Any Updates on Queenstown?

[cabnz]

Hi there,

 

As the title says - any update on Queenstown?

 

Cheers

[Timmy74]

It seems that NZ has disappeared from the radar.....?

 

I know NZQN and NZAA are in progress but that is it for NZ unfortunately.  Maybe the is just no market there for Orbx?

 

Pity because NZSI and NZNI are one of the best regions from Orbx thus far IMO.

[jpreou]

I'll buy as many NZ airports as ORBX develop; it's my main stomping ground (notwithstanding I haven't had time to touch FSX for nearly two weeks).

[Ripcord]

That project is still in the works as far as I know -- just need to keep an eye on the preview threads.

[Tim Harris]

Both are still in progress, with Queenstown in beta-stage currently

[cabnz]

Great, thank you

[John Venema]

Unfortunately despite the NZ regions being our team's best work apart from PNW and SAK, they have sold only modestly well.

As a business we follow a simple rule; sell products to your largest customer base. In this case our largest customer base is the USA which is why we focus so much attention on NA. The second largest customer group is Germany but strangely enough Germans prefer to fly in the USA and Scandinavia for the most part (something to do with mountains perhaps?). So it comes as no surprise that most of our energy is spent on NA and EU.

Martin is still working on NZQN despite work and family pressures, and we do expect him to finish the project in the next month or so. With NZAA Michael has completed most of the modelling but will likely need to partner with another developer to do the ground poly, something he is not confident in doing himself.

Apart from those two, we have no other NZ projects in the pipeline, so perhaps Robin Corn's excellent airports are the alternative, and I do believe he has patched most of them to integrate into FTX NZ.

[cabnz]

Thanks for the update John, very much appreciated.

[tuisong]

I'll buy as many NZ airports as ORBX develop...............

Me too.

[macca22au]

Me too, but JV's decisions must be business based.  We need him to be a long term player in this market.

 

But JV, Global is already getting me to move into areas I rarely fly,  But let me tell you that quality landclass for the Indian sub-continent is urgently needed. 

Surely there are very savvy Indian and Chinese IT specialists who could soon do this sort of landclass project.

[tuisong]

Unfortunately despite the NZ regions being our team's best work ............

Apart from those two, we have no other NZ projects in the pipeline, so perhaps Robin Corn's excellent airports are the alternative, and I do believe he has patched most of them to integrate into FTX NZ.

I must say that while I understand your business reasoning, that is the most disappointing post I have read John. Especially after reading the earlier posted list of planned NZ airports.

[Tony Wroblewski]

The second largest customer group is Germany but strangely enough Germans prefer to fly in the USA and Scandinavia for the most part (something to do with mountains perhaps?). So it comes as no surprise that most of our energy is spent on NA and EU.

 

For me, it's simply because in the US, things like VFR charts are available for free, and there is a much larger community. Plus, the sheer amount of airports and scenery available in the PNW, at present can't be beaten. Although I never used to have any interest in flying in the states, after watching Angle of Attack's videos for Aviator and AviatorPro, I went out and bought it, and love it. I rarely go anywhere else whilst in FSX now.

[kaboki]

Im disappointed too that NZ is getting less attention. I love to fly everywhere in the world where good scenery is available and New Zealand whas my favorite area to fly mostly because of the mountains but also because of the great framerates(Best performing FTX region ever made).

PNW is the area I rarely fly because of bad frames(I buy airport addons for PNW too just to support development but rarely visit them, so everytime there is a PNW airport announced I get a little disappointed because I rather see the other regions getting more attention(NZ, PFJ, NRM)).

[John Venema]

Unfortunately PNW has sold almost 10x as many copies as NZSI or NZNI so from a company point of view we need to be sensible about where to allocate resources.

[kaboki]

I know. Money Talks, Bullshit Walks, pay the price, or walk it twice etc. Too bad it has to be that way 

[Dibidut]

Unfortunately despite the NZ regions being our team's best work apart from PNW and SAK, they have sold only modestly well.

As a business we follow a simple rule; sell products to your largest customer base. In this case our largest customer base is the USA which is why we focus so much attention on NA. The second largest customer group is Germany but strangely enough Germans prefer to fly in the USA and Scandinavia for the most part (something to do with mountains perhaps?). So it comes as no surprise that most of our energy is spent on NA and EU.

Martin is still working on NZQN despite work and family pressures, and we do expect him to finish the project in the next month or so. With NZAA Michael has completed most of the modelling but will likely need to partner with another developer to do the ground poly, something he is not confident in doing himself.

Apart from those two, we have no other NZ projects in the pipeline, so perhaps Robin Corn's excellent airports are the alternative, and I do believe he has patched most of them to integrate into FTX NZ.

Hi John.

Hope The ORBx Team at least finish NZQN and NZAA sometime before 2014. (i know..Family first).

Today, ive purcased the FTX-compatible Compilation Special from ( Robin Corn) :

 http://www.windowlight.co.nz/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=9&products_id=28 on sale, on Your  recommendation,

the Payment isnt confirmd yet though. So i waiting for the Download now.

Cant wait.

Kind regards

Henrik

 

Btw: Real NZ Nelson, Real NZ Tauranga and Southern Lakes Adventure both include Orbx compatibility in the downloaded installer, but Real NZ Supercity requires a separate patch download. See the Orbx Compatibility page for patch download details. (and i will).  

[Benny]

That is really funny, I'm form Canada and mostly fly in AU or NZ. German like to fly in PNW??? Funny also. NZ south as to be by far you best product.

I really like the AU gold coast also. I just bought Scotland, installed this one but didn't have a second to try it.

 

That said, if your customers are so oriented on the US-Canada, go east and you will make a lot of money. NS, PEI, Maine, Mass. NY.

 

Let me show you why:

 

 

 

[RTK1972]

.....German like to fly in PNW??? ......]

Well as a german i have to admit to love flying in europe because all those bigger airports are closer together then in the usa (i am only flying ifr). So for me usa only from klas to klax for example...

No idea what the german GA friends will say about that....

For new zealand: i love flying there too. Especially wellington is a great airport to land and start from ;-)

Carsten

[Sid]

Me too, but JV's decisions must be business based.  We need him to be a long term player in this market.

 

But JV, Global is already getting me to move into areas I rarely fly,  But let me tell you that quality landclass for the Indian sub-continent is urgently needed. 

Surely there are very savvy Indian and Chinese IT specialists who could soon do this sort of landclass project.

 

I totally and wholeheartedly agree with you Ian!

 

I know the team's got there hands full for some time yet but I really hope something could be done by the time OpenLC Asia package is released. India and China are such huge landmasses to fly over (even on intercontinental flights not to mention the great GA flying that can be done there) and the default landclass that ships with FSX is so unbelievably poor and just does no justice at all to these exotic lands , yet they have such interesting terrain and landclass in reality.

 

FTX Global textures with correct landclass and custom textures would make these regions so fascinating and simply fantastic to fly over if they could resemble what the Indian sub-continent and China are actually like in real-life with sprawling metropolises, deserts and semi-arid US South-west-type regions, tropical regions, jungles, huge world-famous rivers, farmland with wheat, barley, maize and rice-growing regions and need I say it, some of the most awesome mountain ranges on Earth along with the Tibetan plateau.

 

I'm really keeping my fingers crossed that Open LC Asia can some day fix all that so they look right in the FTX Global world. If some of the basics could be sorted out sooner and more pressingly though, that'd be great and would sure give us all a lot of interesting landmass to fly around in one hit. There's huge opportunity to do some Orbx airports there too at a later date. I've noticed, not surprisingly, Asia seems to be getting quite popular in the wider community since FTX Global's been released...just take a look at the community screenshots and videos section here on the forum...speaks a lot in itself .

 

But all that said, I have a lot of faith that John and the team here are going from strength to strength and will get round to sorting it all with time...after all, if anyone's got the skills, talent and can-do attitude, its these guys at Orbx, right?  Good thinking and great idea, by the way Ian, trying to get some IT whizzes from India or Asia to help out with the landclass project  . There should be a lot of talent there. Could actually be worth looking into. There should be some half-decent satellite and photographic imagery knocking about somewhere there too as both India and China definitely have Geo-stationary satellites for terrain & agricultural observation over their respective countries.

 

Kind regards Ian,

Sid

[Mallard]

Sorry to hear about the NZ projects. One of the reasons I haven't been back too often is that I'm missing the orx-ified airports. Bit of an oxymoron, eh?

 

Cheers

 

Mallard

[Timmy74]

Very dark day indeed with this decision about NZ. 

 

I was supporting Orbx buy buying every release to help fund other projects and in the hope that NZ would be saturated with the Orbx magic.

 

Maybe now its is a great excuse to stop hammering my credit card.

 

Thank you JV for letting us know your intentions with the future of NZSI and NZNI.

[Bruce Hamilton]

...in the hope that NZ would be saturated with the Orbx magic.

 

Probably would be, if it sold like PNW.  Can't blame them for cutting their losses and moving on.

[Timmy74]

Thank you Bruce for reiterating what JV had posted earlier.....

 

It must have not been clear enough......?

[jpreou]

I must say that while I understand your business reasoning, that is the most disappointing post I have read John. Especially after reading the earlier posted list of planned NZ airports.

 

Yep, got to agree with that sentiment

[jpreou]

Btw: Real NZ Nelson, Real NZ Tauranga and Southern Lakes Adventure both include Orbx compatibility in the downloaded installer, but Real NZ Supercity requires a separate patch download. See the Orbx Compatibility page for patch download details. (and i will).  

 

 

Might I also suggest FS-Creations for HamiltonX and TaupoX, the "NZKK_NZTT_NZNP_NZWU_NZRA" collection and "NZMO_NZMC_NZCI_NZMF" collection (I disabled NZMF). Bit of a manual install, but worth having, especially Hamilton and Taupo (don't forget the Taupo extras pack).

Robin is also working on some additional scenery as is Laurie (snowman) which you can read about on the NZFF forums.

 

Hmmm, maybe this post will get removed?! But I feel it is worth mentioning since John has advised ORBX are pulling out of NZ (real shame and I hope everyone out there goes out immediately and buys all the NZ stuff from ORBX so John comes back on board!)

 

Come on guys ... help us NZ'ers out here

 

Cheers

[cabnz]

Might I also suggest FS-Creations for HamiltonX and TaupoX, the "NZKK_NZTT_NZNP_NZWU_NZRA" collection and "NZMO_NZMC_NZCI_NZMF" collection (I disabled NZMF). Bit of a manual install, but worth having, especially Hamilton and Taupo (don't forget the Taupo extras pack).

Robin is also working on some additional scenery as is Laurie (snowman) which you can read about on the NZFF forums.

 

Hmmm, maybe this post will get removed?! But I feel it is worth mentioning since John has advised ORBX are pulling out of NZ (real shame and I hope everyone out there goes out immediately and buys all the NZ stuff from ORBX so John comes back on board!)

 

Come on guys ... help us NZ'ers out here

 

Cheers

+1000

[John Venema]

It seems some more context is required.

SAK sold more copies in its first month than NZNI did in its first year. Guess where Russ and Alex's next airports are? You got it, SAK, not NZ. It would seem foolish for us to develop airports for regions where there are fewer customers.

Also please do not misquote me. I did not say we are "pulling out" of NZ, rather we don't have a long roadmap for new airports yet. That may well change if we see growth in the NZ customer base. This could well be influenced by FTXG sales which is bringing in new first-time customers.

For what it is worth I did approach Robin Corn twice asking him to join the Orbx team to republish his work under the Orbx banner and with our libraries, but he gracefully declined, a decision I completely respect. I don't have any issue with local NZ developers having success on top of FTX NZ; many fine airports on the market could easily be adopted to FTX by those developers, and indeed Robin has done that already for most of his.

[Scaber]

While this news is somewhat disappointing to me I quite understanding the

behind it. On the plus side I will be able to explore other Orbx offerings without

having to worry about missing out on NZ offerings due to funding clashes!

[Benny]

SAK sold more copies in its first month than NZNI did in its first year.

 

Unbelievable... I really don't get it. As much as I find SAK pretty (picture) it's not for me, to isolated and to drab. I already own Tongas and I didn't use it since I can't remember. 

[tuisong]

Hi John.

Hope The ORBx Team at least finish NZQN and NZAA sometime before 2014. (i know..Family first).

Today, ive purcased the FTX-compatible Compilation Special from ( Robin Corn) :

http://www.windowlight.co.nz/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=9&products_id=28 on sale, on Your recommendation,

the Payment isnt confirmd yet though. So i waiting for the Download now.

Cant wait.

Kind regards

Henrik

Btw: Real NZ Nelson, Real NZ Tauranga and Southern Lakes Adventure both include Orbx compatibility in the downloaded installer, but Real NZ Supercity requires a separate patch download. See the Orbx Compatibility page for patch download details. (and i will).

Thanks for the heads up on this Henrik. I have just purchased this on DVDs so l'm looking forward to seeing what they are like. The screen shots look geat. While I would rather stick with only Orbx it looks like it could be a very long wait.

[jpreou]

Also please do not misquote me. I did not say we are "pulling out" of NZ, rather we don't have a long roadmap for new airports yet.

 

Apologies.

I hope more people buy NZNI / NZSI and NZ airports which get released and thus make it more likely to attract development effort; is what I was really trying to say.

I simply love the ORBX stuff I have so far, and have every intention of buying a lot more as money permits.

(though I'm short on time these days so despite owning Global since it was released I have only about 45 minutes flight time with it; frustrating!

--

JEFF

[Martin Henare]

I truly apologise for the slower than expected progress on Queenstown. I have been doing a more senior job at work in the last few months which is really leaving me quite fatigued to then be motivated to work on the computer. I will be doing my best to have it out at the end of the month.   

 

The airport itself is pretty much complete and my focus is on the surrounds.

[cabnz]

Hi Marty,

No problem at all, I was just asking for an update so thank you for that.

Cheers,

Craig

[jpreou]

No worries; we all know it will be awesome when ready and we're all itching to send you our dollars

Well, many of us anyway... judging by the forums...

[BeesAndButterflies]

Hi Martin. Thanks for the update. Good luck with everything you have to handle

[Dibidut]

Hi Roger.

Quote:"Thanks for the heads up on this Henrik. I have just purchased this on DVDs so l'm looking forward to seeing what they are like. The screen shots look geat."

Just a quik update:

Ive downloaded them all and install as the Manual instrukt me to.

It isnt ORBx i know, but Ok. 

I have some problems with Water elevation in Auckland.

In the Southen Lake, containing Wanaka and Tekapo, is only Wanaka working, Tekapo giving me "fatal error" in FSX.

But i am in contact with Robin and hope to find a solution. ( It coult ofcourse be me, doing something wrong here)

Kind regards

Henrik

 

Btw. Thanks for the update Martin and good luck.

[Dibidut]

Might I also suggest FS-Creations for HamiltonX and TaupoX, the "NZKK_NZTT_NZNP_NZWU_NZRA" collection and "NZMO_NZMC_NZCI_NZMF" collection (I disabled NZMF). Bit of a manual install, but worth having, especially Hamilton and Taupo (don't forget the Taupo extras pack).

Robin is also working on some additional scenery as is Laurie (snowman) which you can read about on the NZFF forums.

 

Hmmm, maybe this post will get removed?! But I feel it is worth mentioning since John has advised ORBX are pulling out of NZ (real shame and I hope everyone out there goes out immediately and buys all the NZ stuff from ORBX so John comes back on board!)

 

Come on guys ... help us NZ'ers out here

 

Cheers

Thanks for the tip. Unfortunately my quote for FlySim stuff is long over the Limit this month so i have to chill down a bit But i will look at it, Thanks.

Kind regards

Henrik

[Ripcord]

SAK sold more copies in its first month than NZNI did in its first year. Guess where Russ and Alex's next airports are? You got it, SAK, not NZ. It would seem foolish for us to develop airports for regions where there are fewer customers.

Also please do not misquote me. I did not say we are "pulling out" of NZ, rather we don't have a long roadmap for new airports yet. That may well change if we see growth in the NZ customer base. This could well be influenced by FTXG sales which is bringing in new first-time customers.

 

Thanks for the context.  I applaud you for using metrics and facts and data to manage your business, and not allowing emotion to creep in.  You owe it to yourselves and your stakeholders to take that approach.

 

It seems more data is required, to help augment this context -- and you hit on that same point yourself, suggesting that numbers could pick with the introduction of FTXG and a wave of new customers.  I might also suggest to you that there are at least 2 other factors at work here:  (1) number of airports available and ( sequence of release of the regions in relation to influx of new customers to ORBX.

 

Point 1 -- could it be that it is, to some degree, the tail wagging the dog?  Perhaps more folks would buy NZ regions IF there were more airports available?  I love Milford Sound, but there is no where to fly to (unless you have other scenery installed).  Also there are a great many folks that like flying airliners, be them long haul or regional, and NZAA and Queensland will attract them... particularly those that are in your core (original) customer base in the OZ market.  We know they are out there because we heard them howling about England, and wanting to jump back and forth across the channel.  So when we have an offering of 3-4 airports in NZ, then you might see a small uptick in NZ region sales.  Is that plausible?

 

Point 2 -- success leads to more success.  The Aussie airports came first, and then I guess PNW came later.  Then other parts of North America.  Then NZ and then England, Wales and so on.  Each release expands the customer base some, opening the door for retro sales.  I was not there for the whole ride, I came in right after NZ and Northern and Central Rockies - England was still 'much anticipated'.  In that one year I have discovered the magic and gradually found a way to justify getting 'almost' every last thing you offer, save BOB (call it 95% of it).  And I started getting other places where I never flew before.  But that took some time, and of course I started in the areas that were most interesting to me, and branched out from there.  So with each major influx of new customers to ORBX, you get a new group that are just starting to do the same thing -- only now there is a good bit more to choose from.  So each time you crank out a region -- think NorCal -- we get a whole new group coming in that says 'holy cr@p, I gotta try England or NZ'... or they may reason that 'now I have all of North America and Australia, I might as well round out my collection and get NZ and explore that.'  Now with FTX Global we are getting people that NEVER once visited these forums ever, we all see that.  So you are reaching people now, JV, that you never ever sold anything to until now.

 

Maybe with better data, bolstered by NZAA and NZQN releases, we'll get a refresh in 2014 and perhaps the roadmap will include another airport or two for this wonderful part of the world.

[Benny]

I truly apologise for the slower than expected progress on Queenstown. I have been doing a more senior job at work in the last few months which is really leaving me quite fatigued to then be motivated to work on the computer. I will be doing my best to have it out at the end of the month.   

 

The airport itself is pretty much complete and my focus is on the surrounds.

 

We often forget that there is a human being behind those work of art. I know the word tired.  Let's not be cry babies. On top it's summer for the most of us... go play outside

[Ripcord]

Might I also suggest FS-Creations for HamiltonX and TaupoX, the "NZKK_NZTT_NZNP_NZWU_NZRA" collection and "NZMO_NZMC_NZCI_NZMF" collection (I disabled NZMF). Bit of a manual install, but worth having, especially Hamilton and Taupo (don't forget the Taupo extras pack).

 

Downloading now.  This was payware at one point, it seems.  Looks like it is worth a try.