Word of warning: Dont buy London landmarks (orbx)!

[Carts85 1,203]

3 minutes ago, 2reds2whites said:

But does it offer a mediocre improvement for £7? 

This is a flight simulator - in the act of flight at any reasonable altitude, how does it look? I don't have it so I can't answer the question. And it might look awful, but I suspect it'll look pretty good from a reasonable height, say 2000ft?

Let me put it another way, out of all the videos showcasing the sim. Out of all the trailers and the preview footage from the streamers how much of that footage is taken below 2000ft how many are wanting to fly under bridges, fly past sky scrapers etc. This sim has captured people’s imagination because of its detail. If we settle for, it looks alright over x y z ft for payware addons then we’re really left with just Asobo carrying this hobby on their back for the foreseeable.

[FishBowlMan 56]

1 minute ago, 2reds2whites said:

Yeah, that was an odd choice - no idea why they did that. 

Haste to rush the pack out for release day would be my first guess.

Not expecting someone would do a comparison from 10 feet away highlighting the lack of detail, and assuming they could "get away with it" would be my second.

[Carts85 1,203]

1 minute ago, cwburnett said:

I'm not making that assumption. It is just reality today. You can add POIs or not, totally up to you. Do you think I don't want higher res everything? Of course I do, but unless I'm mistaken, I have two choices today: default with 3 nice buildings and the rest of the city inaccurate, or 50 (estimate) accurately placed and sized buildings that don't look great up close. I chose to go with the second, but many may choose the first. I'm not trying to sell anyone anything, but I also think it is appropriate to present a fair and rational assessment if we're going to have a thread about a product.

I just can't understand the conspiracy theories and the desire to assume the worst in people...doesn't make sense...this is supposed to be fun...

I hope they update this product with higher resolution models, fix some of the weird mesh issues along the river and fix the night lighting. It was a miss to replace the default models that were of higher quality, obviously. They said they would be enhancing the product and they have a track record of doing that across their product line. In the meantime, I appreciate that they took the time to port their existing landmarks over to improve the overall look and feel of London and make it available to us for a low cost. I don't think we need to get our pitchforks out because they made a mistake...

Why all the hyperbole and hate this week?

You’ve listed a number of things that need to be fixed, that’s all ive done here. I’ve been a huge fan of Orbx for years this is not hate this pointing out a poor product that needs improving immediately in my eyes.

You might appreciate them taking the time to port over there assets but look there not doing it for the love of all us simmers, having a product on day one release with huge glaring issues was for one reason only £££.

[2reds2whites 827]

7 minutes ago, Carts85 said:

Let me put it another way, out of all the videos showcasing the sim. Out of all the trailers and the preview footage from the streamers how much of that footage is taken below 2000ft how many are wanting to fly under bridges, fly past sky scrapers etc. This sim has captured people’s imagination because of its detail. If we settle for, it looks alright over x y z ft for payware addons then we’re really left with just Asobo carrying this hobby on their back for the foreseeable.

I don't disagree that it would have been much better - but I think that this is being slightly over-egged.

It is £7 - probably the cheapest OrbX addon of all time? In fact how many flight simulator products ever have been £7 at time of release?

And the reality is that in flight it looks like this;

Which I think gives a very different impression.

Edit: Canary wharf at 03:00

City of London at 03:45

Shard at 04:55

St Paul's 05:45

Charing Cross, Millenium eye, Parliament at 06:50

Buckingham Palace at 07:30

And I've got to say.....for £7 it looks absolutely fine to me.

 

Edited August 19, 2020 by 2reds2whites

[Carts85 1,203]

Just now, 2reds2whites said:

I don't disagree that it would have been much better - but I think that this is being slightly over-egged.

It is £7 - probably the cheapest OrbX addon of all time? In fact how many flight simulator products ever have been £7 at time of release?

And the reality is that in flight it looks like this;

Which I think gives a very different impression.

You might think it’s fine because it’s cheap but that price point is calculated very carefully and believe me they will make a lot of money from a subpar product. Like I said I like Orbx products but when you have glaring issues like that night lighting for one your showing in that video they need to know... They’ve admitted it’s wrong and needs addressing so that’s enough for me, only reason am now banging on is because some people have defended it which I disagree.

[UAL4life 237]

Yeah I like what I saw in that video, I’ll buy it for 7$ no problem. 

[RamonB 449]

3 minutes ago, UAL4life said:

Yeah I like what I saw in that video, I’ll buy it for 7$ no problem. 

Don't have MSFS yet so I can't see the store, but from what I just read in their forums, You might have to wait for version 1.1.

Edited August 19, 2020 by RamonB

[Der Zeitgeist 1,575]

31 minutes ago, frankla said:

I agree, though the London City Airport in default has a dip (undulation) and in Orbx it does not. 

I guess it's pretty obvious they just plop their own versions into MSFS without checking if what's there in stock could possibly be superior.

There are a number of other reports of the OrbX airports "overwriting" night lighting for certain areas, leaving dark spots in the landscape, things like that.

Edited August 19, 2020 by Der Zeitgeist

[CaribbeanCLANK 134]

Now I do not have the sim. I played for several hours yesterday at a friend's house. We flew over default London and Orbx London and we did like what we saw with Orbx's product but that was from altidude. At a glance we did NOT notice the low res quality of Orbx's assets. Flying several hundred feet in the air we did not see these details or should I say "lack of details"....IGNORANCE IS BLISS!!!!! 🙄

Going on the reputation of Orbx from our library of FSX and P3D product, we didn't even think twice. Luckily, my friend only bought London and didn't purchase other products. I just shared this video with him. 

I would love to see what FlightBeam's KDEN has to offer compared to the handcrafted version in the sim. After watching this video, I am curious to see comparisons of other products. A bit disappointed in Orbx but hopefully they fix this. 

[d25bev 47]

38 minutes ago, 2reds2whites said:

I don't disagree that it would have been much better - but I think that this is being slightly over-egged.

It is £7 - probably the cheapest OrbX addon of all time? In fact how many flight simulator products ever have been £7 at time of release?

They've literally copied & pasted 20yr old models into a 2020 game minus a few newer buildings. Not only are the models incredibly low-res, many are incorrect heights & direction. The bridges aren't implemented well. The night lighting is poor, very different to the default & doesn't even turn on/off at the same time.

They've done barely any work yet are charging £7. Say 5000 people buy it (it'll almost certainly be more). That's £35,000 for barely any work & a pretty shabby product.

[lambourne 211]

I bought this today and was very disappointed because it was my first ever Orbx product and people speak highly of them. Looking at the bridges in particular, I thought they had ported in the default FSX London scenery objects.

From several thousand feet it looks ok but the beauty of MSFS is being able to fly at 200' and appreciate the fidelity. When ripoff merchants pull stunts like this it makes me wonder what else of theirs is going to be recycled existing products with no use of the new SDK features.

Commercially it's obvious what they did: struck a deal with MS not to let Asobo create too many London specific scenery objects so Orbx could fill that specially created niche, with a profit share on the sales. Default London has obvious gaps (St Paul's Cathedral for example) left for Orbx to fill. I'm angry that these people suckered me and many others in with this.

[flying_w 58]

The marketplace seems to have a review rating of up to 5 stars attatched to each product.  Where does one read the reviews, ala Amazon?

[GodAtum 69]

58 minutes ago, 2reds2whites said:

I don't disagree that it would have been much better - but I think that this is being slightly over-egged.

It is £7 - probably the cheapest OrbX addon of all time? In fact how many flight simulator products ever have been £7 at time of release?

And the reality is that in flight it looks like this;

Which I think gives a very different impression.

Edit: Canary wharf at 03:00

City of London at 03:45

Shard at 04:55

St Paul's 05:45

Charing Cross, Millenium eye, Parliament at 06:50

Buckingham Palace at 07:30

And I've got to say.....for £7 it looks absolutely fine to me.

 

 

he's incompetent in that video. buckingham Palace has the wrong fence. No 10 Downing Street.

[Jude Bradley 659]

Is that Dylan Moran? 

 

[SeanMo 140]

19 minutes ago, lambourne said:

Commercially it's obvious what they did: struck a deal with MS not to let Asobo create too many London specific scenery objects so Orbx could fill that specially created niche, with a profit share on the sales. Default London has obvious gaps (St Paul's Cathedral for example) left for Orbx to fill. I'm angry that these people suckered me and many others in with this.

That does not explain even slightly why Asobo took the time to make all the buildings (like the Houses of Parliament and the Tower Bridge) and then have Orbx replace those amazing Asobo works with awful low-res versions. Do NOT blame MS for this. They are a several hundred billion dollar company. They'd never do something like this over a pittance. Orbx and Orbx alone screwed up and now they have to fix all this - even if it simply means removing their inferior buildings to reveal the default imagery in the short term - or this is what a whole new community of simmers (like me) will think of their products. It's great being first to the market. But you better get it right. Having said all that, Orbx is clearly capable of greatness, and I fully expect them to provide a free update that gives us the rest of those London POI in Asobo quality.