Flight Sim World assets scuttlebutt??

[hypercide 97]

I'm half a year into my transition to X-plane 11 after FSW tanked, and while I'm learning to enjoy XP (especially now that ORBX has begun upgrading the scenery), I find myself still occasionally reflecting on the promise FSW showed.

For all its shortcomings, the sim did sport a pretty smooth UI, a small hanger of pretty high quality default ac, and an entire planet skinned by ORBX. It seems unlikely that all that coding simply disappeared, and more likely some kind of money changed hands, and that somewhere someone is figuring out how to capitalize on FSW's potential.

So I was wondering whether there's any scuttlebutt in the community about what might have happened to the assets DTG had developed?

Edited November 17, 2018 by hypercide
spelling

[G-RFRY 1,710]

I suspect you would have to buy the rights to MSFS platform as DTG did from Microsoft and that would not come cheap, and Microsoft may have a say in that, and I don't see someone throwing millions into a new sim now in the present market.

[Guest]

6 hours ago, hypercide said:

It seems unlikely that all that coding simply disappeared, and more likely some kind of money changed hands, and that somewhere someone is figuring out how to capitalize on FSW's potential.

You could day FSW was a mod of FSX. I don't think anyone is interested in creating a mod of a mod. I doubt anyone is interested in trying to bring life into something that tanked so hard. I think it's best to forget about FSW and focus on XP (or P3D, which is closer to FSW than XP is).

[hypercide 97]

I guess the problem with my question is that those who really do know are not going to say.  One of the lessons of FSW was how not to launch a new platform.

(If I were a betting man, I'd say somewhere in the Aerosoft-ORBX-Justflight triangle lies a clue, and I dare any one of them to chime in here with a categorical "not us--not now, not ever")

 

[sightseer 895]

I have no clue but I agree with you hypercide.  those who know aren't saying. 

I've almost moved on but I still check for info sometimes.  XP11 is great though.

[flyforever 267]

As with real estate, someone's loss is another's opportunity. There's always a lesson learned for the buyer, which means that not only does the new buyer gets to purchase the software cheaply, but he also starts with "some lessons learned" from the failures of the seller.  Flight sims are not for gaming companies. They are for specialists like PMDG, who understand the simmers' mind, needs and wants as well as the guts of  a sim. Imagine how much they learned trying to fit their airplanes into fsx.

FSW appeared to lack technical savvy on the team, so such things as washed out textures were allowed to endure through out the life of the  sim. True sky, while revolutionary in theory, ruined the sim due to technical difficulties. The frame rate was was problematic. Steve Hill was a good visionary, but a visionary/programmer of flight sims might have made a bigger impact.

Lastly, sales people tend to over siimplify and manufacturing people tend to over complicate things. Dovetail appeared to have been misled with regard to the time(and cost) required to take FSX to a "wow" level so as to get the public at large excited as it did when FSX came out.

We got P3D and xplane and AF2, so there's no reason to cry.

[Jim Young 2,356]

15 hours ago, hypercide said:

For all its shortcomings, the sim did sport a pretty smooth UI, a small hanger of pretty high quality default ac, and an entire planet skinned by ORBX. It seems unlikely that all that coding simply disappeared, and more likely some kind of money changed hands, and that somewhere someone is figuring out how to capitalize on FSW's potential.

As others have indicated, FSW was based off of FSX-SE as Dovetail was able to purchase a part of the FSX license from Microsoft but not all of it.  P3D is based off of FSX too.  AVSIM use to have FSW Forums (not the official) but, as I recall, the team at FSW was under constant attacks and that gets pretty tiring after a while. 

[Paraffin 2,197]

2 hours ago, hypercide said:

I guess the problem with my question is that those who really do know are not going to say.  One of the lessons of FSW was how not to launch a new platform.

Or there is nothing to say because nobody is interested in acquiring those assets? Personally, I think it's the more likely situation.

There have been three attempts now to continue moving the original FS code into the future. Two of the three attempts have failed spectacularly -- MS Flight and DTG's FSW. The only remaining effort -- P3D -- is healthy and moving forward, but it's massively underwritten by Lockheed Martin, a corporation that doesn't need the money from sales of the sim. LM is continuing with P3D for its own internal use, and the "outside" users are along for the ride.

BTW, I'm not saying that's a bad thing, because it's similar to the situation with X-Plane. The desktop consumer sim is only one part of Laminar's aerospace simulation business and they also develop a mobile version. So desktop X-Plane is to a certain extent subsidized. Both P3D and XP benefit from not having to be successful in the usual commercial sense for consumer software. 

Anyway, given that background, what are the odds that anyone would want to try a fourth time to build something on the FS code base? Especially with the financial overhead and restrictions of having to deal with licensing fees? One reason AFS2 still seems to have a future, may be that they're not saddled with any of that.

[Paraffin 2,197]

6 minutes ago, Jim Young said:

As others have indicated, FSW was based off of FSX-SE as Dovetail was able to purchase a part of the FSX license from Microsoft but not all of it.  P3D is based off of FSX too.  AVSIM use to have FSW Forums (not the official) but, as I recall, the team at FSW was under constant attacks and that gets pretty tiring after a while. 

Maybe we're remembering this differently, but what I remember was a great deal of constructive criticism, which was sometimes interpreted as "attacks" by the members of the community who were desperate to see a 64-bit version of FSX. It got to the point where any criticism at all was seen as an attack. 

And this wasn't the only place it happened. If anything, the Steam forums for FSW were even more negative overall. And frankly, I think DTG earned that response by over-promising and under-delivering. 

[Jim Young 2,356]

48 minutes ago, Paraffin said:

community who were desperate to see a 64-bit version of FSX.

P3Dv4 is the 64 bit version of FSX.  This is why you went to X-Plane and I went to P3DV4 as those sims, right now, are the future.  I agree there probably was a lot of over-promising and under-delivering but it is hard, I'm sure, to give customers a negative future.  Got the keep the customers interested.  It could happen if Microsoft ever allows anyone to buy the licensed version but do not think that will happen at least not in the near future.

[Paraffin 2,197]

5 minutes ago, Jim Young said:

P3Dv4 is the 64 bit version of FSX.  This is why you went to X-Plane and I went to P3DV4 as those sims, right now, are the future.  I agree there probably was a lot of over-promising and under-delivering but it is hard, I'm sure, to give customers a negative future.  Got the keep the customers interested. 

Right, I should have said "community who were desperate to see a 64-bit version of FSX where you didn't have to deal with P3D." 🙂 

Part of that wasn't just the license fee structure (and I know we're not supposed to talk about that here), but also something of a pie-in-the-sky wish for backwards compatibility. People were hoping at first -- before more of DTG's business model appeared -- that they wouldn't have to buy all their add-ons all over again. That never seemed like a realistic goal to me, but you can't blame people for hoping.

The fact that this thread exists at all, indicates that there is a general hope in the community for something like "FSX in 64-bits, no OOMs and I can still use all my expensive add-ons." That's basically the only selling point any new developer could offer, if they picked up the legacy code yet again.

 

Quote

It could happen if Microsoft ever allows anyone to buy the licensed version but do not think that will happen at least not in the near future.

Agreed, especially since Microsoft presumably can't sub-license the work DTG did in converting the 32-bit FSX code to 64-bits. And DTG can't license what they did, because it depends on the underlying IP from Microsoft. Kind of a double-whammy there.

Given all the complications, I predict any new major civilian sim that shows up in the future will be a scratch product like AFS2, with only Lockheed-Martin carrying the MSFS legacy forward. They're in the best position to do it.

 

[stans 702]

I followed the FSW threads pretty closely as I knew a 64-bit flight sim would overcome many of FSX's limitations.  FSW was, in my opinion, looking better with each new release.  I know there was criticism and you can have an absolutely flawless piece of software and someone will harshly criticize it, but overall I think the criticism was more constructive than destructive.  I was deeply saddened to see FSW close its doors.  I really thought that FSW would be the 64-bit flight sim for the masses and P3D would be the sim for the professional pilots.

[Matthew Kane 1,343]

The biggest issue was the third party, their TSW does not have 3rd party and as a result it is very lacking with routes, even the ones they have are not entire routes, just small portions of regions. For FSW it would have been the same, they don't have the people power to produce content to keep a salivating customer base happy, this is why 3rd party is important. P3D on the other had has done a great job of working with and licencing 3rd party content.

I agree I like what DTG has done with both FSW and TSW but you need a vibrant creative 3rd party community to push each title to its limits, their small team alone will never do that. 

Edited November 19, 2018 by Matthew Kane

[Wobbie 938]

Just a quick recap:

At the time, Microsoft had their ACES Team developing games & simulators, such as FSX & ESP. They were closed down, due to budget cuts, in 20019.

FSX was the consumer game title, licensed for Home entertainment only.

ESP was the commercial version, licensed for commercial solutions development. ESP's intellectual property went to Lockheed Martin, to be developed as a commercial not for entertainment product, &, as we all know, development is ongoing.

FSX's intellectual property was licenced to DTG, as we all know, who had the rights to tweak FSX to run on modern PC's. hence the emergence of FSX:SE.

 On July 9, 2014, Dovetail Games announced that Microsoft had granted them rights to develop the next Flight Simulator in the series. Dovetail Games also announced the release of Flight Simulator X: Gold Edition on Steam for late 2014, named Microsoft Flight Simulator X: Steam Edition. Microsoft Flight Simulator X: Steam Edition was released on 18 December 2014, and is a re-release of the FSX Gold Edition, which includes the Deluxe and Acceleration packs and both Service Packs. It includes "all standard Steam functionality"

Lockheed Martin cannot release a gaming/entertainment version of P3D, as it's licence prohibits it.

[hypercide 97]

Paraffin writes:

 "The fact that this thread exists at all, indicates that there is a general hope in the community for something like "FSX in 64-bits, no OOMs and I can still use all my expensive add-ons." That's basically the only selling point any new developer could offer, if they picked up the legacy code yet again."

For me that's the crux of the matter. I think FSW gave the promise of that holy grail being out there. And I think it still is. Look at how deftly ORBX pivots from platform to platform, and now their embrace of X-Plane 11 is probably going to slowly shove P3D into the also-ran category.

And it's the amount of money a great many of us shell out for ORBX that suggests to me that a careful developer who has learned well from the FSW fiasco will realize that a more cautious and thorough approach (keep quiet, launch a seamlessly full-featured base sim--something that neither XP11 nor AFS2 really are) will have us pulling out our credit cards.

Aerosoft's slowly progressing World of Aircraft is interesting in that it seems to have the potential to be something much greater than the individual modules that will be coming along (think DCS): Aerosoft already has its own, very respected fleet as well as experience fitting all kinds of core components into the ESP infrastructure. In their forums, Mathijs Kok has said this sim is aimed at the casual simmer. Like DTG, I think Aerosoft knows that that kind of simmer is still waiting for a better, more complete sim experience than the current market offers.