Orbx

[Charl]

QUOTE (VHJLC @ Feb 2 2008, 06:40 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Gidday fellas,
Long time reader 1st time poster here,
I just saw something over in the Orbx (the payware company doing FTX founded by John "KOORBY" Venema of VOZ) an interesting poll on which u get to vote an have your say in what country FTX should do next!!
Ive gotta soft spot for NZ as my well sorta "adopted" family is from there (Gisborne actually)
So you guys won my vote quick smart!!
And i reckon if you fellas rally together an push up those NZ votes we'd have amazing scenery for both Oz an NZ!!
Here's a link to Orbx http://orbxsystems.com/ and here's a direct link to the topic in the forum http://orbxsystems.com/forums/index.php?topic=851.0
Anywho
Kia ora??
or
peace out
Josh

Anyone feel like chatting to John_Venema on this issue?
If they do decide to go for NZ, they may very well eat our project, and I will have to buy their product...

[creator2003]

Yeah but do they build the airports/afcads etc aswell ? id say id buy there product if they made nz photo real ,but it wouldnt stop me from building airports and bits for nz project ..
the only damage i would see being done is robins works with ground textures not his airports ,but thats payware life , there is always going to be someone out there you have to compete with ..

Wouldnt these guys have to get the same data as robin and timmo anyway ,and would have to pay through the teeth for it if it was for a payware project ???
id like to hear others thoughts on this subject ...

[toprob]

FTX is pretty much VOZ for FSX -- as far as I can see there is no photo scenery included in the actual FTX product. They replace the default textures with their own set, coupled with a new landclass. They also redo the autogen textures.

There are freeware airports included (though these are available without purchasing FTX), although they are mainly relying on the existing VOZ airports being converted for FSX. They do plan to release some payware airports separately.

The problem I have with any plan to 'do' New Zealand is not that they will compete with me, but that they give the impression that this is a one-scenery-does-it-all solution, whereas in reality it is a replacement texture solution, with extras. If you have used VOZ for FS2004, then you will know what to expect. It is great at what it does, but it doesn't do everything.

Because people perceive it as a complete solution, and the marketing suggests that it includes more than it actually does, they may see buying 'Real NZ' airports as working against the integrated FTX package, but of course it doesn't. If they did 'do' NZ, then I would be better off aligning myself with them, supplying FTX-compatible airports.

The NZ Scenery Project (does it have a name yet?) would be in a better position, though, in that you could continue to make freeware airports, you would just need to do a bit more work to make them FTX compatible if you wanted it to reach all the market.

To show how debilitating this type of marketing is to a business like mine, I see the same result from the announcement of the NZ Scenery Project. My income is split between my own sales through the Godzone Store, and SimMarket sales. To survive -- and by this I mean paying the basic bills -- I need to earn at least $250 from each of these.

Since the announcement of the NZ Scenery Project my own sales have stopped completely. By this I mean I have not had a single sale in the last 7 days, and only 3 sales in the last three weeks. Luckily SimMarket sales have not varied, in fact there is still an upward trend there.

So why could the announcement of this project effectively shut down my business? Because people see implied benefits from the way it is 'marketed', whether or not these benefits exist. What people see is this:

• Great new scenery coming!
• Absolutely Free!
• All you will ever need for the ultimate NZ simming experience!!!
• Includes every NZ airport to a payware standard!
• Includes every existing payware NZ scenery COMPLETELY FREE!!!
• Available in 2 weeks.

Whereas the reality is a bit different.

What FTX is doing is what I thought the the NZ Scenery Project would do -- create a NZ-specific set of textures, complete with localised autogen textures, with airports to match. There is already an assumption that FTX will do this better, so it won't happen now.

By the way, I wonder what sort of time frame people imagine for the NZ Scenery Project? My own guess would be 'version 1' -- which may cover about 25% of airports -- in about 12 to 18 months. Anyone imagine anything different?

[creator2003]

Honestly i dont where we are upto with this project ,let alone know any time frames ,my guess would be yours no time quickly ,
i would and will still always buy your products no matter if you did like hamilton or any ive done for that matter as your work is like no other , mine is low end ,no real detail and quickly smashed together ,i dont even do night textures ,
my plan was to always build for fs , do my part to give back and make fs bigger in NZ ,why so i had more people to talk to and sim with ,this project was just cruzing along the same thing ive always wanted to do ,bring more fsimmers to NZ , this i can only imagine would be better for business in the long run as more and more would want your high class award winning scenerys ,add some missions and your away laughing .
us freeware designers get what we want, a bit of thanks and you making more airports to keep up with the demand ...
as for orbx ,i thought they where photoreal ,not just some nz texture set in the end "if they did it "..

[greaneyr]

Interesting post, Robin.

What 'announcement' are you referring to about this project exactly? I didn't realise there had been any. As far as I was aware, it hadn't been mentioned outside of this website. It hasn't even made it into the NZFF newsletters yet, since it's still very 'pie in the sky'.

To me personally, even the mere idea of it is in alpha at this stage. We still haven't achieved anything on our 'to do' list, and the forum has quietened down considerably since the beginning when everyone was buzzing with enthusiasm. It has me a little skeptical about where this will lead, to be honest. For someone like yourself, it's gotta be understandably difficult to embrace something of this nature if you think it's responsible for killing your income.

Still, I'm not sure where you got the impression people ever thought this project would include every existing NZ payware area for free, let alone do it within two weeks. I may not have been reading the same posts as you have, mind you. The rest are fine, but those two claims seem a little harsh imho.

[Charl]

QUOTE (toprob @ Feb 3 2008, 01:01 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

• Great new scenery coming!
• Absolutely Free!
• All you will ever need for the ultimate NZ simming experience!!!
• Includes every NZ airport to a payware standard!
• Includes every existing payware NZ scenery COMPLETELY FREE!!!
• Available in 2 weeks.

Don't be too glum, Jan is a dead month in NZ, those who aren't broke after Christmas are finally taking advantage of the weather to go on holiday.
Oh, you left out:
Free 24/7 support for every act of stupidity you can perpetrate on our free product!

[toprob]

QUOTE (Charl @ Feb 3 2008, 05:34 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

[/list]Don't be too glum, Jan is a dead month in NZ, those who aren't broke after Christmas are finally taking advantage of the weather to go on holiday.
Oh, you left out:
Free 24/7 support for every act of stupidity you can perpetrate on our free product!

Free 24/7 support maybe via an 0800 number, that'd be fun...

[toprob]

QUOTE (greaneyr @ Feb 3 2008, 04:43 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Interesting post, Robin.

What 'announcement' are you referring to about this project exactly? I didn't realise there had been any. As far as I was aware, it hadn't been mentioned outside of this website. It hasn't even made it into the NZFF newsletters yet, since it's still very 'pie in the sky'.

I am a strong believer in what I call 'the Bingo Darts principle' which partly states that if you believe that something may not happen, it may not happen. And of course if you firmly believe it will happen, it probably will. Without this principle I wouldn't be in business. Since I believe in this project, it will happen.

QUOTE

Still, I'm not sure where you got the impression people ever thought this project would include every existing NZ payware area for free, let alone do it within two weeks. I may not have been reading the same posts as you have, mind you. The rest are fine, but those two claims seem a little harsh imho.[/quote]

The comment on including payware is based on a number of suggestions I've had via my website which range from me including the photo scenery components of my payware projects, to including the smaller airports -- one person suggested I include Rotorua/Tauranga, and another suggested Omaka as a type of sample-ware.

The timing comment was a bit of an exaggeration, I admit, but it was designed to let people give some thought -- and comment on -- the likely time frame. Hence my final question.

[Christian]

Ok a few comments:

I've been talking to John myself. I'd like to see a FTX New Zealand done soon, basically because the textures in NZ suck and I don't have the time to produce a replacement set like Orbx can.

I never realised that FTX (Flight Terrain X) was perceived as a 'VOZ do it all solution'. Orbx is very clear in their promotion that it's mainly a texture replacement product. There are some free airstrips in it, but they really are VOZ not FTX. FTX NZ would fill a market gap but not compete with ANY product in NZ. BTW, FTX is not VOZ for FSX either. The VOZ crew has released their first freeware VOZ for FSX a few weeks ago.

Realistically soon isn't going to happen anyway. The Orbx team still has 3 more Aussie regions to do.

Robin, I'm amazed that your sales in NZ have dried up. If this project indeed is the reason we should make a very clear statement to the public. FRENZY will never touch the quality of your airports, if anyone thinks differently they are foolish.

My sales trend is always funny. December is a writeoff because I don't advertise for Christmas, so people buy everything else but not my stuff and then Jan turns out to be great... I wouldn't worry about monthly fluctuations...

Richard, don't worry. I have to admit I've gone a bit quiet, but I will return. My goal for Jan was to kick this project off which we have achieved. Let's not get ahead of ourselves, we won't release an all amazing compete with everything FRENZY next month. Let's start celebrating the small successes and people will stay motivated. Let's make it a goal this month to collate some scenery and AFCADs (work that has been begun). I will upload my AFCADs to Lawrence's site soon.

My personal goal for the next 6 months is this project is simply to have an installer to encompasses most of the freeware stuff that has been released (mind you, if some designers conyinue to create new stuff all the better). But we suddenly won't have zillions of new airports. For that we'd need to attract a whole new bunch of designers, otherwise who's going to do the work?

Do we need to act on any of these points? My idea behind FRENZY was to make flying in NZ more popular and expose Robin's products (and mine) to a wider audience.

We probably need a website. I was going to create a Squidoo page one of these days, maybe also a wordpress or blogger one. Are people here interested to blog about the progress we make?

Cheers,
Christian

[toprob]

Ah, yes, that answers my question about the project name, I'll refer to it properly from now on:)
The point I was trying to make is that people should look a little more closely at what is on offer, no matter who is making the offer, just to make sure that their expectations are realistic. There is a fine line between marketing hype and misinformation, which is why forums exist -- to get some discussion going and clear up any confusion.

[Christian]

Fair point Robin

[greaneyr]

Ok. Seems a few things were misunderstood there. I wasn't quite sure what this project was aiming to achieve and when. That was why I had such a big focus on identifying people's skillsets as early as I did.

I agree with Robin on the 'if you believe something will happen, then it will happen' philosophy. It just seemed as though interest had stagnated in here, and I know people will be motivated by others' achievements on this project so I felt it was a little dangerous to be so quiet in here.

Can people just confirm that there has not been any 'announcement' of this project? It just puzzles me to hear it being referred to when there has not been any to my knowledge.

[Timmo]

QUOTE

Can people just confirm that there has not been any 'announcement' of this project[/quote]

No only the original post for where this idea came from to my knowledge , i think there is some amount of low level talk about something happening somewhere etc etc ..
but no rock soild this is us and this is what we are doing ..

[Timmo]

I think the subheading to this forum kinda sums it up for me: An effort to collaborate all freeware New Zealand scenery addons

Collaborate and freeware being the key words there.....All we are doing, initially at least, is to collaborate wat has been done into one install/central location.