RealAir, TJ (ROTW) and the Seneca five

[Guest]

TonyA lot of the problems have been the lack of money meaning publishers forcing release before the product was ready and more important the fact that there was little or no marketing.The success of FS2002 has been another problem which all in all means that as things stand at this point in time The Fly! platform is not an attractive one for commercial developers.Fly!2 is a niche market sim. That means you either sell an addon aircraft for around $100 which wouldnt work as you would end up with hardly any takers or it becomes a mainly freeware platform.But I repeat the Seneca Five will be released and this will be an exciting addition to fly!2. We have the Lear???????? and ROTW are building superb additions....Maybe they can find some place for me to contribute to Fly!.The TBM 700 was an astounding aircraft which matched or exceeded commercial releases.Who knows maybe there will be a Fly!3 or a consortium which will update Fly! to B, C, D like X-PlanePeter

[Guest tonyc]

Peter, I agree with you fully. With these endeavors we need some leadership,even if it's done loosely. For a while, Richard Harvey, depite his illness and Tri related obbligations, offered moral and real support. Since all of us have other jobs, it's important to have some highly talented FLY person(s) provide the incentive or leadership to pursue some projects. In some commercial cases, if REalSim or PMDG stated their minimum sales goals for FLY add-ons, I think they would get overwhelming support. In a worst case, they would at least know about the lack of support. Also,this time around, neither REalSim nor PMDG received real credit for their work or much advertising. In fact, if one forgets the name REalSim, he would have difficulty finding any reference to it. Avsim, too, could do a better job in the forum section for a "quick" "goto" button to another site. It's still very difficult finding Simvul for newcomers. So I go back to a basic assumption: There should either be a well know leader in our FLY commmunity who gets things and people moving, or there is a real need for a FLY Club, which pays dues and actually invests in specific projects with cash. Incidentally, some of FLY users do not necessarily give cash away, but if asked, one would be surprised as to how much we would offer to see some projects go forward. There are FLY projects on my list for which I would pay a reasonable amount before hand: a more intuitive SquawkBox, and more work on cockpit system realism. tony

[lefteris 70]

Peter-I cannot speak for the entire PMDG team, but as a developer, you've heard me say time and time again that I definitely support Fly!2, as it has a much more interesting (and better!) development platform than MSFS-anything. I never liked programming in Macro-languages anyway, and the C-programming environment that Microsoft provides is far from appealing.However, that is NOT the only reason why I liked the Fly!-series from day one. A far more important reason is the backing that TRI's developers (with Rich being the leader) have provided historically, in terms of opening up the SDK and allowing questions to be answered. I wouldn't even imagine Microsoft giving the level of support that TRI gave all this time (if anyone from Microsoft *is* reading this, YES, we DO need it, as a company - so pls. contact us!).I will keep supporting Fly!2 as a developer (I am enhancing Squawkbox as we speak), because I definitely do not want to see it die. I don't care too much for the economics of it, but as a developer, nothing brings me more pleasure than seeing developers who care for their work, stand behind their product the way Rich Harvey and Paul Russell have.

[Guest Hagar]

I said i hated the money-driven world and I do. But at the same time, if the developers need more money I`ll gladly pay more for a good product.Maybe the developers should try a poll in the forum before announcing a new product, that way they would have a clue about the income...

[Guest tonyc]

We need more people like you, Lefteris. As I said earlier.... all we need is love....:-)tony

[michal 44]

>There's a catch 22 in all of this. MSFS needs competition, >yet the crowd always seems to be attracted to the safer >side.Not sure why safer. The fact is that consumers can and will always find the "value". FS2002 offers these days tremendous value. If FLY2 instead competing with the FS developed its own formula for a simulator instead of providing questionable eye-candy then maybe the situation would be different. Unfortunately if there is anybody to blame here it is not the consumers for making a 'safe' choice but producers of FLY2 who failed to provide the vision/execution for their product.I agree however about ingenuity. This is what was needed from day 1.Michael J.

[Guest]

It is not so much that RealAir has abandoned Fly, more that the potential customers needed to keep Fly alive have abandoned it in favour of FS2002. As Peter said, we are keeping the Seneca project going with TJ's help, but we know this is a labour of love and expect to make a loss on this project. I hope people understand that the RealAir team as individuals did a lot of work over several years to help keep the Fly platform up and running with many free addons, tweaks, new aircraft, new textures, new flight models and other enhancements.The Citabria package must be the best value addon in the entire payware sim market, but despite excellent reviews and feedback the sales for this aircraft barely reached break-even. I can only imagine what PMDG have suffered with their much greater initial committment and large team of designers.Others may disagree, but in my sincere opinion, Fly2k was a very promising sim which I believe should have been extended and enhanced. Fly2 for me was a backward step, and is a core sim which lacks very basic functions you would expect in a new version and has very poor scenery, despite the efforts of many who have done their best to improve this situation. We all know that underlying the above was a rush to publish due to commercial pressures. I said at the time that this would be a fatal step and it has proved to be so.Best Regards,Rob Young

[michal 44]

>Others may disagree, but in my sincere opinion, Fly2k was a >very promising sim which I believe should have been extended >and enhanced. Fly2 for me was a backward step, and is a core >sim which lacks very basic functions you would expect in a >new version and has very poor scenery, despite the efforts >of many who have done their best to improve this situation. Rob,Exactly.Instead of recognizing these simple facts some here would rather put the blame on under-informed ignorant consumers or perhaps some Microsoft's dark forces.Michael J.

[Guest tonyc]

I see your point, Michael. In fact, I agree with the fact that Tri should have gone in a slightly different direction. By "safe" side, I mean that we should not underestimate the power of name recognition. MS has had the good fortune of becoming a household name( and not undeservingly,either). All things being equal, a consumer faced with either an MS product( which has been around for a long time) and a brand new product will most likely go with MS. This puts practically any new sim at a disadvantage. But in the end, Michael, market forces have cast a die on FLY2. We can only take it, like a collector's item, and enjoy it for what it is, and hope that from time to time an add-on adds to its charm. With greater luck, we can hope that some smart developer (with new money and energy) picks it up. Afterall, if fighter sims still can make money( il-2), so can a new,improved civil sim. tony

[Guest tonyc]

So, Rob, are you saying that there's no hope for FLY2? I was under the impression that the "beta team" was working on those items that would give FLY2 what it should have had when it first came out. What would developers do if MS decided to leave the flight sim business? Would they go back to the days when multiple sims(however flawed) were appreciated by a more "veteran" simmer community? I am just curious. Your plane is in fact one of the best planes in the sim world. I fly msfs2002 and, frankly, after a while those unreadable cockpits bring me back to FLY2. Then, when I see some add on for fs2002, I get excited and download it. When I run it, alas, I find that many of these downloads are variations of the same flawed planes. When I look at the exceptions, I find that fs2002 and FLY are almost on par. This is the point from which I get hopeful. I am grateful for anyone who develops add ons free or not. I simply am concerned about a one flight sim world. tony

[Ben Johnson 3]

Peter,I'm disappointed RAL position, but understand it, to a certain point. If this has been RAL's position why wasn't it stated earlier and your web site updated accordingly?This statement confuses me "When we released the highly acclaimed Decathlon/Citabria we were dissapointed with the total downloads." Did RAL do any market analysis to see if the community was interested in this aircraft? I for one was and still am not interested it. I prefer the heavies, cabin-class twins and high performance singles. I'm sure there is a significant base out there that would agree. I wish RAL all the best with their FS2K2 add-ons, I'm sure they will sell to your expectations. If the Seneca or Lear are released for Fly! or FS2K2, I will buy them (Rob Young's flight models are second to none).If this sounds harsh, it's because I'm angry and disappointed this sim is dying. As stated in a previous post if I was a developer I would do what I can to enhance the sim.Regards,Bob Lyddy

[lefteris 70]

Well,while the reasoning behind my statements comes from the heart, I still have to feed my children, so I don't disagree with Peter or others who've spoken earlier about the economic viabilities. All I am saying is that I will still support Fly!2, because, well, I love the way Rich Harvey has dealt with everything, despite all his health issues.All *I* have to say is: If all of you are SO desperately needing "another sim", then why don't we all gather around together to try to convince Evan Russell (and TRI) to open up the "scenery-related" portion of the Sim to the developer public? Since most of us have agreed that scenery is what people are missing the most from Fly!2, it would mean a heck of a lot to switch from the existing stuff to a new way of doing things.Ideas?

[michal 44]

>if fighter sims still can make money( il-2), so can a >IL-2 is actually a good example that a newcomer with a well-thought out and executed product can succeed in this cut-throat market.Michael J.

[Guest Dean]

>Instead of recognizing these simple facts some here would >rather put the blame on under-informed ignorant consumers or >perhaps some Microsoft's dark forces. >>Michael J.And then what, Michael? After they recognized those simple facts, what would you want them to do admit publicly that Fly II sucks and then stop using it? I'm a little puzzled by this post. Fly II lives on in, at least in this forum, because the users want it to. It is the sim of their choice. Warts and all.

[LAdamson 240]

> I fly msfs2002 and, frankly, after a while those >unreadable cockpits bring me back to FLY2. I really must question what you're seeing. In my vast :-lol amount of simming experience, I find numerous 3rd party FS aircraft to have easily readable panels, lettering, gauges etc. Even the MSFS defaults are easy to read.................... except they look like "garbage"! This is not to "chop" the majority of FLY panels, because there have been some terrific ones. I just don't see what your saying at all. Perhaps it's because I run in very clear high resolution as well as VC instruments in the high resolution mode.>Then, when I see >some add on for fs2002, I get excited and download it. When >I run it, alas, I find that many of these downloads are >variations of the same flawed planes. When I look at the >exceptions, I find that fs2002 and FLY are almost on par. Sure nice to find so "many" exceptions for FS2002 isn't it? Aircraft such as the Dreamfleet Archer........... which BTW has to come the closest to the best simulated small GA aircraft flight dynamics that I've run into, as well as the FSD Cheyenne & Flight1 Cessna 421.L.Adamson