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What's Happening with X-Plane.com

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12 minutes ago, FlyBaby said:

Also, you know your platform is failing when well respected high fidelity DEVs like PMDG abandons you...Again, I will let @mSparks xplane it to you...

Now that is amusing...

It's also no loss to X-plane users. Ask anyone  who flies the Zido mod and they would tell you they could care less.

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Just now, BobFS88 said:

It's also no loss to X-plane users. Ask anyone  who flies the Zido mod and they would tell you they could care less.

Yes it was...just search the threads of upset users  on this and other forum patforms...

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2 hours ago, FlyBaby said:

Looks like something seemed to sink into him...the realization of failure.

I don’t think XP11 was a failure at all. It offered and still offers some experiences more economically than other sims, and continued a tradition of incremental (granted, for some, glacial) but solid change. It certainly gave me a lot of value for money for several years and brought XP in to the mainstream. 

You wave away Austin’s passion and resources at your peril. I’m sure XP12 will continue the tradition, albeit from its more comfortable position of underdog.

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i910900k, RTX 3090, 32GB DDR4 RAM, AW3423DW, Ruddy girt big mug of Yorkshire Tea

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3 hours ago, FlyBaby said:

Actually, FSW had a great vision, and actively "engaged" with the community. LR could have learned from that...

They engaged with community to try to understand what they wanted from them. They had a great vision but like you use to say their eyes were bigger than their stomach. They had an ambitious plan that was too overwhelming to fill in order to keep up with the other two establish sim, to stay in the game. Lesson for LR is to not bite off more than you can chew.

 

3 hours ago, FlyBaby said:

It is just the opposite, Austin is now looking to follow MSFS' lead...he is engaging more (has his "whittle" voting system for features etc).

It may appear that way due to the timing but it only happened because they have completed the Vulkan conversion. Now with the free time, what feature should they do first. It makes sense to ask the community which is not a Microsoft exclusive invention. Any smart business would have done that if they want to show support for their users over the time the users stuck with them during the conversion.

3 hours ago, FlyBaby said:

Sure it does, Austin has just neglected it for all of these years. I mean, I don't think you will ever find the top guys at Asobo / MSFS lashing back at commenters in their teaser vids. 

But then again, when your teaser vid gets 6M+ views and thousands of comments...you already know you did something right.

Again: for the years you say he has neglected: during Vulkan conversion, he manage still maintaining an active use sim after adding VR support, particle systems, HDR lighting, PBR material, an experimental mode for aircraft models, a new UI, Fmod sounds and a revamps autogen for support for buildings heights.

Was MSFS being use when they where in hiding during their development? They had all the time to themselves without having to deal with the users.      

As far as the teaser video, they are already at 100,000 in a months’ time. At that rate they can easily reach a million.

Edited by BobFS88
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1 hour ago, FlyBaby said:

Those numbers are pathetic when (according to @mSparks ) XP had less peak users than a decade old sim...

Also, you know your platform is failing when well respected high fidelity DEVs like PMDG abandons you...Again, I will let @mSparks xplane it to you...

Now that is amusing...

 

Again, it's funny to define a failure something whose users have increased 1500% in very few years, and developed with WAY LESS resources than the competition.

But if it makes you feel better to define it a failure, so be it.

I guess Austin is laughing his way to the bank in the meantime. 🤣

 

And again, measuring the success of a platform by a single developer seems quite... limited. I don't follow things very closely lately, but I think PMDG is not even considered the pinnacle (or at least not the only one) in hardcore study level aircrafts nowadays, or is it? But anyway, who cares? XP did fine and increased users for 20+ years without PMDG. So...???

Edited by Murmur
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58 minutes ago, FlyBaby said:

Actually, FSW had a great vision, and actively "engaged" with the community. LR could have learned from that...

Yeah, it worked great for them! 🤣

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"The problem with quotes on the Internet is that it is hard to verify their authenticity." [Abraham Lincoln]

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3 hours ago, FlyBaby said:

Yes it was...just search the threads of upset users  on this and other forum patforms...

I'm taking about people who use the Zibo mod. 

Many of them who our outside that circle who our upset looking for PMDG maybe looking for just the PMDG experience or the brand and not necessarily the 737 experience that Zibo delivers.   

Edited by BobFS88
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I'm not sure where all this stuff is coming from.  I have to say I just flew MS this morning, can't get rid of the endless reinstall of Nordic scenery, had nose dive on one plane when controllers stopped working and crashed, changed planes, re-start, more Nordic reinstall again, had landing gear retract on its own just as I was landing resulting in crash, killing pilot and passengers...and I hate the contrast issue I brought up on another thread....

Switched to XP, flew my Cessa 310, all the bells and whistles work, a fully working GTN, Ultra weather was amazing, lighting, clouds, winds, using the Total Mexico ortho with the new autogen and forests, the flight was a dream, sim smooth, the plane acted like it should the GTN is nothing sort of a blessing to flying and Realistic Pro adds outstanding vibrations, sound effects, latent head movements while turning and landing etc...what's the issue?  I don't get it.  My XP experience is simply the best flying I have had in every sim, and I have owned them all, every last one of them....P3D while still on my HD is collecting dust so thick it could choke a horse.

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Bryan Wallis aka "fltsimguy"

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1 hour ago, Murmur said:

Again, it's funny to define a failure something whose users have increased 1500% in very few years, and developed with WAY LESS resources than the competition.

But if it makes you feel better to define it a failure, so be it.

Then why abandon any further updates to XP11 and completely change tac from 2017?

Why require funds from mobile devices to fund desktop development.

They just threw XP11 in the trash, you dont do that with successful products.

Even Xplane10 mobile is still getting updates, last on the 14th of April added the SR22 to the default fleet

XP11 is a great product -  I love it.

But just like Linux desktop: Successful tho? not yet - and never for XP11 - maybe they'll have better luck with the next one, sequels to bad movies do well right?.

What bites for me is I believe they could have gotten 5 more years at least out of it - just by fixing the clouds, lighting and performance. GTA is cruising till 2025 for their next version.

That would have given them 5 more years to prepare XP12 with no meaningful complaints, sure default scenery sucks, but everything else better than the competition in every way - and visibly so 

Now, if it does take 2 more years to get XP12 out, no amount of filling the gap with technology teasers is going to lesson the pain to the bottom line, and xplane desktop is in at least as much danger of being cancelled as MSFS.

I wish it wasn't so, I wish the org hadn't been undermining them for who knows how long (looking back, at least since 2017 when I joined), feeding them toxic advice while "protecting" them from the knowledge that perf and looks really do matter to many people, not to mention playing fast and loose with valuable 3PD products over petty personal differences.

 

Edited by mSparks

AutoATC Developer

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2 hours ago, BobFS88 said:

It may appear that way due to the timing but it only happened because they have completed the Vulkan conversion. Now with the free time, what feature should they do first. It makes sense to ask the community which is not a Microsoft exclusive invention. Any smart business would have done that if they want to show support for their users over the time the users stuck with them during the conversion.

Not so...Austin has amped up his engagement because of MSFS...following their lead. It started with that uncomfortable video of his "team" sitting around a couch trying to reassure everyone..

2 hours ago, BobFS88 said:

Again: for the years you say he has neglected: during Vulkan conversion, he manage still maintaining an active use sim after adding VR support, particle systems, HDR lighting, PBR material, an experimental mode for aircraft models, a new UI, Fmod sounds and a revamps autogen for support for buildings heights.

Nope...Austin dragged his feet for years not addressing the poor performance (even in XP10). He still doesn't have clouds that go to the horizon, yet combat sims do. Not real substantial development in XP for years.

And Vulkan itself is not a great leap in performance IMO.

2 hours ago, BobFS88 said:

Was MSFS being use when they where in hiding during their development? They had all the time to themselves without having to deal with the users.

Irrelevant...

2 hours ago, BobFS88 said:

As far as the teaser video, they are already at 100,000 in a months’ time. At that rate they can easily reach a million.

They will hit a million if you combine all of the views from all of their future teaser vids. Is Austin still in the comment section mudslinging and being sarcastic to folk criticizing his sim? That was even more pathetic than the low view count....

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2 hours ago, Murmur said:

Yeah, it worked great for them! 🤣

Wow...is this coming from the guy who once told me that I was wrong for gloating over Devs losing their jobs???

And the same guy in another thread who claims to ignore "people coming in here" criticizing XP???

The contradictions from the XP gatekeepers are endless.  Carry On...

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3 hours ago, scotchegg said:

You wave away Austin’s passion and resources at your peril. I’m sure XP12 will continue the tradition, albeit from its more comfortable position of underdog.

Nope...LR has neglected consumers at their peril....

If that tradition is a problematic release with sluggish updates (especially with no roadmap showing a dedication to frequent development)...many folk won't even bother investing in it.

Consumers are now used to a higher level of engagement....

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45 minutes ago, FlyBaby said:

And Vulkan itself is not a great leap in performance IMO.

Yes no maybe kinda....

"Performance" is really where flight sim deviates a from AAA games, Vulkan is only one facet of that, a very important facet, and a necessary prerequisite to get to a point where performance is acceptable.

There is still a lot more todo - but none of that would really be possible without Vulkan.

I'll skip the technical details unless you are actually interested in them, but they are mostly exactly the same reasons DX11 was never going to work out for any other flight sim that relied on it. (Although were it really matters Vulkan is by far the best and most versatile solution)

By far the biggest performance issue is aircraft systems rather than anything graphical, the most important aspect for that is the performance instrumentation, going from this

xtlua1.jpg.b410fec89a3cc7f50a9b6c6bbf126

to this

xtlua3.thumb.jpg.140f8f8dde92d2647082340

to this

N8JVyyO.png

simply wouldn't have been possible without the performance instrumentation to track the effect of changes.

LR still have a similar process to go through with X-Plane itself. And also, until windows 12 is released to the general public - windows users wont really see many of the benefits.

Edited by mSparks
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With the release of MSFS it was instantly clear that XP was out of date in terms of performance and aesthetics. If sties like the Org had been less censorious in stamping out any criticism and statements of the obvious the penny might have dropped with Meyer a lot sooner. How is he to know if all he hears is endless praise and sees nothing but worshipful sycophantic head nodding?

What was he meant to think when his followers were for so long telling him that they had no interest in 'eye candy'? All that mattered was the flight model. Even now you can read people posting that they prefer the way default XP looks. 

 

Edited by jarmstro
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There was not even by far as much "dynamic pressure" hitting Austin with X-Plane along the whole story of XP10 and 11 as the one ASOBO experienced since the release of MFS, even while initially "hiding" more effectively from the users...

Truth is ASOBO, and MFS, are now approaching cruise speed, releasing updates, adding features, correcting bugs, working on further improvements at a pace that is superior to that of the current X-Plane cruise speed. 

IMO, Austin couldn't probably care less about how MFS is progressing. He is focused in his work, adding whatever e finds important to the next version of X-Plane and the rest of the team is trying hard to make XP12 happen in the "visible spectrum".

LR, IMO, is not affected by MFS - XP Developers and stores ARE! That's the big problem, IMO.

X-Plane will probably become even more of a niche flight simulator, and niche add-ons, what some call "study-level" can keep some of the developers active, and pay their salaries - they have a life too ! Others will or have already jumped to MFS, because "they have a life" too.

I guess the biggest change has to happen on the devs side. Developers, stores, and the whole business around it will have to adapt to this new reality, and those that can keep offering great products like some available for X-Plane might really have a chance of keeping their sales to a level that can support their activity.

I don't really know how healthy the site mentioned in the OP is these days, but I guess they are suffering from a considerable reduction in their sales, just as pretty much all other stores that sell X-Plane add-ons, or are specific to X-Plane.

 

Edited by jcomm
typos. discourse.
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