We have received the long-awaited response from the Alpha India Group.
Unfortunately they banned all AIG-associated content from featuring in FSLTL and MSFS-compatible FLAi package. Although we are disappointed by this decision made without any negotiations with us or FLAi, we will comply as copyright and transparency are our priorities.
This means the following:
No AIG models(not many) will be featured in the FSLTL Online/Offline AI, multiplayer, VATSIM and FLAi for MSFS.
No AIG liveries(many) for the models we have rights to use also will be featured.
This won’t affect the release date but certainly will reduce the amount of liveries available on launch.
As FSLTL is a community-open project, you can help it by contributing your liveries while we’re finishing our work. All livery artists obviously will have access to the closed alpha and will be properly credited.
We, FSLTL team, believe in the community, enthusiasm and hard, honest work. This project could not be possible without people devoting huge amount of their time to make MSFS better.
It’s a real shame they couldn’t see beyond their own project and participate with this to have everything under one package. I look forward to the work here being released in the near future
Always sad to see people unable to work together for the sake of the community.
Without exclusivism, we’d likely have one or more workable AI solutions much quicker, but we’ll be stuck with the fugly generics for a while instead. GG.
so they refuse to share the airliner liveries they “copy” from real airliners without permission? lol, am I missing anything? I am pretty sure the airliners didnt give permission.
Just curious, and maybe this has been answered somewhere so I apologize if it was, but have you (FSLTL) and AIG considered joining forces? I saw several posts on other threads about developers helping each other, and AI is surely a nasty beast to tackle, so is it an option to consider?
If you want to go down that route then you’ll NEVER have accurate ai for MSFS.
We’ve been creating liveries and flightplans since FS2002. You’ve seen AI repaints available for download on avsim for near two decades now.
Our revocation is not an unwillingness to work with the community. We at AIG have our own projects for MSFS coming out and we want to keep our work in house and work with the same people we have worked with for decades. As Sofie has said time and time again, this takes time and MSFS needs to mature as a simulator in many ways more than AI Traffic.
Another reason why we want control of our work is because it’s be absolutely bastardized over the years. It’s been repackaged and resold, passed off and passed around for years without or consent. (See SKY AI or ICE AI Traffic). We’re jaded, and we have every reason to be. Apologies if you don’t like it, but I’ve seen thousands of hours of work represented on these forums as simply “FLAi models and paints” or passed off on movie trailers without anyone knowing where it actually came from, and that’s a shame in my eyes.
Rest assured AIG will have a One Click Installer for offline traffic and options for Live AI traffic in the future.
You don’t need to pull out all these excuses to simply say that you see another AI project as competition (as your posting history clearly show) and you don’t want to help what you see as competition.
Of course, that’s a ridiculous standpoint in this field, but you do you.
The only “shame” I see is exclusivism that slows down progress that the community badly needs.
I know it’s easy to look upon this as “unfair” because “I want it now” but just spare a thought for the people who have put countless thousands of hours into their craft. Their wishes must be respected.
Permission was granted to FLAI to use the work of others to enable online model matching on VATSIM etc. And those permissions did not grant FLAI or Evan free reign to do with those people’s work whatever he feels like, especially spinning our work off into someone else’s project.
As we are already working on essentially the very same project, one which we know will be of a very high standard, there seems little incentive to allow our work to be spun-off into FSLTL (especially when permission has been sought after all the publicity, trailers, screenshots etc. Locking the barn door after the horse has bolted, comes to mind.)
At no point in the last several months has anyone from FSLTL reached out to me or my group to discuss a cooperation. This one falls on the shoulders of FSLTL who decided it was alright to forge ahead with their development without even thinking about the time we put into our products. I went back and looked at my emails just incase I missed it. Not one single communication from FSLTL . They failed to mention that in their statement
Beyond AI models, flight plans, and installers, is the wide world of AFCAD or ADE or whatever it’ll end up being known as. How these aircraft interact with the airports and airspace. Asobo and Microsoft are listening to developers, and there’s a lot that AI traffic can’t do in the sim…yet. For example, SID’s and STAR’s, approach procedures, pushback, altitude constraints, airways, proper field performance, proper crosswind runway use with wind adherence. There’s a lot to work together on.
Nah. I don’t look upon this as “unfair” because “I want it now.”
I look upon this as pathetic because instead of working together, y’all want to put up a meaningless and rather childish competition.
And before you go out of your way pulling out the “you don’t know what it means to see hundreds of hours of your work blah blah blah,” I’ve made several tens of liveries for AI in FS2004, and let everyone freely use them, because it helped the community. Back then we didn’t even put a disclaimer in the zip, because all we cared about was that people got to have prettier airports for free.
Just because you don’t give a rats about what happens to your “tens of liveries” doesn’t mean the entire community doesn’t. If everyone shared your attitude it would just be a wasteland.
Ultimately my work still ends up out there, on thousands of sim installations, and in the way I want it to be represented. If you don’t like it, take a long walk pal.
This is what happens when you announce a project promising to include a whole bunch of things without sorting things out like permission beforehand.
This should have all been arranged before making grand public statements.
Clearly this post is designed to drum up hate to all AIG members, which is not unexpected. Interesting that AIG get labelled as the bad guys despite the fact that we’ve been contributing almost all freeware AI for almost 15 years and these guys appear out of nowhere, create absolutely nothing themselves and now want to be the good guys.
As usual the “I want it now” crowd will be baying for blood rather than wait for a comprehensive and high quality AI package that will be coming. Fine. I presume all of those who have nothing but hate to throw AIG’s way won’t be downloading or using our AI release when it comes.
We have no interest in working with a group like this. There’s much from behind the scenes that isn’t public but you are only listening to one side of the story. A pre-emptively promised package.
The AIG package will be our usual high quality and free. you can either wait for it or sit here and throw insults and tantrums. Either way it’s not going to make any difference.
AIG is not going to work with FSLTL now or ever.
Nah. If everyone shared my attitude, it would be a space in which everyone would get decent AI much faster, and much more complete, and without silly primadonna bickering.
You have every right to do with your work whatever you like. And I have every right to draw my own conclusions about your decision. No long walks needed, “pal.”
