Chaseplane supports P3Dv6

[level7]

1 hour ago, RRVyper said:

This is nothing more than a cash grab from loyal CP users. As Ray mentioned, the camera api appears unchanged and it would be a trivial task to add P3Dv6 support to the previous version. I’m sure people would be ok with a nominal upgrade fee in that case. As it is, in order to use their previous camera sets, which they have spent alot of time setting up, they are asked to pay the ridiculous “upgrade” fee for a program they can’t even use in older sim versions. What a grift!

I do agree this could be handled and communicated better, especially with the earlier "complaining" earlier by the devs, but ultimately any price would have generated complaints anyways "CUZ IT'S SO LITTLE WORK!".

They noted before the reduced the price after MSFS released and that didn't really boost sales so maybe a lower price doesn't give them much of an upside.

edit: Can I ask what "loyalty" you mean here? you paid a fixed amount (which wasn't that high) and then maybe you used the software a lot.

Edited July 19, 2023 by level7
loyalty

[brucewtb]

Well I guess this is good news for CP users but I note that the cost of moving to P3D6 is steadily climbing if you add up the cost of a personal P3D6 licence, Active Sky (which many would regard as a must have) and now CP (which also would be regarded as must have by many - that or EZCA). All together it is probably north of 200 AUD to end up with a sim that that hasn't moved on all that much from its predecessor and requires a fair bit of hackery to get all the other bits and pieces working.

Bruce

Edited July 19, 2023 by brucewtb
typo

[ggerolamo]

2 hours ago, RRVyper said:

...api appears unchanged and it would be a trivial task to add P3Dv6 support to the previous version.

That's exactly the problem, apart from the cheeky price (without discount for previous owners), I find it absurd that I have to have 2 different versions installed (which obviously don't differ functionally at all) when I use p3dv5 and p3dv6 !
Given this fact, I really can not support this rip-off on the part of //42 !
Please find someone else stupid, but certainly not me !!!!
(I just hope this kind of ripoff is not a procedure for other developers)

[Ray Proudfoot]

2 hours ago, brucewtb said:

Well I guess this is good news for CP users but I note that the cost of moving to P3D6 is steadily climbing if you add up the cost of a personal P3D6 licence

The price of a v5 licence was very similar. What has changed in the last couple of years is the cost of hardware especially graphics cards. 1500GBP for a 4090 dwarfs the cost of any software.

[PavlinS]

I am happy for the fact CP is released for v6 exclusively, yes, the price is a little troubling, but mind the fact I do now changed my mind about v6 and actually want to buy it, this will be amazing upgrade. My first ever addon was PMDG 747, but the this one was the second. Chaseplane is a turning point for me and I am happy I can purchase new version, no matter how expensive it is. After all, those posts on Facebook were not a good news for me, and now I am happy they changed their mind about it. 

[Torsen]

Quite interesting to follow the discussion.

- Dev says no support for new sim version cause no ROI and can't provide support forever due to costs and literally zero new sales.

- Parts of the Customers going nuts and telling devs we will happily buy the product again for support of new sim.

- Dev says ok we got a solution, buy it for full price so that we can cover (some of) our costs with the way small user base.

- Parts of the Customers going nuts again: No way. We are beeing ripped off.

Neutral observer going okaaaaaaaaay 😄

Cheers T.

[d.tsakiris]

11 minutes ago, Torsen said:

Parts of the Customers

 

11 minutes ago, Torsen said:

Parts of the Customers

Question here is: Are these the same parts of the customers? Probably not, which would explain the different behaviour here.

In my humble opinion, there would have been a compromise available: An update for existing customers at a reduced price, but I didn't see one...?

[anden145]

28 minutes ago, Torsen said:

- Parts of the Customers going nuts and telling devs we will happily buy the product again for support of new sim.

Where have you read this statement, with regards to P3D v6 ?? Haven't seen any expression in here, that everyone would be perfectly fine with paying full price again?! 
There's been some discussion about this, when it comes to MSFS support (which for now is impossible).

I don't really understand this, to be honest. "Rebranding" an existing product, by now calling it "Professional/Pro" - adding no additional features - and then justifying a new license with asking full price, when the upgrade isn't that complex, as - from what I've gathered - the API hasen't change that much; or at all. HifiSim I can - to a degree - understand, as they had to adapt their weather engine, to the new atmospheric engine. 

I'm terribly sorry and with all the respect to the developer, but I simply just don't see the justification for this.  

Edited July 19, 2023 by anden145

[Torsen]

2 minutes ago, anden145 said:

Where have you read this statement, with regards to P3D v6 ?? Haven't seen any expression in here, that everyone would be perfectly fine with paying full price again?! 
There's been some discussion about this, when it comes to MSFS support (which for now is impossible).

I don't really understand this, to be honest. "Rebranding" an existing product, by now calling it "Professional/Pro" - adding no additional features - and then justifying a new license with asking full price, when the upgrade isn't that complex, as - from what I've gathered - the API hasen't change that much; or at all. HifiSim I can - to a degree - understand, as they had to adapt their weather engine, to the new atmospheric engine. 

I'm terribly sorry and with all the respect to the developer, but I simply just don't see the justification for this.  

 

39 minutes ago, d.tsakiris said:

Question here is: Are these the same parts of the customers? Probably not, which would explain the different behaviour here.

In my humble opinion, there would have been a compromise available: An update for existing customers at a reduced price, but I didn't see one...?

Indeed parts of customers in the two rows will not be exactly the same but you will see some overlapping for sure. And I'm not referring to avsim only as its only a small part of the comm streams. And I did not say full price either. But thats nitpicking anyway. Its more the thing behind and I would even go a bit further and put it out as a general critic to some attitude that has spread in sadly bigger parts of our community for quite some time. I paid a full price X years ago so I expect endless support and reduced price for follow ups. Things like appreciation of the customers loyalty will come up. And this expectations are even not bound to one sim. Take the new a2a Comanche as another example. A three year brand new development even for another platform not reusing technically anything (except parts of the manual) and you get requests hey I bought The Comanche for FSX so what about a reduced price. In the case of chaseplane (that is btw not for everyone an essentiell addon and in the other sim honestly even not needed anymore if you are willing to adopt to change) its like I bought 5-7 or whatever years ago a product that I'm happily using. Even if the changes are marginal you want a new installer and ongoing support again. Times have changed and if you check your own ongoing costs and how they have increased in the recent time, buying it at a full price would just show some appreciation back towards the Devs. If the price announced is justified is not in my scope and I won't comment as its a tool that I don't need in my v6, everyone has to decide on his/her own. In the end we should not forget that we are not talking about an abstract instance called DEV, its human beeings with families and needs also. And I don't think that the profit margin of Chaseplane sales for v6 will buy anyone a Ferrari. Perhaps a small RC version.

Highly subjective and debatable for sure as always... happy flying in your preferred sim(s) 😉

Cheers

T.

 

[Christopher Low]

I do not for one minute believe that Parallel 42 are deliberately trying to rip off existing (or indeed, potentially new) users of ChasePlane, so maybe there is another reason why they are not able to offer a significantly reduced "upgrade" price for existing customers? Maybe they had to pay for an updated professional licence for it to be released as a training product for P3Dv6 (this could be a bit different when compared to earlier versions of P3D, as the options and costs have changed somewhat)? Maybe they need to pay back the "support from their commercial partners" that made this release possible in the first place?

Edited July 19, 2023 by Christopher Low

[Krakin]

P3D owners need to make peace with the fact that the sim has hardly anyone using it, relatively speaking. It cost money to get the add-on to work on V6 and considering the size of the install base, they had to charge full price to recoup what they put in. Simple as that. All this complaining will probably leave them less inclined to do anything else with P3D.

[d.tsakiris]

6 minutes ago, Krakin said:

what they put in

Considering the short time it took to adapt it to V6, it would seem to me they didn't have to put in that much, and a reduced price for previous user is justified.

[newtie]

Good point. Also, if the price is (not) right, don't buy it.
We all make choices.

10 minutes ago, Krakin said:

P3D owners need to make peace with the fact that the sim has hardly anyone using it, relatively speaking. It cost money to get the add-on to work on V6 and considering the size of the install base, they had to charge full price to recoup what they put in. Simple as that. All this complaining will probably leave them less inclined to do anything else with P3D.

 

[Ray Proudfoot]

9 minutes ago, d.tsakiris said:

Considering the short time it took to adapt it to V6, it would seem to me they didn't have to put in that much, and a reduced price for previous user is justified.

Removing redundant code seems to be it.

[787flyer]

Well, having read Kevin's message I have a somewhat better understanding of the price and do appreciate the discount being offered to existing CP end users.

In my view, untangling code is not an obvious benefit for users, but certainly for their support folks its a benefit unless it demonstrates way better performance of the app with the sim. I didn't have much trouble with CP in v5 so for me that possible benefit is likely not realized. For others it may be.

 

Having said that, my take is definitely along the lines of what @Christopher Low wrote above about the training product. In Keven's message there is an expectation that Personal P3D Users were not the target of the CP Pro product and more so the training institutions were the target, so I guess those users can stump up the money for the increased price. I can understand that logic based on the flightsim market today.

Secondly, if CP Pro offers/commits to v6 support across all minor versions (typically there have been 4-5 per major P3D release lately) to come at no additional price, then I can accept the price increase providing that commitment is honored.

 

In summary, I would consider buying CP Pro for v6 once the other add-ons I have are supported in v6.So it's a possible future buy for me, but not right now.