Matthew Kane Posted February 14, 2016 Share Posted February 14, 2016 As the 747 is the Queen of the Skies, I think that after 10 years of the 'FSX Generation' we can call FSX the Queen of the Flight Sims. That would include FSX, P3D and FSX:SE as I would consider this all part of the 'FSX Generation' Of all of the software I have ever purchased I have never had so much invested into one generation of software and for so long as we are now 10 years invested in this hobby in one way or another. In 2006 when I picked up my box of FSX I never would have imagined. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dominique Posted February 14, 2016 Share Posted February 14, 2016 Yes indeed, the FSX generation of sims has been a capital milestone in the history of this 40 years old hobby. I was there with FS1 (actually even before FS1) and I fully concur. Why have we invested so much ? It is because a small industry was born with FSX. Before freeware ruled, there were payware of course but the budding cottage industry really went full steam (no pun intended) with FSX. This hobby kind of reached its maturity. I see two reasons for that. I suspect that the FSX "big freeze" which brought some stability to the plateform, for a few years, allowed it. OrbX or Scenery Solutions (UT X) or A2A or PMDG etc could take the time to go in depth and innovate without the pressure of a two year cycle, to capitalize on their technical knowledge through more products, to make money and grow. Also, the market concentrated around FSX. X-Plane has never succeeded in convincing simmers that it was better than the MS franchise as shown by the evolution of its market share, Fly! died with Richard Harvey and Looking Glass (FU) went bust long before that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RJ Posted February 14, 2016 Share Posted February 14, 2016 52 minutes ago, dominique said: I suspect that the FSX "big freeze" which brought some stability to the plateform, for a few years, allowed it. OrbX or Scenery Solutions (UT X) or A2A or PMDG etc could take the time to go in depth and innovate without the pressure of a two year cycle, to capitalize on their technical knowledge through more products, to make money and grow. I couldn't agree more. With a frozen platform developers have to squeeze every bit out if to gain some profit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Penzoil3 Posted February 14, 2016 Share Posted February 14, 2016 Fly! had potential. I loved Fly2K. The ATC was GREAT ! The best ATC I've ever seen on a sim. I always wondered what if... Sue Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
COBS Posted February 14, 2016 Share Posted February 14, 2016 The 10 years and freeze aspect are interesting points , and very relevant. Developers need time to learn the platform specific syntax and rules , then they need to explore various avenues to create products , and even create new avenues. That all takes time for the developer to develop the expertise . I'm only a self taught instrument creator who uses 2 styles of xml code to create various panel instruments , when you are writing the xml code , you have to be exact in the useage of Variables and syntax , the smallest mistake , even a space where there shouldn't be one or missing a letter or full stop can result in the failure of the instrument to show up. Any faults or errors can be akin to looking for a needle in a haystack , fault finding can be exceedingly difficult. The following are details of just 3 instruments that I created for a panel which has about 60 -70 instruments in it . 1. Left MFD 3.258 lines = 55 pages. 2. Right MFD 2,878 lines = 48 pages . 3. Radar 4,891 lines = 82 pages . - At 60 lines of xml code per A4 page. - To printout the entire code for these 3 instruments would result in a print of 185 pages in total. That xml code is a convoluted mess , although it is laborously configured , and meticulously constructed to achieve the final instrument as is required by the developer , and as appears in the panel. I only do instruments , but it would be fair to say other areas , such as scenery , etc. are equally complex to create , the skills are learned and earned the hard way over time by developers. Having the long term stability of a platform such as FSX , allows the developer the time to gain the skills , to explore new methodologies to implement ideas , and end up creating new and advanced products that we can then use in the sim. People should never under estimate the complexity of the Flight Simulator , nor of the addons that are developed for it . Cheers Karol Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dominique Posted February 14, 2016 Share Posted February 14, 2016 1 hour ago, Penzoil3 said: Fly! had potential. I loved Fly2K. The ATC was GREAT ! The best ATC I've ever seen on a sim. I always wondered what if... Sue What if, indeed Sue ! Sad.... I also loved that the fact that the main aircraft and sceneries files were .txt files open to us unlike the almost undecipherable .bgl ! Loved Terrascene, the ancestor of OrbX in a way, allowing us to integrate USGS data for doing our own mini fat regions ! 17 minutes ago, COBS said: People should never under estimate the complexity of the Flight Simulator , nor of the addons that are developed for it . Cheers Karol An excellent point Karol, and don't you have the feeling that FSX even complexified it more, raising the bar ? We saw bright and well respected FS2k2/FS9 freeware aircraft developpers giving up saying they couldn't/ didn't want to cope with the new sim. Also, interesting to see that now, most of the best addons are produced by teams or coop of several developpers ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bvdboomen Posted February 14, 2016 Share Posted February 14, 2016 4 hours ago, dominique said: I suspect that the FSX "big freeze" which brought some stability to the plateform, for a few years, allowed it. OrbX or Scenery Solutions (UT X) or A2A or PMDG etc could take the time to go in depth and innovate without the pressure of a two year cycle, to capitalize on their technical knowledge through more products, to make money and grow. I very much agree with this! Same with the Commodore 64 home computer. This computer stayed on the market for a very long time. At the end of it's much extended life cycle, the C64 could do way more than it was originally designed for. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
COBS Posted February 14, 2016 Share Posted February 14, 2016 Just now, dominique said: An excellent point Karol, and don't you have the feeling that FSX even complexified it more, raising the bar ? We saw bright and well respected FS2k2/FS9 freeware aircraft developpers giving up saying they couldn't/ didn't want to cope with the new sim. Also, interesting to see that now, most of the best addons are produced by teams or coop of several developpers ! Yes the complexity has increased. I suppose it's progress , it's what people want and demand. You will see in various threads that people want more and more , some want their street and house in the scenery , and trains running. One of the big things that came with FSX was the ability to increase the visual resolution of scenery , and aircraft , what is commonly referred to as "Eye Candy" , I have seen abusive posts where people complain that there are not enough rivet bumps on aircraft , and other nit picking complaints. The unrealistic standard now demanded in FSX results in a manyfold increase in manhours to produce a product , then when it's released it will be picked to pieces . That has caused some to give up on development. What I think has been lost recently is that this is a flight simulator and that immersion stems from getting involved in conducting flights and flying the aircraft , the flight simulator does that part really well. We really do have a fantastic flight simulator , now all we have to do is to learn to appreciate that fact . Cheers Karol Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
birdguy Posted February 14, 2016 Share Posted February 14, 2016 Purchasing FSX was just the start. Like buying a car without any accessories. Just a couple of addons and you have doubled the original price. I have over 3K invested in Orbx products alone. For an enthusiast it's a pretty expensive hobby when you add up all the aircraft and scenery addons. On March 12th 2013 I made my first Orbx purchased at the Flightsim Store. Now, 2 years and 11 months later I find I have spent $3,274.30 there. And that doesn't count my purchases from Simmarket and other outlets in that time. Just bought P3D a couple weeks ago. You might say I have 3+ dollar a day habit. Please don't tell my wife. Noel Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CED CYQR Posted February 14, 2016 Share Posted February 14, 2016 Trip down memory lane. First Sim was "Solo Flight" loaded off a large floppy onto Commodore 64 (stick shape) airplane flew and could even dial in ceiling and do IFR approaches into Aspen KASE using a stop watch.Talk about primitive scenery. Owned flew all the MS flight sims over the years up to FSX wish still had some oldies gave them away when replaced with newer versions. Charlie Echo Delta Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hobnobs Posted February 14, 2016 Share Posted February 14, 2016 I taught my mum to land a Cessna 152 in FSX. She was very hesitant at first but I had convinced her that you can teach anyone to land a plane in under half an hour. People think flying is hard. She did it, and she said it was very rewarding. Thats the great thing about FSX and simulators in general. The opportunity to experience things most people would never get to try. It was the seed that planted the idea of wanting to get a PPL for real. Something that my wife paid for my 40th birthday. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
birdguy Posted February 14, 2016 Share Posted February 14, 2016 Flying is easy. It's that crashing part that's hard. Noel Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matthew Kane Posted February 15, 2016 Author Share Posted February 15, 2016 I agree the time freeze has been very beneficial in developing FSX, without that we would have moved into an FSX11 around 2008 and a lot of projects moved forward into new platforms. I have certainly enjoyed the past 10 years of FSX Generation and probably have a few more years to go with it as a new Flight Sim will take time to develop. I also have been at it since early days and considered FS4 the coming of age of the Flight Simulator, A lot of what we have today was pioneered in the FS4 days by some very creative developers, as well as online communities and sharing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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