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General holding pattern until XP10 comes out?


Jacoba
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Regarding information, progress reports and updates on existing current and forthcoming XP projects. Are we in a holding pattern until XP10 comes out?

Seems that updates have dried up somewhat and the last info leaned in the direction of waiting on XP 10 to appear before moving forward...

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You will NOT be disappointed!

That's just it- for a growing number of people it's not whether they will be disappointed, it's that they are already disappointed. X-Plane 10 is already a miss, and it hasn't even come out yet. Not a good start.

Yet I'm glad to say I'm not one of those people. The wait means nothing to me, in fact I don't even think I've opened X-Plane in the past month...

Gosh, I should be shot.  :D

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I was actually asking about current add-on projects not XP10 itself...

Guess i should have been a bit more clear.

I know XP10 is/has been undergoing a major overhaul, so that's almost a forgone conclusion that it'll be a while before we see it.

But it seems the state of the add on's being developed has gone dormant and i was wondering if it was because of XP10 delays... 

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PMDG's NGX was over a year late.  And they also ignored many peoples requests for an update on progress.  

Well, that's been the mindset in the MSFS add on market since FS98...  :D

Its almost like they thrive on the information void or something... it became almost a joke there for a while, late 90's early 2000's with several major developers.

Infact I recall when Captain Sim came onto the market, literally out of nowhere and without any substantive nor verifiable information about their products. To that extent many were questioning if they really existed at all or were they even a scam...

The lack of information or the intentional silence while it might be beneficial to the developers, it can hurt customers, potential customers and those curious enough to ask questions before putting up $30, $40 $60 or even $80 of their money.        

I guess it would be different if we were talking about a $5 add on... but some of these high end plane packages are well over $50... and a void of information and deafening silence from a developer who will be asking that much money from you isn't confidence inspiring at all... 

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To quote the old adage, "no news is good news".

Personally I prefer not to be constantly bombarded with meaningless drivel reading like a twitter feed from any developers.  I like most people would prefer to only receive pertinent information regarding a product and the products associated development. 

We have seen both sides of the fence when it comes to development information released during the building of various projects.  One extreme could be said to be XP Jets (remember I'm not throwing stones or pointing fingers, just making a point), in which they post to a blog on a irregular schedule as it suits them.  They release information as they feel it is pertinent, and often have to wade through comments about the demise of the projects they are working on...

Frankly I don't want to bring up authors who post in such quantity that they make us wonder if they are running nothing more than a PR campaign.  There are many different personalities in our great wide world, and each developer can release information as they please.

I hardly look at the development of new pieces of software because as time moves on, if I formed an opinion of it too early, I may become later disappointed because of my misinformed views...

At this point we can all relax and take a deep breath.  We have heard that a beta version will be sent out to developers before the fall.  That usually means a release will be made before Christmas if all goes well.  If not, wait until the New Year at the latest.

Remember that even MS Flight and Aerosoft's sim will both take time to make.  Living up to the expectations of the public is difficult to do under any circumstances.  As a matter of fact I remember people who said they were going to swear off X-Plane because version nine did not live up to the original hype it received...

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Well, that's been the mindset in the MSFS add on market since FS98...  :P

Its almost like they thrive on the information void or something... it became almost a joke there for a while, late 90's early 2000's with several major developers.

Infact I recall when Captain Sim came onto the market, literally out of nowhere and without any substantive nor verifiable information about their products. To that extent many were questioning if they really existed at all or were they even a scam...

The lack of information or the intentional silence while it might be beneficial to the developers, it can hurt customers, potential customers and those curious enough to ask questions before putting up $30, $40 $60 or even $80 of their money.        

I guess it would be different if we were talking about a $5 add on... but some of these high end plane packages are well over $50... and a void of information and deafening silence from a developer who will be asking that much money from you isn't confidence inspiring at all...   

I can understand what you're saying, and I only just sent Chip an email addressing this very issue.  I won't post what I sent to Chip (it was far too long), but I will say this.

While I'm working on 2 different products (DC-3 and 1 contract job), Theo has been extremely busy programming the 747-400.  

Now I ask you, is that of any importance to you (as a customer/simmer) without a screenshot of it?  Probably not.  Shall I post a screenshot?  Unless you want to see a bunch of numbers in x plane using a default aircraft as a test-bed, probably not.  It won't make much sense.  In case you're wondering, The actual script will NEVER be posted because code is meant to be strictly confidential.  

X Plane developers are ice skating uphill while trying to pull an extra 100lbs of weight when it comes to impressing the MSFS crowd.  Whenever they talk about add on quality, they talk about PMDG (And rightfully so.  Their systems fidelity is amazing!)  So right off the bat, X plane developers have been pigeon-holed by the FSX crowd EVEN BEFORE THEY HAVE TRIED X PLANE.  It's even happened in these very forums from X Plane users.  So in saying THAT, we're even fighting an uphill battle against X Plane users who "wish" x plane has a PMDG quality add on.  In all honesty, I don't mind that.  As customers, you have every right to demand quality that you are willing to hand over your hard earned money for.  And you want to see PMDG quality in x plane as much as, I think, most developers do.  I have always maintained that competition is great for add on development and the community.  

So why are add ons taking a while to finish?  Because YOU (the customer) WANT top quality add ons.  YOU want PMDG level quality.  YOU want study sim aircraft.  WE want to give that to you.  But to do that, we need time.  If you want them finished earlier, spread the word about our products and buy more of them.  Then we can afford a $50/hr programmer to code the systems that would take about 3 months to code.  Doing the math, $50/hr @ 8 hours a day @ 7 days a week @ 3 months = a hell of a lot of money that many developers cannot afford.  Especially when they have families to support.

We can't promise release dates or estimates.  What we can promise is high quality, even study sim quality add ons that are definitely on the way.  All we ask is that you remain patient and let us do our thing.  Feel free to ask questions.  But questions that have already been answered (eg. When will it be released?) will be met with the same "soon" reply.

As you were, gentlemen.

:D

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For developers, talking about "what will be" or "what they WILL do" is bad business.  You risk something coming up and not being able to deliver.  In addition, we're never really sure when we'll deliver...but I can tell you that it is not likely that people have stopped developing because of XP10 development.  The complexity of projects is increasing and the time required to develop is growing..and that is my guess as to what's going on. 

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Hmm, our xplane10 blog has touched on this issue a fair bit, reflecting general frustration at slow 10 development, and certainly an apparent slowdown in scenery work at least.

Tom's got it right, as usual, I reckon that these creations are getting so complex and involved that yeah, it takes a lot longer than people ever realised to do a good, debugged product. Just look at the CRJ. I am convinced that the really successful projects will need multi-person teams. That makes planning a real challenge.

I love the constant updates from developers, appreciate their screenshots and little videos like Tom's done. I've now learnt not to get hopes up re. release date & criticise devs for missing them. YOU try it. It's better to be surprised.

Besides, just forget the dates keep trying other things as a diversion like I am - Microscopy and FSX, what a great combo :wacko: :wacko: :wacko::blink::o

I'm sure I'm annoying some of you by jumping over to FSX for a diversion. I sincerely hope my efforts assist in speeding up Xplane10 development and release, as I'll be one of the first to join the virtual queue to get it!

PS I meant what I said earlier Goran, your Sundowner is leap-years ahead of my FSX Carenado Saratoga.

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reflecting general frustration at slow 10 development,

I thought I'd add a few more "high level" thoughts to this topic and also try this new forum here. We all feel the frustration...even as a laminar developer we're all anxious to develop and get on with it. Simon's suggestion (or maybe Chip wrote it?) that we hire more people is a valid one....ASSUMING that is...that the market can bear or WILL bear that burden of cost, but as of yet it does not. We are still a very small segment of the flight sim market and the efforts going on now within laminar, IXEG, new stuff at the org and even here at x-pilot are a good indicator that things are not slowing down; however, as a market segment, we still have not reached "critical mass" where everybody is developing for x-plane.

It is my opinion that after x-plane 10 ships...and not immediately thereafter, it'll take a bit of warming up to the new tech...but after x-plane 10 ships and Aerosoft comes over, more Carenado stuff comes up, the IXEG guys finish their work and folks see the ease of creating scenery for x-plane AND with the new ATC (which I have yet to experience), I think that will be the time everybody will take notice. Only after they take notice though will they say, "hey, this is a viable sim" and only THEN they will begin to develop after they're convinced.

So it's not unreasonable to surmise that x-plane 10 needs to come out, folks need to see that it's good, more developers need to decide to develop and then actually develop, and this cycle might take a year or more after x-plane 10 comes out to get going. Remember MSFS is over 25 years old and didn't have a real competitor for well over 15 years. That is incredible momentum. I think x-plane is making great strides, but change doensn't happen overnight.

As far as the guys dabbling in FSX, they're flight sim enthusiasts, they should go wherever they get enthused. Right now, x-plane is just downright "regular" I agree...but that will change soon. You have no idea how bad I want to get x-plane 10 out and get back to working on some custom stuff. I've put out enough 3D polygons for x-plane 10 to redo the MU2 10 times over, it's hard to sit by at watch that thing become a "has been". It's really no more complex than "good things take time", but the workforce is still small. If we had 8x the developers, each working slow and steady, we'd have 8x the output but everybody would still work the same as they do now.

The goal is no different than the day we started here. "Change the market perception of x-plane quality and service and we'll grow the market". I'm still on that mission...just from a different place at the moment. Rest easy gents, x-plane 10 is pretty cool. REMEMBER...when it gets released as a beta, it'll be just that, a beta...and participants need to be ready to report, not complain. ;)

Edited by tkyler
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Good post Tom, and good to hear your 3cents as an xp10 'insider' . Yes it was my own observation that more resources are needed. As u say however, the market (now) is smaller, making it a bit of a gamble if they did employ more (and even more so if you are just building planes/scenery).

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Hmm, our xplane10 blog has touched on this issue a fair bit, reflecting general frustration at slow 10 development, and certainly an apparent slowdown in scenery work at least.

Tom's got it right, as usual, I reckon that these creations are getting so complex and involved that yeah, it takes a lot longer than people ever realised to do a good, debugged product. Just look at the CRJ. I am convinced that the really successful projects will need multi-person teams. That makes planning a real challenge.

I love the constant updates from developers, appreciate their screenshots and little videos like Tom's done. I've now learnt not to get hopes up re. release date & criticise devs for missing them. YOU try it. It's better to be surprised.

Besides, just forget the dates keep trying other things as a diversion like I am - Microscopy and FSX, what a great combo :wacko: :wacko: :wacko::blink::o

I'm sure I'm annoying some of you by jumping over to FSX for a diversion. I sincerely hope my efforts assist in speeding up Xplane10 development and release, as I'll be one of the first to join the virtual queue to get it!

PS I meant what I said earlier Goran, your Sundowner is leap-years ahead of my FSX Carenado Saratoga.

Wow, thanks Simon.

Much appreciated!

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