Future of p3d ?

[kevinfirth 1,392]

14 hours ago, virtuali said:

we might have continued to exploit the P3D like nobody ever before, like we did with KORD V2. But unfortunately, that's not the world we live in and, as a commercial developer ( for the past 28 years, thank you very much...), we can't just ignore where the market is going.

I understand the market trajectory but I do hope you continue to develop some P3D content, as your stuff is technically brilliant. I learned a lot reading your post and I'd be open to buying more P3D sceneries containing some if not all of that.  I'm not really sure how much value there is in some of the features though, regardless of how advanced and technically brilliant they may be.  Perhaps at least future full PBR modelling and some of your proprietary coding might be relatively easily carried over to P3D...?

[BlueStar 323]

14 hours ago, virtuali said:

In an ideal world, MSFS never came out, and we might have continued to exploit the P3D like nobody ever before, like we did with KORD V2. But unfortunately, that's not the world we live in and, as a commercial developer ( for the past 28 years, thank you very much...), we can't just ignore where the market is going.

Umberto,

Let me start this post by saying that I own 8 of your sceneries including the latest KORD which is excellent.  I am a P3d user only.  

I do understand that developers are following the market and I have no problem with that.  The one thing that bothers me is pricing between MSFS and P3d.  There have been several occasions in the last few months where a developer has come out with a new scenery for P3d and MSFS.  The price differences were substantial with the P3d price being almost double in a lot of instances.  I do not understand why I (as a P3d user only) should have to pay a premium for a product.  The developers have the right to charge whatever they feel is appropriate, but as a consumer I also have the right to not purchase a product where I have to pay a substantial premium.  

Thanks for all the great work you have produced for the P3d community over the years and good luck to you in the future.  

Grace and Peace,  

[simbol 5,773]

“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt

[Multisim 116]

1 hour ago, simbol said:

“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt

There is a fine line between dreams of the future and pure denial, though. For many years I dreamt that all, or at least some, of the FSX bugs were going to be fixed by LM. I dream no more.

[coastaldriver 915]

Fascinating to read the views and opinions. I guess the comparison is continually raised between LM and MS and P3D and MSFS, to my mind a pointless excercise as they are now very different simulators. As for fixing FSX, they did not need to - for all intents and purposes they have completely re-engineered and rebuilt what the ACES (SubLogic) studio created so long ago. Sky light and oceans etc are now mathematical alogrithims using DX12 and the capacity of modern GPU's not to mention modern and uptodate graphical programming work (courtesy of the film and gaming industry),  I am continuously suprised that they have managed to retain the core ESP engine and the mathematics of the dynamics of aerodynamics and flight. Look it is not perfect but it is pretty word not allowed good - I have no OOM issues, no stutters and apart from a few niggledy issues with the implementation of internal interfaces or dialogues (which by the way do not impact the overall simulation just reduced its functionality) but the addon capacity is amazing and very strong for those prepared to work with it  and you can see that by the way with 5.2 various addon folk took a while to catch up as well. I have a humble view that many user problems come not from LM's side, rather they have exposed the short cuts and programming fudges from yesteryear which are now exposed, in other words, spend the time and the effort and it works as advertised. 

As for the future - I expect and I am sure we will now see gradual but small improvements - it is the engineers way, incremental change and no grand leaps - they have already done that with V5. 

Our issue is the current and recent turbulence in the real world, business and economic life (less people with less money and time and some with more money and lots more time to indulge in flight simulation) why draw attention to this? Well in this interim MS decided to go for the gaming market in a big way with MSFS2020 and here is the comparison - despite the promise and new approach of MS it is a completely new simulator too and it was released prematurely and in an unfinished state so consequently it has to be updated and fixed virtually monthly. This is creating havoc for those developers who made a decision to devote their resources to MS and not LM. How do I know this well look at the rate of the release of models (other than scenery) - much is promised or coming but little is delivered. So here is a clue - a serious European developer made it clear (not publicly but in an internal forum) that they have stopped any further MSFS development and work and will now just only do development and build for P3D, why? because every Asobo update busted what they had already done and forced them to continously revise and change what they had done. They said this is crazy and sending them broke and the lack of platform stability was driving them nuts. Secondly they have done some very careful research on the claimed numbers of users etc and interest and also came to the conclusion that the data was over blown hyperbole and to be polite - dodgy. Their summation of the situation, the updates and dodgy data represented " The ruin of flight simulation". They opined they could hang on OK as they were a small outfit but were seriously concerned for those who had big staff numbers etc. Now that is a sobering future indeed. Thank goodness for LM is all I can say! 

Footnote - scenery is still being done for P3D (go have a look about you will be surprised), REX and AS have new updates now working with True Sky EA etc and V5 better. There is other stuff around as well.  As for Aeroplanes well the mess was explained above but on cue LM on behalf of Flight 1 announced the release of a new P3DV5 model by IFLY the 737NG, as for some of the other players see above - they are going nuts!

Edited November 25, 2021 by coastaldriver

[jcomm 5,886]

Excellent view @coastaldriver.

I only don't believe the Aces are the same SubLogic team who were initially the developers of MS FS. They actually dverted into ATP, another great tittle that was one of the most fun I used in the early nineties 🙂

Ooops - shame on me 😕  I wasn't even aware that P3D v5.2 is sing DX12 ? Thought it was DX11 .... Well, it does run super smooth in my RTX 3070 Ti, and Active Slky + EA help making it shine even more, actuall giving me a more sound and realistic experience than what I was getting in MSFS, superb -looking graphics apart...

[coastaldriver 915]

And as an aside - I did a count of all the aircraft that I have put into P3DV5 since it came out. All have proper VC's and all are 64 bit, most are port overs but quite a few were done for P3D - how many? 103 thats right over one hundred. I probably sim with about 3 or 4 at the most, the remainder are just old friends or simple curiosity. I reckon that is a very rich population of simulation possibilities. I cannot think of a single aeroplane except one that I would like a developer to do for me either - and that is also a problem for them and the sim community. Scenery stuff I pick up routinely and I am also grateful for the sheer numbers of enthusiastic amateurs who have done such great work but best of all it all flies in P3D - as I said what else do people want? Yeah I know! 

[kevinfirth 1,392]

1 hour ago, coastaldriver said:

a serious European developer

Who was this?

14 minutes ago, coastaldriver said:

what else do people want?

developers who will at least try to leverage more of the SDK/PDK features.  Maybe not to @virtuali's extent in KORD, but sloped runways where they are significant, full PBR textures, materials scripting being used as standard would be great 🙂 👍

[Christopher Low 5,331]

4 hours ago, coastaldriver said:

.....a serious European developer.....

I will probably struggle to stop laughing if it turns out to be Aerosoft 🤣

[Sesquashtoo 2,846]

On 11/23/2021 at 8:58 PM, Iadbound said:

Umberto. You probably just took the trophy for the longest post in any forum  - ever. 
 

Real question for you though: is it your view that P3D v4.5 was the pinnacle of P3D and that v5 was a step back? I know it hurt some of the logo functions of GSX for example? And is that part of the reason you’re putting your limited time into MSFS now?

(Dam)n...it was the BEST post I think I have ever read in a thread content rebuttal....wow....I read it three times, to digest...

Edited November 25, 2021 by Sesquashtoo

[Sesquashtoo 2,846]

23 hours ago, G-YMML1 said:

Ohhh, boy! What a drama! 🙂 

Umberto,

Take a good rest, my friend! You don't have to kill yourself by writing all those "justifications" as there is no nothing to justify here. 

Peace! 

 

Justifications?  He wrote product content specifications, ...and I thought the response was the best I have ever read.  My take...

[B777ER 2,483]

4 hours ago, kevinfirth said:

Who was this?

developers who will at least try to leverage more of the SDK/PDK features.  Maybe not to @virtuali's extent in KORD, but sloped runways where they are significant, full PBR textures, materials scripting being used as standard would be great 🙂 👍

 

1 hour ago, Christopher Low said:

I will probably struggle to stop laughing if it turns out to be Aerosoft 🤣

 

Pure speculation but I would say MKStudios. 

[F737MAX 5,507]

29 minutes ago, B777ER said:

Pure speculation but I would say MKStudios

Good on them if that's the case - there is (some) money for them to be had with focusing on P3D while MSFS continues to go through it's growing pains.
They can count on me buying their LIRF, EICK and LPPR at the very least.

Let's hope there are other plenty of P3D simmers willing to do likewise.

[Multisim 116]

8 hours ago, coastaldriver said:

a serious European developer made it clear (not publicly but in an internal forum) that they have stopped any further MSFS development and work and will now just only do development and build for P3D

It was inevitable that some developers who are used to do developing for a completely static platform was going to throw in the towel instead of having to develop for a moving target. They really got too comfortable and spoiled during the FSX era, and Prepar3d it not exactly moving much faster anymore. Is it going to be harder to develop for MSFS? Absolutely!  But the business decision to only develop for a static platform is hardly a good long term solution for any software company. In my opinion, those developers won't be missed. I do however miss all those developers who really had ambitions and tried to push the limits but got pretty much zero support back from the developers of FSX/Prepar3d. This is a good way to get rid of skilled, creative people, and only keep those who want to make a quick buck by charging you for features and fixes that should really already be in the base sim.

Your statement that MSFS was released prematurely is interesting. It's always a balance for such a company. They need to involve 3rd party developers and beta testers and regular end users early enough to be part of the actual development to be able to listen to their input and requirements so that the software heads in the right direction. Of course, bugs are going to be expected and features, especially in the SDK, are expected to be incomplete. Wait too long however and 3rd party developers will get tired of waiting, and they will not be able to take part in the direction of the software development. Many companies/developers wait for the initial release until the software is considered close to perfect. Guess what, that usually never happens. And by the time the software is finally released, the public interest is gone and the result is usually far from what the audience expected.

Your argument about MSFS being released in "an unfinished state so consequently it has to be updated and fixed virtually monthly" kind of says it all. The fact that software is updated and fixed "virtually monthly" is usually considered a good thing. It means that someone cares and tries to move forward. Sure, if it was only about fixing bugs, it wouldn't be a good sign. Hower that is absolutely not what's happening with MSFS, except maybe for the first couple of initial releases. Are you really saying that the reason why Prepar3d is NOT updated regularly is because it's considered so good that it doesn't have to? Then we're in for a really interesting discussion.

Edited November 25, 2021 by Multisim

[F737MAX 5,507]

1 hour ago, Multisim said:

It was inevitable that some developers who are used to do developing for a completely static platform was going to throw in the towel instead of having to develop for a moving target. They really got too comfortable and spoiled during the FSX era, and Prepar3d it not exactly moving much faster anymore. Is it going to be harder to develop for MSFS? Absolutely!  But the business decision to only develop for a static platform is hardly a good long term solution for any software company. In my opinion, those developers won't be missed. I do however miss all those developers who really had ambitions and tried to push the limits but got pretty much zero support back from the developers of FSX/Prepar3d. This is a good way to get rid of skilled, creative people, and only keep those who want to make a quick buck by charging you for features and fixes that should really already be in the base sim.

Your statement that MSFS was released prematurely is interesting. It's always a balance for such a company. They need to involve 3rd party developers and beta testers and regular end users early enough to be part of the actual development to be able to listen to their input and requirements so that the software heads in the right direction. Of course, bugs are going to be expected and features, especially in the SDK, are expected to be incomplete. Wait too long however and 3rd party developers will get tired of waiting, and they will not be able to take part in the direction of the software development. Many companies/developers wait for the initial release until the software is considered close to perfect. Guess what, that usually never happens. And by the time the software is finally released, the public interest is gone and the result is usually far from what the audience expected.

Your argument about MSFS being released in "an unfinished state so consequently it has to be updated and fixed virtually monthly" kind of says it all. The fact that software is updated and fixed "virtually monthly" is usually considered a good thing. It means that someone cares and tries to move forward. Sure, if it was only about fixing bugs, it wouldn't be a good sign. Hower that is absolutely not what's happening with MSFS, except maybe for the first couple of initial releases. Are you really saying that the reason why Prepar3d is NOT updated regularly is because it's considered so good that it doesn't have to? Then we're in for a really interesting discussion.

Sure, that's one way of looking at it.

I see it as what's the point of a developer spending time on a platform whose fundamentals change every couple months?
There's an opportunity cost in devoting time to understanding, working with and working around the (lack of) tools and functionality of a constantly shifting sim platform, compared to earning revenue from another platform whose strengths and weaknesses are already understood.

Some developers can afford to shift their development focus entirely to MSFS. The bigger players have the resources to burn until they get the returns they envisaged. Even they aren't enjoying themselves:

• RR at PMDG says it takes "four developers a total of 40 man hours to do something that, when done in Prepar3D using modern debugging tools takes a single developer approximately 3 minutes"
• Scott at A2A said "Today for the first time, I took off and performed a bunch of maneuvers in the air, came back with a nice flare and landed in an all-new Accu-Sim Comanche 250." That's some 16 months after MSFS was RTM.

The smaller developers don't have the resources to do likewise and are at risk of/have already closed shop.
There's nothing to stop a developer returning to MSFS when it settles down some more to reap the rewards, yet try and keep the doors open by developing on a known platform.

You are being disingenuous with your praise of MSFS updates being only a good thing. When there are reams of threads both on the official MSFS forums and here asking 'when is the hotfix coming?' or 'what's broken this time?' after every single update, that's not sustainable.

I don't have enough free time to mess around with 'which add-on is no longer compatible and will give me a CTD?' So I have sadly given up on MSFS. The scope of the platform is incredible, the project management of it and delivery is absolutely not.

Despite some of the (justfiable) criticism of LM with P3D, at least I have all of my add-ons working and I can get the sim to start, something that cannot be said each time I launch MSFS.