andy1252
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Posts posted by andy1252
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I used to spend all my forum/online type time here until a couple of years back. I pop in occasionally now just in case there's anything of interest for me but mostly to use the PM system to communicate with one other person.
For me, two things happened, around the same sort of time. Firstly, Orbx itself changed. I don't find much to interest me in their own products anymore. I bought pretty much everything there was for P3D and XP up until MSFS came out, and it was always absolutely top class. I no longer feel that to be the case. And for me, Orbx has just become another SimMarket or similar. And I felt that any even mild criticism or suggestion about any of the products or processes being implemented in the new Orbx world were not welcome on the forums. Oh, and Nick and Iain, if you read this I'm definitely not talking about you two guys here. You're both models of diplomacy and discretion.
Secondly, the forums started to feel a bit too banal. I found little of real interest being posted and instead it was becoming an endless stream of "Happy Birthday xxxx" stuff.
So now I live mostly on avsim. Yes, it's got its fair share (and then some) of opionated so-and-so's but there is a lot of useful discussion and info as well. They have a rather over anxious attitude to language sometimes ("offensive initials not allowed" made me laugh) but generally the mods keep things calm without getting too officious (although, like all forum software, a "dislike" button would be a useful way of perhaps discouraging some of the folk).
I happened to pop in today to see if there was anything in the announcements, and saw this. But I doubt I'll be back to read any response (if given) for another month or two. Avsim can be a bit of a bear pit, but it's easy enough to just ignore folk (as in "just ignore him" rather than the "ignore" button - even an annoying git can still have occasional moments of lucidity)
To those of you who have stayed - enjoy!
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#6 there is pretty much a perfect shot, Filou. Truely wonderful
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I don't wait for stuff to appear via Orbx these days. I'll buy direct if possible, or more often than not SImMarket. I'm afraid I don't feel any loyalty to Orbx these days and I don't feel like Central is a big enough convenience to make me want to use a "one stop shop" approach. I can keep track of things ok.
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Didn't know about this until a couple of weeks before it came out. Got all excited. Bought it straight away and downloaded it with all the available DLC. Removed it and got a refund after about 20 minutes of use.
Personally, can't see any benefit, or even any difference, over FS2. Some have said it's better with VR but for me a pointless exercise. More than happy to keep on occasionally using FS2, but not impressed with FS4.
At least Steam are instant and unquestioning about refunds, as long as you haven't used the software for more than a couple of hours.
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6 hours ago, Sniper31 said:
a very few reports of some stutters at ground level,
Hi Landon,
just happened to be passing through here and saw this. I suspect these reports are much more to do with the LOD/main thread issues that some of us have been having since SU9 than anything to do with the 737 itself.
(and I don't really do tubes, and definitely not ones I have to actually learn how to fly, but I'm actually quite tempted by this. It does look so purrrty!)
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I don't visit here much these days, but I have to say - if I wore a hat, I'd take it off to you Filou. These are magnificent shots, and really show the time and care you put into this. Thank you.
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For me, the airport itself is splendid, but the other various buildings around the island are really not up to par. There are two issues really. The first, I'm happy to admit, is a bit subjective. All the new buildings are far too clean and look like they are some sort of marzipan sweetie. Not a single roof has any weathering, and all the buildings look ridiculously new. In @Britjet's examples above, for me the default buildings are an order of magnitude better than those supplied in this addon.
The second issue unfortunately amplifies the first. These new buildings are all to the wrong scale - they're way too big. Which just makes their shiny bright presence way too obvious. If you look at this first shot below, you can see the height of the trees at the edges of the car park -
And now look at the hight of the trees in front of this building, they barely reach the top of the ground floor -
And here's the nearest set of buildings I could find next to the actual airport buildings
I realise these houses are up an embankment from the airport buildings, but even so they are about the same height as them.
Is there any way to easily exclude all these buildings on loading, maybe a couple of individual files that can be set 'building model.OFF' or similar?
These buildings take the shine right off what is otherwise a pretty amazing bit of scenery. I've just upgraded to a 55 inch HDR monitor (not TV) and the environment here is just breathtaking (doesn't show up in the screenshots due to the problems grabbing HDR screenshots), but these buildings totally spoil it for me. They don't belong in MSFS.
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Thanks for the reply, Nick. Shame the appropriate developers can't be bothered to check this forum but nothing surprises me any more.
I will try creating fake entries (symlinks or similar) in the Orbx library folders for those products I already own via the original vendors. I hate looking at Central and trying to remember if the very few I don't have flagged as owned are genuinely stuff I don't own or just stuff I decided I don't want - a rare but occasional thing.
I'm perfectly fine about getting my updates from the original vendors, I just wanted a more accurate list of what I own.
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So, two months later and no glimmer of a response from Orbx. Not even an acknowledgement.
I wasn't expecting Orbx to jump to implement such a request, but an acknowledgement would strike me as a reasonable minimum response, not to mention being somewhat more polite than just ignoring me. I can understand not replying to every little post in the general forums, but this is supposed to be a support forum, and so I assume is monitored. If such a request, which I thought was reasonable and politely made, was seen but no response made - then that is simply impolite. If it was never even seen, what is the point of a support forum?
I'm not looking to create trouble here, or have a "throw my toys out of the pram" moment, but this sort of thing is pretty much what I meant in my comments about the way Orbx is perceived by some to have lost the plot a bit.
Just on the slight chance that anybody on staff bothers to read this, I would still like my original request to at least be considered. If it doesn't happen, fine. But a bit of courtesy to a fairly serious customer wouldn't go amiss either.
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Like a few others here, I'm another oldie who has bought a lot of Orbx stuff over the last few years. Up until a couple of years ago I probably had every single product for both P3D and XP, and I was another one of those who thought that Orbx could do no wrong with its scenery.
But I am also amongst those who feel that Orbx is losing the plot these days. Ever since the partner program got into its stride, I've felt (and posted a couple of times to say so) that the focus has been far more on corporate growth and identity at the expense of core quality. I still buy a lot, but not quite all, of Orbx products, and a lot of the partner products. And I am a big buyer of scenery for MSFS generally (I have somewhere approaching 1800 folders in my addons linker folders, admittedly that also includes liveries but still the majority of that is scenery), and I don't fly P3D at all now, and XP maybe two or three times this past year.
But Orbx is now middling at best in terms of quality, in my opinion. And it's not just the "throwback Thursday" stuff. I've thought that several of the cityscape products have looked a bit plasticky and unreal, and it's rare for me now to get that real "wow" from an Orbx product. Plus, as a couple of folk have mentioned, MSFS provides such good basic scenery that the urge to buy yet more of the same-old-same-old airports is beginning to recede, even for a committed scenery junkie like me. Most of my interest nowadays is in areas outside Orbx's traditional areas. I am far more interested in exploring those parts of the world that have effectively been denied to us in the past in the previous sims - places like Africa, Asia, middle Europe etc. Having said that, there are plenty of Orbx airports that I would love to see properly ported across or redone for MSFS, places like KPSP, Bowerman, most of the OZ and NZ airports etc. The fact that they existed and were pretty good in P3D has possibly stopped other developers going ahead to produce their own, as they might reasonably have assumed that Orbx would swing in with an impressive version at some point, but I suspect that won't hold true for much longer. Truth is, there is freeware out there for MSFS that makes some of the Orbx MSFS stuff look poor.
So like a lot of other folk, I suspect, I haven't totally given up on Orbx, but I don't see it as anything special these days. Which is a shame, but that's life. I support the concept of brand loyalty, but only up to a point. For myself, I feel that Orbx has squandered a lot of the goodwill that it has built up over the years with a combination of mediocre releases, and what I consider to be a very defensive attitude in the forums. I no longer bother to come here generally - I pop in occasionally to pick up messages and I just happened to see this thread today on one of those occasions.
It may well be that Orbx will regain its position of eminence in the scenery business, and I would be well pleased if it did - but I'm not holding my breath. I'll keep checking on Central to see what's new, but I will also keep buying partner products from other sources if I already have a setup with them, and I'm sure I'll keep on buying Orbx stuff, but in some cases it's getting to be more in hope than expectation, as the saying goes.
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Would it be possible to add a feature to Orbx Central to allow a user to either hide individual products or mark them as already owned or similar?
There are some products I have already bought from the original vendor or other sources and being able to hide them makes it easier to see which actual products I don't have and may want to buy.
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On 4/8/2021 at 1:43 PM, John Dow said:
For me the secret is to remember it's a flight sim, not an architectural sim, and although building detail is important it shouldn't be the be all and end all of the flying experience.
Well, I'm not personally convinced this is completely true. There is really no need for the level of detail provided in the basic sim if they only ever planned it to be a pure flight simulator. It is really a world simulator, and currently we just fly in it. I would not be surprised to see other aspects (trains/ships/boats) being catered for in the sim in future, in a much more integrated fashion than the currently available addons.
If you are flying around in this sim in something like the spendid H135, then building detail is a primary part of the experience.
I may be a bit more extreme than most folk in my preference for scenery and low'n'slow flying (as far as I'm concerned you could remove all the big tin from the sim and I probably wouldn't notice), but I suspect there are a very large number of folks who use this sim in a very similar way - way more than in the other sims.
Plus, I've just been looking at the announcement shots for Shoreham and Elstree and they do have nicely weathered and decayed textures to some of the buildings, so the techniques are obviously available.
Like I've said before, I'll keep on buying the stuff - this is not me having a hissy fit - but I will always be pushing for what I know you folks are capable of, and I don't feel Orbx is always achieving that with the city packs.
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Don't come here much these days but popped in to check announcements. Same comment for this as for the Shoreham airport - truly wonderful work on these textures - the real world is a grubby old place and these two airfields have got this handled really well.
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Wonderful! The wear on the buildings is beautifully done. This has been my main source of dissatisfaction with the various landmarks packages - everything there is way too shiny and pretty unrealistic. But this is pretty much perfect.
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Looked at that first picture and the thought that struck me first was "that looks like a copter but it's not the H135" so was well pleased to see the Optica announced here. I have a converted version but this looks great.
As for the scenery/citypacks etc, I'm sure I will continue to buy everything that comes out for MSFS, but I would just add a suggestion/comment/plea re the citypacks stuff. For me, it feels like the quality of the surfaces/modelling of some of these big city buildings is not what it could be. It tends to feel a bit lego-like in some cases. That may be a limitation of the sim/sdk etc, I wouldn't know. But a lot of it feels way too shiny and lacks realism. I feel a bit of weathering to the surfaces would improve things big time.
This is not meant to be a bitch. Like I said, I can pretty much guarantee I'll buy anything you put out for MSFS (I have so far), but the truth is that MSFS has raised the bar so much now that whereas Orbx used to be pretty much the scenery supremos, nowadays the products are simply just amongst the good stuff out there. I have plenty of other addons, in some cases even freeware, that are (in my opinion, granted) better looking than some of the Orbx stuff. Which is not what I would have expected to be saying a year ago.
But this announcement is certainly very welcome, and I look forward to getting my hands on this lot. Nice to see some non-standard places as well, Mumbai, Panama etc.
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first ever video attempt, just wanted to show that this is available now. Ends abruptly - just wanted a bit of footage to show. Used the freeware recorder to record the flight initially then x-box capture for the vid. 4k and ultra settings in the sim.
not tried putting a video up here before, hope this is done the right way.
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(Sorry, finger trouble with previous post)
Not that I suspect it matters, but I really think this is a pretty lousy piece of work. I can't see anything particularly representative of either the company name or its ethos or its nature/products. As has already been mentioned, Orbx is a valuable and well known name in this marketplace, but this is - I don't even know what it's attempting to be - cute? stylish? in tune with the cosmos? I'm guessing, and it really is a guess only after staring at the wretched thing for quite a while, that this is some sort of attempt to indicate an "X" within a circle ("orb") and thus stylishly indicate the company name with a sweeping graphical statement? If that's the case, it's not working for me.
Sad to say it, but Orbx is losing its lustre for me this past year, one way or another, and feels like it's in danger of becoming just another product pusher, and not the world class leader it was. And this logo just adds to the disappearing act. Abandoning your history and origin feels nearer the truth.
But hey, just one punter's opinion (but a punter who has pretty much bought everything you've produced, up until he stopped using P3D last August)
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9 hours ago, Ed Correia said:
Another thing...YSSY Sydney Airport for Microsoft Flight Simulator is now released.
Just bought it. Thank you.
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16 minutes ago, Nick Cooper said:
Orbx Direct is a marketing medium, just like Steam or SimMarket are and the FlightSim Store once was.
The addition of new partners has absolutely no impact on Orbx products or their development.
Those who administer the Partners' products play no part in product development and there is therefore no
diversion of resources.
Hi Nick,
thanks for your reply. I totally understand that the developers wouldn't be likely to be involved in the partnership side of things, and I do like the idea of Direct and Central becoming centralised sources for purchase and updates. I'd be even more pleased if the transfer of older licenses were in place but I know you'll say that's not Orbx's responsibility. I accept that as it stands. But that's the sort of issue I was talking about - that would be more of a benefit directly to the customer, whereas it still seems that the major benefit is to Orbx itself. Just being able to buy from a single source isn't that much of a big deal from a customer's perspective.
I'm not going to make a big deal about it, I'm happy to buy DD and FlyTampa from Orbx, DD or Flytampa themselves, or any other vendor site. Given that I already buy a lot of stuff via Direct or Central I will almost certainly buy new partner products like any further DD or FT from there as well.
But none of that dispels the feeling for me that Orbx management may not be as focussed on the core business as it once was. Orbx either will or won't turn out products I want to buy in the future, but I feel oddly less confident of that now than I would have previously. Orbx used to be my "go-to" source for scenery, but it has definitely become less so since MSFS arrived, and I'm surprised by that. Given that Orbx was apparently involved in the development stages of the new sim, I'm really surprised that so relatively few of the products have made it to MSFS (Australian airports spring most readily to mind). Like I said, it feels like all the emphasis has gone in to expansion via partnerships.
This is not meant as a missive from "angry of Torquay", if anything it's more of a lament. I will continue to be an obsessive collector of scenery, and I'll be more than happy if the bulk of it comes via Orbx.
Cheers,
And that's all I have to say about that (© F Gump)
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I just looked at the screenshots for YSSY for MSFS and whoo-hoo - the shark has made it over to MSFS!
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1 hour ago, Tino said:
So, you recommended trying to find all my installers on each individual site, individual updates etc rather than a simple "one click" install?
14 minutes ago, farman said:I can find much more useful to get any update from a single click at Orbx Direct
I agree completely with this aspect, although it only applies currently to partner products bought after the partnership is established, hence my comment about transferring exiasting licences. I'm not going to go and repurchase all my DD and FlyTampa products just to get one-stop updates.
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At the risk of making myself unpopular here, I do have a couple of thoughts about this and other recent partnerships.
It does feel like Orbx is perhaps focussing more on acquiring new partners than producing or updating their own software. Given that names like FlyTampa, Gaya etc are unlikely to be completely unknown to the existing Orbx customer base, I have to ask what is the benefit to the customers (rather than the benefit to Orbx, which I assume is a cut of the partner sales revenue)?
I can see that it's nice to have access to updates via Orbx Central, but the partner products don't seem to be any cheaper via Orbx than via their own outlets, and don't seem to participate in the old fogey discount scheme (and presumably I'm not the only one here who appreciates that bit of Orbx magnanimosity). And being able to buy from Orbx Direct is no great benefit over and above being able to buy from any other online outlet. So that leads me to think that the only ones to benefit from this are Orbx.
Which is absolutely fine, if for example it makes the difference between survival of Orbx or not. But is not so wonderful if it means that management is wholly focussed on such matters rather than planning and producing actual product.
And before anybody reels off a list of new or announced products - yes, I realise new products have been arriving, but it doesn't feel like many of them are actually Orbx products. There are a lot of Orbx products that have not even made it to P3D5 yet, let alone MSFS. I'm not a developer, and freely admit that I have no idea of what's really involved in migrating existing products to the newer environments, but there must be some significant benefit in having a base product to work from, rather than starting from scratch.
And please don't think this is some kind of attack on Orbx, it isn't. I've bought almost everything you've produced, and have been a huge fan of your products. But I have to say it feels like you might be losing your way a little bit and that saddens me.
It feels that since JV has taken a back seat (and nobody, least of all me - a happily retired guy, would deny him that right) things have gone off the boil a bit, not least in the area of keeping the customer base informed of future plans. Product announcements are one thing, but we haven't had any kind of detailed mission statement for a long while now. This would most definitely be a good time for a "plans for 2021" announcement to let us know what's ahead.
Anyway, I thought this should be said. I don't believe I'm the only one having these sort of thoughts.
As for this actual announcement, yes, it's great to see FlyTampa here. I already have much of their stuff, as I do of DD and several of the other partners, and so one last thing I would add is that it would really enhance the Central experience if it were possible to transfer ALL existing licences, regardless of where the products were originally purchased. It does rather negate the benefits of having everything under the one roof otherwise.
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4 hours ago, Nick Cooper said:
Hello,
for those who are engaged in the off topic discussion, your new topic is here:
Nick, not looking to start anything here but I really don't think my post could be considered "off-topic" - I simply asked if an aspect of this product could be considered while it was still under development, and Holger actually confirmed my thoughts in his specific reply.
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27 minutes ago, Holger Sandmann said:
Hi Andy,
We're actually keeping the five default landmark objects in Singapore -- they are of very good quality indeed -- but are adding things that are missing like night lighting, rooftop vegetation, etc.
Fair point, thanks for the feedback.
Cheers, Holger
Thanks for the response, Holger, and this just confirms that I'll be waiting for this to come out with my ccard at the ready.
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Is EU Great Britain South for MSFS still being made, or has MSFS 2024 announcement delayed it?
in General Discussion
Posted
Don't hold your breath. Orbx has become the least communicative company in this whole environment. I no longer expect to hear anything about their products or plans from them. And I no longer bother with this forum - but saw a post elsewhere that Orbx was apparently down so I just popped over to see what had happened, spotted this post, and thought I'd check in the unlikely event of anybody from Orbx having responded.
Used to be great, now just a great shame.