A Disappointment with SP2

[JSkorna 137]

"The co-operation between Aces and 3rd party is not quite what they want the community to believe.""Aces could have made minor changes to Acceleration or SP2 that would have prevented 3rd party developers to have to now step up and do it.I completely understand that certain features had to be changed in order for the sim to progress, but some of the stuff that were broken and/or omitted are just unbelievable, and not affected by the core."Jimhttp://www.hifisim.com/banners/hifi-community-sigbanner.jpghttp://www.hifisim.com/

[Guest Seadog]

Quoting Phil Taylor -"The fact of the situation is that it is no longer possible to sell non-FSX aircraft as FSX aircraft. 3rd parties will have to decide to update or not update their products, and inform their customers.I meant it when I stated that this was a precursor of things to come, back compat is about to undergo serious changes. In the future it will very likely no longer be possible to resell old content for the new platform. At all, as in the platform will refuse to load it.In some cases it might very well be a simple re-export just to get the file marked as required by the new loader, but that will depend on the state of the content."When you think of everything new FSX brought to the party, you can't help but applaud. From round Earth, to near space, to increased detail of the Earth's surface, to the Control Tower, to multiplayer, to missions, to flex wings, to moving vehicles - ahh, the list is impressively longer than that. And when you think of the Herculean effort involved in SP1 to correct the misjudged bet that processor speeds would increase arithmetically rather than be replaced by multiple cores, you just have to applaud again. Not all is hearts and flowers; the DX10 downgrade to preview status stands out, another misjudged bet on the future of hardware. But that is dwarfed by the advances, the openness, the early availability of the SDK. Risks were taken. Some were rewarded and some weren't, but the awards much outnumber the demerits.In this enlightening, civil discussion of interneccine differences of expectations and desires among developers, unmentioned is the central issue of amortization of investment. From a clinically sterile economic perspective, MS is not concerned with whether an addon developer can recoup its investment. Amortization of investment is also a key concern of users, however, and that element seems not to be addressed in the strategic thinking. I sense a gathering storm in your intimations, Phil, that everything not brand new will be locked out of FS 11. That sends a message to users to husband their powder and bullets for the next engagement. Or to think about skipping the event entirely.It would be enormously useful in assessing the relative strengths of various positions to have real data on sales and categories of users. Absent that, one can postulate at least four classes of users: basic purchasers of the MS programs alone; avid IFR procedural purists; avid VFR recreational sightseers; and the new category of mission players. One could guess that third party addons are mostly irrelevant to the first group, and the fourth group is too new to make much difference yet, but the second and third are heavy purchasers of additional materials, depending upon the sandbox platform nature of the base program to support such improvements. I suspect MS can calibrate a level of investment in the program that could be amortized without the IFR and VFR avid users, but the same folks who develop addons for those groups are the inspired source for addons for the mission users, as well. Thus the growth of the base market continues to depend upon the viable presence of third party developers who amplify and enrich the base programs.Their viability depends upon the orderly and profitable amortization of their investments. Their market depends upon the orderly and sensible amortization of the investment end users make in their addon programs. So, expansion of the market MS sells to requires that MS take into account amortization from the perspective of all three entities: itself, third party developers and end users. It doesn't take a fortune teller to understand the limitless possibilities of the core platform, from Realtors, to land use planners, to traffic engineers, to GIS users, to environmental watchdogs, to military related users and so forth - and we who are mere VFR sightseers are really going to enjoy those extensions. But you can't get all giddy about fancy prospects and forget who pays the bills and what they think about the value of their investments. So when you say you're going to open a new bar called FS 11, where the money in our FSX wallets now won't likely be accepted, you might want to work a long time to develop some doggone good whiskey before betting the ranch and the big house. A proper amount of incubation time would allow the orderly amortization of investments by third party developers and end users alike.What's a proper amount of time? Given the extraordinary remedies that had to be applied to render the program fully usable, and the consequence that third party addons can only now begun to be built to comply with specs, I'd say three years from now, Fall of 2010. More to the point, I think MS needs to calibrate everyone's expectations by deciding on a development timetable and releasing an expected RTM date, even if only by saying Fall of whatever year. Then everyone can judge for themselves what to invest. If you're going to break the mold, let people know when. Then they know what their investment is buying.With the heightened hardware requirements of FSX, this costly hobby became extraordinarily expensive during this cycle. Thinking it could happen all over again as soon as two years from now is an unpleasant prospect.-Doug

[Geofa 108]

What a great post.I just have to mention a few things.1) I just upgraded my 4 year old computer for $1300 Us and fsx runs great on it.Doing the same 10 years ago (an upgrade from a 486 33 to a 486 66) cost double this-almost $4000. I used to upgrade almost yearly with similar costs. Do a factor of inflation let alone cost here..amazing what we get today for a buck.2) This sim gets closer and closer to real flying with every incarnation. You do not want to compare my costs for real flying this month with even 10 years of costs of flying fs...So extraordinarily expensive? No way-a bargain to me-maybe one of the last ones available in our world-both history wise and real wise.http://www.mediafire.com/imgbnc.php/1b5baf...b9f427f694g.jpgMy blog:http://geofageofa.spaces.live.com/

[JSkorna 137]

What an excellent post!!Jimhttp://www.hifisim.com/banners/hifi-community-sigbanner.jpghttp://www.hifisim.com/

[PhilTaylor 45]

Good post, thought provoking.If, and I say if because this is just a discussion at this point within the studio, we made the call to only load "current version" content in vNext we would only do that by making it easy to read content from the just past version ( vCurrent if you will ) and re-export with the required blessing. So the people with true FSX content ( "MDLXMDLH" in the model file header ) would definitely have a leg up. But the content that is marked as FS8 content ( "MDL8MDLH" in the model file header ) would then need a full rebuild.This means those developers who are continually re-investing are more properly rewarded. And reduces the back-compat burden ( time to implement meaning less time on perf and new features ) as well as the bug nightmare ( making a change in the new code path that you dont get right in the compat code path ) that we live in.And that is goodness all the way around.

[Guest wjotten]

>The issue is clearly defined and the primary responsable party>is Aces. >>It is my personal belief that Aces has the responsibility and>the skill to address this for develoers and customers alike.>After all, it is their franchise and let's all hope they>respond in a contructive way:-)>You're joking right? ACES has basically thrown in the towel. FSX users, who were promised back-compatability basically now have neutered and useless aircraft, 3rd party vendors take the brunt of it now because the flight sim community won't part with money for add-ons they can't be sure will work, and ACES wipes their hands of it all with an "on to the next project" mentality. I'm with the developers on this, and as a consumer, I blame ACES for rendering a lot of costly add-ons worthless. FSX was promised to be a compatible, open architecture release in the tradition of prior Flight Sim versions. What everyone got instead was the shaft.

[Guest Binncott]

Now I am no businessman, nor am I employed within this industry.From an outsiders point of view, I am a wee bit surprised at this state of affairs.If ( and I may well be wrong ) I'm reading this thread correctly, it boils down to many developers highlighting a problem with FSX SP2 and asking for MS or ACES to publish a patch or fix to solve it, namely publish the FS9 VCRain fx files which are copyright and cannot be published by said developers themselves.The response (from ACES) appears to be no, it's up to the developers to solve these problems themselves.I'm just wondering at what point MS or ACES will actually realise that it is the work of the 3rd party developers whether freeware or payware who maintain and generate interest in the original product.After all here we are 1 year down the road and despite SP1, Sp2 and whatever, a visit to ebay shows that a lot of folks are selling FSX atbig reductions. Now folks who visit here are F/s enthusiasts anyway, but unless there is a continuing variety of add-ons/expansions available to the general user, their interest will fall off and MS will lose potential customers for future products.There's an old saying that "The proof of the pudding is in the eating" and surely it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that the pudding is not tasting as it should.CheersStew

[curt1 79]

I totally agree with Eric. There was a thread earlier in the year where simmers were "begging" Microsoft to start with a clean sheet and advance the franchise forward. Backward compatability be gone! Posters asked for better frame rates number one, also improved ATC among other things. If FS11 is all new and distinctly improved, and not a refresher of FSX, people will embrace it. So all who purchase for FSX should know and understand their addons will also remain there. So I encourage MS, Phil and the whole ACES team, envision big, remember fps in all that you do, and I will buy.Curt

[Guest aeroworx]

Jim,I stated my opinion based on my own experience as well as that of co-workers. I know what I know. Anyway, you stated your opinion about my post - and that's all it is, your opinion. Therefore I won't disagree with you, but I will stick to what I said.HenningFlight1 Software

[N400QW 205]

Doug, if what you postulate were to become cold hard fact then the franchise could indeed become something other than a flight simulator.The picture you paint is pretty bleak this early in the cycle. Imagine all developers having to rebuild everything from scratch for the new paradigm...then imagine the migration away from the simulator because third pary content is not available.If Acceleration, which is mostly third party developed, becomes the next link in the development chain then third party developers who now enjoy autonamy may well fold their tents and disappear in much the same way that freeware developers are doing now.Time will tell but as my wise old aunt once said...be careful what you wish for because you may actually get it:-)

[Guest grapesh]

So, I'm just curious: If FS11 is going to be a complete new animal with no guaranteed backwards-compatibility, will the 3d-party devs be able to have a new SDK some time in advance of the RTM? My understanding is now they have a sneak peak while beta-testing a new version, so NDA keeps them shut about new/added/removed features. But in the event of total rework of the MSFS core, they will have to start completely from scratch.The only reason I'm asking is because I'm holding my breath for FS11 and FS11 payware, as I believe FSX is not the version I would invest in (meaning both hardware and software). So I like the idea of breaking the backwards compatibility, but at the same time, I'm curious if the 3-d party developers are in position to be prepared for big changes if any?Cheers, =S.V.=eMachines T5026/P4/3.07GHz/1Gb RAM/160Gb S-ATA HDD/Windows XP Home SP2/ATI RADEON 9250 PCI 256Mb/ViewSonic VX910 19' 1280x1024/Microsoft SideWinder Force Feedback 2

[N400QW 205]

"If, and I say if because this is just a discussion at this point within the studio, we made the call to only load "current version" content in vNext we would only do that by making it easy to read content from the just past version ( vCurrent if you will ) and re-export with the required blessing. So the people with true FSX content ( "MDLXMDLH" in the model file header ) would definitely have a leg up. But the content that is marked as FS8 content ( "MDL8MDLH" in the model file header ) would then need a full rebuild.This means those developers who are continually re-investing are more properly rewarded. And reduces the back-compat burden ( time to implement meaning less time on perf and new features ) as well as the bug nightmare ( making a change in the new code path that you dont get right in the compat code path ) that we live in.And that is goodness all the way around."Hmmm, are you actually considering such a tool Phil? Imagine a tool or tool set that could actually make a conversion from "vCurrent MDLXMDLH" to vNext. Imagine Aces actually building or offering such support for third party devs.The question of course is at what costs to devs and customers alike:-)

[Guest Seadog]

Yes, indeed, that is goodness all the way around. Thanks for that degree of reassurance, and my work is done if I have provoked thought.-Doug

[Manny 1,293]

>So, I'm just curious: >>If FS11 is going to be a complete new animal with no>guaranteed backwards-compatibility, will the 3d-party devs be>able to have a new SDK some time in advance of the RTM? My>understanding is now they have a sneak peak while beta-testing>a new version, so NDA keeps them shut about new/added/removed>features. But in the event of total rework of the MSFS core,>they will have to start completely from scratch.>>The only reason I'm asking is because I'm holding my breath>for FS11 and FS11 payware, as I believe FSX is not the version>I would invest in (meaning both hardware and software). So I>like the idea of breaking the backwards compatibility, but at>the same time, I'm curious if the 3-d party developers are in>position to be prepared for big changes if any?>>Cheers, >>=S.V.=>eMachines T5026/P4/3.07GHz/1Gb RAM/160Gb S-ATA HDD/Windows XP>Home SP2/ATI RADEON 9250 PCI 256Mb/ViewSonic VX910 19'>1280x1024/Microsoft SideWinder Force Feedback 2I hate this...But.I have to agree.. the addon vendors...should go back to developing for FS9 while they learn more about FS11...and invest in FS11.developing for FSX may not be economically sound. FSX maybe skip worthy!Manny

[Geofa 108]

They certainly have lots of my money...why would it be worth the skip-there have to be others-maybe even a fewor many? From your past posts it seems you may be in the same boat?I go fly intensively for real for a few days-come back here and feel like I am in the twilight zone.http://www.mediafire.com/imgbnc.php/1b5baf...b9f427f694g.jpgMy blog:http://geofageofa.spaces.live.com/