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Andras Field built on quicksand?


Tobus

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I have worry, which I've shared during online flying via TeamSpeak, but would also like to point out here. This seeming the best place for it.

To me, it seems that Andras Field is more and more becoming a cool project apparently built on quicksand. And it seems I'm not the only one. Why?

Because there it is rare to find people flying it online via VAE. Often maximum 10 players, of which most are the same. That, when plot-sales are going and going, but (new) plot-owners do not appear online.

Because the andrasfield website seems to be under maintained. The forum link, for instance, points to a forum which no longer exists. Plotsales are anounced ... sometimes.

Most of the time, just checking the Aerosoft Sales Forum is better (but I personally tend to forget).

Because a lot of things seem handled (board of directors for instance), but compared to all things in place, not much seems to happen (again, online).

I love Andras Field and the concept behind it. It is my default airfield in FSX, and enjoy flying it as a fairly new pilot for Andras Meridian Airlines. When I do, I always fly online. I have Ultimate Traffic 2 running also, so regardless of the quiet servers, I always have ATC and other traffic regardless. I have entered all AMA flight to and from EAFS into UT2 with AMA livery to liven things up for me.

I would love to own a plot which fits my size (small-medium props), but am rather done with the way they are distributed: to people who would like their sign in the front yard (the scenery) and nothing more. I find it such a shame that not more people are flying it online, ESPECIALLY all the plotowners. To Aerosoft/Matthijs: are the sales of Andras Field ok? Without going into detail, are they in the tens, hundreds or thousands ... or more?

Rather than "whining", what could be the cause? Are Andras buyers or Plot buyers generally not interested in flying online and making EAFS/EAFW a much more lively community in the air, where it counts?

Is VAE/Squawkwin/Teamspeak difficult, or do you just think it is?

If you are an owner of Andras Field, or even are lucky enough to own a plot, what is your idea and usage of it as such?

Does everyone hold out until an actual event is on? Or are events also rather quiet? (I have only been able to attend the first- and amphib events).

I'd like to know, because frankly, I think Andras Field has A LOT going for it in concept, but as a user and enthousiastic online flyer on it, I'm rather disappointed. Not only for myself, but for the whole concept in general

Regards,

Tobus

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As a AF plot owner I like to answer, since it seems to be an issue for you that I don't fly online on VAE.

First, the forum link on the Aerosoft website is just fine and points to this forum. If you have bookmarked the forum before the forum overhaul, than that bookmark will now be incorrect.

The forum overhaul was announced on the Aerosoft website.

Concerning online flying. Right at the start I and others have asked for Andras Field to try and make Andras Filed a destination on VATSIM and/or IVAO. The decision was made to go to VAE.

I respect that decision but since I keep having issues with Squawkwin I wil not be flying online from Andras Field anytime soon.

I have been flying online with VATSIM and on rare occassions IVAO for years. I never have any problems and I have ATC coverage all over the world.

As far as I can tell from the posts in forums VAE is mostly a quiet, lonely place. So I am not very interested in solving the Squawkwin issues.

When a new version comes available I will check if it works for me, on my system / network configuration, without changing anything to that configuration. That is about the energy I am prepared to put into it.

I also bought into the community aspect, and I am even lucky enough to have landed a plot (yeah it is cool to taxi to your own place after a flight), but for now I only use Andras Field offline.

I just keep hoping that sooner or later VATSIM and/or IVAO add it to their list of airfields.

My 2 cents.

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As a AF plot owner I like to answer, since it seems to be an issue for you that I don't fly online on VAE.

First, the forum link on the Aerosoft website is just fine and points to this forum. If you have bookmarked the forum before the forum overhaul, than that bookmark will now be incorrect.

The forum overhaul was announced on the Aerosoft website.

Kaspar.

Yes, from the main Aerosoft site, it's ok. But it's not from the Andras Field main site (http://www.andrasfield.com). The forum points to an incorrect url, plotsales are now and then put up, but as time goes on, the site seems to get forgotten by the ones that manage it.

My main point is: for al the Andras and plot sales, no-one except a few seem to care about the Andras Community, which has to be online if that community wishes to fly together.

I know of your woes with Squawkwin, and hope that they can be resolved quickly. As it stands, all I know is that Squawkwin has issues with FSInn (for VATSIM, I think?), or the other way around. If Vatsim would be looking into EAFS, I think I'll also jump ship to them, since flying online with 5-10 guys, all centered around slightly-less-lonely EAFS in an otherwise abandoned world seems not much fun.

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Kaspar.

Yes, from the main Aerosoft site, it's ok. But it's not from the Andras Field main site (http://www.andrasfield.com). The forum points to an incorrect url, plotsales are now and then put up, but as time goes on, the site seems to get forgotten by the ones that manage it.

Tobus, the bored are working towards addressing the andrasfield.com issues. Unfortunately Mathijs is away at the moment and we need to be in discussion with him about it. Yes its annoying the link to the forum doesnt work. The only thing I can think is that it was unfortunately overlooked durin all the forum changes.

As for the ammount of people onlin, Im doing as much as I can to create varied and challenging events. Lets face it an event every day of the week is a huge ammount of my time Im giving to the community ontop of a 40+ hour week in my real world job. Unfortunately I cant hold a virtual revolver to members heads telling them they must fly online with us. Might be interesting if I could though lol.

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I to like to answer.

I do have Adras Field and I like it a lot. It's also my homebase for all my flights.

I don't have a plot, but I like to have one. Till now I didn't succeed yet.

With VAFS I have now 9.5hr of flight and I have a lot of fun.

What about online flying.....

I did a lot of reading and visited the sites of IVAO and VATSIM. I even begame a member of a VA, but of some reason I didn't join the online flying because of a sort of disgrace. :blush:

Maybe I am a little ashamed because the most of you speak the english language very well and I do have some trobbles with it. Most of the time to explane myself... :unsure:

I do have now once setup SquawkWin/Teamspeak and had a good conversation with Robert from VAE.

Because of my nightsifts I didn't have the time to log in and enjoy online flying with you guys.

From today I have 2 weeks free and I wil try to connect with you guys for some online flying.

So I wil be number 11. :P

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Hello,

I have never been flying FSX online. I have done a fair bit of online flying on other sims (e.g. Condor), but never got around to go online with FSX. With condor you could have the option to use teamspeak o type your messages in a chat window (which was the option I was using). In my opinion addressing people with and without headset at the same time was much more convenient. I am feeling very reluctant to setup a microphone or headset for my computer. (I have to talk all day on my job and enjoy the peace and quiet of flying in FSX).

On the other hand, I like to visit the community forum. I don't have the impression that the Andras Forums are particularly quiet. Although I think there is a general reduction in activity accross the FS community (could be because FSX is out there for so long or because people have less time to spare with the current economic situation).

Kind regards

Manuel

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Maybe I am a little ashamed because the most of you speak the english language very well and I do have some trobbles with it. Most of the time to explane myself... :unsure:

Hi John, dont let that hold you back. You'll probably find most europeans speak english better than the vast majority of people that natively speak English :lol:

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Concerning online flying. Right at the start I and others have asked for Andras Field to try and make Andras Filed a destination on VATSIM and/or IVAO. The decision was made to go to VAE.

I respect that decision but since I keep having issues with Squawkwin I wil not be flying online from Andras Field anytime soon.

I have been flying online with VATSIM and on rare occassions IVAO for years. I never have any problems and I have ATC coverage all over the world.

As far as I can tell from the posts in forums VAE is mostly a quiet, lonely place. So I am not very interested in solving the Squawkwin issues.

When a new version comes available I will check if it works for me, on my system / network configuration, without changing anything to that configuration. That is about the energy I am prepared to put into it.

Email me Robert@Virtual-Aviation.org I am willing to assist you with your issue. On VAE's defense, we are not focused on forums so there will not be a great deal of activity there, all the action is usually on TeamSpeak where we talk to each other so really no need for forums.

Regards,

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Yes, from the main Aerosoft site, it's ok. But it's not from the Andras Field main site (http://www.andrasfield.com). The forum points to an incorrect url, plotsales are now and then put up, but as time goes on, the site seems to get forgotten by the ones that manage it.

Sorry Tobus, I missed that one. I assume it will be taken care of.

Email me Robert@Virtual-Aviation.org I am willing to assist you with your issue. On VAE's defense, we are not focused on forums so there will not be a great deal of activity there, all the action is usually on TeamSpeak where we talk to each other so really no need for forums.

Robert, in my posts I try to make clear that this is a problem for me on my system, in my network. Since I have more programs active at any one time and I am not inclined to tinker with them for the joy of flying with a few others the problem is all mine.

So I hope this is clear for everybody. I don't fly on VAE because I experience issues which are out of control of the makers of Squawkwin and I am not investing the time to solve these issues.

My bad.

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I'd like to add something.

Andras field is a unique and interesting idea that I firmly believe has the potential to take flight. It just requires user activity. Kasper, I am truly sorry that you are unable to fly online. If there were anything I could do to help, I'd certainly try. I'm doing what I can to get permission from Aerosoft to allow me to advertise on a much broader scale. The unfortunate inconvenience is that we all have real lives, and those definitely take priority over flight sim. That, coupled with time differences and such makes it difficult for Matt to plan events. I even wish I could fly online at the same time as you guys, but I'm on the opposite side of the world. Our team at VAE is staying up until 3-4am every morning after full work/school days just to make sure the server is running, people are getting connected okay, and everyone is enjoying themselves. My tech department made up of Ray, Robert, and Jon (whom not too many of you guys have met) work around the clock because they believe in this. We are all looking for the same thing. Its just tough when we're on different sides of the globe. Bear with me, and I'll do anything that I can to help populate Andras field. We take pride in the fact that Andras Field is hosted on our server, and we will do anything to make it a great experience for everyone that chooses to partake.

Andras Field Panel: If you need anything, please feel free to email me @ evan@virtual-aviation.org

This also applies to all users. If you have ideas on what we at VAE can do to make Andras more popular, email me and we'll see what we can do.

Sincerely,

Evan

Virtual Aviation Experience

Additionally, I have spoken with Ray, and he is going to make an effort to welcome new plot owners to Andras field as well as make them aware of the online community that we are trying to create. This will hopefully get more people interested and "in-the-loop" as far as the Community is concerned.

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Is it required to use this squakwin program? Can you just connect to an IP? I'm interested in meeting other AF users but not interested in using ten different ways to connect to an FSX server.

What's the benefits of squak win?

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Is it required to use this squakwin program? Can you just connect to an IP? I'm interested in meeting other AF users but not interested in using ten different ways to connect to an FSX server.

What's the benefits of squak win?

Q)Is it required to use this squakwin program?

A)yes.this allows other to see you and for you to see others.

Q)Can you just connect to an IP?

A)No.Unlike gamespy,Squakwin is a totally self indapentant server,and you have to register at VAE's website,and use the name and password you used to register to sign into squakwin (whitch is a good thing,as it stops any tom,dick and harry jioning and ruining the session)

Q)What's the benefits of squak win?

A)Its reliable,you wont get kicked out like you do on gamespy.Its has ATC capabilities,it dowloads the latest weather and automatically updates it for you in fsx.

''I'm interested in meeting other AF users but not interested in using ten different ways to connect to an FSX server.''....Thats a little over exagerated...you will need to download squakwin and teamspeak2(!), 2 very simple steps.

All the info is here :Dclick me

So sign up and come and jion us! Everyone is welcome,The more the merrier!

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maddz_737

Correctly said:D

Squawkwin (through Virtual Aviation Experience) is the initial intended way that the Andras Field online was going to be successful, this is why Andras Field became partners with Virtual Aviation Experience, for the dedicated online server. Honestly it is very easy to set up and wont take you longer than 10 minutes.

If you have any problems the team at VAE is happy to assist you.

Regards

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Any particular reason you are still using Teamspeak 2 when Teamspeak 3 is available? I have Teamspeak 3 with three servers already on it, I didn't really want to install Teamspeak 2 all over again :(

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The use of TS2 is simply for our communications compatibility. We have a system available to us that will change your channel in our communications TS based upon the radio frequency you have dialed into your Comm1 radio. Much like TSComset except its already built into squawkwin. It is handy, but the developer of the software and I have some co-ordinating to do to get it up and running. He's also working on an integrated comms system.

More news on this soon.

Evan

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First, the forum link on the Aerosoft website is just fine and points to this forum. If you have bookmarked the forum before the forum overhaul, than that bookmark will now be incorrect.

The forum overhaul was announced on the Aerosoft website.

I have talked to Mathijs, about the link - it is now corrected, so the link once again points to the forum. ;)

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but am rather done with the way they are distributed: to people who would like their sign in the front yard (the scenery) and nothing more.

Tobus,

Just came across with your original post and I'm truly curious: what else would you expect apart from "their sign in the front yard"?

So ultimately: what else could I have done to further personalize a house?

Andras

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Tobus,

Just came across with your original post and I'm truly curious: what else would you expect apart from "their sign in the front yard"?

So ultimately: what else could I have done to further personalize a house?

Andras

Andras,

no offense to you. Form a designer's point of view, you are absolutely correct. My question, and indeed this post as a whole, is to people who have bought Andras Field, maybe even a plot if they were lucky enough, and are nowhere to be seen online. What's the point of being part of a "community", if you are not visible to and flying with that same community?

From a scenery point of view, you can't do more than put a sign in the front yard, or maybe place a self-designed home in. So there's nothing more YOU can do.

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