Medellinexpat

Stephen firstly you clearly misunderstand my view on the Org store. Did you read it properly? I was intending to be supportive of the store and suggesting that developers who are avoiding it were potentially losing sales. Having the product on your own store only means that once the burst of release publicity has gone how do you even know the product exists?
As for the argument that developers aren’t in some cases avoiding the Org store I’m surprised as several of my recent purchases weren’t available on the Org store. I gave an example of one in my post. What about a well known A300 and Beluga release? There isn’t much Asian scenery on the Org store. There is on another competing platform including Changi and  a fairly new Narita. There’s also a much better Gatwick recently released than the one on the Org store. I could go on.

Now that’s not to say I expect everything to be on the Org store, nor that there won’t be items that don’t meet the Org store standards but there are gaps and you won’t have to go far to find developers on posted feedback saying that they don’t intend to use the Org store. One posted in another forum that it was because the Org. Store didn’t meet their standards, which as I posted there made zero sense.

Much as I like my points on the Org store I do wonder if eliminating that program (which might be unpopular) might allow the store to give a better deal to developers and encourage more complete coverage? Or even the option. Want your points or give the benefit back to the developers? 

Welcome back. Excellent comments on the state of the add on industry and many of them were foreseeable. Those that left for the riches of MSFS leaving their old clientele behind. Step up names like Carenado who seem to have deserted Xplane. Even Orbx who other than a couple of releases now seem to have turned into a store for other Xplane add on providors. It would be interesting to get information from the source about just how well MSFS sales are going. Did deserting Xplane improve their finances or was it just the opportunity to retread existing other platform material for MSFs?
 

There have been some positives. The 146 as you say (but the daily bug fixing packages became tedious) and some promising new developers like Boundless who have issued both niche and more mainstream sceneries. There has been some useful updating going on, packages like the Toliss Airbuses have had some useful changes and fixes.

As MSFS has shown the industry still struggles with getting content out in a timely manner. You can fly between any two points in the world in MSFS in a detailed aircraft, provided the two points are no more than the range of a CRJ or a Piper. Lessons to be learnt for XP12 there.

Sime small developers go against the trend. Vertical Simulations and their excellent US Regional airports. Stick and Rudder who always seem to have something in Beta and maintain a good dialogue with their customers. But as you say, small offerings and the larger ines that came along like Madrid Barajas although much needed weren’t very inspiring.

Another trend has been developers avoiding the Org store and trying to sell from their own platforms. One wonders at the success of that. I browse the Org store (including the recent excellent sale) figuring out what my next buy might be. How do I know your Jackson Hole scenery even exists?

The pandemic should have been a great opportunity for the industry with people stuck at home. Did they take advantage of it? One would argue not.

I am a big fan of VerticalSim and have both KFAY and the very recent Myrtle Beach. In fact I have all of the Xplane releases. In recent releases VS airports have become simpler to install (in the past the options for Ortho could make installation more complex) and there’s also good included documentation. Other than being very good sceneries what I like about VS is their choice of airports. They are all ideal for short haul and GA and at this point VS is getting nice coverage of the Eastern Seaboard of the US. Excellent airports for short hour or more flights in your ERJ, CRJ, Bae146 or even your favorite 737.

I’d argue the really tricky ones are the older jets like the FJS 732 and 727. With all or most of the flap hanging out and the slower spool up on the older jet engines more than a little care is needed to keep speed and descent right. Step into the Toliss 321 or Zibo and you’ll appreciate how far aviation has come in the past few decades.

UK2000 have departed the Xplane space and therefore you might well have to consider their Xplane offerings as abandonware. I run this with TE and get good frame rates but I do think some of the other Boundless sceneries are better. Its a good subject though and was a missing airport in the payware space.

I have bought this and had been looking forward to its release for some time. It is a challenging aircraft compared with many recent commercial aircraft releases but its worthwhile and easy to recommend. It also comes with a large and detailed manual which other developers would do well to copy. One good and bad thing. JF are being very responsive to issues people are raising, although none were show stoppers. But four updates in three days? Although Skunkcrafts does avert having to download the whole aircraft (again other developers might take note) but it seems every time I go to fly the 146 I first need to have to go through an update.

The lack at present, although one is promised, of a custom FMC seems to be a constant complaint. Whether an FMC would have been in the aircraft, at least originally, is a fair point and the standard Laminar one is included. If you have to have an all singing and dancing FMC to fly what is after all a short haul aircraft I guess you might avoid, but using VORs together with some self navigation is equally realistic.

Frame rates for me are fine, nearer to Toliss than Zibo. I have had issues using Better Pushback with the aircraft which I need to examine more.

While as the review says a decent Madrid is overdue the preview shots of the scenery published a few weeks ago were not impressive including some lurid lime green areas. Even these screen captures look a little bright and burnt. Some of the detail like the red roof edging also looks very bold. Hopefully this isn’t an opportunity missed but the palette looks rather odd. 
 

I’d buy this - even though much of the content must be similar to the 757 pack I own - but there are plenty of comments out there that the sounds both inside and outside are too low. How was the volume when you tried it Stephen?

I have bought several Boundless sceneries and had commented in the past that they seemed to be improving at each release. The rate of releases has been increasing and when I bought Stansted for the first time I was rather disappointed. It was an excellent choice of subject but there’s something about it that’s missing. It’s difficult to put my finger on exactly what it is, a lack of life perhaps, and it did make me wonder if Boundless, in releasing so many sceneries so quickly,  isn’t falling into a trap of not spending enough time in making them as good as they could be.

Boundless marketing is also annoying. At the moment they have a sale on one site (a consolidator site), but not on their own, or on the Org. Store or another developer who they have formed an alliance with. So looking to purchase Boundless sceneries means price shopping over different platforms. The Org. Store should have a word. 

Dead last in the race for sim-supremacy, if there is such a thing? It is true there is a huge amount of scenery being released for MSFS, odd in that the selling point of that sim was that it meant to be a very good representation of the real world. Look at the releases as well, lots of very small airports that are at best niche markets. Xplane has been around a while so a lot of subjects have already been covered, plus the native airports in Xplane are often very good and therefore obviate the need for payware. Add in free scenery in Xplane and its still dead last?

As for payware aircraft despite a lot of the industry focusing on MSFS hows that coming along? Not very quickly. The back catalogue for Xplane aircraft certainly isn’t small. Just look at one developer, Carenado and the number of GA aircraft they’ve released. And on MSFS?

FSX and P3D? How many Microsoft based simulators do you need? Xplane12 is somewhere in the pipeline. Consumer upgrades for either FSX and P3D likely? Stll dead last?

How many releases do you need? Recently on X-Plane we’ve has a A300, a Beluga, a A321 plus a decent pipeline of GA aircraft filling in gaps in existing offerings. 

The Rotate MD11 is taking time. But then that’s the industry. Small teams or single developers working on what are increasingly difficult projects.

Hull Infirmary is an unusual release, but that’s much of the character of Boundless and although niche it does support a rather underserved community, helicopters. And it is cheap.

But if you want it MSFS has had some blockbuster releases and announcements in the past few days. Aerosoft’s Alta (360,000 passengers a year)and Orbx’s Samedan. Nothing wrong with those as releases, but that’s what Xplane is missing out on?

Yet another developer who provides an update just a couple of days after the initial release. Testing should uncover issues. Rare circumstances might be missed and should be fixed by why this rash of instant patches just after release? How can testing miss, for example, duplicated sounds or sounds not functioning?

Simbrief is an excellent resource and now at least I don’t have to look guiltily at the PayPal request every time I use it.

Navigraph is a good utility as well (although from time to time their infrastructure and programs have issues) butI do wonder about the business model. The annual subscription with monthly updates is expensive and I’m never that convinced that that the monthly changes are that great. Perhaps I’m wrong.

Simbrief could of course remain free but you could also see situations where it might be changed to make taking updated Navdata more necessary.

While having some concerns Simbrief is so essential to me that I’ve always had concerns about how financially viable it was. At least Navigraph have a source of revenue to support the site.

On FSA I don’t disagree with your comments but it was woefully thought out, executed and responded to. They had the successful conferences which the pandemic had derailed. Why didn’t they stick closer to that idea, say Quarterly online conferences and then some priority access to the ‘real’ conferences in the future? They also did not seem to have refined a target audience. There is a lot of free content available about flight simulation but a lot of it is self promoting and thin in content. Having unique content, from developers, that was much deeper than what you commonly find online would have had an audience. Not a huge one perhaps but it would have been the base to build from. They might even have worked with that more knowledgeable base to build beta testing teams for developers. What would you rather have, 10% off Inbuilds products (which you can probably get anyway) or potential access into say their A310 beta team?

Inbuilds departure from the group within 24 hours needs also to be recognized as an issue. As soon as there was noise they jumped? 
FSA thought out properly could have been a platform for several good things. Something like a Developer Code of Conduct that developers could have signed up to and promising standards and good practices around things like customer support. It might not have hurt the platform developers like Microsoft and Laminar to sponsor the effort. FSA would have promoted flight simulation, effectively for them its free advertising, a little cash would not have hurt.
Personally, and many will disagree I’m not totally sure that a multi platform site is an easy sell. If nothing else you need to focus on the individual platform streams under a universal site. MSFS is so big and so much attention is focused on it that the other platforms often get short shrift. As I’ve posted before I gave up on the PC Pilot magazine after too many MSFS ‘specials’. 
So FSA you could have built a platform with content from your developer base providing content such as the trials and tribulations of building the Beluga. A twenty minute interview. Would I watch that rather than watching Captain Annoying streaming a three hour flight free. You bet.

To be honest I’ve rarely come across an aircraft that doesn’t need activation. Most sceneries don’t but most aircraft do and some, the IXEG 733 for example, seem to be checking for activation on a regular basis. 

This has been on my to buy list for quite a while as I believed that it was now effectively sorted out. I think I will put my wallet back in my pocket and await further news!
 

I don’t know the answer to this so it really is a question but did Thranda do ALL of the Xplane work for Carenado? I’d seen commentary on some of the later releases that the reason people found them so poor was that Thranda was no longer working on them.

Interesting and well thought out points. My observations

1. There have been several new start up developers during the pandemic in some ways making up for the drop in content from more traditional sources. In some cases this is likely people finding alternative income sources after losing work, in other monetizing the time at home that lockdowns have enforced. One questions is how active, if active at all, some of these new developers will be when life returns to normal. Some ai fear may become abandonware.

2. There seems to be an increasing trend not to sell software on the well known sites like the Org store. One understands developers wanting to save commissions but equally how will those products sell? Once the initial announcement is made of the availability of the software and where to go to buy it how will future purchasers even know of its existence let alone where to buy it or whether the site is safe? Again developers knowing how to code but having less idea on how to market I would suggest. Might we also find instances where software is made available on developers sites that might contain malware without the screening of the big sites? 
3. One does wonder just how well some developers are doing after stepping away from Xplane. Carenado would be an obvious example. Although their aircraft often had critics they did provide a good pipeline of aircraft into Xplane. I myself bought several. But there’s been nothing recently nor have I seen any signs of anything in the horizon or even much needed updates. Is their limited set of MSFS offerings replacing all of the old Xplane revenue. Is Carenado for Xplane now effectively abandonware?

Bought this today from the Org store and the review above is very accurate. I use it with Orbx TE Canaries and it looks excellent. As seems to be the case with DD the documentation is at best thin and there Installation with Orbx could do with a clarification or two. One thing is that the basic and the Orbx versions are both included in the package so your unzipped download is effectively twice the actual disk space needed. I also use JF’s Traffic Global and the airport was nicely populated with aircraft on the stands and heading for take off.

I’m not sure that the PP EGKK was beautifully rendered - it always seemed serviceable but not much more. The new Origami studios EGKK is much better.

I did not intend to suggest that the size of the aircraft should drive the price, rather that perhaps psychologically perhaps people think smaller aircraft, smaller price. The price doesn’t frighten me too much but most of the online comments aren’t positive. 
 

On Thranda my mistake I guess but have they done big jet work (thinking here of the projected A300, 747 and VC10) before? And if Thranda are involved why don’t JF make something of it? After all its only likely to sell more units with their reputation. Perhaps it might even be in your piece if that’s a definite?

On the FMC the suggestion is, if its like the P3D version, it should be a  UNS-1Lw. 

 

I am looking forward to this but a lot of the commentary online has not been positive. One thing, at the price, is that there are complaints that the preview shots just show the stock FMC. JF say that will be fixed but it does rather open the question what would be the correct FMC(s) for the aircraft? 
 

The likely price has also been generally lambasted. It isn’t cheap (JF aren’t a low cost shop) but its not that different to other new XPlane offerings like the 748, A300 and A350. It does make you wonder if the community expectation is that for a smaller aircraft, a regional jet, the price should be lower? Also it looks as if JF will be releasing multiple variants within the same pack, quite a deviation from the current trend of selling variants at an additional cost.

JF on their development page also suggest that for Xplane there is a VC10, an A300, a F-28 and a classic 747 in the pipeline. That’s quite a line up. Are they doing the work inhouse or have the Xplane conversions been farmed out?

I see that this scenery is already on sale. Developers need to understand that customers learn. 

I flew the 10 many times, mostly in AA colors but before that in BCAL. On what the simulation community wants it seems - that from most releases - it's current commercial aircraft. This issue is that one Airbus is pretty much like another - and some Boeings have been around for a long time - so perhaps the MD-11 is seen as something different. Generally though outside FJS and Rotate have classic aircraft succeeded, at least from a sales point of view? What is interesting is that how Rotate, who haven't had a new release in a very long time, are so well regarded based on the long running and excellent MD-80. What the community seems sure of is that Rotate are going to make the step up - the MD80 is great, but it is a little dated - with the MD11 to what contemporary XP11 aircraft can achieve. I've no reason to believe that they can't but  it does show the value of a good product and good customer relations with the community. Good vibes last a long time. Some other developers should take note.

I would agree that this is an excellent scenery and bought it from the Org.store recently. However there is a freeware Narita and that has quite a few fans some of whom seemed less than enthusiastic about there now being a payware competitor. Hopefully we’ll be seeing more good Asian sceneries in the future. Its an unrepresented area and somewhere to fly some of the long haulers that are becoming more available on Xplane.

Boundless have been coming along quite nicely with each new scenery seeming to improve on the past. They’ve also suggested some really interesting new developments including Palm Springs. They’ve also said they are going to support MSFS and they’re looking for someone to work on P3D conversions. It’s all very ambitious but we’ll need to see if the small team they have (two I believe) can execute.