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Post by pivo11 on Jul 16, 2014 8:24:16 GMT -5
Not to worry, Mike, ya haven't missed a thing!  |
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Post by Deleted on Jul 16, 2014 9:03:33 GMT -5
Thanks for the link Spud. The gist of it is that JV is justifying the extra $$$ of OpenLC. One person made the point that he never should have listed a price at the beginning of the project, and certainly not in such a definitive way. I agree. Truth is, I can see both sides of this argument. The Orbx additions do in fact, transform the FS world. Even with Global and Vector (as they stand at the moment), the difference is dramatic. Add in full LC, and it gets dramatically better again. I have seen areas without and with and man, FSX is not the same at all (this all makes me believe FSX + Orbx is reason enough to not get P3Dv2 myself). Ron Attwood on that thread states, quite rightly I believe, that any other hobby would cost many times more in terms of add-ons (one lens for my photography system is more than I've spent on FS in a lifetime, although one can argue that photography is part business for me as I do make money at it, but you get the idea). From what I've seen, Orbx's prices are not exorbitant nor unwarranted (including the price change). What I DO take issue with is that they gave a "firm" price and as soon as they realized that there was more involved than they first thought, they upped it by a very significant amount. I agree with the one poster who said that JV never should have stated a price in the first place (as I mentioned above), and to me this makes the Orbx business model a bit "weak" in terms of customer relations. Of course, most of us have had experiences with their "customer relations" and THIS is where I start to have serious problems. Recently I had a problem with a scenery area. I posted on the Orbx payware forum asking for assistance. After 3 days, one of the participants (not an Orbx rep) replied with a link to another poster (a year ago) who had the same issue and how to resolve it. Orbx never did (at least, a week later - I stopped checking after that) respond officially, even though they knew of the problem and had a quick fix for it. THAT is what ticks me off, and THAT, coupled with the dramatic increase in price of the product, is what's going to keep me from buying OpenLC Europe (and now wondering if I'll even get NA), and will make me think hard about buying anything new at this point. Their poor attitudes towards customers is hurting them, and what's worse, they don't care. There are enough people who will make excuses for their bad attitude that will make up for some of the sales they lose to people who aren't willing to forgo customer service when they have a problem by buying more and more items from them. Orbx is far, far from the only ones guilty of this in this "hobby" which is the main reason why I have started asking myself if this is all worth it anymore. I know of no other hobby and almost no other business where the customer is treated so badly and yet they continue to flourish. Maybe I'm just old, but this sort of thing just goes against the grain for me. While I think Orbx does a great job with their products, I'm reluctant now to spend anymore of my dwindling, hard-earned cash when that amount is increased significantly but the customer service has not followed suit. Sorry for the rant. Now climbing down from soap box (or is that falling off it ?). |
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Post by pivo11 on Jul 16, 2014 9:17:51 GMT -5
I have to agree. It's not the price increase, per se, it's the sneering attitude that gets up my nose. You'd think I'd be over that by now, but alas... And being on pretty much a fixed income, I'm finding it harder and harder to justify any more addons to FSX. Being treated the way that Orbx does just makes it easier to say no.
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Post by spud on Jul 16, 2014 9:23:43 GMT -5
Spud, I tried your link but I just get the "You do not have permission to view this forum." message. That would be the downside of not being a John Venema fan. You have to be logged into ORBX forums to read the posts but I modified the original post with a cut n' paste of the pertinent data. |
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Post by Deleted on Jul 16, 2014 10:05:54 GMT -5
You have to be logged into ORBX forums to read the posts And there's the rub ... hence my comment about the downside of not being a John Venema fan. Thanks for the cut and paste. |
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Post by spud on Jul 16, 2014 11:29:51 GMT -5
You have to be logged into ORBX forums to read the posts And there's the rub ... hence my comment about the downside of not being a John Venema fan. Thanks for the cut and paste. Can't see much of rub having to be logged into a forum to read any post. This site and every other flightsim site I belong to is exactly the same. Not logged on no read posts. |
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Post by Deleted on Jul 16, 2014 12:20:13 GMT -5
Unless of course, you had the audacity to point out a deficiency in a certain developer's work or attitude, in which case logging in is "not an option" . I'm not in that group myself... yet . Apparently some forum moderators of late have been particularly quick on the trigger. It's nice that I can read the posts here though without being logged in  . |
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Post by Deleted on Jul 16, 2014 12:49:34 GMT -5
Unless of course, you had the audacity to point out a deficiency in a certain developer's work or attitude, in which case logging in is "not an option" . Glenn, how very perceptive of you.  |
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Post by Deleted on Jul 16, 2014 12:53:07 GMT -5
<LOL> - It wasn't exactly rocket science. Some very good, respected community members have been booted from there for very little to no good (IMO) reasons.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 16, 2014 13:01:40 GMT -5
No Fritz, I'm not. P3D2 is still a 32 bit program, and while they might stretch the capabilities a bit, it's still severely restricted in terms of how far they can go with it. Until the entire program is rewritten for 64 bit, we are going to be under the same constraints as we are in FSX (with a few minor exceptions). You're basically buying FSX a second time but without all the bugs worked out and with a number (albeit a decreasing number) of add-on's already paid for having to be repurchased or not working. Don't get me wrong, I'm not down on P3D at all. It is the future (but only a bandaid fix until the 64 bit version is written), but at this point there's not nearly enough incentive for me to "start over" with something that's barely better than what I currently have and with fewer add-on's available for it. Unfortunately, by the time the 64 bit version is written, I'll be long past simming so it's a moot point for me, thus FSX is "it" I'm afraid. When I tire of it, I'm done with simming . Just to add a bit to this as I happened to check out Milviz's site today, which demonstrates with remarkable "clarity" both the points about P3Dv2 (above) and developer's attitudes. A quote from Milviz (Colin to be exact) regarding handling of P3Dv2 in their EULA: So, if you do want to switch to P3Dv2 and wish to use your Milviz add-on's, you'll be buying them again. Not necessarily an inexpensive proposition. Insofar as the "attitude" goes, the last para in there about says it all (it's certainly not just Orbx I have a problem with in terms of attitude!). If you can't vent to the people who are creating the issue, who DO you go to? They are placing a muzzle on us and if you don't like it, you're history there. Why in heaven and earth would I buy something from a developer who at the first sign of somebody saying they have a problem with their policy/equipment/product/EULA, you are told to get lost and aren't allowed back in. The latter, of course, means that while you paid full price for their product (and maybe twice if you're migrating), you now don't get any support. If I bought a Nikon lens and believe it to be soft, and Nikon said "it's not - go away" and I complained that in fact it was, and was told to never come back and they locked the door behind me, you think I'm buying another Nikon lens? So why would I buy anything more from Milviz (as one of many examples)? It doesn't make sense. As I said, Milviz is but one of MANY examples of this kind of behaviour in the FS world now, and THAT, more than anything else, is what has me wondering why I'm still doing this. Anyway, I said I would get off my soap box, but this was such a blatantly good example I wanted to bring it up as a kind of "proof in the pudding" thing. |
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Post by Deleted on Jul 16, 2014 13:02:21 GMT -5
Yes, honesty isn't the best policy to be followed when commenting on Orbx in general or JV in particular.
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Post by pivo11 on Jul 16, 2014 13:03:38 GMT -5
...It's nice that I can read the posts here though without being logged in . Yeah, I can see no reason to hide posts. It's a kind of snobbishness to require log on to read posts, my view. |
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Post by spud on Jul 16, 2014 21:52:11 GMT -5
...It's nice that I can read the posts here though without being logged in . Yeah, I can see no reason to hide posts. It's a kind of snobbishness to require log on to read posts, my view. Well now I feel like the red-headed step child. When I bring up Bushpounder's site (this one) and am not logged on the posts do not indicate any new posts available. Once I log on then the "New" flag show on those posts that are changed since I logged in. Are you saying that I can bring up posts and read them without logging in? If so it wouldn't be possible to know if anything is new because the flag doesn't show when your not logged in. Never tried to read anything here without logging in. |
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Post by pivo11 on Jul 17, 2014 1:31:03 GMT -5
It's true that you need to log on to see the "New" flags but it's not necessary to read posts. You just have to remember what posts you've read before, an increasingly difficult task lately.  |
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Post by spud on Jul 17, 2014 7:05:38 GMT -5
Fritz,
good to see I'm not the only one with "brain fart" problems in this old world! I normally check on at least six flightsim sights every morning and it would be impossible to recall which forums/posts I had read previously. About the only thing not needing reminding are bodily functions anymore!!!!
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