The thread for the Interview with Scott from A2A seemed to be moving in another direction and so I thought I'd start a new thread to continue the "other direction", lol. . . .before the original theme was completely lost!
"JimmyRFR" mentioned something I thought was worth pursuing. . .his statement was; "I guess I'm less disappointed by the fact that we'll see less and less exotic aircraft from A2A, because you know the ones that we will see will be very refined. I'm more puzzled by developers that don't hold themselves to the same high-fidelity standards continuing to push out run of the mill aircraft, when they are the ones that could easily be doing the really exotic stuff."
Not sure if there is a specific developer he was eluding to, or just payware developers in general. I think most can agree that what was payware 3 years ago would pass for decent freeware today. Expectations have soared where payware is concerned and the prices have soared as well. Intricate details abound in most payware products now, almost everything that would be moveable in an airplane is animated now, developers continue to search for ways around coding restrictions and push the bounds in modeling, all in an effort to please the most discriminating customers. Everyone has become a beta tester, whether they are on the team or not. If a developer posts WIP shots. . .they will get all the critiques they ever wanted, lol. In the end, those developers will produce the highly detailed aircraft, the ones with every rivet and every screw in place, every castle nut showing at least 2 threads and cotter pin inserted correctly and every safety wiring job with just the right number of twists and pig-tailed end. Every system functions correctly and flight dynamics tested by a certified RW test pilot. Customers will gladly pay for the precision and attention to detail.
On the other hand I tend to be perfectly happy flying the other kind of airplane. . .the Aircraft Factory style airplanes that have really nice detail, nice bump mapping, good sound sets and fly straight and level unless I change that with stick inputs, lol. I've flown four airplanes in my life and three of those for no more than 30 minutes. . .a Cessna 150 (flight training in that one), an F-100, F-16 and a Focke Wulf P 149D. Aside from the 150 I didn't care at all how any of the systems worked, I didn't care to know what would happen if I did this, or didn't do that. . .I was enjoying the moment. . .I was the one flying that airplane, something very few "civilians" would ever be able to say they did. I take the very same approach with flight simming and that probably makes many of you cringe. I simply want to fly, enjoy the scenery I design, the regions I fly over and the ability to soar with the birds and for that reason. . .there is still a place for developers who develop basic aircraft. I hesitate to call them "run of the mill", but maybe, based on the immense detail built into many that are being produced these days. . .run of the mill is appropriate and I think they also fill a niche for many of us.
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