It's not over until the fat lady sings! with X-Plane 12

[jarmstro 2,405]

1 minute ago, evaamo said:

And by disqualifying Laminar as incapable by being "three men in a shed" ... I reckon you haven't heard about Hardy Heinlin and Aerowinx?. 

True enough. I've never heard of them. I'm not really interested in names or personalities. Just the final result.

[jarmstro 2,405]

1 minute ago, strider1 said:

Austin is not going to sell LR because you keep repeating it in these forums. That comment is getting old as your profile picture 😉 

My avatar is a photo of me when I was young.

[MaDDogz 242]

Just now, jarmstro said:

My avatar is a photo of me when I was young.

Lies. 😂

[Bob Scott 7,758]

A reminder that this forum and thread are about XP12 and not MSFS, XBox etc.  Back to the topic, please.

[evaamo 549]

23 minutes ago, fogboundturtle said:

Casual always existed but always seen at the outsider to the hobby. Gatekeeping has been part of flight simming as far as I remember.  MSFS has change that. It made it acceptable to enjoy the hobby without going hardcore. Some of it  might not stay for a very long time, other will have found a hobby forever. I know a streamer who can barely understand the basic of aviation and is now pretty darn knowledge. Every day, that person is more and more going to the "I want that high fidelity model" now. That would have never happen if P3D or Xplane was the only option. The learning curve is just too hard. I started in FSX before I move to XP10, it took me a while to get there. Everyone seems to forget we all start as casual. I started with a Xbox controller. Now I got more gear than I can install on my desk. I got more aircraft that I can fly.

MS Flight was targeted to gamers and failed because it underdelivered to core simmers. What changed, then? The difference is that Asobo and Microsoft found a balanced formula. They knew that they needed the hard-core market aboard and that gamers, which I agree with you, eventually a small percentage become hard-core simmers and spend on hardware and add-ons. And that's GREAT, as an example: I gifted MSFS to my nephew, and a few months later I saw he got hooked and bought him a bunch of student-pilot books and some charts, now he's enrolled in the AF JROTC program.

If anything, MSFS isn't creating a new generation of flightsimmers, but a new generation of aviation enthusiasts! And as they evolve, so will their interest to explore alternatives such as X-Plane and then decide for themselves what is more compatible with their interests in aviation as the big field it is.  

No one benefits from gatekeeping nor from having a single flight simulator. 

[Paul Deluca 170]

Just saw the video regarding ground equipment in XP-12. Needs work of course but much better than 11. Fuel tank trucks  not shown were revamped. I was hoping to see different size catering trucks for ATR, Saab 340.   Avro. In general, more stable than 11  HAPPY FLYING ladies, and gents.!!!!!!!!

Edited September 9, 2022 by Paul Deluca

[fogboundturtle 2,708]

2 minutes ago, evaamo said:

MS Flight was targeted to gamers and failed because it underdelivered to core simmers. What changed, then? The difference is that Asobo and Microsoft found a balanced formula. They knew that they needed the hard-core market aboard and that gamers, which I agree with you, eventually a small percentage become hard-core simmers and spend on hardware and add-ons. And that's GREAT, as an example: I gifted MSFS to my nephew, and a few months later I saw he got hooked and bought him a bunch of student-pilot books and some charts, now he's enrolled in the AF JROTC program.

If anything, MSFS isn't creating a new generation of flightsimmers, but a new generation of aviation enthusiasts! And as they evolve, so will their interest to explore alternatives such as X-Plane and then decide for themselves what is more compatible with their interests in aviation as the big field it is.  

No one benefits from gatekeeping nor from having a single flight simulator. 

I agree and people like me who criticizes Xplane is not because we hate it but because wants to be better. I have a very long list of addons for Xplane . I was buying XP12 as soon as it became available. I wish the Early access that we got was further along.

[Crunchmeister 29]

2 hours ago, evaamo said:

If anything, MSFS isn't creating a new generation of flightsimmers, but a new generation of aviation enthusiasts! And as they evolve, so will their interest to explore alternatives such as X-Plane and then decide for themselves what is more compatible with their interests in aviation as the big field it is.  

Xplane has always had a good appeal factor to hardcore simmers and for very good reason. It's still the best overall sim out there as far as I'm concerned when it comes to accurately modelling flight, systems, procedures, etc. 

But it's hard to get that sold to the general mass market in 2022 when the graphics look like something they were playing on consoles back in 2010. Like it or not, visuals are what get people's' attention, be it video games to finding a mate. It doesn't matter how great something is under the hood if someone accustomed to things looking better looks at it and goes "Eeeeeewwwww". As much as I can appreciate what XP12 brings to the table, it's REALLY hard to look at compared to MSFS. And considering those tired, old graphics, it doesn't really perform a whole lot better than MSFS that looks WAY better. 

MSFS has succeed in that. It's kind of like dating an airhead supermodel. She may not be the most intellectually gifted, but she looks fantastic and she's functional. That attracted a lot of people that would otherwise never have given flight simulation a second thought. And like you said, it's creating not just a new generation of simmers, but a generation of aviation enthusiasts. Kids who had zero interest in aviation of any kind tried this out because it was "free" on their Gamepass sub, and are now sucked in. 

Edited September 9, 2022 by Crunchmeister

[Murmur 3,960]

3 hours ago, XST said:

I never said the ratio 1:1000, that was never my statement, I said exactly "MSFS users are counted in millions while XP users are counted in thousands. " which doesn't mean at all that the ratio is 1:1000. Was a way to express that you can access to a million of potential sales in MSFS whereas in XP will be only thousands for the same thing.

"Thousands of users" : "millions of users" = literally a 1:1000 ratio. 🤷‍♂️

I'm not changing the meaning of your words at all.

[mSparks 2,094]

1 hour ago, Kopteeni said:

Has anyone seen @mSparks lately?

was sitting in on the Prague senate this week, sailing next week, then actually back at my desk and starting up 2023.

v2.4 of the 744 dropped just before I left with a bunch of XP11 fixes

https://github.com/mSparks43/747-400/releases/tag/2.4

Y'all seem to be doing fine while I enjoy myself - as you may know I've had XP12 for a while now, and even I'm still learning new stuff about it.

Edited September 9, 2022 by mSparks

[Murmur 3,960]

2 hours ago, rka said:

or LR will go out of business sooner or later.

I think people have been making this statement for like... 25 years nowadays. 😄

"Military doctor told me I had six months to live. When I became Minister of Defence, I called him to tell him I was still alive. But he was dead!" [A famous quote from a politician].

[Gulfstream 416]

5 hours ago, lwt1971 said:

 I'll be up front and say that I've never really cared for Austin's bluster, and it was certainly ironic how he's been trying to push a false narrative leading up to the XP12 release that XP is all about flight simulation while MSFS is all about visuals.. while a bulk of what they've focused on is in trying to improve visuals, and only after MSFS came out since before that they were always dismissing visuals and more realistic world representation as unnecessary.

 

This post is so spot on I don't have much to add.   LR and X-Plane had an unbelievable market opportunity when MS dropped out of the game, and they clearly made a lot of money.

But it seems they didn't scale out the dev staff enough during the lull to push this to where it needed to be in ~2020, and may have remained too tightly focused on "who needs visuals we simulate airplanes".

And then when MS re-joined the party with a modern AAA graphics engine, they were left staring into the potential abyss.

Note I wish them all the best, I've been a customer since well before XP11 ... I am just discussing the current state of flight simulation.

I doubt the Linux/Mac userbase is enough, I have no idea about mobile.

They clearly have some very talented developers on the team.  They seem to have been able to properly implement the realistic lighting overhaul (which looks quite good), Metal/Vulkan, 3D clouds, etc etc.  But just not enough (visually) to compete with the massive programming force that is the team behind MSFS.

Obviously MSFS took some ideas that were strong selling points for X-Plane and just ran with them now.

Edited September 9, 2022 by Gulfstream

[mSparks 2,094]

1 minute ago, Gulfstream said:

I have no idea about mobile.

somewhere in the region of 20 million users. But this release isn't really for them yet. 

2 minutes ago, Gulfstream said:

But just not enough (visually) to compete with the massive programming force that is the team behind MSFS.

Perhaps interesting when we weren't allowed to compare, but I could barely see the difference before.. now.. 

Only meaningful difference I can see from your slide is the horribly pixelated grass in MSFS.

So my money is still on MS abandoning flight sim before Laminar. The only advantage they had was the visuals, and LR just completely closed that gap, and in some areas exceeded it - plus this time in the XP11 run, VR was still a distant dream and vulkan was a plan on the back of an envelope.

 

[Ianrivaldosmith 5,317]

4 minutes ago, mSparks said:

The only advantage they had was the visuals, and LR just completely closed that gap, and in some areas exceeded it

This has to be a parody, right?! 

[fogboundturtle 2,708]

1 minute ago, Ianrivaldosmith said:

This has to be a parody, right?! 

it's from mSparky. you better hit ignore and not just engage him at all.