Plans for upgrading older releases?

[AA777-200ER]

I remember that Fsdt was planning on upgrading older airport releases such as Zurich, JFK, Chicago O'Hare with higher-end textures (buildings/ground) for an additional charge. What happened to these plans?

I would be willing to pay a little more to upgrade my existing airports to current standards.....Darryl

[virtuali]

Zurich and O'Hare already got big and free updates not long ago, and we never announced any release dates for complete graphic updates. They'll come, in time.

[cmpbllsjc]

Zurich and O'Hare already got big and free updates not long ago, and we never announced any release dates for complete graphic updates. They'll come, in time.

I think for Zurich he was referring to the "3rd" step as outlined below.

3nd Step

New technology Ground with Shaders

In preparation to allow ZurichX to be still usable and look fresh in the next years, we'll remade all the ground scenery using Advanced Shaders methods we introduced with KDFW and KLAX, that offers exceptionally sharp and realistic looking textures on ground, eliminating entirely all legacy FS9 code, which results in a fps saving too. Considering how effective this was at a much larger airport like Dallas-Fort Worth, we anticipate the performance benefit will be even larger with Zurich.

The 3rd STEP Upgrade will be a PAY UPGRADE for FSX ONLY, and will be available before the end of 2011. The price is expected to be low, probably less than 50% of the current product price.

What is the status of this? I know it was said to be available before the end of 2011, but we haven't heard anything in a while on the progress.

[virtuali]

What is the status of this? I know it was said to be available before the end of 2011, but we haven't heard anything in a while on the progress.

I should have said:

"of the 3 products that were asked for (JFK, O'Hare and Zurich), we never announced a release date for two of them, only for Zurich"

Since the 2nd Step for Zurich has been released at the end of December 2011, it's clear that release date for the 3rd has been missed.

Right now we don't have any dates to announce for any of the updates, which doesn't obviously mean we'll not doing them at some stage but, being all payware updates, they will be handled like any other product, waiting the most commercially feasible moment to work on them and release them.

We believe that by releasing the O'Hare runways upgrade and the Zurich Terminal B upgrades, which costed us quite a bit of work and were both entirely free, we fulfilled everything that was promised to keep the sceneries updates, the graphic updates are something different and, being payware, nobody could say he bought any of these sceneries in anticipation for such upgrade.

So, basically, they'll come in time, we don't know when, we'll announce them when we'll have a more firm decision. And, it's likely JFK will be updated first, since LSZH and KORD already got their large improvements.

[cptawsom]

And, it's likely JFK will be updated first, since LSZH and KORD already got their large improvements.

Some more clarification on this, would be welcome, Umberto.

KJFK is the only FSDT scenery I'm interested in, that I haven't already bought (I already have KLAX, KLAS, KORD, KDFW, PHNL and LSGG), because I was under the impression that it was currently being worked for an update.

So:

- Is KJFK being worked on, for an update? Or will that happen in the close future?
- If the above-mentioned update happens, will it be free for current owners of KJFK? Or they will have to pay again?

It's a question from a customer (me), that wants some data to decide, whether he should proceed with buying KJFK or not.

[virtuali]

Is KJFK being worked on, for an update? Or will that happen in the close future?

That depends how you define "close"...the team that did JFK is currently involved in CYVR and will surely not work at JFK before CYVR is released, which should happen sometime in the summer, let's say August. After that date, we'll start discussing how to handle JFK.

If the above-mentioned update happens, will it be free for current owners of KJFK? Or they will have to pay again?

They'll have to pay something, for sure. How much, depends how large the update will be and how much work will involve, which is not known or decided yet, and we'll not start discussing it until after CYVR is released. Perhaps, we might a forum poll, asking users what kind of update they'll likely have, knowing that the larger will be, the higher the price.

Of course, it won't please everybody: I guess that someone that bought JFK in 2008 when it was released, wouldn't mind buying it again, but it might be different for someone that bought it today.

In any case, in the worse possible situation, with a very large updated, there WILL at least be some kind of discount for current JFK owners, this is a very different case than with Cloud9 KLAX vs FSDT KLAX: there we didn't have both technical and legal means to allow a discount, since Cloud9 was a different company with different accounting and the IP of the scenery is still theirs and we remade the scenery entirely from scratch anyway.

In this case, since we are discussing an update to an FSDT product, we can opt for any solution: we don't are not forced to redo the whole scenery from scratch and we can do any kind of upgrade price.

[Bruce Hamilton]

So Kennedy won't be like Zurich, with the first two phases being free?   

[virtuali]

So Kennedy won't be like Zurich, with the first two phases being free?   

What phases for JFK you are referring to ? We haven't said anything about JFK update being done in steps.

In fact, we haven't said anything about it at all, other than it will be done at some stage, and it will be a paid update so, I don't see how, based on that information, how you could extrapolate that there will be multiple steps, and the first two will be free.

[Silverbird]

So Kennedy won't be like Zurich, with the first two phases being free?  

Hey Bruce your probably confused lol I remember Umberto only talking about wanting to update jfk with the new ground tech that was made for DFW/LAX and that it would be a payware since it would require so much time and resources for them.

Hello Umberto I have a question my memory is foggy,   I know you have answered this many times before somewhere in one of your posts cant remember is there a 2nd scenery coming out this year besides CYVR? I know you guys have a full plate with gsx and CYVR but I don't remember if your were doing a 2nd scenery then maybe the JFK update are something else this year?

[virtuali]

is there a 2nd scenery coming out this year besides CYVR? I know you guys have a full plate with gsx and CYVR but I don't remember if your were doing a 2nd scenery then maybe the JFK update are something else this year?

There might be another scenery coming besides CYVR, but we can't say for sure it will be out before the end of the year, nor we are prepared to say which airport is, and its development is not affected either by GSX or by CYVR, because it's made by different people.

[Silverbird]

is there a 2nd scenery coming out this year besides CYVR? I know you guys have a full plate with gsx and CYVR but I don't remember if your were doing a 2nd scenery then maybe the JFK update are something else this year?

There might be another scenery coming besides CYVR, but we can't say for sure it will be out before the end of the year, nor we are prepared to say which airport is, and its development is not affected either by GSX or by CYVR, because it's made by different people.

Thank's for the info Umberto glade there might be a possible 2nd scenery. 

[Bruce Hamilton]

...how you could extrapolate that there will be multiple steps, and the first two will be free.

I was asking if it would or would not be, it was a simple yes or no question.   

[cmpbllsjc]

There might be another scenery coming besides CYVR, but we can't say for sure it will be out before the end of the year, nor we are prepared to say which airport is, and its development is not affected either by GSX or by CYVR, because it's made by different people.

I hope you all can squeeze in one more airport this year. If you plan on doing another ORBX PNW area I hope you all consider KPDX since the awesome Flightzone FS9 version doesn't completely port over to FSX, although KATL would be pretty cool also :-)

I wish you guys had a few more talented designers working for you so you guys could do like 3-4 big airports per year.

[D_mitris]

The most neglected airports have been KEWR and KLGA.   I am aware Imaginesim released KEWR for FS9 but not for FSX unless I missed something and never updated it.  KLGA is available by them for FSX but wow is it lame.   

These would all be great compliments to the KJFK, CYVR area.

Both KEWR and KLGA are in need of some serious makeovers.   

[booforty]

I would definitely be willing to pay for an updated JFK.  Being such a major airport both domestically and internationally it deserves to be kept up to date and looking good