Thank you JV and the team

[VH-KDK]

JV just read your latest post.

As happy as I am that the one daily download a day has been amended it is the Apology that has made the most impact here.

Many thanks for coming out with this, it was quite harrowing to see the comments going too and fro today, this is usually a happy place to visit.

I will leave it there, many thanks again.

 

[BG2518]

JV,

 

A brave man for putting his head up over the ramparts.

 

Some you win and some you lose.

 

Turn the tap back on and up your prices, have a beer and a holiday.

 

When transport costs go up the business HAS to increase costs - simples.

[John Venema]

3 hours ago, VH-KDK said:

 

As happy as I am that the one daily download a day has been amended ....

 

 

Nothing has been amended, we've made zero changes since my email yesterday. It was always only the manual downloads which were restricted. My mistake was not communicating this clearly, which caused all the fuss  

 

EDIT: We've now increased the manual downloads from one (1) to five (5) per day.

[Scott Harmes]

The original announcement wasn't a big deal for me at all.  Some of the responses to that announcement really riled me though.

 

Anyway, thanks for the clarification.

 

Cheers,

 

 

[hkterry]

JV, so far so good for me. Although there is a small problem for me your staff assisted me and solved it very quickly. Any new change need some time for people to accustom to the change. I strongly support any change that you and your team that provided to us with good faith. 

 

Cheers

 

Terry

[olli4740]

Now back to business as usual:

Any chance for an ORBXDirect sale, so we could provide you with some cashflow to cover your bandwidth costs?  

 

(Just kidding; announcing sales makes no sense.)

[hkterry]

That's a good proposal at least I will purchased 6 more products. Hoping the X'mas SALE comes sooner.

[JoseCFII]

Most customers will forget the email and the apology after a 50% off sale.

[dominique]

John

 

Your post of today is appreciated. Most of us never doubted that you had to take that tough decision to safeguard OrbX from that terrible bleeding.

 

But as I said, there are ways to tell things. Political correctness has nothing to do with that.  Courtesy maybe but yesterday was chiefly a case in point  of angst being an infectious disease. Yours became ours with a few of your words. That was a lively debate  that leaves me with an afterthought only, nobody was banned for saying up their mind. Kudos for that.

 

You can indeed be proud of what was already built with OD, even if there are still some issues that Ben is working on. More generally,  I know what was the FS world before OrbX and, as many, I do appreciate everyday the blessing to have your sceneries.  That does not make us fanboys/girls. 

 

 

[ErichB]

Well managed.  

[qf777]

well done sir 

nuff said.

[JimmiG]

Looks like I missed all the controversy since I just transferred my licenses and continued to enjoy the sim since it worked exactly the same as it did before the transfer.

That said, I was planning to manually download and back up all the installers at some point. One thing you have to keep in mind is that many have spent thousands of dollars on OrbX addons. It's a big investment, and people get nervous when they feel their right to use those products is threatened (even if the threat is only perceived, not real). People want to feel like they can "protect" their investment by having local copies of the products (even if those copies are useless without the authentication with OrbX, which requires their servers to be up anyway).

 

Quote

 

TX Central 3 has "smarts" built into it - when you move the ORBX folder back into a new sim installation and run FTXCv3, it automatically scans your Orbx addons, adds them to the user interface and sets up the scenery library and copies all custom files for you. Automatically.

 

This was probably the biggest revelation to me. I always thought there were registry settings and configuration that required you to actually re-run the installers (and maybe this was the case with FTX Central v2 and FSS?). I will immediately back up the OrbX and Scenery\World folders since this seems by far the quickest way to restore the sim in the event of a hardware failure or system upgrade/rebuild.

[Pattersb]

Hopefully this will end all the heated discussions and we can now continue to enjoy

all the amazing products that ORBX puts out. Without you our flight sim world would be nothing but bland blurred scenery. Thanks JV

 

Cheers, enjoy the weekend !!

[John Venema]

Yep, the ORBX folder backup is the easiest insurance policy there is. As I said, I did a sim move from C: to D: last week using that method and it was completely painless and took a few minutes.

[Tofino]

Hopefully people will calm down and see, that the new way to handle all the ORBX scenery is good.

Keep on the good work with central 3, that is really a step forward.

[RJ]

What I'm really looking forward to is LOWI. This will be a HUGE success! 

[Scott B]

Thanks Orbx team for doing a great job.  Great product, great support, easy transitions, straight forward, simple.  I was surprised to see the second email because I didn't realize there was an issue with the first one.  Maybe folks need to also consider imaging their drives from time to time.  Thanks for your efforts.   

[Benny]

I love this kind of business, CO and team. I would have reacted the same as JV. It is a big move and it's all going pretty good.

 

Bravo and good luck

 

Ben

[wolfko]

Since I was (am) not one of those maniac backupaholics, I did not feel being insulted by JV's infamous post. So I do not see any reason for his apology (therefor even more kudos to him).

It's actually those backupaholics, who should apologize for unnecessarily blocking bandwidth and making downloads slow for other users. 

 

 

[ArtFlyer]

Thank you JV for the apology and the reconsidering of policy.  I am very happy with the changes. 

 

Now if you could reconsider the time limit on the discount for early OpenLC Alaska/Canada purchasers, you will be batting 1.000 in the customer service department. 

[AKar]

4 hours ago, John Venema said:

 

Nothing has been amended, we've made zero changes since my email yesterday. It was always only the manual downloads which were restricted. My mistake was not communicating this clearly, which caused all the fuss

 

Well, if so - you got me at least with that, I must say! At some point after the announcement I was actually wondering why I could resume my sim re-installation with my usual a-couple-per-day-rate, but dared not to mention that out loud.

 

If the manual downloads were - and are - the only thing affected, no problem whatsoever by me. Complete/fresh re-installs are luckily rare enough for me that this cloud system, if and when proved working, makes me to get rid of my installer backups, I never intended to store the v3 installers locally. Backups are so from '90ies anyway!

 

Thanks for clarification, if that's all what this needed!

[THibben]

I guess I don't understand this angst over people who back up their files.  I have always saved my downloaded files on a separate drive which I keep turned off. 

If  my installed file goes bad or I lose a hard drive I can repair without having to download again. To start calling us backupholics is a bit childish so I will just consider the source and ignore it.

 

Tom

 

PS:  I still can't get X3 working.

[Kimo]

What only the manual download was restricted?? Wow if I only knew that yesterday 

Manual download restriction would not be a problem for me.

[pmb]

I consider the cased settled, and in a positive sense restoring my trust in ORBX. I can go on with installation on my new system with the Install + Backup option as intended. Will take 2 weeks or so anyway, as I'll have to run a few tests in-between and of course there is real-life work.

 

Kinds regards, Michael

 

 

 

 

 

 

[sim123]

Good news,

 

Love Orbx stuff, and hope you will find a solution to get your bandwith costs reduced, because with more customers and big sceneries in progress

like FTX Germany-south, LC southamerica, Inssbruck  and cote D'Azur  to release coming year , that 50TB will be broken for sure,

when all or most of your clients are moved over to orbxdirectstore.

 

best regards,

 

 

[curt1]

I absolutely love the fact I can backup my Orbx and Scenery/World/Scenery folders and use them to install my many regions and airports (should it become necessary).  I like to keep things simple, and that's about as simple as you can get! 

[moshe]

6 hours ago, JoseCFII said:

Most customers will forget the email and the apology after a 50% off sale.

I like this reply! and willing to forget the email as soon as it happens 

 

JV,

Now seriously, as I trust ORBX for many years and have *almost* all products (waiting for the sale to complete it), I appreciate direct communication with customers and was sure it will not take long before this issue is sorted out by ORBX. Please bare with yourself, as its a part of being human to make mistakes and takes a lot of courage to reveal them in front of 57,000 customers. Only one who does nothing will avoid mistakes. I just waited for this storm to come down to thank you for taking ORBX forward in technology and keeping its products quality to be the best of the simulation market. One year ago, after I have installed my sim for the 4th time during the last 15 years, I said to myself: This time I want the sim to keep the best quality addons, so I will install only ORBX scenery. And this is how it was. I fly (*almost*) only within areas and airports (payware or freeware) released by ORBX and this is more than enough for me, beautiful scenery and best quality, enjoying also your improved user interface getting better all the time. This is also the reason I moved my licenses immediately, I trust you to help me and support sorting out problems. So you got 230 loud customers comments, but the other 56,770 (which will probably agree with me) just trusted ORBX and waited for you to sort this out.

 

[Matthew Kane]

I have a 2 year old just getting over teething and has lots of growing pains.....yes transitions are tough at any age. ORBX will get past this as well. 

[fueliehead]

JV,

Thank you for bringing this issue to a positive solution that appears fair for all.  I also appreciate you leaving the thread open yesterday and allowing folks to express their opinion.  I may not agree with your style, but you always seem to do the right thing in the end.  Which is what is important.  You guys make great products and are the reason I'm back into flight simming.  I look forward to new releases. 

 

I'm not sure if this was aimed at me but I would like to address this from your final post on the discussion thread:

 

"Can I just say how taken aback I am at the ferocity of some of the posts in this topic, it's very disappointing. Most people seemed to have posted without even trying to install a product using FTX Central but chose instead to inflame the situation. 

 

We are simply trying to do our best and provide the best online store for you all. Don't be too quick to cry foul when in fact we have only capped a single function of the entire OrbxDirect system to one per day. Everything else works as it should."

 

First off, I never chose to inflame the situation, you did that all on your own.  I asked directly several times if this applied to installs or backup files only.  I never got a response to my question.  I did get grilled about why would I want to reinstall my system and told that there is no tone in email.  But you never answered my direct question regarding whether this applied only to backups.  That answer would have cleared everything up, at least for me.  So you can pass this off as I didn't understand you, but you had plenty of opportunities to clear this up.  You decided to take another tack. 

 

Thanks for the space to express myself.  All is well.

 

hank

[CrownCityMisfit]

I didn't feel it was necessary in this case, but it is brave to empathize, humble yourself, and make it right.

 

Still a fan,

 

Aaron 

[JNS]

Thank you very much, JV.  Well, done.

 

Jeff Smith

#FSS0524487

[Jordan King]

Good man John. Although I didnt understand all of the backlash, you listened to your customers and have responded accordingly to their needs. The good news is that with these new re-installation tips, the bandwidth should slow down soon enough and have less of an impact on your companies bottom line. It is in the interest of all of us to work with you as one of the greatest stewards of our community to see your company, and our interests, align together. Kudos and respect.  

[Neil]

Thanks John, glad to see it will all workout. I am going to use Nick Coopers approach for backup, leveraging the new FTXCentral, which is proving to be a very powerful utility. I also don't believe that a more open discussion of a supplier support policy has ever been seen in the flight sim community. Think about that, how many other suppliers have we seen declare a decision and refuse comment.

 

As others have said, we should now focus on the new products coming up. Perhaps John can provide a next quarter update of products and services in development.

 

PS, I want Innsbruch for Christmas!!!!

[Rodger Pettichord]

Good attention to customer relations. Well done, ORBX (and JV)

[Ripcord]

 

John, I love you man.  And still owe you a beer, haven't forgotten.

 

Looking forward to my next contribution to the ORBX coffers.  Go check on the elves, if you would, please make sure they are all busy cobbling. 

 

Meanwhile I am enjoying all the ORBX goodness that I already got.

 

 

 

[AlanJ]

I received an email the other day with an apology from Orbx, while it's always nice to get an apology i saw no reason for this one. I read all (well most, ok..some.) of the backlash against the download limits and honestly couldn't understand the hostility. Orbx has provided us (the honest to goodness pain in the ass flight simmer) with nothing but everything we've ever wanted in a sim whether it be FSX or P3D and lets be honest they don't charge us for each one, we can install in both at no extra cost unlike others we could mention. The sceneries they provide us with are second to none and i can only imagine the work that goes into it to provide us with all this amazing outlook as we cruise across our virtual skies.I couldn't even guess as to the cost of the extra bandwidth or server stuff to (again for our benefit) create a site just to make it easier for us to download and purchase more Orbx products. Lets face it there is nothing out there to compare with what we get here and i may not have anywhere near the amount of stuff that a lot of others have here but i'm working on it and intend to have many more . As John said, i can only fly to one place at a time so i'm in no rush to download everything at once, so thanks for the apology but it wasn't needed as i see nothing to apologise for.

[BradB]

I have had time today to really take the new store and Central 3 out for a test drive . Move over sliced bread , the store and Central work amazing . Thanks for all of your hard work on this project guys !! .

 

 

Cheers

 

John