Why ORBX not porting over their P3D airports over to MSFS?

[Manny 1,293]

Yes, they started with a few good ones including their best one LOWI (Innsbruck) and I am happy about that and few minor ones.

What about Airports like KBVS Skagit? KJAC Jackson hole? KPSP Palm Springs? NSTU Pago Pago? to name a few.

I would think, they would throw these out one by one real quick. Hmmmm...

[PWJT8D 446]

They're rolling in the dough with the new airports they don't want to give in to the upgrade discounts just yet haha. 

But yeah I feel ya, a ton of my ORBX favorites are still stuck over in P3D.

[sd_flyer 6,042]

Why not to ask this question on ORBX forum? I mean we can only guess here!

[illidanx 11]

I think they cant simply "port" it because the p3d airport lacks certain advanced rendering techniques found in MSFS so a straight port would not look that great by MSFS' standard. For each airport, they have to spend significant time so they have to be selective.

[pmb 5,137]

I would like to see several of their oldies and goldies in MSFS as well, but:

They always said such decisions are essentially made by the coders of the respective airports. It these are not inclined to port over their creations - either because they just don't like MSFS or they don't think the upgrades will bring enough income or they don't want to or are not able to learn the new SDK or went out of working for ORBX - they just are not done. You will notice a lot of their recently released airports are either by new single programmers or by their new UK-based coding center.

5 hours ago, sd_flyer said:

Why not to ask this question on ORBX forum? I mean we can only guess here!

That would have been appropriate some time ago, but the ORBX forum - deliberately - has been transformed into a pure announcement and support forum during the last years, which was even confirmed by the main supporter. Questions like this are not so much well-received anymore, if not closed early on with a short note, and as a result you will find a number of former regulars discussing the ORBX strategy in general left already.

Kind regards, Michael

Edited April 5, 2021 by pmb

[Christopher Low 5,353]

We were informed that a number of updates for the ORBx UK airfields in P3D would (hopefully) start to be rolled out towards the end of November last year, but nothing has been mentioned since. I have tried several times to get a further response regarding this, but nobody ever bothers to answer. I mentioned the misalignment of the runway centreline markings at Dundee airport a year ago (and this was acknowledged by a member of the ORBx team), but I have little optimism that this will ever be addressed now.

As Michael has indicated above, the ORBx world has changed over the past year....

Edited April 5, 2021 by Christopher Low

[sal9000 210]

I also think there will be a storm of resictance, when it comes to the cost.

No-I don´t wonna say that there it are not worth, but when you look Jackson Hole or also Diamond Point, there are good Freeware outside-so why to get money on that ?

Take a look at Kelowna there is a Freeware and a Payware from ORBX, which look much better of course, but did I needed ? I land on this airport and start on the next day and that it is.

Did I need a inside of a Dutyfree-shop realy, like in LVIV?

Some of the Freeware-Airport looks much better then the best Payware in P3D.

For me, nice when the port over, but needed-no 😉

 

Just my 2 cent!

Edited April 5, 2021 by sal9000
Allowed words hard to find !

[Dominique_K 10,143]

1 hour ago, pmb said:

I would like to see several of their oldies and goldies in MSFS as well, but:

They always said such decisions are essentially made by the coders of the respective airports. It these are not inclined to port over their creations - either because they just don't like MSFS or they don't think the upgrades will bring enough income or they don't want to or are not able to learn the new SDK or went out of working for ORBX - they just are not done. You will notice a lot of their recently released airports are either by new single programmers or by their new UK-based coding center.

That would have been appropriate some time ago, but the ORBX forum - deliberately - has been transformed into a pure announcement and support forum during the last years, which was even confirmed by the main supporter. Questions like this are not so much well-received anymore, if not closed early on with a short note, and as a result you will find a number of former regulars discussing the ORBX strategy in general left already.

Kind regards, Michael

A good diagnosis on both accounts.

I would add however that I am not sure that I care much. I loved my Orbx airports in Alaska and the West coast as I loved the sceneries that I doodled in P3D  but changing the simulator  is also changing the horizon. You lose your aircraft and sceneries and look for new ones. The oldies were goldies but time for a new Gold rush 😁.

 

[bobcat999 8,477]

Tne reason might be because of what Superspud talks about in his thread on Ronaldsway airport, and the adjustments he has to keep making.  His quote below, but with my emphasis to clarify what I am talking about...

"...the airport kept falling apart on me so the main apron area had to be flattened. The rest is original and I didn't dare mess with it. 

Switching between development mode and regular mode was producing a 10-20 metre height difference, giant tears in the landscape and weird invisible square plateaus with grass hovering in the air.

With the previous version people were getting all of the added elements floating in the air. 

In many areas the terrain is behaving worse with every update and becoming harder to work with. There are some airports where I've had to throw away all the terraforming whereas it was fine when the sim launched."

So, if Superspud is having to deal with this, if I was Orbx, I wouldn't want to keep revisiting all of the airports and keep modifying them after MS / Asobo have changed things in an update. 
So maybe Orbx are waiting for the sim to stabilise a bit more to prevent constant reworking of their airports - and I don't blame them!

Edited April 5, 2021 by bobcat999

[wlix261 79]

'The oldies were goldies but time for a new Gold rush' ......Agreed!.

We have a scenery team in our Virtual Airline formed by enthusiasts. They did quite a bit of work with the legacy SDKs, mainly FS9 and FSX, as well as support for P3D. Their focus was the many small and mid size airports in Spain, as well as a library, autogen placed right in the correct locations with community-generated photoreal , antennas, VFR points, etc. These folks are currently busy porting their content into MSFS, which is being published for the community.  What we hear from them is that MSFS is a different platform, and the SDK is also different and has been evolving as the product change with new releases. And it takes time becoming efficient in this newenvironment, it requires dedication, open mind, and lots of time and patience. It's painful but they find it fun and rewarding.

Additionally, one notes dependencies between different moving targets that were not there before MSFS. This impacts the work of those who develop and maintain sceneries and other mods. MSFS is an evolving system with many moving parts delivered as a hosted service.... and the MSFS team(s) and community are just discovering how to work together...  

Regards

AHS712D Alvaro Escorcia KSGR

AirHispania Virtual Airline

 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 5, 2021 by wlix261

[steve310002 1,198]

I for one hope they don't do any more quick ports of old airports like their recent Stapleford release which looks straight from the FSX days with it's low resolution textures. 

If they are going to release new stuff at least make it high resolution and taking advantage of the latest graphics tech otherwise with so much good freeware out there, I see no point in purchasing ported scenery.

[RALF9636 1,956]

Interesting thread.

I am also surprised and a little disappointed that the Orbx content I have grown familiar with over the years is not being ported over to MSFS. On the other hand - as others have already pointed out: Time to explore something new.

But even more than the airports I had expected Orbx to bring all their POIs from their regions to MSFS rather sooner than later. Bridges, TV towers, lighthouses etc are still sorely missing from MSFS. I had hoped that at least for the regions Orbx already has created all the POIs we would get some POI packages by Orbx to fill these gaps.

 

[riverreveal 145]

The gap between some of the Orbx products and the quality of freeware available is becoming pretty indistinguishable. Devs like Pilot Plus are the ones I look out for now as they are far more consistent at adding quality that justifies the price.

I do like Orbx Central though.

[Tomaz Drnovsek 440]

Money?

[superspud 450]

2 hours ago, bobcat999 said:

So maybe Orbx are waiting for the sim to stabilise a bit more to prevent constant reworking of their airports - and I don't blame them!

I assume no previous sim shifted the goalposts so often and so rapidly so I definitely wouldn't want to be doing payware for MSFS. 

If it's free and they break it you can simply say 'quel dommage' to your users. 

Re Ronaldsway I think I read that UK2000 said they have their version ready to roll for MSFS, but he also said he doesn't want to sell it while the IoM keeps turning luminous green from certain distances which it may well do for the rest of time. 

Edited April 5, 2021 by superspud