here fly tubeliners mostly or exclusively. They certainly will not notice terrain snapping into place 10km below them and most major airports are just flat anyway. I fly mostly VFR and have seen all of these issues, at least since version 2, and some of them are even an inheritance from FSX, as far as I recall.

And don't tell me these issues are unavoidable: XP may have no seasons and weather, development of AeroflyFS2 may go slow as molasses - I still have to find any of those issues in either of them (while I recall having seen at least some of them in FSW!). 

And we didn't speak about 12 (twelf) years old default airports and navaids yet.

This is exactly my point! They've developed a lot on the platform, as I mentioned 64bit, graphics engine etc. BUT core elements have not really been touched since FS2002. Yes autogen has been tweaked, but still appear very random and not very convincing. AFCADs are extremely limited in their customization, meaning for example in JFK and CDG there are directional taxiways, meaning one way only twys. Now the AI engine will pick one way taxi ways, but I have no influence over it.

Some years ago I used a freeware AI controller, which never got released for V4... That created spacing and SID/STAR use for AI planes.. Again why has this not been picked up by the LM team? Why are LM not backing the community by working with creators of say tomato shade etc. to create and incorporate better features in the sim?!

 

About the navaids, you are totally right, however we again have to resort on relying on 3rd party time and will and luckily such amazing people chose to tackle the navaid issue: http://www.aero.sors.fr/navaids3.html

[windshearDK 52]

On 8/9/2018 at 3:14 PM, Lorby_SI said:

You may be wrong there. From my persepective the FSX/P3D addon market has been in steady decline these last years, the last one of the "fat" years being 2013 - and for FSX at that. It not only seems like the hobby itself has lost its appeal, but the advent of other platforms made people wander off to new pastures, reducing the marketplace time and again.

That's not what I am seeing. New scenery and aircraft are immensely anticipated and popular. The P3D forum on FB has almost 15K members. However I do understand that developers cannot live off of their sales I fully understand that.

But the problem is exactly this, that LM put the vast responsibility on developers to mend and bend the P3D base product, so us users hungry for more and more immersion and simulation, are on the backs of these developers.

 

I think it would be much better for LM to incorporate much of the innovation being used in the 3rd party market, to boost some of these developers, make it easier for us users, and in the end guarrantee work paying off and the sim always expanding.

What if LM hired say flightbeam or flytampa, to create 10 airports for their next release. They would then hire them, full time for a year or so, and we would then see an immmense progress in the availability of realistic airports from the getgo.

Or at least develop the basic P3D with many more simulated items, like for instance icing, inertia effected objects like the fans spinning in the wind, proper wing flex, real vortex simulation etc. That would create a basis for the developers and cut their innovation time needed, and thereby time and money.

For example since FSX and before, the ground roll was something that PMDG was the first to hack I believe. It would take almost 50% n1 to start taxiing, and taxiing at idle was not possible. Why on earth does PMDG need to spend time and effort to hack an obvious fault in the system?!. Same goes with weather radar, icing/bugs on the windscreen is the newest.

[windshearDK 52]

On 8/9/2018 at 4:32 PM, Bobsk8 said:

e community never gave it a chance. They demanded everything yesterday, period. 

I disagree, as I do know why I never considered buying it. It looked like a game, not a simulator, very simple.

I blame their marketing 100%, they appealed to the general masses, not the loyal simming community from the beginning. 
I don't think they got butthurt over insults in the various fora, I think they got buttfhurt over the bottomline financial results...

[pmb 5,137]

14 minutes ago, windshearDK said:

About the navaids, you are totally right, however we again have to resort on relying on 3rd party time and will and luckily such amazing people chose to tackle the navaid issue: http://www.aero.sors.fr/navaids3.html

Yes, that's updated navaids - say updated ILS potentially leading to some closed / reconstructed visual runways of default aiports.

Maybe these guys will update navaids plus visual airports at the same time:

https://www.fsaerodata.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=136

However, I still think, navaids plus runways, taxiways etc. of all default airports and stuff belong into an editable database instead of being hardcoded. Maintenance of this letter may well be left to 3rd parties, then. Hardcoded navaids and runways may have served for the MSFS series being updated every other year, but LM seems to have simply forgotten them.

Kind regards, Michael

[windshearDK 52]

Well it should be editable... BUT would it be too much to ask that a new version of P3D had updates to navaids and airports?!

Edited August 11, 2018 by windshearDK

[Rocky_53 1,566]

1 hour ago, windshearDK said:

I blame their marketing 100%, they appealed to the general masses, not the loyal simming community from the beginning. 
 

Absolutely, it's my opinion that the casual gaming audience for flight simulation is all but dead. I believe the market for the general gaming community are FPS gamers such as Far Cry, Fallout, Call of Duty etc etc. these are the games that gamers spend their money on. These games are incredibly addictive and enthralling to play and command millions in revenue. The game Call of Duty modern warfare, released in 2011, generated, wait for it... $1.23 billion! and earned $400 million in sales in its first 24 hours after release!!!!  When compared to a slow, much less exciting flight simulator they win hands down for this generation of gamers. I'm not saying no gamers use flight simulators, it's just that I think the likes of FSW were wrong, they watered down their effective marketing strategy by trying to appeal to two completely different markets, each being pretty limited in their audience capacity; of little interest to the new generation of gamers and of little interest to the serious simulation community.

Edited August 11, 2018 by Rockliffe

[Bobsk8 12,525]

43 minutes ago, Rockliffe said:

Absolutely, it's my opinion that the casual gaming audience for flight simulation is all but dead. I believe the market for the general gaming community are FPS gamers such as Far Cry, Fallout, Call of Duty etc etc. these are the games that gamers spend their money on. These games are incredibly addictive and enthralling to play and command millions in revenue. The game Call of Duty modern warfare, released in 2011, generated, wait for it... $1.23 billion! and earned $400 million in sales in its first 24 hours after release!!!!  When compared to a slow, much less exciting flight simulator they win hands down for this generation of gamers. I'm not saying no gamers use flight simulators, it's just that I think the likes of FSW were wrong, they watered down their effective marketing strategy by trying to appeal to two completely different markets, each being pretty limited in their audience capacity; of little interest to the new generation of gamers and of little interest to the serious simulation community.

Flight simming as we know it is a Niche market period. I know many people that play games on line, almost no one that is a flight simmer. 

[WarpD 824]

4 hours ago, pmb said:

However, I still think, navaids plus runways, taxiways etc. of all default airports and stuff belong into an editable database instead of being hardcoded.

The data that is used to create all of that is protected by copyright.  No one seems to even consider that.

[pmb 5,137]

11 minutes ago, WarpD said:

The data that is used to create all of that is protected by copyright.  No one seems to even consider that.

Wouldn't state-of the-art technology allow to encrypt/protect such a database? And doesn't Pete Dowson's MakeRwys yield at least part of the data anyway?

Kind regards, michael

[windshearDK 52]

2 hours ago, Bobsk8 said:

Flight simming as we know it is a Niche market period. I know many people that play games on line, almost no one that is a flight simmer. 

Yeah but there was no indicator that it would be a realistic simulator, rather a first person flyer game

[Luke 782]

3 hours ago, WarpD said:

The data that is used to create all of that is protected by copyright.  No one seems to even consider that.

They do not consider that, because the Supreme Court of the United States disagrees:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feist_Publications,_Inc.,_v._Rural_Telephone_Service_Co.

You cannot copyright navaid data. It's the "phone book" of aeronautics.

Cheers!

Luke

[WarpD 824]

2 hours ago, Luke said:

They do not consider that, because the Supreme Court of the United States disagrees:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feist_Publications,_Inc.,_v._Rural_Telephone_Service_Co.

You cannot copyright navaid data. It's the "phone book" of aeronautics.

Cheers!

Luke

Feel free to take on Jeppeson and Lufthansa to prove me wrong. :)  They are the two global providers of that data in a raw format and they indeed protect it.  Last I checked... no one really wanted to spend the money to test your theory.

[pmb 5,137]

Returning to the original argument: If Fsaerodata and Aerosoft with NavdataPro and the like are able to protect the data LM should be able alike. And update them with every major version, at least, as they do (actually more often, as we know).

Kind regards, Michael

[honanhal 1,420]

1 hour ago, WarpD said:

Feel free to take on Jeppeson and Lufthansa to prove me wrong. 🙂 They are the two global providers of that data in a raw format and they indeed protect it. 

I think you’re confusing the issue here. They are doing a lot more than providing that data in a “raw format.” We’re roughly talking about the difference between a phone book (that includes restaurants’ phone numbers) and the Michelin guide, that also happens to include those numbers. Yes, some of the raw data is the same. No, just because one product doesn’t get copyright protection doesn’t mean the other one (that adds a lot more value) doesn’t.

Copyright law is complex, and doesn’t always make intuitive sense, but it would be bizarre if basic info about navigation aids was under copyright. They’re a matter of public safety. It would be like making road location information a trade secret. What’s the compelling public interest in that?

James

[sanh 823]

I am bored with p3d and have stopped flying. Have not flown for 6 months. I still check the forums from time to time.

Waiting to see if v5 rekindles my interest. I hope it does.