Flight Sim World

[Ronald]

Addition to my earlier posting, the legal (background) parts of DTG - FlightSimWorld:
- DTG privacy policy ................................... - http://www.dovetailgames.com/privacy
- FSW End User License Agreement (EULA) - http://www.dovetailgames.com/terms ..............................Thanks ronh for pointing me to it, since I need to learn this (legal background) part of the sim too
>>
- Steam "Workshop" Legal Agreement ----- http://www.dovetailgames.com/workshoplegalagreement ...Which is build into FSW to be able to exchange things with other FSW players on Steam.
>>
- Steam - Legal Info:-------------------------------------- http://store.steampowered.com/legal/
- Steam - Subscriber Agreement:------------------- http://store.steampowered.com/subscriber_agreement/

Some background definitions, articles, ebooks about "EULA" and "IP"-rights:
EULA:
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/End-user_license_agreement
- http://www.eula.com.au/

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS:
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_property
- https://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/trips_e/intel1_e.htm
- http://www.wipo.int/about-ip/en/
- http://intellectual-property.laws.com/
- https://www.gov.uk/intellectual-property-an-overview/what-ip-is

FREE DOWNLOADABLE EBOOKS ON:
WIPO - Intellectual Property Handbook: Policy, Law and Use:
- http://www.wipo.int/about-ip/en/iprm/

WIPO - Understanding Copyright and Related Rights:
- http://www.wipo.int/publications/en/details.jsp?id=4081

WIPO - Understanding Industrial Property:
- http://www.wipo.int/publications/en/details.jsp?id=4080

>>
Electronic Frontier Foundation - "Terms of (ab)use":
- https://www.eff.org/issues/terms-of-abuse

Electronic Frontier Foundation - "Dangerous Terms: A User's Guide to EULAs"
- https://www.eff.org/wp/dangerous-terms-users-guide-eulas <- refreshing article

Addition: (19-05-2017. 05:20)
"TechRights" - People's rights in the digital age:
- http://techrights.org/home/

"The Patent Scam" - about Austin Meyer (X-Plane maker) being sued for using Google Play Store.
- http://www.thepatentscam.com/

 

[N2056]

C'mon now...this is flight simulation, not lawyer simulation.
That said, I prefer the path that is established and well known.

 

[Gerli]

C'mon now...this is flight simulation, not lawyer simulation.

 

[kabekew]

Back to the topic... looking at the exported functions in the new SimConnect.dll, it looks like they are supporting the old functionality, plus a few new ones:

• A revamped ATC system? (Lots of new SimConnect_ATCxxx callbacks like registering an "agent" and sending of text and voice messages)
  
• New CameraGetCurrentView and CameraSetCurrentView functions
• New Draw3DLines and Draw3DText functions
  
• A bunch of new (text-to-speech) functions? (SetVoiceXXX)

 

[WebSimConnect]

this is flight simulation, not lawyer simulation.

LOL

 

[HiFlyer]

I admit to being troubled.

When FSX arrived, its only real competitor was FS9.

The upgrade path was set: Stick with FS9 or make the jump.

Now we have FSX, FSX-SE, P3D (with V4 on the way) and now, Flight Sim World.

All essentially funhouse mirror images of the very same program; from a users point of view.

Just recently, I purchased a few hundred dollars worth or Orbx stuff due to the recent sale.

When I compare my current FSX-SE or P3D experience to FSW, I find FSW to be behind in almost every particular, with even the visuals being jarringly bright and the whole world appearing off-color. (this was apparent in Flight school and was never corrected)

Alright, early access.

But my question then is, what does FSW promise now, or even in the future, besides 64bit (soon to be matched by P3D) that would justify the repurchasing of much of our existing software to make the jump to this new platform?

In fact, since it seems slower, what justifies even a jump from FSX?

No OOM's? But then the obvious choice would probably be P3DV4 since Orbx has already promised free upgrades to the new sim, and most other developers will probably be forced to do the same.

If FSW offered some eye-opening new features, the equation would be different: But right now, the main purpose of FSW seems to be to create a DLC revenue Stream focused on DTG rather than the current free-for-all marketplace.

Is this attractive? I have no idea, I'm not a developer, but right now, if FSW is mainly FSX/P3D all over again, then where is the market? I can only guess it must be brand new users, since there doesn't seem to really be all that much to attract current users.

Or........ what am I missing?

 

[WebSimConnect]

interesting thoughts HiFlyer. Little comment from my side.

I have analysed P3D SDK (or PDK) quite closely. It offers many new features compared to the old good FSX. Some of them are new, some were already exploited by the developer using undocumented functions of FSX. With P3D V2+ one could even make so appreciated in FSW rain drops effects by using shaders executed by GPU, however if you look at the market I have not seen any development that is targeting P3D only. Every single add-on and aircraft targets BOTH platforms which means almost no-one is using new P3D SDK and the features it offers. Now, we will have another branch of SDK that has the same roots and I believe we will have same story. From dev point of view, this is not comfortable to make cross-sim addons, but what can we say, we have to live with it. Even when FSX dies (like FS9) we will have to support P3D and FSW.

 

[Ronald]

In order to gain a better understanding where DTG's - FlightSimWorld is heading towards, see this video below:

In which Jordan King https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3_Orz4jsvNeW22du80TITw
has an almost hour-long interview with Steven Hood - DTG's Creative Director "FlightSchool" and "FlightSimWorld".

 

[arno]

I installed FSW yesterday and had a quick look at the AGN and MDL format. It doesn't seem to have changed from FSX. So I guess that is good news tools wise.

Or you can also say it's a pity they didn't include improvements like LM did with P3D to make ground polygons with a zbias material property. I wonder how we can do them properly in FSW...

 

[kevinfirth]

With P3D V2+ one could even make so appreciated in FSW rain drops effects by using shaders executed by GPU

Why hasn't anyone done it then? :s

 

[rhumbaflappy]

Landclass has changed a bit... more available types. This is an increase from Flight School, which was an increase from FSX. The terrain.cfg has increased as well, to accommodate ORBX' texturing of vectors and autogen placement. A nice improvement on FSX. I do note the ground textures seem washed out in the sim. I'm sure Dovetail will correct this.

It's hard for me to comment too much on other aspects as my video is on an AMD APU, which takes ram from my 8 GB board ram. According to DTG, I shouldn't even be running the game, with my computer specs! Which brings up the question of who Dovetail is luring to their sim. I don't see to many end-users buying new computers to run the sim. Not like some did for FSX.

 

[arno]

I didn't even check the specs, but I guess my 5 year old laptop will also not meet them anymore.

 

[Heretic]

Keep investigating the sim, guys!

I have analysed P3D SDK (or PDK) quite closely. It offers many new features compared to the old good FSX. Some of them are new, some were already exploited by the developer using undocumented functions of FSX. With P3D V2+ one could even make so appreciated in FSW rain drops effects by using shaders executed by GPU, however if you look at the market I have not seen any development that is targeting P3D only. Every single add-on and aircraft targets BOTH platforms which means almost no-one is using new P3D SDK and the features it offers. Now, we will have another branch of SDK that has the same roots and I believe we will have same story. From dev point of view, this is not comfortable to make cross-sim addons, but what can we say, we have to live with it. Even when FSX dies (like FS9) we will have to support P3D and FSW.

Since FSX aircraft do seem to work in FSW (see kabekew's findings), devs may now theoretically develop for three platforms, which is kind of cool (provided that P3Dv4 is backward compatible).

Cross-developing for both FS9 and FSX is a major headache since both sims handle materials and animations very differently.

And FS9 is nowhere near dead. You may not see much payware anymore, but there are still a lot of freeware holdouts.

 

[DaveWG]

I managed to shoe-horn my Rapide into FSW.

There are some XML errors thrown up upon loading, some of the visibility coding doesn't seem to work and the glass isn't visible but overall it seems to work quite well.

 

[Gerli]

Now it's looking promising. Great job guys!

 

[Ronald]

I didn't even check the specs, but I guess my 5 year old laptop will also not meet them anymore.

FSW - System-specs can be found over here:
-http://store.steampowered.com/app/389280/Flight_Sim_World/ (date: 21-05-2017)

Minimal System Specifications:
- Operating System: Windows® 7, Windows 8, Windows 10 (64-bit versions only)
- Processor: AMD APU Kaveri A10-7850K or Intel Core i3 6100
- Memory: 8 GB RAM
- Graphics-card: Radeon R9 Fury or GeForce GTX 970 (4 GB VRAM)
- DirectX: Version 11
- Network: Broadband internet-connection
- Harddisk-space: 40 GB available space
- Sound-card: DirectX Compatible
- Additional remarks: System requirements are subject to changes during optimisation process.

Recommended System Specifications:
- Operating System: Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 10 (64-bit versions only)
- Processor: AMD Ryzen 7, Intel i7 6700k
- Memory: 8 MB RAM
- Graphics-card: Radeon R9 Fury or GeForce GTX 970 (4GB VRAM)
- DirectX: Version 11
- Netwerk: Broadband internet-connections
- Harddisk-space: 40 MB GB available space
- Sound-Card: DirectX Compatible
- Additional remarks: System requirements are subject to changes during the optimisation process

 

[Ronald]

Interesting playlist to watch: Somebody is being successfully adding (jet)aircraft and scenery to FlightSimWorld already:
- https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL66UOo0xjl6PToaHIGWmbuayaig6gBafg

 

[dave hoeffgen]

Or you can also say it's a pity they didn't include improvements like LM did with P3D to make ground polygons with a zbias material property. I wonder how we can do them properly in FSW...

Interesting...
I'm sure the guys at DTG expect the same high quality addons (if not higher) to be made as in FSX, but meanwhile remove the features the developers use to achieve it? (I don't think the old bgl8 ground overlays are still supported or am I wrong?)

What a clever move

 

[arno]

Interesting...
I'm sure the guys at DTG expect the same high quality addons (if not higher) to be made as in FSX, but meanwhile remove the features the developers use to achieve it? (I don't think the old bgl8 ground overlays are still supported or am I wrong?)

I haven't tested that, but I guess/hope they will start work. Since they started from the FSX base they don't have the improvements LM made I assume (and probably legally can't just copy them either). The changes are not big, so let's see how this develops from a developer point of view.

 

[lionheart]

It would be pretty cool if it is successful and people love it. This would mean a new 'platform' for our planes to fly in.

In Flight School, I also thought the colors were a bit odd and dark. I only flew it one day total I believe. I think they wanted to get a bit of a X-Plane look to it. X-Plane has those dark looks to things, while FSX/P3D have proper lighting. But thats Flight School. I havent seen (on my computer) FSW.

I hope it does well and runs smooth. Thats what the people want is a new and improved FSX. A 'new house' to put their things in.