IXEG 737 Classic for X-Plane 12 Announcement

[tkyler]

37 minutes ago, Bulva said:

I hope it won't be another plane in which we will admire flushing water in the toilet and opening luggage boxes at the expense of FPS

I do have my limits Bulva   no flushing toilets and opening luggage bins.  I'm not modeling the lavatory interior either (yet).  Us flight sim folks are a diverse bunch and we each gain our own individual pleasures from elements of the simulation in differing areas.  Some folks just like being in and around planes/cockpits and how it pleases their eye, some like "button pushing", some like the cognitive elements of navigation, some like the "visual pleasure" of being at altitude and looking down and others the sounds.   There is one particular youTube reviewer who likes to get the camera about 5cm from objects and if the textures aren't high-rez at that distance, he laments it as some kind of product deficiency...so there's all types of consumer prefs.   It has always been my philosophy to "evolve towards reality in all areas", except that all areas can't be achieved at once, hence the prioritization based on our experiences with customer feedback.  As you point out, adding more and more possibly eats into performance and until we push the limit, we don't know how far we can go.  We don't want to leave 'money on the table', if we don't have to, thats comes with risk of falling into obsolescence as others push forward.  But we do go into these areas with strategies to address 'what ifs'.    Using preferences to kill heavy FPS suckers is one option.....downsampling the textures yet another...providing alternative, low resolution objects another, etc.  You can be sure that good performance is high on my list, and we'll have strategies in place to manage that. I'm a huge fan of configuration preferences...and hence one reason we're moving to imGUI.  it will allow us to more quickly and easily impelement interface options for users to manage all that stuff.

-tkyler

Edited April 4, 2023 by tkyler

[jsnapp]

25 minutes ago, tkyler said:

I do have my limits Bulva   no flushing toilets and opening luggage bins.  I'm not modeling the lavatory interior either (yet).  Us flight sim folks are a diverse bunch and we each gain our own individual pleasures from elements of the simulation in differing areas.  Some folks just like being in and around planes/cockpits and how it pleases their eye, some like "button pushing", some like the cognitive elements of navigation, some like the "visual pleasure" of being at altitude and looking down and others the sounds.   There is one particular youTube reviewer who likes to get the camera about 5cm from objects and if the textures aren't high-rez at that distance, he laments it as some kind of product deficiency...so there's all types of consumer prefs.   It has always been my philosophy to "evolve towards reality in all areas", except that all areas can't be achieved at once, hence the prioritization based on our experiences with customer feedback.  As you point out, adding more and more possibly eats into performance and until we push the limit, we don't know how far we can go.  We don't want to leave 'money on the table', if we don't have to, thats comes with risk of falling into obsolescence as others push forward.  But we do go into these areas with strategies to address 'what ifs'.    Using preferences to kill heavy FPS suckers is one option.....downsampling the textures yet another...providing alternative, low resolution objects another, etc.  You can be sure that good performance is high on my list, and we'll have strategies in place to manage that. I'm a huge fan of configuration preferences...and hence one reason we're moving to imGUI.  it will allow us to more quickly and easily impelement interface options for users to manage all that stuff.

-tkyler

Excellent answer and summary of the flight sim diversity in terms of what people are looking for in a product!

[brwarn]

Wonderful news!  Thanks for the update.  The upgrade price is good. As a 'lazy user', will there be an option to start with engines running and systems on?

Edited April 4, 2023 by brwarn

[Lerno1]

I feel a bit sour over the relative ambiguity of the product page (it's too late to go back to the past, but I believe a note about "new purchasers will receive the XP12 version for free" would've been nice for clarity... just my personal opinion) and the features that were promised for the aircraft before XP12 rolled around and required major changes.

But $15 for a major compatibility update seems pretty reasonable after the product has been out for all this time if it really means the 733 will get proper support and finally be up to the standard of today's modern addons. Looking forward to see how the plane progresses!

Edited April 4, 2023 by Lerno1

[Cameron]

44 minutes ago, brwarn said:

Wonderful news!  Thanks for the update.  The upgrade price is good. As a 'lazy user', will there be an option to start with engines running and systems on?

Yes, just as it is now.

28 minutes ago, Lerno1 said:

the features that were promised for the aircraft before XP12 rolled around and required major changes.

It's honestly irrelevant since had the IXEG even been feature complete in our eyes, it would not have worked in 12 at all. Literally not flyable. As it stands, because we felt things weren't feature complete where we wanted them, this mostly worked in your favor here. Had we considered things fully feature complete, this upgrade price would be much higher. We took that into account when thinking about the pricing. It really was a gesture, because what you're really paying for here is the port to 12 cost. Think $34.95 or more had it been the other way around.

So, you can be sour if you want, but my personal opinion (and it's only mine), is that's rather petty given the situation and development cost involved.

[Plato]

MSFS WHEN?

[brwarn]

12 minutes ago, Cameron said:

Yes, just as it is now.

Excellent!

[Cameron]

4 minutes ago, Plato said:

MSFS WHEN?

This will not happen.

[jfwharton]

18 hours ago, Cameron said:

It's either the viable path, or no path. We chose the viable one. Should you change your spending habits over a less than $15 charge, I don't know what to really say. Farewell, I guess? Considering the upgrade costs many other developers on a certain other store charge, I don't find this a major issue. We kept the pricing low and in check for a reason. I'm also not really sure which promise you're referencing, but Jan has always had a very open and honest topic about what's not in the IXEG 737 at each patch. His message has always contained the following words:

"We are trying to be as upfront about the shortcomings of our model as possible. I have myself bought many aircraft for flight-simulations boasting great things, only to be disappointed. I want to avoid that for everyone, so if you find a "must have" feature on this list, I encourage you to hold off on purchase until we added your feature in a later patch."

The X-Plane 12 work alone is hundreds of man hours due to major changes in the code interaction with 12, so the upgrade fee would have come about one way or another (and probably much more expensive) had we considered IXEG a feature complete and done package in X-Plane 11 before this upgrade.

It will be available at release of the update. All current customers will receive a discount code.

After reading your response and other posts in this thread I realise that I misinterpreted the information posted on the X-Aviation website regarding free upgrades.  I apologize for my previous post and thank you for your comments.  The $15 upgrade charge is reasonable and I look forward to purchasing the 737 Classic upgrade so I can have this aircraft for X Plane 12.

[Wycliffe Barrett]

15 bucks, an extremely reasonable upgrade price to this excellent aircraft. 

 

[leinsters]

For the price of half a pizza this is a fair and reasonable upgrade. 

I will buy it just because of how much flight simming joy IXEG brought to me for years. 

[airbus737]

20 hours ago, Cameron said:

Once released and stabilized after addressing any bugs or issues, we will immediately continue the work of improving the 733 in several areas. Some items we will be addressing and improving are:

• FMS
  • VNAV Prediction / Performance
  • Holds
  • Performance / Progress predictions.
  • Swap to XP11 NavData format.
• FMOD Sound Implementation, allowing us to more easily expand our sound set.
• New exterior 3D and high-resolution textures
• Enhanced GUI for accommodating more robust interactions with operations.

I understand the 15$ update fee and feel that is fair for a 7 year old addon..

What I do not understand is the fact that these "secondary" bugs/issues are coming at a later time? The product has been out for 7 years and these items have yet to be addressed.

[Furax84]

Hello and congratulations for this exceptional aircraft that I have owned since 2019 and which for me is the best addon in the range.
What was my surprise to see that you are not making a simple port, but a global overhaul of this monument...
I can't wait to test this new version and introduce it to my subscribers during a live.
It's going to be an exceptional evening.

[Cameron]

34 minutes ago, airbus737 said:

What I do not understand is the fact that these "secondary" bugs/issues are coming at a later time? The product has been out for 7 years and these items have yet to be addressed.

Getting the product even working and offered to customers for use in X-Plane 12 is priority. At the moment it can't even do that.

I suggest you read the following post for the rest of your question on the "why" to be answered: https://forums.x-pilot.com/forums/topic/26540-ixeg-737-classic-for-x-plane-12-announcement/?do=findComment&comment=190721

 

 

[rafaeljose]

Hace you given any consideration to making an payware upgradable version to an analog 300? 

[tkyler]

2 hours ago, airbus737 said:

What I do not understand is the fact that these "secondary" bugs/issues are coming at a later time? The product has been out for 7 years and these items have yet to be addressed

Simple explanation.    If I were to say, "we won't update the 737 until I have the FMS working like I want to", then I would not be here, I'd have taken another job and the 737 would be retired at Version 11 of XPlane and the IXEG would be done and I would be done with XP development.  The workload to address those items you mention exceeds the workload for the items we have chosen to update for XP12.  That is why those are getting addressed at a later time.  

The reasons those items weren't addressed have been explained previously and at this juncture, it doesn't matter whether folks (myself included) like it or not.  I have to move forward from today.   It is important for me to convey that "later" in todays context, with me working full time on XP, isn't as vague or as far on the horizon as "later" was a few years back when even we didn't know how much "later" we would find time to work on things with our other work schedules.

I made a decision to not pursue other jobs and try to make X-Plane development work for me full time... put a plan together with the consult of some other folks whose opinions I respect, and am now executing that plan.  The MU2 was a springboard to the IXEG update and the IXEG update will springboard to the 733 upgrade work we all would like to see....and dare I say.... future products.   This is the path required to keep my X-Plane development work going and not let these products die out.  It was simply a cost/benefit strategic decision that dictated the order of work.

-tkyler

 

Edited April 4, 2023 by tkyler

[Cameron]

43 minutes ago, rafaeljose said:

Hace you given any consideration to making an payware upgradable version to an analog 300? 

You can already do this by a preference setting in the IXEG menus. It's been there since the beginning.

[Torbinator]

23 hours ago, Cameron said:

No, the cockpit is not re-done. It's really not necessary with as much detail went into it to begin with. It may get small enhancements here and there, but it certainly is not in a dire state. The cabin was.

I do remember one of the last updates did introduce some higher resolution components in the cockpit. The most notable was the side window and handle to open and close the window. However it was only done on the left side, so maybe consider balancing out the resolution on the right side as well? Aside from that, I've always admired the modeling of the IXEG cockpit, even though it came out under the X-Plane 10 standards, it still looks fantastic today.

[Lerno1]

8 hours ago, Cameron said:

It's honestly irrelevant since had the IXEG even been feature complete in our eyes, it would not have worked in 12 at all. Literally not flyable. As it stands, because we felt things weren't feature complete where we wanted them, this mostly worked in your favor here. Had we considered things fully feature complete, this upgrade price would be much higher. We took that into account when thinking about the pricing. It really was a gesture, because what you're really paying for here is the port to 12 cost. Think $34.95 or more had it been the other way around.

So, you can be sour if you want, but my personal opinion (and it's only mine), is that's rather petty given the situation and development cost involved.

Fair enough. Again, I think $15 is a very reasonable price given everything and have no issues with the price itself, though I appreciate the explanation on "feature complete" and how development considerations might've changed the inevitable upgrade price.

[DarrenHowie]

Very glad to pay the $15 to upgrade as i have flogged the 733 to death over many years of enjoyable flying. I dont expect anyone to work for nothing a i certainly wont! Looking forward to taking it out for a lash!

[Javilis23]

Any enhancements being donde on the gauges? Nothing wrong before, maybe higher resolution?

[Cameron]

45 minutes ago, Javilis23 said:

Any enhancements being donde on the gauges? Nothing wrong before, maybe higher resolution?

None planned at the moment. It's still one of the nicer cockpits out there.

[jenijek]

Thanks a lot for the news ixeg 737 for xp12! The question concerns ixeg 737 under xp11 will work be continued in the direction of eliminating minor flaws for the xp11 model?

[rafaeljose]

11 hours ago, Cameron said:

You can already do this by a preference setting in the IXEG menus. It's been there since the beginning.

I meant the non-EFIS 737-300 with analog HSI and ADI

[manguras]

2 hours ago, rafaeljose said:

I meant the non-EFIS 737-300 with analog HSI and ADI

It would be amazing...