Orbx- Airport Quality Fly2High

[cavaricooper 2,615]

Orbx used to be my go to for regional airports in P3d- all of good quality and performance.  Lately, I have picked up a couple of MSFS Orbx airports (Fly2High) and have been mostly unimpressed.  Is this a trend or an oddity?

C 

[F737MAX 5,809]

14 minutes ago, cavaricooper said:

Is this a trend or an oddity?

Orbx is now a reseller/storefront much in the same way as Aerosoft, iniBuilds and JustFlight are. As such, Fly2High is a separate developer whose work is being sold through the Orbx store, though I wouldn't rate their stuff particularly highly.

Like all stores, it's worth performing some research on the developer to see if they meet your quality standards.

That said, Orbx's own product quality has been questionable for a while. I would only buy their add-ons where a lead developer is named in their product description e.g. Marcus Nyberg or Finn Hansen.

[JYW 2,991]

The in-house Orbx regional fields are still pretty nice (picked up Dundee in Scotland yesterday and it's gorgeous), but you're right, some of the airports that Orbx just publish that are made by 3rd parties are a lot weaker.  I have 3 by Fly2High and they're all pretty bland and unexceptional.

[Dutch-vdM 0]

Which one’s do you have? I think they are pretty decent. The newer ones are noticeably better though, which is offcourse understandable and is akso the case for most developers. The quiet recent Vertical sim KBOI is very nice but his older KORF is super bland.

[MNORM 20]

4 hours ago, JYW said:

The in-house Orbx regional fields are still pretty nice (picked up Dundee in Scotland yesterday and it's gorgeous), but you're right, some of the airports that Orbx just publish that are made by 3rd parties are a lot weaker.  I have 3 by Fly2High and they're all pretty bland and unexceptional.

I have Fly2High Kagoshima (RJFK).  The scenery itself looks great but the AFCAD is a complete disaster and the ILS no longer works.  They've done nothing to fix these issues despite numerous requests from purchasers. 

[Little Jenny 317]

Fly2High isn't a top tier dev but they do seem to hit airports that probably won't get any other love (medium size airports in the US mostly).  I have quite a few and some have only been 'improved' by MSFSSceneryBuilders and we all know their quality.  I'll admit I have got most of them on sale, so the value has been there for me.

As has already been stated, Orbx is merely providing a storefront for Fly2High and many others.

[ryanbatc 13,114]

Their stuff is a fps killer for me and I still see plenty of modeling artifacts with some of their scenery like KPVD.  And there are also no GA parking spots.  There was also a missing ILS but it may have been fixed 

[cavaricooper 2,615]

5 hours ago, Dutch-vdM said:

Which one’s do you have? I think they are pretty decent. The newer ones are noticeably better though, which is offcourse understandable and is akso the case for most developers. The quiet recent Vertical sim KBOI is very nice but his older KORF is super bland.

I just picked JAX and RSW as I’m based in FL. So far JAX has been disappointing. I did not expect FlightBeam or FlyTampa, but I was hoping for better than this. VerticalSim is superb in comparison. Is there a way to ask Fly2High to take a moment and refresh?

Ta- C

[styckx 1,872]

People didn't like John Venema because he was pretty blunt and didn't sugar coat much of anything but you can't deny when he was CEO he ran a tight ship at Orbx. He set high standards of expectations and demanded it.  It's only Orbx by name at this point, anything it was once known for resigned along with John. 

[fakeflyer737 1,020]

43 minutes ago, styckx said:

People didn't like John Venema because he was pretty blunt and didn't sugar coat much of anything but you can't deny when he was CEO he ran a tight ship at Orbx. He set high standards of expectations and demanded it.  It's only Orbx by name at this point, anything it was once known for resigned along with John. 

I wonder what happened to him. I actually really liked his no BS approached to things. Miss the guy. 

[Cognita 1,126]

1 hour ago, styckx said:

t's only Orbx by name at this point, anything it was once known for resigned along with John

Unfortunately, and I mean that sincerely, I have to basically agree with this statement. Even the Orbx branded airports I have purchased in the past couple of years -- only 3 or 4 -- have all been very disappointing for me. They are basically a "no buy" outfit for me now. But I will always remember with fondness their heyday with all those small PNW and California airports and flying the A2A Comanche among them. 

Not many of the old developers really made it to MSFS in good shape, maybe only Flightbeam, but which takes years to produce a scenery. FlyTampa is a bit hit and miss. Their Toronto rendition is quite dated and not particularly impressive by today's standards. LatinVFR airports are gradually being replaced by much better options. FSDreamTeam seems to have sunk into GSX, their Charlotte airport is one of the few I have just uninstalled, and I struggle with Louisville but use it because I enjoy UPS ops and there is nothing else. I find them bland with little character. Compare that with Pyreegue and iniBuilds, which I agree needs to work on optimization but I run their airports reasonably well.  FSLabs, Majestic, and Quality Wings are all still missing in action. PMDG made it over reasonably well and while their aircraft are solid and perform quite well I find they lack any innovative development, just the same product with no additional features to aid with immersion and engagement. I am still learning the A300 and it is doubtful I will rush to purchase the 777 when it comes out. Will I get it at some point, almost certainly. But I have no enthusiasm for it; I was looking forward to the PW A300 that just released more than I am to the 777. A2A made it soundly. Their Comanche is a step up from the p3D version and works beautifully in the sim. But then look at Black Square that seemed to come out of nowhere with such innovating and well developed and packaged aircraft. 

I think 2020 may very well be regarded a transition simulator, a transition to a new wave of companies to support our hobby. 

Edited March 30 by Cognita

[DavidP 1,426]

1 hour ago, Cognita said:

PMDG made it over reasonably well and while their aircraft are solid and perform quite well I find they lack any innovative development

I have to agree with that.

[Ed Correia 24]

Fly2High are a conundrum, I have questioned their tactic of being exclusive at different resellers for their releases.

Perhaps they have an attractive offer to be that "exclusive" in that first week or so of release. But splittng up their (growing) customer base to get the new product seems counterintuitive. Unfortunately they do come across as the cash for grab cohort to me. 

[Christopher Low 5,425]

Maybe they are flying 2 high, and need to drop down a bit from their lofty perch?

Edited April 1 by Christopher Low

[Rocky_53 1,605]

On 3/30/2024 at 11:56 AM, cavaricooper said:

Orbx used to be my go to for regional airports in P3d- all of good quality and performance.  Lately, I have picked up a couple of MSFS Orbx airports (Fly2High) and have been mostly unimpressed.  Is this a trend or an oddity?

C 

It's a trend. I find Orbx a 'sell out' to it's once loyal customer base. Originally created by John Venema, their sceneries were beautifully crafted by a small, hand picked group of enthusiastic individuals. Now, like many other things in today's society, it always seem to be about profit above quality. As has been pointed out, Orbx is now simply a reseller of addons, which is fine, but from where I sit, if a business is going to go down that route then they should lay down a set of quality control parameters that developers should have to adhere to when developing their addons. I recently bought a scenery which was a version 2 of an Italian airport and it was advertised as having 4K textures for the terminal... well, there was no way in a million years that the textures were anything close to what I know of as 4K! I asked for a full refund literally within minutes of loading the scenery. I have backed off from buying sceneries from Orbx for that reason. I want to be able to buy a scenery which has a reputable brand associated with it, knowing that when my money leaves my bank account, I am not going to see it as a waste of money. 

Edited April 1 by Rocky_53