With the exodus of freeware developers from FlightSim.To

[fppilot 4,378]

3 hours ago, Waldo Pepper said:

I cannot wait for the GAIST real time version to release.   Then we will see ships everywhere.

The average person has no idea how many ships their are,  using the Atlantic Ocean as an example there might be 4 or 5 vessels within the 50 mile radius of a vessel.

Take a look at Marine Traffic .com,   there are a staggering number of ships in the world.

https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/home/centerx:-40.1/centery:31.1/zoom:5

I'd rather have something akin to GA traffic over ships.  I might see ships on final to USA airports near the coast, or perhaps on approach to Chicago airports (GAIST Great Lakes addon).  Perhaps during my next winter Caribbean tour.  Give me some reasonable GA traffic in and out of the regional airports I frequent!

[scotchegg 4,189]

14 hours ago, Paladin2005 said:

What EXODUS?

I think, flightsim.to is pretty full of first class addons...what are you talking about? The 5 guys that took their stuff back?

Don’t like alarmist, knee-jerk reactions either, but I have noticed the 1 or 2 updates to previous downloads I used to get daily has fallen to 1 or 2 per week.

Very noticeable reduction here.

[VFXSimmer 1,310]

7 hours ago, Dillon said:

No one is saying it isn't a decent site for freeware.  All I'm asking is the timing of it and the release of MSFS is beyond coincidental to say the least.  I've never seen anything like that.  MSFS could have been a flop like FLIGHT so pre-supposing as special site for add-ons would be a little premature.  When MSFS was launched two sites just took over out of nowhere, NEXUSMODS and Flightsim.to.  NEXUSMODS was already established and eventually fell off as a favored MOD site.  Flightsim.to became the go to site.  If Flightsim.to was already an established site like NEXUSMODS things would make sense but Flightsim.to just appeared and took over.  Basically, overnight it cornered the market for Freeware upending all other sites that's been around for over 20 years.  That's one heck of a feat...🧐

Its not that much of a coincidence.  The website started specifically to host MSFS addons.  In fact the .to is a nod to the events of MSFS's launch which was realeased sequentially per time zone on that first day.  The Polynesian state of Tonga (.to) is a county right on the international dateline so if you vpn'd to make it look like you were from that country you got to download the sim at the earliest possible moment.  A bunch of multiplayer planes flooded the island naion that morning..

I made a really early addon that had been uplinked on /reddit.  I was asked if I'd consider letting the site host it.  I think at the time there were only 3 pages of mods being listed.

It grew quickly from there because it was really easy to upload and download mods and had an easy enough search filter to find things.  Scenery categories, maps, etc soon followed and then the simple addition of making it easy to see which of your addons had updates made it the go to site.

Those early days didnt suggest a huge "investment" for the site to get started.  The initial site behavior was relatively simple. I dont think there was much of a risk in the event MSFS flopped on release.

Edited March 15, 2023 by VFXSimmer

[Virtual-Chris 682]

Wasn’t there a recent uproar because of some changes to their terms of service or something? I thought it was because they tried to decree that developers could not delete content, putting into question, who owned the content? This caused some developers to leave the site, and a subsequent back tracking by the site if I recall. Isn’t it all settled now?

I hope everyone hugs and puts this past them. Flightsim.to is an amazing resource. This sim and those of us using it, would be way worse off without it. 

Edited March 15, 2023 by Virtual-Chris

[Fielder 3,681]

" It grew quickly from there because it was really easy to upload and download mods and had an easy enough search filter to find things.  Scenery categories, maps, etc soon followed and then the simple addition of making it easy to see which of your addons had updates made it the go to site. "

I can remember when their scenery had under 20 things to download. But they had a modern UI and maps to show where all the scenery locations on earth and links from the map to the scenery. Everything was easy to use. And their marketplace is very easy to navigate and purchase things.

I'll keep using fs.to but I won't buy stuff there anymore for a while, almost  none of it is exclusive. And go back to buying from them as soon as I see that they aren't making enemies of respected content creators. I do not understand the issues of controversy. But I doubt these content creators would just leave if they thought they were being treated fairly. Something chased them away.

 

[Waldo Pepper 1,953]

8 hours ago, Fielder said:

" It grew quickly from there because it was really easy to upload and download mods and had an easy enough search filter to find things.  Scenery categories, maps, etc soon followed and then the simple addition of making it easy to see which of your addons had updates made it the go to site. "

I can remember when their scenery had under 20 things to download. But they had a modern UI and maps to show where all the scenery locations on earth and links from the map to the scenery. Everything was easy to use. And their marketplace is very easy to navigate and purchase things.

I'll keep using fs.to but I won't buy stuff there anymore for a while, almost  none of it is exclusive. And go back to buying from them as soon as I see that they aren't making enemies of respected content creators. I do not understand the issues of controversy. But I doubt these content creators would just leave if they thought they were being treated fairly. Something chased them away.

 

A lot of people can obtain the technical ability to design a web site,  but it takes a certain level of intrinsic talent to build a good web site which is not only attractive to the human eye,  but extremely useful.    FS.to did absolutely everything the right way,   right up until the point they stepped on their own cow pie.    They've been a huge asset to the sim,  and to it's community.    There was a controversy,   but they were forced to admit the error of their ways.     Burning them to the ground is an unjust  response in my opinion,   it's bad for the sim,  bad for the community,  and seems a little like biting a hand that's fed me all I can eat for 2 years.

That said,  they are nothing without developers.  I have no problem if a dev chooses to utilize fs.to,  or not.   That is their decision,  not mine.

[VFXSimmer 1,310]

1 hour ago, Waldo Pepper said:

A lot of people can obtain the technical ability to design a web site,  but it takes a certain level of intrinsic talent to build a good web site which is not only attractive to the human eye,  but extremely useful.    FS.to did absolutely everything the right way,   right up until the point they stepped on their own cow pie.    They've been a huge asset to the sim,  and to it's community.    There was a controversy,   but they were forced to admit the error of their ways.     Burning them to the ground is an unjust  response in my opinion,   it's bad for the sim,  bad for the community,  and seems a little like biting a hand that's fed me all I can eat for 2 years.

That said,  they are nothing without developers.  I have no problem if a dev chooses to utilize fs.to,  or not.   That is their decision,  not mine.

Well said!

[The_Flying_Potato 25]

On 3/14/2023 at 1:50 AM, 109Sqn said:

List of deleted flightsim.to Mods? - Microsoft Flight Simulator (2020) - The AVSIM Community

I misread 'Mods' as MSDos!

[The_Flying_Potato 25]

4 hours ago, Waldo Pepper said:

A lot of people can obtain the technical ability to design a web site

I gave up with that sort of malarkey when mouse roll-overs were invented!

[orchestra_nl 935]

6 minutes ago, The_Flying_Potato said:

I misread 'Mods' as MSDos!

Ah, the good old days, tweaking the config.sys in order to get everything loaded in the most efficient order and when PC's still had a turbo button🤓

[The_Flying_Potato 25]

3 minutes ago, orchestra_nl said:

Ah, the good old days, tweaking the config.sys in order to get everything loaded in the most efficient order and when PC's still had a turbo button🤓

himem.sys to achieve more than 640k RAM - I think.

[The Flight Level 2,114]

I remember that turbo button! Great to reminisce when we thought Flight Simulator 5.1 was remarkable!

[The_Flying_Potato 25]

20 minutes ago, Doering said:

I remember that turbo button! Great to reminisce when we thought Flight Simulator 5.1 was remarkable!

US Navy Fighters! 🙂

[Twenty6 693]

I still have the box that Quarterdeck's QEMM came in. It's stuffed with serial and parallel cables.

[The_Flying_Potato 25]

1 hour ago, orchestra_nl said:

Ah, the good old days, tweaking the config.sys in order to get everything loaded in the most efficient order and when PC's still had a turbo button🤓

I took a taxi from not too far away from EGKA (I used to live in Worthing) to Mr Sir Alan Lord Beardy Sugar's lair to Amstrad's HQ to update my 486DX33 to a 486DX66 and get a second HD (350MB, I think) installed.