Scenery : Pariah of FS ?.....

Javis

Javis

SOH Staff
Staff member
I just noticed this remarkable phenomenon again (just an example) :

'Sibwings An-2 released' : Views : 32,711 ; Replies : 451

'FTX EU Scotland released' : Views : 290 ; Replies : 3

Seems we can't sleep before another new aircraft model is released but new scenery gets shoved aside like it's something to steer away from asap....

Quit often it is only thru some wonderful screenshots that more or less new scenery gets some attention and then it is quite often too that posters here ( including myself) inquire about it.

Don't we like scenery ? Is it not like scenery designers put as much love, dedication and countless hours into their work like aircraft designers do ? Are we spoiled to the bone ?

Low and behold if a new aircraft model doesn't get a sticky the minute it has been released. I don't think i have ever seen a new scenery package getting a sticky...

Food for thought maybe ?...

Anyway, in my FS book Sibwings' An-2 gets a 10 for quality and that goes the same for FTX EU Scotland. While cruising around Scotland in the An-2 i couldn't help feeling i had just installed FSXI.... ( who needs MS, éh ?.... )

Here's a couple screenies of my trip. I just think it's very unfair that aircraft get all the attention and scenery almost non. And i don't understand it either.

Can't we get atleast a sticky for the ' Screenshots here' thread ? Atleast we can get a view of breathtaking scenery every now and then there. We'll then just keep on inquiring about it... :)

sl1.jpg


sl2.jpg


sl3.jpg


sl4.jpg


sl5.jpg


sl6.jpg


I don't know. Just saying... :cool:

cheers,
jan
 
Looks gorgeous - I've always wondered about Orbx - worried they'd be hard on FPS on those of us with "mediocre" PCs. Always assumed they were targeted at folks with higher end systems.

As to your philosophical question - my guess is that a scenery pack is fairly "committal" - likely a far narrower band of customers are interested in a given scenery than are in a particular aircraft. So for example, I'm willing to bet the ratio of buyers of the AN-2 to the buyers of something like this Scotland pack is easily 10:1. The scenery can only be enjoyed if you fly in that area, whereas the plane can be flown from countless airfields around the world.

I started a thread a couple of years ago entitled "Classic Sceneries for FSX" or some such title - pointing out which/how of the Calclassic and other sceneries worked in FSX - I'd have thought with a good following of "classically-oriented folks", that it may have generated some interest - it got very little input.

You'd have my vote for ONE thread entitled "Newly released Sceneries" - I'd say that would be worth something. The trouble with threads is that they're linear, and after a few pages, it's hard (for some lazy or unskilled folks) to search threads very effectively. And so long as there is isn't a plethora of sticky threads (diminishes view ability of new threads).

Just my thoughts - but good thought-provoking thread ...

DL

ps - and nice screens - those deserve entry into the "screenshots" thread for sure ..
 
people are just more interested in planes really, after all these years with FSX scenery being released people have an area they like to fly around and aint really interested in other areas.

I however would love to see some more screenies of FTX scotland, especialy around stornoway, fort william (below ben nevis) and the islands. I'm a bit wary after the england release to impulse buy :engel016:
 
You know Javis, I have the same problem. Good looking young woman seem to get far more attention than I do. :D

You are correct, however. Scenery seems to be an afterthought. For the record, I have purchased every one of the FTX scenery sets, except for Europe. That is only because I do all of my flying in the US or Canada. Heck, I purchased both the Australian and New Zealand sets. Both are still in the plastic wrap. I have never installed them on my system.

I have some of the MegaScenery USA states. I really like them and would buy more except for the fact that I have to unzip and run 30 plus files for each state. I have written to PC Aviator twice about making some sort of single installer file to unpack and run the files. However, no one there has bothered to respond. So, I haven't bought any more states. If you can't bother to answer email (especially after you send me an email asking me to bye more) don't expect me to run to your store.

Maybe I will go and bye the UK set?
 
i tend to agree....i like the planes..but im not to into the paints..i fly from the VC ..i rarely ever go to the outside view...my reason for having FSX or or even getting into any of this was to have the alternitive to real flight..which to me means sitting IN the cockpit of an airplane and flying..looking out the windows and looking at the world..going from A to B.so i like scenery..i admit that i load some planes up..like wozza's at-6 all of johns repaints reciently...but normally i will have either the "stock" paints..or if im lucky..i have a custom paint made for me..and i fly from the cockpit...
 
I completely agree with Jan - and it really makes no sense that the aircraft get so much attention, followed by the atmospheric environment (REX, Active Sky etc...) then the terrain....

to me - a beautiful plane needs a backdrop of some quality...whenever I see someone post a screenie of their new aircraft purchase or paint scheme over default FSX land class - I feel sad :kilroy: inside
 
I agree with all that has been said. In fact I am now starting to acquire many of the ORBX airports for the PNW.

One thing I've noticed is the imbalance between airplane and scenery types. Nearly all the available scenery addons are for airliners or GA, yet there is an abundance of military aircraft available that just do not seem to fit in with this type of scenery.
 
So far, the best scenery I have for military aircraft are the military airbases that are a part of NL2000. However, you might be interested in knowing that Orbx are working on a WW2 airfield for England, though they've not announced which airfield it is yet.
 
Hmmm. I would not call scenery the "pariah" of FSX development, if only because of my own actions.

When FTX releases a new product I don't go "review it, ask about it, or debate it", I go buy it. I had maybe a half dozen threads/comments going on about the new Alabeo Staggerwing, and exactly *none* (well, I did follow some of the debates about cost) on the impending release of FTX Global. I am just going to buy it. (I did end up buying the Staggerwing as well - sweet, *really* photogenic aircraft).

Reminds me an old Internet Survey that said Jasmine.com was the most popular by "hits" for adult entertainment, and what did it mean that American men were spending so much time talking to naked ladies on the phone, blah, blah, blah. The study was flawed from the get-go: just because Jasmine.com was the single largest advertiser/pop-up on the web did not mean it was the most trafficked. Damned annoying was what it was. So, I am not saying that ... maybe you all should step away from the phone?

Wait - did this conversation slide too deep into that last bourbon? :)

Anyway, I think the scenery designers know why they are in business, and why products such as REX, GEX, and others are still in the Top 10 according to sites that also sell software. My PayPal credentials are on record at FullTerrain, no debate required.
 
I think quite a few have mentioned good reasoning for why scenery isn't as big a draw as aircraft. Airplanes can be flown anywhere, any time. . .scenery is regionally oriented and unless you're terribly excited about what's being released because it's your favorite place to fly. . .for many folks. . .new releases of scenery are "Yawners". I'm sure there are beautiful Vistas to be enjoyed in the England/Scotland sceneries that are being released right now, but I don't fly there and even if I did on a whim, it wouldn't justify the price. Now if something in the area of New York/New Jersey or Texas was to be released I'd consider it.

I no longer support Orbx, but in the beginning I purchased whatever I could afford because it was in an area that was fun to fly. The Pacific Northwest is a beautiful area and the remote airports and mountain flying make it very desirable for a lot of pilots, consequently those early releases were pretty popular to a lot of folks. As they move away from that region and start working in other areas, the popularity moves to a much smaller "fan base" if you will and it won't draw the attention that PNW did or that any new aircraft certainly will.:salute:
 
I like ORBX but I had to delete the few that I had, never experienced 'out of memory' issues before. I know from research that it is not ORBX fault it is an intrinsic fault within FSX mad worse by its being 32 bit within a 64 bit system.
 
I agree with everyone that aircraft tend to get more 'buzz', but you notice that it depends on the FS site. Orbx's forum certainly is busy and has a large following. You could almost make the point that Orbx's forum is larger than Sibwings. The size of the forum obviously has no bearing on the quality of the product but for the sake of Javis's post, I thought it was interesting.

It is also interesting how airplane genres vary from site to site. Here at SOH, I bet you PMDG's 777 release won't generate that much buzz, compared to a big warbird or vintage GA release. Likewise at Avsim, 777 release will have a huge buzz, and a warbird release will have a relatively minor buzz there.
 
When a new aircraft appears, people get to discuss about it: how does this or this works, how to do this or that, is that realistic or not, how is the real world aircraft, is this a bug in my gauges, etc...
Then come the repaints, and other mods.

When a new scenery is released, there's not much to say, or mod. That doesn't mean that nobody appreciate it. There's just less stuff to be done with a scenery than with an aircraft, that's all.

Another element that comes into the balance, is the popularity of the addon itself. This works exactely in the same way for aircrafts and sceneries.
There are some aircrafts which are long-time awaited, and when they finally appear, discussions about them go on, for pages and pages...
There are other aircrafts which are nice, but not popular despite the quality. Topics about them live for 4-5 pages, then die.
For sceneries, it's the same. I don't expect the Scotland scenery to generate as much pages as the PNW region. At all.
 
falcon409 said:
I no longer support Orbx, but in the beginning I purchased whatever I could afford because it was in an area that was fun to fly. The Pacific Northwest is a beautiful area and the remote airports and mountain flying make it very desirable for a lot of pilots, consequently those early releases were pretty popular to a lot of folks. As they move away from that region and start working in other areas, the popularity moves to a much smaller "fan base" if you will and it won't draw the attention that PNW did or that any new aircraft certainly will.:salute:
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Interesting perspective on Orbx. Now that I have PNW and a few of their airports, I've noticed that in order to enjoy their scenery I'm limited to small GA aircraft. For example, flying into 2W3 Swanson rules out anything larger than a Cessna 172.
 
For me, scenery is as much a part of the whole as the aircraft, and equally vital and important.

Some areas don't matter... sure, but some of us roam the globe exploring, rather than flying our 152 around our back yard. I like new places, new sights, I play FS Economy, which takes me to many of those new, otherwise ignored places. Scenery is a key importance, aircraft... actually the secondary concern.


Would I like to see more discussion? sure, we seem to take it for granted, ignore reviewing, gloss over... in fact scenery in general is often a misrepresented part of the fs community, developers aren't lorded like aircraft modellers, people don't crow about their work... thus, they feel less inclined to release projects that people will largely ignore... why bother?
I think if we gave them a bit more of their due, we'd see far better freeware scenery and more, rather than shoving them aside saying 'well its not orbx'
 
One of my biggest complaints about FS9/FSX is the lack of a built-in ability to easily modify scenery. Although MS went to the extreme to give us most cities/towns/airports, it's only expected that with a few local exceptions they feature, most details would be generic at best. With the ability to easily correct and adjust local scenery and airports I imagine many users would have made those changes to their own, or favorite, regions. Back that up with an online exchange to share these local scenery improvements and I do believe it would have changed the nature of the FS experience.

For a while, LAGO had a product, and online exchange, that did a fairly decent job at providing this ability in FS9; they just never could get the bugs worked out of the program.
 
Actually I'm now concentrating on improving my FSX world with scenery add-ons rather than spend money on aircraft I fly once then forget about. Orbx has finished mainland Great Britain, and I'm buying up every UK airfield they come out with. For me, scenery is my new priority.

By the way, 'pariah' of FSX ?? Overlooked, taken for granted, ignored even, but not 'pariah'. Scenery isn't despised or outcast. ;)
 
Geomitrak said:
Actually I'm now concentrating on improving my FSX world with scenery add-ons rather than spend money on aircraft I fly once then forget about. Orbx has finished mainland Great Britain, and I'm buying up every UK airfield they come out with. For me, scenery is my new priority.

By the way, 'pariah' of FSX ?? Overlooked, taken for granted, ignored even, but not 'pariah'. Scenery isn't despised or outcast. ;)
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yeah that term was likely used more for impact than literal accuracy - but you are right of course

And I agree with you on the benefits of quality scenery being more lasting in terms of usage - the planes do tend to pile up and sit around unused, with only one ore two favorites being flown with regularity...I hate to admit that based on the dollars but it IS a fact

Good scenery tends to be money well spent when compared to some aircraft models
 
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