announcement Project X not happening

[cabnz]

4 hours ago, Eric Schoen said:

Bummer ! Doesnt look like I will be buying any ORBX scenery anytime soon, if at all. Unless P3D 64 is amazing. The problem with the FSX engine is how the blurry scenery come into focus as you fly. P3D going 64 bit doesn't solve that. Correct me if I am wrong.   

I completely agree with you!

[Mike707]

I am utterly disappointed. XP11 would have been an amazing experience with Orbx enhancements. I was considering switching over to XP11 because P3D v3.x is just not different enough from FSX, which was released over a decade ago. As Orbx-XP products were a possibility, I was holding off investing in any Orbx products until Orbx-XP products would have been made available, upon which point I would have purchased all or many Orbx-XP products. I am at a crossroads where P3D just does not do it anymore and I am not interested in XP11 without the possibility of Orbx add-ons. I have been waiting to get out of the FSX/P3D rut for years and it looks like flight simulation just will not truly modernize no matter what. I also don't see P3D v4 being much more than V3 except with a bit larger LOD and maybe some minor enhancements, based on seeing v1-v3 over a 7 year development period. I really with Orbx would reconsider. 

[GCBraun]

X-Plane will live on and thrive regardless of this. The lightning and other engine differences make the whole experience much more immersive than P3D, even without ORBX scenery.

[Mike707]

3 minutes ago, thiagocouto said:

X-Plane will live on and thrive regardless of this. The lightning and other engine differences make the whole experience much more immersive than P3D, even without ORBX scenery.

Orbx would have made the experience much better. For one, John and his team are intelligent enough to not display suburban North American style houses all around the world so all of the scenery looks the same no matter where you are. I know there is Euro scenery, but that too is limited and repetitive. Also, Orbx would have been able to create some awesome regional ground textures to go along with exceptional autogen to match. To add, Orbx would have created city-scapes that were based on models of many actual buildings and landmarks instead of autogen tall buildings. I am sure John and company would have also come up with many more ideas to enhance the platform. 

[mofata]

The X-plane community is doing well without orbx we have the enough tools to develop nice scenery's for free I am really happy you withdraw from X-plane project it was going to weak the community and depend on ready made products and turn it to a commercial community you have amazing products on P3D and because of you p3d is still alive but in X-plane it is a very different situation and I think you made your calculations so well to decide that so good luck for you and your team with the other projects. 

[JosefK]

I intend to after winter vacay in mid-February to in March make the leap to P3D.

 

It would be so nice to have photoscenery in P3D for the times I truly need it and ORBX world sceneries in Aerofly.  Yes, I'd buy a lot more ORBX products if I had that option.

 

FSX is just so unstable for me.  I hear FSX:SE is just as bad.

[Blackrat]

That's a shame. I've just purchased XP11 in anticipation, but I'll stick with P3D now, and of course AeroFly FS2 for a quick fly around the block in VR.

[Jorik Michiels]

Really really disappointed.
I see X-plane 11 as the real future in simulation because it not only brings visual quality but more importantly realistic flight dynamics and system simulation capabilities not found in any other simulator at the moment.
The visuals Orbxs supply's could bring X-plane 11 even further in to the future.
Also the constant development and community connection Laminar has isn't found in any other simulator.

Hopefully Orbx changes their mind in the future.
In the mean time, lucky us, we have some really great scenery tools from some clever x-plane folks.
 

[bvdboomen]

I think it's a good decision to narrow that horizon of R&D. Better be strong in a few sims than being average on all of them.

Although, I would rather see Aerofly to be stopped since XP11 already is a mature sim.

[pmb]

9 hours ago, WR269 said:

Wonder what happened. Market size wise, Aerofly is extremely small compared to XPlane so it can't be that.
 

True. However, contrary to X-Plane, the developers of AeroflyFS2 will certainly embrace ORBX, making them grow. A mutual understanding between developers is for sure required for successful co-operation.

 

Kind regards, Michael

[WR269]

True. However, contrary to X-Plane, the developers of AeroflyFS2 will certainly embrace ORBX, making them grow. A mutual understanding between developers is for sure required for successful co-operation.

 

Kind regards, Michael

I have no idea what you are on about. There was correspondence between Austin Meyer and JV, very good humoured and JV was welcomed into the world of XPlane just like all developers are.

Please stop spreading made-up stuff


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Lat3ralus]

I have been a FSX---->P3D v1,2,3 user for many years, plus state of the art ORBX, Majestic and A2A addons. 

 

However, I recently purchased X-plane 11, and out of the box it is a great flight simulator. I had to reluctantly admit that the flight model is miles ahead of P3D/FSX OUT OF THE BOX. Yes we do have the likes of A2A, PMDG, Majestic making some amazing aircraft, but they are having to constantly fight and find ways to battle and bypass the flight simulation model in P3D. Disclaimer: Yes I am an employed pilot with many thousands of flying hours in various sizes of aircraft, so I have a modest idea of what I am looking for.  

 

I do believe it is a good decision for ORBX not to develope for X-Plane, that is one too big an array of products they would be offering, and quality would be compromised ahead of quantity. So good on them for dropping X-Plane, as there is plenty of free, good-quality scenery for Laminar as it stands. 

 

It is however disappointing to see in these threads the constant back and forth bashing of the sims by members of both camps. Each sim has its pros and cons, I know which one I prefer, for MY simulation needs and hobbies. 

 

I for one have deleted P3D of my SSD, in an attempt to stop buying more products for this sim, including ORBX, as I believe X-Plane 11 is now my go-to sim for the near future, unless Lockheed has something really good to show us. 

 

[ErichB]

I'd prefer focused resource on P3D anyway.   Sad for the XP peeps, but they get loads of free good scenery anyway.

[tom.knudsen]

It was with a general consern I read about project x and the thoughts went streight to x-plane. I am exited to read that Orbx now have canned this project. I believe this project would have totally ruined X-Plane. FS/P3D related scenery doesnt belong in X-Plane at all, so again thank you John.

Sent from my SM-G928F using Tapatalk

[MartinM]

Aerofly is a niche player. Always has been and it won't envolve, but still will find its friends.

 

You either have P3D or u got XP. Thats the game and nothing else. Unfortunately FS has been here for decades and Microsoft had a lot of financial power to push something. Lm is just earning the merits of what Microsoft built for ages. In reality FSX or P3D is not new, the foundations are still the same. It remains a cashcow and thats why developers refuse to change over to XP. If there would be the masses and big sales, then the devs would easily switch.

 

Thats the hard fact -> You cannot keep your business running by selling just for XP, you need to have the masses from P3D.

 

There is a lot of nice scenery growing for XP

 

Remember the days where ORBX only has a few airports. I remember when Bella Coola and Stewart was there and not much more

 

Switzerland P3D is not suitable for VFR, while XP11 is.

 

[EnQ]

Sad to hear that... While airport scenery is nice, XP already has plenty of really good quality freeware airports and also meshes to improve terrain. What XP really needs is more variety in land class textures + seasons. I wasn't sure if that's even possible with the technical options XP currently offers to developers, I would have hoped that Orbx would find a way to release some sort of OpenLC products for XP. AFAIK seasons should be possible to implement since ~10.40 but without any default assets it's hard to start completely at zero. Orbx would have had all those textures required to start making such a product, so my hopes were high. Maybe another time, then...

 

From a user's perspective, Laminar appears to be quite open to the community. But it's a small team. Maybe there would have been a possibility to sponsor development of some features required to get Orbx-quality scenery to work.

[Richard McDonald Woods]

The flight simulator market can be seen as having a study sector and a games sector. Within each, there are levels of functional maturity.

 

Dovetail Games, in my opinion, sits firmly in the games sector with its mixture of train, aircraft and fishing simulators stretching its expertise across a wide front.

 

X-Plane and Aerofly FS2, in my opinion, look to be strong candidates for the study sector. Their development stages put them behind Prepar3D, although for how long is a good bet. Orbx's withdrawal from the X-Plane market will be a setback for X-Plane.

 

Prepar3D, with its massive backing from aerospace industry corporates, puts Lockheed Martin in an extremely strong market position. Its high degree of support by leading developers, such as PMDG, Orbx, HiFi Simulation Technologies, FSDreamTeam, FlightBeam, FlyTampa and UK2000, reinforce its market position. I believe that, with the availability of a 64-bit version, Prepar3D's market position will remain very strong.

 

Lockheed Martin must be very aware of all the new technologies becoming available to simulator developers. Since launching Prepar3D, LM must have long been testing all parts of the software market to determine P3D's future placement. I am sure that we shall be very pleasantly surprised at forthcoming LM offerings.

 

We as users will remain in a powerful position. In whichever sector of the market is our choice, we will continue to be served by very superior products. I believe that 2017 and beyond will provide us with much excitement.

[Bram Stikkel]

Orbx guys and girls, you're a great company with reasonable priced products for the very quality and beauty you offer us, flightsimmers.
X-plane versions would be great, but I am very glad with the products you already have !

Have a great 2017 !

Bram

[wolfko]

7 hours ago, mofata said:

The X-plane community is doing well without orbx we have the enough tools to develop nice scenery's for free I am really happy you withdraw from X-plane project it was going to weak the community and depend on ready made products and turn it to a commercial community you have amazing products on P3D and because of you p3d is still alive but in X-plane it is a very different situation and I think you made your calculations so well to decide that so good luck for you and your team with the other projects. 

 

Sour grapes?! 

[wolfko]

1 hour ago, Richard McDonald Woods said:

...X-Plane and Aerofly FS2, in my opinion, look to be strong candidates for the study sector...

 

I object! For me Aerofly 2 currently is not a flight sim or a study program. It is not even a flight game, it's a sightseeing game.

[Hotdog]

I am very disappointed. Carenado have been contracting Dan Klaue for ages to convert aircraft from FSX/P3D to X-Plane. There is a lot more to converting an aircraft as the flight model needs to be created from scratch, but the art assets are already there. I assume that the same is valid for X-Plane scenery, except that it should be easier to convert the art assets (and there is no complicated flight model to be concerned with). "Contracting" in a partner to get a cut of the sale hardly seems like overstretching your current resources John? Sounds like you are only going to make more money by selling more products than you would have, and you only have to give up a fraction of those sales to your subcontractor. Sounds like good business to me, but then again I am not a developer. The risk is reasonable low as the actual X-Plane scenery format remains unchanged for many versions. Or is the X-Plane architecture too open that is does not provide sufficient protection of intelligent property?

 

I think that the business case must have made sense before, seeing that you not only mentioned a Project X, but you posted a screenshot as well, creating the expectation that not only has it been considered and blessed, but that great things are in production. Then you go ahead to announce (pretty sensationally if I may add) that you will never develop for X-Plane, ever! It sounds like the beginning and end of a soap opera, only that someone taped an episode of Ice Pilots over the middle of it and now nobody knows what the heck is going on.

 

As an OrbX customer and supporter (yeah, may X-Plane users own FSX & P3D as well) I do not own any shares in your company, so you don't owe me any explanation of what really transpired here. If this is how you intend to run your R&D in future, maybe it would be better if you don't share it with the community. 

 

I and many other X-Plane users were really looking forward to seeing OrbX scenery in that sim. And to my fellow simmers who believe that P3D is the end all be all of flightsims; how we as flightsimmers spend our time is precious. Whether you are spending those hours in P3D, X-Plane or FSX, all those hours spent are equally precious. The OrbX franchise just missed a great opportunity to bring the flight sim community closer together.

 

Sad day for X-Plane fans.

 

 

 

[Mike Poe]

That really sucks as xplane for sure will be the future. look at the default p3d and xplane 11 - look at the prices for the standart sim...very bad decision in my opinion... i guess its more about John and Austins "friendship". So no money from me in the future for orbx, but as we all know there is flytampa, 29palms and aerosoft just to name a few, who are on board when it comes to xplane 11. I think that was a wrong decision john...

[harryw]

Add me to the Very Disappointed camp, since X-Plane is the only viable alternative for Linux.

[vassalfada]

Very happy of these news !

 

After flying for years on XP 9 and XP 10, which satisfied me totally, the last XP 10.52 update destroyed my framerate (as most of the users) from an average butter-smooth 40-50 fps to a stuttery 10-12 fps, and of course no way to fix it as it was the very last update Laminar released.

The sim became litterally unplayable.

 

Therefore I tested XP 11 demo, hoping for better performances but it was even worse.

 

And there I discovered and installed Aerofly FS2, splendid graphics, immersive physics and 80-100 fps (constant).

Of course , it's far from complete but the experience if so superior to all its competitors that it was a shock for me.

 

And now, like in a dream, you guys are announcing some content for AFS2, things couldn't turn better than this.

 

Looking forward to add your stunning work in my AFS2

[Graffix75]

What a shame, I was willing to spend more $$ on X-Plane add ons. I recently purchased Aerofly FS2 and am not very impressed with it, as a flight simulator, in it's current state. Additionally, after my last oom in P3D, I've pretty much given up on FSX/P3D.

 

On the other hand, creating scenery for X-Plane with tools such as Ortho4XP isn't that difficult and you can create some pretty amazing stuff if you know what to do. For free.

[gjpollitt]

Good. I'm not interested in the slightest in X-Plane. No further x-planation necessary. Use the resources on the other 3 platforms instead.

 

P3D and FSX-SE for me. I may look at Aerofly in another 5 years but for now P3D is where the fun is.

[Graffix75]

5 hours ago, wolfko said:

 

I object! For me Aerofly 2 currently is not a flight sim or a study program. It is not even a flight game, it's a sightseeing game.

Exactly right !! I do not consider it a sim in it's current state. Esp outside of big cities, just flat, photoscenery with trees. I do hope it evolves into a full blown sim but for now ......

[deanwings]

16 minutes ago, Graffix75 said:

What a shame, I was willing to spend more $$ on X-Plane add ons..

 

plus one.  although many including yours truly have X-plane D.I.Y scenery ( eg. Ortho4xp) it's taken me many hours to get just one tile (eg +50 -001) looking pretty good but here's the rub, it still doesn't look as realistic as flying out of EGKA with P3D + Orbx with which i saw buildings and roads i recognize from my RW lessons. Add to that that the best x-plane payware C172 still isn't as perfect as A2A's C172 in P3D.   (A2A team i love you!).  so why am i still flying in x-plane i hear your cry?  Notice i said 'look as realistic' not 'feel'. There you have it. Right or wrong, perceived or not, in P3D i did not feel i was really flying.  and the funny thing is i wanted P3D for RW ATC practice and P3D has ORBX's professional, excellent, complete sceneries at reasonable cost. what am i saying i ask myself. well 1. don't write off x-plane. v11 is getting there and i honestly believe the flight model 'feels' better than microsoft's 1990's lookup table based API that Lockheed Martin(LM) inherited and seem to be reluctant to dump. IMO the latter explains why LM have been slow to 64bit, they are calling functions in 16bit modules and can't recompile in 64bit. and  2. Orbx should not be put off developing for x-plane by the freeware scenery tools and scenery. reason being it often sucks and is always 'bitty'  either in terms of users have to devote half their lives fiddling around trying to get the up-teen scenery layers, ordering and libraries even close to acceptable. if you can read the instructions for Ortho4xp for example ( allow a few weeks) and don't have a day job, and don't mind the frustrations taking you away from flying, you still end up with something not as good as an Orbx scenery purchase. At a modest rate of £10 p/h for my time i could have saved £1k by now by buying off-the-shelf complete scenery. x-plane although excellent, forces us to fiddle around to get believable scenery. we need professionals to get involved.. like Orbx.  This is a personal opinion based on 5 years experience of both sims, and some RW GA lessons. so if you disagree i'm all ears but please do so politely ergo with manners and in good humor.

 

[Graffix75]

I'll admit, there is a learning curve in using tools like Ortho4XP and can be a fairly big one and frustrating for non technical folks. Maybe I've forgotten how much trouble it was initially setting it up because it's been sometime. Also, It's funny what you said about 'feeling' XP regarding it's flight model because that's exactly what my cousin said (he's a FO).

 

Whatever the reason (personal or business) it's their choice to make, even if consumers don't like it

I was personally looking forward to Orbx add ons for XP but I still think the future is bright for simmers

[Mike707]

11 hours ago, orbxflyer said:

I'd prefer focused resource on P3D anyway.   Sad for the XP peeps, but they get loads of free good scenery anyway.

Sorry, but whatever Orbx would have been able to produce would have been miles ahead of the free stuff out there. Orbx is a professional company with solid talent, refined processes, and proper company organization. True some of the free downloads out there are good, but open your mind to what Orbx could have been able to do putting their collective intelligence into the project. Unfortunately we are now left with what is available on the xplane org site, as well as the ability to spend loads of time to give a go at creating our own stuff. This decision to not pursue XP is most unfortunate. What you see today in XP is what you will see in three to five years with some minor enhancements. And regarding P3d v4, I doubt it will be much better than v1,2, and 3, except no more OOM's but I would not really call that too much progress.

[Pete H]

Too bad, I was looking forward to seeing what Orbx could do with X-Plane. The biggest things that have stopped me moving to X-Plane in the past are the lack of decent, consistent, worldwide scenery, and the lack of add-on aircraft compared to FSX/P3D. I was hoping that XP11, combined with Orbx scenery, would be the catalyst for other developers to start jumping onto the platform.

 

Aerofly looks good, but I fear it will forever be a game - good for a quick 30 mins of nice views, but no good for actual simulation. However, it's early days.

 

I'm hoping that P3D4 will include DirectX12, and PBR, as those are two elements which would greatly improve both performance and visuals. I guess we'll see...

[Eric Schoen]

13 hours ago, tom.knudsen said:

It was with a general consern I read about project x and the thoughts went streight to x-plane. I am exited to read that Orbx now have canned this project. I believe this project would have totally ruined X-Plane. FS/P3D related scenery doesnt belong in X-Plane at all, so again thank you John.

Sent from my SM-G928F using Tapatalk
 

 

lol... I would have assumed that the xplane project would have been a ground up project not a simple port with baked in lights. That would have looked like a dog and not sold very well. Maybe thats why the canceled the project. 

[Eric Schoen]

11 hours ago, wolfko said:

 

I object! For me Aerofly 2 currently is not a flight sim or a study program. It is not even a flight game, it's a sightseeing game.

 

+ 1. It's fun to fly around in and look at scenery but thast about it. The flight model sucks ! The 172 drops like a rock when you chop the power. Totally unrealistic. Speaking of flight model Austin just fixed the broken spiraling slip stream ! So XPX is on the up and up ! I hope ORBX will reconsider $$

[Eric Schoen]

7 hours ago, vassalfada said:

Very happy of these news !

 

After flying for years on XP 9 and XP 10, which satisfied me totally, the last XP 10.52 update destroyed my framerate (as most of the users) from an average butter-smooth 40-50 fps to a stuttery 10-12 fps, and of course no way to fix it as it was the very last update Laminar released.

The sim became litterally unplayable.

 

Therefore I tested XP 11 demo, hoping for better performances but it was even worse.

 

And there I discovered and installed Aerofly FS2, splendid graphics, immersive physics and 80-100 fps (constant).

Of course , it's far from complete but the experience if so superior to all its competitors that it was a shock for me.

 

And now, like in a dream, you guys are announcing some content for AFS2, things couldn't turn better than this.

 

Looking forward to add your stunning work in my AFS2

 

Most users ? Thats first time I have heard anybody say that. Are you using a AMD card ?

[rsvette12]

Aerofly FS2 is not a flight simulator not even close - where do you guys come up with this stuff - dont worry there will be other developers jumping on the XP11 and beyond band wagon - mark my words 

[FlyBlueSkies]

I'm very disappointed too...

 

I purchased PAVD during the sale and run it in Prepar3dV3. Every time I go to PAVD in Prepar3DV3, I stop the sim and go back to XP11.

 

The PAVD textures in Prepar3D are just too blurry...it's not Orbx, it's Prepar3D...it just does not do Orbx PAVD justice.

 

The same area in XP11 is so much clearer. No blurries, no popping of textures, just really good scenery (but not as good as Orbx PAVD).

 

It's too bad JV won't reconsider possibly adding just a couple of addon's for XP11 such as Global Base Pack or HD trees. While I think XP11 textures are pretty good, there is no doubt that Orbx Global Base Pack would really add to XP11.

 

I would think that most XP11 owners, who are also Orbx owners, would at the very least, buy this.

 

Perhaps just a test market to see how well Orbx products would sell into XP11...

 

Anyway, back to XP11

 

 

[JayRyan]

20 hours ago, Mike707 said:

Orbx would have made the experience much better. For one, John and his team are intelligent enough to not display suburban North American style houses all around the world so all of the scenery looks the same no matter where you are. I know there is Euro scenery, but that too is limited and repetitive. Also, Orbx would have been able to create some awesome regional ground textures to go along with exceptional autogen to match. To add, Orbx would have created city-scapes that were based on models of many actual buildings and landmarks instead of autogen tall buildings. I am sure John and company would have also come up with many more ideas to enhance the platform. 

Ummmm...   I guess you haven't seen X-Plane 11...  NA building in NA,,,   EU buildings in EU...  The team are working on becoming more diverse as XP11 developes over its life-cycle.  Instead of winter textures, they are going for accumulating volumetric snowfall.  Perhaps Orbx tools are unable to use these features and that's why they decided to drop Project X...  Either way, doesn't matter.  I once had hundreds of dollars sunk in Orbx in my FSX days.  Them pulling out of X-Plane likely saves me hundreds more.

Jay

[JayRyan]

21 hours ago, curt1 said:

XP11 is a self-contained sim where the user manually adds aircraft and scenery into the proper folders.  I think it would be too difficult for Orbx to safeguard against scenery sharing on this platform.  I also think that's why most developers shy away from X-Plane and addons are usually freeware.    

On the surface, it would appear so, however the scenery and aircraft developers have built in DRM to there products quite successfully.  I couldn't move my add-ons from an old install of X-Plane to a new one...  I had to reinstall (sometimes only involving copying the folder), then reactivate on first use.  And so, this isn't a valid reason to drop X-Plane, especially with Orbx developing their own store and can make the software activate through their own servers for more security than a 3rd party eStore can provide.

Jay

[Ziggy]

Oops, I think I ended up on Avsim.....................um nope, it's the ORBX forum, hard to tell lately.

It's too bad that ORBX is pulling away from XP11, but really, we can go on with our lives and fly whatever sim we want and be happy that we have so many sceneries and sims to choose from, XP11 will still be around and so will FSX and Dovetail 64bit and for sure P3D V4 64bit oh yeah and AF2 as well as DCS, even FS2004 is still going pretty strong. This hobby is supposed to be fun and we have so much at our disposal to play with, it's amazing!!

This is "Flight Simulation" it will never be real, the planes will probably never do what they do in real life no matter what sim we use, there will always be a better scenery maker (imo it's ORBX) and Yes I have flown real planes and my Dad is a retired bush pilot so I know how they are supposed to fly just like the rest of the real pilots here.

I'm a big ORBX supporter and love the stuff they do so I'm an FTX lifer , but I'm also a Flight Simulation lifer too, I have almost all of the sims (including XP) am I disappointed that ORBX won't be in XP11? Not at all, will I continue to buy ORBX?  You bet your darn life on it!! 

 

Do I have much of a point here, probably not, but what the hell, I had to get in on this 

 

Have a great day/night

 

Cheers

Greg Z

[JayRyan]

21 hours ago, Mike707 said:

I am utterly disappointed. XP11 would have been an amazing experience with Orbx enhancements. I was considering switching over to XP11 because P3D v3.x is just not different enough from FSX, which was released over a decade ago. As Orbx-XP products were a possibility, I was holding off investing in any Orbx products until Orbx-XP products would have been made available, upon which point I would have purchased all or many Orbx-XP products. I am at a crossroads where P3D just does not do it anymore and I am not interested in XP11 without the possibility of Orbx add-ons. I have been waiting to get out of the FSX/P3D rut for years and it looks like flight simulation just will not truly modernize no matter what. I also don't see P3D v4 being much more than V3 except with a bit larger LOD and maybe some minor enhancements, based on seeing v1-v3 over a 7 year development period. I really with Orbx would reconsider. 

I think you should do some research on what else is out there for XP...  There is a LOT of great free stuff!  There is also better payware, most on par with Orbx.  My disappointment with Orbx not entering the game, we won't have the benefit of the jump in available content...   Unless of course you know someone adept at the FS2XP scenry conversion software, then you could just convert what you already have for FSX.

 

Not to mention all of the utilities that work within and along side of XP to bring the experience to levels unparalled in P3D or FSX...  Oh and end OOM and crashes to desktop NOW rather than wait for the other elusive 64 bit iterations of the other sims.

 

Jay