Orbx and DTG new FS.

With the announcement from Orbx that they have officially become the scenery developer for the new FS .,,, FSX has been delivered it's last rights.:cool::p

I will not be purchasing anymore FSX products (including ORBX) as the new FS will be 64 bit and nothing will be compatible. I wonder how many third party FSX and other FS companies will be hammered this year and in years coming.

Great news indeed. I'm a big fan of their train simulator product so I'll definitely be biting on this one. Hopefully they'll come out with a decent pack at launch that includes the game some aircraft, some airports, and some great all around OrbX scenery!

As for the third parties... well I imagine the people who make static scenery will have to start porting to the new engine. Those making aircraft well... lot of work, but I guess at the end of the day business continuity is worth it. Yeah, there is no doubt the existing FSX catalog will be a hard sell if DTG delivers exactly what we want. Then again I haven't bought anything new since MS Flight.

The initial "flight school" version of the new flight sim will not offer any DLC, and there's no SDK in sight for the "flight simulator" version, so people wanting DLC will in the near term have to continue with FSX(boxed or SE) or P3D. I hope that's enough of a market to sustain devs until the new platform will support third party DLC, but I agree that it could get rough for devs: Personally I already have all the addons I need for FSX and I don't anticipate buying anything new as the platform is clearly headed for its end of life now. FSX+DX10Fixer works great and I feel no need to get P3D. Also why would I sink money into P3D when there's a new incompatible platform coming, and I'm not in LM's target market anyway?

I'll definitely be getting the new flight school when it comes out as I'm eager to try this new platform.

I do also worry about freeware/hobbyist development for the new flight simulator, ie whether the very excellent and affordable (mostly free) third party dev tools made for MSFS (ADE, SbuilderX, MCX, AirWrench and so on) will be possible to port to the new FS, and if there will be support for affordable or free 3D modeling tools such as Blender (Gmax will be off the table most likely -- no way for DTG to make a new exporter).

Static scenery should work fine, if DTG makes it that way. Scenery is just a lot of numbers in XML files packed in BGL, it matters not if the program that reads them is 32 or 64 bit. The only things that probably will break are external modules and gauges (DLLs etc). These already have a hard time with P3D constantly changing.

DTG have already said that the new platform will nevertheless be based on FSX. But as FlightSchool will be a closed system, they obviously found a way to shut the doors to this once completely open and expandable platform. It may well happen that they keep it closed, and only those developers get the new tools who will sell/provide on Steam. Whatever will be available for freeware devs remains to be seen (Steam Workshops?). As I wrote elsewhere, the easiest way to accomplish this would be to just port FSX to 64 bit and change the BGL and aircraft file reading mechanism to work encrypted with a unique key, which is tied to your Steam Account. So anything you want to add to the sim you would be forced to get on Steam. Just an idea of course. But the fact that ORBX jumped on the DTG board makes me wonder what it is that they know - maybe they don't want to be left outside that particular door?

What I find a bit amusing (or disturbing?) is that some people seem to think that DTG does this out of any other motive than cold hard cash. The strategy makes perfect sense too, get a dumbed down version out first to test the market, and make it appear so early in the game that you can still stop the main development stream if things go wrong.

Hey, I'm all for profit! If there's no money to be made, there's no product. And that includes every piece of hardware and software out there including the brick and roof on your home. End of discussion.

If and when something is actually on the market we need to encourage this project. If they don't see a positive response, we'll be locked in time forever.

I really like what I have now, but I'm willing to spend the bucks for 64 bit! Yes many things won't be backwards compatible. So what else is new?

Remember when they replaced the Model T Ford with the Model A people relearned how to use the pedal configuration. If not, we'd still be in Model Ts.

The question is, what if Ford remained the only manufacturer of cars? And for the record, DTG say that it is still FSX, just like P3D it will be a derivate of the base platform.

The flightsim world as we know it has been made possible because Microsoft decided to keep this platform open for everyone to contribute and they provided a comprehensive SDK as well. Don't underestimate the countless hours and braincells of the 3rd parties, freeware and payware alike, that went into making what we have today a reality. Laminar and Lockheed realized this - no single company or bunch of companies can make up for the immense resources who contributed just because they wanted to. And there is not a single payware developer who hasn't happily scoured the forums for a solution to his particular problem that someone else had found already.

It will take years to get addons back to the level of sophistication that we have now - if it will ever happen.

I just don't like closed (software) doors, that's all.

The question is, what if Ford remained the only manufacturer of cars? And for the record, DTG say that it is still FSX, just like P3D it will be a derivate of the base platform.

 

The flightsim world as we know it has been made possible because Microsoft decided to keep this platform open for everyone to contribute and they provided a comprehensive SDK as well. Don't underestimate the countless hours and braincells of the 3rd parties, freeware and payware alike, that went into making what we have today a reality. Laminar and Lockheed realized this - no single company or bunch of companies can make up for the immense resources who contributed just because they wanted to. And there is not a single payware developer who hasn't happily scoured the forums for a solution to his particular problem that someone else had found already.

It will take years to get addons back to the level of sophistication that we have now - if it will ever happen.

 

I just don't like closed (software) doors, that's all.

You're assuming that it's completely closed. Flight School is a separate project and probably won't appeal to long term FSers anyhow. The fact that orbx is in the door means they are interested in outside producers. They may market it differently but I will bet money there are other companies being lined up ...and right from the horses mouth..

"...................... we have been working with developers, both big and small, on FSX: SE. This includes the team at Orbx Simulation Systems, who we initially partnered with to bring the award winning Friday Harbor and Meigs Field to Steam. We fully intend to continue such relationships and welcoming both existing and new developers to the Dovetail Games Flight Simulator platform. Dovetail Games’ partnership with Orbx Simulation Systems is the first step towards this.

- Martin "

You're assuming that it's completely closed.

Not really. But I am concerned that it may be closed to anyone not willing to share or sell his DLC on Steam. It is not like this has worked out that great with FSX:SE either when it comes to payware offerings on Steam. At least with that one it was possible to add stuff "outside of the steam-box", and that may be the door being closed.

Consider:

- If DTG invested the effort=money into closing the ESP platform for FlightSchool, why not use it in the follow up product too? Btw, who will buy FlightSchool when the full sim is released?

- Why does ORBX get on now when they can sell their products separately for more money than the whole simulator cost?

Don't get me wrong, a new sim will be a nice change - if it is. If we end up with another FSX clone, but this time in a "constricted" environment, then I think marketing got the better of DTG and us - "the community". I would have preferred if they built something completely new from the ground up.

You're assuming that it's completely closed. Flight School is a separate project and probably won't appeal to long term FSers anyhow. The fact that orbx is in the door means they are interested in outside producers. They may market it differently but I will bet money there are other companies being lined up ...and right from the horses mouth..

When it comes to Orbx you get two things, not only a huge amount of scenery, but you get someone who can work with you on the SDK before it ever goes public.

I feel people forget that SDK's are generally not publicized until after release. It's that same excuse people used for X-plane all the time, that the SDK was a moving target. The last thing you want is someone to start producing scenery or aircraft then have to tell them that you made breaking changes to the SDK and that now your flight model is broken. Or a binding doesn't work because you changes it's name, or stock scenery has a new GUID.

Heck in MS land after the release candidate of the new Web dev tools were released, they decided they wanted to re version number everything! Someone at marketing decided maybe we should project we have something brand new and changed everything to version 1.0