Are FSX and P3D becoming step children?

[birdguy 3,943]

It was with great anticipation I read Orbx's Real Earth Washington review.  I was excited about it until I saw that it was for X-Plane.

Are FSX and P3D becoming Orbx's step children?

Noel

[jabloomf1230 2,445]

ORBX has always focused it's resources on developing add-ons for low and slow VFR flying, so it makes perfect sense for them to concentrate on XP11.

[dal330200 216]

I think ORBX is just expanding their market- which makes sense.  Just looking at facebook groups and Youtube videos, view counts or membership size shows that X-plane reaches more people than P3D. There's a lot of money to be made by developing for both platforms, but I don't think that they are sacrificing one over the other.  I just wish ORBX would focus on more landclass/regions like Asia (which they've been promising for years) and Africa. 

[John_Cillis 2,406]

I have both P3DV4.4 and Xplane11, for me they go hand in hand, because if one sim does not have the aircraft I want, the other does. But as I use both sims I honestly see Xplane11 surpassing P3D4.4 in so many ways.  It is way ahead in autogen, landclass, and mesh, but lags behind in airport detail and just a tad in aircraft support.  But the game is changing.  It used to be argued that Xplane11 just could not duplicate the flight fidelity of the MSFS/P3D series. 

But Austin revealed details of how aerodynamics and blade theory worked that had been overlooked by add-on developers, so they gave it a try.  And I have to say, Xplane11 can capture a greater amount of the flight envelope vs. P3D, especially in the neglected rotorcraft area which I have learned to enjoy.  Even autogyros well written by VSkylabs work like the real thing, I know because I am well read and have talked to autogyro pilots and have seen them fly in airshows.  Powered Parachutes and Blimps are modeled well in Xplane11, there is even a Ramjet aircraft that will go into orbit if you manage the climbout well, quite amazing.

There was a movie in my time called "The Mouse that Roared" a great comedy about a tiny country that declared war in a friendly way on the US.  Austin has accomplished that with Xplane11.  I dissed Xplane10, it had issues and out of memory errors galore.  But with my specs, Xplane11 looks better and feels more real, like the real flying I have done and I am still learning, vs. P3D.

No doubt though, I have full confidence P3D will also answer back and stay step in step with Xplane11.  AeroflyFS2 will be a close third.  The competition is good, and none of these three sims, in my opinion, will die, because they heed their customers and take us seriously as students of aviation.  So no fears, no worries I say.

John

[Patco Lch 1,464]

I don't have XP11 so I'm asking. Is it true XP doesn't have textures for seasons?

[dave2013 1,123]

1 hour ago, dal330200 said:

I think ORBX is just expanding their market- which makes sense.  Just looking at facebook groups and Youtube videos, view counts or membership size shows that X-plane reaches more people than P3D. There's a lot of money to be made by developing for both platforms, but I don't think that they are sacrificing one over the other.  I just wish ORBX would focus on more landclass/regions like Asia (which they've been promising for years) and Africa. 

Exactly.  ORBX is in business to make money and they'll develop whatever they need to in order to achieve that goal.

I agree completely with you regarding the openLC scenery.  It is clear that ORBX has chosen to focus almost exclusively on the TrueEarth scenery at the expense of openLC, again because of sales considerations which I understand.  That doesn't make it any less disappointing, however.

If you look at their preview screenshot and release announcements it is almost funny how many times the word "TrueEarth" appears.  Maybe they should change their name from "ORBX" to "TrueEarth Inc."

Dave

[Paraffin 2,197]

33 minutes ago, PATCO LCH said:

I don't have XP11 so I'm asking. Is it true XP doesn't have textures for seasons?

True, the default sim is endless Summer.

There are a couple of free Winter texture add-ons and one payware add-on for seasons. The TerraMaxx payware add-on works, but because it requires loading in a huge amount of data it will pause the sim. So it's not good for in-flight transitions. It's okay if you decide to fly in one season for an extended period. It also doesn't work on ortho-based terrain, just the default landclass scenery. And it doesn't automatically add snow to airports, which looks weird (there is a way for airport designers to incorporate the add-on, but it's not common). 

So, not an ideal situation. Austin (the X-Plane lead developer) has said in the past that he'd like to do seasons procedurally with effects programming and particle systems, not just a basic texture overlay. So trees would change color and drop leaves according to seasons, snow would accumulate or disappear on autogen buildings based on real weather input, and so on. Very ambitious, and we won't see this in the current XP11 cycle. Maybe in XP12, but nothing has been confirmed.

 

[birdguy 3,943]

I started out in 1992 with FS5.  I bought every new one that came out spaced about every two years.  In 2006 I bought FSX which I was very happy with.  I resisted the urges to move to P3D until v3 came out.  Then a year later I bought P3Dv4.

Not only did I have to buy the new simulators, but as they matured I also had to upgrade or buy a new computer from time to time.

I'm done buying flight simulators and computers.  I realize each new one is the latest and greatest until next year when the new latest and greatest comes out.

I own every Orbx scenery made for FSX/P3D.  An investment of about 3,000 dollars.  If they want to keep me as a customer they are going to have to keep making sceneries compatible with FSX/P3D because I am dropping out of the parade.  I've been marching to the drummer of every new simulator for 26 years.  It's time to be satisfied with what I have.  If Orbx is moving to XPlane at the expense of FSX/P3D I'm sorry to be losing their very fine future sceneries.

The last Orbx scenery I purchased was Sun Valley.  I installed it on P3Dv4 but was disappointed it was not available for P3Dv3 which I also have installed because of all the FSX aircraft that still work in it but not in V4.

I also still have FS2004 installed for the MAAM DC-3 and all the wonderful California Classic retro 1962 airports world wide it has to offer along with old airliner ai that goes with them.  The scenery might look cartoonish to some but California Classics fills a niche nobody else does and they are not moving up to P3D or XP11.

I understand business models and dropping a few old customers to gain more new ones.  But being an old customer left by the wayside I don't have to like it.

A word on loyalty.  As an octogenarian I still cling to old virtues such as loyalty versus money.  I keep watching TV commercials and get junk mail and telemarketer calls telling me how much I can save by switching my automobile insurance.  And I probably could save a couple hundred dollars by switching.  But I have had the same automobile insurance carrier for over 25 years.  I am not going to dump them after that long for 200 dollars a year.  They have been very good to me and settled three or four claims promptly over that period.  I will remain loyal to them.

Noel

 

[Patco Lch 1,464]

2 hours ago, birdguy said:

I realize each new one is the latest and greatest until next year when the new latest and greatest comes out.

I know you've heard of the cash cow Brother Noel. They have to keep that good rich butter milk flowing.😉🐄

[pmb 5,137]

ORBX does what their head is in love with. After an FS9 start, it was FSX, turning to Prepar3d pretty early on. Next, he had a short romance with AeroflyFS, which unfortunately turned out not to be profitable and was dropped abruptly when he totally fell in love with X-Plane. 

ORBX could have made (and was expected to make) a lot of money if they had found a developer providing TE GB South for P3D at least on a par with Tony Wroblewski's X-Plane version. However, after the Prepar3d version of TE GB South for Prepar3d failed this looked as a fault of Prepar3d itself. Which is pretty unfair in my eyes, despite P3D certainly having a number of long-standing issues. As has X-Plane. It's a good question if the observed growing presence of X-Plane in social media initiated ORBX' movement towards it or being a result of it.

In any case, a lot of loyal Prepar3d users who made ORBX big are left in the rain and get the suggestion: Try X-Plane NOW! And buy all the sceneries, planes, tools and stuff anew. I agree to Noel and find this pretty unfair, but who cares about fairness those days.

Kind regards, Michael

Edited April 25, 2019 by pmb

[bobbyjack 61]

7 hours ago, birdguy said:

I started out in 1992 with FS5.  I bought every new one that came out spaced about every two years.  In 2006 I bought FSX which I was very happy with.  I resisted the urges to move to P3D until v3 came out.  Then a year later I bought P3Dv4.

Not only did I have to buy the new simulators, but as they matured I also had to upgrade or buy a new computer from time to time.

I'm done buying flight simulators and computers.  I realize each new one is the latest and greatest until next year when the new latest and greatest comes out.

Noel

 

And so it is with technology. 

At least a great classic car is still great no matter how old it is. 

[dave2013 1,123]

5 hours ago, pmb said:

ORBX does what their head is in love with. After an FS9 start, it was FSX, turning to Prepar3d pretty early on. Next, he had a short romance with AeroflyFS, which unfortunately turned out not to be profitable and was dropped abruptly when he totally fell in love with X-Plane. 

ORBX could have made (and was expected to make) a lot of money if they had found a developer providing TE GB South for P3D at least on a par with Tony Wroblewski's X-Plane version. However, after the Prepar3d version of TE GB South for Prepar3d failed this looked as a fault of Prepar3d itself. Which is pretty unfair in my eyes, despite P3D certainly having a number of long-standing issues. As has X-Plane. It's a good question if the observed growing presence of X-Plane in social media initiated ORBX' movement towards it or being a result of it.

In any case, a lot of loyal Prepar3d users who made ORBX big are left in the rain and get the suggestion: Try X-Plane NOW! And buy all the sceneries, planes, tools and stuff anew. I agree to Noel and find this pretty unfair, but who cares about fairness those days.

Kind regards, Michael

If I recall correctly, it wasn't too long ago that ORBX stated categorically that they would *not* be developing for X-Plane.  Not too long before that there was a statement that there would be 1 to 2 openLC releases per year.  There were also statements about 2 scenery regions being released per year.  According to past statements, by now most of the U.S. and Europe should have been covered with region scenery and the entire world should have been covered in openLC.  Hopefully openLC and region scenery won't be abandoned entirely in favor of the next new thing in scenery design.  Speaking of the next new thing in scenery design, TrueEarth is pretty nice, but it's simply not practical on a large scale.  It will be eventually, but not in the near future in my opinion.  It is niche scenery as far as I'm concerned.

If anyone remembers "Bird's Eye View" textures then maybe like me you're not really surprised.  ORBX is very big on marketing, part of which is making bold, exciting, and sometimes teasing statements in order to garner interest and get attention.  I get that you need to make sales and profit to be successful, but if you frequently change your plans that can leave customers with a lot of uncertainty, not to mention being a turn-off.

I no longer take ORBX's "roadmaps" seriously.

Dave

 

Edited April 26, 2019 by dave2013

[jcomm 5,890]

Hope not, 

unless ELITE builds a bridge into X-Plane too ... For the time being P3Dv4.5 makes all sense again to me, just as a Visuals Generator, for my ELITE v9 setup. 

Do I miss the variety and detail of even default airports / airfields in X-plane 11 - of course I do - but having P3D for visuals is way better than having to be restricted to Genview... even if I just own ORBX FTX Global and an Aerosoft airport....

Then, for those willing to play the Big Iron, there's still pretty much only P3D as a valuable choice, mostly due to PMDG and their excellent line of products, or, a bridge similar to that I use with ELITE between Aerowinx PSX and P3D, in that case also X-Plane, although not fully ported to version 11 yet...

But with the development of X-Plane growing, and becoming not only profitable but remarkably gorgeous like what I see in that Washington product and the UK series by ORBX, it's natural that developers attention starts finally shifting / widening towards X-Plane too, and let's not forget about Aerofly FS 2...

[pmb 5,137]

3 hours ago, dave2013 said:

I no longer take ORBX's "roadmaps" seriously.

I don't take any of the mid- to long-term predictions of JV seriously anymore. Add the former statement Prepar3d will be the long-term initial-release platform of all of their sceneries. Plus, I could add an extended list from the past, notably on the Global/Vector/OpenLC product range.

I understand any enterprise has do adapt to changing market needs. However, such bold statements being violated and revoked within a few months or even less is simply noncredible.

I say this despite I own nearly all of their products and enjoy them as they have a number of really gifted developers in the crew. 

Kind regards, Michael

[Christopher Low 5,335]

You do realise that the lead developer for the TrueEarth product range (Tony Wroblewski) is an XPlane man, and therefore presumably created the tools and libraries for that particular platform? That being the case, why would Xplane not be the lead platform for the TrueEarth series?