'Southern Lakes Adventure: Wanaka & Tekapo' for FSX

[toprob]

This is in final testing, although there are some finishing touches yet to be done -- since this includes my first go at a mission, I've had to learn a whole new set of skills, and I can't stop fine-tuning ...
And I also have another mission in the pipeline, which may or may not be included, this depends on some licensing issues.

In the meantime, here are a few price details.

'Southern Lakes Adventure: Wanaka & Tekapo' will be available on CD for FSX only. This is a departure from previous FSX releases, which have included both FS2004 and FSX versions on the CD. I will no longer offer the FS2004 Wanaka & Tekapo CD from my online store. From the end of this month, Wanaka & Tekapo for FS2004 will be available either as a download from SimMarket, or as part of the FS2004 Collection. If you were planning on buying the CD at the current discounted price of $24.75 then you'd better get in quick.

'Southern Lakes Adventure' will be available on CD for $43, and will be added to the FSX Collection,which will now sell for $120. If you buy the FSX Collection now, you have the choice of adding 'Southern Lakes Adventure' which will be shipped when ready.

It will also be available as a download from SimMarket, with the price yet to be set (although likely EUR19). Note, however, that this will be a large download, at 700MB.

[creator2003]

Awesome Rob cant wait for the release of this ,missions aye cool mate thats a bonus to any scenery addon and gives a good preview of the addon if set up right to go here and there and here and back again ,plus they are fun to make when you have alot on your mind to setup a chain of events ..
cant wait thanks

[leow5263]

Good to hear that, any chance it would be realced before the 20 september lol dont think theres much chance of that , looks like im getting a IOU Real NZ Wanaka for my birthday. cant wait looks great

[toprob]

QUOTE (leow5263 @ Sep 16 2008, 06:18 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Good to hear that, any chance it would be realced before the 20 september lol dont think theres much chance of that , looks like im getting a IOU Real NZ Wanaka for my birthday. cant wait looks great

Sorry, not much chance -- but still on track for the end of the month, just. My old computer problems are back today, which has held up my second mission (hoped to be finished tomorrow) so I'm taking that as a sign that I only need one Tekapo mission.

[Timmo]

Good to hear Robin- It looks great.

So will missions be a 'standard feature' of RealNZ stuff now? I enjoy my 'Across the straight' bundle as you you get the scenery and then you actually have a way to use it (without needing to use your own imagination too much haha). Sometimes after getting scenery, I have downloaded it, installed it and then thought.....'errr....now what'. A couple of circuits and then i'm done (although to be fair, most of those have been overseas addons so perhaps it is just because I dont have a connection with the area)

[toprob]

QUOTE (Timmo @ Sep 18 2008, 01:17 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

So will missions be a 'standard feature' of RealNZ stuff now?

Yes, normally when I've produced a scenery in the past I can talk about the area features, but there's no way to really show them. For instance, with Tekapo for FS2004 I mentioned the Church of the Good Shepherd, but it wasn't included as a model. This was because it is just so small that you can't see it as you fly over, you'd need to actually land a chopper to see it. Since only a handful of users would even think of doing this, it didn't make sense to include the model.

However FSX is different, I can do a quick intro to the area through a mission or two. The 'Tekapo Wedding' mission is simply a way to introduce some of the features of the area -- the church, the military camp, the Mt John Observatory etc. This means that a greater percentage of users will get to explore the area properly.

The Wanaka Airshow scenery for FS2004 relied on some conditional tweaking of the code -- it is part of the models that they only display on certain days. In FSX, however, creating an airshow mission means that I can include anything I want, because I don't have to rely on conditional objects.

My missions are very basic tours really, and since I do the voice work myself they are also pretty lame:) However they add another level to the sim. At the moment I'm doing the voice-over for another mission which I'll hopefully get finished, a recreation of the Air Safaris 'Grand Traverse', which is a scenic tour of Mt Cook. Now I could easily tell people that Mt Cook is very close by, and they could go find it themselves, but the mission makes it a must-do thing. Maybe even educational, with my commentary... (actually, I've just taken a break from doing the commentary, for a former stammerer it's a bit of an ordeal:)

(By the way, before anyone asks, no, Mt Cook is not included in the photo scenery, but it is a nice, seamless flight.)

The missions take a lot of effort, more so that you'd even expect, so they tend to be a bit of an afterthought, but I think that they'll become just another part of scenery releases in the future. Luckily I have the guys at ARNZ who are keen to help with this aspect, but I would certainly recommend this as one way in which people can contribute to the sim. If your skills are more story-telling than design or modelling, then here's something you can do to contribute.

[PiperDriver]

Creating missions for FSX is difficult they tell me. PC Pilot Magazine has had tutorials in it recently.

PD