s.

1 hour ago, Farlis said:

Way to write a misleading headline. Do you happen to work for a newspaper?

 

John Venema said that the project is not yet greenlit. Not that it has been axed. That is only your conjecture.

Seems a fair point. Except  : 

- that, as many of us, I've been following this project for years. John Venema has said long ago his lack of appetite  to do it because he thinks that there is no users base for flight simulation  in Asia and piracy is prevalent. I won't comment that because it will lead us too far off. But I certainly do not share his views.

- that he made the OLC Asia announcement in July about ten days after I initiated a  thread (June 29th) on the topic where many people wrote they were really looking forward to it.  A coincidence. He said that work would start "in earnest" the week after and he says now there was no greenlight ?  Smarter people than me can understand the contradiction. I don't.  

- that he said today  :  In the software and games business, projects get cancelled all the time,/.../  We have not signed a contract with our customers for finishing openLC globally so whilst it may be disappointing for many of your that openLC Asia may never see the light of day, and openLC Africa is at risk, it is what it is. 

Misleading my topic title ? You kiddin' ?  I wish it was. I would the first in line to buy if I was wrong. If FS20 is not released before of course. 

Bottom line ? He is the boss, he does what he thinks fit for his company. On my side, the consumer side, I feel he let me down. I will survive though  !

Edited November 20, 20196 yr by domkle

1 hour ago, fta2017 said:

Probably because they don't think a lot of people will stick with P3D, maybe?

I think there are multiple reasons.

- JV has said in the past his reluctance to do the product as mentionned in another post by me.  

-  Orbx wanted to bite more they can chew, it is one thing to do the US or Europe, another thing to make Asia. I would surmise  that some lack of data or  lack of affordable data made the product non profitable.

- At last, such a project needs many months to be completed and guess what would have been the main competitor in the second half of 2020 ?

 

 

 

 

 

Edited November 20, 20196 yr by domkle

Michael and Daedalus have it summed up better than I ever could. And I fully agree with them. The whole saga with the OLC series started well before the new Microsoft sim was announced. Big promises were made about the whole globe being covered with OLC in the coming years. But it soon lost its drive after North America was released and South America already took some doing. Moreover, the big promises for FTX Vector also ended in smoke. 

The main reason behind this was in my opinion the sudden love for X-Plane, which saw Eugene's (the developer behing FTX Global and OLC) development efforts being allocated to X-Plane. It is understandable that ORBX as a company always tries to develop new markets. But at least they should have finished products that were announced to their customers before moving full steam ahead in a different avenue. 

The big question now is the future viability of their X-Plane adventure. XPL is a powerful sim with its own merits but I can imagine with the new sim on the horizon that many of the recent XPL switchers will come back to the ESP/Microsoft world. It just seems that ORBX have put to much effort in a sudden infatuation of their CEO, while making their long-term patrons feeling misled with the OLC products.

It's really a shame. Like some others here, I was looking forward to having a complete openLC sim world one day. I never understood the sequence of the releases, but maybe there were technical reasons. I just hope another firm will jump into this void.

5 hours ago, fakeflyer737 said:

He's right.  When 2020 comes out tye days of Vector data, open landclass based scenery are done. Theyre going to have to focus on airports and airplanes I would imagine. 

When FS2020 comes out we will most likely have to pay a monthly subscription in order to experience all those streamed beautiful vistas on their pre-release videos, no sub we'll probably get degraded scenery. P3Dv5 will be with us soon and may well bring some surprises.

10 minutes ago, d.tsakiris said:

It's really a shame. Like some others here, I was looking forward to having a complete openLC sim world one day. I never understood the sequence of the releases, but maybe there were technical reasons.

Probably due to the sheer size of Asia, and lack of good data sources, which might mean it would require a lot of manual labor to insert the proper LC for individual tiles...it's a lot of work.

I see it as a natural progression...first we had synthetic scenery tiles (any of you remember those?) in FS5, then it eventually went over to landclass and cvx.   There's no guarantee that MSFS won't use some sort of LC or vector data also, as the fallback texturing where the user is offline and has not downloaded a certain area.

I can understand why people are disappointed. I am looking forward to the release of TrueEarth GB Central and GB North for P3Dv4......but I was also looking forward to TrueEarth Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland at some point. Sadly, I get the feeling that the spectre of the new Microsoft Flight Simulator next year may well put that dream to rest

4 hours ago, fta2017 said:

What a nonsense!

Orbx is perhaps the most prolific publisher of addons in the FS industry with what, 300 products on their store? Show me a full list of projects they have announced then not delivered and you will have more credibility to your claim.

Well, see other's opinions in this same thread.

To start showing you that full list, ask Aerofly FS 2 users, that were waiting for an initial announcement of dozens of new airports for that sim during 2018, and at the end only got 4 or 5 (?), then in 2019 ORBX mentioned in a vague language they were quitting support for Aerofly for not being profitable enough. To me, they take announcements in a very light way.

Cheers, Ed

Meh, bring on MSFS2020! 

So we get CityScene Charleston for FSX and P3D instead.

Where are Sydney, Adelaide, Brisbane, Darwin and Perth CityScenes to go with Australia v2? Update to Brisbane airport? Perth airport? 

Where's are European and South American cities? 

Where's the stuff to be able to cross-sell products?
 

Edited November 20, 20196 yr by F737NG

28 minutes ago, F737NG said:

So we get CityScene Charleston for FSX and P3D instead.

Where are Sydney, Adelaide, Brisbane, Darwin and Perth CityScenes to go with Australia v2? Update to Brisbane airport? Perth airport? 

Where's are European and South American cities? 

Where's the stuff to be able to cross-sell products?
 

I feel you a little tense, my friend. Do you want a little laugh ? A quizz maybe ? Who said at the end of August : « New England Maritimes for FSX/P3D is next after Team Holger finishes openLC Asia. »

54 minutes ago, F737NG said:

So we get CityScene Charleston for FSX and P3D instead.
 

That one came out of left field.

The fact is that ORBX decided to go in a different direction a long time ago. They chose to create XPlane 11 sceneries and milk a new audience.

The MS2020 announcement was the nail in the coffin.

5 hours ago, fta2017 said:

You know this how? And where is the proof of this 'new data' in their promo videos? AFAIK there source is Bing only and believe me, there are parts of the world where Bing ortho looks much worse than landclass scenery.

Too much word not allowed stuff about MSFS here, let's wait until they run out of pretty photogrammetry cities to show us. What then?

There is far more than photogrammetry going on . Listen carefully to what the devs are saying in their interviews. They are privvy to a vast amount of data as well as access to Azure and are developing (have developed) other propietary ways of generating scenery even when the available Bing images do not suffice.

I am not saying that what will be in the box will be equal to what we are seeing in the promo vids (that probably depends on what kind of internet access we have) but I'm fairly certain it will not be far off either. Remember that these guys are developing an entire world, weather and atmosphere included.

Wait and see would be the sagest advice, I guess.

2 hours ago, ideoplastic said:

When FS2020 comes out we will most likely have to pay a monthly subscription in order to experience all those streamed beautiful vistas on their pre-release videos, no sub we'll probably get degraded scenery. P3Dv5 will be with us soon and may well bring some surprises.

Again with this subscription nonsense... 🙄

Orbx will be  going bankrupt!!!!!!