Although I’m not an active XP11 user I still get regular email notifications about new 3PD products so it’s not like development has stopped. Maybe if people spent more time posting about these rather than talking about MSFS it wouldn’t seem so much like everyone’s in a bit of a funk over here.

43 minutes ago, scotchegg said:

Maybe if people spent more time posting about these rather than talking about MSFS

Ya think?

 

 

You're absolutely right.

Or maybe most of us have just quit using avsim as an X-Plane discussion point, because we keep getting people from the MSFS section telling us how bad X-Plane is and how if it doesn't look and feel like MSFS, it'll die.  With little to no reprimands.

Just a hunch.

Edited August 24, 20214 yr by GoranM

MSFS is definitely not perfect but it has the capability to keep you engaged for much longer through nice hd graphics, theme song, missions, challenges, quick and integrated flight planning, relatively quick flight loading, easy setup multiplayer plus plus plus. The devs are communicating regularly with the community, putting out monthly updates, sim upgrades, world updates, new aircraft and content. I say kudos to them. Laminar need to step up because they are being totally outplayed. And people see that.

31 minutes ago, GoranM said:

Just a hunch.

I think the problem is deeper than that.

XP11s userbase problem (although first you have to accept there is a userbase problem) is that for casual simming XP is at best mediocre, at worst throw your PC out the window frustrating. Plus the only decent 1st party plane is the C172.

MSFS has exactly the same issues and exactly the same userbase problem (its just starting from a multi million dollar marketing budget and access to XBOX).

Much better than XP10 yes, competitive with DCS or warthunder or P3Dv5? - neither hold a candle imho.

If it didnt have a userbase problem

https://steamcharts.com/app/269950

would look more like

https://steamcharts.com/app/236390

Edited August 25, 20214 yr by mSparks

10 minutes ago, Greazer said:

MSFS is definitely not perfect but it has the capability to keep you engaged for much longer through nice hd graphics, theme song, missions, challenges, quick and integrated flight planning, relatively quick flight loading, easy setup multiplayer plus plus plus. The devs are communicating regularly with the community, putting out monthly updates, sim upgrades, world updates, new aircraft and content. I say kudos to them. Laminar need to step up because they are being totally outplayed. And people see that.

For the first 10 seconds of reading that, I swear I thought I accidentally went to the MSFS forums.

Greazer, I don't know why LR don't hire you to take care of logistics.  You could, single handedly, whip them into shape and make them accomplish something they haven't accomplished in 24 years.

Edited August 25, 20214 yr by GoranM

17 minutes ago, GoranM said:

For the first 10 seconds of reading that, I swear I thought I accidentally went to the MSFS forums.

Greazer, I don't know why LR don't hire you to take care of logistics.  You could, single handedly, whip them into shape and make them accomplish something they haven't accomplished in 24 years.

If they had more of Greazers mentality inside LR we might not currently be waiting for XP12.

Instead, for example - they put several days of developer time into rolling a release to fix the text "3d" on airport names- that nobody (except whoever the influencer that noticed and reported it was) ever reads anyway.

Edited August 25, 20214 yr by mSparks

18 minutes ago, mSparks said:

I think the problem is deeper than that.

No, it isn't.  And I'll tell you why, without debating.

At least twice a week, I get friends/developers asking me, "Why do you keep going back there (avsim)???"

TBH, I get a kick out of seeing the trolls get all worked up over X-Plane still being available.  Some of them have actually grown common sense and haven't posted in here for a while. Either that, or they were told to stay out of here by the mods.  I don't know.

21 minutes ago, mSparks said:

XP11s userbase problem (although first you have to accept there is a userbase problem) is that for casual simming XP is at best mediocre, at worst throw your PC out the window frustrating.

You're a programmer.  So you would obviously know that with a deregulated plugin community, any plugin can render X-Plane a slideshow or a CTD festival.  Out of the box X-Plane is far from frustrating.  For me, at least.  It's not pretty, but that can be fixed by some ortho and Skymaxx/XEnviro/Activesky.

The userbase is more than enough for me.  My customers have given me a living for the past 12 years in X-Plane.  Assuming that's what you meant.

23 minutes ago, mSparks said:

Plus the only decent 1st party plane is the C172.

The others are more for fun/testing/getting the feel for it kind of stuff.  I don't think anyone takes default aircraft in any sim seriously.

7 minutes ago, mSparks said:

If they had more of Greazers mentality inside LR we might not currently be waiting for XP12.

Instead, for example - they put several days of developer time into rolling a release to fix the text "3d" on airport names- that nobody ever reads anyway.

This cartoon comes to mind.

 

If a company has been continuously profitable, then it's extremely out of place for an outsider, with little to no business experience to come along and say, "If you change this, you'll do a lot better."

 

 

35 minutes ago, GoranM said:

I get friends/developers asking me

I'm not talking about you and me. I'm talking about the 1,000,000+ people that tried MSFS and XP11 and decided "f' that".

35 minutes ago, GoranM said:

Out of the box X-Plane is far from frustrating.

here's a quick list of simple issues of the top of my that drive new users nuts that should have come years before fixing "3d" text on airport names and all the other releases that impacted 2 or 3 users rather than everybody.

Selecting HDR+SSAO looks worse than selecting HDR, and has no impact on sim performance.

Selecting medium visual effects makes numerous lights not work with no upfront information and on a setting that has next to no impact on performance.

If you dont restart the sim after changing AA you wont immediately see the fps impact, making it easy to cripple performance without knowing why if you crank it up to 8x and then see no FPS impact when you go back in the sim.

Keyboard settings by default lists thousands of options virtually non of which are relevant to any plane you fly and most have custom ones anyway.

The fact that you can have a controller profile per aircraft is not obvious, not the default and a complete nightmare to manage.

Important settings like "Use experimental flight model" are poorly understood even by veterans.

__

And that is before you get to ridiculous bugs like the windsocks never showing wind when you are at ground level.

35 minutes ago, GoranM said:

I don't think anyone takes default aircraft in any sim seriously.

All the free DCS and Warthunder aircraft are payware quality, imho that's why people expected the same from MSFS @ $120.

35 minutes ago, GoranM said:

If a company has been continuously profitable, then it's extremely out of place for an outsider, with little to no business experience to come along and say, "If you change this, you'll do a lot better."

I was talking about casual simming, the thing LR has been trying to break into for ~5 years and failing, yep it pwns for commercial use and training, but they clearly want the casual market as well or they never would have redesigned the XP10 UI.

XP12 is not going to help that unless they change which issues get priority. Greazer seems acutely aware of what makes a normal person throw their PC out of the window, most people do not have the stamina to spend hours trying to fix simple issues that never should have been issues in the first place.

Edited August 25, 20214 yr by mSparks

Q.E.D.

4 minutes ago, mSparks said:

I'm not talking about you and me. I'm talking about the 1,000,000+ people that tried MSFS and XP11 and decided "f' that".

here's a quick list of simple issues of the top of my that drive new users nuts that should have come years before fixing "3d" text on airport names and all the other releases that impacted 2 or 3 users rather than everybody.

Selecting HDR+SSAO looks worse than selecting HDR, and has no impact on sim performance.

Selecting medium visual effects makes numerous lights not work with no upfront information and on a setting that has next to no impact on performance.

If you dont restart the sim after changing AA you wont immediately see the fps impact, making it easy to cripple performance without knowing why if you crank it up to 8x and then see no FPS impact when you go back in the sim.

Keyboard settings by default lists thousands of options virtually non of which are relevant to any plane you fly and most have custom ones anyway.

The fact that you can have a controller profile per aircraft is not obvious, not the default and a complete nightmare to manage.

Important settings like "Use experimental flight model" are poorly understood even by veterans.

__

And that is before you get to ridiculous bugs like the windsocks never showing wind when you are at ground level.

All the free DCS and Warthunder aircraft are payware quality, imho that's why people expected the same from MSFS @ $120.

I was talking about casual simming, the thing LR has been trying to break into for ~5 years and failing, yep it pwns for commercial use and training, but they clearly want the casual market as well or they never would have redesigned the XP10 UI.

XP12 is not going to help that unless they change which issues get priority. Greazer seems acutely aware of what makes a normal person throw their PC out of the window, most people do not have the stamina to spend hours trying to fix simple issues that never should have been issues in the first place.

Then there are two very simple solutions.

1.  You've been around long enough to know that by posting any issues in a forum, particularly avsim, will get nothing done.  If you spot an issue, and you can back it up with stats, send an email to Austin or Ben and they'll either look into it or dismiss it.  If it's trivial, it'll obviously be dismissed.  If it's important, it'll be added to the list.

2.  If an individual doesn't like X-Plane, and they don't feel like sending feedback to LR, vote with the proverbial wallet.  

 

I remember the marketing material for FSX.  And like everyone else, I was well and truly hyped for it.  Then when I got it, let's just say "underwhelmed" is an understatement.  I did one of the two options listed above.  I wasn't quite into X-Plane at the time, so I went back to FS9.  Which I still think is the best MSFS title.

 

8 minutes ago, scotchegg said:

Q.E.D.

Love the latin reference.  🙂

15 minutes ago, GoranM said:

and you can back it up with stats

I'm pretty much 100% sure they have the stats in their issue database already, they have just either been choosing to ignore them or their issue database is not fit for purpose.

Helped along a lot by org mods and community leaders banning/deleting the posts of and labelling a troll anyone who posts any kind of actual issue with the sim that doesn't have a known solution (oh and encouraging extra hacky solutions rather than telling everyone who uses them to file a bug report - how long did that black smoke from engines issue persist again? 3 years? the wet runway and contrails ones are still there and apparently always will be)

Edited August 25, 20214 yr by mSparks

2 minutes ago, mSparks said:

I'm pretty much 100% sure they have the stats in their issue database already, they have just either been choosing to ignore them or their issue database is not fit for purpose.

Helped along a lot by org mods and community leaders banning/deleting the posts of anyone who posts any kind of actual issue with the sim that doesn't have a known solution (oh and encouraging extra hacky solutions rather than telling everyone who uses them to file a bug report)

Then if you aren't satisfied with how they're doing things, exercise your freedom of choice.  

If LR did business the thousands of different ways represented by everyone who has an opinion on how they should do things, we'll be waiting another 10 years for XP12(?).

Their protocol is if you find an issue, file a report.  

They have, AFAIK, 3 very talented programmers working on the next X-Plane.  Phillip, Ben and Sid.  I haven't had much interaction with Phillip, but Ben and Sid are next level genius.  And Sid is very approachable in various forums and discord.

Maybe I'm just different to others when it comes to telling an owner of a business how to run his business.  Personally, I think it's extremely rude and disrespectful.  My opinion is not a reflection on you, as you might not feel the same way about it that I do.  

Using myself as an example, if, for example, Tom Kyler or Javier Rollon point out issues in my modelling or texturing, I listen.  Mainly because they were my catalyst for getting into X-Plane and they have far more experience in what I do, than I do.

32 minutes ago, GoranM said:

Maybe I'm just different to others when it comes to telling an owner of a business how to run his business

Im not telling them how, Im explaining what I expect to happen if they continue prioritising issues for fixing the same way.

If they release XP12 with great but glitchy lighting trees and clouds, and then spend the next 3 years only releasing updates for the mobile version and fixing things for BETA et al similar to the way XP11 has gone. The XP12 userbase will continue with XP11s stagnated userbase.

None of the things promised so far will attract normal people unless they work flawlessly, none of the (numerous and awesome) updates through XP11s life have gone to attract normal people - normal people really dont care that much about graphics or flight model, they want a quick 20 minute fix without wanting to throw their PC out the window, and get it with minimal fuss, graphics are always secondary to that.

e.g.

32 minutes ago, GoranM said:

Using myself as an example, if, for example, Tom Kyler or Javier Rollon point out issues in my modelling or texturing, I listen.  Mainly because they were my catalyst for getting into X-Plane and they have far more experience in what I do, than I do.

.Using the 744 as an example.

The debug window that opens when using the master branch is by far the biggest issue for normal users, but its a vital tool for people contributing to the plane. So its on by default for development and will be off by default for release.

I wouldnt have a clue it was even an issue if people didnt regularly complain about the debug window. Greazer calls this "engaging with users"

 

5 minutes ago, mSparks said:

If they release XP12 with great but glitchy lighting trees and clouds

"If".

5 minutes ago, mSparks said:

and then spend the next 3 years only releasing updates for the mobile version and fixing things for BETA et al similar to the way XP11 has gone. The XP12 userbase will continue with XP11s stagnated userbase.

They're working the other way around.  Whatever they do for the desktop version, they try to implement in the mobile version.

6 minutes ago, mSparks said:

The XP12 userbase will continue with XP11s stagnated userbase.

I've lost count how many people were introduced to flight sim via MSFS, and then coming over to X-Plane because of MSFS stability issues.  ie. particularly SU5.

There will always be a userbase.  And there will always be new generations of userbases.  Some prefer MSFS.  Some prefer Flight Gear.  Some prefer X-Plane.  Each one has something to offer via its creators.  

8 minutes ago, mSparks said:

None of the things promised so far will attract normal people unless they work flawlessly, none of the (numerous and awesome) updates through XP11s life have gone to attract normal people - normal people really dont care that much about graphics or flight model, they want a quick 20 minute fix without wanting to throw their PC out the window, and get it with minimal fuss, graphics are always secondary to that.

I'm confused about the term "normal people".  Normal compared to who?  I first came to X-Plane in X-Plane 6.  Skipped the next few versions, and then returned in XP9 when I saw JRollons CRJ and Tom Kylers MU2.  What does a normal person want?  MSFS or X-Plane?  Everyone has different tastes.  Which is something some MSFS users find impossible to grasp.  I don't like MSFS.  Am I wrong?  Of course not.  I have different preferences.  I accept X-Plane for what it is.  It isn't perfect.  However, perfection is subjective.  

What has been promised will attract the people who are interested in them.  Trees moving in the wind is a take it or leave it thing for me.  I couldn't care less about that. It's extremely cool to have, but I can easily live without it.  For other people, they see it as a "FINALLY" element.  Helicopter enthusiasts will obviously see a need for it.  

Waves affected by wind...same thing.  Although I do place a little more importance on it due to amphibious aircraft.  

My attitude is, "ok, this is what I got to work with, let me see what I can do."

 

 

48 minutes ago, GoranM said:

They have, AFAIK, 3 very talented programmers working on the next X-Plane.  Phillip, Ben and Sid.

That's the problem right there. They may be talented but there's only 3 of them. Kudos for all they did making XP, however they are now competing with a multi billion dollar company with hundreds of geniuses and almost infinite resources. Microsoft are so big and powerful they don't give a rats about a little flight sim conference. So they don't go. Only 1% of users are the geeks and real world pilots. 99% are all the casual and Xbox users who have never heard of such a conference! So the main hope for LR is for a certain percentage of simmers to have enough interest in this other sim, that they are willing to shell out for that too. I may or may not be one of them. Still waiting to see what the next one has, and doesn't have. If it doesn't include the musts (which I have already posted here) then the sim will be a No go.