Quote

.. but I bet the rest of his staff are

Nope.

Edited June 23, 20205 yr by JGregory

4 hours ago, Murmur said:

Meaning work on the new weather is already finished? Because if that means instead that their future effort is on multiplayer and not on improving current weather, I think that would be a very bad choice...

No idea, but the multiplayer is already working in the mobile version, so I guess that would make sense to get that ported across next since Austin said it shares a lot of the same code.

1 hour ago, JGregory said:

Nope.

This bothers me, as I personally would be concerned/worried. As a third-party developer on X-Plane for a number of years now, it would be good to know if LR have a plan to keep the sim competitive and attractive moving forward, otherwise not only will many users jump ship, but 3rd parties will also leave to where those users are and where there is money to be made. Since you're confident the rest of your team aren't worried, it would be good to get some news/previews out of LR that actually shows progress is being made to not only appease your fanbase, but also 3rd party developers.

48 minutes ago, tonywob said:

This bothers me, as I personally would be concerned/worried. As a third-party developer on X-Plane for a number of years now, it would be good to know if LR have a plan to keep the sim competitive and attractive moving forward, otherwise not only will many users jump ship, but 3rd parties will also leave to where those users are and where there is money to be made. Since you're confident the rest of your team aren't worried, it would be good to get some news/previews out of LR that actually shows progress is being made to not only appease your fanbase, but also 3rd party developers.

If Austin's interview, which this thread is related to, did not tell you a LOT about the future, I don't know what would.  Specific details of upcoming features are never discussed in advance.

2 hours ago, JGregory said:

If Austin's interview, which this thread is related to, did not tell you a LOT about the future, I don't know what would.  Specific details of upcoming features are never discussed in advance.

Development roadmap with rough schedules would do just fine, thanks. It would be nicer to follow than trying to work out their plans amongst multitude of random comments Laminar staff posts in their blog comments section, the org forum and pod casts.

2 hours ago, JGregory said:

If Austin's interview, which this thread is related to, did not tell you a LOT about the future, I don't know what would

It did tell me a LOT about the future, it told me that LR aren't concerned about MFS and don't see it as competition. I'd say that view is, to be polite, pretty arrogant and short-sighted. Either LR really do have some amazing tricks/features waiting to be revealed, or they really just don't care. I can only hope it's the latter (Maybe even just a roadmap to bring back some confidence?)

Vague sentences such as "Yep, we'll look at weather" or "I'd like to do shader based seasons" don't mean much anymore when users and developers have been requesting fixes and features for years. I've still been waiting since X-Plane 11 Beta 1 for the self-shadowing/glowing trees to be fixed, and improved water. 

All i care for is weather and lighting. Those two components have a bigger impact on the overall visual quality than other ground modifications, imho.

 

15 hours ago, tonywob said:

With everything these days going subscription, I'd prefer to avoid this and pay for updates as and when they release them. I'd have happily paid for the Vulkan update as an example, but I'll pass with the multiplayer mobile stuff. 

After the recent Easyjet announcement of leaked CC details, I blocked my credit card and I was amazed to see just how many things are taking money each month from me (Netflix, Amazon, Spotify, Photoshop, etc....).  including things I somehow managed to subscribe to from Apple without realising. It was ideal because it gave me a good opportunity to clean-out sneaky subscriptions for things that simply aren't value for money, like a password manager charging me 3.49 a month, and TomTom mapping when I have google maps for free.

I'm not saying that there shouldn't be a normal retail purchase model anymore.

And I don't, and never have, owned a credit card myself (as it's not needed in Europe and superseded by other, more modern, payment methods anyway). If a subscription requires a credit card, I obviously won't get one.

 

1 hour ago, tonywob said:

It did tell me a LOT about the future, it told me that LR aren't concerned about MFS and don't see it as competition. I'd say that view is, to be polite, pretty arrogant and short-sighted. Either LR really do have some amazing tricks/features waiting to be revealed, or they really just don't care. I can only hope it's the latter (Maybe even just a roadmap to bring back some confidence?)

Vague sentences such as "Yep, we'll look at weather" or "I'd like to do shader based seasons" don't mean much anymore when users and developers have been requesting fixes and features for years. I've still been waiting since X-Plane 11 Beta 1 for the self-shadowing/glowing trees to be fixed, and improved water. 

I still don't get this attitude. Are lives at stake because a software developer doesn't disclose their roadmap? No. Does the world revolve around X-Plane's future? No.
If you are annoyed by Laminar's secrecy just get that other simulator and check back for X-Plane 12 or 13 to see what has become of it.
Premature announcements or promises just generate unnecessary excitement and sublime pressure from the outside.

36 minutes ago, Bjoern said:

And I don't, and never have, owned a credit card myself (as it's not needed in Europe and superseded by other, more modern, payment methods anyway). If a subscription requires a credit card, I obviously won't get one.

 

Not needed in Europe? I travel Europe extensively, and always pay with credit card. The only country I’ve ever had difficulty in is Germany. Everyone else uses them. Especially here in the U.K, they’re a big thing. And we’re in Europe. 
 

It seems to me like X-Plane will continue on doing what it does. And everyone who jumped over from FSX or P3D the last few years or the last decade will simply just jump back and switch to MSFS. *Most* Simmers Here want the eye candy. A large majority couldn’t care less about the exact flight model, like the big commercial users do. It’s just a hobby to most here. And the prettier it looks, the better 🙂 that’s evidenced if you look through the forums, and the type of addons for sale.  And I believe, this is where X-Plane will let these people down. And where MSFS will pick up the baton. 

On 6/22/2020 at 8:05 AM, peroni said:

Austin not keen on aerial imagery due to being static. Cars, planes, shadows, etc burned into the pics with no easy way to remove them. This gives a feeling of a static world while he is looking for a dynamic experience

I hate the way burned or squashed artifacts break immersion in ortho-based scenery. In both Orbx TE Washington and the new MSFS (I'm in the Alpha/Beta program), my small town looks great in orthos until I see a grid of fuzzy brown artifacts at the shoreline that I know is the local marina, and I'm not seeing boats. Just these weird artifacts. 

The other problem with orthos is seasonal color variation -- not just snow but the color change we get up here in the Pacific Northwest during the 2 months of dry season when open ground dries out and turns brown. That's when the satellite photos are taken because it's minimal cloud cover, but the ground cover is green for the other 10 months of the year! It doesn't look right in either Orbx TE WA or MSFS, although MSFS does a slightly better job with the coloring. If Austin sticks to procedural scenery this could look more realistic.

On the other hand, I have to say I'm entranced by what the new MSFS does by having a real seasonal ephemeris for the sun. Having the sun angle and lighting effects change at different times of year makes a huge difference in immersion if you pay attention to that sort of thing. At least at these northern latitudes where I live. 

And then weather... I'm still not convinced Austin is taking this seriously enough. It's maddening, because he's a private pilot and he knows how important weather is. If I ever move completely over to the new MSFS it will be because Austin is too busy working on aerodynamics to pay proper attention to the actual environment we fly those models in.

Procedural scenery is great, but X-Plane seems to be somewhat stuck. Autogen is taking ages to improve, roads are full of visual bugs, textures are plain bad. Personally I don't mind seasons much, but for how many years will Austin keep telling us that he'd like to do them procedural. Just do it Austin.

What upsets me most is the multiplayer announcement. Virtually nobody asked for it, it doesn't even make sense in a flight sim (shared cockpit would) and yet here they are spending money and time on it.

I am sure Ben has something cooking for weather and lighting, but by the time it comes out, it better be top notch. Austin obviously lost touch with the userbase here.

 

May be crazy but I've got a hunch Austin knows pretty much how this MS2020 is going to go and he's not concerned  I was a short term Alpha tester and my money's on Austin.

Austin is a bit delusional or in denial. The first year of FS2020 might not erode the market but once the 3rd party dev start delivering the goods, x plane will be a sloppy second unless they cone up with an amazing tech.  I am in the alpha as well. There is such an enormous gap in visual fidelity that I don’t see how can x plane even compete. 

7 hours ago, Colonel X said:

Autogen is taking ages to improve, roads are full of visual bugs, textures are plain bad.

#1 reason I reckon Austin is a little arrogant about peoples expectations for any other sim to do any better.

Autogen is hard

Photogrammetry is even harder

Kids cartoon graphics overlaid on glitched photogrammetry is not an improvement to the flight sim genre, it just makes for pretty screenshots and lots of excited kids wanting to spend their parents money (we've all been one of those I'm sure).

EDIT: Also re textures - no - textures are mostly fine, some work maybe - the lighting is rough compared to current gen, a single colour 2 pixel by 2 pixel texture looks photorealistic with proper lighting.

14 hours ago, tonywob said:

therwise not only will many users jump ship, but 3rd parties will also leave to where those users are and where there is money to be made

On the one hand, I completely agree.

On the other hand, I've not seen the slightest hint that flight 2.0.2.0 is attracting cash rich users desperate to part with their hard earned money on upgrades - in fact its mostly been the exact opposite - "yey cheap and no need to buy addons".

That isn't to say that X-Plane in its current state is any better. I'm about halfway through the interview - main take away so far is the stutter-commercial use link he made (lots of other interesting stuff, but not new to me), which I suspected but is great to have confirmed. Commercial use is where the real money is for 3rd parties, and right now I'd say there is exactly 0% chance of Microsoft taking over that market, not least because they have said they have no interest in it.

We'll see I guess.

 

 

Edited June 24, 20205 yr by mSparks

8 hours ago, Bjoern said:

I still don't get this attitude. Are lives at stake because a software developer doesn't disclose their roadmap? No. Does the world revolve around X-Plane's future? No.

Of course, and if I was just a user, I'd not care and move on.... but I make a living from making addons for X-Plane so of course I'm concerned about their lack of concern and stubbornness to listen to their users. 

14 minutes ago, mSparks said:

On the other hand, I've not seen the slightest hint that flight 2.0.2.0 is attracting cash rich users desperate to part with their hard earned money on upgrades - in fact its mostly been the exact opposite - "yey cheap and no need to buy addons".

Yep, you only have to read the comments under news sites about products or other simulator news to see this. I recall you had a catchy word to describe groups of people who go out of their way to put down any news article about other sims, but that's a discussion for another day. Of course I think the sim will need addons, they'll just be of a different standard/type.

20 minutes ago, mSparks said:

Commercial use is where the real money is for 3rd parties, and right now I'd say there is exactly 0% chance of Microsoft taking over that market, not least because they have said they have no interest in it.

I think they'll make far more money going for the gaming, casual simmer crowd. Think of the reach the xbox gaming store has and their current customer base. However, I wouldn't rule it out in the future, unless they have some sort of agreement with Lockheed Martin to not step on toes.

I am a part-time contracted dev for Laminar (Scenery) and also a dev for a third-party aircraft for X-Plane.

I would say worried is the wrong adjective to describe my atttitude towards FS2020. It was the initial reaction, some folks (mSparks, cough cough 😉) are still in the denial phase, but most of us are in the final stage - acceptance.

What will happen? A large chunk of the userbase is going to get FS2020. That is not going to hurt Laminar right away, because everybody paid for XP11 already.

When X-Plane 12 comes out, there will be three types of flightsimmers:

1.) Will stick with FS2020 as their only sim, its all they ever wanted. 2.) Will get XP12 out of curiosity 3.) Are die-hard X-Planers and only got FS202 (if even) out of curiousity

I don´t know the distribution and can only guess it, but I think that the sales from 2 and 3 are enough to sustain Laminar into the future.

What are Laminar´s choices to actively compete with the obvious visual superiority of FS2020?

1.) Hire 200 devs and buy data comparable to Bing 2.) Stay the course and do what they did the last 20 years 3.) Give up and close shop

I think 1 is ruled out for financial reasons, 3 is the final consequence if FS2020 drains too much, but won´t be taken voluntarily. Leaves option 2.

I know many of you will say "oh, but how about they get their heads out of the sand and finally fix (insert the usual feature request here)?". They can´t right away. With the increased complexitiy of X-Plane every major feature takes years to implement - look at Vulkan - and getting weather, ATC or seasons right is going to be just as long. A lot of X-Plane´s inner working was never made to accept changing textures or a dynamic atmosphere. Implementing these things require a rewrite of huge areas of code with unforeseen consequences all through the code. Add brown leaves in the fall and the exhaust gas temperature of PT6 engines goes negative...I exaggerate, but it is almost like that.

Asobo has the benefit of hindsight, a clear vision of the final product and no legacy code (aircraft, scenery, plugins) to support. They code focused on the final product. If Laminar had 200 people, a few years and no legacy stuff to worry about - I am confident that they could beat FS2020 in evey category 🙂.

But this is not a fair fight. It´s the might of Microsofts financial and data potential brought to bear! You expect LR to stand up to that? Take them head-on? "Oh, we can make prettier clouds, you just wait!" Not going to be that way. Its asymetrical warfare and with that you have to exploit your strenghts and your adversaries weaknesses (there are bound to be some, even though it doesn´t look like it now).

Cheers, Jan

 

Edited June 24, 20205 yr by Janov