What's the future?

[OzWhitey 3,353]

9 hours ago, BostonJeremy77 said:

You know... Avsim has a reputation for sometimes being toxic. I see it now. There are a bunch of snobs sometimes that exhibit THIS kind of attitude. You don't want to participate? Move along. Some people (myself included) enjoy engaging in conversation. If this topic is of no interest, you don't have to post in it. It's simple. I enjoy talking about the sims and where each one is going and the pros and cons of each. I don't hold this silly belief that a sim must be MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE. I enjoy both. Why can't I engage in some fun conversation with others and not be subjected to snobby comments like this? It's nothing personal against you guys, but move the f... on if this kind of conversation doesn't stimulate you. We are all in this flight sim hobby together and there is a variety of topics to be discussed. 

The problem is that we have far too many conversations on the P3D forum about MSFS. And these conversations almost always contain a fair bit of negativity about P3D and its future, which is - in my opinion - both unhelpful and unfounded.

Basically, this is NOT the place to talk about MSFS. If people want to do that, take it to the MSFS forum. If the conversation is a general one about various sims, that also belongs somewhere else - perhaps Hangar Chat, or maybe we need a specific forum. X-plane org recognises this problem, and has a specific “other sims” forum where these kind of threads can be quarantined.

On a Prepar3d forum, I want to hear about Prepar3d. I don’t want yet another thread with people telling me that my favorite sim is doomed, that it is “only a matter of time” until MSFS triumphs etc ect

There’s a time and a place for everything, but it’s not surprising that Prepar3d users become weary of this particular style of thread.

[chapstick 2,757]

1 hour ago, OzWhitey said:

The problem is that we have far too many conversations on the P3D forum about MSFS. And these conversations almost always contain a fair bit of negativity about P3D and its future, which is - in my opinion - both unhelpful and unfounded.

Basically, this is NOT the place to talk about MSFS. If people want to do that, take it to the MSFS forum. If the conversation is a general one about various sims, that also belongs somewhere else - perhaps Hangar Chat, or maybe we need a specific forum. X-plane org recognises this problem, and has a specific “other sims” forum where these kind of threads can be quarantined.

On a Prepar3d forum, I want to hear about Prepar3d. I don’t want yet another thread with people telling me that my favorite sim is doomed, that it is “only a matter of time” until MSFS triumphs etc ect

There’s a time and a place for everything, but it’s not surprising that Prepar3d users become weary of this particular style of thread.

Can't you just put users on ignore who talk about MSFS? 

[simbol 5,773]

13 minutes ago, Chapstick said:

Can't you just put users on ignore who talk about MSFS? 

On that basis the entire P3D forum could go on MUTE? lol.. I think it is fair to ask the P3D forums should be to discuss P3D :)

[chapstick 2,757]

1 minute ago, simbol said:

On that basis the entire P3D forum could go on MUTE? lol.. I think it is fair to ask the P3D forums should be to discuss P3D 🙂

It's one thing for someone to create a thread saying, "This is why MSFS is better than P3D." It's another thing entirely to mention it in a thread about the future of P3D because this sim doesn't exist in a vacuum. Why do we need to pretend that MSFS hasn't influenced the market?

[simbol 5,773]

Just now, Chapstick said:

It's one thing for someone to create a thread saying, "This is why MSFS is better than P3D." It's another thing entirely to mention it in a thread about the future of P3D because this sim doesn't exist in a vacuum. Why do we need to pretend that MSFS hasn't influenced the market?

Some people feel OZWhitey..

S.

[OzWhitey 3,353]

Chapstick, I’ve never put anyone on ignore, anywhere, ever. Not going to start here. The issue is about what is healthy for the forum anyway, not my personal taste in conversation. I’ve taken part in plenty of MSFS-P3D threads myself, but if that’s what a large part of the community spends its time arguing back and forward about, that’s unhelpful. As mentioned, the x-plane forums get that you don’t want an enthusiast forum where circular conversations about how “other sim x is better” are a constant feature. 

Edited March 24, 2021 by OzWhitey

[kevinfirth 1,392]

Perhaps we could all just discipline ourselves to stick to any discussion of MSFS within this subforum in the context of the impact it has on P3D development and the market? Can't be too hard can it?

[d.tsakiris 417]

1 hour ago, Chapstick said:

Why do we need to pretend that MSFS hasn't influenced the market?

That's one thing (and it certainly has, nobody is denying that), but to say that it will end every other sim is something very different.

[BostonJeremy77 519]

3 hours ago, Chapstick said:

It's one thing for someone to create a thread saying, "This is why MSFS is better than P3D." It's another thing entirely to mention it in a thread about the future of P3D because this sim doesn't exist in a vacuum. Why do we need to pretend that MSFS hasn't influenced the market?

And I think that's precisely my point here. I didn't start this thread to talk about how great MSFS is. I like P3D as well! I'd like to see this platform develop TOO. But to disregard how MSFS is changing the global sim scene is to be short-sighted. 

 

2 hours ago, d.tsakiris said:

That's one thing (and it certainly has, nobody is denying that), but to say that it will end every other sim is something very different.

Well... Sure. But look at what's actually happening - development for P3D has slowed down CONSIDERABLY since the emergence of MSFS. Same for X-Plane. The difference is P3D's library of advanced aircraft is much greater than XP. PMDG has cut off its short-lived support for XP a WHILE ago. So, this isn't about how great MSFS is, it's the situation P3D users (myself included) find ourselves in DUE to MSFS. I love MSFS and I know it will do well, that's not the question. The question is "what is LM going to do to compete and keep the platform vibrant"? I think it has partially been answered here by a few saying LM isn't necessarily trying to compete due to its corporate/military clients, but there are 2 topics for consideration here:

1. P3D's user base is A LOT of home simmers too. Whether LM wants to deny that is a whole different subject, but the reality is, under the guise of "no entertainment use", LM word not allowed well knows it's just not the reality. 3rd party developers PRIMARILY develop for home simmers. I doubt the military and government users want to fly MilViz KingAir. I imagine they have their own custom add-ons developed for the platform none of which are ever discussed because no home simmers have any ACCESS to those add-ons. To claim otherwise is simply playing ostrich. 

2. There WILL come a point where MSFS will mature too. And the platform will become more "stable", whatever that means. And quality add-ons will come. AT SOME POINT, I imagine the government and military clients will want to know why home simmers have access to the environment that looks ultra-realistic and holds potential for holding much more visual acuity and potential for their simulation to be conducted in THAT environment as opposed to something that somewhat resembles Minecraft out of the box. And there is a possibility some of them may want a piece of THAT TOO. So the question is, what is LM going to do to retain that clientele? Because unless they are able to retain THEM AS WELL AS the current home simmers, the platform is DEAD. 

So, as you see, this is a discussion that is much more a question of possible strategies for LM to cope with the changing flight sim landscape as opposed to just "how great MSFS is". Granted, we are limited to speculation, but sometimes speculation about things you care about is... fun? 

As it stands right now, I see that both XP and P3D are in a predicament. I didn't post this thread in an XP Forum because I don't use it and I don't care THAT much. STILL, it's INTERESTING to me what Laminar Research's plans are and how both them and LM are going to respond to this. I DO use P3D, and I LIKE it. I just got done flying with it this morning (to my surprise, things ABOVE GROUND don't look that bad, actually, thanks to Orbx)... Seeing those f'n airports below though... it yanks you right out - when you see those rectangular green grass blocks that are jarringly stick out of the surrounding environments is NOT a good look. I came to P3D with 5.1, I believe I may actually have read it somewhere that it wasn't always like that? Things were a bit more... "blended" with the previous versions? If so, it's interesting that LM implemented that change. It doesn't look good. 

So yeah, I still maintain that it feels right to have this discussion in a P3D forum. Strictly MSFS users won't care about P3D. I am not one of them. 

[neilhewitt 493]

I've always thought that the simmer crowd was of huge value to LM as a giant beta test group (I know they have an actual beta test group that some people here are in, of course). We spot things that their big customers (who are generally n versions behind) can benefit from later. The commercial crowd is much more conservative than us. As an example, Mindstar's G1000 still isn't 64-bit because their commercial customers, who generate the majority of their revenue, are largely still on P3Dv3. Milviz is open that they do a lot of military contract work, and we get some of the trickle-down benefit from that, but equally if all their P3D hobbyist customers move away, they still have those military contracts to do on P3D. Many other developers are in the same situation. P3D will not die if we all abandon it. It will only die once LM can't make enough money from it, and given the average purchasing and replacement cycles in the commercial world I would suggest it's safe for 5-10 years, even if we all disappear tomorrow and there are no more feature upgrades. 

LM will not respond to the MSFS challenge in the kind of timescale that we would all be happy with, either. They will respond eventually, simply because the state of the art has been so far advanced. Was adding TrueSky an early response to the advanced weather depictions in MSFS? We don't know if it was on their roadmap originally. It probably was, though. One thing we do know for sure is that LM will not tell us in advance what they're going to do, so we won't know when 5.2 is coming out, or what's in it, until just before it does (or when Pete Dowson goes on holiday). It's always worked that way. So in terms of them telling us how they're going to respond to competition from MSFS, medium-to-long-term, I just don't think they will address that publicly at all. Not with us. 

P3D will always live and die for hobbyist simmers based on the add-on market. It is not intended to be a complete product straight out of the box. LM has been explicit about that, that they're building a platform for others to deliver on. By contrast, while MSFS is becoming a more extensible platform over time, it was begun with the stated ambition of simulating the whole world in VFR-level detail with nothing else required out of the box for a 1st-class experience. It's a completely different philosophy.

But if you look at the P3Dv5 feature set, it's clear that LM have added things that they know that we have wanted for a long time. Sloped runways - it's been a perennial complaint from the community, but I doubt too many commercial customers were complaining about it. Maybe they were. I think LM added it for us. Of course, it was done in a slightly ham-fisted way that requires lots of work from developers, at precisely the time they don't want to do that work, so like other features before (think: Speed Trees etc) it's getting no traction. That's what really bothers me. 

I don't think we can predict where LM is going. I think we can only say what we hope they will do, and keep feeding that back in the hopes that they pick up on it. For me, I'll be sticking with P3D until another platform offers me everything I've got now and more on top, to make it worth the pain and cost of switching. If that means I'm stuck with add-ons that never get updated and gradually become unusable, then so be it. Unless it gets to the point that I can't make my sim run at all, I can still indulge my hobby, while simultaneously getting annoyed with Orbx for never updating EGLC for v5.

 

[Lazer_cz 8]

32 minutes ago, neilhewitt said:

It's always worked that way. 

Enemy of many inovations. To me, clear argument and probably (and unfortunately) right in case of LM.

[GSalden 4,654]

Ten months ago Rob A posted this vid. This is how good P3Dv5 is : 

 

Edited March 24, 2021 by GSalden

[tamba765 54]

I have P3Dv4 right now. I'm not sure what my next sim is going to be, but since I can't find any of the latest hardware that I want, at retail prices, for the new computer that I plan to have built, It seems I'll have a long time to make up my mind. All see at NVIDIA is "Check Availability" and "Out of Stock" when I check availability.

[BostonJeremy77 519]

1 hour ago, GSalden said:

Ten months ago Rob A posted this vid. This is how good P3Dv5 is : 

 

That looks REALLY good... Wish he listed the add-ons he used there. 

 

I am still trying to figure out if investing into Orbx Regions is worth it if I have Base, Vector, and LC products. 

[Ian S 214]

On 3/24/2021 at 12:51 AM, Chock said:

Garlic Bread is the future. I thought everyone knew that. 🤣

Garlic.......and bread?????