Wow, I thought my posts were long! Ever thought about getting it published?
Only joking
The thing is I can’t really fault a lot that you say. You put forward a powerful case and one which is difficult to argue against.You obviously have strong views, views which I understand and which I can identify with.
I do disagree with you, though, on the point that they have been lazy. To be fair the sim has been in a continued beta from day one with constant updates. So much so in fact that developers have turned away from Xplane due to the requirement to continually update their products.The issue for me though is that they didn’t update the stuff which I and a lot of other simmers wanted updating e.g. ATC, textures, optimisation of weather depiction etc. As you have said they have not seemed inclined to listen to what their customers wanted and in my opinion only changed the things they were interested in.
Your point about third party developers is particularly well made. I spent a bucket load on addons over the years in the pursuit of immersion. But no longer, at least in Xplane. The sim has now been put to one side and has only been saved from deletion because I am not short of storage space.
My own conclusions are similar to yours but not quite identical.
I agree that ‘Laminar Research have little to worry about’ and for the reasons you put forward.
Regarding the desktop sim itself you say there are reasons for concern. Well, I do think it will become more of a niche product, yes, but I do think we will see an Xplane 12, not massively changed but maybe improved Vulcan opimisations, better ground, sky and weather textures and maybe improved ATC. I don’t really see any revolutions coming though.
Third Party Developers. Yes, you really hit the nail on the head here. Fewer customers and less revenue will probably mean that some developers will turn away from Xplane to more lucrative markets e.g. MSFS 2020. And as you say Xplane is extremely dependant on its third party developers for study level aircraft, high quality airports, photo realistic scenery, detailed ATC and accurate weather depiction. Without these things the stand out feature of Xplane is the flight model. Well, the flight model in FS 2020 isn’t bad either in its own right, in my opinion, so where does this leave Xplane?
In ignoring what general simmers have wanted there could potentially be unexpected repercussions if third party developers do leave the scene because Xplane is so heavily dependant on them. I wonder if the powers that be ever took a moment to consider this and the implications for the commercial side of Xplane?
Xplanes main customers ARE commercial. P3d, Xplane were developed for flight training who don’t generallyp care about graphics. MSFS never claimed this, it is a retail software product so expecting a retail product to perform as a replacement for software that was converted to a consumer platform is ridiculous.
So your comparison is moot. The base software of xplane and p3d is garbage without significant investment. Fine for procedural training but that is what it was designed to do.
I love it how people use the I don’t game I sim to avoid being called a gamer. Like that makes them better than all the rest. They spend hours of their lives, and likely hundreds or thousands of dollars PLAYING A GAME.
Simple, go back to xplane or whatever. Or not. At least be honest about comparisons.
Fact is consumer users of Xplane, P3D and DCS are beta testers for their main commercial product.
OK, thanks. But since the core engine is working now with Vulcan, would they still have to adapt even the part they don’t want to improve if they for example only want to imporve the weather part? (means the working of instruments etc. stays unchanged). Just to try to understand the quantity of work that had to be done.
I just made the choice not buying MSFS. Instead I bought X-Plane 11 for cheap. Playing the flight school at the moment and it’s even better than what MSFS offers. It also feels more realistic. Yet the graphics might be not op to MSFS-level, I do love the difficulty and educational approach of X-plane 11. Will buy MSFS when it’s matured. Two years perhaps.
Only what rest me are plugins and such. Already found Xchecklists and betterpushback.
It’s not only the weather. To made it fancy like FS2020 you need much more. Stop dreaming that a better weather engine is enough to bring users back or new user to the X-Plane. Once you have seen the difference…That’s what the most do not understand. It’s not only flightdynamics. Why all are hunting in the X-Plane store for eye candy a pay $$$$. That is another point.
What would be the purpose of imitating the graphics of MSFS? Zero. I already own both, so why would 2 identical sims make sense? I don’t think XP has to try to push the graphics side as much as MSFS, because first they would not ever reach that level, second it would be a huge energy for little benefits (the graphics of MSFS may be mindblowing close to the ground, as soon as i fly over FL100, they become very blurry and in 50% of the time i have much better results from above with XP, except the clouds). And for the way i am using sims, it even don’t make sense to have such advanced graphics. The number 1 thing i am missing the most (since a long time actually) is a very good weather engine, with much better (3d?) clouds. Then having the ground textures and the autogen being improved. That alone would be perfect for me. I prefer them not trying to reach the graphical level of MSFS because they should concentrate more on the aviation part of it. As you know some professional multimillion-simulators have an even worst scenery than X-Plane. Why do you think? Simply because it’s not the main purpose of a sim. So if they put efforts in imporving the aviation-part of the sim and less the eye-candies, it would be a great thing.
I can really well imagie that MSFS could become my main sim for VFR-flights (it already is). But as soon as we use airliner in high altitude it’s a completely different story. Not only because of the missing aircraft.
So it makes sense to be a deifferent sim and not trying to reach the same public. I don’t doubt that they are smart enough to know that.
Why are you talking about bringing users back? Is it what i want? I am trying to have a sim that suits my needs. X-Plane must become better- And MSFS isn’t there yet as well. So at the end i dont care about the users, i am looking from my own perspective. Xp comes from a niche an knows very well how to deal with small market shares.
Maybe you personally don’t want, but the business need the user. Do you think XP can survive with a few user? They are not developing for fun. Money makes the world go round. I have heard that they are generating 3MS with 11 employes. 3MS EBITDA with 11 FTEs is really top.
But if the sales go down, the picture look completly different. Very risky at the moment and I can imagine, that
it’s not easy to make the right strategic decission. I think in the mid run they will concentrate more on professional services like Xavion etc.
Of course they will survive, but the big question is what will happen with XP. But who knows. Just speculating.
How do you think they could manage to “survive” in the almost same constellation then (at the time they didn’t have the sucess they got with XP11)? And are you aware that they have many commercial customers that MSFS won’t adress, or at least not for now.
But i agree, that there will be less developpers than nowadys. For now it doesnt look like that because new aircrfats are being started, for example, FF 787 and an MD11 coming etc. But the question at least makes sense and i agree with that.
Or just go to another site for verified pilots only. No need to segregate the community because of your ego. Just because you are a verified pilot does not mean others do not know what they are talking about. Not saying if this is the case but this kind of attitude is not friendly or constructive to the community.
At this time X-Plane is a more stable simulator than FS 2020. FS 2020 have to be improved and then everything seems perfect it will be the perfect simulator for us. But now there are a lot of bugs and unrealistic “things” in FS 2020 for a time.
C’mon, calm down No one is segregating the community. If someone is a real pilot, he has right to correct wrong assumptions about aviation. You can benefit and learn.
I actually proved he was wrong. And seriously, who in this group seriously believes all metars are being updated only once an hour? It’s concerning that i am the only one who had to correct these wrong assumptions.
I never said he couldn’t correct wrong assumptions but it doesn’t mean a non pilot cannot be correct either. That is like me saying a non mechanic (F16 crew chief in my long past younger days) cannot possibly know more about the inner workings of a jet engine than me.
It was the attitude conveyed that instead of trying to correct he was being condescending. If “helping” people is so irritating then why post the comment?
No one is segregating the community. If someone is a real pilot, he has right to correct wrong assumptions about aviation. You can benefit and learn.
