jimdrozeck wrote:I have been off the simulations for 6 months, just had cause to purchase P3D v4 and get everything back up & running. Just installed/started FlyInside, was shocked to see that it STILL, after I and numerous others have requested the ability to disable VR and go back to the computer screen for bonafide flight training on PilotEdge or elsewhere, that this simple capability still does not exist.
This one might sound simple from your description, but it's nearly impossible for us to implement as an add-on. Our software either intercepts the rendering pipeline for VR, or it doesn't. Once it's intercepted, it's not a matter of just turning it off either. The resources we create for VR, the simulator stores its own references to. So if we try to swap them back, things break. Simply put, we could spend months and months working around this, and maybe having a working "ON / OFF" switch, or maybe find out we wasted months on something that just won't work (and could have gone to other fixes/features). I wish we didn't lose a user to this one, but we don't have much choice. This isn't a sign of apathy on our part
RarphRaider wrote:does anyone even use P3D flyinside? Will anyone even buy their "flight simulator" after this experience?
I wish they would just fix the many many very obvious bugs in the software. Its extremely frustrating.
There's game breaking bug sitting there for who knows how long. These are not the type of bugs that takes 6 months to fix. More like 1 day.
Yes we have many happy pilots using FlyInside, no, none of our bugs which would be considered game-breaking (??) are one-day fixes. I don't understand where these two ideas would even come from. I won't disagree that the software is rough around the edges, we're working to improve it. RarphRaider, I've specifically e-mailed you in the past to try to capture and resolve the bugs you've been running into, to no response.
Conceit wrote:Well, honestly I can only support the other users' claims here, Tony. As an example, the whole support for motion controllers (e.g., Oculus Touch on FSX) isn't working very decently. These are not exactly "bugs", but it is far away from being mature. Many controls are not reachable, or not even implemented, or usable with motion controllers. I am also disappointed that these very obvious issues (just try flying Boeing or Airbus on a Steam FSX) that I categorized under "early release issues" found no further polishing. Also, I had bugs in multi-monitor mode (with FSX trying to find windows on the wrong desktop), and we already talked about that. I found work-arounds by myself, but it is still nasty to edit config files every now-and-then. As there was no release since then, I guess nothing happened here. I'm sure if there was a public bug database, you'd have a nice collection of tasks without needing to ask your customes to prove their complaints on the forum.
Motion control variability across aircraft is definitely our largest weakness. Our next release (should be mid-December) is actually focused on improving this. It's taking longer than it should have for sure, but we're getting there. Config files are a tricky line to walk. Being an add-on, that interacts with a simulator, and then with more add-ons, many doing all sorts of zany things, then dealing with VR hardware, etc... our software runs into a vast number of configurations, some we never anticipated. If we try to make the software configure itself for every situation, it inevitably breaks for some users. On the other hand, too little auto-config and the software becomes very difficult to use (without lots of hacking around). We try to strike a balance, but you're right that it can be unpolished.
Conceit wrote:The forum and support isn't actually on fire as well. I read threads about persons not getting their serial#, and who are mad that they have to go to the forums with these issues because support does not respond on emails. Also, many posts on the forums stay unanswered, like that guy asking for ways to incorporate tool-windows into VR prior to buying a VR headset, and so on. To me as a casual user, this looks like abandonware: Six months, no progress, slow support, users help users on the forum, and the team's stuck with new products to generate more income. Not seeing any form of lifecycle management whatsoever.
For serial numbers, we have an auto-e-mailer (I don't hand-write these). On rare occasion, users don't receive their key due to an overactive spam filter, typo, or just a stray glitch in our mailer. We really prioritize "missing key" e-mails because it's beyond unfair for someone to pay and receive no product. If you see "missing key" on the forum, they probably e-mailed at 2am, I was on the road when they sent, etc. Because I always try to answer this ASAP
I'd say it's pretty unfair to call the software abandon-ware. In the past six months we've released FlyInside 1.81 (a huge number of fixes), added Prepar3D v4 support, and gotten X-Plane 11.10 working (huge rendering changes). You'll see a major update in December as well.
Conceit wrote:Maybe you guys have to maintain too many products in a too small team. FlyInside FSX/XPlane/P3Dv3/P3Dv4 and now your very own simulator. It is noteworthy that everything stagnated as soon as you announced the new flight sim. Obviously, you do not see that you already have a user base of willing-to-pay customers. Literally, everybody with a VR headset and flight-sim fetish already came along your products. That means, we are the customers for your brand new flight sim.
No denying this is the biggest issue. We're a small team, and can't put all of the time we want into everything. That said, we haven't abandoned our products either. We've made small, steady improvements. We've crunched to get a compatibility update out as quickly as possible every time an update has come out (several times with X-Plane, Prepar3D, even some SteamVR/driver bugs). I think you'll appreciate our next update too.
I truly believe that the sim will speak for itself. We're running behind schedule on this, but what we have so far is really great. Super fluid VR graphics, near-perfect controller+Leap Motion support, stable/crash-free. It's a good flight simulator in its own right, and when it comes to virtual reality flightsim, a true game-changer. When you try it, I think you'll understand why we felt the need to split our focus onto this project.
If you're really worried we'll abandon the sim after launch, look how long we've been providing updates to FlyInside. We launched the first major beta during our Kickstarter, August 2015. We've provided a stream of updates ever since, and although we can't quite keep up our old pace, we're still going.
Thanks,
Dan