The future

[Archive82]

I thought that many earlier posts by the Orbx folks said that the next "Big Thing" would be enhanced geography of the Middle East (or maybe Asia).

What I find is only increasing numbers of either airports or the new detailed (dunno the fancy name) production of, in a new more expensive version, old products. And most of the new stuff is focused upon PD3, not on the basic supportive world of FSX. What's the real future of Orbx? Finishing the job that has sustained the company (ie,those of us in the FSX world and who have invested in the company?) or in surging ahead and leaving behind those who have made the company real?

-=dcp=-

[Stewart Hobson]

I think you'll have to agree that much of the "new stuff", as you refer to it, is geared towards both P3Dv4.x as well as XPlane.  Far be it for me to advise one way or the other, but while many of the new products are still geared towards both FSX and P3D, and XPlane is still the new kid on the block, one should be able to divine in which direction the company is going.  Many, but not most, simmers are gradually switching from FSX to one of the three or four other choices.  It would seem it all depends on what kind of flying one does and what priority one places on the quality of scenery which is available.  If a simmer feels he's being left behind, then that would seem to be the choice he has made.  The company seems to have made its decision about where it's going.  We simmers have the choice to follow or not to follow.  Personally, I didn't give up FSX until P3D went 64-bit--no more OOMs for this guy.

[TerryM]

I think what you're actually seeing is 'Evolution'..... in that as the software platforms and associated technology changes, ORBX is evolving old products to work with the new platforms and developing new ones to make use of the technology as it becomes available.

 

Whilst I admire your dedication to the FSX platform, it is now, and has been for some time now,  technically obsolete and has not been supported by the original vendor (Microsoft) for some time, so I'm not quite sure why you would expect ORBX to support an outdated product indefinitely; it wouldn't make for a sound business model, it would incur additional development costs to develop, support and maintain multiple versions of the same product, and ultimately it would drive up both the cost and time to market. 

 

Do you still use windows 98? (which is probably the operating system you first used with FSX).....yes, you may have invested in windows 98 at that time but I doubt you're still using it today, simply because it is no longer supported by Microsoft, the platform has evolved many many times and is now Win10, it's now 64 bit and it's much more powerful. ... the same can be said for P3D and XPlane, both of which are now also 64 bit.  

 

I know there's additional cost in making the transition to P3D v4 or XPlane 11 and of course, you might lose a few of your old aircraft, but most can be made to work with help from the community, and after the initial transfer period, you will never look back.

 

The benefit to "Evolution".......... no more endless manipulation of configuration files, no more out of memory errors, newer technology, better visuals, and more importantly you will receive commercial support for products that are being actively developed from the vendor.  

 

 

Terry

 

[Nick Cooper]

5 hours ago, Archive82 said:

I thought that many earlier posts by the Orbx folks said that the next "Big Thing" would be enhanced geography of the Middle East (or maybe Asia).

What I find is only increasing numbers of either airports or the new detailed (dunno the fancy name) production of, in a new more expensive version, old products. And most of the new stuff is focused upon PD3, not on the basic supportive world of FSX. What's the real future of Orbx? Finishing the job that has sustained the company (ie,those of us in the FSX world and who have invested in the company?) or in surging ahead and leaving behind those who have made the company real?

-=dcp=-

 

Hello,

as well as the points made already,

if you take a slightly longer term view, you will see that FSX is not being left behind as much as you assert.

So far, there is no suggestion that the OLC products or Australia 2 will be confined to P3D.

 

The True Earth products, whose name you don't know, are not suited to FSX and it would therefore be pointless

to release them for that platform.

The most recent releases have mostly been for X Plane 11 but they have been of existing airport products

converted to X Plane 11. This is a relatively short process compared to producing a region that covers all of Australia

or indeed landclass that covers all of Africa.

 

Turbulent Designs made it clear before they joined Orbx that they would no longer be developing for FSX and

they have been the authors of a couple of recent releases.

 

[Gollum]

On 2/18/2019 at 5:25 AM, Stewart Hobson said:

I think you'll have to agree that much of the "new stuff", as you refer to it, is geared towards both P3Dv4.x as well as XPlane.  Far be it for me to advise one way or the other, but while many of the new products are still geared towards both FSX and P3D, and XPlane is still the new kid on the block, one should be able to divine in which direction the company is going.  Many, but not most, simmers are gradually switching from FSX to one of the three or four other choices.  It would seem it all depends on what kind of flying one does and what priority one places on the quality of scenery which is available.  If a simmer feels he's being left behind, then that would seem to be the choice he has made.  The company seems to have made its decision about where it's going.  We simmers have the choice to follow or not to follow.  Personally, I didn't give up FSX until P3D went 64-bit--no more OOMs for this guy.

 

If you are on a fixed income you options are much reduced . 

[Stewart Hobson]

52 minutes ago, Gollum said:

 

If you are on a fixed income you options are much reduced . 

True enough, and we go with those options, as we so choose--not really the point I was trying to make, however.  "We simmers have the choice to follow or not to follow."

[John Venema]

A trend we are noticing is people jumping from FSX to XP11, which is a brave new world for anyone to embrace, especially in terms of investment in compatible add ons. However, if you want to move with the times, then at some point you need to make a leap of faith into a new platform and adapt to suit. It’s just a fact of life.

 

The most appropriate responses have already been given; Microsoft dropped FSX and closed the ACES studio, and they also no longer support Windows 98 which was the FSX launch platform. So it says something about Orbx looking after its foundation customers that we are still releasing some of our products that work on FSX when Microsoft abandoned it many years ago.

 

However we are a business which is designed to make money for its shareholders. That has been the case since the company was launched in 2006. So that means we go where our customers and FS community as a whole are moving to and that is P3Dv4 and XP11.

[pmb]

1 hour ago, Gollum said:

 

If you are on a fixed income you options are much reduced . 

 

As a sidenote: I often read this phrase. In the US it seems to have a rather negative smack, in the sense of "limited". In Germany (at least for people I talk to) it's rather understood positively as "guaranteed".

 

While literally it's the seem, this may express a difference of cultures behind.  

 

Kind regards, Michael

[teecee]

 "We simmers have the choice to follow or not to follow."

I have said this before, and I will say it again..  If you are happy with your Sim, stay with it..I have, still running Prepar3d v3.4 and loving it.. I really don't have any interest in "Seeing my house" so long as the scenery looks great, and flies well I am lovin' it.

If Orbx continue to support my version, I will buy anything they put out in the areas I like to fly in.Terry.

 

[Ken Q]

So far I'm sticking with FSX, and I am disappointed that Turbulent Design will no longer issue products for this Sim.  However, I am taking the "If it ain't broke don't fix it" approach.  I love the combination of FSX, ORBX, especially the western US regions and the airports, and I'm having a great time flying all over the west with Pilot Edge.  (Pilot Edge with real live ATC and ORBX western regions is as close to a marriage made in heaven as you'll find, IMHO).   Since I fly the Mooney on relatively short flights (about a hour or so), I've had no OOM problems.

 

I am retired, but working part time 9 months a year, so I have the money, but I have other priorities.  First, getting needed repairs and upgrades to the house while I have the money to pay for it.  Then the physical sim, finishing the simulator cockpit with multiple screens, and so forth.

 

 I am sure that sooner or later I will upgrade to P3D v4, but I'm in no hurry. 

 

Ken

[Archive82]

Well. I guess I now know where those of us who started early with Orbx now stand (back with the first PacNW).

And it is interesting to note all these Orbx commentator's references to Win 98...no one I know now works with Win 98...so why an outmoded straw-man excuse? I use Win 10.

But, some of us older users do actually remember the focus on extending the FSX Orbx world to finish the job by including Africa and Asia. 

Sure some of us can afford to switch our entire sim world to P3D and or XPlane, but is it any wonder that many resent making a forced marriage with a new system, wiping out several years of detailed enlargement of a firmly finished world? And some just cannot afford it. I don't think that there is a moral argument for abandoning them.

I see this as a clear example...regardless of several excuses...for increasing corporate profit and expansion. Yeah, I get that excuse "It's just  keeping up with change ", as a retired business person, but to abandon a base of supporting investors in order to maximize corporate income...because of your investor demands...is not a comfortably ethical position. 

Through the years I have been supportive of and encouraging to outsiders in buying the Orbx products. I now have to rethink that position.

The product may be good.

I have doubts about the corporate ethics.

Don C. Pearson, MD, JD

[John Dow]

1 hour ago, Archive82 said:

Well. I guess I now know where those of us who started early with Orbx now stand (back with the first PacNW).

And it is interesting to note all these Orbx commentator's references to Win 98...no one I know now works with Win 98...so why an outmoded straw-man excuse? I use Win 10.

But, some of us older users do actually remember the focus on extending the FSX Orbx world to finish the job by including Africa and Asia. 

Sure some of us can afford to switch our entire sim world to P3D and or XPlane, but is it any wonder that many resent making a forced marriage with a new system, wiping out several years of detailed enlargement of a firmly finished world? And some just cannot afford it. I don't think that there is a moral argument for abandoning them.

I see this as a clear example...regardless of several excuses...for increasing corporate profit and expansion. Yeah, I get that excuse "It's just  keeping up with change ", as a retired business person, but to abandon a base of supporting investors in order to maximize corporate income...because of your investor demands...is not a comfortably ethical position. 

Through the years I have been supportive of and encouraging to outsiders in buying the Orbx products. I now have to rethink that position.

The product may be good.

I have doubts about the corporate ethics.

Don C. Pearson, MD, JD

 

I think one point to make is that if a simmer chooses not to move with the evolving technology, and stick with FSX for argument's sake, all the products that have been released for FSX continue to work exactly as they did when they were installed, payware and freeware.  There are literally thousands of scenery areas, airports, cities etc across the globe, many high quality freeware, and many great aircraft, both payware and freeware, in which to visit them, as a VFR GA pilot, or an RPT tubeliner pilot.  There's always a temptation to acquire the latest products (and I am guilty of this as much as the next person) but if you take a different tack and think how much simming you can do with what you already have, all of a sudden there's an almost limitless set of possibilities ahead of you.  As an example, I am currently revisiting nearly every airfield in Eastern Australia as part of a monster flight plan, and the scenery I am visiting is mostly 5-10 years old, and the aircraft for many of the legs are old FSX models I happen to enjoy flying.  I'm doing the flight in P3DV4 not because it's the latest sim but because it draws scenery objects to the horizon, something poor old FSX cannot manage.  I'd probably be just as happy doing the flights in FSX with visibility set to 10 miles or so if I couldn't do it in P3DV4.

[pmb]

3 hours ago, Archive82 said:

Sure some of us can afford to switch our entire sim world to P3D and or XPlane, but is it any wonder that many resent making a forced marriage with a new system, wiping out several years of detailed enlargement of a firmly finished world? And some just cannot afford it. I don't think that there is a moral argument for abandoning them.

 

I am an early bird. Some people smile over me, and sometimes they may be even right. But in this case, I may have chosen well. I bought my first Prepar3d license, i.e. for 1.2, in 2012 and was convinced game is over for FSX with version 2.0 soon. Given I think I fall into the professional license category, this was not "cheap" either, however, I at least avoided buying any further FSX addon licenses where I had the choice.

 

Today I am afraid, I should have been an even earlier bird and invest into X-Plane, which I tried several times during my simming career since the 1990s, but this was too ugly until recently.

 

Kind regards, Michael

[Nick Cooper]

4 hours ago, Archive82 said:

I have doubts about the corporate ethics.

Don C. Pearson, MD, JD

 

Hello,

your entire contribution to this topic seems to be based on the premise that there will be no more Orbx products for FSX

and that the hundreds of existing products will somehow cease to work.

It is inherent in many people to try and convince others to follow their chosen path and it seems particularly

common among users of P3D and X Plane 11.

There are clear advantages to both but the ideal simulator is not yet with us and FSX still has much to offer.

 

 

[pmb]

1 minute ago, Nick Cooper said:

 

Hello,

your entire contribution to this topic seems to be based on the premise that there will be no more Orbx products for FSX

and that the hundreds of existing products will somehow cease to work in FSX?

 

 

I don't know any other company having supported their full range of products during 5 generations of flightsims without charging a cent for new versions. Even the XP-P3D-AF2 cross licenses are unparalleled, as far as I know.

 

Kind regards, Michael

[Fizzelle]

18 hours ago, pmb said:

 

As a sidenote: I often read this phrase. In the US it seems to have a rather negative smack, in the sense of "limited". In Germany (at least for people I talk to) it's rather understood positively as "guaranteed".

 

While literally it's the seem, this may express a difference of cultures behind.  

 

Kind regards, Michael

 

I rather like the German "gentler" approach philosophy Michael. Thank you.

[John Venema]

Whilst it may seem that our early customers back in the FSX days have helped the company's success, the reality is that Orbx created the demand for those products through its marketing and quality of product and service. We made products that people wanted to buy. Had we not done so, we would not have grown as a company nor would we have attracted those customers.

 

We rewarded those customers' loyalty by not charging a cent for the move from FSX to P3D, an enormous multi-year program costing hundreds of thousands of dollars and untold man-hours. All this while most of the FS industry were happy to charge all over again for those ports.

 

Even now, with 2-3 new sim platforms we still do not charge full price for cross-grades. Nobody else in the industry does that.

 

There is no obligation on our part to reward those early customers ad infinitum by continuing to develop for an orphaned platform which roots back into technology from 15-20 years ago.

 

Some may feel this is a harsh approach to take but it is simply the reality of technological progress.

[Stewart Hobson]

8 hours ago, John Dow said:

 

I think one point to make is that if a simmer chooses not to move with the evolving technology, and stick with FSX for argument's sake, all the products that have been released for FSX continue to work exactly as they did when they were installed, payware and freeware.  There are literally thousands of scenery areas, airports, cities etc across the globe, many high quality freeware, and many great aircraft, both payware and freeware, in which to visit them, as a VFR GA pilot, or an RPT tubeliner pilot.  There's always a temptation to acquire the latest products (and I am guilty of this as much as the next person) but if you take a different tack and think how much simming you can do with what you already have, all of a sudden there's an almost limitless set of possibilities ahead of you.  As an example, I am currently revisiting nearly every airfield in Eastern Australia as part of a monster flight plan, and the scenery I am visiting is mostly 5-10 years old, and the aircraft for many of the legs are old FSX models I happen to enjoy flying.  I'm doing the flight in P3DV4 not because it's the latest sim but because it draws scenery objects to the horizon, something poor old FSX cannot manage.  I'd probably be just as happy doing the flights in FSX with visibility set to 10 miles or so if I couldn't do it in P3DV4.

I'm doing the same, John, with the hundreds, literally hundreds, of Orbx freeware airports in the US and Canada.  I have no idea when, or if, I will finish!  All in P3Dv4, but it could just as well be FSX, but I favor the textures, lighting, and overall implementation of P3D.  Not saying one is better than the other--it's personal preference.

[david broome]

5 hours ago, Nick Cooper said:

 

Hello,

your entire contribution to this topic seems to be based on the premise that there will be no more Orbx products for FSX

and that the hundreds of existing products will somehow cease to work.

It is inherent in many people to try and convince others to follow their chosen path and it seems particularly

common among users of P3D and X Plane 11.

There are clear advantages to both but the ideal simulator is not yet with us and FSX still has much to offer.

 

 

 

I don't know if I would ever try to convince someone to move from FSX to another platform though there are convincing arguments as to how they would benefit - I just have no dog in that hunt.

However if the question becomes whether to buy FSX over P3D or Xplane 11 today then I may feel compelled to tell them FSX is obsolete to the other two.

 

The Op is essentially making a moral argument that a business should live and die supporting a single a product and while I may have some sympathy for anyone on the wrong side of change, change itself is both inevitable and necessary in life and business - adapt or die.

[teecee]

Getting some weird interpretations of Orbx and it's development here..

I do not understand why the confusion and the he said she said that is going on.. Orbx is a Flight Simulator  scenery producer, and as such MUST follow the trends. There is nothing to say that they will stop supporting all of the various sims over the coming years, but they have the right to wind down developing for the older systems and concentrate on develop the newer. It would not make good marketing sense to do otherwise. Terry.

[lawrence aldrich]

I get it now.

So all this is why Henry Ford phased the model T out.

(and eventually decided on the Edsel for a short time)

It's a marketing world.

[F737MAX]

The whole premise of this argument is wrong, customers did not invest in the company. The actual investors are those who took the risk and put money in for an unknown, if any, future financial return, as opposed to us customers who immediately received a product that found its USP, was developed through talent and hard work, was well marketed to the FS community and continues to receive support.

Moral / ethical arguments surrounding an enterprise involve (among other things): taking advantage of workers, preying on vulnerable customers, causing environmental damage, reinforcing stereotypes, selling a product or service that causes societal harm. I'm talking of the gambling/betting industry, weapons manufacturers, giant online retailers' employee conditions, social media platforms, tobacco, big oil, pay-day loan companies - all of which are legal in various jurisdictions, just operate in society's grey area.

Back to ORBX, as mentioned there is still the work being undertaken for the OLC areas and Aus v2. There is plenty from the back catalogue to keep simmers happy should they want to stay with / cannot move away from FSX. It would be appalling business sense to be keep producing the same number of new products for an old tech sim that is seeing its popularity and usage fall off a cliff compared to the 64-bit sims.

If FSX users already have a "detailed enlargement of a firmly finished world", after the release of the remaining OLC areas, what else would they need?

[lawrence aldrich]

11 minutes ago, F737NG said:

The whole premise of this argument is wrong, customers did not invest in the company. The actual investors are those who took the risk and put money in for an unknown, if any, future financial return, as opposed to us customers who immediately received a product that found its USP, was developed through talent and hard work, was well marketed to the FS community and continues to receive support.

Moral / ethical arguments surrounding an enterprise involve (among other things): taking advantage of workers, preying on vulnerable customers, causing environmental damage, reinforcing stereotypes, selling a product or service that causes societal harm. I'm talking of the gambling/betting industry, weapons manufacturers, giant online retailers' employee conditions, social media platforms, tobacco, big oil, pay-day loan companies - all of which are legal in various jurisdictions, just operate in society's grey area.

Back to ORBX, as mentioned there is still the work being undertaken for the OLC areas and Aus v2. There is plenty from the back catalogue to keep simmers happy should they want to stay with / cannot move away from FSX. It would be appalling business sense to be keep producing the same number of new products for an old tech sim that is seeing its popularity and usage fall off a cliff compared to the 64-bit sims.

If FSX users already have a "detailed enlargement of a firmly finished world", after the release of the remaining OLC areas, what else would they need?

A processor that runs at 8000 GHZ and 35 degrees C,   and   VAS problem fixed.

The CPU should cost no more than $69.95 and be overclockable as well.

(well, you did  ask!)

 

[Benny]

From FB, another company but I guess it's ok to share their point of view here

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hi all.

Though we know there's going to be some lash back on this... we have decided to no longer support FSX or, in fact, anything less than P3D v4.4.

If you'd like our reasons and can still see clearly, please read on:

The main issue isn't code though it, too, is one of the problems. It's the materials. Once we switch over to PBR, it's exceedingly costly and difficult to match what's in that over to FSX materials. And it's a lot more difficult to maintain two distinct model/material sets. We did ask LM to allow for this but...

The next issue is, of course, code. There are many things that are able to be done in 64 bit that cannot be done in 32 bit. This basically means, coding in two streams. One of which, no disrespect, is not as nice (dumber) than the other.

We'd much rather go with the nice stuff and put our efforts into making our products look AND act great.

As well, for those of you who insist that LM's EULA says that it MUST be for education... I put it to you that you're always learning. If not, you're pretty much dead anyway. This is the whole point of buying an addon. To learn how to fly it as well as appreciate what it took to fly it in real life. That, my friends, is education and, by my book, is covered.

I know there will be some who will diss us on this and others that will "never" buy our stuff again... That's ok. For us, this is much like the switch over from FS9 to FSX. That was hard too. In the end, it was worth it.

That is all.

Thanks

MV Direction.

[Doug Sawatzky]

Ok, now that we got that out of the way and it is way off topic, I will clean out the above irrelevant posts.

 

 

[teecee]

Just so you know Doug.. that was a legitimate question from me..I had no clue who the author was. Terry.

 

[Doug Sawatzky]

Yes Terry, and it does not matter who the author was for the purpose of this topic...:)

 

 

[teecee]

At risk of getting booted off the forum I must say this Doug.. It mattered to me as it directly affected my use of the simulator.. If a company was to stop supporting the sim I use..I needed to know which company that was. Terry.

 

[Doug Sawatzky]

Fair enough Terry, but please ask Benny via PM who the author was instead, otherwise this topic gets redirected into a topic about a certain author instead of it's intended subject matter started by the OP....in other words, this topic is not here to zero in on another companies view points.

[lawrence aldrich]

FSX, given the way it currently is, would be enjoyed by many, many fans such as myself even if nothing were done to it at all......forever.

There are a world full of addons for it already, it runs (except for the vas problem of course) very, very well and it took decades of hardware

improvements to even come close to it.

If Microsoft had never developed and sold it, there never would have even been a P3d 1,2,3 or 4.

95% of the simming world would never even have known there was a Meigs field in Chicago, either.

Cheers, everybody.

[Stewart Hobson]

45 minutes ago, teecee said:

 

Post deleted.

[Ron Attwood]

1 hour ago, teecee said:

 

Post deleted

[Jack Sawyer]

JV mentioned his investors.  I've been wondering about this a long time, is Orbx publicly traded?

[F737MAX]

23 minutes ago, Jack Sawyer said:

JV mentioned his investors.  I've been wondering about this a long time, is Orbx publicly traded?

No need to be a PLC to have investors.
The vast majority of companies are private limited companies ranging from a small one-man-band (to limit his/her personal financial liability), where the main business owner puts in all the equity, to a major enterprise that is part-owned by pension funds, high net worth individuals, private equity funds, etc.
These private shares are not readily saleable so the type of investment tends to be long term, usually with a view to cash-out either through a sale of the company or to list it on a stock exchange.

ORBX is a private limited company:
https://www.zoominfo.com/c/orbx-simulation-systems-pty-ltd/206406453

 

[John Venema]

No, Orbx is a private limited company.

[Benny]

I thought I was one of the last one that was using FSX

It took me quite a wile to leave FSX, no complex update all the time was my main reason.

But the last OOM I got was one too many.

 

I have waited for V4 64 bit to make my move because I didn't get why should I move to P3D V1-2-3.

And also i didn't feel like upgrading my rig.

 

It's when JV started talking about The Project", A, X and other letter that I felt that thing will be moving faster and toward 64 bit platform.
I then saw Aerofly AF2... It didn't took me long to fell in love with this one for it's simplicity and beautiful Graphic. But hey it was such a big download that for the first time i did understand how big in size photoreal was... That was it, New 3 TB HDD, 500 SSD... another older i TB HDD. and a new GPU.. Fine for a wile but my venerable I7 2600K was not coping anymore.

The conclusion is that we have now many option period. If ORBX would have not upgraded their product for FREE (thank you) for P3D V4... I don't know if I would have gone this way, money wise. 

 

Conclusion:

-P3D V.4 is a must have because it's the main flight simulator out there ( I love Chase plane addon for to many reason)

-Arerofly FS2, I love it and will buy anything that ORBX (or other =) trow at it.

-X plane, I have never use this one but now I want it...

 

It took me quite a wile to fell in love with TE GB South (P3D), but now I am hooked. Wile flying yesterday in west Wales i was flabbergasted, I really felt I was discovering the UK for real.

 

So I have decided to buy X plane and use it for all 3 UK TE regions and buy back a few airport that I own.

Here goes another few 100$

 

There is no sim war here, quite the opposite

 

sorry for the long post

Ben

[lawrence aldrich]

FSX, compared to the newer efforts available, is definitely old.

I really can't see anybody ever ridding it of the VAS curse , so you pays your money and takes your chances, as they say.

I have also used P3d since V1 and like it as well.

Never looked at Aerofly fs2.....but will soon.

This topic, to me anyway, seems like a "tempest in a teapot" kind of thing, since in the end, everybody can do whatever they want, and like or not like anything they want.

So why the noise?

The ORBX setup is the best of the bunch so far.

So I like it and I buy it.......pretty simple, really.

 

[Guest Colin M]

Just my 2 cents as a user of FSX, P3Dv4, XPlane 11 and Aerofly 2 ... it was inevitable FSX/FSX SE might be dropped by ORBX as the capability's of 64 bit P3D v 4 stretched its legs and pulled away from what could be done in 32 bit FSX.

I'll still keep my well tuned FSX install on its own SSD for the foreseeable future and one of the reasons I do that is the rich mission system it has. Since P3D we've lost that and its become a much more sandbox fly your own adventure or whatever it is you like to do sim ... I'd not say I was one of the ones John says are making the leap from FSX or P3D to XP11 ... but I've certainly embraced XP11 and like where its going ... my only concern is LR are pretty much hinting there will be a XP12 at some point, and more probably future versions too, so we have a very dynamic moving target there, my concern of course is that what I buy now ORBX or other company wise might not work in XP12 ... but in saying that I've always got good discounts if I've owned a scenery area in another sim from ORBX when buying from say FSX/P3D to XP11.

[Rongor]

Ok guys, bottom line: I understand half of the Orbx community is currently celebrating TrueEarth up and down across the forum but still we need OpenLC Africa and Asia badly!

[Pod]

On 2/20/2019 at 1:24 PM, John Venema said:

Whilst it may seem that our early customers back in the FSX days have helped the company's success, the reality is that Orbx created the demand for those products through its marketing and quality of product and service. We made products that people wanted to buy. Had we not done so, we would not have grown as a company nor would we have attracted those customers.

 

We rewarded those customers' loyalty by not charging a cent for the move from FSX to P3D, an enormous multi-year program costing hundreds of thousands of dollars and untold man-hours. All this while most of the FS industry were happy to charge all over again for those ports.

 

Even now, with 2-3 new sim platforms we still do not charge full price for cross-grades. Nobody else in the industry does that.

 

There is no obligation on our part to reward those early customers ad infinitum by continuing to develop for an orphaned platform which roots back into technology from 15-20 years ago.

 

Some may feel this is a harsh approach to take but it is simply the reality of technological progress.

This is spot on. Ever bought a phone from Apple? Eventually the apps are updated, and you have to refresh your hardware. In the world of technology, evolution is the norm, and I am amazed FSX has limped on for as long as it has. I was glad to see the back of it. Without this iteration of design none of the airports and sceneries we love would have come about, so it’s unfair despise the process, when you feel like you are on the receiving end. I’ve personally had to shelve my TE GB aspirations until my hardware upgrades as my rig isn’t doing the business, but do I blame Orbx for pushing the envelope, and trying to deliver a better sim experience? Nope. 

 

OP: perhaps it’s an opportunity to reflect on the long hours of pleasure, and the value for money your original purchase represented. It’s not realistic to pine for old software, whose day is done.