bonchie

Why? I let W10 update and I've had zero problems in any games, including P3D4 and XP11. Some of the things we used to do because FSX was so finicky just aren't necessary anymore.

Weather is going to be an issue that you can't simply engineer around. With a car you can battle threw a thunderstorm you've stupidly driven into. In a plane (or human carrying drone), you likely die. It takes real thought, preparation, and decision making to decide if a flight is safe, especially anything over 50nm. That's part of why the FAA requires certification. Winds will also be a big issue with takeoff and landings with these things trying to squeeze into small spaces. Lastly, thinking the FAA is going to allow these things with uncertified pilots into the national airspace is crazy. That means they'll remain only a few hundred feet off the ground and noise pollution will be a show stopper. The first time someone kills themselves in one, the companies will be sued out of existence. Ever wonder why a Cessna 172 costs $400k these days and most manufacturers are not producing light GA anymore? Litigation costs are a big chunk of it. Eventually, these issues will be worked out, but it won't be anytime soon.

We have airport diagrams and you usually have a general idea of what routing ground will give you because you know where you are going. Much of the time you are familar with the airport as well. The vast majority of airports are fairly simple. Sim pilots spend a disproportionate amount of time at massive hub airports compared to real life. In reality, when you are at an airport that big, it's almost always because you fly something big enough to have someone in the right seat. That lessens the workload obviously.

Everyone experiences that. Anyone that tells you they didn't think about quitting is probably lying, especially after busting a check ride. It looks like she passed her IFR check ride after this video. Good for her. The hardest part is over now. CPL will be a breeze compared.

Hadn't seen anyone comment on the new night textures for cities yet. It's a revelation for me. I had stopped flying at night because the popping lights and short range (leading into blackness) just killed it for me. The new textures aren't perfect, but they very much work as intended.

My #1 biggest issue with P3D at this point is something addons can't change, and that's the scenery presentation in how it handles landclass, cities, etc. My #2 is the night experience. I can't even play P3D at night anymore after using XP11 and DCS. It just looks bad to me.

Read my post. I said developers can't keep rehashing the same thing. I realize that old code can be updated. Heck, that's what DCS did and I was using them as an example. What I don't think can succeed is yet another FSX clone where none of the underlying scenery engine is really changed, i.e. FSW putting lipstick on FSX while it still looks 99% the same.

Notice I said it can't be feature stripped though. Whatever someone offers, it can't be lacking so many basic features that people look past the graphical improvements because they just can't do without ATC or weather.

Sorry man. We normally agree, but the P3D engine is dated. I don't care about what's under the hood or how the code has technically advanced. Graphically, it looks way, way out of date. While I'm happy for the many improvements LM has made to many grahpical elements, the general FSX-esque presentation of the landclass system, resolutions, and general scenery is still there.

True. I think with modern graphics expectations being what they are, it's probably impossible to ever have another world-wide simulator in the near future so we continue to see the status quo pushed. Instead of something new we've gotten attempts at resurrecting a clearly outdated, unattractive engine with FSX. People point to Flight to say "see...it wasn't world wide!!! it's always got to be world wide to succeed!!!" but the truth is that Flight still had the same ugly landclass system and looked mostly the same as FSX. Just like FSW, it offered few graphical improvements, still looked dated, and basically offered less than what someone could simply get in the existing sims. Had Flight or FSW come out with an actual modern, beautiful engine, even in a limited geographic area (but not Hawaii, I'm talking a well done US state size area or a country in Europe), it'd of probably succeeded. So in a way, you and Rob are saying the same thing but with different prescriptions. Developers can't continue to rehash the same outdated stuff. At the same time, I disagree with Rob and do think there's a market out there for a modern, pretty, feature rich simulator if it were done right and it wouldn't take anywhere near $100-200m to produce. Look at the success DCS is having right now. It's not because everyone just loves military birds. It's because they released a modern engine that is actually mostly feature complete. DCS has likely spent not even $15m on their simulator, much less $100-200m. It's not world wide and you'll always have the purists crying about not being able to fly over their house (which is not actually there in FSX and looks like crap anyway). But there's still a market for a modern looking sim that's not feature stripped. I own XP11 and I've never loaded the world-wide scenery. Only the North America region. Mostly to save hard drive space, but I don't find that I hate the sim because I can't go to Britain.

I hope not. We don't need yet another ESP reboot. P3D is already doing that. Someone needs to do something new.

It may mean that DTG is closing down all together. Otherwise, I don't see why they'd stop selling the product, even unsupported (which does happen).

Even if that were the issue, literally all they would have to do is send it to full release on Steam as the final version instead of green lighting it as early access

There has to be more to this story. If they have loans, why would they not continue to sell the product to recoup as much as they can? Why not a $5 flash sale on Steam as a final grab? I wonder if MS was one of the creditors and FSW lost the rights to their own product. That's the only thing that makes sense to me. Why else remove it from Steam?

I'll admit the timing of this is odd. Even if FSW's development is stopping, why would they stop selling it? Defunct games stay for sale on Steam all the time to keep generating income. DTG just released a new addon like three days ago...and now all the sudden it's leaving Steam and the doors are closed? Something weird is going on here. That's why I speculated that they've lost the right to sell FSW (i.e. they never actually owned the FS franchise but just leased it's rights). With that said, I do not want to see anyone else pick up the ESP code. P3D is already doing that and the ESP engine itself is just too far dated at this point. As much as I like the weather (with addons) and airplanes (with addons) in P3D, the graphical limits are really starting to show in regards to scenery presentation and lighting, even with the best addons. It's tough to go back to P3D after experiencing graphical fidelity like DCS or even XP11 w/ Ortho. I can't even fly at night in P3D anymore because it looks so ridiculous compared to the other modern sims. I'm not sure if we'll see another civilian simulator anytime soon, but I'm just done with the ESP reboots. P3D can keep doing it's thing but someone needs to do something new.