Medellinexpat

I’d commented before on whether MSFS might start to move scenery prices down, the idea of micro transaction pricing. I’d offered up VerticalSims Plant City pricing as an example and you’d suggested that was a test on pricing. Now FSDreamTeam are releasing Key West at $9.99. Are you sure that this lower pricing isn’t a trend rather than a test?

An interesting post, thank you.

I’m very impressed with Vulcan but I did notice my rig was running harder. I’ve color matched components in my rig to their temperatures so visually I could see that more heat was being generated. More of the increase seemed to be coming from my RTX 2080. The setting that significantly increased the temperature of that was the difference between HDR+SSAO. The issue wasn’t huge but put the card borderline on what is recommended for normal operating. Changing the setting back to HDR lowered the component temperature by 10 degrees.

The positive is of course is that Vulcan is making better use of our rigs. However, at least in my experience and depending how conservative you are or aren’t about trying to maintain hardware life keeping a thought on not just what your machine can do, but also on what the temperature impact is might be worthwhile.

My CPU temperatures (it is water cooled) are well within recommendations.

An update to my earlier post on  performance Vulkan does make a huge difference.

I bought this on the Org.store sale over the weekend. Nothing has ever had the impact on frame rates on my PC like this, particularly on the ground. Hopefully Vulcan will help but just so people are aware I’ve a fair amount of payware and nothing has had anything like the impact that this scenery has.

Stephen I’m not talking about the discount for MSFS from owning in another platform. Check pricing yourself. MSFS sceneries are much cheaper on Orbx than other platforms. Take London City. For X-plane and P3d the scenery is AUD 32.95 and for MSFS AUD 20.99. A small airport like Orca island (KORS) AUD 17.99 for MSFs for Xplane AUD 34.95.

One theory from the Orbx forum for the price differential is that MSFS only includes textures for the airport wheres other platforms have surrounding photo real scenery ehich is expensive. I think there’s some validity in that, but not enough to support the price differential. 
 

Nothing to do with crossover.

And just an addition Orbx prices for their airports are half on MSFS what they are on other platforms (which as an X-Plane user pleases me not a bit), so it looks as if MSFS might be pushing add on prices down already. Presumably they believe they’ll make it up on the volumes.

To our point VerticalSim today released for MSFS Plant City Municipal airport. What is interesting is that it’s priced at $5.49

Now it’s a limited size scenery (and probably I’d suggest of limited interest) but at that price point it’s a micro transaction (below $10). It’s also around one-third of the price Orbx are asking for their small airports for the same platform. It’ll be interesting to see how pricing develops for add-ons for MSFS over time and whether that then starts having an impact on pricing for other platforms.

Now I’m a big Orbx fan, and most of their product for X-Plane is excellent but personally I think one way to win on the MSFS store is going to be pricing within that micro transaction level that gamers are used to. 

I don’t think you understand my comment. I never suggested that the simulation community as we understood it would accept dumbed down add ons.What you are missing is that MSFS has different demographics to legacy platforms like X-Plane. If nothing else the median age of users on MSFS is likely very much lower. Adding consoles to the mix will only change those demographics even more.

MSFS will bring more people to the hobby, but many, if not most, of those will be casual users (call them gamers if you want). Those casual users will likely have different criteria about what they want compared with those existing simmers moving to the new platform. They will almost certainly have different price pain points.

Gaming has moved on from the days of FSX. People don’t focus on one game, or a couple of games exclusively. They own many games. Those that invest hundreds or thousands of dollars in a single game, either for hardware or add on software is a small minority of users.

 
Think (before MSFS) how many copies of FSX were sold, particularly after it became widely discounted on Steam. How many of those users stayed around and how many of those bought expensive add-ons?

My point was, and is, selling a lot of copies of MSFS is an opportunity for the add-on developers. But if they believe that their new customers have the same buying needs and depth of wallet that they had with their legacy client base they might be surprised. Scaling up (like Orbx) and rushing off to MSFS and leaving their legacy customers behind may for some turn out to be a huge mistake.

In terms of developers for MSFS it will be interesting to see if the market is for the same sort of complexity in add ons that we’ve seen in the past. MSFS is attracting a wider group of players. Many of those will want better than the stock aircraft but whether they will want or pay for the complex add ons that have been marketed on other platforms is unproven. I believe that the market is limited for those types of add ons.

So will people pay for adds ons that simulate every sort of systems failure? Adding features like that are expensive in the development process. Perhaps rather than $150  for a 737 add on the sweet spot for sales is going to be an eye/feature candy rich $20 one?

As for the existing scenery developers if sales take off there, which I doubt, it’s going to bring a huge amount of new competitors to the platform. Scenery development doesn’t require the specialist aeronautical knowledge that aircraft add ons need. If nothing else the thought that $30 for a small or regional airport is a fair price might not last long. 

It is pleasant to read a more balance review of the new microsoft product. Over on the .org forum there is a constant stream of drivel with some posters putting up multiple videos each day and in some cases the same video to multiple threads all calling for the death of X-plane. Then there the other up until now Xplane sites that now have podcasts with the presenters all thrilled with the opportunity that the new, greatly enlarged flight sim community is going to give them in terms of new viewers for their online videos. 

So we wait until the opening day when the vast majority of those who have pre-purchased find out that either its going to run like a slide show or you have to turn down the eye candy and what you’ll get doesn’t resemble what those marketing videos show.

Hardware will catch up, it always does, but the kind of hardware that’s likely to be needed for great eye candy, heavy duty add on planes and scenery won’t come cheap for a long time yet.

Some have said that competition is good, and there’s some truth in that. Provided of course that Microsoft doesn’t kill the industry around flight simulation. So many software developers are turning their back on their current customer base as they hurry over to the pot of gold that’s going to come from supplying add ons for MSFS. If things don’t turn out to plan it’ll be the death of many of those providers.

Yes SID/STAR procedures would be nice but you rarely get something for nothing. It’s not unlikely that JF are achieving that low FPS by having very simplified flight plans. Making a change like adding SID/STARS might take much of that advantage away.

Now perhaps they’ve planned SID/STARS for later versions although I’ve not seen any hint of that in the feedback they’ve given in other forums on the product. If it’s planned as a future development then presumably they can accommodate it within the existing structure. If they didn’t it might mean fundamental changes to the product and often those sort of changes don’t end well.

They have said that they were aware that one concern people had around traffic programs was performance issues and I think in the product they’ve produced they’ve provided a solution to that. In other forums there are plenty of suggested features people want, including SID/STARS of course. How many of those can be incorporated without impacting the current performance would be the question. I don’t think that SID/STARS were omitted by oversight by JF.
 

There’s also been comment from people that the schedules aren’t current and JF have talked about the cost of commercial data to support really up to date and full data. Perhaps the same might apply for the navigational data needed for SID/STARS? As you’ve said yourself the price of the package isn’t low (JF are rarely a cheap vendor anyway). Adding in additional licensing costs, in particular if that’s on ongoing cost might be a tipping point for many users in purchasing it.

There’s a big difference between 4 FPS and 8 or more.

Traffic packages in terms of simulation are for the most part eye candy. Nothing wrong in that but there’s a personal choice there about the balance between how many frames you’ll trade for increased ‘realism’. My system doesn’t have a small graphics card or weak processor. 
 

WT3 has a very large following in X-Plane and many have invested a lot of time with it. Some reviewers are even invested in working with the product. But to me there’s a little snobbery involved here. You ‘can’t be a hard core simmer’ and use GT or its only suitable for ‘newbies’ or those with ‘weak systems’. It’s a trade off. WT3 introduces performance issues and GT is less realistic. But in the end both are eye candy or immersion features, like better clouds or ground traffic vehicles. You pays your money and makes your choice.

‘But I disagree with you on your other comments’

Your article doesn’t disagree with my comments on the frame rate impact difference between WT3 and GT. That it seems to me is not a small point. The 4-8 FPS you quote can be critical for many users. Even ‘hard core’ ones. 

‘For newcomers and the lazy’ is I think somewhat unfair. WT3 isn’t light on systems and TG generally seems to have a much smaller impact on FPS. That’s going to be a key feature for many.

TG has had some teething problems, including issues with the Laminar map. JF have worked hard to resolve issues - and seem to have been successful - but any new purchasers might want to read some of the forums on tips around settings if issues are encountered.

JF have also been pretty clear that this is meant to improve immersion but NOT to be a completely realistic simulation of traffic. No doubt it could be improved but there’s also a balance to be maintained in keeping that low systems overhead. Having airports and the skies filled with traffic for a trade off of 2-3 FPS, which most seem to be experiencing, isn’t a bad deal even if it isn’t a totally accurate representation of traffic flows and the like. Clearly many users like WT3 and have a big investment in time with it, and accept the performance trade off, but that doesn’t make TG users ‘lazy’.