X-Plane 11: Where Have I Been All Your Life?

[mickatmian 52]

17 minutes ago, mSparks said:

And if Microsoft were in charge of them, they would release the next Gran Turismo without accelerator pedals and GTA 6 without firearms - and you lot would still make excuses for them and tell us to give them our money

Now you are being ridiculous. Who are you lot? certainly not me! and the money involved if I remember correctly was £1.

Quote from my post

7 hours ago, mickatmian said:

Having said that I have tried it (at a cost of £110) and although it has a lot of good points, I still prefer X-plane.

And for me that's it.

Mick 

[mSparks 2,090]

3 hours ago, mickatmian said:

Who are you lot? certainly not me! and the money involved if I remember correctly was £1.

So bad they cant even give it away (see also win 10)

Everyone making excuses for them, pretending its not broken, encouraging Gamepass subscriptions (just NO, subscriptions have always been a scam even before the AOL days), anyone in any way condoning this pile of [bleep]

put on the Microsoft channel the month after they released.

If flight sim was healthcare "that lot" would be getting serious jail time. They actually make Valeant/Bausch Health seem reputable and honest.

Edited October 15, 2020 by mSparks

[GoranM 3,772]

Let them have their fun.  If anything, this new version of MSFS has brought in a ton of new flight simmers, some of which heard about X-Plane through the flight sim community, and have delved into that world.  

[Greazer 1,336]

If X Plane developers produced similar to MSFS devs (4 big patches and a sim update in under 2 months) and fixed all the annoying and known issues and defects it would be a pretty decent sim by now, but sadly they do not and the fixes do not come, and so while MSFS does have some teething issues, it is very clear by now, that in time when it solidifies and the addons come, MSFS will clearly be the sim of the future, and therefore it would be foolish to think anything otherwise and invest money into any XP addons from now on.

[mSparks 2,090]

5 hours ago, GoranM said:

 If anything, this new version of MSFS has brought in a ton of new flight simmers

Subsequently ruining the reputation of flightsim for a generation.

Very very few seem to be sticking around long enough to see there are better alternatives - after all, they were told there isnt....

2 hours ago, Greazer said:

but sadly they do not and the fixes do not come

It seems your issues are of the PICNIC category. Nothing anyone - even Laminar with their l337 telepathic skilz can do to resolve them Im afraid, we all just have to live with them.

Edited October 16, 2020 by mSparks

[iowahawkeyedave 19]

6 hours ago, GoranM said:

Let them have their fun.  If anything, this new version of MSFS has brought in a ton of new flight simmers, some of which heard about X-Plane through the flight sim community, and have delved into that world.  

I'd be one of those flight simmers.  I had a very old copy of X-Plane which I never used because I had low frame rates, jumped on the MSFS bandwagon got sucked in for 400 hours and realized that I wanted to learn more about how planes really work and the planes were just broken, and each patch made my experience worse.

Jumped over to X-Plane with Vulcan, and have been a happy camper with the higher frame rates, and better planes.  The scenery might not be quite as good but it's still good to me.  With how many bugs there have been with MSFS, MSFS has been a great sales pitch for X-Plane.

Edited October 16, 2020 by iowahawkeyedave

[jcomm 5,958]

My experience so far has made me realise I should probably see X-Plane as a niche market simulation platform, and MFS a mass / generalist flight simulator.

Users interested in simulating specificities in their models, such that they can be brought as close as possible to their RW counterparts will choose X-Plane because so far Plane-Maker and Airfoil Maker are tools not at all available in MFS.

Also, building external code to fine tune what can't be directly modelled within the simulation platform appears to be a lot easier / programmer friendly in X-Plane.

If you're looking for helicopter simulation then, apart from AEFS, or DCS, and some niche sims available from Steam, X-Plane is your only option so far, and in that particular area it looks like X-Plane really shines, even with it's limitations.

My only "problem" has always been the fact that, for the area that interests me the most - flight dynamics - there's only oe guy in LR behind the keyboard doing the job ... Systems I believe are being dealt with by other members of LR ( ? ).

Then there's weather, where although some features have been made a lot more plausible than on previous versions, a lot more can / should still be done, but X-Plane already offers it's users a basic / comprehensive set of weather modelling features that allows to properly simulate VFR and / IFR-IMC flight situations for training.

So, while I do enjoy the looks of MFS, I sometimes dream about some really annoying "features" of X-Plane, like the still broken ground physics ( under x-winds for instance, even tamed by the wind gradient "trick"... ), whatever makes stuff feel strange with ground effects since a few updates ago and the introduction of the Experimental flight model, limitations still present in Plane-Maker that restrict some important details modelling like the aerodynamics of stability augmentation systems ( flaps for a start ... ), etc...., being fixed asap, and making X-Plane even more enjoyable.

I usually take a glider for testing the plausibility of a flightsim, whenever one is available. That's because gliders are the only aircraft I fly IRL, and I can easily search for the details that would otherwise escape from me. So far X-Plane hasn't brilliantly passed the test, and even the best models I was able to test, designed with the details allowed by editing their airfoils using Airfoil Maker and other reference tools, leave a lot to be desired, and I feel sad and disappointed, because the engines in that case, and all of their fancy effects, do not make stuff so complex like with other aircraft types. That's usually when, after an X-Plane reinstall, I uninstall it again 🙂 - well, but that's probably my nature 🙂

Operating-system wise, X-Plane can well be also ahead of MFS too 🙂

https://www.zdnet.com/article/open-sources-eric-raymond-windows-10-will-soon-be-just-an-emulation-layer-on-linux-kernel
https://www.techrepublic.com/article/could-microsoft-be-en-route-to-dumping-windows-in-favor-of-linux

Edited October 16, 2020 by jcomm

[tonywob 4,770]

On 10/14/2020 at 1:25 PM, BigDee said:

I haven`t tried FS2020 and I will never do it. It`s a real bad product. Full of mistakes but the worst thing is that it just feels like an Arcade game. Like Ridge Racer or GTA V. It`s a shame. Microsoft should have never ever contracted Asobo. 

If you've never tried it or intend to try it, then how do you know how this simulator/game even feels? Videos are useful but don't tell you the whole story. You can make an amazing video on MFS just as you can with X-Plane, and you can also do the reverse.  Asobo are doing exactly what MS want them to do, and that's to create an accessible simulator and game, and one that will eventually run on an xbox and be usable with just a controller for those who wish to do so.  A simulator easy enough to use that anyone can just pick up a controller and fly over their house and be entertained and wowed. The vast majority of issues being reported in the sim are things that the general gaming users won't care or even know about until someone decides to make a big issue of it.

Clearly X-Plane Desktop and MFS have different goals and target markets. As Austin said, it's an engineering tool and less geared towards gamers, whilst MFS has much more mass appeal for the general population. 3rd parties are and will go where the users are, and who could blame them for that? The challenge for Microsoft will be to keep those gamers on their platform in the long-term and spending money in the store, which is probably far easier said than done, especially for xbox users. X-Plane has longevity and will carry on regardless, it survived FSX, P3D, Flight etc, and will probably outlive MFS as well.

[Janov 2,383]

2 hours ago, iowahawkeyedave said:

I'd be one of those flight simmers.

And I believe there may be more in the  future - even if someone doesn´t leave MSFS, it may be enough to spur his interest in XP12 when it comes out with a glossy marketing video and all it takes is that guy to buy it for LR to fund further development.

If you look at Steam users over the last year you can see some interesting things:

X-Plane usage over the last year went from 1221 average players in September 2019 to 1743 players in August 2020 (I am leaving out the usage peak during Covid lockdown) and is now back at 1285 for September 2020. That is a 5% player GAIN over last year. https://steamcharts.com/app/269950

However one can say that it lost about 500 players, probably to MSFS, that is roughly one third... actually less than I expected.

MSFS had 8360 average players in September 2020... so if 500 of those are from X-Plane, that is still 7860 new players in the flightsimulation genre!

Again, I would be very surprised if not at least some of them would ALSO get XP12 when it comes out.

I still expect more people to leave X-Plane for MSFS when (and if) that program further matures, at the same time more MSFS users may develop interest to also check out X-Plane - not sure what the net balance will be.

Looking at claims that MSFS will be the death of X-Plane...well, if it survived with the user base it had a year ago, it will most likely survive with having MORE users now 😉

Cheers, Jan

 

 

[mSparks 2,090]

1 hour ago, tonywob said:

simulator/game even feels?

I think /interpeted "feels" in the sense of "feels like what ms were really aiming for"

that feeling that comes from them apparently prioritising everything "but" the simulation side of a flight simulator.

Tubes with no autopilot

Hurricanes you can peacefully glide through

cockpits with hardly any working buttons

turboprops with no engines

airports buried in the center of the earth

doors with no door handles

rough landings with no replay

a flight model that stops at barely simulating two conventional wings and a tailfin

But the drone camera is good and you can amaze your friends by flying the a320 upside down in multiplayer over their house.

feels like an arcade game, looks like an arcade game, made by people who specialise in making arcade games for kids aged 5 to 10...

Might just be an arcade game. Marketed as a flight simulator.

(presumably because they didnt get a budget for a storyline)

Xplane isnt that.

1 hour ago, jcomm said:

niche market simulation platform

xp11 was their first stab at something less niche, despite doing a great job it still requires far to much effort on the users part to setup properly, and finding good content is a nightmare. 

[thepitts 32]

As a previous posters  put it.

MFSF--- the girl / boy with the looks      X-plane---the girl / boy with the brains

or my version

MFSF---Hollywood Blockbuster Film      X-Plane---- Indie Cult Movie

I have both . MFSF is in a holding pattern for me until it matures. X-plane is a blast period.

BUT even as a fan I think constructive criticism is till valid and appropriate.

For me that means my kind of flight sim needs to pass the  "JCOMM  TEST".

That is it should be able to believably simulate gliding flight. The purest aerodynamic test there is. The better the flight sim the more involving / subtle / nuanced the model. The fact a current glider pilot feels that good though x-plane is it falls short on that basic test is a problem. Especially one which claims to accurately model flight. What I am confident about is that the small tight knit group of developers at X-plane have the skill and core enthusiasm to make it ever closer to perfection. So I will continue to enjoy X-plane for pleasure and currency training but keep in mind like most else it isn't perfect.

TIM

[tonywob 4,770]

24 minutes ago, thepitts said:

For me that means my kind of flight sim needs to pass the  "JCOMM  TEST".

Ha ha, anything that can last more than 1 week on his machine should be awarded with the Uninstaller Trophy. High honour indeed 🙂

[tonywob 4,770]

1 hour ago, mSparks said:

xp11 was their first stab at something less niche, despite doing a great job it still requires far to much effort on the users part to setup properly, and finding good content is a nightmare. 

XP11 out of the box worked fine, it detected my yoke and pedals and assigned sensible defaults. What is complicated in my opinion is the mess of libraries needed just to install a single freeware addon. It's not uncommon to see airport addons needing 8 or more libraries just to work, often leaving the user to hunt down those libraries and finding either broken links or the wrong version. I appreciate that libraries exist and help users put out airports faster, but the entire process is such a mess at the moment.

[Murmur 3,944]

3 hours ago, jcomm said:

I usually take a glider for testing the plausibility of a flightsim, whenever one is available. That's because gliders are the only aircraft I fly IRL, and I can easily search for the details that would otherwise escape from me. So far X-Plane hasn't brilliantly passed the test, and even the best models I was able to test, designed with the details allowed by editing their airfoils using Airfoil Maker and other reference tools, leave a lot to be desired

What flaws do you find? I mean in the flight model, not the weather/thermals/etc.

[Murmur 3,944]

2 hours ago, Janov said:

Looking at claims that MSFS will be the death of X-Plane...well, if it survived with the user base it had a year ago, it will most likely survive with having MORE users now

Yeah those claims do not make sense... After the initial post-August-18th loss, the userbase is basically stable (<3% loss in the last 30 days). And as you said, it is higher than it had been until one year ago.

Considering the announced planned features (that we can unofficially assume for XP12), I am quite optimistic.

And about those claiming that "XP is dead", the ironic thing indeed is that maybe XP is the only general-purpose PC flight sim which is making a profit, at the moment.